Workshops

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 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” techniques for healthy posture and movement.
• Gratitude, appreciative joy, loving kindness, compassion and equanimity in meditation.
• Ways to practice all eight limbs of yoga.
• Deeply revitalizing rest during restorative yoga accompanied by singing bowls.
• 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.

This workshop is suited for anyone with a basic understanding of yoga.  No prior experience of qigong needed. 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. Workshop members are welcome to bring an assistant who is a second paying participant if they need more support for this program If you are not sure if this workshop is suited for you, please contact Tracy.

In 1938, researchers at Harvard University began a 75-year study that addressed life’s fundamental question: What makes a good life? The Grant Study, also known as the Harvard Study of Adult Development, found strong relationships to be the clearest predictor of life satisfaction.

In Relational Gestalt practice, direct and response-able communication is essential for creating intimacy and strengthening our bonds to others. The benefits that flow from solid relationships with partners, relatives, and friends, can be a source of connection and great joy in our lives.

Sometimes, the ways we’ve learned to communicate in relationship creates more distance rather than contact with the people who are important to us.

In this workshop, you’ll have an opportunity to become aware of the ways you communicate; you’ll have the chance to learn, unlearn, and practice ways of communicating to enhance your connection to others. Together, we will explore how the past may be keeping you from making use of the contact that is available in the here and now.

Over the course of the weekend, we will use dyads, repeating questions and open seat sessions designed to facilitate communication and understanding.

Dance is one of the world’s most ancient transformative rituals. From the whirling dervish to the Shamans, the waltz to the rave, we dance for joy, healing, and connection — guided by wisdom that transcends the thinking brain.

This five-day retreat is an invitation to come together to awaken the forgotten wild, ignite your creativity, and dance our way to wholeness. Through an alchemical combination of movement, nature, and sound healing, we’ll reconnect our bodies and minds,  digest our feelings and emotions, and open ourselves to the wisdom of our hearts. Most of all, we’ll expand our vision to include a bigger perspective on our spiritual and human interconnectedness.

The practices we’ll cultivate this week will help you:

• Release fear, inhibition, and judgment.
• Trust your body’s innate wisdom to guide you.
• Revive a sluggish nervous system.
• Clear energetic blockages.
• Step into your uniqueness and self-expression with confidence.

Allow yourself to be nourished by this sacred land, the hot spring waters, the time we share together, and the friends you’ll make. Experience the beauty, awe, and wonder of being alive so you may return home rejuvenated and inspired to continue walking your unique life path.

This workshop includes an additional $55 in faculty tuition.

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, Dr. Shauna Shapiro — a leading scientist studying the effects of mindfulness and 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 the delights of the gardens to nourish and support us.

This workshop is appropriate for anyone curious about mindfulness and 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 By Shauna Shapiro.

This workshop includes an additional $390 of faculty tuition.

*For anyone facing financial hardship, Dr. Shauna Shapiro invites you to contact her directly for tuition scholarship at slshapiro@scu.edu.

We are erotic primates living in culturally imposed domestication. We have the lineage and bodies of hunter-gatherers, but we exist in a modern context that is deeply afraid of Eros. Like other domesticated animal species, we have been removed from the wild to live a more settled life. For many of us, this has had the unfortunate effect of cutting ourselves off from the somatic and erotic aliveness within our own bodies, both in our relationships and from the whole of our lives.

In this modern world, we are often left wondering, Why does my sexuality feel so difficult, unsatisfying, and limited? Why do my erotic relationships seem unsustainable and challenging? How do I access my erotic aliveness? Am I sexually broken, and how do I fix…me?

You are not broken! It’s not you. It’s the domestication — the context that cuts so many of us off from our bodies and aliveness.

In this workshop, you will be invited to:

• Develop a working understanding of what it means to ReWild Eros and un-domesticate the erotic body.
• Creatively explore the foundation of somatic erotic sovereignty.
• Discover the role of internalized and social shame in interfering with erotic connection to your body.
• Understand how Grief and Eros are connected and the role of moving grief in reclaiming and liberating erotic expression.
• Use playful, connective, and experiential somatic practices to build erotic energy and aliveness.
• Learn how to integrate these practices to create erotic sustainability in your life and relationships.

Together, we’ll explore traditional, experiential, and somatic learning, including exercises with movement, consensual touch, and group interaction. Participants will have agency to modify any exercise for their boundaries and safety. Although erotic healing and growth are part of this experience, this workshop will not be supportive for people with unaddressed primary sexual or somatic trauma.

