Our workshops are designed to support you in the challenging work of self exploration, in partnership with some of the leading minds of the day. Join us in discovering the next frontiers of individual and societal transformation.
Interested in a scholarship?
Learn MoreIf 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:
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. Recommended Reading: Listening When Parts Speak: A Practical Guide to Healing with Internal Family Systems Therapy and Ancestor Wisdom by Tamala Floyd, LCSW
In a world that often pulls us away from ourselves — into roles, expectations, and chronic busyness — there is power in returning to the body, the breath, and the truth of who we are. This weekend workshop offers an immersive experience in embodiment — a space to inquire, move, and breathe your way back to what’s real within you.
Over the weekend, you’ll engage in somatic self-inquiry to explore and soften the internal narratives that shape your identity. Movement and stillness will be used as pathways to reconnect with your body as a compass, while breathwork will offer space for regulation, release, and presence. Relational exercises will open the door to grounded, authentic connection — both with yourself and with others.
Together, we’ll explore:
You’ll be guided to reframe your inner landscape — not by fixing what’s “wrong,” but by listening deeply to what’s already whole as you reimagine what it means to feel at home in your own being. A weekend of remembering.
Relational mindfulness offers 9 principles and practices for meeting the beautiful, dynamic, and messy field of human relating as our laboratory for awakening. It offers a path for cultivating greater peace, understanding, joy, resilience, and freedom within ourselves and our world.
Sitting alone on a meditation cushion is a wholly different exercise than engaging socially, at work, in conflict, politics, or romance. Or is it? Relational mindfulness acts as a bridge, bringing the spaciousness of awareness off the cushion into every aspect of our lives.
The principles are:
Intimacy begins with our willingness to see ourselves and one another clearly from the heart — beyond the myth of separation. We have to remember how to “be with” the pretty and less-pretty aspects of our experience without needing to fix, solve, or change anything in order to welcome the full spectrum of our humanity into wholeness. On this restorative retreat, we’ll explore together:
Join us for a transformative exploration of the personal, interpersonal, transpersonal, ecological, societal, and mystical impacts of relational mindfulness. This workshop will include embodied meditation, experiential practices, conscious movement, reflective writing, and deep time in nature. All are welcome.
Recommended Reading: Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection with Ourselves, Each Other, and Our Planet by Deborah Eden Tull
The chakra system is one of the greatest gifts the ancient yogis and rishis of India shared with the world: a powerful spiritual map for our healing and the awakening of our consciousness so we can fully come alive! This week is an invitation to explore this map and unlock the unbridled joy, creative power, and freedom that lives inside of you.
The ultimate goal of yoga is to live in embodied enlightenment. It is to know and feel the current of mukti (the force of liberation that expands you in the direction of pure potentiality and higher consciousness) and to feel and celebrate bhukti (the gift of embodiment and all the pleasures and abundance of earthly reality). This workshop offers us the opportunity to bring these concepts into reality and into our living beings.
Through embodied ritual practices of yoga, live music, dance, meditation, sounding, and communion with nature, you will begin to shape an intimate connection with each of your energy centers. Together we will work to break through the blockages that keep you stuck and stagnant — preventing you from healing and experiencing the fullness of your power and life. We will dive deeply into the chakra system through accessible, dynamic, and interactive discussions and exercises.
Each day, Cristi will guide us in her signature, dynamic chakra-based vinyasa, woven with mudra, kriyas, and pranayama, supported by the sacred rhythms and healing soundscapes of our musical guide DJ Marques Wyatt.
These practices will be enhanced by a variety of daily rituals, ranging from:
Join us as we turn the yoga dance floor into a ritual of self-expression. You’re invited to experience every ritual as a prayer to your highest self to return you home to your body and nature, awaken pleasure, and give you permission to feel. Ignite your power. Heal your heart. Claim your vision and voice. Connect to your own divinity and celebrate this gift of life!
Recommended reading: Chakra Rituals by Cristi Christensen
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 called humans to pause, reflect, and reconnect with life’s essence. This workshop invites you 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 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:
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 whole group, either indoors or on the Esalen grounds. After lunch, we will divide into smaller groups to explore Big Sur’s wilderness trails and be back in time for dinner at Esalen.
All levels of experience are welcome. Be prepared for the invigorating challenge of physical activity that the mountains of Big Sur require and the opportunity to simply sit still in quiet reflection. More information and a waiver will be sent upon registration. For an equipment list and frequently asked questions about Steven’s workshops, visit FAQs.
Recommended reading: The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder
An additional $40 will be added to the workshop cost to cover permit and park entrance fees.
Join Amina Peterson on a transformative journey where you'll discover a revolutionary model of erotic communication. Immerse yourself in a safe and empowering space to cultivate deeper intimacy, pleasure, and connection. Through somatic tools, communication strategies, and boundary-building practices, you'll learn how to navigate relationships with authenticity and respect.
This intimate weekend is a unique opportunity to explore your desires, express your boundaries, and experience the joy of consensual intimacy.
Come dance, play, and learn from a renowned expert in erotic communication and intimacy. Share your experiences and insights, and connect with a community of like-minded individuals passionate about fostering healthy connections.
Recommended reading: Authentic Consent Workbook by Amina Peterson, Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication by Meendachi, The Art of Giving and Receiving by Betty Martin
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:
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHtXyzKk6bQ&t=229s
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:
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.
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.
Recommended Reading: Holotropic Breathwork by Stan Grof
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.
How can we navigate life’s transitions with elegance, grace, and gratitude? This is a fundamental question for growth and transformation, no matter where we are in our stages of life. This workshop is designed for anyone pondering their aging process as well as active caretakers for those entering their third act. Using an experiential approach, we will move through concrete steps, including nine simple evidence-based practices, for achieving personal goals.
Together, we will discuss how to embrace challenges as opportunities by cultivating curiosity and a growth mindset at every stage of life. We will explore ways to engage in the practice of purposeful intention — to gain insights into how attention shapes our worldview and where our cognitive biases get in our way.
Building new skills and capacities is essential, much like training muscles, and we will discuss how to strengthen personal growth practices with trusted guidance, both from external mentors and our own inner wisdom. Additionally, we will explore ways to apply what we learn—accepting aging and the developmental stages of life, from adolescence to adulthood, to make peace with our mortality. Finally, we will consider steps to engage the world and bring this elegant aging program into our lives, work, and communities.
This workshop offers hands-on tools for aging with grace and elegance, empowering each of us with new insights and practices to embrace the fullness of our lived experiences. Please bring a journal to support and document your experience.
Recommended Reading: Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation by Marilyn Schlitz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok.
.png)
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.
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.
From breath to sensation to emotion, this experience is an embodied approach to movement generation and artistic expression. Theatre and dance are combined with somatic and embodiment coaching to help you unlock your emotional and vocal potential, deepen your connection to your body, and develop your unique groove and movement style.
Each day begins with meditation and visualization to awaken your senses, followed by continuous improvisational exercises and instinctual games that integrate both movement and voice. You’ll explore emotional expression, finding balance between slow introspection and explosive release. Designed to deepen body-sense listening, impulse work, vocal awareness, and emotional range, these techniques create a playful, safe, and supportive environment for self-discovery and growth.
