Visitors are now able to access Esalen as well as other businesses and trails in northern Big Sur via twice-daily convoys on Highway 1 operated by Caltrans.
Convoys run only at 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. each day. These are the only opportunities to travel into and out of Big Sur, so visitors must plan accordingly.
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 more here.)
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All light arises from darkness, including insight, creativity, vision, joy, and possibility. The luminous darkness is the healing 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.
Resting in embodied presence, we will reflect on and harvest lessons from the past year and release 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, deep ecology, 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
This workshop includes an additional $40 faculty tuition.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
Celebrate the holiday season in the natural beauty of the Esalen land while learning the fundamental elements of Esalen® Massage.
The Esalen® Massage approach is about working with each other as human beings, meeting in the present moment, listening, loving, and responding to what emerges naturally. Its principles combine self-care, grounded awareness practice, and presence with the skilled application of long, flowing strokes and integrated detail work to provide relief for overworked muscles.
Taught by senior instructors, the course covers the basics of giving and receiving a massage and offers a wider healing perspective for those with experienced hearts and hands. Sessions include plenty of personal instruction and at-the-table assistance to support the learning process. Time for shared self-reflection and feedback are built into the daily schedule. Come prepared to be nurtured by the healing waters of the Esalen baths and bask in the natural beauty, power, and spirit of Esalen and the Big Sur coast during this special season marking the sun’s return.
This workshop is useful for those in healing professions seeking fresh inspiration.
24 hours of continuing education provided by the faculty through Esalen® Massage and Bodywork Association Teachers.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
Meditating in noble silence offers a special opportunity to focus inward, deeply connect with oneself, and reflect on life goals. The New Year, with its connection to the winter solstice and new beginnings, is the perfect time to silently journey inward. You are invited to set intentions and explore, through seated and moving meditation, themes of self-kindness, self-care, and nurturing.
This retreat is a quiet, reflective New Year celebration with the opportunity to discover a deep, centered place within. The week will be spent in periods of noble silence with two extended periods a day for various meditation practices. Lunch will be at a silent table. You will continue your meditation or join the open activities of the day at Esalen in mindfulness. Mark will guide you through a series of practices of both stillness and movement to build the momentum of concentration and awareness.
This mindful meditation will utilize the rich, sensual experience of Esalen — the sounds of the ocean, the feeling of the air, and the beauty of its colors and textures — as well as the rich experience of our own bodies and minds. Evenings will be open to mindfully enjoy the beauty and community, or you may choose to continue silence in inner retreat. New Year’s Eve at Esalen usually includes a community-wide celebration of some kind, which is an option but not required.
Recommended Reading: Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Bring in the New Year with a rejuvenating week filled with meditation, yoga, hot springs, and the time and space to release the old and welcome the new. We’ll slow down and experience the benefits meditation, gentle yoga, and music offer the body, mind, and soul. Buddhist teacher and author Lopön Chandra will share expert guidance to help you release into grounded presence with ease and comfort.
In this retreat, you will have the opportunity to:
This will be a week of fun, relaxation, and rejuvenation to get you recharged for the coming year. 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.
This workshop has additional $25 faculty tuition.
Imagine your relationship expressing the true depths of your love and commitment. If you are in love, this retreat is an opportunity to rise even higher in love. If you are in crisis, it is an opportunity for healing on the deepest level. We all carry some degree of negative programming from our past, and there are loving and effective ways to transform this programming into a positive and vibrant celebration of our connection.
During this workshop, you will experience exercises and practices for you to do with each other, therapeutic coaching of each couple by the Vissells, the support of other couples and time for sharing after each practice.
You’ll acquire 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.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
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.
Those who know the secret of sound know the mystery of the whole universe. — Hazrat Inayat Khan
Join us to honor the spirit of renewal as we tune into the frequency of love through a series of transformative sound journeys with alchemy crystal singing bowls, chimes, and more. These journeys, grounded in universal laws, can guide us into an altered state of consciousness, often called the quantum field or unity consciousness. In this expanded state, we can more easily release stress, blockages, and inner tension, thereby elevating our joy and well-being.
In this workshop, we will explore:
Each day will include specially curated sound journeys, mindfulness practices, authentic movement, bespoke teachings, metaphysical properties of crystals, and community connection. Special guest Penny Vieregge will share the poetry of Hafiz, and we’ll have a session in the Art Barn to tune into our creative instincts.Supported by the earth, healing mineral waters, fresh ocean air, and starry skies, we invite you to slow down and drop into the serenity of rest as the outside world recedes, allowing your soul’s wisdom to shine through.
Come away with peace of mind, a joyful heart, empowering self-care practices, and sacred nourishment for your soul.
Recommended Reading: The Ancient Language of Sacred Sound: The Acoustic Science of the Divine by David Elkington
This workshop includes an additional $20 in faculty tuition.
How much are you present in your own life? Most of us spend more time worrying about the future, replaying the past, or getting lost in fantasy than experiencing what life offers us right now. This moment is our opportunity to be directly intimate with our lives while learning through difficult lessons how to open our hearts.
Mindfulness — or vipassana — meditation is the practice described by the Buddha for developing wisdom, compassion, and peace by learning to be conscious and aware of what is happening in the present. Using breath, body sensations, thoughts, and emotions, we can find out how to be more fully awake. When we see directly that the nature of reality is change, we become more capable of meeting each situation with spontaneity, fearlessness, and love.
In this workshop, you’ll be introduced to this meditation practice and the principles on which it is based. There will be periods of silent sitting and walking meditation as well as discussions to help provide a foundation for your own mindfulness practice in your everyday life.
Recommended Reading: Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to a Happier Life by James Baraz and The Experience of Insight by Joseph Goldstein
Our ever-increasing intimacy with technology means we live more of our lives with, through, and mediated by it. This carries both opportunities and risks to our social, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual dimensions. Many are experiencing a sense of soul loss — a contracted disconnection caused by distraction, social comparison, loneliness, and lack of true connection, both inner and outer.
The conscious cultivation of awareness through practices that teach us how to pay attention to our own experience as a witness — to see ourselves as a subject of life rather than an object life is happening to — can be incredibly empowering. Sará King and Eve Ekman offer an alchemical opportunity to meet, map, and transform how we relate to technology and reveal its liberatory potential for enhancing embodied awareness and social justice.
Sará is a contemplative neuroscientist dedicated to research and training our experience of mind and consciousness at an embodied level and weaving loving kindness into our active practice of social justice. Eve is a contemplative social scientist who works through wide-scale application of technologies to increase emotional awareness and compassion.
This weekend workshop will include three main pillars:
These experiential practices ground the concept of “justice” as the act of creating intentional space of love and applying active “loving-awareness-in-action” to ourselves and others. Our capacity to gently encourage and guide our attention back to our body in the present moment and sense what we are thinking, feeling, emoting, and remembering is a superpower that should be developed, not taken for granted.
In a world where we must constantly question the “realness” and authenticity of the stimuli we encounter, developing space that empowers us to know our own experience as valid and real might be one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
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
Join Heidi Rose Robbins for an enlivening exploration of your astrological chart. Through group study, movement, writing, and poetry, we’ll bring our astrological map to life — and in so doing, we will practice loving, act courageously, and fully embrace our next life steps.
In this workshop, we will come together in the beauty of the circle to reflect and share wisdom. Your astrological chart is a lens through which you can see yourself and the gifts you have to share. As we study the map of the heavens from the moment we are born, we can become ever more generous and daring, naming our fears and uncertainties and courageously offering up our gifts to liberate love in others and ourselves.
During our time together, we will focus on:
Once we receive your birth data, we will prepare your unique astrological chart, and you will receive it in the workshop! All are welcome. Previous knowledge of astrology, poetry, or movement is not necessary. Come with an open mind and a willingness to embrace the richness of your astrological chart.
Recommended reading: Everyday Radiance: 365 Zodiac-Inspired Prompts for Self-Care and Self-Renewal by Heidi Rose Robbins; Zodiac Love Lettersby Heidi Rose Robbins; Wild Compassion by Heidi Rose Robbins
This workshop includes $10 for workshop materials.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
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
Join bestselling author, Grammy-nominated musician, and award-winning speaker Justin Michael Williams in this transformational and deeply interactive workshop at Esalen Institute. By blending science-backed strategies with empowerment, this session is designed to unlock your full potential and foster a space of connection, wellness, motivation, and confidence.