This workshop is for individuals, couples, and people of all relationship orientations. People of all sexual and gender identities are welcome and celebrated. This workshop is sex-positive and erotic-inclusive and will rest on a foundation of embodied consent and boundaries practices. Though Eros is invited into the space, no overt sexual behavior will be part of the workshop.  

You are invited to bring a couple of small items for a shared altar that we will build together. The first item could connected to your family, lineage, or ancestors and the second could be connected to your body or sexuality. All items will be returned at the end of the workshop.

Recommended Reading: Come As You Are, by Emily Nagoski,  The Spirit of Intimacy, by Sobonfu Somé, The Body is Not An Apology, by Sonya Renee Taylor, Reviving Kinship and Sexual Abundance, Dr. Kim Tallbear on For the Wild podcast

The body is a portal to the numinous dimensions of the soul’s life. It can lead us to healing and wholeness far beyond simple relief of traumatic symptoms — and to increased access to our feelings and a renewed sense of soulful aliveness. Jungian and depth psychology orient to the deepest currents of the soul, where dreams and life experiences take on cohesive wisdom and unfold in a way that guides the individual. However, developmental wounds, particularly those of a traumatic nature, can interrupt the psyche’s innate thrust toward wholeness.

In this workshop, we will work with authentic movement and other somatic practices grounded in the perspective of depth psychology to learn and experience how the body can serve as a gateway to realign with those innate healing currents.

Our ancestors understood that our dreams and visions often speak not just to the individual but to the community as well. In this realm, which Jung referred to as the “Spirit of the Depths,” we can reconnect with the creative unconscious for insights that remain elusive when caught up in the groupthink typical of the “Spirit of the Times.” We will practice both indoors and outdoors, surrounded by the stunning beauty of the natural world, where the inner meets the outer, to engage with these transformative energies as they emerge.

This workshop is oriented toward therapists interested in learning how to access the somatic underpinnings of psychic life and those committed to weaving the body’s way of knowing with life’s unfolding.

10 CE credits available — for additional information, click here. There will be a $90 fee for CE credit, payable directly to Barbara Holifield. If interested, you can contact her at barbaraholifield1@me.com.

Recommended reading: Holifield, B. (2025). Being with the Body in Depth Psychotherapy: Development, Trauma, and Transformation in the Unspoken Realm., Menakem, Resmaa (2017) My Grandmother’s Hands. Las Vegas, Nevada: Central Recovery Press.

“What’s the quickest way out of the city?” John Muir asked a stranger. “Where do you want to go?” the man replied. “Anywhere that is wild,” said Muir.

This week is simple and direct. Each day we step onto the mountain trails of Big Sur and walk into the living wild — breathing ocean air, feeling the ground beneath our feet, and allowing the rhythms of the natural world to recalibrate body and mind. We return to Esalen’s natural hot springs overlooking the vast Pacific to soak, rest, and let the day settle into our bones. In short, we come to touch nature and be touched by it.

Muir reminded us that “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul.” Guided by this spirit, our time together weaves hiking with simple awareness practices drawn from contemplative and experiential traditions. There will be invitations toward silence, reflection, and embodied presence. Along the way, as Muir did, we make heartfelt inquiry into our own lives: What does it mean to live authentically? Where are we following well-worn paths, and where are we authoring our own? The outer wilderness becomes a mirror for the inner terrain it stirs.

Day hikes (approximately 4–8 miles) begin after breakfast and conclude in time to enjoy Esalen’s hot springs and nourishing meals. Participants should come prepared for invigorating physical activity, including elevation gain and loss on occasionally rugged or steep terrain — as well as the quieter invitation to pause, sit, and rest in contemplative stillness along the trail.

Note: Additional information, an equipment list, and a waiver will be sent upon registration. For frequently asked questions about Steven’s workshops, please visit the FAQs page.

This workshop has $80 of additional faculty tuition and $40 for park entrance fees.

If we carry intergenerational trauma (and we do), we also carry intergenerational wisdom. It’s in our genes and in our DNA. —Kazu Haga

What if your healing journey lies within you and in the wisdom carried by your ancestral line? The Listening When Parts Speak workshop is a curated experience designed to help you access the gifts of your ancestry while transforming the burdens of personal, cultural, and intergenerational trauma. Together, we will facilitate a relationship between your parts and your internal healing resource called Self.