Throughout the week, you’ll work collaboratively in pairs and small groups to learn from one another and establish a sense of community. You will be invited to develop a movement vocabulary you can call your own and integrate your skills into a mini-solo piece, which you’ll have the option to perform.
Bring a notebook and pen, your curiosity, and a sense of play to uncover past limiting habits and amplify your emotional range through sound and movement.
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.
.png)
If your thoughts, decisions and actions are not being determined by your own highest values, they are certainly being determined by someone else’s. — Living a Values Based Life
Join this engaging, interactive experience designed to support the discovery, clarification, and meaningful application of your highest personal values. It’s a surprising fact of life that most people do not know — or cannot clearly articulate — what their values truly are. Guided by Robert MacPhee’s unique and accessible approach, this process is crafted to reduce confusion and enhance clarity with simple ways to bring your discoveries into your daily life.
Together, we’ll explore your values in deep, experiential (and fun!) ways that address a variety of learning styles. The journey can be relevant across all areas of life — at home, at work, in relationships, as a parent, and as a leader.
In this workshop, you’ll be invited to:
Gaining clarity around your values can become a powerful compass, gently guiding your decisions, your attention, and your time. This workshop offers a space to reconnect with what feels most authentic, purpose-driven, and meaningful for you.
Our clown is the authentic, curious, and playful version of ourselves. Clowning as a life practice is the balancing of our light and shadow while laughing at our attachments. Clown is about being soft, brave, and available to the moment. This workshop is an immersion practice that explores our deepest, most vulnerable, creative self.
Using tools found in improvisation, meditation, altered states, and movement practice, we will explore clowning as a spiritual practice. The work begins with exercises that help you drop into the body and descend from the mind to access the clown state. With the foundation of a sacred container, we will engage in primarily nonverbal, physical games and rituals that give birth to organic impulses inspired by the child within. There is no pressure to perform, but an invitation to get lost inside yourself, an openness to go beyond your comfort zone, and a willingness to play within the moment.
There is nothing to learn but rather much to uncover — to allow us to move through life in a more open state, with a greater connection to ourselves and the world. This workshop is physical, open, and accessible for diverse bodies. Come unravel the clown within! Please come unprepared and ready to explore.
Recommended reading: Animal Joy by Nuar Alsadir, Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle
Summer is the time to take a break, step off the treadmill of modern life, take care of oneself, and refill the tanks before gearing up for the busyness of fall. What does taking care of yourself really mean—for you? What do you want and need at this moment in your life; what genuinely takes care of you?
For many women, these are questions we never ask ourselves, much less express or dare to live by. We’ve been trained to know what everyone else wants and needs but not what we want and need. We know who we are in all of our roles to and for other people, but not who we are for ourselves. We sacrifice authenticity for likability, abandoning ourselves in order to be pleasing and manage other people’s perceptions of us. But there’s a longing inside us that wants to live a more truthful and vital life—a life that’s truly ours.
This is a workshop for that longing. Through teaching, meditation, journaling, and dyad and group dialogue, you will be invited to:
The good news is this: Once you recognize the call of your own wanting, you’re already in the process of changing and reconnecting with your inherent vitality. “What do I want?” starts showing up as a question that matters, and indeed, you start showing up as someone who knows that she matters. Join this weekend of adventure and build the real-life tools, behaviors, and choices to live this change forward and create a truthful and self-affirming life.
Recommended Reading: The Emotionally Exhausted Woman: Why You’re Feeling Depleted & How To Get What You Need By Nancy Colier
.png)
Experience five days of deep rest, reflection, and rejuvenation through movement, guided meditation, and the profound practice of Yoga Nidra. This workshop is designed to restore the body, clear the mind, and shift the habitual patterns that keep us from experiencing a state of calm, clarity, and balance.
Yoga Nidra, which translates to “yogic sleep,” guides you to that liminal state between wakefulness and sleep, where you can systematically release stored physical, emotional, and mental tensions. In this state, you can let go of old beliefs and habits that keep you stuck in the past and fearful of the future. With this practice, you can fully experience your emotions while knowing that there is unchanging, unshakable ground beneath you — a calm inner presence that allows you to see clearly and navigate life with greater ease.
Throughout the retreat, we will work with our bodies and minds, creating clear intentions to shift from living by unconscious, automatic programming and find a new perspective — an aware, deliberate way of being. You’ll explore how to bring this newfound awareness of your true self into your personal life, relationships, work, and moments of solitude and love.
Together, we will cultivate new tools to help us navigate when we feel lost, tired, or confused and forget who we are. These guiding instruments can help us negotiate life’s challenges, welcome them as opportunities, and remember our true nature.
This workshop is a unique opportunity to recognize your wholeness, the truth of who you are, and the inner peace that has always been within you — that unchanging, unshakable ground of being that you are. All that is being asked of you is to show up, lie down, and let go. Yoga Nidra will do the rest.
What to bring: blankets, a yoga mat, an eye pillow, and anything else you need to lie comfortably on the floor for extended periods. We’ll also have opportunities to practice outdoors, so make sure you have layers to stay comfortable in varying conditions.
Recommended Reading: Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep, by Kamini Desai; and Yoga Nidra: A Meditative Practice for Deep Relaxation Healing, by Richard Miller
.png)
This course builds on your previous seven rich days of exploration in CFR® Week One. During that crucial week, you laid the foundation for releasing your childhood survival patterns and moving through life with more ease and presence physically, mentally, and emotionally.
You reorganized the stranger you once called “self” to become more objective, compassionate, curious, and hopeful, changing how you live with yourself and others.
We will continue excavating and healing old patterns that no longer serve you. You will gain more appreciation for how embodied movement can serve as a portal to your soul. Using newly experienced body wisdom, you will uncover what has been hidden, held back, and inhibited, your fullest expression of ease, joy, and authentic self.
Bring your lingering issues, past injuries, and a desire for freedom on all levels. Leave more deeply connected to your body and present in your soul.
Please note: This is an advanced class. Participants must have taken CFR® Week 1.
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:
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
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:
The movement session will be guided by guest faculty Sunshine Zerda, 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)
.png)
Imagine reaching the end and realizing your biggest regret is that you never found the courage to live authentically because you lived the life others expected. In this workshop, we will embark on a transformative journey inspired by the wisdom of Human Design and the spirit of Esalen. Human Design blends ancient wisdom from astrology, the I Ching, the Kabbalah, and the Hindu-Brahmin chakra system with cutting-edge insights from quantum physics to create a holistic system of self-knowledge.
We’ll explore ways to embrace our true selves, understand our inner guidance system, make wise choices, and unlock our highest potential. Practical applications will include daily decision-making, personal development, and enhancing relationships. We’ll also engage in embodiment practices, integration practices, and interactive sessions to deepen understanding.
This workshop invites you to embrace your authenticity and discover your potential. By loving your true self, following your inner authority, making wise choices, and understanding your greater purpose, you can transform your life.
Participants must bring the specifics of their birth, including their birthplace and time, along with a journal. Join us in mastering authentic living to unlock your potential within a supportive community.
