Workshops

This retreat is a quiet, reflective New Year celebration with the opportunity to discover a deep, centered place within and brings together the rich, sensual experience of Esalen — the sounds of the ocean, the feeling of the air, and the beauty of its colors and textures with an opportunity to deeply connect with oneself through the healing that meditation and loving kindness brings. Dr. Abramson has been a workshop leader at Esalen for over 30 years and at Stanford University guiding both those new to meditation and those who have deep experience of practice.

The New Year, with its connection to the winter solstice and new beginnings, is the perfect time to silently journey inward and offers a special opportunity to focus inward, deeply connect with oneself, and reflect on life goals for the upcoming year’s journey. You are invited to set intentions and explore, through seated and moving meditation, themes of self-kindness, self-care, and nurturing.

The morning and evening classes are inner journeys of stillness and movement practices that open the doors of awareness building momentum for cultivating inner peace and concentration of mindful awareness. Each evening will include a walking meditation timed with the sunset.

In the mid day break and the evenings are free to mindfully enjoy the beauty of Esalen, walking the gardens or soak in the hot tubs overlooking the Pacific ocean, or you may choose to continue silence in inner retreat.

If you are capable of living deeply one moment of your life, you can learn to live the same way all the other moments of your life. — Thich Nhat Hanh

This workshop is for anyone feeling the need to slow down, reconnect with themselves, and step into the New Year relaxed and awake. Whether you’re navigating change, seeking greater balance, or simply wanting to deepen your relationship with yourself, this is an invitation to pause, breathe, and replenish through gentle movement, the healing sounds of crystal bowls, and stillness.

Throughout our time together, we’ll explore practices that soften the body, calm the mind, and open the heart. Each day, we’ll return to the present moment through qigong, gentle yoga, restorative movement, sound healing, meditation, and poetry — all held within a compassionate and nurturing container. These practices will allow us to feel deeply into our yoga sankalpa — our heartfelt intentions — for the New Year.

The rhythms of the week are designed to help reset the nervous system, create space for reflection, and support attunement to your own inner landscape. The healing vibrations of crystal singing bowls will support deep rest and spaciousness, offering opportunities for insight and integration.

This workshop is for anyone longing to:

• Begin the New Year with more presence, ease, and self-awareness.
• Reconnect with their body and breath through mindful movement, including qigong, gentle yoga, and restorative stretching.
• Release long-held tension and cultivate deeper rest.
• Reflect on and clarify heartfelt intentions in a supportive space.
• Experience the benefits of sound healing and meditative stillness.
• Gently replenish their energy and return to daily life with more resilience.

All levels and bodies are welcome to experience this balanced blend of movement and mindfulness. To participate fully, you’ll need to be able to move independently between standing, seated, and floor-based postures — or attend with a support person who is also registered for the workshop and can assist you throughout the week.

Imagine your relationship expressing the true depths of your love and commitment. If you are in love, this retreat is an opportunity to rise even higher in love. If you are in crisis, it is an opportunity for healing on the deepest level.

We all carry some degree of negative programming from our past, and there are loving and effective ways to transform this programming into a positive and vibrant celebration of our connection.

During this workshop, you and your partner will take part in guided exercises, experience therapeutic coaching from the Vissells, and connect with the support of other couples, with time set aside for sharing after each practice.

This weekend offers a collection of tools for deeper appreciation and communication building. Themes include healthy communication of feelings, seeing one’s partner as a mirror, understanding and respecting each other’s differences, navigating conflict resolution, healing past hurts, exploring sexual wellness, connecting with the inner child and inner parent, taking responsibility and developing a true inner connection. Participants are encouraged to explore how these practices might apply to their lives together, both during the retreat and beyond. For more information, visit www.SharedHeart.org.

This workshop welcomes couples of all gender and sexual orientations.

Recommended Reading: To Really Love a Man by Joyce and Barry Vissell & To Really Love a Woman by Joyce and Barry Vissell

Explore the dynamic connections between mind, body, and lifestyle for optimal vitality. Drawing from decades of research, this workshop weaves together the latest scientific insights in metabolic health and mindful eating with experiential practices to support greater awareness and agency in your approach to well-being.

Participants will engage in evidence-informed practices derived from clinical trials and discover the emerging research on biosensors and glucose monitors that offer real-time feedback on stress and metabolic responses.

