Workshops

At the heart of Gestalt Practice lies the understanding that we can grow into greater wholeness and interconnectedness, both inside and out. Gestalt is an awareness practice that invites us to focus on the present moment as a path toward authentic growth, resilience, embodiment, and aliveness.

Its core principles are:

• Cultivating embodied presence and awareness
• Growing responsiveness, resilience, and choice
• Trusting the organism’s inherent capacity for self-regulation and co-regulation

In this workshop, we will focus on trusting the wisdom of our organismic self-regulation and highlight the role of somatic intelligence — our body’s innate ability to sense, respond, and adapt. We will explore how our emotional, mental, and physical well-being is shaped not only by our inner processes but also by our relationships with others, the more-than-human world, and the ecological systems we inhabit. Through embodied awareness practices and somatic inquiry, we’ll engage with natural regulation and balance, exploring vagal nerve and movement-based techniques that support emotional and physiological health.

The concept of an ecology of being invites us to recognize ourselves as living ecosystems within larger ecosystems. Just as nature thrives through balance and interdependence, we, too, rely on the rhythms of self-regulation, co-regulation, and our relationship with the earth. In this light, the boundaries of a “separate self” soften, and we enter an integrated ecology of being where inside and outside meet as one living process.

This workshop is appropriate for all levels of experience, with the understanding that participants will explore within the model of an awareness gym or lab, not that of therapy. A welcome letter will be sent upon registration along with additional information about our time together.

What if your greatest vulnerability could become your greatest strength? This transformative language arts workshop is designed for anyone ready to level up by unlocking their authenticity.

The curriculum draws from the wisdom in the instructor’s critically acclaimed book, Shame on You : How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification, which explores how shame is weaponized in our culture to keep us from knowing our worth and achieving our goals. Through reflective writing, shared stories, and guided readings, participants will explore ways to break free from shame’s grip and reclaim their power.

Through the act of writing and reading inspirational texts — along with learning about the instructor’s journey as a former sex worker and survivor of sexual exploitation and media humiliation — we will explore essential questions about the insidious role that shame plays in our modern lives. We will examine how shame hinders us and discuss effective ways to reclaim ourselves and our communities from its grasp.

Participants will be invited to:

• Learn about their own unique shame triggers.
• Develop a greater awareness of how shame functions in our society.
• Cultivate vulnerability by sharing intimate stories in a safe space.
• Practice empathetic listening as others speak their uncomfortable truths.

By developing shame resilience, we can reconnect to our highest goals and purest ideals. We can embody our most authentic self, and embolden others to do the same. The workshop is open to people of all gender identities and expressions and is appropriate for professionals and laypeople alike. No prior writing experience is necessary; all levels are welcome, and all course materials will be provided.

This workshop has a faculty funded scholarship to attend this workshop, please email melissa.petro@gmail.com for more details.

This workshop is more than a learning experience — it’s an invitation to connect deeply with yourself and others in a supportive and creative space. Together, we’ll explore the profound potential for healing and growth that arises when art and psychology converge. No artistic experience is necessary; this workshop is about creative expression, not perfection.

Integrating art therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), this workshop combines two evidence-based emotional and psychological growth approaches. Creating art stimulates your brain, unlocking new pathways and possibilities. Art therapy offers a dynamic way to visually explore your thoughts and emotions, providing a unique outlet for self-expression and growth. CBT complements this process by helping you identify and challenge dysfunctional thought patterns, empowering you to shift your mindset and embrace change.

• Bring your inner monster to life through art, and then engage with it through conversation to gain clarity and understanding.
• Delve into themes of control, shifting perspectives, and transformation through the power of poetry.
• Draw your own emotional landscape and gain practical tools to continue your healing journey long after our time together.
• Compose your personal Declaration of Independence (to free yourself from what keeps you stuck) and collage your flag representing your new state of mind.

Led by a board-certified art therapist, this fully interactive workshop combines drawing, collage, painting, writing, and group dialogue. Together, we’ll explore the fears, anxieties, and barriers holding you back, empowering you with tools to create meaningful and lasting change.

Participants are asked to bring their own sketchbook so all of your retreat artwork stays in one place as a keepsake. Recommended options: 8.5″ x 8.5″ or 7.6″ x 5.3″ Watercolor paints will be provided, but you’re welcome to bring your own if you’d prefer not to share (optional). Recommended sets: Full set or Travel set

All other supplies will be provided—brushes, paper, pens, colored paper, glue, pastels, and more. A materials fee of $17.50 is included in the registration cost to cover shared materials.

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.

Misconceptions about Reiki place its origins anywhere from ancient Egypt to Tibet — even from angels and aliens — but we hold the truth in the palms of our hands. In this workshop, we’ll explore the roots of this Japanese practice and discover the transformative power of universal life energy through Reiki meditations and transmissions.

Over this weekend, students will have the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of Reiki from both historical and experiential perspectives. We will discuss how this energy-healing technique originated in Japan, find out how it was influenced by other practices and cultures, and study how it evolved over time.

Participants will have the opportunity to learn:

• Various aspects of Reiki practice.
• Meditations taught by Reiki’s founder, Usui Mikao.
• Practices to connect to Reiki’s universal source and increase the flow of Reiki through one’s body.
• Reiki’s Japanese origins and how it is practiced and taught today

Participants will receive empowerment ceremonies called reiju or Reiki blessings. We will experience the power of Reiki self-treatments, how to give full Reiki treatments to others, and how to receive Reiki from another, all within the unique Reiki-filled space that is Esalen.  

Reiki is medicine for me — both inward and outward. When I first received Reiki, it was in an inward way. It opened me and made me feel what space is, what energy is, and what the universe is. — Shinobu Saito, a Reiki Master initiated by Hawayo Takata

In every wisdom tradition, emotions are gateways to awakening. Joy, sorrow, longing, irritation, compassion — each carries insights that open us to clarity and equanimity. Within the mandala of our inner life, nothing is left out. Every emotion holds a teaching and a wisdom quality — and because emotions are relational, this retreat emphasizes self-reflection to foster resilience and care in our relationships.

Chandra Easton and Eve Ekman, longtime friends, lovers of the dharma, and scholars of the mind, will guide a journey into the heart of emotional awareness. This five-day workshop, rooted in Tantric Buddhism, contemplative science, and embodied practice, will honor the universality of emotions and explore the wisdom each one holds. Our time together will invite intimacy with our own hearts and a quantum view of interconnection that underlies our world.

Central to our time together is the Mandala Method, a multidimensional path drawing on Buddhist psychology, sound, elemental wisdom, and somatic awareness. Through meditation, movement, art, music, and nature, participants will learn to meet emotions as trusted companions on the path of awakening.

We’ll also engage with Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB), a contemplative, science-based training Eve has taught for over 15 years. CEB offers both microscopic precision to map emotional patterns and a telescopic view to place them in the broader context of life, relationships, and mind science.