Have you ever wanted to learn how to grow your own food? Experience a dynamic week in the Esalen Farm and Garden and fully participate alongside our talented and experienced staff. Local food security is a major issue facing communities worldwide. It is said that there is no greater form of activism than growing one’s own food—no greater sense of connection to the land than sowing, cultivating, and harvesting from the earth that sustains us. This is the essence of SLOW food (Sustainable, Local, Organic and in respect to the Wild).
Come into a deeper relationship with and celebration of the whole process. By working directly with the Esalen Farm and Garden crew, you will experience the joys and challenges that come with making a garden thrive.
Our days together will include:
From a seed planted with intention, the world can change. Participate in the amazing cycles of the season in the garden. We will cultivate community with each other and be part of the magic in the fields of the Esalen Farm & Garden. You are invited to learn about organic and regenerative farming practices that embody our mission of human potential in harmony with nature. Join the legacy of this collaborative creative project, grow healthy, nutrient-rich foods, and become part of the next generation of growers, educators, and land stewards to build connected, thriving, and ever-strengthening communities.
During this workshop, you’ll be invited to immerse yourself in your own innate wisdom to rediscover your freedom. Through Buddhist meditation, mindful movement, and time in nature, you’ll explore the spontaneous creative essence within you.
Surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, this guided retreat is an opportunity to slow down, listen deeply, and explore what it means to be truly present. By attuning to the elements and rhythms of the earth, you will have the space to cultivate a renewed sense of clarity, openness, and connection.
Explore key practices, including:
During our time together, you will be able to:
Throughout the retreat, you’ll be given tools to continue nurturing this natural approach to liberation in your daily life. Join us for this transformative exploration of being natural.
This will be a week of fun, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Whatever your spiritual path or meditation experience, you are welcome just as you are. No prior experience is required. Seated and supine meditations will be offered. All are welcome.
Love Yourself For Everyone Else’s Sake
Mark Abramson designed the course as a deep dive into self-compassion after seeing students achieve self-kindness from work with his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at Stanford University. Thirty years of teaching have taught Dr. Abramson that bringing kindness and compassion to one’s self is truly the most altruistic of all practices.
Imagine always being able to count on your own mind being kind to you — no matter what challenges life presents. That is your birthright, and now is the time to claim it! Immerse yourself in this mindfulness-based approach to self-love and compassion.
Mindfulness, meditation, and contemplative practices have entered all spheres of our society, including corporate settings, sports, performance, medicine, and psychology. Science has confirmed that ancient mental and physical training systems, such as meditation practices, confer health benefits for immunity, brain architecture, and pain management, as well as mental and physical resilience.
During our time together, you are invited to:
Throughout the weekend, you will have the opportunity to unite your body, mind, and soul into a self-nourishing whole person while strengthening your ability to give love to others by first loving yourself.
Recommended Reading: Love Yourself For Everyone Else’s Sake by Mark Abramson
What will you do with your one wild and precious life? — Mary Oliver
Do you yearn to spend less time scrolling online and more time being present, creative, and embodied in your real life? In just two decades, technology has rapidly reshaped our psyches, relationships, and communities. The average person now spends the equivalent of 61 to 80 days a year on their smartphones. Apps increasingly hijack our attention while human empathy has steadily declined.
Though living a phone-based life can be overwhelming and feel hopeless, the power is in your hands. This workshop invites you to recover your focus, creativity, and humanity. In community, we will reckon with the impact of the digital age and remember the wisdom of our somatic and ensouled selves.
Psychology, attachment theory, neuroscience, and ancient wisdom all affirm the same truth: There is regenerative power when we go offline together.
New research reveals that insecure attachment styles (anxious or avoidant) make us more vulnerable to compulsive smartphone use as we seek a digital "secure base" over human connection. By rebuilding our capacity to turn toward one another, we can re-parent ourselves and repair relational ruptures from our past.
During our time together, we’ll explore how to rewire our neuropsychology and rekindle our creative potential. Your hands are the living hands of your ancestors. What wants to be expressed through you?
Each day will include:
The digital age calls for re-humanization. Join us to discover the tools, strategies, and community needed to make a meaningful change and reclaim your whole self.
Recommended reading: Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, Trust Your Truth by Shannon Algeo
Asanga’s Nine Stages of Staying is one of the oldest and most comprehensive systems of concentration in the Buddhist tradition. Sometimes called the Elephant Path, this approach was originated by the great Buddhist master in 506 A.D., and it is now the main method of training the mind in the Tibetan tradition.
In this weekend meditation retreat, participants will learn the stages of the Elephant Path using the body as the primary object of concentration. Students will also receive an introduction to the basic stages of ordinary insight. By the end of our time together, students will have all the instructions necessary to successfully incorporate a robust meditation practice into everyday life.
Training the mind in this way can lead to a direct experience of equanimity and can put the student in a range of practice wherein pointing out the real nature of the awakened mind is possible.
No experience with meditation is required. If you have your own preferred meditation pillow and mat, please bring them.
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:
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.
There is an inner community inside of us: a community of selves. Some have a voice, and some are quiet. Some are known through sensation, emotion, and thought. Other selves have agendas, advice, and accusations.
Each of these selves has a history, an emotional state, and a felt sense in the body. Each represents a particular aspect or part of our (mostly) Unified Self. This weekend, we’ll notice our habitual reflexes, our “go-to” responses both on and off the dance floor. We’ll learn to find our inner selves and build our capacity to access the most useful ones for any given moment.
In mindful movement, we can substantiate selves that have been hiding or cast out. We can learn to calm the selves that work overtime, find unknown selves, and embody a self we have been waiting to become.
Andrea and Kathy facilitate a dynamic, non-judgmental, well-informed dance playground embodying these inner conversations. This practice is not only fun and awakening; the creativity of movement illuminates new possibilities and choices. Exploring distinct parts of our personalities can help illuminate all that is held within.
We are all born into a story that is already being told. It is woven into our very being, much like the DNA passed down from Mitochondrial Eve, the mother of all humanity. Just as we inherit genetic traits, we also inherit stories, expectations, and emotional patterns that shape our lives. Like Eve in the garden, we may find ourselves bound by shame, longing for liberation, and searching for the courage to fully receive the gifts of life. Eve’s Domain is an invitation to step beyond these inherited limitations and embark on a powerful journey into the heart of our personal stories.
Guided by Zita, an experienced facilitator in transgenerational healing, hypnotherapy, and storytelling, you will explore inherited patterns that have shaped your life. Drawing from exercises in Systemic Constellations and the Orders of Love, you will explore the ways love, duty, and expectation have influenced your identity—and how to embrace the fullness of life with grace.
This workshop is designed to support your exploration of the story you have been born into, and help you discover how it might better serve your greater good. Love, while often a force for good, can also lead us to accept less than we deserve and mask our true selves for the sake of others. Only by finding the courage to dig deeper and ask the right questions can we uncover the jewels in the story of our hearts and souls.
Pleasure is the measure of your aliveness. It is not frivolous — it is your birthright, your compass, and your healing. — Anonymous
What if your pleasure is the key to your liberation? What if it could be your prayer, your medicine, and your power? When was the last time you felt fully alive in your body — unapologetically?
