After 15 years of snowboard tours, media jaunts and public appearances, Gretchen Bleiler’s self-journey into adulthood hit a cliff when she retired from her sport — and she went right over it.

Based in Aspen, Colorado, Bleiler is an American snowboarding legend who brought home silver at the 2006 Olympics and won gold medals at the 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2010 Winter X Games. However, these achievements came at a price; the most severe and long lasting effects have been her unseen injuries, including the back-to-back hits to the head that she sustained mainly at the end of her career. And, even though Bleiler never felt identified as a professional snowboarder and Olympian, she had no idea, until she retired from the tour, how much of her world was the tour.

“All of the pillars of who I thought I was began to come crumbling down — from the community I traveled the world with, learned and grew up with, to my connection to a greater purpose that had always propelled me, my livelihood and career, to my marriage and even my perspective on what health was,” she says. “Everything I knew to be stable and true in my life was now unstable, changed or just gone altogether. I was enveloped in a darkness of injury, grief, depression, confusion, anxiety and shock. It was disorienting for a really long time.”

Bleiler felt that, in this darkness, she didn’t have a place and purpose in the world. “What I have learned since then is that those painful feelings that I was experiencing were actually the signposts assisting me in a direction I had never been willing to go before — inward,” she explains. Bleiler had been avoiding this her whole life and it was the underlying drive for her to be one of the best snowboarders in the world. “There was a desire for me to be someone who was worthy, valuable and whole because, ultimately, I didn’t think or feel that I was. I had built a life that I thought would bring me that experience, and I was now realizing it wasn’t ever going to come from outside circumstances, people or things.”

In her dark space, Bleiler was led to an unlikely source, The University of Santa Monica (USM), where she enrolled in a spiritual psychology program. For five years, Bleiler practiced, studied and integrated the teachings into her life. And, through the long, patient practice, which Bleiler attacked like an Olympic athlete, she is now able to reverse roles and help others who have also gone off the ‘cliff.’

“I’ve navigated, and continue to navigate, this inner journey within myself. I now also know how to lovingly guide others to become their own best facilitators and peacemakers. This work, and this journey I’ve been on, though incredibly painful at times, has also become one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. Five years-ago-Gretchen never would have believed it,” she shares.

Bleiler relishes in the tools she has learned to help individuals shine light on the dizzying times of life. “That’s the new foundation and touchpoint that has helped me come out of my darkness. And it’s the greatest honor to now share this transformational work with others on their own journey through one-on-one sessions, workshops, retreats and a soon-to-be-launched podcast and accompanying online program.”

Bleiler has just come off of hosting her f irst spiritual psychology one-day immersive workshop with USM classmate and co-host Nat Sharrat at Buttermilk Mountain Lodge this past August. She was also a guest teacher at summer retreats in Sayulita, Mexico. This coming April, Bleiler is offering her one-week mind, body, spirit wellness retreat, Illume, with co-host and Aspen Shakti owner Jayne Gottlieb in Costa Rica. Bleiler also recently finished recording a podcast with Pathfinder’s executive director and USM grad, Allison Daily, revealing her full story and mental health journey — told for the very first time — that will be launching soon with an accompanying online program. To learn more about Bleiler and her journey, visit gretchenbleiler.co and follow her on social media.

Originally published in the Winter 2024-25 issue of Spoke+Blossom.

Gretchen Bleiler's Journey To Self — Discovering Gold After The Olympics