Retreat practices include:

• Guided meditations rooted in the Mandala Method and CEB
• Mapping emotional experience for clarity and meaning
• Somatic, elemental, artistic, and musical practices
• Group dialogue to uncover emotional wisdom

This workshop welcomes all who long to deepen emotional wisdom, savor joy, and rest in true equanimity. No prior meditation experience is required — only an open heart and curious spirit.

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

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 + 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 by Shauna Shapiro.

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

This workshop includes $390 in additional faculty tuition fee.

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.

Journey into the root of shame and guilt and the need to belong. Through the lens of Systemic Constellations, we will examine how these emotions function not as personal flaws but as an aspect of the systemic intelligence of love itself.

At the heart of Systemic Constellations lies an understanding that all humans have a deep need and right to belong. This need forms the foundation of what Systemic Constellations calls the “Orders of Love” — the natural orders that maintain harmony within families and larger systems. When the sense of belonging is disrupted or denied, guilt and shame arise as symptoms; discomfort, imbalance, feeling stuck, illness, and other challenges are the catalysts that can guide us toward healing, clarity, and inclusion.

In this workshop, you will have the opportunity to explore what stifles progress and what allows love to flow. We will create three-dimensional living maps of the systems you belong to, making the hidden dynamics that shape our lives visible.

Each day will combine teaching, guided meditation, and Constellations to illuminate the deeper structures of love and belonging. Morning sessions begin with grounding and awareness practices. Afternoons unfold into experiential Constellation work, where participants may witness, represent, or serve as issue holders. The process is spacious, expansive, restorative, and deeply human — an invitation to meet life as it is.

This workshop welcomes anyone drawn to understanding the hidden patterns within their family system and wider fields of belonging — migration and ethnicity, to name a couple. It is suited to practitioners, therapists, and coaches seeking to integrate systemic awareness into their professional work. Open to people of all gender expressions and identities. No prior experience with Constellations is required, only curiosity, openness, and the willingness to explore with heart.

Have you created the impact you want? Are you showing up the way you’d like? Are you going in the right direction? You have never before been where you are right now. You have never been the age you are today, never had the experiences you now possess. This is your time to pause and reflect. We rarely allow ourselves the opportunity to stop and look at what is changing — or discover what we truly need to feel fulfilled.

This very interactive workshop will include lots of experiential exercises. Though we will cover valuable theory and there will be plenty of reflection time, this will not be a series of talks/lectures. There will be movement, coaching, a little dance, and lots of opportunity to share insights. Active participation is strongly encouraged; however, participation will always be voluntary.

Our goal is to step back from our lives and renew. We will create a courageous community to challenge,nurture and express ourselves. Participants will have the opportunity to learn what brings them joy and purpose, and then cultivate a vision to serve as a foundation for both the next year and next phase of life.

We will engage in a progression of individual and group exercises focused on reflection, movement, and listening to our inner wisdom. We’ll discover how to navigate major life transitions and learn skills to access our intuition. We will uncover the behaviors that support our overall success, and reveal which ones undermine our goals and fulfillment. If you are passionate about having a more powerful and authentic impact on the world around you, this program of renewal will be especially valuable.

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than a year of conversation. — Plato

This interactive workshop is designed to ignite your creativity and foster connections through the transformative power of improvisation, play, and imagination. Embark on a captivating journey in which science and spontaneity collide, delve into the world of improvisation, and discover its transformative impacts on the brain.

Find out how engaging in playful activities can stimulate the neural pathways linked to flow, enhance cognitive flexibility, and build emotional resilience. Through scientifically grounded interactive exercises, you’ll learn how improv can shape your mindset and improve your well-being.

Together, we’ll experience the delight of collaborative exploration and engage in partner exercises and group games. You’ll forge meaningful connections with fellow participants as you create spontaneous stories and navigate laughter-filled challenges. Through an unforgettable blend of science, creativity, and connection, we will unleash the imagination and welcome the unexpected with open arms!

Whether you’re new to improv or a seasoned performer, our workshop provides an open and encouraging space for exploration, learning, and growth. Join us for this adventure of self-discovery through play that will leave you feeling inspired, energized, and ready to embrace change.

Recommended Reading: Play by Stuart Brown, Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation by Charna Halpern, Del Close and Kim Johnson and This Is the Voice by John Colapinto

This workshop includes an additional $15 materials fee.

For thousands of years across many cultures, enhanced states of consciousness have been used as a strategy for meaningful transformation and self-exploration — marking life’s major transitions and rites of passage and deepening one’s connection to self, community, and the natural world.

In this workshop, we will gather in the rich field of community for an immersive experience and personal exploration of enhanced states of consciousness. Our time together will include strategies for navigating, integrating, and preparing for these experiences. Holotropic Breathwork® offers language, method, and structure for turning inward and working with deeply personal material as it emerges, uniquely, from one’s own intrinsic intelligence. We will be supported by time-honored practices that are simple, yet powerful. These unique states can offer us unmediated access to the self as a deep source of healing, insight, and evolutionary potential. Participants will experience four Holotropic Breathwork sessions, with two as “breather” and two as “sitter.” Your time assisting others in “non-ordinary state” space will complement your personal exploration. Additionally, contemplative practice, movement, expressive arts, and time in community will support the integration process throughout the week.

Originating from the pioneering psychedelic researcher, Stanislav Grof, and his late wife, Christina Grof, Holotropic Breathwork is a particularly useful practice for those interested in or training to work in psychedelic-assisted therapy.

This workshop is suited for all those of heart who are curious about exploring enhanced states of consciousness and opening to an evolutionary process of unfolding. New or novice explorers/breathers are very welcome, along with experienced navigators/breathers. The fundamental urge to grow, to heal, and to be transformed in a truly authentic way drives us not outward but inward, toward the depths of our own being, toward a deep mystery within. This inward journey strengthens and nourishes our senses in a way that can revitalize our daily lives with creative and emergent energy.

This workshop includes an additional $75 of faculty tuition.

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 with 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 Communication: 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 in faculty tuition.

As organized religion begins to lose its relevance, a fast-growing community of the spiritual but not religious rises to take its place. We are thirsty for the sacred and long to experience it within the heart of our everyday lives.

In this experiential workshop, we will cultivate a mystical way of seeing to reclaim awe and wonder, not in spite of but rather through the portal of our ordinary lives. By intentionally seeking the presence of the sacred in our closest relationships, work, food, pleasure, loss, and grief, we release false notions that mystical experiences are reserved for the spiritually elite and that intimacy with the divine can only be experienced in a religious context.

Throughout the workshop, we will walk through seven gates to reveal your everyday life as a sacred landscape: intention, attention, surrender, teachers and teachings, community, feeling, and ongoing unfoldment. Teachings from Mirabai will be interwoven with writing exercises, both small and whole-group discussions, guided and silent meditation, and interspiritual chanting.