Pleasure Alchemy is a somatic journey designed to awaken, heal, and empower you through the sacred art of sensual embodiment. By engaging all five senses through sacred touch, movement, and sound rituals, we’ll explore how to rewire shame and reclaim pleasure as a path to healing. Together, we will co-create alchemy through collective care. We invite you to experience yourself in community more fully and authentically by:
Activating the body temple through guided somatic practices, breathwork, and movement rituals designed to reconnect to your sensual body as a source of truth, beauty, and divine intelligence.
Join us for an opportunity to reclaim your pleasure as a source of personal power, liberation, and deep connection in community. Pleasure is not just indulgence — it’s medicine.
Please Note: Pleasure Alchemy is best experienced somatically — in the body — and through community ritual. We invite learning through touch and presence. You are always at choice. While sensuality will be invited into the space, no overt sexual behavior will be part of the workshop.
Do you struggle with shyness or social anxiety? Do you feel intimidated or scared to meet new people or worry others will judge you? If so, come face your fears and discover tools to connect to people authentically!
In this workshop, you will learn how to enjoy meeting new people and interact more successfully with others. Instead of feeling drained after social interactions, you can come away feeling invigorated and refreshed. You can learn ways to become skillfully vulnerable, authentic, and playful with others.
Instead of feeling self-conscious or like you need to “perform,” find out how to relax when meeting new people and be fully present in your interactions. Emerge with more lightheartedness, authenticity, and joy. There will also be a focus on flirtation skills for those looking to meet a new special someone, enhance the romance with their current partner, or just have more fun in life!
Together, we’ll explore:
If you tend to avoid social opportunities or find interactions with other people draining, this is the workshop for you! Much of life is about the quality of our relationships with others. Discover how to liberate yourself from self-consciousness and disconnection and build stronger relationships.
Power without surrender is force. Surrender without power is collapse. True freedom comes from knowing how to embody both.
BDSM is often misunderstood as only rough sex or kink, but at its core, it’s the consensual exploration of power dynamics. It can include play with dominance and submission, sensation, and restraint — but ultimately, it’s about trust, communication, and the courage to feel deeply.
In this experiential workshop, we’ll explore power and surrender as embodied states, not just ideas. Using the Wheel of Consent® as our foundation, we’ll uncover how these dynamics show up in our desires, boundaries, and interactions. Through guided exercises, movement, and deep noticing, you’ll gain tools to navigate these energies with clarity and confidence — in erotic and everyday contexts.
You’ll be invited to:
This workshop is somatic and participatory, with options to learn through touch and simple props like rope or blindfolds. All participation is optional — your consent always leads the way.
Please Note: This workshop will not include:
Recommended reading: The Art of Receiving and Giving: The Wheel of Consent, by Betty Martin
.png)
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:
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 a tuition scholarship at slshapiro@scu.edu.
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.
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.
.png)
Join ceremonial leader and wisdom carrier Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey as we gather to look beyond the false duality of a divided self and the destructive concept of “self versus nature” to discover how to live in harmony and balance within ourselves and the world around us.
You are your greatest healer and greatest medicine, and this is your opportunity to examine what that means while sharing healing wisdom, practices & ceremonies. This workshop will offer you tools to transform trauma and unhealthy patterns and to realign your body, mind, spirit, and soul, as we explore the origins of dis-ease in our physical, mental-emotional and spiritual bodies.
How can we honor the gifts, and heal the wounds that we have inherited from our ancestors? How can we identify any social, cultural, racial, religious, and historical energies that may be influencing our lives? We will explore all of this, and discuss the importance of ceremonies, sacred altars, and medicinal plants. You will have the opportunity to participate in a traditional South American healing ceremony, a sound healing and “doctoring” ceremony, and a water blessing prayer ceremony.
You will be invited to reconnect to your authentic wisdom and power with clarity, gratitude, and forgiveness. When you honor and heal your ancestral lineage and connect to the natural and spiritual elements of this planet, you strengthen your connection to the sacred in everyday life.
We are all interconnected in this giant web of life, and every day is a gift in the service of unconditional love for yourself, your community, humanity, and our planet. If you feel the call to be a part of a new humanity that lives in harmony and balance upon this Earth, we invite you to join us in this celebration of life.
Note: Please bring a journal to write in, and items for our altar, including photographs of loved ones and ancestors and sacred objects that have meaning for you.
Special Note on Gift Economy: For this workshop, Esalen will not be collecting the typical leader fees. Erika embraces the tradition of the gift economy and reciprocity. The leader’s compensation will be self-determined by each attendee. At the end of the workshop, participants will offer a donation amount that reflects their feeling of gratitude, value, and desire to support Erika and her ongoing work.
BIPOC SCHOLARSHIP: Erika has established a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, person of color) scholarship for her workshops. For more information on receiving one to participate, please contact her at ErikaGagnon11@gmail.com
.png)
“Wilderness, by itself, has its own way of teaching. The direct experience of wilderness can spontaneously bring wholeness back into the human community.” – Manual of Gestalt Practice in the Tradition of Dick Price
When we are present in the here and now, every moment in the natural world represents an opportunity to enrich, heal, and clarify our relationships to the Earth, ourselves, and one another. Esalen’s co-founder Dick Price spent much of his time hiking in the Big Sur wilderness, and he believed that wild nature supported wholeness and healing for himself and others. With roots in the Gestalt tradition and values Dick developed at Esalen, Relational Gestalt Practice is designed to help us live our lives with increased awareness and embodied presence — and can be powerfully explored within the natural world.
For five days, we will immerse in awareness practices and deep nature connection on the sacred grounds of the Esalen Institute and in the Big Sur wild (ancestral lands of the Esselen People). Together, we will explore our inner and outer landscapes by mindfully engaging with biodiverse wilderness and Gestalt practices under the open sky. Dorothy Charles, co-founder of Tribal Ground Circle and founder of Relational Gestalt Practice, will support the cultivation of presence, awareness, and the authentic expression of our hearts and minds. Wildtender co-founders Noël Vietor and Fletcher Tucker will guide our reconnection with the living world through a framework of kinship. A community of wild relations — redwood groves, ravens, mossy boulders, and all the beings and aspects of Big Sur — will expand our circle to include the more-than-human world.
This workshop includes an additional $60 of faculty tuition and $40 park fee.
How empowered do you feel as a woman navigating this world? What is your relationship to the feminine? And to female wisdom? Join us inside the Moon Lodge, a place for exploration — for women to find tribal and ritual healing.
The 5Rhythms is a map that teaches us how energy moves. It shows us the patterns, rhythms, and cycles of life — Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness — and can be a direct path to the embodiment and empowerment many of us do not feel in a time of patriarchy.
This workshop will be about celebrating the body of Woman and the sacred feminine within us all. Through dance, meditation, massage, acupressure, and ritual baths, we will share in the Sisterhood of humanity. We will poultice our wounds and celebrate the great gifts of our ancestors.
This workshop includes:
Dr. Julie Von, a specialist in women’s health, will present the Chinese Medicine perspective on the five elements, psychosomatic process, restorative acupuncture, and self-care. She will teach us to prioritize these pillars and recognize when we are out of balance.