In this inspiring journey, you will:
Together, we’ll create your personal action plan for 2025 and define your next steps with a simple and proven method that you can take into the new year. This is your moment to reset, renew, overcome fear and self-doubt, and say “yes” to everything that lies ahead. Awaken your true power for the year ahead!
This program has been designed from the ground up to welcome people of all genders, races, identities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Join us!
Recommended reading: Stay Woke, by Justin Michael Williams
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
To encounter someone, something, or someplace implies that it’s unexpected or a surprise. Encountering the moment means coming face-to-face with the unknown. In movement practice, we train ourselves to stay open, curious, centered, and responsive at the front edge of any encounter — counterbalancing those innate primal reactions to fight, flee, freeze, or please.
Rather than withdrawing, playing it safe, or tolerating things you shouldn’t, imagine being adept at staying present and standing your ground clearly and authentically. Picture a world where we are able to express opinions, feelings, discontents, and appreciations skillfully while remaining wholeheartedly open to outcome and change.
In this workshop, within a supportive and challenging environment, we will create “safe emergencies” — situations intense enough to command our attention that are managed with care and support, to help us risk moving beyond habitual self-defeating patterns. Participants can receive real feedback and gain plenty of practice making new choices in relation to others.
20 CE units available for full attendance of this course.
Esalen Massage is a moving meditation, a practice in presence and mindfulness, and a loving healing art. When practiced with focused attention, massage comes from a deep, quiet place that resides inside each of us. This practice of meditation helps access the parasympathetic nervous system, where healing originates. As we give a massage, this healing state of mind can permeate the field that practitioner and receiver create together.
In guided sessions, we will explore the practice of sitting meditation to prepare and quiet our minds, and the fundamentals of Esalen Massage as a meditative and self-reflective practice. Special focus will be on quality of touch, breath awareness, centering, and sensitive rapport between partners. The signature long strokes will support a sense of wholeness and integration. Instruction in detailed work for the shoulders, hips, limbs and neck will contribute to the massage experience. There will be supervised practice daily as students exchange massages, with the support of their experienced teachers.
Beginners as well as seasoned practitioners will welcome this week to explore Esalen Massage and meditation, while enjoying the natural beauty of the Esalen grounds.
This workshop is especially useful for those in the helping and healing professions in working with their clients and partners.
26 hours of NCBTMB approved continuing education provided by the faculty through the Esalen® Massage and Bodywork Association Teachers.
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.
Are you ready to take a break from your routine? Are you ready to stop outside distractions from crowding your innermost world? To relax and rejuvenate?
This weekend yoga retreat invites you to slow down, feel, experience, and remember your innate freedom. With meditative yoga practices and enriching rituals, you will be guided through inquiries that strengthen your foundation for clarity and meaning while helping you soften into your innate essence.
During this weekend, we will:
Receive nourishment from your practice, this sacred land, and the community at Esalen. Return home with a deeper sense of self and purpose.
Note: You are invited to detox from or minimize the use of all electronics during your time here. Some yoga experience is recommended.
BIPOC Scholarship: Jovinna offers one BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, person of color) scholarship for this workshop. For more information on how to apply, please contact her at jovinna@gmail.com
This workshop includes an additional $35 of faculty tuition.
What role does dominant culture play in how we experience the sensations, thoughts, feelings, and deeper existential mysteries of our bodies?
Roger Kuhn, a Poarch Creek Two-Spirit Indigequeer activist, artist, sex therapist, and somacultural theorist, believes that viewing our bodies through a somacultural lens can help us better understand how dominant culture informs and, all too often, misinforms our relationships to them.
Somacultural liberation is an embodied practice that helps individuals connect with the intersections of their identity. Kuhn’s revolutionary mode of inquiry illuminates the full impact of our cultural reality in shaping both our individual and shared sense of self.
Over the course of the workshop, participants will:
This workshop is ideal for therapists, coaches, healthcare professionals, activists, and anyone interested in exploring the impact culture has played in their personal and collective experiences and the pathways to liberation.
Recommended reading: Somacultural Liberation by Roger Kuhn
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
Attention is the beginning of devotion. – Mary Oliver
How might we find fulfillment in this new year? Beneath all the noise, what do you truly care about? A life of fulfillment requires fostering connection and paying attention to what truly matters to you. With the rapid pace of life, it’s easy to lose sight of what you’re devoted to. In this workshop, you’ll have tranquil, uninterrupted spaciousness for yoga, inquiry, and contemplative practice to clear your mind and imbue your heart with deep remembrance.
This yoga workshop offers a profound and playful opportunity to commune with the deeper aspects of Self through movement, meditation, live music, and writing. With equal parts courage and tenderness, we’ll hone our hearts and minds to be vessels for devotion, ready to live this “one wild and precious life” with true purpose and grounded joy.
Together, we’ll explore:
Our nourishing schedule is balanced harmoniously with relaxing meals, community care, and soaks in Esalen’s healing baths. Music, nature, poetry, connection, and ritual are exquisitely curated to accompany your journey.
Whether you’re searching for renewed meaning in life, navigating life’s complex transitions, or simply love being drenched in the divine, this workshop will help awaken your spirit to courage, enrich your heart with devotion, and widen your perspective to vast possibilities.
Grace awaits.
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.
This workshop includes an additional $50 faculty tuition.
This interactive workshop is designed to ignite your creativity and foster connections through the transformative power of improvisation, play, and imagination. Embark on a captivating journey in which science and spontaneity collide, delve into the world of improvisation, and discover its transformative impacts on the brain.
Find out how engaging in playful activities can stimulate the neural pathways linked to flow, enhance cognitive flexibility, and build emotional resilience. Through scientifically grounded interactive exercises, you’ll learn how improv can shape your mindset and improve your well-being.
Together, we’ll experience the delight of collaborative exploration and engage in partner exercises and group games. You’ll forge meaningful connections with fellow participants as you create spontaneous stories and navigate laughter-filled challenges. Through an unforgettable blend of science, creativity, and connection, we will unleash the imagination and welcome the unexpected with open arms!
Whether you’re new to improv or a seasoned performer, our workshop provides an open and encouraging space for exploration, learning, and growth. Join us for this adventure of self-discovery through play that will leave you feeling inspired, energized, and ready to embrace change.
Immerse yourself in a restorative workshop designed specifically for male-identifying people of color. This unique experience offers a sanctuary for growth and self-discovery, fostering a supportive community where participants can connect and build meaningful relationships.
Black boys and men of color have limited opportunities to engage in mind-body healing practices, and there are not nearly enough representations of Black male wellness; this workshop provides tools for transformation, healing, and empowerment while also addressing the interconnected issues of mental health, racial disparities, and community well-being.
Danny and Darnell combine meditation, yoga, and reflective writing to create a nurturing space for participants to explore their inner selves and cultivate mindfulness. Through guided meditations and intention-setting exercises, participants will center their energy and focus on their personal growth journey.
This workshop features:
With reflective writing and a closing circle, participants will be able to process their experiences, express gratitude, and set future intentions to carry them well beyond Esalen.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
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“Who am I?” “Why am I here?” “What is important to me?”
Asking yourself these questions will activate your inner authenticity and allow you to move forward and live your life in alignment with your truest self. The answers to these questions will help you navigate life’s journey with direction, motivation, and inspiration. Perhaps the greatest regret of the dying is that they lacked the courage to live a life true to themselves.
In this workshop, you will reconnect with your authentic self through a series of exercises — such as guided meditation, self-inquiry, journaling, Emotional Freedom Technique (also known as tapping) — and one-on-one and group sharing and embodiment practices. This curated process is designed to allow you space to get clear about:
With that clarity, you can create your manifesto, a written statement declaring who you truly are. Let that sink in: We will first uncover this hidden self, and then, together, we will manifest this being into reality.