We’ll take a closer look at how to create optimal insulin sensitivity — a foundational aspect of good metabolic health and a key factor in healthy aging. Rather than rigid rules or complex diets, we’ll focus on core principles of optimal nutrition and metabolic function to help us develop — and sustain — lifestyle choices that align with our needs and abilities.

Together, we’ll explore:  

• The impact of stress on eating behaviors, and how both inside knowledge of the food industry and self-compassion can serve as powerful antidotes to shame and food stigma.
• How different micronutrients, macronutrients, eating patterns, and timing affect glucose regulation, mitochondrial function, cellular aging, and mental health.
• Experiential practices, such as mindful eating, yoga nidra, breathwork, and exercise, and their effects on appetite regulation, insulin sensitivity, and energy levels.
• How to wisely use glucose monitors, stress monitors, and time-restricted fasting.

Elissa and Robert will be joined by mindfulness-based registered dietitian and nutritionist Andrea Lieberstein, who will lead mindful eating practices, including an optional guided mindful meal. Movement teacher Nichol Chase will offer embodied movement sessions throughout the weekend.

Join this compassionate, research-informed space to explore the intersections of nutrition, mindfulness, and metabolic well-being. Whether you’re managing chronic stress, curious about metabolic health, or simply seeking a more conscious relationship with food and your body, you are welcome here.

Please note: This workshop is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to treat eating disorders, will not focus on weight loss, and may not be appropriate for individuals currently experiencing a severe eating disorder. It is not intended for medical advice or treatment. Always consult your healthcare provider before making significant changes to your nutrition, movement, or health practices.

A consistent meditation practice lowers stress, improves health, strengthens relationships, and increases happiness. A consistent writing practice not only helps you make sense of the world, it also can make you a better, and more creative, writer.

This combination writing and meditation workshop invites writers and meditators of all levels to delve deeply into both practices.

Our daily guided meditations will nourish your creativity by encouraging you to be present to experience, establish a strong mind/body connection, and access emotion and empathy — all important tools for writing.  

Our daily bursts of free writing will give you an opportunity to tap into your creative energy — without judgment — so you can do your most original and authentic writing. Both practices will be supported by discussions of writing craft to help you master the technical aspects of story-telling.

Each day, we will set aside time to share our work in a safe and supportive environment.

By the end of our time together, you will be given the tools needed to develop daily meditation and a daily writing practice and make both stick. To help you stay connected and inspired, participants will also receive a free month’s membership to Creative Caffeine Daily, an online daily writing community.

Recommended Reading: Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, and Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

This workshop invites you to explore the creative spirit that resides within each of us. Whether you are an experienced artist or simply seeking to uncover your potential, this meditative experience promises to be enriching.

We will begin with colored pencils to open our hearts and let creativity flow naturally. Then, with acrylic paints, participants will create a personal mandala (an integrated image of wholeness), Sri Yantra (a mystical diagram used in Hinduism that represents the union of the masculine and feminine divine energies), or designs of their choice. By the end of the workshop, you will have finished a unique and beautiful piece of art.

The practice of painting is both healing and meditative, and this journey is meant to expand our consciousness and ability to deepen our connections with nature and our inner selves. It is a gentle entry into the left brain hemisphere to open our capacity for creative experiences. Our time together is designed to provide the foundation for painting as a sacred art, to introduce participants to their possibilities as an artist, and to help them walk down the artist’s path — one paved with joy, insight, and awareness.

Even after years — even decades — of practice, many of us still find ourselves caught in loops of fear, self-criticism, or reactivity. Old wounds and unconscious triggers live in the body and mind, silently shaping our perception and choices. In a world increasingly defined by disconnection, distraction, and overwhelm, the need for practices that create true inner coherence has never been more urgent.

Developed by Rod Stryker, one of the world’s leading meditation and yoga nidra teachers, the Luminous Coherence Method™ blends ancient contemplative wisdom with modern neuroscience and quantum physics. Through a progressive four-stage protocol, the practice modulates the brain’s default mode network, dissolving patterns of rumination and reactivity. The result is a steady coherence, a state of integration that expands resilience, clarity, and joy.

In this workshop, you will be invited to:

• Experience key practices from the four-stage Luminous Coherence™ protocol.
• Learn how meditation can rewire neural pathways and enhance neuroplasticity.
• Understand how the default mode network shapes reactivity, and how to free yourself from it.
• Engage in self-inquiry practices that bring insight into daily life.
• Discover how to cultivate coherence, an inner state of clarity, creativity, and wholeness.