Lucia Horan will integrate the stillness of Buddhist mindfulness meditation with the moving meditations of the 5Rhythms®. In sitting meditation, we have the opportunity to observe the mind and body at rest through silent introspection. In the practice of the 5Rhythms, we engage in mindfulness while in motion. Together, these two polarities mirror the dance of life and open the door to peace, well-being, and balance.
This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.
What does it truly mean to show up as your authentic self at work, at home, and in all your relationships? How can true authenticity enhance your relationship with yourself and others? What does science have to say about the practice of authenticity?
The good news, research conducted at Harvard University has proven that authenticity is a skill, not a trait—which means you can learn practical methods to become more confident, express your true self, and go after your biggest goals. When you embrace your authenticity, you unlock the confidence to ask for what you truly want, the courage to step into your power, and the freedom to live a life that feels true to you. This potent music-infused workshop delivers science-backed, actionable strategies to help you bring your most powerful, authentic self into all areas of your life.
Called an “Inspirational Powerhouse,” Grammy-nominated musician and bestselling author Justin Michael Williams introduces the four skills to build true authenticity that work at every level of your life. Explore tools to enhance your personal and professional relationships, boost confidence, and help you navigate conflict without losing yourself.
In this workshop, you will be invited to:
This program has been designed from the ground up to include people of all genders, races, identities, and socioeconomic backgrounds and empower everyone to bring their full selves, build lasting connections, and create lives that reflect their deepest truths.
Through the practices of 5Rhythms dance, mindfulness meditation, and self-care, we weave together a retreat focused on healing and celebration. Looking back over the past few years, it is clear that many of us are exhausted. In times of turmoil and change, self-care and kindness are needed to connect us to the ability to recharge and renew. In order to move forward with energy, passion, and creativity, it is vital to seed these qualities in our daily life so that we may cultivate resilience.
Do you need to integrate more self-care into daily life? Would you like to be better resourced and have more energy? If the answer is yes to either of these questions, you are in perfect alignment to participate in this workshop.
The 5Rhythms is an externalization process that releases and balances the systems of the body through movement. It is a method of dance focused on presence versus performance. We pair this process with seated meditation to quiet the heart and mind, allowing for stillness and integration. Bringing both together mirrors the dance of life. We come together to create an environment that cultivates and nurtures joy, calmness, and ease.
Each session will be primarily focused on Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms moving meditation practice. We will complete each practice with a 10-15-minute seated meditation. Included will be a discourse on 5Rhythms, mindfulness, and self-care. All practices taught during this course lend to the experience and wisdom of resourcing and renewing vital life energy to send you home with skills and tools to apply to your daily life.
This workshop will include:
No experience is necessary. All workshop hours contribute to 5Rhythms® Teachers Training.
This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.
Do you face challenges with focus and time management? Do you struggle with emotional hypersensitivity or frustration tolerance? Do you find it hard to follow through on tasks or commitments? Or to be reliable and consistent? If so, you are not alone.
Millions of people suffer daily from conditions associated with these executive function challenges. Though commonly referred to as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), these symptoms are not limited to this single condition, and they are often exacerbated by our complex, fast-paced, high-tech lives.
ADHD and related issues often leave people with a sense of self-doubt, shame, or unworthiness. The good news is that with mindfulness, compassion, and the application of skillful techniques, it is possible to move through life more effectively with care and wisdom.
In this workshop, through engaging in various mindfulness meditations, loving kindness and forgiveness practices and contemplative inquiry, you will discover how these challenges interrupt our functioning, how to navigate them, and how we can meet ourselves with compassion, forgiveness, and a good sense of humor.
This workshop includes an additional $100 in faculty tuition.
In this retreat, you will get in touch with a deep relaxation to rejuvenate the body and the mind through non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra. No matter your reasons — whether you need a break from the constant pressure, are in a life transition, or just want to delve deeper into your meditation practice — this retreat will provide space and time for contemplation and reflection.
The term non-sleep deep rest, coined by Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, refers to a waking state of deep relaxation that maintains awareness. Evidence suggests reaching this state through NSDR protocols such as yoga nidra can reset dopamine levels and provide other physical and mental health benefits — including better sleep and enhanced neuroplasticity.
We’ll go on an inner journey together, and the hope is we’ll emerge more connected to both ourselves and our life paths to leave feeling refreshed and deeply rested.
Together, we will:
Suggested Reading: The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You, By Kelly Boys
Gestalt is, at its heart, an awareness practice — one that invites us to be fully present with what is. This presence becomes the portal through which insight, inner guidance, and emotional regulation naturally emerge.
Gestalt practice allows us to connect with what is real and true for us — beyond old patterns, assumptions, habitual self-judgments, or the need to fix ourselves. Integrative Gestalt Practice™, developed by Perry and Johanna Holloman over the past 30 years, combines deep awareness with embodied exploration, offering practical tools to navigate life’s transitions, relationships, and inner questions with greater clarity and authenticity.
In this immersive workshop, we’ll guide you step by step in Integrative Gestalt Practice, a deeply experiential approach that engages body, heart, and mind. Through structured inquiries, breath practices, and movement, you will explore how awareness unfolds in real time and how it can bring clarity and a deeper connection to yourself and others. Group exercises, dyadic and triadic explorations, and guided self-inquiry will provide a dynamic space for transformation.
During this workshop, you will:
By deepening your capacity for presence and authentic connection, you cultivate trust in yourself and life itself, even in the midst of uncertainty. Join us for an immersive experience to create a stronger sense of agency, clarity, and connection to your own inner wisdom.
Recommended Reading: Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Frederick S. Perls and Steve Andreas and The Unfolding Now by A. H. Almaas
This workshop includes an additional $50 in faculty tuition.
The Earth holds us, breathes with us, moves through us.
Since time immemorial, human beings have lived in deep, reciprocal relationship with landscapes—our movements shaped by terrain, our nervous systems regulated by the rhythms of seasons and tides, our sense of self inseparable from the more-than-human world. Yet, in this modern, frenetic age, we are conditioned to see our bodies as isolated, our healing as individual, and “nature” as separate. This retreat is an invitation to remember an older truth: to inhabit our own bodies fully is to reinhabit the living Earth.
Rooted in the Gestalt traditions of Esalen and the emergent field of eco-somatics, our four-day backpacking journey will guide us through the wilds of Big Sur—Esselen tribal territory—in an immersive exploration of belonging, awareness, and interconnection, followed by a weekend of retreat and integration at Esalen Institute.
While trekking through awe-inspiring wilderness, we will engage in somatic practices that reawaken our felt kinship with the natural world. Embracing slowness and spaciousness, we will attune to gravity, breath, and the sensuous aliveness of place. Silent hiking, intuitive movement, meditation, and earth-based ritual will dissolve the false boundary between self and landscape. Exploring embodiment as an intimate community, we will move beyond notions of individual self-care to a lived experience of healing as relational and ecological.
Through this retreat, we step into a different rhythm—one guided by the living world around and within us. As we listen with our whole bodies, we begin to sense the reciprocity woven into all things. What emerges is not just connection but remembering—a return to a relationship as ancient as our true body: the Earth.