Together, we will explore:
Discover practices to connect and practical tools to reprogram your subconscious mind and heal your connection with your truest, deepest, highest self. You will also learn to apply these insights for authentic interactions with others. As you deepen the embodiment of your native self, you’ll experience the freedom of simply being you. This is one of the greatest victories possible: living a courageous life true to yourself — with no regrets.
Please bring a journal and pen to every session.
Recommended Reading: Everyday Initiations by Anne Van De Water
Build inner strength and resilience through a blend of gentle and restorative yoga, stress-relief meditation, Yoga Nidra, and focused writing exercises. Participants will embark on a journey to identify and overcome personal and creative challenges.
This workshop begins with restorative yoga sessions to release physical tension and prepare the body for creative work, followed by guided meditations to ground and center us. Writing exercises will help us explore and articulate personal challenges, fostering a supportive community through group discussions and shared experiences.
As the week progresses, dynamic yoga flow sessions are added to energize participants and help them break through mental and physical blocks. Writing exercises complement the yoga sessions, welcoming the expression and release of pent-up emotions.
Through these empowering practices and guided visualizations, participants can cultivate the courage to pursue their creative goals fearlessly and confidently call themselves an artist. By the end of our time together, you will have the tools and confidence to integrate these practices and techniques into your daily lives for sustained creativity, stress management, and a resilient mindset.
From the poetry of artists such as Maya Angelou and Amanda Gorman to the rhythms of musical geniuses such as Alice Coltrane and Stevie Wonder, Black creative, cultural, and spiritual wisdom guides us toward justice, freedom, and joy. This workshop, designed for participants from all backgrounds, offers practices from African American wisdom traditions that support growth, healing, and liberation.
During Black History Month, we are reminded of the many ways Black historical and cultural achievements have enriched our lives. Yet Black contemplative wisdom as a source of inspiration, creativity, and joyful strength remains largely unrecognized and underappreciated. Black contemplative practices are often misunderstood, especially when appropriated, and are frequently underestimated as mere entertainment.
In this workshop, we will deepen our understanding of multiple expressions of liberatory contemplative insight by exploring the research, theory, and practices of African American wisdom that engage with:
Black cultural practices can open spiritual portals that allow us to experience and articulate insights about our inner lives, relationships, work, social engagement, and planetary citizenship. During each workshop session, we will explore a different cultural and spiritual tradition to experience joy in both the triumphs and the sufferings of our lives.
Together, we will practice joyfully dismantling injustice by releasing cognitive distortions related to racism and other types of oppression that separate us from our most expansive self, as well as from one another. We will also engage with the natural environment here at Esalen in a way that supports joyful mutual sustainability. We will learn how to be just to ourselves and others through meditative practices that guide us toward wise and courageous living.
Recommended Reading: Joyfully Just: Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living by Kamilah Majied will be referenced during the workshop.
Recommended listening: Tricycle Talks podcast episode "Facing Injustice with Joy"
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
A journey to heal oneself and awaken deeply from within. Through meditation, yoga, and time in nature, we will tap into the stories our bodies have to tell and develop skills to nourish ourselves in 2025.
This workshop focuses on the transition from one year to the next as an opportunity to purposefully cultivate a sense of renewal. During our time together, you will be guided to explore and experience what this means for you personally.
Ritual invocations of energy and the power of the Esalen grounds themselves will support your healing journey by providing an intentional space for you to reflect on all you have experienced individually and collectively within your community during the past year.
Throughout the weekend, we will share new ways of grounding and connecting to the sacred energy of nature and the elements constantly surrounding us. This supports the act of renewal, cultivates greater presence, and creates capacity to build and replenish energy throughout the coming year to support continued health and well-being.
In this workshop, all participants are invited:
Explore your unique creative process and express your human potential in a weekend deep dive with The Brothers Koren.
Discover your distinct creative personality and how to find harmony and coherence in your own creative process.
The brothers specialize in facilitating a safe space for you to move beyond the inhibitions and align to your authentic expressive impulse by identifying and supporting your distinct voice and creative code.
By using their embodied voice techniques, creative process design flow, and collaborative games, you will learn how to hold a space for playfully encountering your own brilliance and bring your creative expression to life.
Bring your voice, your ideas and your curiosity. All creative modalities are welcome. Art, music, voice, entrepreneurship, anything!
The brothers believe that almost everything we do in life involves a level of creative energy; from writing a song or painting a picture, to choosing what to wear in the morning and having a conversation – we are constantly improvising and using our creative life force.
However, many of us feel disconnected, blocked and disempowered in our creative process. Some of us end up feeling stuck or shut down in different stages of our creations, whether experiencing trouble starting or finishing ideas.
What might be possible for you if your creative process was back in flow? The brothers are ready to help you reframe what it means to be creative, and to connect back to the way nature intended it. Life is a radically creative act. Join them and explore what is possible!
No creative experience necessary.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
Embark on a transformative journey with the Esalen® Massage Teacher Training program, designed to empower you with the skills and knowledge to become an effective introductory-level teacher of Esalen® Massage.
This immersive training for certified Esalen practitioners launches with a month-long training at Esalen Institute, followed by a two-week module at Mimpi Menjangan in Bali (October 08-25, 2025).
Senior teachers will cultivate a sense of embodied presence in the classroom and guide you in this experiential mode of instruction.
Highlights include how to organize a training, different learning methods for different learning styles, truly great massage demonstrations, group dynamics, and the joys of sharing this healing work with a global community. You will be supported between modules by experienced mentors who will guide you through your homework and each stage of your development, ensuring that you are well-prepared to inspire and educate future practitioners.
Important Notes:
You may apply to this program if:
Recommended Reading:
All people have an innate ability to move toward healthy, satisfying relationships. Old patterns of behavior and fixed ideas formed in early relationships may block our ability to communicate and make contact with the people in our lives.
The Gestalt approach aims to increase awareness of these patterns and our ”unfinished business” by relating in a group that meets our needs for emotional attunement and understanding, that supports us in identifying and expressing our emotions, and which is committed to creating an atmosphere of respect, kindness, acceptance and honesty. These relational experiences support energy, aliveness and good contact.
Over the course of this workshop, we will
We may discover habitual relational patterns that prevent us from cultivating the type of relationships we want, and develop new skills for relating.
The workshop will include time for gestalt awareness practices, and a mixture of didactic and experiential exercises. Each participant will have an individual “open seat” session with Dorothy, with the support of the group.
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.
In this introductory workshop, couples, partners, and friends will refine their relationship with touch, our forgotten language. Participants will be encouraged to ask for what they want, listen to each other, gain sensory skills in initiating and receiving touch, experience the felt sense of muscle release, and close with a balanced tenderness.
Seasoned instructors will offer exercises, massage demonstrations, and at-the-table guidance during paired practice. The simple principles of Esalen® massage – presence, attending rather than fixing, self-care, and slow-paced strokes encompassing the body – will build a heartfelt experience with our partner or friend, and perhaps most significantly, ourselves.
By the final session, participants will share and take home the basics of a classical Esalen massage. Experienced practitioners and caregivers will find it refreshing to apply the Esalen method and notice its effect as their rhythm slows and the mind becomes focused on compassionate contact rather than technique.
Touch soothes us and evokes an opening to spirit. Participants experience a healthy balance of body, mind, and the vast awe of this natural setting. The edgy wildness of Esalen’s grounds, canyons, hot springs, and mountain backdrop sustain deeper connection.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
Intimacy is to the soul as food is to the body. It creates a sense of connectedness that provides access to dimensions of the self that are unavailable during ordinary states of awareness. Being present in this way reminds us that we are not separate beings, alone and adrift in the world, but inextricably connected — unconditionally whole, complete, and sufficient as we are.
Intimate connections are necessary to experience deep fulfillment in life. When that need goes unfulfilled, we may experience loneliness, malaise, moodiness, agitation, or depression. Intimate moments occur unexpectedly, showing up as surprising gifts. Many of us don’t realize that we have considerable influence in creating the conditions that can promote — and even compel — the experience of intimacy.