Your life itself is sacred ground. When you decide to walk the path of the mystic, the mundane shows up as miraculous, the boring becomes fascinating, and your perceived shortcomings turn out to be your greatest gifts.

Recommended Reading: Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground, by Mirabai Starr and Wild Mercy by Mirabai Starr

Love is an ecological process.  — Andreas Weber

Most of us have lost our sensual connection to our bodies and to the living world. We have become numb to the Earth’s touch. This week-long workshop offers an immersive, slow, and sensual experience in the erotic ecology pathway — a space to reawaken our sensory, pleasurable, and nourishing connection to two landscapes: our bodies and nature. You are invited to slow down to let the Earth touch you, heal you, and love you.

Through embodied exploration, you can rediscover your birthright: an intimate relationship with the natural world as lover and healer. This kinship reminds us that, at our essence, we are not separate from the Earth — we are the Earth.

Set amongst Esalen’s sacred landscape, where redwood forest meets the Pacific Ocean, we’ll engage in practices designed to open you to ecological eros: the ever-living and abundant source of pleasure, aliveness, and vitality.

During our time together, you are invited to:

• Learn and practice the eight stages of interoceptive awareness, our body’s portal to sensing the Earth.
• Attune to the pace of nature and move at the rhythm of our surroundings.
• Remember, feel, and embody your own aliveness.
• Awaken a felt sense of kinship with the natural world.
• Reconnect with your body’s innate wisdom and capacity for healing.
• Expand in playful connection to nature through poetry, mandala-making, and dance.
• Savor the nourishment of surrendering to the Earth’s embrace.
• Practice consent in relationship to self, others, and nature.
• Taste the deepest wellspring of rest and nourishment that is always available to us.
• Learn how to speak the language of the Earth.
• Connect your own erotic vitality to collective liberation and ecological justice.

You’ll be guided to return home with the kindled flame of a love affair with the Earth — an enduring resource in an increasingly disconnected world.

Recommended Reading: Heartwood: The Wisdom and Healing Kinship of Trees by Lindsay Branham and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Something within you already knows who you are, and now is the time to remember and awaken the genius that already dwells within.

This is a luminous, heart-centered journey guided by the Gene Keys and the embodied wisdom of the sacred land of Esalen Institute. Rooted in an eternal body of wisdom, the Gene Keys weave together ancient and contemporary sources, including Western and Eastern astrology, the Chinese I Ching, the mystical Kabbalah, the Tree of Life, and chakra meridian systems, alongside modern explorations of genetics, quantum physics, and humanity’s evolving relationship with the cosmos. This living transmission supports deep insight, integration, and authentic self-recognition, inviting us to slow down and attune to our inner knowing.

During our time together, you will engage in experiences designed to foster embodiment, clarity, and integration, including:

• Exploring the Gene Keys Activation Sequence to illuminate your life’s work, the creative contribution you are here to offer, your evolution, the challenges that catalyze growth, your radiance, the key to vitality and well-being, and your purpose — the deeper meaning and direction of your life.
• Journeying through the three frequencies of each Gene Key, learning to meet your shadows with compassion, awaken your gifts as natural and authentic expressions, and open to your siddhis, or superpowers, as embodied mastery.
• Engaging in guided self-inquiry, contemplation, and intuitive practices that deepen inner listening, clarity, and self-trust.
• Participating in embodied practices that regulate the nervous system and anchor insight into lived experience.
• Connecting with the land, the three sacred waters, and the living intelligence of nature to deepen presence, attunement, and belonging.

Participants are required to bring their exact birth date, birth time, and birth place, along with a journal.

This workshop invites a profound reorientation where your shadows become doorways to integration and insight, gifts become embodied self-expression, and superpowers emerge as the natural radiance of your true nature.

Held by the cliffs, gardens, and vast Pacific horizon, this workshop invites you to slow down, awaken your senses, and remember your belonging to the living world. Through guided outdoor meditations and embodied awareness, you’ll reconnect with nature as teacher and mirror, discovering joy, wisdom, and wonder along the way. Come ready to breathe deeply, listen wholeheartedly, and be restored by the beauty that surrounds you.

The body is a dense and visible aspect of a unified field. It can’t be separated from the field in which it lives. The whole body accepts. — Stephen Schwartz

If you have ever danced, you know the power of movement to unlock the hidden places within — the shortcut faster than years of talk therapy. In its elegant way, dance lets us be with what needs attention and love inside.

Rediscover the magic of life through the miracle of conscious movement and the healing power of embodied presence. Drop into your body, reconnect with what most matters to you, and feel alive again in your messy, mysterious, and magnificent human body.

Inspired by a wide range of music and the great sound of silence, supported by the elemental presence of nature, we will travel together across the landscapes of relating — to self, other, the world, and the great mystery that we also are.

During our week together, using the practice of Soul Motion® and the body-based explorations of Gestalt, we will:

• Awaken each day with movement, breath, and sensory awareness.
• Explore our inner landscape through solo and guided movement journeys.
• Connect deeply with others in paired- and small-group practices to be seen and heard.
• Move outdoors, drawing presence and inspiration from nature.
• Reflect and integrate through circles of sharing and silence.
• Include time for teaching and discussion, though most of the program is experiential.

In the process of waking up together — sometimes glorious, sometimes clumsy — we will deepen our skills for empathy and relational fluidity and find ourselves held in effortless belonging.

Zuza Engler is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) to sponsor continuing education programs for LMFT, LCSW, and LPCC. This workshop offers 18 CE credits for therapists and social workers. Please email angel@zuzaengler.com for more details about CE credits. There will be a $25 fee for the certificate.

Recommended Reading: Body Process: A Gestalt Approach to Working with the Body in Psychotherapy by James Kepner, Spirituality of the Body: Bioenergetics for Grace and Harmony by Alexander Lowen and The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness by Pema Chödrön

Discover research-backed tools to create a loving relationship. Together, we’ll engage in a comprehensive exploration of the psychological and scientific aspects of dating and healthy relationships. We’ll delve into the science of attraction, unlocking the mysteries of chemistry and creating and sustaining meaningful connections — all grounded in the latest research on relationships.

Our key focus will be the art of building deeper connections through effective communication techniques and empathetic understanding. You’ll learn how to nurture skills that foster intimacy, trust, and lasting bonds. Mastering a comprehensive framework for effective communication is essential for stronger, more resilient relationships, and you’ll learn practical ways to apply these skills in your daily interactions.

In this workshop, you’ll find out how to create a personal relationship narrative that aligns with your current life. Reflective exercises will help you identify and rewire limiting beliefs about love for healthier and more fulfilling bonds. The “Dating Funnel” framework, a structured approach that demystifies the various stages of relationship development, will provide a clear strategy for navigating the dating world, from initial contact to a committed relationship.