This is not just another meditation technique — it’s a practice for our times: an ancient path reborn through science and spirit, offering freedom not only from distraction, but from the very patterns that bind us. A rare opportunity to learn a revolutionary new method directly from its creator.

When was the last time you gave something your undivided attention? Nearly 2,500 years ago, Buddha worried we had become too distracted — and that was before paper, let alone smartphones. Today our days are filled with convenient distractions that promise happiness while mostly delivering busyness and frustration. Many of us live life in a hectic fog, working too much and noticing too little.

There is a different way. For this weekend workshop, we will disconnect, slow down, and meditate together. We will learn the ancient Zen practice of sitting still, bringing our full awareness to what is now.

Our time together will follow a gentle schedule of sitting meditation punctuated by brief lectures, group discussion, relaxing meals, and soaks in the healing baths, all while exploring the process and practice of mindful living. We’ll be listening to our own bodies, noticing the food we eat, and truly engaging with the people around us – exploring what it means to be fully present and alive.

Together we’ll discuss everything you need to start, revive, or deepen your daily meditation practice. You’ll receive instruction in traditional Zen Buddhist meditation and we’ll sit together in guided sessions, practicing what we’ve learned. We’ll work together on everything from the mechanics of sitting posture to the mental barriers we all face. We’ll discuss how to overcome common obstacles to meditation and the many ways to incorporate more mindfulness and presence into our daily lives.

Whether you’re brand new to meditation or even if you’ve been practicing for years, join us in learning how to bring meditation into your life and mindfulness to your work and home – today and every day. Come reclaim a healthier and happier way to be.

Recommended Reading: Buddha’s Office, by Dan Zigmond

The Body of Belonging invites you to explore feelings of kinship, acceptance, and community on a somatic level, identifying the elements most significant to you. Through gentle yoga-inspired movement, breathwork, sound, and meditation, we will engage in self-inquiry practices within a group setting. Together, we will create a safe and brave space to experiment with accessing a sense of belonging. Drawing from ancient and Indigenous wisdom, we will work toward dismantling the individualistic ways of being that contribute to our growing sense of separateness.

Loneliness is an epidemic eroding the fabric of who we are as a collective. It is so prevalent in the United States that the surgeon general has issued an advisory to call attention to the importance of social connection for individual and community-wide health. The hyperindividualism that has been promoted as our best way of “succeeding” has left us feeling lost and alienated. In our overfocus on self, we’ve lost sight of how connection, community, and a felt sense of belonging are central to our well-being.  

Participants will be invited to connect with their individual needs as it relates to belonging. They will build skillfulness in advocating for belonging by centering and nourishing connection and community to realize the resilience that comes with healthy interdependence.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

The Brahmavihārās (divine abodes) are profound practices that uncover your natural capacity to live your life easefully with love, connection, wisdom, and joy. In this experiential workshop, we’ll use daily guided meditation practices, storytelling, song, relational mindfulness practices, self-directed neuroplasticity, yoga, and somatic play to explore the classical Buddhist Heart practices known as the “boundless states” or the “four immeasurables.”

In this workshop, we will explore these four key virtues (found in the Yogic & Buddhist traditions) and ways to cultivate them, including:

• Loving-kindness (metta) practices for self-acceptance, relational healing, gratitude, forgiveness, and kinship with all beings.  
• Compassion (karuna) practices for tenderness, resilience, an open-heart to suffering, and a greater sense of our shared humanity.
• Sympathetic joy (mudita) practices for enthusiasm, authentic joy, generosity, and celebratory participation in life.
• Equanimity (upekka) practices for wisdom, perspective, clarity, and an unwavering sense of trust.

Our days will follow a nourishing schedule of embodied experiences balanced harmoniously with relaxing meals, community connection, and starlit soaks in Esalen’s healing baths. Live music, nature, poetry, shadow work, journaling, breathwork, and ritual will all be artfully woven into our time together.

Whereas some spiritual practices are aimed at otherworldly enlightenment, the four divine abodes help us awaken to the beauty, clarity, and vast possibility available right here in our complex, often messy, mundane, and wholly sacred human experience. They are a pathway to unburdening ourselves of self-doubt, resentment, and regret. They guide our way home to that wellspring in our hearts from which unconditional love flows, where we contact our wholeness, discover radical acceptance, and remember our belonging in this world.