Loving feelings alone do not assure that intimacy will be present in a relationship. Feeling love and experiencing intimacy are distinct and separate phenomena. When the sexual element is added to that equation, the result can be ecstasy, which means “to be driven out of one’s mind.” Intimacy doesn’t result in insanity, but it can make us feel like we are losing contact with ordinary reality. Entering this other world is not for the faint of heart. It requires the heart of a lover and an adventurous warrior’s spirit.
The course will include interpersonal exercises, lectures, mindfulness practices, and time for Q&As. You will be supported in identifying blocks of resistance, both the conscious and unconscious. You will be given guidance and tools to neutralize the barriers impeding your quest for deeper, more loving connections.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
This workshop explores ways of representing and befriending our inner experience. Therapies that work all start from a basic sense of calm and safety. The calmer we are, the more we can allow ourselves to know what we know, and to feel what we feel.
Trauma changes the way the brain processes information and the body engages with the world. Trauma makes people afraid to know what they know and feel what they feel. This is expressed in heartbreak, and the state of being out of sync with oneself and one’s surroundings. This course explores how, because of altered biological systems, traumatized people continue to be trapped by their history and react to current experience in a myriad of ways as a replay of the past, and shows ways to break the cycles of re-enactment and suffering.
We will study and experience the capacity of EMDR, yoga, Internal Family Systems, sensorimotor practices, psychodrama, theater work, and neurofeedback to help people overcome a traumatic past and regain the capacity to be fully alive in the present.
Bring a notebook. Wear clothing that allows free movement as you are able.
Recommended reading: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van de Kolk
We sleep one-third of our lifetime, an average of 20 to 25 years. Dream yoga is a practice that spans every moment, waking and sleeping. It is a powerful tool of awakening used for hundreds of years by the great masters of the Tibetan traditions. Foundational practices in dream yoga change the practitioner’s relationship to all experiences, develop conscious awareness and often lead to lucidity in dreams. Unlike in the Western psychological approach to dreams, the ultimate goal of Tibetan dream yoga is the recognition of the nature of the mind or enlightenment itself.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will discuss the relationships between dream and waking, and dream and death. He will show how the causes of dreams are related to the six chakras, and how we can heal blocks in the chakras. He will teach the “four preparations” for sleep and the uses and methods of lucid dreaming.
Recommended reading: Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep and Rinpoche, Sleep & Awakening the Sacred Body.
As life changes, we also must change — yet this isn’t guaranteed. Too many of us get stuck at our thresholds. Nature, creativity, and ritual can help us cross them gracefully, helping us ground, listen, and orient to what is changing.
Join us for a transformative workshop designed to provide the skills and understanding needed to create your own modern rituals, with a special focus on the healing modality of Morning Altars. By working with nature and the incredible power of the land at Esalen, we will reawaken our creativity, open to possibility, and witness what is changing in our lives.
Guided by award-winning author, artist, teacher, and ritualist Day Schildkret, you are invited to:
This workshop is designed for anyone in a life transition who wants to learn creative ways to ritualize it. Crafted with great care, this experience welcomes all genders, races, identities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Threshold moments are meant to be crossed together. Join us if you feel your transition has become protracted or need greater support and attention to skillfully move to your next chapter.
Recommended Reading: Hello, Goodbye: 75 Rituals for Times of Loss, Celebration, and Change and Morning Altars: A 7-Step Practice to Nourish Your Spirit through Nature, Art, and Ritual by Day Schildkret
This workshop includes a $30 material fee.
Join LaVerne McLeod and Melanie DeMore for a weekend of exploration and celebration of Black History Month as we express ourselves, connect, play, and honor humanity.
Together, we will explore what it is like to walk in another person’s shoes to understand and empathize with viewpoints that might differ from our own. We will build a safe container of trust and get curious about what might be lying beneath the surface — while moving toward resilience and empowerment.
Using empathy, songs, visualization, and movement exercises, we will connect and relate to one another, letting go of what no longer serves us and learning effective responses to life’s challenges.
In this workshop, LaVerne McLeod will lead the group in empathetic practices that call forth bridging gaps of separation. In celebration,Melanie DeMore, a vocal activist, will lead soulful ballads to energize spirits and exemplify the rejuvenating power of healing through music.
This workshop is highly recommended for all races, identities, gender expressions, and nationalities. It can be a creative catalyst for educators, therapists, and artists that leads to one’s own inner healing. Those in leadership roles working with diverse populations may find this workshop to be a source of empowerment. Together, let’s connect our heart centers to the path that nourishes and heals us.
Recommended Reading: Corn Hollow, 2nd edition by LaVerne Hillis McLeod and The Crossroads of Social and Climate Justice by LaVerne Hillis McLeod.
* Locals rate available for locals who do not require overnight accommodations. Click "Register Now" for more information. Valid ID required.
Join Janet in this nourishing and revitalizing weekend, designed to replenish the nervous system and adrenals, boost the immune system, and ground our hearts and minds in simplicity. We will drop down through body-mind-spirit to find space between effort and surrender, allowing our internal systems to release toxins and integrate the powerful wellness generated by our bodies through our physical practices. Slow and fluid movement, restorative postures, meditation, pranayama (breathwork), and chanting will refill the mind, body, and spirit.
We will create space in our body for introspection and move out of the cyclical fight-or-flight response to cultivate sustainable power, rest, and healing.
We’ll practice:
Please bring an eye pillow. If you are driving, please also bring a sandbag and bolster.
CE Credit Available: 10 hours Continued Education credit for Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT) available through Yoga Alliance; see leader.
This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
Restore.
It can take time and great effort to move away from the ego affirming busyness of modern day life toward a reflective stillness. In this workshop we will cultivate this slowing, deepening, and going within.
In a community setting, we will allow ourselves to dive below the surface of our thoughts and identities to know ourselves more intimately and untether from the chords that hold us to old behaviors and belief structures. Our practice will include:
With the power of this land, the healing waters, strength of community, and nourishment of slowing down, we will move toward a listening, supple, healing body.
Please bring an eye pillow, and if you are driving, please also bring a bolster and sandbag.
CE Credit Available: 25 hours Continued Education credit for Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT) available through Yoga Alliance; see leader.
This workshop includes an additional $200 faculty tuition.
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.
We are all born as natural storytellers. Our need to tell stories is primal for it connects us with our deeper selves and with one another. Most of us lose this inherent ability as we grow up, and our stories often become subjected to grades and criticism, which can make our voices shrivel, even disappear. This loss manifests in all sorts of ways, such as feeling disconnected from one’s self, feeling purposeless, or experiencing a constant sense of malaise and dissatisfaction. This workshop is about reclaiming that sacred and unique part of ourselves.
Over the course of the weekend, you will be led through a series of oral storytelling exercises passed down through generations from the historic city of Shushtar, Iran. Being witness to these stories opens people up to their own hidden stories.
Finding your voice and telling your authentic story is a courageous act. As a group, we will move through a gentle and vulnerable process to build and bond as a community and witness the re-emergence of long-hidden voices. Everyone has a story to tell, and every story counts in our collective container. Join us for a week of self-discovery and connection. All are welcome.
Recommended Reading: Please listen to Sob by Firoozeh Dumas, available on audible.com or Amazon. Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas is recommended but not required.
Have you noticed the painful effects of self-judgment? Do you feel tormented by negative critical self-talk and the harsh words of the inner critic? Are you prone to judging everything you do as not good enough, not quite right, or not up to some impossibly high standard? Do you find yourself harshly judging your meditation, your practice, or your other spiritual practices?
If you wish to be free from the influence of the inner critic, this workshop offers tried-and-tested methods for overcoming the challenges of self-judgment.
During this course, you will be shown:
The course will be a combination of talks, interactive exercises, mindfulness, self-compassion, loving kindness techniques, and meditations. This will be a practical and experiential course taught with lightness, compassion, humor, and the need to not take ourselves too seriously.
Recommended reading: Make Peace with your Mind – How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Help Free You from the Inner Critic, by Mark Coleman
This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
“If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for?” –Alice Walker
How can art contribute to healing while staying centered in the creative process? What kind of art-making responds to the therapeutic experience? What does it mean to live an aesthetic life? And what is possible when we do?
