Workshops

Learn how mindfulness and self-compassion can change everything about how you feel, how you relate and how you live ― for good.

In this workshop, Shauna Shapiro ― a leading scientist studying the effects of mindfulness + compassion on well-being ― shows us that acting with compassion toward ourselves is the key. She explains basic brain science and offers powerful science-based practices to alleviate anxiety, boost creative thinking and deepen our sense of belonging and purpose. With practice, we can literally rewire our brains for greater feelings of calm, clarity, connection and joy.  We will immerse ourselves in the natural beauty of Esalen, allowing the sounds of the ocean, the magnificent views  and delights of the gardens to nourish and support us.

This workshop is appropriate for anyone curious about mindfulness + compassion and how to deepen our connection with the beauty and mystery of life. All are welcome.

Recommended Reading: Good Morning, I Love You: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Practices to Rewire Your Mind Sounds True, Boulder, CO. By Shauna Shapiro.

This workshop includes an additional $390 faculty tuition. For anyone facing financial hardship, Dr. Shauna Shapiro invites you to contact her directly for tuition scholarship at slshapiro@scu.edu.

To breathe well is to live well. When we befriend the breath, we expand our capacity for choice, change, joy, and healing. When we embody breath — allowing limbs and bones to express outwardly the dynamic, unceasing pulsation of life within — we touch freedom.

In this new and electrifying experiential workshop, we’ll explore and deepen our connection to our breathing bodies through a number of somatic pathways: embodied movement, breathwork, presencing exercises, meditation in motion, and sound.

Operating from philosopher Havi Carel’s conception of breath as “a juncture of the physiological, psychological, existential, spiritual, and cultural,” we’ll practice dancing and digging at this intersection and, in effect, access a felt reconnection to our wholeness.

Join Sadia in her signature practice, which draws from her many deep pools of training and experience. This deeply embodied practice will include:

• A movement practice that draws equally from hatha yoga, calisthenics, ritual, Qigong, dance, and your own intuition.
• Intuitive breathwork and pranayama to help you connect more honestly to the nature of your aliveness.
• Sounding practices to liberate the use of your voice and guide you toward expanded breath capacity.
• Guided dance rituals to help you develop inner attunement and feel the limitless power of embodied expression.
• Restorative moving meditation to access the powerful convergence of attention and surrender, giving you an embodied understanding of the power of yielding to both breath and life.

Together, we’ll form a sacred community of breathing beings and establish conditions for the unobstructed flow of life force within and around our bodies — and our lives. The natural, subtly explosive intimacy that exists between body and breath — and between you and your breathing body— can emerge anew, rendering you more sensitized to desire, pleasure, purpose, and power; to who you are, what you want, and why.

Surprise yourself with this fresh and creative way to renew your yoga practice this fall: familiar poses with the help of soft foam rollers. Autumn is a natural time to explore the many ways to release, reset, and go inward. It’s your season to unwind the restless patterns of body and mind, to reset the the body and mind into a slower pace of time, rhythm and kinesthetic connection.

This approach is designed to honor all parts of the body with gentle pressure and movement. We’ll learn to use our body weight to lean into pressure points and breathe into long-held tension patterns comfortably. We’ll explore ways to unlock the restrictive movement habits we may be stuck in without even knowing. We’ll seek anatomical neutral and an open and vibrant aliveness to stay present with the field of light that animates the form.

As we roll into release, we’ll discover many playful ways to incorporate this helpful tool and elevate our practice. We’ll lengthen, lift, open, and engage through graceful yoga sequencing, augmented by soft foam rollers, using creative movement paths to find  deeper states of stillness and relaxation. This practice is like a dance where the roller is the partner. You will learn to both lead and follow, then return to yoga on the mat to witness how the body moves after being “rolled.”

Yoga means to unite, to yoke, to blend, to unify, and to make parts come together as a whole. When looking at movement as medicine, your practice can be a playground for wholeness; a healing art for body, mind, and heart; and a path to free the spirit.

Please bring your own soft foam roller. The recommended roller is 36” in length x 6″ in diameter. It must be long enough to support the whole spine.

You are what you practice. Or, as the Buddha said, “Whatever you frequently reflect and ponder upon, that becomes the inclination of your mind.”

This essential observation is examined from our intertwined perspectives on contemplative practice, brain science, and music. Through interactive inquiries and guided meditations, Nikki Mirghafori will lead a journey into mindfulness and compassion cultivation. Neuroscientist Clifford Saron will take us on a voyage of discovery into the mysteries of the brain and neuroplasticity. San Francisco Symphony cellist Barbara Bogatin will inspire us with Bach and provide a rare glimpse from inside the process of musical creativity.