By the end of our time together, you will be equipped with a comprehensive set of tools to navigate your relationship journey with confidence and clarity. Understand the foundations of attraction, develop communication skills, and reshape your love narrative.

This workshop is open to all gender identities and expressions and all sexual orientations.

Recommended Reading: Breakup Bootcamp: The Science of Rewiring Your Heart and Unsingle: How to Date Smarter and Create Love That Lasts by Amy Chan

This workshop includes an additional $15 materials fee.

Have you ever worked hard to make a change, only to find yourself slipping back into old habits? Want to supercharge your ability to stimulate behavior change in others when it comes to the issues you care about the most? Is it time to break free from old patterns and build your next chapter? This workshop is for people in the process of change and those who work as change agents with individuals, groups, and organizations and in society.

Through dialogue, experiential practice, and creative process, we will bridge the science of breakthroughs with indigenous, religious, spiritual, and secular models of transformation. You will:

• Learn what works and what doesn’t to inspire lasting change in yourself and others.
• Explore how peak experiences, a-ha! moments and awe can stimulate change.
• Examine how we and those we work with can get stuck or lost, and find ways to shake free from periods of inertia or patterns that prevent us from moving forward.
• Investigate the transformative potential of pain, hitting bottom, and post-traumatic growth.
• Delve into stories, symbols, and metaphors of transformation to guide your path.

Join us for this transformational exploration of our most deeply entrenched behaviors. Learn how to break free from the patterns that no longer serve you — and create new habits that will change your life.

Additional embodiment practices will be provided by Guest Faculty Member Nichol Chase.

Nichol’s yoga practice is informed by a vast and eclectic set of influences that blend invigorating flow with precise and insightful instruction and extensive study with a variety of innovative teachers. She is a Garrison Institute Fellow and a faculty member and teacher trainer for The Mazé Method.

Recommended Reading: Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life by Marilyn Schlitz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok

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.

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 5 day workshop, we will naturally dive into a deeper learning experience with much more material than we can cover in a weekend. The extra time allows for a fuller integration of all the practices. Each couple will experience exercises and practices to do with each other, therapeutic coaching by the Vissells, the support of other couples, and time for sharing after each practice.

We will share a collection of tools for deeper appreciation and communication building, including healthy communication of feelings, our partner as a mirror, understanding and respecting each other’s differences, conflict resolution, healing past hurts, sexual wellness, inner child/inner parent, taking responsibility and developing a true inner connection. Take the opportunity to explore these tools with your partner during the workshop and learn to incorporate them into everyday life as you continue to improve your relationship at home. For more information, visit www.SharedHeart.org.

This workshop welcomes couples of all gender and sexual orientations.

Immerse yourself in a restorative workshop designed specifically for male-identifying people of color. This unique experience offers a sanctuary for growth and self-discovery, fostering a supportive community where participants can connect and build meaningful relationships.

Black boys and men of color have limited opportunities to engage in mind-body healing practices, and there are not nearly enough representations of Black male wellness; this workshop provides tools for transformation, healing, and empowerment while also addressing the interconnected issues of mental health, racial disparities, and community well-being.

Danny and Darnell combine meditation, yoga, and reflective writing to create a nurturing space for participants to explore their inner selves and cultivate mindfulness. Through guided meditations and intention-setting exercises, participants will center their energy and focus on their personal growth journey.

This workshop features:

• Rejuvenating Hatha Yoga sessions, engaging participants in gentle stretches, balancing poses, and breathing exercises to promote physical and mental well-being.
• Yoga Nidra sessions to provide deep relaxation and inner exploration for a meditative state of consciousness.
• Reflective writing sessions to offer a profound opportunity for self-discovery and life visioning, guided by thoughtful prompts.
• Shadow work writing sessions to confront and integrate repressed aspects of the self for holistic healing.
• Somatic movement, breathwork, and primal movement exercises to facilitate healing and emotional release.
• Healing circles to enrich the experience, fostering support and collective healing energy.

With reflective writing and a closing circle, participants will be able to process their experiences, express gratitude, and set future intentions to carry them well beyond Esalen.

Revolutionary findings in neuroscience have demonstrated that we can literally re-architect the very structure of our brains. In fact, we can even rewire our neurology to be more focused, calmer, and happier.

In this workshop, Dr. Shauna Shapiro — a leading scientist studying the effects of meditation on well-being — will teach you the most powerful science-based practices for increasing the neural pathways of happiness. She’ll explain basic brain science and offer a clear roadmap for living a joyful, connected, and meaningful life. Be prepared for unexpected transformation and delight.

During this weekend workshop, we’ll learn:

• Science-based practices to increase your baseline level of happiness.
• How to cultivate greater joy, gratitude, and connection.
• To integrate these practices into our everyday lives.

Recommended Reading: Good Morning, I Love You: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Practices to Rewire the Brain for Calm, Clarity + Joy and Good Morning, I Love You: A Guided Journal for Calm, Clarity + Joy by Shauna Shapiro.

This workshop includes an additional $375 faculty tuition. *For anyone facing financial hardship, Dr. Shauna Shapiro invites you to contact her directly for tuition scholarship at slshapiro@scu.edu.

Join us for an immersive five-day experience where ancient breath practices intersect with contemporary psychology to unlock the transformational power of your breath. For millennia, diverse yogic and spiritual traditions have harmonized breathwork with mindfulness to foster psychological healing and spiritual growth. Today, science validates the profound impact of breathwork and embodied awareness on stress management and immune resilience. Visionaries like Bessel van der Kolk champion the integration of breath, movement, awareness development, and educated touch for healing trauma.

On the sacred grounds of Esalen, under the expert guidance of the Hollomans, participants will have the opportunity to experience how breath can create altered states of consciousness, supporting deep psychological and spiritual exploration. Perry and Johanna use the powerful tool of Gestalt Inquiry to integrate these experiences into a deeper understanding of who we truly are. Participants will engage in various forms of breathwork, including extended two-to-three-hour breath journeys that open expanded states of consciousness and doorways to deeper dimensions of being. We will also begin our days with shorter, 50-minute “daily-dose” breath practices, perfect for at-home use.

Perry and Johanna will create a safe and supportive environment through Integrative Gestalt Practice and group sharing, ensuring that the insights gained from breathwork support your journey of healing and self-actualization.

In this workshop, you are invited to:

• Engage in two extended two to three hour Hologenic breath meditations to explore the unconscious mind and access altered states of consciousness, complemented by shorter, 50-minute “daily dose” breath practices for ongoing use at home.
• Learn the art of self-inquiry through Integrative Gestalt to cultivate “presence-based consciousness” in daily life.
• Apply breathwork and Integrative Gestalt techniques to address trauma and restore our innate capacities for self-organization and healing.