No matter who you are, where you are on your spiritual path, or what you’ve been through, discovering renewal is possible. Join us if you long for a deep, playful, tenderizing workshop that may touch your heart and leave you forever transformed.

In this experiential workshop, pioneering trauma researcher and author of The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk and somatic educator and co-founder of the Trauma Research Foundation Licia Sky apply psychodrama and theater techniques to create virtual experiences of safety, belonging, and protection. While trauma treatment tends to focus on “What happened to you?” the most relevant questions for many people are most likely, “Who was there for you?” and “Why did nobody notice and protect me?” Many therapists try to provide clients with “corrective emotional experiences” to help with early life deficits. Sadly, that entails the wrong person at the wrong time and the wrong place.

In this workshop, we will collectively observe our internal maps and practice ways they can be revised through interactive movement, touch, and auditory and visual input in three-dimensional space. Psychodrama techniques based on the work of Albert Pesso and other theater interventions (described in detail in Chapter 18 of The Body Keeps the Score) can provide participants deep experiences to create new inner realities.  

Participants should be prepared to help fellow workshop members by actively participating in creating new realities. This experiential workshop is limited to 25 participants. Participants will be expected to have done their own personal work.

If you are interested in joining, please fill out the following application form. Applications are due by October 17th.

An apology will shut a conversation down. A good repair opens one up. — Dr. Becky Kennedy

Conflict is inevitable. The health of a relationship depends not on whether conflict happens but on how skillfully we repair. The Art of REPAIR is a practical, embodied, and deeply relational process that transforms rupture into connection, clarity, and trust.

In this workshop, relationship facilitator Hazel-Grace Yates will guide you through the six-step REPAIR Process™. Grounded in an integrative approach, The Art of REPAIR blends somatic and nervous system intelligence, authentic relating and relational attunement practices, power dynamics, trauma-informed communication, interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, and restorative justice principles. This multidimensional framework helps participants approach conflict not as a threat but as a portal to deeper intimacy, collaborative problem-solving, and long-term relational health.

To integrate your learning, we will weave in movement, songs, playful connection games, guided reflection, and time in nature, supporting not only cognitive understanding but a full-bodied, lasting transformation.

Through guided practices, interactive exercises, and real-life application, you will learn to:

• Regulate your nervous system to meet conflict with clarity, presence, and care rather than reactivity.
• Create a shared reality in complex disagreements so both perspectives are heard and understood.
• Explore five actionable pathways to restore integrity, rebuilding trust and connection.
• Strengthen courage and boundaries to speak your needs without defensiveness or collapse.
• Turn conflict into connection by replacing avoidance or resentment with repair conversations that foster intimacy.

Open to individuals, couples, and groups of all kinds. Come ready to practice, play, and expand your capacity for love. You will leave with tools you can use for life and perhaps discover that conflict, when navigated well, can be one of your greatest access points to connection.

Listen as Hazel-Grace shares about the REPAIR Process in a short video, or explore a 20-minute overview for a deeper understanding of the work.

How much are you present in your own life? Most of us spend more time worrying about the future, replaying the past, or getting lost in fantasy than experiencing what life offers us right now. This moment is our opportunity to be directly intimate with our lives while learning, through difficult lessons, how to open our hearts.

Mindfulness — or vipassana — meditation is the practice described by the Buddha for developing wisdom, compassion, and peace by learning to be conscious and aware of what is happening in the present. Using breath, body sensations, thoughts, and emotions, we can find out how to be more fully awake. When we see directly that the nature of reality is change, we become more capable of meeting each situation with spontaneity, fearlessness, and love.

In this workshop, you’ll be introduced to this meditation practice and the principles on which it is based. The weekend will include:

• Silent sitting meditation with instructions
• Walking meditation with instructions
• Eating meditation with instructions
• Discussions to help provide a foundation for your own mindfulness practice in your everyday life.

Recommended Reading: Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to a Happier Life by James Baraz and  The Experience of Insight by Joseph Goldstein

This workshop will give you the tools to help you stop holding yourself back. Whether you have a desire to lose 20 pounds, write a book, launch a business, start a side hustle, open your heart to love, shift your relationship with money, or figure out your next chapter — whatever goal you set — this workshop will help you get out of your own way.

