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

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

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

Participants will be invited to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since time immemorial, movement, dance, and the expressive arts have provided individuals and communities with a sense of soulful expression, healing, inspiration, spirit, and connection. We now need to reconnect with these ways more than ever.

The Life/Art Process®, developed by Anna Halprin and Daria Halprin, bridges body awareness, art expression, and psychological processes, providing people with an opportunity to experience dance and the expressive arts as a way to learn, heal, expand creativity, and develop new strategies for personal and professional life. This groundbreaking, innovative approach to human development, embodied creativity, and transformative learning began in the 1950s, and the tradition continues today.

Daria Halprin’s work connects dance, somatics, psychology, and artistic practices to foster personal, group, and community development and creativity. In this workshop, movement, dance, drawing, poetic dialogue,  reflective exchanges, and witnessing practices will generate new thresholds of exploration and expression, catalyzing new resources for daily life.

Morning sessions will focus on somatic awareness and individual and group movement exploration to tune the physical body to sensation and feeling. Afternoon sessions will facilitate creative encounters through dance, drawing, and spoken and written narratives to explore our life experiences. Evening sessions will be devoted to questions generated by the day’s work, reflection, and releasing activities, including creative play and meditative art practices.

Participants will be invited to:

• Experience how movement, dance, and expressive arts can be applied to their personal and professional practices.
• Develop body/mind awareness and connection.
• Expand creative expression.
• Experience improvisation and performance.
• Explore old material in new ways and generate new resources to bring into daily life.
• Play with artistic expression as a psychological tool.

Daria will be joined by Guest Musician Miles Lassi. Miles has performed in over 150 cities throughout North America, Europe, and Asia with many different ensembles, ranging from the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall to national Broadway tours like the Tina Turner Musical. He has also recorded with many award-winning artists.No previous artistic experience is necessary. This workshop is designed for everyone!

.Recommended Reading: The Expressive Body in Life, Art and Therapy by Daria Halprin

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:

• Morning meditation to connect to the inner self.
  
• Lectures on the psychological and relational impacts of technology.
  
• Guided exercises to reflect on our attachment histories and “styles.”
  
• Interpersonal practices to replace screen time with real connection.
  
• Collective ritual for going offline intentionally.
  
• Practices in poetry, movement, ritual, song, and nature-based meditation to re-engage and reignite the creative spark.
  
• Community gatherings to rest and restore, including Yoga Nidra for attuning to the technology of the heart.
  

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

This immersive week-long lab is for creators of all kinds––writers, inventors, filmmakers, musicians, and entrepreneurs––anyone who wishes to integrate their spirituality and creativity to tap into the deepest source of inspiration and higher intelligence as they bring guided work into the world.

In the words of Carl Jung, “People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.” By breaking down this process of allowing into three stages (Creation, Manifestation, and Transmission), we will walk together along an impactful, sacred path designed for cohesion, connection, incubation, and transformation.

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

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

In this workshop, you’ll be guided through:

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

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

The lab is open to creators of all levels. You can attend either as an “incubator” (with a specific project or idea that you want to workshop) or as an “observer/participant” (to glean knowledge about conscious creation by watching the process unfold and also participating). In either case, we encourage those who want to participate in the incubator and get the most out of the lab to describe their project in one paragraph, tell us where you are with it, and where you want to take it. In another paragraph, please give us a sense of your professional background and how your project applies (or doesn’t at all) to what you’re already doing in your life now. ‍

Email us at: S2S@thisiscounterpointfilms.com.

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

The voice is calling me, to come home, to the river that is flowing within me. — Sophia Tuv

The voice is more than sound — it is the breath of our being made audible, the vibration of our essence moving through space. It is our most innate instrument, a direct channel between the soul and the world. When freed from inhibition, the voice carries the power to heal, connect, and transform. This is an immersive experience to return to the source of your voice — the primal, unbridled sound that lives within you. Through deep listening, somatic exploration, and playful vocal exercises, we will release the blocks that stifle expression and awaken the pleasure, power, and resonance of our true voice.

Together, we will:

• Explore vocal embodiment, using the body as a resonant chamber for sound.
• Engage in practices that dissolve tension, unblocking emotional and physical expression.
• Awaken the imagination and open new pathways of vocal creativity.
• Let breath and vibration guide us into dynamic, liberatory self-expression.
• Experience the joy of surrendering to our voice, allowing it to move through us freely.