Embark on this transformative journey designed to nurture personal healing and spiritual growth. Learn essential skills that you can practice in your daily life to continue your journey of self-healing and spiritual development. Whether you’re a professional seeking to expand your practice through the power of breath or an individual committed to deepening self-inquiry, we welcome you to join us for this exploration into expanded realms of consciousness!

Recommended Reading: Breath by James Nestor

This workshop includes an additional $50 material fee.

Disclaimer: Esalen workshops do not involve the use, provision, or facilitation of any psychoactive substances. Breath practice can be catalyzing. Individuals with any significant medical concerns, including a history of stroke, seizures, or cardiac issues, should consult with their physician prior to participation. If you are pregnant, or think you might be, please consult your physician.

How would it feel to move into a meaningful relationship with the living world? Beyond a mere passive appreciation of nature? In the long arc of human history, people across all cultures and traditions have lived in communion with the lands they called home. Though this intrinsic connection has been largely severed in our modern age, the perspectives and practices common to our respective Earth-reverent ancestors are not lost. They lie dormant in the land, among the wild beings, and in our own animal bodies, waiting patiently to be remembered and renewed.

Immersed in the beauty of the Esselen tribal lands now known as Big Sur, we will humbly walk the trails in pursuit of reunion with the wild Earth. We will set out each morning for hikes amongst ancient redwoods, golden grasslands, and fragrant chaparral. Our community and teachers will include the plants, animals, stones, and all aspects of the wild landscape. Acknowledging Big Sur to be the ancestral territory of the Esselen tribe, we will endeavor to walk as reverent and respectful guests on sacred land.

Along the trail, we will cultivate innate capacities for presence and wonder, build ecological knowledge, and explore pathways of reciprocity and connection with the natural world. Pausing together to learn from the land, we will participate in some of the most potent work of our time: rejoining our great family on this wild Earth.

Hiking 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 three to six miles long with uneven and often steep terrain. If you have any questions about your ability to participate, please read the workshop FAQs or email info@wildtender.com.

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

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 with sustained awareness. Evidence suggests reaching this state through NSDR protocols, such as yoga nidra, can reset dopamine levels and provide numerous physical and mental health benefits — including better sleep and enhanced neuroplasticity.

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

In the words of Carl Jung, “People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.”

This immersive week-long lab is for creators of all kinds—writers, inventors, filmmakers, musicians, and entrepreneurs—anyone who wishes to integrate their spirituality and creativity to tap into the deepest source of inspiration and higher intelligence as they bring guided work into the world. By breaking down this process of allowing into three stages (Creation, Manifestation, and Transmission), we will walk together along an impactful, sacred path designed for cohesion, connection, incubation, and transformation.

We live in a world of great distraction that doesn’t encourage deep listening. It is imperative to reverse those outer-facing sensory “searchlights” and go inwards. When you dive into the field of all possibilities, ideas surprisingly find you with a very specific intention. As you attune to that purpose, you gain discernment, direction, momentum, and flow.

Over the course of the week, you’ll face the “demons” that get in the way of meaningful work, including inertia, ego, outer blocks, and inner resistance. You will discover how obstacles can become allies in your process, helping you to foster organic, sustainable partnerships, growth, and co-creation.

In this workshop, you’ll be guided through:

• Nonlinear brainstorming to invite new and deeper relationships to ideas.
• “Hotseat Exercises” and small group breakouts to foster vulnerability and creative risk-taking
• Kinetic creation, such as yoga, meditation, and energy balancing, to increase attunement
• Radical pivots and adaptivity to meet obstacles with poise and intelligence.
• Case studies.

Employing timeless principles from Vedic philosophy, this class will use myriad modalities to deepen your inspiration, along with experiential exercises that will help you flow. You will do yoga, breathwork, meditation, and movement to tap into the matrix of your creative capacity. You’ll recalibrate intentions and goals. Every step of the lab will contain practical solutions to push through whatever is in your way.

The lab is open to creators of all levels. You can attend either as an “incubator” (with a specific project or idea that you want to workshop) or as an “observer/participant” (to glean knowledge about conscious creation by watching the process unfold and also participating). If you are planning to workshop a specific project, please tell us about it briefly in one paragraph, describing where you are with it, where you want to take it, and any obstacles (including internal) that are in your way. Kindly email us at: S2S@thisiscounterpointfilms.com.

Recommended Reading: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin, and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

Peak experiences and personal revelations can be dazzling, but the deeper work of transformation is often overlooked. Many have touched something sacred through psychedelics, mystical states, grief, love, or profound life transitions, yet are left with an unfinished question: How do I live in service to what I’ve seen?

Rooted in Jungian psychology, contemplative practice, and symbolic imagination, the week is devoted to the art of integration as a lifelong discipline of becoming. We will explore the crucial difference between having an experience and being changed by one.

This workshop offers a grounded, initiatory path for those who understand that an experience alone is not enough. Ecstatic experiences are often treated as events to be had or moments to be repeated. In the West, we often do not understand how to let these extraordinary states of consciousness inform a way of life. This requires a framework for integration, one that teaches us how to metabolize these encounters symbolically, psychologically, and ethically, so they reshape how we live, love, and relate.

Together, we will explore how altered states — specifically those experienced through psychedelics — can become initiatory rather than episodic. We’ll examine how these experiences shape the nervous system, constellate archetypal material, and invite us into a more conscious relationship with imagination, psyche, and the sacred.

Participants are invited to:

• Learn how Jungian frameworks such as shadow work, archetypes, and symbolic amplification support sustained integration.
• Engage in guided practices for anchoring insight into daily life, including journaling, inner work, somatic reflection, ritual, and sacred conversation.
• Reflect on the risks of “spiritual inflation” and the necessity of humility, discipline, and reverence after awakening experiences.
• Explore the cultural myths surrounding psychedelics and reframe medicine work as one expression within a larger soul journey.
• Reconnect with the deeper values of love, kindness, accountability, and relational responsibility as the true fruits of spiritual work.

This course is not about chasing visions. It is about carrying them with integrity.

While this workshop explores the history and meaning of psychedelic and non-ordinary states, Esalen workshops do not involve the use, provision, or facilitation of any psychoactive substances.

Join us for a celebration of sound and light at the onset of summer, when sunlight stretches to its fullest. By honoring light in its many forms — sunlight, soul light, and vibrational light — this experiential retreat invites you to align with the light found within and through seven alchemy sound journeys, designed to support deep relaxation, gentle re-patterning of the nervous system, and embodied presence.

Composed with a dynamic collection of alchemy crystal bowls — instruments of crystalline intelligence — these alchemical sound journeys can help clear and activate your energy centers (chakras). As we journey from root to crown, you’ll receive a golden thread symbolizing the sushumna nadi, your body’s central pathway of light. Day by day, you’ll mark this thread with colors, symbols, or words that arise to create a sacred artifact — a visual map of the week’s unfolding.