Through the powerful lens of shadow work, you can uncover the hidden forces that drive you and how to break through them.

During our time together, we will dive deep to:

• Set better and healthier boundaries.
• Get clear about what you really want next for your life.
• Have greater accountability.
• Leave with clear action steps to walk toward your goals.

Using a practical, evidence-based approach, Justin Michael Williams will help you understand and fully embrace your shadow so you can overcome your self-limiting patterns and step into the life you really want.

Build confidence. Break through your patterns. Let go of old stories. Shift your relationship with your inner voice. Live a life of greater authenticity and truth — with tools and a plan for action that can last well after the retreat is over.

This is your moment to reset, overcome fear and self-doubt, and say “yes” to the life that’s waiting for you.

Recommended reading: Stay Woke, Justin Michael Williams

Deep Bodywork®, when applied with great sensitivity, is one of the most effective healing modalities available to the professional bodyworker. It combines the integrating qualities of flowing massage with therapeutic deep tissue work to promote relaxation, restore tissue health, and support long-term structural change. Developed by the Hollomans over the course of 40 years, the form emerged from the knowledge brought to and created at Esalen in the ’60s and ’70s by early bodywork masters.

Through Deep Bodywork techniques, practitioners can enter the deeper soft tissue layers, freeing previously dense, hardened areas that may be chronically painful due to a lack of fluid exchange and energy flow. As these areas soften and “re-organize,” chronic tension patterns release, revitalizing living tissues with blood, lymph, and “Chi” (life) energy.

With a clear curriculum and moves designed for easy integration into any current practice, we’ll focus on intermediate and advanced deep tissue techniques to enhance the therapeutic skills of practicing bodyworkers, including massage therapists, acupuncturists, physiotherapists, and chiropractors. Our primary intent is to deepen participants’ understanding of how to apply effective deep work on the back, hips, and shoulders, utilizing practical methods for treating acute and chronic pain in these areas.

Emphasis will be placed on proper body mechanics so practitioners can learn to work with a sense of inner ease and avoid placing unnecessary stress on their own bodies. We’ll also explore how these techniques can complement other healing modalities in the treatment of soft tissue pain for a multidisciplinary approach to pain relief and functional restoration. Previous massage experience is recommended for this workshop.

Recommended reading: Quantum Healing by Deepak Chopra

*30 CEU’s are available through the NCBTMB, provided by Deepbodywork® LLC for bodyworkers. There is an additional $50 fee for CEUs. Please contact johannaholloman@gmail.com or phollomanconsulting@gmail.com with any questions.

This workshop includes an additional $30 for materials.

Join Heidi Rose Robbins for an enlivening exploration of your astrological chart. Through group study, movement, writing, and poetry, we’ll bring our astrological map to life — and in so doing, we will practice loving, act courageously, and fully embrace our next life steps.

In this workshop, we will come together in the beauty of the circle to reflect and share wisdom. Your astrological chart is a lens through which you can see yourself and the gifts you have to share. As we study the map of the heavens from the moment we are born, we can become ever more generous and daring, naming our fears and uncertainties and courageously offering up our gifts to liberate love in others and ourselves.

During our time together, we will focus on:

• Exploring our personal astrological charts to uncover our greatest strengths, challenges, and clues about our future paths.
• Embodying astrological energies by moving and stretching our bodies into new spaces. No prior movement experience is required.
• Journaling and collage to visually and artistically express the planets and astrological signs in our charts.
• Using poetry to reveal and embody different aspects of our astrological map.

Once we receive your birth data, we will prepare your unique astrological chart, and you will receive it in the workshop! All are welcome. Previous knowledge of astrology, poetry, or movement is not necessary. Come with an open mind and a willingness to embrace the richness of your astrological chart.

Recommended reading: Everyday Radiance: 365 Zodiac-Inspired Prompts for Self-Care and Self-Renewal by Heidi Rose Robbins, Wild Compassion by Heidi Rose Robbins

Set out on an enlightening journey of self-discovery, guided by your own intuition and creativity! In this immersive workshop, you’ll uncover and access inner wisdom through the inspiring SoulCollage® method.

Developed by the late Seena Frost, this enchanting personal practice harnesses the magic of images, imagination, and intuition as a way to excavate insight and truth. Through this meaningful, affirming process, we create powerful collages representing the many facets of ourselves. With gentle guidance and just a few supplies — scissors, glue, and a wide selection of images — these collaged cards become gateways to the strength and wisdom we hold within, unlocking hidden treasures.