Important Notes:
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:
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHtXyzKk6bQ&t=229s
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:
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 and Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Participants must bring their own set of tune-up yoga massage balls for use during the workshop. They can be purchased here.
The Artist lives within everyone! Art can be made out of just about anything! It’s a time to leave the critic behind and allow oneself to play, nourish, and replenish the creative spirit. It’s also a time to enjoy the company and camaraderie of like-minded peers. Now is your time to discover the joys of art based on community and collaboration and to find out how meaningful and grand a shared, creative experience can be.
In this transformative workshop, we will use repurposed material in a whole new context of re-creation.
Come experiment with a vast array of reused materials to create mixed-media mosaics, sculptures, and collages. There will be an assortment of recycled glass, metals, wood, plastics, paper, photographs, fabrics, and old artifacts — bits and pieces of the past and present.
In a beautiful, nurturing, supportive setting, we will reclaim and shape society’s scraps and discarded objects into re-imagined meaning. Find your own inner voice of expression as you delve into the process of creating art out of different materials and mediums, and learn new skills.
Not only will you have the opportunity to explore your own expression and immerse yourself in solo creations, but we will also engage in a collaborative group project to enter the whimsical world of community-oriented magic and play.
There is a transformative joy that comes from engaging with others in the artistic process. It opens doors unseen and forges deeper bonds between people. This exciting, shared experience teaches us how beautiful it is to break down barriers and collaborate.
This workshop is geared toward anyone with the desire to create. From the beginner to the advanced, this is a time to explore new possibilities. Together, we will:
If there are any recycled materials, special mementos, poems, or photos you would like to bring and include in our creations, please feel free!
This workshop includes an additional $115 for art materials.
.png)
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.
The Body of Belonging invites you to explore feelings of kinship, acceptance, and community on a somatic level, identifying the elements most significant to you. Through gentle yoga-inspired movement, breathwork, sound, and meditation, we will engage in self-inquiry practices within a group setting. Together, we will create a safe and brave space to experiment with accessing a sense of belonging. Drawing from ancient and Indigenous wisdom, we will work toward dismantling the individualistic ways of being that contribute to our growing sense of separateness.
Loneliness is an epidemic eroding the fabric of who we are as a collective. It is so prevalent in the United States that the surgeon general has issued an advisory to call attention to the importance of social connection for individual and community-wide health. The hyperindividualism that has been promoted as our best way of “succeeding” has left us feeling lost and alienated. In our overfocus on self, we’ve lost sight of how connection, community, and a felt sense of belonging are central to our well-being.
Participants will be invited to connect with their individual needs as it relates to belonging. They will build skillfulness in advocating for belonging by centering and nourishing connection and community to realize the resilience that comes with healthy interdependence.
Gestalt Relational Constellations (GRC) takes an in-depth look at the hidden dynamics of any human system we belong to and care about. Using Gestalt themes of embodied experience, desire, experimentation, and “right-brain” image-based learning, we can move beyond the familiar stories we are carrying about our issues to find new supports and options in our lives and relationships.
Developed at Esalen in the early 2000s by Nancy Lunney-Wheeler and Gordon Wheeler, GRC builds on the pioneering work of Bert Hellinger and his associates’ Family Constellations method. Rooted in the Esalen ethos — honoring direct experience, mutual presence, and the transformative potential within each of us — this reimagining reflects a broader evolution from expert-driven models to participant-led insight. Much like Dick Price’s shift from Fritz Perls’ Gestalt therapy to Gestalt practice, GRC emphasizes inner authority over therapist authority and invites a co-creative, relational approach.
GRC may be used to explore the dynamics of any systemic problem — family of origin, current family system, interpersonal or work issues, or even such “internal” issues as important decisions or pivotal crossroads. Participants often find that the outcome of this work is to open new possibilities in their relationships and lives.
In addition to working with our own presenting issues and constellations, workshop participants will also act as representatives in the constellations of others, which can expand our horizons of experience and open new perspectives on issues in our lives and those of people we care about.
This workshop is open to anyone seeking deeper insight into recurring life patterns — particularly ones that may have proved resistant to other change methods. No prior experience with Gestalt or constellation work is required, though a willingness to engage experientially and support others in their exploration is essential.
Recommended reading: Even if it Costs Me My Life by Stephan Hausner
Join us to experience deep rest and renewal! You need and deserve this. So many of us are overtaxed by constant demands, burdens, and worries, especially those of us providing extra support for others through caregiving, healthcare, activism, and other service-oriented jobs.
We bring you expertise in the science, art, and practice of restoration from stress.
Immersed in the beauty of nature at Esalen, our work is well supported. We will learn and practice new ways to restore ourselves, and you will develop a toolbox of short practices that support your daily rejuvenation and sustained vitality.
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 weekend workshop offers an immersive experience in the erotic ecology pathway — a space to reawaken our sensory, pleasurable, and nourishing connection to two landscapes: our bodies and the Earth. You are invited to slow down and discover how to let the Earth touch you, heal you, and love you.
Through embodied exploration, you can rediscover your birthright: an intimate relationship with the Earth 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 forests meet the Pacific Ocean, we'll engage in practices that are designed to open you to ecological eros: abundant source of pleasure, aliveness, and vitality.
Together, we will:
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: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
.png)
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.
Great leaders encourage collaboration, promote inclusion, and make others feel seen and heard. Their greatest tool? Compassion. Compassion isn’t a static trait that people either have or don’t have; we all have the ability to grow our compassion intentionally through practice. A clinical psychologist and renowned expert in compassion, Dr. Shapiro uses her scientific and clinical expertise to give us concrete strategies for compassionate leadership. You will be introduced to the surprising science behind compassion, the latest research on neuroplasticity, and the most powerful tools and practices to lead teams that are connected, collaborative, creative, and successful. You will be given a science-based roadmap to re-engineer internal states, manage stress, boost creativity, and cultivate a culture of safety and connection.
Together we will:
This workshop is appropriate for anyone curious about leadership, compassion, and how to deepen a sense of community and purpose. These practices have the power to transform our individual and collective lives. All are welcome.
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 a tuition scholarship at slshapiro@scu.edu.
Our sense of soul often shows up as the feeling that we are connected to and a part of something much larger than our everyday selves. Though we may manifest the self through work, relationships, and creative endeavors, we will not be fully satisfied if that deepest expression of our soul does not have its place; we feel its absence.
What we cannot figure out cognitively is often abundantly clear through deliberate mindfulness of sensation, intuition, emotion, deep connection to others, and the beauty and pain of our world. The body, the soul’s temporary home, longs for this attention. There can be great joy when we let this mysterious part of us take the lead.
In Open Floor Movement Practice, we are open to what wants to happen through us. Our attention and curiosity allow embodied movement to unwrap us like the perfect gifts we are. Through dance, unrecognized dimensions of our being can take shape and have a voice to let us feel new possibilities in our unfolding.
Joseph Campbell reminds us, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” The nature of our soul, when embodied and acknowledged, moves us toward this birthright. Join us in discovering your soul’s unfolding.