Each day unfolds with a thematic focus, allowing us to dive deep into the three intertwined practices and perspectives. Together, we will:

• Experience guided meditations on the themes of samatha(concentration), vipassana (insight), and metta (loving kindness), and their application to daily life.
• Learn how scientists understand the impact of musical and meditative practice on our brains and bodies as revealed through current research.

• Understand how mindfulness practice enhances musical craft and expression.
• Share ongoing learning in group discussions and inquiries.
• Exult in the joy of music through deep listening to live cello performances.

This workshop is for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of themselves and their connection to others through the lens of mindfulness, science, and creativity. Whether you’re a meditator, musician, clinician, or simply curious, you’ll find valuable tools and perspectives to enrich your personal and professional life. No previous experience in meditation, music, or brain research is necessary!

Join us for this unique exploration of how these practices can harmonize, offering paths to inner peace and more joyful engagement with the world.

Qualified participants can receive 18 CE credits via the Spiritual Competency Academy. Click HERE to learn more.

What innate potential lies dormant within you? What dreams are yearning to be expressed? What does it look like to be fully alive, live an integrated and embodied life, and become an engaged part of the larger ecosystem of nature and community? It’s time to meet your future self and find out.

This workshop focuses on creating a robust, loving relationship with the best future version of you — the one who can help you pivot the direction of your life toward your heart’s vision. We will learn how to communicate with and embody that future self while mapping out the new terrain of your life in a process we call “futuremaking.” Using the sciences of imagination, transformation, and hope, you’ll chart a course for your next chapter.

Join us for a four-day workshop where we will engage in futuremaking experiences, including talks to spark insights; small and large group discussions to ground learning; guided imagery, meditation, and creative processes to connect you with your deeper wisdom; and movement and deep engagement with the beauty of Esalen to renew your spirit.

As we weave cutting-edge science with deep experiential practices and rich connection with kindred spirits, you’ll move forward — not back to “normal” or even a “new normal” — but ahead into a new extraordinary. Your future self is calling for you!

Recommended Reading: Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life by Marilyn Schiltz and Cassandra Vieten.

This workshop has an additional $30 of faculty tuition.

Do you love the beauty of the outdoors and delight in the wonder of nature? Do you want to learn how to meditate outdoors? Would you like practices to stay grounded, connected, and open-hearted in life? Then what better place to discover all this than in the majesty of the Big Sur coastline, where we are serenaded by the lulling sounds of the ocean, cradled by rolling hills, and uplifted by exquisite gardens?

Following ancient spiritual traditions that value the transformative power of nature, this experiential workshop will be spent entirely outdoors to explore embodied sensory practices in the natural beauty and mystery of Esalen. Whether during a sunset meditation as we listen to the soothing waves or while we sit graced by the stillness of cypress trees, we will open to the profound serenity and wisdom of nature.

You will learn about the practice of mindfulness — the capacity to be present to ourselves and our environment — and how it supports a rich, contemplative relationship with nature. You will discover how meditative time outdoors leads to beautiful states of joy, peace, wonder, and love. You will also experience greater connection with yourself, with others, and with the larger web of life.

Recommended reading: Awake in the Wild and A Field Guide to Nature Meditation by Mark Coleman

Join ceremonial leader and wisdom carrier Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey as we gather to look beyond the false duality of a divided self and the destructive concept of “self versus nature” to discover how to live in harmony and balance within ourselves and the world around us.

You are your greatest healer and greatest medicine, and this is your opportunity to examine what that means while sharing healing wisdom, practices & ceremonies. This workshop will offer you tools to transform trauma and unhealthy patterns and to realign your body, mind, spirit, and soul, as we explore the origins of dis-ease in our physical, mental-emotional and spiritual bodies.

How can we honor the gifts, and heal the wounds that we have inherited from our ancestors? How can we identify any social, cultural, racial, religious, and historical energies that may be influencing our lives? We will explore all of this, and discuss the importance of ceremonies, sacred altars, and medicinal plants.  You will have the opportunity to participate in a traditional South American healing ceremony, a sound healing and “doctoring” ceremony, and a water blessing prayer ceremony.

You will be invited to reconnect to your authentic wisdom and power with clarity, gratitude, and forgiveness. When you honor and heal your ancestral lineage and connect to the natural and spiritual elements of this planet, you strengthen your connection to the sacred in everyday life.

We are all interconnected in this giant web of life, and every day is a gift in the service of unconditional love for yourself, your community, humanity, and our planet. If you feel the call to be a part of a new humanity that lives in harmony and balance upon this Earth, we invite you to join us in this celebration of life.