In the early 1960s, a new interdisciplinary approach was developed to explore and respond to these questions: The Halprin Life/Art Process. This work influenced the worlds of dance, environmental design, theater, and psychology. This workshop will be an immersive experience in that approach to the creative process, movement, and healing art. It is aimed at those who identify as artists as well as those who are simply lovers of art seeking to open the doors of their own creativity.
We will enter into an exploration of art-making as a way to encounter and explore themes, challenges, and dreams that are informing our lives. Maps and methods will be taught that are easily accessible and applicable to personal and professional practice.
The opening welcome session will create an environment of group collaboration, including intention setting, play, and collaboration. Each day that follows will emphasize different mediums, including movement/dance, drawing, and poetry/narrative. On the fourth day, we’ll develop ritual performances for participants to present artwork dedicated to something personal and meaningful.
Participants may expect to leave with the following:
Participants must bring the following: Writing materials and a special writers journal, a box of varied and well supplied Craypas pastels/water colors if desired.
Belonging is an essential part of the human experience. Throughout human history, we have encountered intense polarization and separation due to religious, ethnic, gender, and sexual orientation differences. This unique workshop, led by renowned documentary filmmaker and community therapist Lee Mun Wah and diversity educator and body-based psychotherapy practitioner Yi-Li Godfrey, explores how to foster community and connection in the spaces we engage with. Together, we will examine the forces that divide us, the roots of our fears and biases, and ways we can come together with a deeper sense of authenticity, connection, understanding, and belonging.
Through personal stories, filmed vignettes, and interactive exercises, participants will explore:
Join us on a journey toward understanding, respect, and belonging. Through practical tools, reflective exercises, and meaningful dialogue, we can all be architects of change, working to create a more inclusive and connected world.
This workshop is ideal for educators, staff, administrators, therapists, social workers, DEI professionals, human resources teams, corporate leaders, parents, counselors, and anyone passionate about creating inclusive spaces.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
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
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
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.“
— Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower
All beginnings have seeds — the starting point for new growth and new branches of our lives, the sources for new chapters. This is what annual cycles and seasons promise: As our intentions and ambitions sharpen, we get to discern what parts of our lives we will continue, what we will leave behind, and what we will start. Whether we are feeling stuck at a crossroads in life or at work, transitioning through relationships, or starting a new project, now is the time to seed self-renewal.
In this week-long workshop, we will turn to the teachings of nature for guidance and inspiration, attending to five key resources for regenerative growth:
Through highly interactive journaling prompts, paired and small group discussions, guided movement meditations, and other practices for renewal, participants will discover tools to clarify hopes and dreams, release old beliefs and behaviors, and chart new strategies for curating the future. Join us as we internalize a powerful framework from nature to refresh our worlds and seed possibilities for life to come.
When you engage with another — whether a lover, friend, or colleague — are you doing what they want you to do or what they allow you to do? What is the difference, and why does it matter?
Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent is a groundbreaking model of relating that brings greater clarity and authenticity to our relationships in all areas of life. It creates a practice of separating out receiving and giving, which will challenge you, surprise you, and teach you a lot about yourself! As you become exquisitely aware of your desires and limits and how to communicate them, you will be free to make more embodied choices.
In this small group workshop uniquely crafted for Esalen, we will build on the somatic experience of the Wheel of Consent and its natural outgrowth of personal empowerment. We will expand our views to look more closely at our own power and how we can use it well.
This workshop will include curriculum, discussion, and practices to support participants in:
The Wheel of Consent is best experienced somatically — in the body. We will include the option to learn through touch, and, of course, you never have to experience touch you do not want — ever.
Recommended reading: The Art of Receiving and Giving: The Wheel of Consent, by Betty Martin
This workshop includes $50 of additional faculty tuition.
“Breath is a force, a medicine, and a gateway to the unconscious mind and the very essence of our Being.” – The Holloman’s
Join us for an immersive experience where ancient breath practices intersect with contemporary Gestalt to unleash the transformational power of awareness. For millennia, diverse yoga traditions have harmonized breathwork with mindfulness to nurture psychological healing and spiritual growth. Today, science is validating the profound impact of breathwork and embodied awareness on stress management and immune resilience. Visionaries like Bessel Van der Kolk champion the fusion of breath, movement, awareness development, and educated touch in healing trauma.
This twelve-day full immersion training at Esalen provides a sanctuary for professionals seeking to infuse Gestalt and breathwork into their practices as well as for anyone on a journey of self-discovery. Participants will learn about and experience different forms of breathwork. Extended two-to-three-hour breath sessions can open expanded states of consciousness for self-exploration of deeper, authentic dimensions of our being. We will begin our days with shorter “daily-dose”breath practices (50 minutes) which can be used for at-home exploration. Integrative Gestalt is a powerful tool supporting self-inquiry helping us to understand and metabolize our experiences as we journey together into realms of altered consciousness through breath.
In this training, we will explore:
Embark on this transformative journey crafted to nurture your personal healing and spiritual growth. Acquire essential skills to expand your practice, whether you’re a professional who wants to enhance your expertise or an individual dedicated to deepening your self-inquiry.
Across various wisdom traditions, there is a common yet paradoxical invitation: Turn toward what is difficult to find freedom from what is difficult. However, when we find ourselves feeling anxiety, loss, judgment, irritation — the full bouquet of difficult emotions — facing these feelings is the last thing we want to do. Fortunately, there are trainable, evidenced-informed practices to help us transmute adversities into joy and insight. By turning toward our challenges, we uncover the wisdom within them, and they transform into our allies.
Teachers and authors Chandra Easton and Eve Ekman have been teaching these transformative tools together and apart for more than a decade. Easton’s expertise draws from her intimate knowledge and practice of Tantric Buddhism and her teachings on the evidenced-based practice of Feeding Your Demons® (FYD) internationally. FYD is a guided five-step process that transforms our so-called “demons” of difficult emotions into our allies. Ekman’s expertise lies in her application of contemporary psychological science of well-being and emotion awareness, sharing the evidenced-based practice of Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) with the world. CEB draws from contemporary emotion science and develops our emotion granularity by mapping our emotion episodes.
In this training, Easton and Ekman guide participants to transform the mind, which is afflicted by our tendency toward enacting destructive emotions. At the heart of all these practices is an ability to transform adversity and joy into the path of our awakening. In contemporary psychological terms, we investigate our so-called “negative” emotional experiences to identify the stories and patterns that occlude our innate compassionate, pro-social nature.
This weekend will include guided meditations based on FYD and CEB, discussions, and time for integration and practice outdoors, weather permitting.
Suggested reading: Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione & Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron.
This workshop includes an additional $50 in faculty tuition and $5 materials fee.
Healing ourselves is a journey of return. During this weekend workshop, you will be invited to learn about the practice and traditions of “curanderisma” (folk medicine) to bring forth awareness and attune us to our individual healing journeys. Through meditative and contemplative practices, touch, prayer, plants, and natural elements, their work honors a lineage of centuries-old wisdom to bring a sense of well being to those seeking renewal.
This workshop will include:
Through Margaret and Michael’s teachings, you're invited to connect to your own innate healing potential and have the ability to support others with love and intention.
You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer. – Thich Nhat Hanh
Join herbalist, medicine woman, and plant spirit teacher Marysia Miernowska for a nourishing, magickal weekend journey of intimacy with the Earth to receive physical and spiritual healing from medicinal herbal infusions and awaken the energies of spring’s renewal within us and all around.
In a safe and sacred container, you will be guided in:
By communing with safe, healing, and nutritive wild medicine infusions, participants will flood their bodies with the restorative nourishment of the wild earth. While journaling and meeting plant spirits through shamanic tea meditations, we’ll create safety in the body and nervous system and receive insight, inspiration, energy, and replenishment for a personal awakening that mirrors the energy of spring.
By restoring the ancient knowledge of folk healing and plant medicine, we hope to heal the separation between ourselves and nature and awaken a collective passion to protect this Earth we all call home.
This workshop includes a $40 materials fee.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our life. — Esther Perel
In any meaningful relationship, mistakes, tough emotions, challenging conversations, and misunderstandings are inevitable. Great relationships aren’t devoid of conflict; rather, they navigate it with care and efficiency.