This is an invitation to become your voice, to reclaim its raw beauty and medicine, and to honor the deep impact of speaking, singing, and sounding with love and intention. When we free our voice, we free ourselves — our capacity to express, to connect, to be fully seen and heard. This practice strengthens our confidence, deepens our relationships, and supports our ability to move through the world with clarity, presence, and truth. By attuning to the natural resonance of our voice, we cultivate authenticity, self-trust, and a profound sense of belonging within ourselves and our communities.

Awaken the voice you arrived with. Open the portal. Come home to your sound.

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

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

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

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

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

This workshop includes an additional $55 in faculty tuition.

Join master craftsman and musician Guillermo Martinez for an unforgettable journey into the sacred traditions of Native American instrument making and music. This immersive, hands-on workshop invites you to reconnect with the spirit of sound by crafting three profound instruments: a Native American bamboo flute, a 14″ elk-hide medicine drum, and a gourd crystal rattle.

Designed for beginners and enthusiasts alike, this workshop begins with an exploration of the Native American flute. You’ll not only learn to play this sacred instrument — with guidance on breath control, finger positioning, and melodic phrasing — but you will also craft your own Native American-style flute using bamboo. Through this experiential journey, you’ll discover the flute’s power to express emotion, foster introspection, and create a deep sense of connection.

Next, delve into the sacred art of drum making as you create a 14” elk-hide medicine drum — a profound instrument that serves as the foundation of a trilogy of sacred tools in Native traditions. Guillermo will share the cultural and spiritual significance of the medicine drum and its role as a vessel of healing, rhythm, and spiritual resonance. Using traditional techniques, you will stretch the elk hide and lace the drum by hand, crafting a one-of-a-kind instrument that carries your unique spirit and purpose.

Lastly, connect with the power of resonance as you create your own crystal rattle using ethically sourced gourds, crystals, and natural materials. By blending traditional techniques with your personal intention, you’ll craft a sacred tool for healing, ceremony, and transformation.

No prior musical experience is necessary — just an open heart and a willingness to listen deeply. All materials will be provided, including tools and components for flute, drum, and rattle making.

This workshop has a $200 material fee, which covers all materials for instrument making.

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.

Somewhere inside you—buried deeply, or maybe just below the surface—there is a story you’ve been wanting to tell. Like every great story, the creative process follows an arc: a beginning where inspiration stirs, a middle where challenges arise, and a resolution where something new takes shape. This workshop is an opportunity to explore that arc—both in your storytelling and in yourself—through movement, mindfulness, and writing.

Through carefully curated practices, we invite you to step into your creative flow with curiosity and openness. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just beginning to explore your voice, this space is for you.

During this weeklong experience, we will step away from our daily routines and immerse ourselves in the open air of Esalen. You will have the opportunity to move your body, find your breath, observe your mind, and engage with your words in a new way. Writing sessions will offer guidance and gentle encouragement to move past fear, explore your creative edges, and deepen your connection to storytelling.

This workshop will include:

• Journaling and creative writing exercises to explore the arc of your personal story
• Creative pathways to support in discovering and shaping your narrative
• Hatha-inspired yoga movement and Yoga Nidra practices to invite the connection of body, mind, and intuition
• A supportive and playful community to nurture your creative process

As educators, storytellers, and lifelong learners, Darnell and Cara believe in the power of storytelling and movement to awaken creativity. Just as every story unfolds in its own way, so too does our creative path. This workshop is an invitation to explore that unfolding, to experiment with new creative practices, and to discover what feels most alive for you. You will be encouraged to develop techniques and rituals that support your creativity, with the possibility of weaving them into your daily life in ways that feel natural and sustainable.

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.

Designed for yoga and embodiment teachers who feel the ache of fragmentation, stagnancy, or disconnection in their teaching, this five-day immersion invites you to sit in and ultimately teach from what philosopher Bayo Akomolafe calls “the warmth of the fracture” — where insight dawns, and deeper presence becomes possible. It is a call to those who sense that teaching is not merely a practice, but a sacred act of co-creation, transmission, and care. In a world aching for wisdom, clarity, and connection, the art of true teaching has never been more vital, nor more rare.

Set against the breathtaking backdrop of Esalen in Big Sur, this immersion invites you to step beyond method and mimicry — into the electrifying territory of presence. Here, you’ll remember yourself as a living instrument of purpose, practice, presence, and power.