Note: Please bring a journal to write in, and items for our altar, including photographs of loved ones and ancestors and sacred objects that have meaning for you.

Special Note on Gift Economy:  For this workshop, Esalen will not be collecting the typical leader fees. Erika embraces the tradition of the gift economy and reciprocity. The leader’s compensation will be self-determined by each attendee. At the end of the workshop, participants will offer a donation amount that reflects their feeling of gratitude, value, and desire to support Erika and her ongoing work.

BIPOC SCHOLARSHIP: Erika has established a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, person of color) scholarship for her workshops.  For more information on receiving one to participate, please contact her at ErikaGagnon11@gmail.com

“A brain without a body couldn’t think.” — Moshe Feldenkrais

“We want to get you to a place where gravity is your friend, a nourishing force.” — Dr. Ida P. Rolf

Human beings are relational by nature. We are an intricate web of anatomy, energy, space, and time that takes shape through our life experiences. Our physical structure, function, and sense of self are reflected in our fascial layers and formed by our early development, by principles of self-organization, and by how we engage with our environment.

When we fall into habitual patterns, parts of ourselves become undeveloped, unseen. If our bodies are given a setting in which to relate to gravity, others, and our environment with curiosity and attunement, we can be free to move and relate with more choice and ease.

Using the grounds, waters, and spirit of Esalen as our laboratory, Kate and Kevin will use the Feldenkrais Method and Gestalt process as a guide to contact and nurture the influences of the subtle body – our relationship to ground, gravity, and the space between.

In this workshop, participants will:

• Identify the habitual relational patterns that prevent us from cultivating ease in our lives.
• Investigate how the subtle body is influenced by the principles of emotional anatomy, tensegrity, neuroplasticity, and self-organization through experiential movement.
• Be guided through Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons tailored toward the subtle body and creating more sophistication in functional movement.
• Explore sensation, weight, gravity, and relationship through movement and contact.
• Learn tools of Gestalt Relational Process to increase presence and awareness and integration of ourselves.

Recommended Reading: Feldenkrais, The Potent Self: A Study of Spontaneity and Compulsion; Gladis, Tales of a Wounded Healer: Creating Exact Moments of Healing; Bodywise: An Introduction to Hellerwork for Regaining Flexibility & Well-Being.

Flow into fall to awaken the inner codes of abundance and vitality with yoga, nature, and community. As we journey into the autumn season, we are guided to turn within and alchemize the inner gold. In the yoga tradition, there are four key aims — purpose, prosperity, love, and liberation — to support this transformation in body, mind, and heart, and when you activate them in a balanced way, your whole life shines.

In this embodied yoga retreat, you’ll discover the key components to awaken and renew these codes in you. Together, we’ll explore the alchemical practices of:

• Asana (physical yoga postures)
• Pranayama (breathing techniques)
• Mantra (healing sound vibration)
• Mudra (energy seals created by the hands)
• Meditation (expanded states of awareness)
• Purusharthas (the four aims awakening in you)

In this retreat, Sianna and Masood will share stories, music, and practices to awaken and strengthen the four aims of purpose, prosperity, love, and liberation in your life with four thematic journeys:

Friday: Invoking Lakshmi — a welcoming practice of asana, mantra, mudra, meditation, setting your intention, and deep rest to restore. Hear the stories of Lakshmi, the yogic goddess of beauty, abundance, healing, and harmony.

Saturday: Rise with Courage — a more up-tempo practice of core work, functional movement, dynamic breathing, and creative patterns of movement to awaken your power and renew your vision.

Saturday: Transform with Love — an introspective practice to turn toward your inner genius to make the shifts your soul is longing for. This practice will focus on hip openers, forward folds, twists, and a sound healing journey.  

Sunday: Shine the Radiant Codes — a soulful practice of vinyasa flow, backbends, heart fire vision, and the four aims shining through you. This is a community celebration with vision, vitality, mantra, music, and the love frequency!

Awaken the abundance codes and be an agent of purpose, prosperity, love, and liberation for all beings.

Join us for an enriching exploration into the transformative potential of the Enneagram and discover its profound capacity for fostering reconnection and oneness. As we commemorate the two-year anniversary of Dr. Deborah Egerton’s impactful best-seller, Know Justice Know Peace, we will explore the art of coming together through compassion, kindness, healing, and self-awareness.

For this special event, we extend an invitation for you to unlock the wisdom of the Enneagram and transcend individual boundaries to contribute to a collective vision of unity. Driven by the belief that the future of humankind hinges on the fusion of inner spiritual growth and outward social impact, this gathering promises to be a dynamic journey of self-discovery and meaningful connection.