Through mindfulness, guided meditation, experiential exercises, and teachings from the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, you’ll deepen your connection to your internal healing resource, known as Self, and build relationships with the parts of you that carry the weight of trauma.

During this workshop, we will explore:

• Mindfulness practices to bring attention and presence to here and now experiences.
• The key concepts of the IFS model of working with trauma.
• Experiential exercises to connect with your inner parts and wise ancestors.
• Demonstrations of the healing potential of IFS and ancestor wisdom.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll be invited to explore ways to incorporate these tools into your daily life to help calm activated or triggered parts of yourself. You’ll have the opportunity to cultivate a new or deepened relationship with supportive ancestors to guide you through your daily life. Additionally, you’ll be encouraged to reflect on a greater understanding of the inner parts of others that make you less likely to personalize their behavior.

20 IFS-CE credits are available to those who are IFS Level 1 trained and may be applied toward IFS certification or recertification. A completion certificate will only be offered to participants who attend all 20 hours of this retreat. If, for any reason you cannot attend the full 20 hours, you will not be issued with a completion certificate. Please see faculty for details.

Recommended Reading: Listening When Parts Speak: A Practical Guide to Healing with Internal Family Systems Therapy and Ancestor Wisdom by Tamala Floyd, LCSW

You are what you practice! The Buddha’s teachings meet modern brain science in this interactive workshop exploring meditation, musical performances, and neuroplasticity. Join us to discover how these practices can harmonize with one another to offer paths for inner peace and more joyful engagement with the world.

Leading deep inquiry and guided meditations, senior teacher Nikki Mirghafori mentors us on a journey into mindfulness and the cultivation of compassion. Neuroscientist Clifford Saron delves into the mysteries of the brain and shares the latest research from his field. San Francisco Symphony cellist Barbara Bogatin inspires us with the music of J.S.Bach and offers a rare glimpse into the process of musical creativity from the inside. Each day unfolds with a thematic focus, allowing us to dive deep into these three intertwined perspectives.

Together, we will be invited to:

• Meditate on the themes of samatha (concentration), vipassana (insight), and metta (loving kindness), and their application to daily life.
• Discover how scientists understand the impact of musical and meditative practice on our brains and bodies.
• Understand how mindfulness practice enhances musical craft and expression.
• Get to know each other as we share learning in group discussions.
• Exult in the joy of music through 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 art. Whether you’re a meditator, musician, clinician, or simply curious, you’ll find valuable tools and ideas to enrich your personal and professional life. No previous experience in meditation, music, or brain research is necessary!

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

Have you ever wanted to learn how to grow your own food? Experience a dynamic week in the Esalen Farm and Garden and fully participate alongside our talented and experienced staff. Local food security is a major issue facing communities worldwide. It is said that there is no greater form of activism than growing one’s own food—no greater sense of connection to the land than sowing, cultivating, and harvesting from the earth that sustains us. This is the essence of SLOW food (Sustainable, Local, Organic and in respect to the Wild).

Come into a deeper relationship with and celebration of the whole process. By working directly with the Esalen Farm and Garden crew, you will experience the joys and challenges that come with making a garden thrive.

Our days together will include:

• Hands-on experience: harvesting, composting, bed preparation, seed starting, cultivation, irrigation systems, transplanting, and other farming techniques.
• Daily curriculum sessions: diving deeper into specific topics, with space to ask questions and have discussions.
• Community and connection: working together to cultivate teamwork and meaningful relationships.

From a seed planted with intention, the world can change. Participate in the amazing cycles of the season in the garden. We will cultivate community with each other and be part of the magic in the fields of the Esalen Farm & Garden. You are invited to learn about organic and regenerative farming practices that embody our mission of human potential in harmony with nature. Join the legacy of this collaborative creative project, grow healthy, nutrient-rich foods, and become part of the next generation of growers, educators, and land stewards to build connected, thriving, and ever-strengthening communities.

This workshop includes an additional $40 materials fee.

What becomes possible when we slow down enough to truly listen to the living world? How might attentive presence become an expression of care and participation — a way of remembering our place within the larger community of life? On this retreat, we explore how mindfulness in nature is a deeply relational path, inviting intimacy, reciprocity, and kinship with the more-than-human world.