Rooted in the philosophy and practice of yoga, this experience is for sincere embodiment educators— and for facilitators, guides, and space-holders seeking to align their inner life with their outward offering. Whether you’re a seasoned teacher or simply curious to bring more coherence, confidence, and vitality to your work, you are welcome.

Each day unfolds in dialogue with the land and one another, weaving asana, breath, meditation, somatic inquiry, ritual, and improvisational teaching labs into a living curriculum. Together, we will name and tend the invisible currents that shape our teaching: the hopes, fears, doubts, and devotions that live beneath the surface. We will wrestle with the temptation toward performance, and return instead to the more difficult, more vital task of presence.

Let us reclaim teaching as a radical art form: part discipline, part devotion, all jazz. You’ll learn to riff with reality to transmit something alive. This isn’t about mastering new techniques, but about transmuting the raw material of your life into something that speaks and serves. The process is intimate, catalytic, and grounded in the understanding that the most impactful teachers are those in right relationship with their own unfolding.

Through this journey, you will be invited to:
• Root yourself in the four pillars of transformative teaching: Purpose, Practice, Presence, and Power
• Reclaim your personal story, passions, and practices as instruments— not obstacles— of your offering
• Dismantle the invisible barriers— shame, doubt, contraction— that mute your authenticity
• Learn to teach not from choreography, but from the wellspring of lived, embodied knowing
• Awaken the poetic intelligence, relational agility, and magnetic presence that make teaching transformational rather than transactional

This is not another training, but an initiatory laboratory of becoming — a space to re-encounter your voice, clarify your offering, and remember what only you can teach, how only you can teach it.

Recommended reading: The Courage to Teach, Parker J. Palmer; Let Your Life Speak, Parker J. Palmer; Bringing Yoga to Life: The Everyday Practice of Enlightened Living, Donna Farhi; The Second Circle, Patsy Rodenburg; Human Becoming, David Richo; Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks

We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking. — Richard Rohr

In a world in flux, where uncertainty is the norm, how do we cultivate the inner resilience to enact outer change? This workshop invites educators, social impact leaders, and business professionals to explore healing-centered learning environments as a means of building personal and collective capacity.

This guided weekend retreat experience integrates two transformational frameworks: the Healing-Centered Education Paradigm, a restorative and contemplative approach to learning and leadership, and the Archaeology of Self™ Methodology, a reflective practice of self-excavation to deepen self-awareness and disrupt biases.

During our time together, participants will engage in:

• Mindfulness-based practices — grounding techniques to navigate uncertainty and develop inner clarity.
• Somatic and embodied reflection — movement-based and sensory practices to attune to our body’s wisdom.
• Journaling and critical reflection — guided writing exercises to explore personal narratives.
• Peer-to-peer dialogue — interactive discussions to deepen connections and share insights.
• Poetry writing and storytelling — creative practices to unearth wisdom and reimagine possibilities.

This retreat is for those at the intersection of education, leadership, and community care — those committed to deepening their own growth while contributing to collective healing and systemic transformation. Participants will be given the tools to discover a renewed sense of purpose and clarity in their work to leave rejuvenated, reinvigorated, intellectually stimulated, and spiritually grounded.

What if you could use your voice to feel alive and present in your body? What would it look like to discover your own voice and fulfill its unique potential? This November, join sound therapy pioneer Eileen McKusick and transformational voice leaders and international recording artists Isaac and Thorald Koren of the Brothers Koren in a workshop designed to help you find the electric power in your voice.

Eileen, Isaac, and Thorald will combine their disciplines to create an electrified, liberated, embodied experience of vocal expression and play. This program is designed for those with and without previous musical experience — useful for seasoned professionals and first-time explorers of voice.

Using the power of new awareness, breath, sounding, and tuning with interactive immersion into the innate musicality of your human instruments, you will:

• Explore the 12 tones of our sonic anatomy, the resonant zones and the emotional spectrum of your voice.
• Express the range of your emotions with sound and play with musical modes and archetypes
• Learn to use music to express and balance our feelings, bodies, and biofields.
• Learn practical, playful, simple vocal exercises to support your vitality, freedom, and sense of well-being.
• Stretch the boundaries of your expression and liberate your greatest sound healing tool, your own voice!

Leave the immersive retreat feeling recalibrated, uplifted, and sonically invigorated. Previous participants noted dramatic changes in their freedom of voice after this safe and fun experience.

No vocal ability or musical experience required!