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 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:

• Learn Gestalt-based self-inquiry practices that deepen awareness and connection.
• Engage in breath and movement-based exercises to access embodied wisdom.
• Work in dyads and triads to practice deep listening to one another and your own soul’s unfolding wisdom.
• Participate in guided group processes that create a dynamic space for transformation.
• Some participants will also have the opportunity to engage in individual “open seat” sessions with Perry and Johanna, supported by the group’s presence.

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.

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

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

In this rejuvenating retreat we will explore:

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

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

Recommended reading: The way of Qigong by Kenneth Cohen

We all long to be happy. We all long to feel at ease, to be at peace, and to know that we’re okay and we belong. When it feels like the world is on fire, when divisiveness is commonplace, it can seem harder than ever to access such belonging — both personally and collectively.

Most of us are deeply habituated to believe that we are separate — from one another, from the world, and even from ourselves. We are habituated to fall for the story that we must fix ourselves in order to earn and experience deep connection.

We forget that belonging is already seated in the heart of who we are — and that it’s always available if only we look within. When we do, we can transform far more than just our own lives.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Have you ever touched this peace, this contentment, this deep return to belonging but then feared losing this experience?
• Have you ever struggled because you recognized the world around you did not reflect this experience of your true nature?
• When faced with the enormity of the collective problems before us, have you wondered how one individual’s spiritual practice can make a tangible difference in our world?

These questions will guide our time together as we explore how meditation, mindfulness, and contemplative technologies can — and must — be applied collectively. Our daily meditation practice will serve as a framework onto which we will begin to weave teachings with personal reflections. You will have the opportunity to connect to yourself, others, and the world beyond in solo and group exercises and discussions that inspire us to put our values into action.

Join us in this return to belonging — this remembering of the deepest truth of who we are — with the intention of using this understanding to transform our own lives and the world we share.

Recommended reading: The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together by Caverly Morgan

We invite you to step into a powerful, immersive experience weaving the dynamic energy of 5Rhythms® movement with the deep wisdom of Indigenous traditions. Rooted in the teachings of the Esselen people, this workshop is an invitation to reconnect — with yourself, your community, and the natural world.

For millennia, rites of passage and sacred ceremonies have marked the transitions of life to foster deep connection and a sense of belonging. Today, many of these traditions have been lost or fragmented, leaving us yearning for meaning and community.. In this weeklong journey, we’ll honor the wisdom of the past while creating space for a new kind of homecoming — one that transcends gender, background, and experience.

Through guided movement, storytelling, and shared rituals, we’ll celebrate diversity and unity, embracing both what makes us unique and what brings us together. This is a space for authentic expression and deep listening, where every story and background is honored.

This workshop is a collaborative initiative as part of the healing and reconciliation process between Esalen Institute, participating faculty, and the Esselen Tribe.

What to expect:

• Embodied movement to awaken self-awareness
• Captivating storytelling that bridges cultures and fosters connection
• Rituals and ceremonies celebrating our shared humanity
• A welcoming space where you can fully express yourself

No prior movement experience is needed — just a willingness to explore and connect. No choreography, no expectations, only the freedom to move, feel, connect, and express.

Come as you are. Return to One.

This workshop includes an additional $110 of faculty tuition.

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:

• Deep meditative yoga, breath awareness, and conscious dance
• Time and ceremony in nature
• Sound healing
• Contemplation on the subtle body through the lens of the chakra system

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.

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:

• See life through a refreshing new lens.
• Uncover hidden insights.
• Align with your natural rhythms.
• Nurture personal autonomy for the journey ahead.

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

There’s a threshold where the seen and unseen meet. A bridge between this life and the spirit world — and we can learn how to access it with openness, practice, and trust.

Join AJA Daashuur, medium and spiritual guide, for this weeklong experience designed to open the veil between worlds and deepen your personal connection to Spirit.  As the creator of the CCCE Method (Connect, Channel, Clear, Embody), AJA weaves together powerful channeling, energetic healing, and soul-aligned embodiment to help you step into your highest intuitive expression.

This workshop bring you to that liminal space—a place to receive, remember, and realign. With AJA as your guide, you’ll cross into this space where messages flow, past and future selves meet, and the love of your Spirit Guides becomes undeniably real.

During your time with AJA, you will be invited to:

• Expand your intuitive gifts through grounded psychic development and practical daily rituals.
• Create and connect with your own Spirit Language, a unique channel of communication between you and your guides.
• Explore past and future life progressions to unlock insight into your soul’s path and purpose.
• Engage in supportive practice circles that foster trust, feedback, and a sense of sacred community.
• Discover energetic modalities that align with your natural frequency and deepen your spiritual toolkit.

The Spirit Bridge is more than an experience — it’s a passage back to your deepest knowing. Step across with us. Your guides are already waiting.

Please bring your favorite oracle deck and a journal to use throughout the week.