During this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to:

• Explore each of the nine points of the Enneagram through the basic fear and basic desire, core motivation, levels of development, and the connections to the system’s other energies.
• Use the Enneagram to create an internal and external expansion opening our mind-body-spirit connection.
• Stand in love against “othering,” and explore the ways that we can heal across differences.
• Engage with presence to become more familiar with patterns that contribute to “othering” and learn how to release the underlying emotions of anxiety, fear, anger, resentment, shame, and blame.
• Share personal experiences that allow us to become aware of when we may be dropping into toxic behaviors and reactions which can provide a wake-up call to better manage our responses to challenges.
• Address complications around navigating difficult conversations in strained relationships or heated debates on social issues.

As human beings, our innate longing for connection forms the very fabric of our survival and prosperity as a species. Regrettably, internal and external divides have created wounds of bias, bigotry, and hatred within ourselves and our communities. To mend these fractures, we must embark on a journey to explore the roots of our disconnections — both within and around us — to pave the way for personal healing and, in turn, the healing of humanity.

Together, we can cultivate a world where belonging and thriving are shared experiences for all.

Our current models of medicine fall short of understanding the depths of our human healing potential, but we are on the cusp of finally awakening to a new path. A growing number of scientists are exploring a true expansion of science with a profound understanding of ancient concepts of spirituality.

Over a 20-year career, award-winning scientist, clinical psychologist, and spiritual practitioner Dr. Shamini Jain has been uncovering and sharing the mysteries of healing. In this weekend workshop, you are invited to learn about the scientific evidence supporting the power of energy-healing practices — along with approachable techniques for application.

Through deep learning and experiential group practice, you are invited to expand the boundaries of what you think is possible for personal and collective healing. We will explore ourselves in new ways, and learn how to integrate the Healing Keys into our lives to move through our days with more energy, joy, and grace.

In this workshop, we’ll also explore:

• What mind-body, placebo, and biofield science teach us about the power to heal ourselves and others.
• Working with sound — including mantra and vocalization practice — and subtle energy to connect with the Earth, foster your vitality, and release old patterns that no longer serve.
• Creative practices to foster powerful new possibilities for our own flourishing and connection with the powerful creator inside us.
• Chakra meditation practices to charge ourselves and others with loving energy, and deepen our connection with spiritual guidance.
• Creating our own personalized healing ritual and feeling the flow of well-being throughout our life journeys.
• The Healing Keys — in-depth instruction with evidence-based recommendations and ancient spiritual practices that we can integrate into our lives.

Discover your Healing Keys and widen your possibilities for joyful liberation. This workshop is open to all ages, genders, and identities. No prior experience is necessary — only a willingness to meet and explore the beautiful being that you are!

Recommended reading: Healing Ourselves: Biofield Science and the Future of Health by Shamini Jain

This workshop includes an additional $50 faculty tuition.

You deserve to feel ease and joy in your body as you age.  Movement, time in nature, breath, quiet contemplation, and “Aha!” moments all contribute to expanding happiness and delight in life. Though this is true, you may face challenges. Changes to our bodies — aches and pains, joint replacements, osteoporosis, heart issues, and other conditions — may challenge us to find new ways to understand ourselves and maintain grace of movement and attitude.

During this workshop, you’ll discover therapeutic yoga and embodied inquiry techniques that increase awareness, empower exploration of your unique body now, and increase your ability to take good care of yourself. Learn to feel yoga poses from the inside out, aligning them well to tune into the energy flowing through your body, and find qigong movements and yoga postures that best serve you.

We have a week together to listen to our inner wisdom and the quiet intelligence of the body. We have the space to share our ideas, fears, limiting scripts, and dreams for our futures.

Together, we will find:

• Fluid and effortless movement in qigong.
• Core strength and healthy alignment in yoga.
• “Effortless effort” in movement, accompanied by acoustic guitar and singing bowls.
• Gratitude and loving kindness in meditation.
• Pathways to joy through embodied inquiry.
• Clearer understanding of our bodies, our joints, and our lymph, endocrine, and nervous systems.
• Ways to honor our unique bodies, minds, and hearts with these practices at home.

We will be joined during our week by guest faculty and musician JJ Jeffries, who will guide us in “embodied inquiry” and play lovely acoustic guitar during some of our yoga and meditation practices.

This workshop is suited for anyone with a basic understanding of yoga. People working with injuries or body challenges are welcome if they can still participate in practice and have permission, if needed, from their medical provider. Modifications will be given for various ability levels. Participants need to be able to get up and down off the floor on their own. If you are not sure if this workshop is suited for you, please contact Tracy.