Truly fulfilling relationships hinge on our ability to skillfully navigate conflict. With the right tools and skills, upsets can be transformed into generative conflict — moving through ruptures in ways that deepen trust and connection. Imagine a roadmap to harmony, a toolkit of resilience, and a foundation of unwavering confidence. This workshop harnesses the transformative power of the revered 6-step REPAIR process, created by Dr. Hazel-Grace, to master the art of conflict resolution, rebuild trust, and foster deeper connections.
In this workshop, participants will:
Hazel-Grace cultivates a dynamic learning environment through relatable and vulnerable storytelling. They foster a supportive and collaborative community by facilitating authentic relating games and practices that promote meaningful connection. Their attentive care for the group’s collective nervous system ensures an atmosphere of ease and nourishment.
Listen as Hazel-Grace shares about their REPAIR Process in this short video. If you’d like to dive deeper, watch this 20-minute Art of REPAIR Mini Course filled with potent takeaways.
This workshop includes an additional $5 for materials.
The Brahmavihārās (divine abodes) are profound practices that uncover your natural capacity to live your life easefully with love, connection, wisdom, and joy. In this experiential workshop, we’ll use daily guided meditation practices, storytelling, song, relational mindfulness practices, self-directed neuroplasticity, yoga, and somatic play to explore the classical Buddhist Heart practices known as the “boundless states” or the “four immeasurables.”
In this workshop, we will explore the four Buddhist virtues and ways to cultivate them, including:
Our days will follow a nourishing schedule of experiences and reflections balanced harmoniously with relaxing meals, community connection, and starlit soaks in Esalen’s healing baths. Music, nature, poetry, shadow work, journaling, breathwork, and ritual will all be artfully woven into our time together.
Whereas some spiritual practices are aimed at otherworldly enlightenment, the four divine abodes help us awaken to the beauty, clarity, and vast possibility available right here in our complex, often messy, mundane, and wholly sacred human experience. They are a pathway to unburdening ourselves of self-doubt, resentment, and regret. They guide our way home to that wellspring in our hearts from which unconditional love flows, where we contact our wholeness, discover radical acceptance, and remember our belonging in this world.
No matter who you are, where you are on your spiritual path, or what you’ve been through, discovering renewal is possible. Join us if you long for a deep, playful, tenderizing workshop that may touch your heart and leave you forever transformed.
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.
Perimenopausal and menopausal transitions are more than biological phases to endure; they are sacred passages that forge a woman into her fullest expression — as a truth-bearer, a pathfinder, a beauty maker, and a new creation.
When the monthly cycles end, you’ll undergo tremendous transformations in your body, mind, emotions, and psyche. Crossing this monumental threshold awakens your inner sage, a wild knowing sacredly woven from deep intuition and your soul’s language.
Join Jovinna as she weaves a web of story, nature, movement, and community to capture the magic of this time of life. Anchor the new story for yourself and future generations, infusing meaning and sacredness into this wild and inspired time.
Over the weekend, there will be:
Let this be a time of celebration with reverence and levity as you meditate in the field of endless possibilities without your old roles, identities, and patterns.
Please bring a journal, a small piece of cloth that represents your old self, and an article of clothing that you’d like to wear for the ceremony of renewal.
BIPOC Scholarship: Jovinna offers one BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, person of color) scholarship for this workshop. For more information on how to apply, please contact her at jovinna@gmail.com.
This workshop includes an additional $35 faculty tuition.
Be inspired by the flame / where everything shines as it disappears. – Rainer Maria Rilke
What part of your life could use some breath, space, movement, flow, and a sprinkle of humor? Where in your work or relationships are you called toward a more passionate participation — or a deeper letting go?
What if you had ways to show up when faced with change, impermanence, loss, and the whole everyday mess of the human condition while remaining in touch with the deathless presence in which everything dances?
Join us in a leading-edge exploration integrating conscious movement, somatic inquiries of embodied gestalt, and the stillness of nature for a transformative process that touches body, heart, and spirit.
In this workshop, we will:
By relating to one another in real time in the presence of the natural world, we can not only return to a semblance of sanity but also find ourselves healed and held in the great heart of belonging. This workshop is open to everybody willing to move, pause, listen, and relax, relax, relax one timeless movement at a time.
This workshop offers 10 CE credits for therapists and social workers. Zuza Engler is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) to sponsor continuing education programs for LMFT, LCSW, and LPCC. Please email angel@zuzaengler.com for more details about CE credits. There is a $25 fee for the certificate.
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.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
At the very heart of “belonging” is the word “long.” To be-long to something is to stay with it for the long haul. It is an active choice we make to a relationship, to a place, to our body, to a life because we value it. Even knowing that it may not be all that we hope it to be, we are keeping the long view of what is possible, and our life becomes an offering to making it so. ― Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home
There is an irony in living in a world with so many “things” to pursue and so many of us feeling a deep sense of disconnection and alienation. Our fierce individualism often leaves us separate from our bodies, one another, and the Earth. “Belonging” is always an integral strand in our many deeply woven threads to self, our communities, and the Earth. We long to belong, and we are created for connection. Building places of belonging begins with the self, trickles out to our wider circles, and ultimately connects us to the entire world.
This five-day workshop will dive into the dynamics of separation and belonging across these many dimensions, utilizing a mix of teachings, dialogue, and embodied experiences. We will draw on the richness of ecopsychology and the playfulness of the 5Rhythms® moving meditation, and we’ll engage in restorative time in contemplation in the natural landscape of Esalen. While holding the difficult emotions and realities of our present times, we will nurture curiosity and hone our intuition to evoke a sense of belonging within ourselves, with one another — across our uncomfortable differences — and with all sentient beings.
Participants in this workshop will experience:
Participants should be prepared to work with challenging material, to encounter difficult and joyful emotions, to engage in experiential practices, including the 5Rhythms movement meditation, and to play within a respectful, compassionate community. We will investigate the ways in which we form connections with others and our various communities, and we will experience the deep fulfillment that comes from greater connectivity.
Recommended Reading: Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet by Jeanine M. Canty, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home by Toko-pa Turner, Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth
This workshop has an additional $100 of faculty tuition.
You deserve to feel ease and joy in your body as you age. Movement, time in nature, breath, quiet contemplation, and “Aha!” moments all contribute to expanding happiness and delight in life. Though this is true, you may face challenges. Changes to our bodies — aches and pains, joint replacements, osteoporosis, heart issues, and other conditions — may challenge us to find new ways to understand ourselves and maintain grace of movement and attitude.
During this workshop, you’ll discover therapeutic yoga techniques that increase awareness, empower exploration of your unique body now, and increase your ability to take good care of yourself. Learn to feel yoga poses from the inside out, aligning them well to tune into the energy flowing through your body, and find qigong movements and yoga postures that best serve you.
We have a week together to listen to our inner wisdom and the quiet intelligence of the body. We have the space to share our ideas, fears, limiting scripts, and dreams for our futures.
Together, we will find:
This workshop is suited for anyone with a basic understanding of yoga. No prior experience of qigong needed. People working with injuries or body challenges are welcome if they can still participate in practice and have permission, if needed, from their medical provider. Modifications will be given for various ability levels. Participants need to be able to get up and down off the floor on their own. If you are not sure if this workshop is suited for you, please contact Tracy.
How might you think about grief, and what are the lessons to be learned about restoring your life? This precise, honest, and heart-centered workshop, led by cultural sociologist and Gomti River ceremonialist Roksana Badruddoja, focuses on exploring grief in a life-affirming way through the sacred wisdom of the Akashic Records and the qualitative feminist writing technique known as autohistoria-teoría.
Over five days, participants will engage in interactive sessions and experiential practices to gain access to the records and explore their grief while developing personal authority and insight. The Akashic Records are an etheric storehouse of all information — every word, deed, feeling, thought, and intent — offering a space for self-repair and healing from personal and intergenerational grief. By tapping into the wisdom of the Gomti River integrated with autohistoria-teoría writing, participants will engage in intentional storytelling by writing a short autoethnographic text focused on a significant grief event, guided by the question: What are you burning to tell the world?