Through guided meditation outdoors, nature attunement practices, and shared inquiry, we’ll explore a shift from practicing in nature to practicing with nature — allowing the land, sky, wind, and waters to become companions and teachers. We will cultivate receptive awareness and deep listening, aligning to the subtle and wordless teachings of the body, the elements, and the rhythms of the natural world.

Supported by Esalen’s extraordinary coastal landscape, we open to beauty as a doorway to presence, awe, and wonder. This intimate attunement helps open the heart and deepen our sense of loving connection.

This retreat invites you to slow down, listen deeply, and rediscover your belonging within the web of life — not as a separate observer, but as a participant in the unfolding mystery of the living earth.

Recommended Reading: Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery and A Field Guide to Nature Meditation: 52 Mindfulness Practices for Joy, Wisdom and Wonder by Mark Coleman

This retreat invites you into a rich, integrative journey of embodiment, where movement and mindfulness come together to deepen emotional resilience and self-awareness. Embodiment is not just a conceptual idea but a lived practice — an ongoing conversation between the body, emotions, and mind. By blending the dynamic, fluid language of 5Rhythms® with the grounded, compassionate presence of trauma-sensitive mindfulness, we will create a safe space for deep exploration and growth.

Trauma often disconnects us from our bodies, narrowing our capacity to feel safe and present. Through embodied, trauma-sensitive mindfulness practices, participants will learn to reestablish safety and attunement within their bodies. Practices will include grounding techniques, working with external anchors, and cultivating a sense of agency and consent.

Embodiment is only as valuable as its translation into our lived experience. Together, we will explore how mindfulness can serve as a bridge to integrate the transformative insights of movement into daily life. From practices for emotional regulation to techniques for self-compassion, participants will leave with practical resources to sustain their growth beyond the retreat.

This retreat will be co-facilitated by leaders in the fields of movement and trauma-sensitive mindfulness. Together, they will guide participants to access creativity, emotional depth, and authentic expression while also bringing a grounded and relational approach to embodiment. A transformative space to explore the interplay of movement and mindfulness, offering a powerful framework for healing, connection, and growth.

Recommended Reading: Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven, Dancing with The Dharma edited by Harrison Blum and Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth.

This workshop includes an additional $100 in 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 victim, survivor, healer, 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 Gabrielle Roth’s  Heartbeat Map, we investigate what is moving through the emotional territory of the heart. By understanding the relationship of emotional polarities we can 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: Dancing with Dharma: Essays on Movement and Dance in Western Buddhism by Harrison Blum, Maps to Ecstasy by Gabrielle Roth, Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth, Connections By Gabrielle Roth, and Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven.

This workshop includes an additional $100 in additional tuition.

Alchemize your life with ritual, earth ceremony and the wisdom of the 13 moons. This is a spirited call to soul sisters, magic makers, and wise women of all ages. If you feel called to awaken and amplify your magic, this is for you.

Women throughout the ages have gathered under the light of the full moon, steeping in the mysteries and soaking in the healing essence of moonlight. Rituals with the moon help to heal the body, channel the emotions, and guide the soul with real power.

When we come together in true sisterhood, profound healing happens within a woman’s psyche. The heroine’s journey awakens to guide and help us navigate life with greater joy, confidence, and authenticity. We learn how to recognize and dismantle toxic narratives to live with full radiance.

In this immersive retreat, participants will dive deep into the realm of priestess — learning how to honor their own heroine’s journey with rituals, inner trance, storytelling, divination, shadow skills, astrological understanding, moon magic, and embodied wisdom. Through a combination of experiential activities and soulful connections, this will be a brave space container for personal growth, healing, and alchemical transformation with daily ritual, yoga, meditation, connection with nature, dream tending, and earth ceremony.

During this pilgrimage, we will celebrate through:

• Ceremony for the Autumn Equinox and Harvest Full Moon.
• The Heroine’s Journey to retrieve your soul’s purpose and gifts.
• Sacred rituals to awaken your inner priestess and tap into your innate wisdom.
• Intuitive development to enhance your intuitive gifts through hypnosis, trance, and earth-based ceremony.
• The magic of the moon with crafting spells and dream-tending skills.
• Alchemical Archetypes to learn the Wheel of the Priestess and how to work with each archetype for your life.
• Sisterhood and connection to build deep connections through sharing circles, collaborative rituals, and initiations.
• Self-reflection through journaling and integration of experiences and teachings.

Rooted in the RITUAL 13 Moons – a modern-day mystery school, this is a transformative journey into the path of the priestess to quantum leap your life in Sisterhood. Magic is afoot!