No prior art or writing experience is necessary, and all materials will be provided. All you need is an open heart and a curious spirit!

During this weeklong workshop, you’ll:

• Move toward increased self-awareness through card-making, journaling, meditation, group sharing, and other fun activities.
• Connect with your unique self through an exploration of your inner world and creative spirit.
• Leave with the beginnings of your own personal deck of collaged cards, a journal filled with your own wisdom, and numerous ways to continue the practice at home.

Carl Jung said, “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.” Join us for an insightful, artful adventure toward empowerment and reconnecting with your inner self!

This workshop includes an additional $30 for materials.

Our ancestors explored spirit-led movement to embody ecstatic states for generations. Whether as a form of celebration, mourning, or prayer, ecstatic dance has long served as sacred medicine to heal the hearts of individuals and communities.

Join us on this sacred land for a transformative weekend of ecstatic dance ceremony — a journey to tap into the body’s ancestral wisdom, alchemize stored emotions, and liberate the spirit. Supported by live music provided by an award-winning ecstatic dance DJ, we’ll surrender to freeform movement, awaken our power, and manifest hope.

Together, we will explore:

• Ecstatic dance journeys created by a live DJ.
• Grounding prayers to root into the spirit and awaken ancestral wisdom.
• Partner games that spark joy, connection, and embodied trust.
• Mirroring and witnessing practices that deepen attunement and compassion.

DTO, an award-winning producer endorsed by Deepak Chopra, will share his musical gifts as part of the workshop. Blending live instruments, electronic sounds, and ancient mantras, his music creates sacred sonic experiences designed to elevate consciousness.

Let’s cultivate collective empowerment and create a fully inclusive dance community rooted in presence, reverence, and prayer to groove with the divine as an offering of love. No dance experience is required.

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 $70 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 lies behind today’s evidence-based mind-body practices for well-being, resilience, and purpose? This three-day workshop explores the deep lineages and sacred traditions from which many modern methods arise, guided by teachers who walk both worlds of rigorous science and timeless wisdom.

At MD Anderson Cancer Center, Alejandro Chaoul pioneered programs to support patients with chronic illness through Tibetan Yoga, meditation, and integrative medicine. At UCSF, Eve Ekman developed and researched secular, evidence-based tools to strengthen emotional resilience and prevent burnout among healthcare providers.

Together, they will share cutting-edge science and evidence-based practices alongside the sacred dimensions often missing from conventional approaches to healing and renewal.

Participants will explore:

• Tibetan Yoga of Renewal through breathwork practices
• Mapping emotions underlying stress
• Sacred syllables and mantra to protect the mind
• Meditations to uplift and expand heart and mind

This workshop offers practical, research-informed tools and a sacred perspective to rekindle creativity, ease emotional distress, and reconnect with meaning and purpose — for patients, providers, seekers, or anyone on the path of healing.

This workshop has two options on length of stay: a traditional weeklong of two nights or a long weekend of three nights. The extended stay workshop will include more workshop content which is reflected in the extended stay schedule.

The Artist lives within everyone! Art can be made out of just about anything! It’s a time to leave the critic behind and allow oneself to play, nourish, and replenish the creative spirit. It’s also a time to enjoy the company and camaraderie of like-minded peers. Now is your time to discover the joys of art based on community and collaboration and to find out how meaningful and grand a shared, creative experience can be.

In this transformative workshop, we will use repurposed material in a whole new context of re-creation.

Come experiment with a vast array of reused materials to create mixed-media mosaics, sculptures, and collages. There will be an assortment of recycled glass, metals, wood, plastics, paper, photographs, fabrics, and old artifacts — bits and pieces of the past and present.

In a beautiful, nurturing, supportive setting, we will reclaim and shape society’s scraps and discarded objects into re-imagined meaning. Find your own inner voice of expression as you delve into the process of creating art out of different materials and mediums,  and learn new skills.

Not only will you have the opportunity to explore your own expression and immerse yourself in solo creations, but we will also engage in a collaborative group project to enter the whimsical world of community-oriented magic and play.

There is a transformative joy that comes from engaging with others in the artistic process. It opens doors unseen and forges deeper bonds between people. This exciting, shared experience teaches us how beautiful it is to break down barriers and collaborate.