.png)
In the ancient Tibetan practice of Sleep Yoga, the primary goal is to enter the pure, luminous awareness — the clear light — that is the true nature of the mind. As a profound support for Dzogchen meditation, Sleep Yoga enhances clarity, awareness, and spiritual realization, even as the body rests.
In today’s fast-paced world, many suffer from chronic sleep deprivation — and the consequences ripple through their physical health, emotional balance, relationships, and spiritual development. Drawing from his groundbreaking book, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche offers guidance to help access the deep spiritual potential within sleep.
Explore the connection between sleep, meditation, and awakening, and practical steps for improving the quality of your sleep. Rinpoche will guide participants in integrating awareness and the wisdom of clear light into the experience of sleep itself.
A lineage holder of this living tradition, Rinpoche is widely known for his warmth, clarity, and ability to make profound Eastern teachings accessible and practical for Western students. With his guidance, participants are invited not only to rest more deeply but also to awaken more fully.
This retreat offers a rare opportunity to connect with the deep rest of the body, the openness of the heart, and the luminous nature of the mind. Open to all, newcomers and experienced practitioners alike.
Recommended reading: The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
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.
Breathe. Move. Pay Attention. These three simple actions, natural and always available to us, provide potency to our vitality. They are the legs and wings that carry us into the three worlds within us — the physical, the subtle, and the mystical.
Join Jovinna on the sacred land Esalen Institute resides upon to slow down, reclaim the use of your time and mind, and return to that which holds the deepest meaning. Here, you can inhabit your body, refine your senses, expand your mind and heart, and rest in the simplicity of being.
During this experiential week, you will explore:
Let’s harvest and give thanks to the natural flow of life force, harmony, and magic surrounding us during our time together. And to dedicate the fruit of our time to all sentient beings and the well-being of our lands.
Please bring a journal. Jovinna invites you to detox from or minimize the use of all electronics during your stay at Esalen.
This workshop includes an additional $55 in faculty tuition.
.png)
How we sit, stand, move, and respond to our inner and outer world reflects deeply ingrained patterns wired into our nervous systems since childhood. They reflect our early solutions to physical survival in our family system. Out of awareness, these beliefs and strategies can still run our adult lives, limit our choices, and prevent physical ease and emotional healing.
If you still have pain or limitations from a past injury, it is usually because many other areas in your body had to overwork to protect and avoid using the injured area while you were recovering. These unconscious compensations can create an imbalanced workload and, eventually, new issues elsewhere in our body that prevent complete healing.
Using CFR®, we slowly explore and deeply sense small, gentle movements that bring these hidden patterns into awareness. When our genius nervous system becomes aware of a habit that is no longer useful, it extinguishes it. A greater experience of self-trust and self-worth is uncovered. A new sense of self-love, which comes from paying attention to your details without judgment, usually emerges.
This workshop is for the sedentary who want to become more active, the highly active who want to avoid injury and gain a competitive edge, and the chronically tired and stressed who want to improve breathing, posture, and flexibility. It is for those who have experienced physical injury or emotional trauma and those in helping professions who wish to enhance outcomes for clients and patients.
Our intention is that you will leave equipped with simple yet effective tools for continued self-healing. Your discoveries may lead to a state of awe about what is possible in your body, your movement, and your life.
Recommended Reading: Somatics by Thomas Hanna and The Elusive Obvious by Moshe Feldenkrais
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. In 2022, our days are filled with convenient distractions that promise happiness while mostly delivering busyness and frustration. So many of us today 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.
Together we will explore everything you need to start, revive, or deepen your daily meditation practice. You will receive instruction in traditional Zen Buddhist meditation and we will 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
Practice is a seedbed of miracles. —Esalen Institute Co-Founder Michael Murphy
What positive shift would create the most meaningful change in your life right now?
Your extraordinary potential is built into your DNA and awaits your discovery. In this enlivening workshop, experience the essence of Integral Transformative Practice® (ITP), a living platform for growth, well-being, and evolution. Created by Esalen Institute luminaries Michael Murphy and George Leonard, ITP focuses on the interconnectedness of all aspects of the self to support the changes you want most — for yourself and the world.
This experiential journey weaves movement, writing, and sharing circles so you can listen deeply to the wisdom of your whole being, revealing who you are, who you’re becoming, and your next natural steps. Using the body as a guide for learning, we’ll engage in solo, partner, and group energy-awareness practices developed by ITP Co-Founder and Master Aikido Sensei George Leonard. We’ll also explore a revitalizing daily practice to restore balance, boost energy, and invite deep relaxation —one that can be integrated as a supportive tool for everyday life.
You are invited to:
By applying the integral model of body, mind, heart, and soul — a portal to our innate wholeness — we’ll also explore the worldview that gave rise to Esalen Institute, where this transformative practice was developed. This evolutionary framework offers a pathway to our extraordinary potential, our individual connection to wholeness, which is ready to emerge.
Recommended reading: The Life we are Given, by Michael Murphy & George Leonard & Living an Extraordinary Life: The Magic of Integral Transformative Practice, by Christina Grote & Pam Kramer
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.
Gestalt Practice at its core is an awareness practice in which we cultivate embodied, present-moment awareness of the unfolding experience of the here and now on a journey toward authentic growth, wholeness, and aliveness.
Drawing from the foundations of Gestalt Practice, wisdom traditions, and contemporary approaches that cultivate awareness, we’ll learn to become increasingly aware of our habitual, reactive, behavioral and emotional patterns — especially those that may no longer be skillful — for a more deeply embodied daily life. We will exercise our emotional and somatic intelligence in parallel to support, respect, and gently turn toward what arises moment to moment — to allow more space and appreciation for silence, sensation, emotional expression, and communication.
During this workshop, we will explore the rich practices and principles of Gestalt Practice. By applying them to everyday life, we’ll begin to experience the simple yet profound potential for showing up more fully and authentically for the daily presentations of living an awake life.
Gestalt Practice cultivates curiosity, equanimity, and acceptance with greater choice for creative possibilities. Rather than focusing on fixing or achievement, this approach offers methods to encourage you to:
Together, we’ll explore the elements of this approach, primarily through experiential personal practices, interactive exercises, and Gestalt Awareness Movement. Practices and exercises will be done solo, in pairs, triads, and groups, allowing participants to grow their awareness and learn how we can deepen our relationships — to self and others. There will be time for some participants to experience classic one-to-one Open Seat practice sessions with Steven in the roles of Initiator and Reflector while in the context of the group. To enrich our understanding, we’ll touch upon the rich history, theory, and neuroscience that supports this approach.
Through Gestalt Practice, we bear witness to ineffable mysteries that can bring us to living life more fully. Participants are invited to show up: choosing to be present, paying attention to what has heart and meaning, and open to what life presents — letting life live through us.
The workshop is appropriate for all levels of experience with the understanding that participants are exploring a model of an awareness gym or lab — not a therapy. A welcome letter will be sent upon registration along with additional information about our time together.
Join ceremonial leader and wisdom carrier Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey, as we gather together and explore the healing wisdom of the “Americas.” We will learn about the importance of ancestral lineage, ceremonies and rituals, sacred altars, medicinal plants, and the origins of dis-ease in our physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual bodies.