Each day includes creative practices, authentic movement, nature immersion, and teachings to restore connection to Self and source. Big Sur elder Penny Vieregge will join us midweek to share the mystical poetry of Hafiz and awaken your heart chakra.

You will have the opportunity to:

• Experience how sacred sound can help release chronic tension, clear energetic stagnation, and open pathways to clarity and inspiration.
• Learn the history and science of sound healing, with an opportunity to play the alchemy crystal bowls and experience their resonance firsthand.
• Co-create a collective Flower of Life mandala, woven with individual golden threads into a living pattern of light.

Held within Esalen’s wild beauty, where the land, ocean, mineral hot springs, and towering trees invite deep renewal, this solstice retreat offers space to soften, realign, and reconnect with what matters most.

Family photographs carry stories, both spoken and unspoken, about where we come from and who we have become. In this experiential workshop, participants will use personal family photos as catalysts for reflection, emotional awareness, and a deeper understanding of identity.

Through guided exercises, gentle inquiry, and shared witnessing, you will explore:

• The emotional signatures carried in family images.
• Patterns of belonging, loss, resilience, and connection.
• How family roles are expressed visually.
• The stories we inherited and the ones we are ready to update.
• Moments of beauty, ambiguity, and mystery that live in our lineage.

In this workshop, you’ll have the opportunity to gain new insights, renewed compassion for your family system, and an expanded sense of your own narrative. No artistic or Gestalt experience is required.

The artist is essentially a channel. — Piet Mondrian

Explore the nature of creativity — what fuels it, where it comes from, and how we live with it. Is inspiration something we receive from beyond or something we shape from within? Do artists create, channel, or both?

In this workshop, we will consider the creative process not only as a soaring flight of inspiration, but also as a grounded practice of returning, refining, and working with what lands. Through meditation, movement, writing, and dialogue, we’ll explore the terrain where art, channeling, and creation intersect. We will build upon William James’ notion that our stream of consciousness alternates between flights and perchings.

Together, we will:

• Delve into the latest neuroscientific studies that explain what happens during experiences of insight and flow.
• Discuss parallels between artists and mediums — from Jack Kerouac and Zora Neale Hurston to Edgar Cayce and Helena Blavatsky.
• Investigate techniques for overcoming blocks to creativity.
• Engage in movement and meditation practices and for creativity.
• Develop our personal “creativity lotus” by sampling multisensory activities as well as expressive writing and drawing.

This workshop holds space for those curious about the origins of creativity and for those who want to engage more fully with how inspiration appears — and disappears — in the rhythm of a creative life.

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. — Howard Thurman

There is a vital force in the universe — the spark of life itself.  It’s in the blade of grass bursting forth from seemingly dormant ground after a long winter. It’s the instinct that calls the baby bird to launch from the nest. It’s the aliveness that guides us to our deepest truth, the illuminator of the precious present and our truest path. When we follow its call, life begins to move through us with greater clarity, courage, and purpose.

If you’ve ever longed to feel more alive, more aligned, or simply more you, this workshop offers a space to rediscover the spark that lives within. Through a blend of writing, reflection, and somatic practices, weaving together aikido, meditation, and psychology, you’ll be guided back into a deep connection with yourself.  

In the company of a supportive community, your truth will be witnessed — gently, openly, and without judgment. These accessible practices are designed for every body and ability to help you come into direct contact with your aliveness, center into your body’s wisdom, and build the embodied presence that allows life to lead.

We all have a story to tell. But turning your life into an engaging and meaningful narrative requires both keen self-awareness and a working knowledge of basic storytelling. This experiential workshop invites writers at all levels, from personal journalers to published authors, to cultivate the skills needed to tell the most compelling — and truest — story.

We’ll begin each day with a short burst of early morning free writing, taking advantage of what author Ruth Ozeki calls “the liminal state,” when the brain is most flexible and the internal judge is still asleep. Everyone will be invited to share their morning writing in small groups that foster a safe and supportive environment.

We’ll follow with a mix of craft talks, incorporating examples from published works, and several sessions of prompted free writing to help us sharpen our skills and access the deepest part of our own stories.

Time will be set aside every afternoon to share our writing with the group at large. Workshop participants will leave with a clear sense of where their story lies — and how to get it on the page.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed.
— Mary Oliver

From the beginning of time, the natural world has invited humans to pause, reflect, and reconnect with life’s essence. This workshop offers an opportunity to immerse yourself in Big Sur’s awe-inspiring wilderness and the art of authentic contemplation. Together, we will deepen our awareness of the wilds within and around us, rediscovering the simple yet profound practice of being fully present and alive.

Big Sur’s stunning landscapes — rugged cliffs, ocean breezes, and ancient forests — will serve as both our setting and our teacher. Through mindful awareness and direct experience, we can awaken our inherent connection to the elemental, allowing the magnificence of this wild world to touch our bodies, minds, and spirits.

Highlights of the Week

Nature as Teacher: Direct experience of the elements — earth beneath your feet, Pacific waves crashing, fresh coastal air, and Esalen’s healing hot springs — awakening the senses and inviting relationship with an animate world.

Daily Wilderness Hikes: Explore Big Sur’s natural beauty and rich ecological diversity through daily hikes of approximately 2–6 miles across varied terrain.

Contemplative Practices: Engage in timeless and contemporary practices of mindfulness, movement, and stillness, cultivating presence, aliveness, and deeper relationship with self, others, and the wild.

Community Connection: Share nourishing meals, heartfelt conversations, and moments of silence, fostering a sense of belonging with one another and with the living world around us.

Integration and Simplicity: Discover ways to bring what touches you here into daily life, with space for reflection on how to do less, be more, and live in alignment with what matters most.

This week is an invitation to slow down, step out of habitual patterns, and show up fully for life as it unfolds, moment by moment. Whether walking, sitting, or simply being, we will cultivate space, silence, and stillness to meet the beauty and mystery of the world — within and without.

Come ready to explore the meeting places of mountain and sea, inner and outer landscapes, and the boundless wildness of existence.

Please note: This workshop will be a larger, nature-based group experience than Steven and Gary typically lead. Mornings will be spent together as a full group, either indoors or on the Esalen grounds. After lunch, we will divide into smaller groups to explore Big Sur’s wilderness trails, returning in time for dinner at Esalen.

All levels of experience are welcome; however, a moderate level of physical fitness is recommended. Expect afternoon day hikes of approximately 2–6 miles, often with elevation gain and loss on occasionally rugged or steep terrain. These are not fast-paced or goal-driven hikes, but they do require physical engagement. Participants should be comfortable with outdoor activity and open to contemplative practices, including periods of pausing, listening, stillness, and quiet reflection.