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

Our clown is the authentic, curious, and playful version of ourselves. Clowning as a life practice is the balancing of our light and shadow while laughing at our attachments. Clown is about being soft, brave, and available to the moment. This workshop is an immersion practice that explores our deepest, most vulnerable, creative self.

Using tools found in improvisation, meditation, altered states, and movement practice, we will explore clowning as a spiritual practice. The work begins with exercises that help you drop into the body and descend from the mind to access the clown state. With the foundation of a sacred container, we will engage in primarily nonverbal, physical games and rituals that give birth to organic impulses inspired by the child within. There is no pressure to perform, but an invitation to get lost inside yourself, an openness to go beyond your comfort zone, and a willingness to play within the moment.

There is nothing to learn but rather much to uncover — to allow us to move through life in a more open state, with a greater connection to ourselves and the world. This workshop is physical, open, and accessible for diverse bodies. Come unravel the clown within! Please come unprepared and ready to explore.

Recommended Reading: Animal Joy by Nuar Alsadir, Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle

I think it’s the worst thing that we do to each other as women, not share the truth about our bodies and how they work and how they don’t work. —Michelle Obama

The pelvis is a powerful part of our body and is foundational to our overall health. The tissues and bones of our pelvis encompass our reproductive, eliminatory, and digestive organs. They shift and change according to stress, infection, pregnancy and birth, hormonal changes, lifestyle, and trauma. When it is in balance, we feel at ease; when out of balance, it can significantly impact the quality of our life.

This retreat will focus on pelvic health along the span of the reproductive spectrum, from preconception through menopause. A broad range of topics will be covered, including:

• Pelvic floor anatomy and self-care practices
• Menstrual health
• Sexual health
• Nutrition and the digestive system
• Mindfulness
• Mental health
• Yoga and other movement practices
• Community building and journaling activities
• Hormones and fertility

Our goal is to help our participants increase their knowledge, self-awareness, and literacy on the workings of their body, pelvic floor, fertility, and sexual health during different spans of their lives. Participants will discover an array of resources, a community of women to support them on their journey, lifelong education, and self-care practices that are accessible and supportive for their body and pelvic health.

Recommended Reading: Wild Feminine by Tami Lynn Kent, Dr. Sonia’s Guide to Navigating Pelvic Pain by Sonia Bahlani, Hello, Down There: A Guide to Healing Chronic Pelvic and Sexual Pain by Alexandra Milspaw, Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams and Tending to Your Womb by Anietie Ukpe-Wallace

Participants must bring their own set of tune-up yoga massage balls for use during the workshop. They can be purchased here.

You are invited into a practice of becoming whole through movement, stillness, and deep rest. Explore ritual, respect, and regulation as our equation for remembering and embodying wholeness within a supportive community.

Each day, our sessions will blend movement, stillness, quietude, nature exploration, and time for silence and reflection. Guided meditations and yoga nidra will help soften patterns of stress and restore clarity. Afternoon sessions will include dharma talks, medicinal wild plant classes with healing herbal remedies, and embodiment practices to reconnect you to your inner cycles and the subtler rhythms of the earth.

Glean accessible ways to craft ritual in your daily life, strengthen resilience through self-regulation, and deepen respect for your body, mind, and environment. Expect to be supported as you expand your sense of trustworthy connection through both personal and communal practices.

You will be invited to expand your perception of, relationship to, and belonging with the living earth through:

• Asana practice and embodiment practices
• Meditation
• Yoga nidra
• Earth wisdom, wild plant and tree medicine, nature walks, and herbal medicine making classes
• Plant allies and sit-spot practice
• Ritual

By the end of our time together, you’ll be invited to carry home a resource of embodied tools and expanded perception to integrate into your everyday life. Return to balance in moments of challenge and anchor yourself in wholeness even in the midst of change.

Recommended Reading: Hold Nothing by Elena Brower, Living Ritual by Tracee Stanley, and The Quiet Teachers by Ally Bogard

Explore foundational Esalen® Massage principles reimagined in the side-lying position — quality of touch and presence, long integrative strokes, and passive joint movement, all adapted to offer a new perspective and experience. When limited to prone and supine options, practitioners and students often miss ways to effectively work with those who would benefit from alternatives. This position allows the giver to simultaneously access the front and back of the receiver while moving the limbs in a variety of ways. The side-lying position is especially satisfying for pregnant clients and those uncomfortable on their back or front because of health challenges. Many receivers prefer this relaxed posture, which provides easy access to the ribs and enhances the breath.