You are your greatest healer and greatest medicine, and we will examine what this means in the context of our modern daily lives as we share healing wisdom and practices together. This is your opportunity to transform trauma and unhealthy patterns, and to realign your body, mind, spirit, and soul. You will also have the opportunity to participate in a traditional South American healing ceremony, a sound healing & “doctoring” ceremony and water blessing.
You will be invited to reconnect to your authentic wisdom and power with clarity, gratitude, and forgiveness. When you honor and heal your ancestral lineage, and connect to the natural and spiritual elements of this planet, you will strengthen your connection to the sacred in everyday life.
We are all interconnected in this giant web of life, and every day is a gift in the service of unconditional love: for yourself, your community, humanity, and our planet. If you feel the call to be a part of a new humanity that lives in harmony and balance upon this Earth, then we invite you to join us in this celebration of life.
Note: Please bring a journal to write in, and items for our altar, including photographs of loved ones and ancestors and sacred objects that have meaning for you.
Special Note on Gift Economy: For this workshop, Esalen will not be collecting the typical leader fees. Erika embraces the tradition of the gift economy and reciprocity. The leader’s compensation will be self-determined by each attendee. At the end of the workshop, participants will offer a donation amount that reflects their feeling of gratitude, value, and desire to support Erika and her ongoing work.
BIPOC SCHOLARSHIP: Erika has established a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, person of color) scholarship for her workshops. For more information on receiving one to participate, please contact her at ErikaGagnon11@gmail.com
What happens when we refuse to dismiss mystical, metaphysical, and anomalous experiences as mere fantasy, pathology, or accident? What if these moments — often brushed aside by mainstream discourse — actually reveal deeper structures of consciousness and reality?
The Soul Is a UFO offers an imaginative, grounded space to explore such questions — designed for those who seek to make meaning of their own mystical or paranormal experiences; those who wish to invite such experiences safely by using coherent metaphysical frameworks; and those simply curious about the possibilities that lie beyond the surface of conventional reality.
Drawing on Platonic Surrealism, a framework developed by Kevin Cann, we will engage in structured dialogues and experiential exercises to explore how the metaphysical can be encountered without losing contact with embodied life. The method serves as a stabilizing interface between metaphysical vision and everyday cognition — which is especially valuable for neurodivergent thinkers, seekers disillusioned with reductionist models of the self, and anyone questioning culturally prescribed limits on identity and perception.
This seminar is part of the Super Story Series, sponsored by the Center for Theory and Research (CTR) at Esalen Institute. The series includes three thematic cycles: The Physics of Mystics, Biological Gods, and this current seminar, The Soul Is a UFO. The Super Story is a poetic and conceptual framework designed to capture the mythic and mystical narratives that have emerged over the last two centuries in deep resonance with evolving paradigms in physics, evolutionary biology, cosmology, and idealist philosophy. This project situates personal transformation within a larger cosmological and cultural re-enchantment, connecting the individual’s inner experiences to the macro-myths of science and spirit.
This workshop works with the deepest levels of ontology, before and beyond any human concepts of god. Keeping an open mind during this workshop is highly recommended.
Recommended reading: How to Think Impossibly, by Jeffrey J. Kripal; Fourth Wall Phantoms, Joshua Cutchin; Why Materialism Is Baloney, by Bernardo Kastrup
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them to the impossible. — Arthur C. Clarke
Imagination is the foundational ingredient in problem solving – the ones in your own life as well as problems in society. Yet how many courses in imagination did you take during your K to12 education? Were you ever taught how to explore, harness, and apply it? How many healthcare professionals have taught you evidence-based ways to use imagination to enhance healing and recovery? Have you ever been taught how negative forms of imagination can contribute to depression, anxiety, or worse?
This workshop focuses on the science, power, and magic of imagination.
Imagination is the seed of every invention and every social movement. It has led to nearly every scientific discovery, every building that has been built, every piece of art, film, story, every ship that has ever sailed, and every mission to outer space. Almost every human advancement has been sparked by the question, “What if?”
Through interactive presentations, experiential practices, self-inquiry, thought experiments, and speculative dialogue, you will explore truths that emerge from art, fiction, and fantasy — and return with new knowledge, tools, and inspiration.
Cassandra will be joined by guest faculty Fabrice Guerrier who brings experience knowledge of collective worldbuilding, futurism, poetry, and creative writing. Fabrice will provide unique perspectives and engaging experiential exercises to our work (and play) with imagination.
Whether you’re brand new to the Enneagram or have spent years exploring its insights, The Fixations Training, developed by Oscar Ichazo, offers a rare opportunity to experience the system in its original context.
Before the Enneagram became widely known as a personality typing tool, it was part of a profound inner map designed to help describe who we are and also help us transcend the habitual patterns that limit our experience of self and reality.
At the heart of Ichazo’s work is the concept of the Fixations: nine distinct ego structures that arise from early disconnection from our essential nature. Each of us is shaped by three, one from each of the body’s centers of intelligence: head, heart, and gut. Together, these form what Ichazo called the Trifix™.
Over the course of this immersive weekend, you will:
This is not about putting yourself in a box — it’s about clearly seeing the box you’ve unknowingly lived in and stepping beyond it. For those already familiar with the Enneagram, this workshop offers depth, precision, and a connection to its spiritual roots. For those new to the work, it opens a grounded and practical pathway into self-observation and growth.
Come prepared to gain insight into your personality and the deeper forces that shape your experience of mind, heart, and body.
In an era fascinated by peak experiences and personal revelations, the deeper task of transformation is often overlooked. This workshop offers a grounded path for those who have touched something sacred — through psychedelics, mystical states, or profound life transitions — and are now asking, How do I live in service to what I’ve seen?
Rooted in Jungian psychology and contemplative practice, this week at Esalen will guide participants into the art of integration — not as a checklist, but as a lifelong discipline of becoming. We will explore the difference between having an experience and being changed by one.
Participants are invited to:
This course is not about chasing visions — it is about carrying them with integrity. Come if you are ready to descend, reflect, and reshape your life in honor of what has already begun within you.
All light arises from darkness, including insight, creativity, vision, joy, and possibility. The luminous darkness is the spacious presence and receptivity through which we also access light. It is the field of all potential and emergence that we sometimes forget in the context of ordinary life and habit. In this deeply restorative retreat, at the threshold of a new year, we will commune with the luminous darkness to listen deeply, renew possibility, and set conscious intentions for our lives and our world in the year ahead.
We will replace knowing with not knowing and rest in the embodied presence from which clearer seeing arises.
With compassion and curiosity as our guides, we will reflect on the past year, both harvesting lessons and releasing limiting beliefs. This regenerative and transformative process is about remembering who we really are — and stepping into possibility on behalf of our collective.
We will deepen our capacity for compassion and clear seeing through:
This workshop, inspired by Eden’s book Luminous Darkness, draws upon the wisdom streams of Buddhist meditation and mindfulness, non-duality, eco dharma, somatic awareness, and conscious dance. This work is heart-opening, transformative — and also incredibly fun!
Recommended reading: Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown by Deborah Eden Tull
Get notified about new programs.
Esalen Institute
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
US: 1-831-667-3000
info@esalen.org