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

An additional $40 will be added to the workshop cost to cover permit and park entrance fees

Recommended reading: The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder

Daydreaming is not passive; it is an embodied, living practice—a gateway to knowledge, interconnectedness, and liberation. It is where we access deep creativity, ancestral memory, and the unseen forces shaping our lives. Across time and tradition, rest, reverie, and imagination have been essential tools for visionaries, artists, and revolutionaries. Yet in a culture that prioritizes relentless output, our capacity to dream freely has been diminished, treated as frivolous or unproductive. But what if we reclaim daydreaming as an act of defiance? What if rest itself is resistance? Tricia Hersey, artist, theologian, and author of Rest is Resistance and We Will Rest, has built a framework that understands rest as a portal to a world beyond grind culture—a world where imagination and care are central to our well-being and collective liberation.

Join us for a weekend of radical rest and reclamation, where we will gather on the sacred lands of the Esselen people to explore the art and science of daydreaming as a form of rest. Through individual and collective activations, writing practices, and deep study of the works of bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, and Tricia herself, we will reclaim imagination as a birthright, not a luxury. We will stretch out under the open sky in collective rest, listening to the wisdom of the land, the ocean, and the cosmos. We will slow down and wander, walking the gardens and feeling our way back to an ancient rhythm. We will engage in guided star-gazing, reflective journaling, and intentional dreaming, allowing spaciousness to show us what we have forgotten. This is not about productivity. It is not about optimization. It is about restoration. About remembering. About laying it all down so something new can emerge. You don’t need permission to dream—you just need space, stillness, and the courage to stop and receive. We will rest.

Recommended reading: Love as the Practice of Freedom by Bell Hooks, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey, and selected poetry of Audre Lorde

Special Note on Gift Economy:  For this workshop, Esalen will not be collecting the typical leader fees. Tricia embraces the practice of the gift economy, collective economics 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 Tricia and her ongoing work of community care, liberation and rest.

Imagine that your body has a voice. What would it say?

The body speaks through movement, where each breath, feeling, and memory becomes a metaphor — a living story longing to be heard and danced. Begin by digging, fearlessly and with tenderness, into the fertile soil of soft skin. Touch bone. Listen to the heart, fluttering its wings against the ribs. Pluck your veins as if they were strings on a violin, playing an ancient universal rhythm.

This workshop is an invitation to return to the wisdom of the body. To listen, to express, to transform. Rooted in the Life/Art Process® developed by Anna and Daria Halprin, we will journey through movement, drawing, poetic narrative, and improvisation as pathways toward personal meaning, healing, and creative renewal.

Each day will unfold as a ritual: breath becomes rhythm, movement becomes story. We will explore what moves through us, both individually and collectively. Held within the wild beauty of Esalen, and accompanied by the live music of guest musician Miles Lassi, we will explore deeply, play wildly, and harvest what we find. No prior experience in dance or art is needed, only a willingness to express, feel, and listen.

Originating in the 1950s, the Halprin work has played a pivotal role in the groundbreaking human potential, postmodern dance, and healing arts movements, and has been offered at Esalen since the 1960s.

Recommended Reading: The Expressive Body in Life, Art & Therapy by Daria Halprin; Dances That Matter by Anna Halprin with Rachel Kaplan.

Through eastern mysticism, quantum physics, psychedelics, and films like The Matrix, we are starting to catch on that “reality” may not be as it seems.

In this workshop, you’ll be guided to develop the x-ray vision needed to see beyond the concrete circumstances of your life to peer into the underlying “code” that is responsible for the tangles holding you back. Once identified, you will be empowered to shift that code through a beautiful process of quantum alchemy.

With a background in AI, neuroscience, Eastern religion, and psychology, Sam Rader has devoted the last 28 years to discovering the energetic patterns that run our lives. Often these patterns are manifestations that were programmed during the first five years of life. Understanding our source code allows us to quickly and gently get to the root of core issues, so we can shift our energy and embodiment to shift our world.

Many say discovering your source code is like a psychedelic experience— yet much more gentle and precise. With no ingestion of substances, no catharsis, no drama, and nothing overwhelming, this is a subtle yet profound journey —  a deep dive beneath our ordinary consciousness — to radically reconfigure ourselves and our reality.

In this workshop, you will be guided to dissolve and resolve anything standing in the way of becoming the fullest you and living your true expression of love, joy, and ease.

The latest research clearly demonstrates the powerful impact emotional experiences have on our health and longevity. While we know this to be true, we don’t always know how to be emotionally well.

During this weekend, we’ll open the door to greater emotional intelligence and perception. With a combination of lectures, interactive exercises, live music, breathwork, movement (yoga and dance), and meditation, we’ll practice understanding our feelings — and how to respond to them.

We’ll explore emotional wellness through the lens of Ayurveda, customizing our healing based on what we are experiencing in real time. This, in turn, increases our depth of connection with ourselves and others.

In this experiential workshop, we’ll be invited to learn Ayurvedic approaches to:

• Emotional wellness
• Self-assessment
• Psychospiritual healing
• Customizing healing tools

The music and movement will be guided by guest faculty Sunshine Zerda and QVLN, featuring a transformational dance experience with somatic release. Everyone, from beginners to advanced students of Ayurveda, is welcome.

Recommended Reading: Ayurveda for Yoga Teachers and Students by Dr. Siva Mohan (Chapter on Emotional Wellness)

The body doesn’t need to be forced into healing — it needs the interference removed and the conditions restored. Most of us have been taught to approach health one symptom at a time. But what if there’s a deeper order — a way to work with your body’s systems that cultivates relief and lasting change?

This five-day immersive workshop offers a new framework for your wellness strategy. You’ll be guided through the Mohan Method, a sequential approach that addresses health from the ground up: clearing disruptors, restoring nutrients, repairing digestion, calibrating metabolism, and redesigning the patterns that shape your daily life. Each day explores one phase through self-assessment, natural remedies, somatic practices, and live music and movement led by Sunshine Zerda and QVLN.

During this workshop, you will:

• Learn body systems thinking that expands beyond conventional symptom management into root-cause awareness.
• Explore natural remedies and Ayurvedic protocols aligned with each phase — from clearing environmental toxins to supporting hormone balance through lifestyle and herbs.
• Practice somatic integration and movement to embody each phase, allowing the learning to land in your tissues, not just your mind.
• Assess your own patterns using simple, accessible tools that reveal where your system may be stuck.
• Redesign your relationship to health with clarity, agency, and a framework you can return to long after you leave Big Sur.

Walk away with practical knowledge, integrative tools, and a personalized roadmap for your wellness strategy—combining the power of Ayurveda, body systems thinking, and emotional wellness to create sustainable change in how you feel.