Students will apply the flowing Esalen® Massage strokes with more precision, safely and gently turn the client on the table, add depth with the forearm, and mobilize joints with stretches. Effective alignment for giver and receiver, draping, and daily self-care will be emphasized as we focus on Esalen® Massage as an awareness-based practice.

Each class will consist of brief experiential lecture-demonstrations and supervised practice at the table —with plenty of time for feedback, questions, and self-reflection. This class is designed for those who enjoy giving massage and are looking for something more, as well as birth doulas, healthcare professionals, and practitioners seeking new horizons who also wish to reconnect with nature while being embraced by Esalen’s dramatic seacoast setting.

21 hours CE credit through the EMBA; CAMTC transcript credit available.

Our awareness of energy both expands and becomes more subtle as we deepen into relaxation.

The ancient Chinese practice of Qigong, often translated as “cultivating Life Force”, is a system of movement that relaxes and energizes the body/mind. You will find this form “Wai Dan Gong” easy to learn and a powerful means of  experiencing Life Force in and around you. We will enjoy moving on the Earth, under the heavens, while gazing at the Pacific. Wai Dan Gong is an excellent preparation for sitting, walking and standing meditation. Two mornings will be held as a retreat, we will keep noble silence until lunch. At other times we will share with compassion and humor our experiences of riding the wild waves of the mind.

In this rejuvenating retreat we will explore:

• the 25 movements of Wai Dan Gong.
• shorter Qigong sequences for ease in daily practice.
• sitting meditation (you may sit in a chair).
• walking and standing meditations.
• gentle meridian stretches.
• a full body self massage routine.
• the six healing sounds.
• simple breath practices.

Please come ready to enjoy a deep sense of ease and an expanded sense of the energy body.

Recommended reading: The Way of Qigong by Kenneth Cohen

Since falling in love is biologically natural, but sustaining love is biologically unnatural, Soul Mate focuses on the art and discipline of sustaining love. You begin with learning how to appreciate your partner so specifically and frequently that your partner feels fully seen and loved.

You then practice both the art and discipline of hearing your partner’s criticisms without becoming defensive. For example, so you don’t have to fear “walking on eggshells” before sharing a concern, your partner first learns how to prepare her or himself to emotionally associate your criticism with an opportunity to be more deeply loved.

Soul Mate is designed as the next evolutionary shift beyond active listening. Active listening allowed the criticizer to feel heard, but failed to teach the person hearing the criticism how to emotionally associate the criticism with an opportunity to be more deeply loved. The problem? Unless the receiver of criticism feels safe the person sharing their concern cannot feel safe.

You will learn a series of practices you may integrate into your everyday life:

• Six methods of sustaining a “conflict free zone” for 166 hours of your 168-hour week.
• A “Caring and Sharing Time” the remaining two hours by practicing six mindsets that allow you to not feel defensive when criticized.
• “Eleven Wisdoms” as a foundation for deepening your love.
• The four “depleters of love,” aka the “Four C’s” (Criticisms, Complaints, Controlling, and Complacency)
• How to use your new skills with your children, parents, work colleagues and people you differ with politically.
• How to use music and dancing to revitalize your love (to be practiced by dancing before each session)

To sustain your practice after the workshop, I invite you to free, ongoing, group follow-up calls to resolve stumbling blocks. If you wish to review the insights and exercises at any time, you will also have the option of purchasing a Zoom and book version of the course.

This workshop is for couples of all genders and sexual orientations.  Developed over the past 30 years, the workshop is also used by many health professionals in their work with clients and patients.

Recommended Resources: Role Mate to Soul Mate by Warren Farrell (BenBella: July 2024); additional video content on warrenfarrell.com.

Rejuvenate the body and the mind with the deep relaxation that can be found through non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra. Whether you need a break from constant pressure, are navigating a life transition, or wish to delve deeper into your mindfulness and meditation practice, this retreat will provide space and time for contemplation and reflection.

Non-sleep deep rest, a term coined by Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, refers to a waking state of deep relaxation. Evidence suggests reaching this state through NSDR protocols, such as yoga nidra, can reset dopamine levels, reduce cortisol, and provide numerous physical and mental health benefits — including better sleep and enhanced neuroplasticity. We will dig into this and other research during the course.