In search of balance, the ancient sages of China walked into the woods to attune themselves to nature in its sublime integrity. The timeless wisdom uncovered in their wild wanderings was called simply Tao, “The Way.”

Qigong — the practice at the heart of Taoism — is dedicated to harmonizing body, mind, and spirit with the elements of nature. In this age, when so many of us feel disconnected and overwhelmed, wilderness remains a powerful healer and teacher, and qigong can bring us back to center.

Join us to learn an accessible qigong form called wai dan gong (“easy Tao”) while immersing in the majestic landscape of Big Sur, the ancestral homeland of the Esselen tribe. We rise each morning to practice, harmonizing breath and movements with the flow of waves greeting Esalen’s cliffs. After breakfast, we set out on a wilderness hike to mindfully explore Big Sur’s enchanted redwoods, sun-steeped meadows, and mountains that rise from the sea. All along the trail, we explore qigong and Taoist philosophy as pathways for returning to a grounded, spacious, revitalized state of being — in harmony with nature, embodying Wild Tao.

Notes:

• Answers to frequently asked questions about the workshop can be found here.
• Various hiking abilities can be accommodated, bearing in mind that day hikes are between three to eight miles in length, with uneven and often steep terrain. If you have any questions about your ability to participate, please read the workshop FAQs.

This workshop includes an additional $60 of faculty tuition and $40 to cover park fees.

We will become our opposite if we do not learn to accommodate the opposite within us. — Carl Jung

At the heart of contemplative life is the archetypal journey home to our essential nature, our basic goodness. The Buddha taught that we come to experience this essential nature through the embodied integration of meditative quiescence (shamatha) and contemplative insight (vipashyana). In this workshop, we will cultivate quiescence and insight through the “four applications of mindfulness” of the body, feelings, mental states, and phenomena, which invite us to develop a self-aware gaze, or metacognition.

We will meditate indoors and out and learn how to work with challenges along the path through Feeding Your Demons® (FYD). This Buddhist-based practice is an exquisite five-step process in which we offer attention and compassion to our inner obstacles, our “demons,” rather than struggle with them. In this context, demons are those thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that block our experience of freedom. A 2018 FYD pilot study found that FYD was associated with increased self-compassion, emotion awareness and self-regulation, satisfaction with life, and decreased stress, craving, depression, and intolerance for uncertainty. FYD transcends spiritual constructs, serving as a meaningful tool for anybody, regardless of religious affiliation or personal philosophy.

In this retreat, you will experience:

• Meditation indoors and in nature, gazing over the Pacific Ocean, weather permitting.
• Discussions on the seminal Buddhist teachings called the “four applications of mindfulness.”
• Feeding Your Demons (FYD) practice.
• FYD with drawing/art.

All are welcome. Please bring loose, comfortable clothing, a journal, and writing implements. Paper and art supplies will be provided. If you have art supplies you like, such as colored pencils, pens, pastels, or watercolors, feel free to bring them.

Recommended Reading: The 4 Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Bunaratana and Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione.

This workshop includes an additional $5 for materials.

Join us to experience deep rest and renewal! You need and deserve this. So many of us are overtaxed by constant demands, burdens, and worries, especially those of us providing extra support for others through caregiving, healthcare, activism, and other service-oriented jobs.

We bring you expertise in the science, art, and practice of restoration from stress.

• Learn the practical and cutting-edge science of stress resilience.
• Be guided into states of deep rest and rejuvenation through meditation, yoga nidra, and restorative yoga.
• Awaken all of your senses to reconnect with your body and increase vitality through gentle yoga, expressive movement, nature immersion, and sound healing.

Immersed in the beauty of nature at Esalen, our work is well supported. We will learn and practice new ways to restore ourselves, and you will develop a toolbox of short practices that support your daily rejuvenation and sustained vitality.

Fostering close and connected relationships is one of the most important things affecting the quality of our lives. Cultivating trust and openness with a loved one, whether they be an intimate partner or friend, is an essential aspect of any successful, supportive relationship.

This weekend, Perry and Johanna Holloman, intimate partners and friends for over 30 years, will share the most effective tools and practices they have developed to nurture their connection to each other.

The primary tool Perry and Johanna will share is called Gestalt Inquiry. This easy-to-learn, powerful practice provides a safe context for exploring the most meaningful and sensitive aspects of relationships. Perry and Johanna like to think of it as a practice that becomes a continuing part of any successful long-term relationship because it places high value on compassion, respect, and love of truth. As we learn to discover and safely express what is true for us, individually, as a couple, or as friends, we deepen our heart’s capacity for intimacy and connection, which leads to a more fulfilling and meaningful shared life.