Imagine reconnecting with a part of you – the Divine Feminine – that brings you back into balance and harmony with yourself and all your relations. This transformative workshop combines social and political knowledge, energy- and earth-based practices, and embodiment exercises to help you release fears, resentment, and pain while inviting intuition, surrender, and flow to create a deeper sense of wholeness in your life. By decolonizing wellness and coming into right relationship with all living things, genuine healing becomes possible.

*The workshop is open to people of all gender identities and expressions.*

At the root of social, political, and economic inequities between men and women is the patriarchal culture’s colonial denigration of femininity. This central conflict in our society is something we learn at an early age and carry in our emotional, perceptual, sensory, and physical selves. Embracing femininity benefits not only women and femmes. Femininity is a spiritual energy and quality of the universe that is necessary to balance and restore us all. The Feminine Principle includes qualities like allowing, intuition, patience, nurturing, connection, mother love, and the generative principle of life itself.  

During the workshop, you will experience:

• Heart-centered journeys to connect with the energy of Mother.
• Light movement with breath, body, earth, and trees.
• Teaching sessions for frameworks of understanding.
• Creative writing for self-reflection and expression
• Group dialogue for connection and affirmation.
• A closing ceremony and celebration to set intentions and launch a new path.

This workshop is an opportunity to see beyond the distortions of heteropatriarchy to something truer about ourselves where our heart’s desires are not at odds with one another. To connect with the Divine Feminine can be a balm and antidote that heals the instilled resentments, hostility, and fear that divide us.

Recommended Reading: Awakening Shakti by Sally Kempton

Let’s be real — queer men are already masters of reinvention. We’ve learned to shapeshift, decode signals, seduce with a glance, armor up when needed, and sometimes dissociate in the name of survival. Our sexuality has been a battlefield and a playground — sometimes both in the same night. Sexuality offers a lens through which we may examine and deeply experience ourselves and our connection to all of existence. By fully immersing yourself in your sexual experiences, there is more — more pleasure, more presence, more freedom — hiding in plain sight. In your hips. Your breath. Your belly. Your no. Your yes. Your body.

This weekend is a playful deep dive into what it means to live in a queer male body — cis or transmasculine — with curiosity, with courage, and in relation to society and one another.

Together, we’ll explore the wild terrain of gender and sexuality — not from a textbook, but from the inside out. Through guided practices, embodied rituals, and communal reflection, you’ll get to ask big, juicy questions like:

• What kind of man am I when I stop trying so hard? If I move past the “masc” persona and its acceptable coded behaviors to embrace an energy that is both boundless and de-gendered?
• How much of my desire is mine, and how much is performance?
• What would it feel like to inhabit my sexuality without apology — or choreography?

We’ll explore how shame, culture, trauma, and liberation show up in our movements, our fantasies, our ability (or inability) to receive touch. We’ll stretch out of binary thinking and into something more fluid, more alive, more you. You’ll be invited to experiment with different ways of relating, touching, and expressing — from the tender to the wild, the sacred to the silly.

This is not about being “good at sex.” It’s about being honest in our sexuality. And maybe even finding new ways to experience it as medicine, mischief, and art.

Why this, why now? Because queer men are still carrying a lot — even in all our glittering freedom. We’ve inherited both boldness and bruises. While we celebrate open sexuality in our culture, we rarely get the space to slow down and feel what it all means in our bodies. This is that space. Join us to make meaning together — with breath, touch, and truth.

Please note: This workshop, designed specifically for those who identify as queer men (cis or trans), includes partial nudity, guided touch, roleplay, and somatic exploration of gender and sexuality. All activities are optional. The space we create together centers safety, sovereignty, and presence, prioritizing your agency and comfort at every turn. Your consent leads the way. Although we will explore touch and sensuality, no sexual acts of any kind will be instructed or included in this workshop. It will not include full nudity, nor anything you do not enthusiastically consent to.

Recommended Reading: Urban Tantra by Barbara Carrellas; The ManTantra Letters by Victor Bliss & Nathan James

We all face death, but how many of us are actually ready for it? Whether our own demise or that of a loved one comes first, how prepared are we? This workshop offers a wide array of resources and teachings to help participants address that final unfinished business and make the most out of every moment that comes before it.

All of life is held within the context of its inevitable extinction. By acknowledging and preparing for death now, we will find ourselves living more fully and fearlessly. Join us as we celebrate the preciousness of life, and ready ourselves and others for this final journey. We will explore how to die a good death and help others pass, engaging with meditations and contemplations that prepare us for letting go. As the Buddhist tradition proclaims, “If you die before you die, then when you die, you will not die.”

With preparation, we can transcend death, turning the greatest obstacle into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and even attain enlightenment. The bardo teachings lead to the death of death. The journey through the bardos is a journey into our mind, so by exploring the bardos, we are exploring ourselves. The teachings apply to any moment that ends – which means they also relate to daily life and can help you live fully within the time you are given.

Together we’ll explore:

• Meditations that prepare you for the end of life
• Teachings that support the meditations
• Discussion groups to create a sense of community  

We hope you’ll join us for this exploration into the unknown, so that we may all return – fearless, and full of compassion for ourselves and those transitioning from this life.

Recommended Reading: Preparing to Die by Andrew Holecek

This workshop is more than a learning experience — it’s an invitation to connect deeply with yourself and others in a supportive and creative space. Together, we’ll explore the profound potential for healing and growth that arises when art and psychology converge. No artistic experience is necessary; this workshop is about creative expression, not perfection.

Integrating art therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), this workshop combines two evidence-based emotional and psychological growth approaches. Creating art stimulates your brain, unlocking new pathways and possibilities. Art therapy offers a dynamic way to visually explore your thoughts and emotions, providing a unique outlet for self-expression and growth. CBT complements this process by helping you identify and challenge dysfunctional thought patterns, empowering you to shift your mindset and embrace change.

• Bring your inner monster to life through art, and then engage with it through conversation to gain clarity and understanding.
• Delve into themes of control, shifting perspectives, and transformation through the power of poetry.
• Draw your own emotional landscape and gain practical tools to continue your healing journey long after our time together.
• Compose your personal Declaration of Independence (to free yourself from what keeps you stuck) and collage your flag representing your new state of mind.

Led by a board-certified art therapist, this fully interactive workshop combines drawing, collage, painting, writing, and group dialogue. Together, we’ll explore the fears, anxieties, and barriers holding you back, empowering you with tools to create meaningful and lasting change.

Participants are asked to bring their own sketchbook so all of your retreat artwork stays in one place as a keepsake. Recommended options: 8.5″ x 8.5″ or 7.6″ x 5.3″ Watercolor paints will be provided, but you’re welcome to bring your own if you’d prefer not to share (optional). Recommended sets: Full set or Travel set

All other supplies will be provided—brushes, paper, pens, colored paper, glue, pastels, and more. A materials fee of $17.50 is included in the registration cost to cover shared materials.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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