In this workshop, you will:
Ultimately, this workshop aims to empower individuals to transform their grief into healing narratives that foster growth and resilience.
**To fully embrace this work, participants must attend all sessions, believe in a higher ineffable power bigger than us, and be fully open to examining their grief. Required readings will be sent as PDFs upon registration.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
“To live in accord with love is to set your heart on fire. In the crucible of such an inferno all convention burns away. What’s left is an entirely new kind of existence, one full of passion, presence and infinite possibility.” — Setting Your Heart on Fire
What if you could fall absolutely in love with every moment? What if you could use love’s radiance to heal your deepest wounds and break through any personal challenges — career, relationships, family, weight, self-esteem, addiction, anything?
All of this happens naturally when you stop trying to change your life and instead learn to relax into it. This workshop is designed to meet you where you are and then call forth your very best. You’ll discover the simple, practical steps necessary to feel all emotions with willingness and compassion, uncover and transform your limiting beliefs; and create a life of greater ease, joy, and exquisite connection.
This weekend is primarily experiential. It’s designed with the recognition that your heart is already on fire – our job is to remove what’s dampening the flame. The key explorations and practices of the gathering:
Special note: On Saturday night our group will host a Freestyle Dance Jam, with Raphael as DJ, as a gift for ourselves and everyone at Esalen that night. Remember to pack some loose fitting attire and get ready to rock and roll and shake and swing and let it all go!
Recommended reading: Cushnir, Setting Your Heart on Fire, and The One Thing Holding You Back.
Rhythm is our universal mother tongue. It’s the language of the soul. — Gabrielle Roth
Enhance your life through movement and join an inspiring 5Rhythms® workshop led by international teacher Douglas Drummond with master djembe drummer Sanga of the Valley and the talented Nick Ayers, a dream team for live percussion and recorded sound.
We’ll come together with reverence and respect at Esalen Institute on Esselen territory. This uniquely moving meditation experience will be deeply rooted in the powerful themes of reconciliation and resiliency, serving as a vital medium for healing and empowerment.
We will explore our own intentions and, by working in reciprocity with the themes of reconciliation and resiliency, will foster a sense of community and connection while cultivating our own inner strength.
This workshop invites individuals of all experience levels to embark on a potent journey toward expanded harmony for embodied receptivity, strength, and perseverance through the transformative 5Rhythms practice.
Together, we will do our best to create a safe-as-possible container to nurture empathy, forgiveness, and trust for healthier relationships and thriving communities. Let’s move together and create a brighter, more resilient future. Your presence is vital.
Recommended Reading: Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth
This workshop has an additional $60 of faculty tuition.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
Get ready for ecstatic rebirth! This small group workshop is for you if you are prepared and willing to:
Raphael Cushnir creates a safe and gentle environment to help call forth your very best, using tools such as:
The highlight of this retreat is designing a unique transformative experience all your own. You leave with a practical road map for real-life integration, plus benefits you can experience immediately— and for the rest of your life.
Special note: On Tuesday night, our group will host a Freestyle Dance Jam, with Raphael as DJ, as a gift for ourselves and everyone at Esalen. Remember to pack some loose-fitting attire and get ready to rock and roll, shake and swing, and let it all go!
Recommended reading: The One Thing Holding You Back, by Raphael Cushnir
In this transformative workshop, you will explore Maranasati, mindfulness of death, a profound practice for embracing life’s natural cycles of birth and death with greater aliveness, presence, and fearlessness. By facing impermanence directly, you can open your heart to live with deeper intention, presence, and less fear, freeing yourself to embrace life in its fullest expression.
Guided sitting and walking meditations will be at the heart of our time together to help us anchor into the body, quiet the mind, and discover peace amid the ever-changing nature of life. We’ll create spaciousness for silence, allowing insights to emerge naturally. Contemplative practices will guide us as we reflect on powerful meditative inquiries. Reflective writing, such as crafting your own obituary, will offer deeper self-exploration. Creative exercises, like haiku writing, will provide a way to express these insights through art, transforming our contemplation into beauty.
Through small group inquiry, we will share and deeply listen to one another’s reflections, fostering a supportive community connected by our shared humanity. We’ll practice letting go, finding ease with the unknown, and addressing the heart’s unfinished business. As we cultivate metta (loving-kindness), we soften our fears and grief with compassion, gradually transforming them into equanimity and acceptance.
Join us in this exploration of mortality to see death as a wise teacher and life as an opportunity for authenticity, love, and presence. This workshop is open to anyone ready to deepen their connection with mortality and embrace life and death with an open heart.
This workshop invites you to explore the creative spirit that resides within each of us. Whether you are an experienced artist or simply seeking to uncover your potential, this meditative experience promises to be enriching.
We will begin with colored pencils to open our hearts and let creativity flow naturally. Then, with acrylic paints, participants will create a personal mandala (an integrated image of wholeness), Sri Yantra (a mystical diagram used in Hinduism that represents the union of the masculine and feminine divine energies), or designs of their choice. By the end of the workshop, you will have finished a unique and beautiful piece of art.
The practice of painting is both healing and meditative, and this journey is meant to expand our consciousness and ability to deepen our connections with nature and our inner selves. It is a gentle entry into the left brain hemisphere to open our capacity for creative experiences. Our time together is designed to provide the foundation for painting as a sacred art, to introduce participants to their possibilities as an artist, and to help them walk down the artist’s path — one paved with joy, insight, and awareness.
This workshop includes an additional $25 for materials.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
This workshop is the perfect opportunity for you to enjoy the natural beauty of Esalen’s springtime bloom while gaining a foundation in Esalen® Massage. Senior teachers will guide you in this experience of connection and presence translated to the massage table.
Through lecture, demonstration and practice with your co-students, you will be introduced to the essentials, including quality of touch, rapport, a deep respect for our natural impulse toward healing, and mindful body mechanics. You will listen to what is felt as well as what is said. You will learn how to comfortably drape, and how to easily apply the foundational long, integration strokes, detail work, and gentle stretches. You will have plenty of time for guided practice and to effectively share your experience. At the end of the week you will be able to give a simple massage to friends and family back home.
Esalen massage promotes feelings of wholeness and reconnects us with our natural state of being. Teaching tools include experiential exercises to awaken the senses, demonstrations, and tableside guidance appropriate for you. The class is appropriate for the new and curious as well as the professional who would like to rejuvenate their senses and the quality of their touch.
26 hours of continuing education provided by the faculty through Esalen Massage and Bodywork Association Teachers.
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
Learn to activate the right side of your brain to unlock the insights necessary to break through self-limiting patterns. Based on a Nobel Prize-winning discovery in neuroscience, this methodology helps you think outside the box and live a more creative, productive, happier life.
William Donius, author of the New York Times bestseller Thought Revolution, spent a decade researching and developing this brain-enhancing methodology. He has taught these skills to a wide range of people, from students and corporate executives to scientists and artists. This innovative approach inspires more creative solutions than conventional thinking or brainstorming sessions. Through easy-to-learn exercises, you can discover ways to harness your intuition and uncover profound insights about yourself that make change possible. You’ll develop practical tools you can apply each time you face an important decision or obstacle in life. You can go home with new ways to unlock your own inner genius and create the life you long for.
Please bring a notebook or journal and a pen.
Recommended Reading: Thought Revolution: How to Unlock Your Inner Genius by William Donius
This workshop has two options on length of stay: a traditional weeklong of two nights or a long weekend of three nights. The extended stay workshop will include more workshop content which is reflected in the extended stay schedule.
What if sleep could be more than rest? What if it could be a portal to transformation and self-discovery? Ancient Daoist sleep alchemy offers powerful techniques to access profound rest while maintaining deep awareness. Rooted in the Wudang Daoist San Feng lineage, the Hibernating Dragon and Five Dragons Sleeping methods guide practitioners to harmonize body, mind, and spirit, transforming sleep into a practice of deep peace and subtle awareness.