During our time together, you will learn practices and resources to integrate into your everyday life, such as:

• Embodied practices involving movement, breath, meditation, and awareness to develop a sense of palpable presence as the foundation upon which your relationship can flourish.
• The Art of Conscious Dialogue: learning to care as much about understanding our partner and what they’re communicating as we care about being heard and understood by them.
• How to express needs, feelings, and appreciations in an attuned manner to deepen relational trust.
• Understanding the “distancing behaviors” we engage in, usually as an unconscious form of defense against vulnerability and contact.
• Learning to co-regulate each other in structured exercises, emphasizing compassion and respect so presence-based relating naturally arises.

This workshop is for couples of all genders and sexual orientations. A couple may be any two people with a history who desire a better future together, e.g., friends, partners, married or divorced spouses, parent and child, siblings, and others.

This workshop includes an additional $50 faculty tuition

The healing path has a trajectory. Gabrielle Roth called this, The Path of The Wounded Healer. It is here that we look closely at our healing process. We mark both where we are and where we want to be. We dance through the five stages of healing in relationship to being the victim, the survivor, the healer, the transformer and eventually the one who rests in compassionate service.

It is my belief that our sacred task in life is to transform the most difficult things we have been through, into our greatest strengths. These are the stories of our resiliency, vulnerability and strength. It is here one may learn how to move with what is and transform it to what we want it to be.

In the Heartbeat Map, we investigate what is moving through the shores of the heart. Through understanding the relationship of the emotional polarities we come to respect and appreciate what we have been through. Without fear, we do not experience courage. Without anger, we cannot experience forgiveness. Without love, we cannot experience grief. Without loss we cannot experience or appreciate the full spectrum of joy. Without all of these qualities, we cannot know the true nature of compassion.

You are invited to join this journey of movement and awareness, focused on how emotions transform the heart. This map is Gabrielle Roth’s living wisdom. I am here to pass this gift on to you to be carried in your own bones and blood.

Each session will be primarily focused on the 5Rhythms® moving meditation (dance practice). We will integrate each movement session with a seated meditation practice, focused on one of the Buddhist Heart Practices (Brahma viharas) which are equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion and joy. Included in the group will be optional sharing and a question and answer period.

Recommended Reading: Sweat Your Prayers & Maps To Ecstacy By Gabrielle Roth and Dancing with Dharma: Essays on Movement and Dance in Western Buddhism by Harrison Blum

This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.

Recent brain research reveals how constant predictions based on old information can run our lives. As we are flooded with current sensory information, our brains compare past and present to identify discrepancies called “prediction errors,” updating the old predictions to create a better working model of the world.  

Inaccurate predictions are often based on unconscious habits of moving, feeling, and thinking — responses developed as childhood solutions to surviving family systems. We’ll make the big people happy so they will love us. Or we’ll try to stop them from hurting. We shift our behaviors toward pleasing or protecting. With mistreatment, we shut down. All these solutions required muscular enforcement. Later, these reactions became adult behaviors — maintained by habitual contractions in our necks, eyes, jaws, backs, and bellies —  but predictions based on protective habits are no longer needed or helpful as we recover from injuries.

We can dissolve the hold these old patterns have over us, not by willpower, leaving old instructions in place, or superimposing new commands, but by kinesthetically sensing in our body where — and how — we keep compulsively reenacting them.

CFR® increases the amount and quality of our incoming sensory information. By bringing habits into awareness through exploratory floor work, we connect them to brain areas more supportive of change. By realizing they were clever ways to survive, we develop the self-compassion essential for healing. As our predictions become more accurate, based on the present time, we can make better choices.

Bring your issues, your lingering problems from injuries, and a desire for increased joyful movement.

Please note: This is an advanced class. Participants must have taken CFR® Week 1.

We are all participants in the ancient and the modern, the ego and the unconscious, the personal and the transcendent — though we all seem to forget these dual allegiances. When we go into nature, when we listen to music, when we encounter the numinous in whatever form it may manifest, we are reminded of our own truest nature, and we long for the reunion. Despite this, our egos inevitably feel threatened by the mysteries of these dualities; therefore, we all need ways of “re-membering” ourselves.

Throughout human history, shamans, mystics, and healers have found portals and pathways that challenge the ego’s primacy in order to encounter the Other within and emerge from the depths transformed. Carl Jung took a pathway he called Active Imagination, plunging himself into a dialogue with his soul that produced The Red Book. In this workshop, we will use Jung’s journey as a template to discover the creative potential accessible to us all.