Together, we’ll go on an inner journey to connect to both ourselves and our life paths — and emerge refreshed and deeply rested. This will be a large-group experience, and we will practice lying-down guided protocols throughout the weekend.

This is a beginner experiential course and does not require knowledge of yoga nidra theory or history. There will be lots of chances to journal and connect with one another as we enjoy the natural beauty of Esalen and our time together!

Recommended Reading: The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You by Kelly Boys

Embody the power of fall by exploring the many ways to let go and let loose. Discover how to be at ease this season through yoga, soft foam rollers, movement, and stillness.

Surprise yourself with a fresh and creative way to move into release. Autumn is a natural time to liberate old energy and go inward. It’s a season to unwind the restless patterns of body and mind and reset them to a slower pace of time, rhythm, and kinesthetic connection.

As we practice yoga, we’ll shake loose through movement, cultivate deep sleep habits, and roll into release to bridge the contrasts of holding and letting go for inner calm. We’ll explore stillness with movement and long-held poses with fluid vinyasa. We’ll awaken positive muscle memories with relaxation and alignment techniques and learn how to lean more deeply into the bones for emotional and physical strength.

This fall, open into harmonious practices of asana and savasana to increase comfort before moving toward the dark of winter, longer nights, and deeper sleep. Together, we’ll replenish the body with grounding energy by calmly mirroring the trees to awaken inner peace — standing tall through the process of release.

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

Gestalt is, at its heart, an awareness practice. It invites us to be present with what is. From that presence, insight, emotional regulation, and inner guidance begin to emerge.

Gestalt practice helps us connect with what is real and true for us, beyond old patterns, habitual self-judgment, or the impulse to fix ourselves. In a field of shared inquiry where judgment softens, authenticity has space to reveal itself. Integrative Gestalt Practice™, developed by Perry and Johanna Holloman over the past 30 years, combines deep awareness with embodied exploration. It offers practical tools for navigating relationships, life transitions, and meaningful inner questions with clarity and integrity.

During this workshop, you will:

• Learn Gestalt-based self-inquiry practices that deepen awareness and authentic connection.
• Engage in breath and movement-based exercises to access embodied wisdom.
• Strengthen your ability to recognize and follow your own inner guidance.
• Work in dyads and triads to practice deep listening to one another and your own soul’s unfolding wisdom.
• Participate in group processes that foster presence and genuine community.

Several participants will also have the opportunity to engage in individual “open seat” sessions — live, facilitated personal inquiry processes with Perry and Johanna, supported by the attentive presence of the group. Witnessing and participating in one another’s work are often powerful catalysts for insight, as shared themes and human experiences resonate across the group field.

Join us for a week of embodied inquiry, meaningful connection, and renewed contact with your agency and inner guidance.

Recommended Reading: Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Frederick S. Perls and Steve Andreas and The Unfolding Now by A. H. Almaas

This workshop includes an additional $50 in faculty tuition.

What if the love you’ve been searching for is already here — waiting to be remembered?

In this retreat, you’ll explore self-compassion as a lifeboat home — a steady refuge when self-criticism, striving, or overwhelm take hold.

Rather than trying to “fix” yourself, you’ll be invited to gently shift your relationship to experience, discovering the loving awareness that is already present beneath conditioned patterns that do not serve you.

Through a blend of contemplative practice and experiential inquiry, you’ll find how self-compassion can serve as a bridge — from a limited sense of self to a more spacious, connected way of being. To the heart of who you are. We’ll explore how this practice of compassion can be more than a temporary balm and can become a doorway into deeper remembrance.

During our time together, you will be invited to:

• Engage in nondual guided meditations and self-compassion practices that support emotional resilience and inner steadiness.
• Explore experiential inquiries that gently reveal patterns of self-judgment and striving.
• Learn practical ways to meet difficult emotions with warmth and clarity.
• Participate in group discussions that foster connection, insight, and shared humanity.
• Learn how to integrate self-compassion into daily life as a sustainable, embodied practice.
• Deepen your experiential understanding of nonduality.
• Find new ways to access the heart of who you are.

Throughout the week, you’ll be supported in reconnecting with a sense of wholeness. Rather than attempting to fix an illusory and limited self, our time together will support us in having a direct experience of remembering, not “improving,” who we really are.

Recommended reading: The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together, by Caverly Morgan & A Kids Book About Mindfulness by Caverly Morgan