This workshop is geared toward anyone with the desire to create. From the beginner to the advanced, this is a time to explore new possibilities. Together, we will:

• Explore our own creativity and immerse ourselves in solo artistic expression.
• Engage in a collaborative group project and enter the whimsical world of community-oriented magic and play.
• Leave the critic behind and allow ourselves to play, nourish, and replenish the creative spirit.
• Discover the joys of art based on community and collaboration and how meaningful and grand a shared experience can be.

If there are any recycled materials, special mementos, poems, or photos you would like to bring and include in our creations, please feel free!

This workshop includes an additional $115 for workshop materials.

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. We will explore being soft, brave, and available to the moment. This workshop is an immersion practice that explores our most vulnerable and 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

When you engage with another — whether a lover, friend, or colleague — are you doing what they want you to do or what they allow you to do? What is the difference, and why does it matter?

Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent is a groundbreaking model of relating that brings greater clarity and authenticity to our relationships in all areas of life. It creates a practice of separating out receiving and giving, which will challenge you, surprise you, and teach you a lot about yourself! As you become exquisitely aware of your desires and limits and how to communicate them, you will be free to make more embodied choices.

In this small group workshop uniquely crafted for Esalen, we will build on the somatic experience of the Wheel of Consent and its natural outgrowth of personal empowerment. We will expand our views to look more closely at our own power and how we can use it well.

This workshop will include curriculum, discussion, and practices to support participants in:

• Taking action for yourself or for another, and knowing the difference.
• Understanding who is doing and who it is for, and knowing the difference.
• Noticing, trusting, and valuing both your desires and your limits, which leads to empowerment and self-responsibility.
• Defining what power is (and isn’t), making friends with it, and using it beneficially.
• Accessing parts of yourself that have been hidden away that are ready to be seen, appreciated, and healed.

The Wheel of Consent is best experienced somatically — in the body. We will include the option to learn through touch, and, of course, you never have to experience touch you do not want — ever.

This workshop includes an additional $50 of faculty tuition.

Recommended reading: The Art of Receiving and Giving: The Wheel of Consent, by Betty Martin

A journey to heal oneself and awaken deeply from within. Through meditation, yoga, and time in nature, we will tap into the stories our bodies have to tell and develop skills to nourish ourselves in 2026.

This workshop focuses on the transition from one year to the next as an opportunity to purposefully cultivate a sense of renewal. During our time together, you will be guided to explore and experience what this means for you personally.

Ritual invocations of energy and the power of the Esalen grounds themselves will support your healing journey by providing an intentional space for you to reflect on all you have experienced individually and collectively within your community during the past year.

Throughout the weekend, we will share new ways of grounding and connecting to the sacred energy of nature and the elements constantly surrounding us.  This supports the act of renewal, cultivates greater presence, and creates capacity to build and replenish energy throughout the coming year.

In this workshop, all participants are invited:

• To understand themselves at a much deeper level.
• To begin meaningful personal transformation and discover tools to support their work.
• To gain a heightened sense of awareness and presence in ritual practice.
• To experience new ways of relating to nature, to receive the energy around them, and to form relationships with the natural world.
• To experience how healing resonates within a community.

Explore your unique creative process and express your human potential in a weekend deep dive with The Brothers Koren.

Discover your distinct creative personality and how to find harmony and coherence in your own creative process.

The brothers specialize in facilitating a safe space for you to move beyond the inhibitions and align to your authentic expressive impulse by identifying and supporting your distinct voice and creative code.

By using their embodied voice techniques, creative process design flow, and collaborative games, you will learn how to hold a space for playfully encountering your own brilliance and bring your creative expression to life.

Bring your voice, your ideas and your curiosity. All creative modalities are welcome. Art, music, voice, entrepreneurship, anything!

The brothers believe that almost everything we do in life involves a level of creative energy; from writing a song or painting a picture, to choosing what to wear in the morning and having a conversation – we are constantly improvising and using our creative life force.

However, many of us feel disconnected, blocked  and disempowered in our creative process. Some of us end up feeling stuck or shut down in different stages of our creations, whether experiencing trouble starting or finishing ideas.

What might be possible for you if your creative process was back in flow? The brothers are ready to help you reframe what it means to be creative, and to connect back to the way nature intended it.

Life is a radically creative act. Join them and explore what is possible!

No creative experience necessary.