As a unique mediator of opposites, music unfolds out of the interdependent relationship of consonance and dissonance. This workshop will explore music from neurobiological, spiritual, and experiential perspectives.

Through music’s ecstatic nature — live improvisations inspired by ancient healing techniques and performances of original music as well as the works of J.S. Bach, Robert Schumann, Philip Glass, and Arvo Pärt — you will be guided into yourself and reminded of yourself. Listen and allow the music to be the mediator of the dialogue.  

To explore and deepen your relationship with the unconscious, we will work with practices such as:

•         Deep listening experiences through music to generate alternate states of consciousness
•         Guided self-analysis
•         Journaling
•         Group discussion
•         Active imagination exploration
•         Lecture and study
•         Film

Throughout the week, we will focus on practices for deep listening and the week will culminate in a concert inspired by Jung’s Red Book. Bringing decades of experience as Jungians, psychotherapists, and professional musicians, John and Rodney will set the stage for an exploration of those portals and pathways within.

In this retreat, you will get in touch with a deep relaxation to rejuvenate the body and the mind through non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra. No matter your reasons — whether you need a break from the constant pressure, are in a life transition, or just want to delve deeper into your meditation practice — this retreat will provide space and time for contemplation and reflection.

The term non-sleep deep rest, coined by Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, refers to a waking state of deep relaxation that maintains awareness. Evidence suggests reaching this state through NSDR protocols such as yoga nidra can reset dopamine levels and provide other physical and mental health benefits — including better sleep and enhanced neuroplasticity.

We’ll go on an inner journey together, and the hope is we’ll emerge more connected to both ourselves and our life paths to leave feeling refreshed and deeply rested.

Together, we will:

• Practice yoga nidra for restoration and rejuvenation.
• Discover the connection between nondual meditation and yoga nidra for deepening our meditation practices.
• Reflect on where we are in our lives and leave with a greater sense of self-connection and clarity.
• Dialogue about meditation for connection and community.
• Learn about the link between non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and better sleep.

This workshop includes an additional $50 faculty tuition.

How empowered do you feel as a woman navigating this world? What is your relationship to the feminine? And to female wisdom? Join us inside the Moon Lodge, a place for exploration — for women to find tribal and ritual healing.

The 5Rhythms is a map that teaches us how energy moves. It shows us the patterns, rhythms, and cycles of life — Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness — and can be a direct path to the embodiment and empowerment many of us do not feel in a time of patriarchy.

This workshop will be about celebrating the body of Woman and the sacred feminine within us all. Through dance, meditation, massage, acupressure, and ritual baths, we will share in the Sisterhood of humanity. We will poultice our wounds and celebrate the great gifts of our ancestors.

This workshop includes:

• 5Rhythms moving meditation
• Mindfulness meditation
• Restorative acupressure techniques
• Women’s health practices
• Women’s counsel
• Group sharing

Dr. Julie Von, a specialist in women’s health, will present the Chinese Medicine perspective on the five elements, psychosomatic process, restorative acupuncture, and self-care. She will teach us to prioritize these pillars and recognize when we are out of balance.

Lucia Horan will integrate the stillness of Buddhist mindfulness meditation with the moving meditations of the 5Rhythms®. In sitting meditation, we have the opportunity to observe the mind and body at rest through silent introspection. In the practice of the 5Rhythms, we engage in mindfulness while in motion. Together, these two polarities mirror the dance of life and open the door to peace, well-being, and balance.

This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.

“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.” —Chinese Proverb

Join us for deep release and renewal as we pause to align with autumn, acknowledge the sacred cycle of life, and move gracefully through this transitory season.

Autumn is a time of letting go and accepting the impermanence of things. For many spiritual traditions, it has long been an opportunity to slow down and reflect. During this period of great change, our yoga and meditation practices can help us feel more grounded, rooted, supported, and nourished. We can create more intentional pauses and open to the sacred present moment as it is while we also fortify our inner resources, nourish our own “roots” for health and wellbeing, and expand our capacity for compassion, connection, and heartfulness. This allows us to slow down to reflect, release, and recalibrate — to consciously participate in the process of closing one chapter and starting anew.

Using a series of yogic and ayurvedic balancing techniques, Jillian will weave heart-based practices with slow flow yoga, deep restorative relaxation, and Metta meditation. Plus, we’ll incorporate inner reflection, seasonal ritual, and self-love to collaborate with the present and flow through fall with reverence, peace, and ease.

With an emphasis on rooting while opening change, we will work with multiple practices to meet this moment of transition and transformation. More than ever, we can benefit by pausing and restoring our energy and nurturing ourselves in order to better nurture our world.

Garth Stevenson will add deeply healing vibrations with his double bass to help us cultivate the balance between grounding and releasing into the spaciousness of the season.

Throughout this retreat, we will practice outdoors and embrace the Autumn elements to truly be with life’s changes and arrive more fully in the present moment.

Recommended Reading: Deep Listening By Jillian Pransky

This workshop includes an additional $135 faculty tuition.

True happiness is not about acquiring anything; instead, it comes from opening to the natural joy and aliveness inside you. As we are bombarded with messages that heighten our fear and sadness about the world, more than ever, it is vital to understand the importance of joy as a central aspect of mindfulness practice. We need to remember how to stay connected to that place inside that makes life worth living. Our cultivation of well-being and joy can become our gift to a troubled world.

This workshop is based on James Baraz’s popular 5-month Awakening Joy course that thousands have taken since 2003. You will learn basic principles and other supportive practices to develop your natural capacity for well-being and happiness, presented in a user-friendly way.

This workshop offers practical tools to incline the mind towards joy through silent meditation and interactive experiential processes.

Themes include:

• Inclining the mind toward healthy states
• How mindfulness weakens negative and strengthens positive mind states
• Gratitude practices to deepen well-being
• Working skillfully with difficulties
• The power of letting go
• Integrity practices and healing from the past
• Learning to love ourselves
• Compassionate action

Recommended Reading: Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to Happiness by James Baraz and Awakening Joy for Kids – Jams Baraz

More and more, people are discovering the Enneagram as an accurate and profound map of personality. In this workshop, we’ll explore the full scope of its power to illuminate our greatest wisdom, become our truest selves, and face life’s challenges with fortitude and grace.

The nine Enneagram types are based on the three primary centers of intelligence: thinking, emotion, and instinct. However, in almost all human beings, distortions or blockages in these centers lead to a loss of connection with our essential nature and arising ego structures to compensate for this loss. Thus, while our Enneagram type, our true nature, is usually obscured with a characteristic web of defenses, discovering ourselves through the Enneagram can serve as an opening to the deeper reality of spirit.

This workshop will recognize the ways the nine Enneagram types play out in our own personalities. We’ll combine psychological insight into the inner workings of the different personality types with meditation practices and exercises designed for a more direct experience of the qualities of essence, such as presence, clarity, compassion, and joy. Conversational instruction will be added along with group meditations, small-group work, physical movements, and music to help us fully integrate the richness of the Enneagram material into our daily work and relationships.

Join us for a total reset done the Esalen way: seven powerful days tending to heart, mind, body, and spirit. Reconnect with your sense of purpose and power while immersed in the medicine of our iconic, energized setting within a community of similarly minded seekers.

Not for the faint of heart, this deep retreat experience is a heroic dose of Esalen. You’ll engage daily with our lineage practices (Sensory Awareness, breathwork, intuitive movement, Gestalt process, and more) as never before —  intensely, purposefully, and under the close and compassionate care of our world-class resident faculty to usher you toward the most expansive version of yourself yet.

Each morning begins with embodied movement and seated meditation practice, followed by a silent communal breakfast. You’ll spend the first part of your day experiencing Sensory Awareness and Gestalt process. After some integration time and a nourishing lunch, you’ll transition to a yoga-based therapeutic movement session.

Afternoons are devoted to one-on-one, presence-based coaching sessions and bodywork with expert practitioners and gifted energy workers. A communal dinner is followed by either the balancing, down-regulating practice of transformational breathwork accompanied by music at the silent baths — an experience reserved for this group — or the sublimely transportive modality of Yoga Nidra.

Prior to arrival, you’ll connect privately with a faculty member to set your intentions for the week. During your time at the Institute, you will experience:

• Daily morning meditation and embodiment practice.
• Therapeutic movement and breathwork each afternoon.
• Small group and one-on-one Gestalt coaching sessions that allow you to metabolize your learnings.
• Opportunities to engage with the healing properties of the water and the land.
• A private ceremonial bathing ritual.
• One Esalen Massage.
• An alternative healing service (astrology reading, Reiki, energetic cleansing).
• Premium accommodations and communal meals.
• Additional only-at-Esalen encounters designed expressly for your cohort.

We’ll follow up with you after your experience, and you’ll have the opportunity to join a remote reintegration session and receive guidance to help you stay on the path.

This experience is most appropriate for those in sound health. The activity level, while accessible and adaptive, is high.

This workshop includes an additional $500 tuition fee.