This workshop will provide a historical introduction to this lineage and its teachings and explore how foods, lifestyle choices, and embodiment affect the quality of sleep. We will delve into the Daoist understanding of sleep as a cosmological process and present practical tools for cultivating deep rest and resilience. The workshop will also examine classical Daoist teaching methods of story and conversation through stories such as Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream and Lü Dongbin’s Yellow Millet Dream, which offer insights into the Daoist perspectives on rest and transcendence.
Participants will practice introductory and more advanced Wudang sleeping methods to enter, sustain, and deepen sleep states. By the end of the workshop, you will be intimately familiar with practical techniques to deepen sleep, enhance well-being, and dream the dream of life more deeply and lucidly.
Revamp, reinvigorate, and polish your luminous self this season with innovative yoga practices for body, mind, and spirit! This yoga renewal workshop includes energizing movement, flow yoga, core activations, meridian sequencing, tapping, rejuvenating holds, and cleansing rituals based on the five elements.
Yoga for the skin sloughs off the old with a potent five-step cleansing ritual. Revitalizing and fluid yoga sequences stimulate the body before thoughtfully weaving muscles and mind together into a recreated and radiant being. We will even take advantage of the potent Esalen springs with a specific bathing ritual. The daily practices of the sparkling Yoga Spring Renewal workshop will be fresh, fun, and rejuvenating — and will leave you feeling the same!
Certified in Anusara Yoga and the Halprin Life Art Process, Ulrika blends holistic practices of yoga, somatic movement therapy, and Swedish skin rituals with the elements of nature for movement medicine. The many layers and systems of the body are addressed, with balanced attention given to the physical and the energetic, the form and the formless, the unique individual and the collective universal patterns.
Participants should bring a dry brush, coconut oil, and a facial clay mask.
Join us for this weeklong wild clay pottery intensive. As a group, we will go through the whole process of making pottery from the wild, including processing clay, mixing various wild clays, and finding and testing clay in the field. We’ll learn how to hand-build pots using various techniques, including pinch pots, slab work, coil and scrape, corrugation, and more. We will find and create mineral paints from the landscape and make our yucca brushes to design and paint our pots with our own artistic expressions. Finally, we’ll prepare a kiln to fire them and go over several different methods for firing earthenware pottery.
Together, we’ll enjoy daily discussions about the metaphysical side of pottery, working with the clay, and balancing the elements. We will slow the process down to see what lessons emerge and what energy and opportunities the materials draw from us, both as individuals and as a group — an opportunity for personal growth and team building through the creation process!
While seated on the grounds of Esalen, we will connect to and draw inspiration from the landscape and the ancient ones who came before us and may have also made pots for function and beauty with the same materials long ago.
This workshop includes an additional $30 for materials.
Know from the rivers in clefts and in crevices: those in small channels flow noisily, the great flow silent. Whatever’s not full makes noise. Whatever is full is quiet. — Buddha
We treasure this life, and yet we rarely can hear ourselves think. We are constantly being bombarded and absorbing information at a dizzying pace. In the 21st century, where stillness and silence are scarce, fast-paced living keeps us bouncing from one task to the next. What might happen if you simply sat and allowed yourself to be? What would arise in the spaces between your thoughts, your breath, and your heartbeat?
Join celebrated teacher, author, and documentary filmmaker Hawah Kasat to explore the depths of silence and solitude. Hawah will guide you with a culturally sensitive soft touch and a compassionate heart toward the bounty of silence. Participants will be guided through silent meditation practices, pranayama (breathwork), asana (movement), and dharma talks, to support the following process:
This retreat is suitable for those who have never taken a vow of silence and want to explore what it feels like to observe it, as well as veteran silent retreaters who want to tune up their senses of awareness and perception.
NOTE: Noble silence will be observed intermittently throughout the retreat days, sometimes for hours at a time. During noble silence periods, participants will be encouraged not to engage in writing, reading, or talking.
This workshop includes a $10 material fee.
Letting go of entrenched ideas — of who we are, of how the world works, of our place in it — is a challenge. It takes energy. Time. Space. Security. This growth asks us to examine ourselves and understand our connection to the whole. This model of change encompasses both personal and communal, and it’s always been at the core of Esalen.
Guided explorations are an evolution of programming designed to function outside of the group structures of our workshops. These experiences are for those who want to immerse themselves in the peace, space, and natural beauty of our campus to do the work of their own personal growth. The beauty of our Big Sur campus supports serenity for the mind, the body, the spirit, and offers nourishment for all three.
Part of a new chapter of Esalen’s history, this seminar-style workshop considers the audacious possibility that reincarnation may be an empirically established fact rooted in robust and compelling scientific data.
Numerous young children from across the world have reported memories of past lives. These cases have been a focus of careful study at the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine over the last 60 years. Over 2,000 cases have been investigated, and in many, the child’s memories appear to match the details of an identified deceased person.
Recently, the Washington Post brought this notion into the mainstream with “The children who remember their past lives,” a meaningful contribution to growing public awareness of reincarnation as a legitimate possibility. Child psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker, featured in the article, is the director of the Division of Perceptual Studies and has worked with nearly 150 families while compiling comprehensive records of past-life memories. He worked closely with the division’s founder, Ian Stevenson, who began gathering data in the 1960s. Clinical psychologist Christine McDowell Tucker focuses on grief counseling and mindfulness meditation. Together, Jim and Christine will share the latest findings and lead discussions about the current research and its implications for us all. Esalen founder Michael Murphy will provide the opening lecture.
This seminar will explore scientific, philosophical, and metaphysical questions about life, death, and meaning, including:
This seminar-style workshop is somewhat new and experimental for Esalen, leaning into our long history as a refuge for people to sort through complexities and find their bearings. It invites our inner reductionists, skeptics, and artful dodgers to rest and allow for new possibilities. This gathering is for those deeply curious about what happens after we die and what it means to fulfill a life’s purpose. It will be both didactic and interactive while exploring meaningful questions and engaging with related meditation exercises.
Please note: Active channeling, hypnotically prompted age regressions, and other exercises to summon past-life memories will not be included in this seminar.
Are you feeling bored, stuck, bewildered, or overwhelmed in your 40s, 50s, or 60s? You’re not alone. Welcome to midlife, a time when many of us feel restless and disenchanted. New studies show that after a temporary bottoming-out of life satisfaction, we often start feeling more content and alive in the core and latter part of midlife; the latest research in the psychology of aging reveals that when we shift our mindset on aging from negative to positive, we can add seven and a half years to our lives.
Chip Conley, founder of the Modern Elder Academy (MEA), the world’s first midlife wisdom school, and a leading midlife activist, is helping demystify and elevate midlife as a life stage of profound personal transformation.
During this workshop, we will:
Today’s modern elder is always searching for greater meaning, deeper relationships, new experiences to explore, and ideas to imagine. Join Chip for a rare weekend opportunity to discover a new way of thinking about midlife, an invigorating time of re-imagination, re-creation, reflection, and true growth — on our own terms.
Recommended Reading: Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age by Chip Conley
Trauma is not only about the terrible things that have happened to us but also about what did not happen — such as care, protection, and validation. The only way to create an inner sense of positivity that embraces new possibilities is to have a visceral, real-life experience with what has been missing.
In this workshop, we will explore a variety of theatrical and psychodramatic techniques to help transform our understanding of trauma and instill a deep-seated sense of the nurturing that was not received when it was needed — the support that was lacking. This process has been described in “Filling the Holes: Creating Structures,” a chapter in The Body Keeps the Score, the influential, award-winning work on how traumatic experiences, and the lack of positive ones, shape both the brain and relationships.
This experiential workshop is limited to 25 participants. If you are interested in joining, please send an email with approximately two paragraphs explaining your professional background, prior therapy experiences, and why you wish to be a part of this workshop. Please add “Psychodrama Workshop Participant Submission” to the subject line and send to assistant@liciasky.com.
What does healing mean to you? There is no one-size-fits-all solution for eating, sleep, immunity, and other health concerns. Your body communicates its healing needs to you, but we often lack the knowledge to interpret and respond to these signals.
Health practitioners cannot fully understand your body’s changing needs and signals the way you can. Medical errors are a leading cause of suffering and death, and healthcare systems are strained. Treatments often come with side effects; preventative care and root causes are often overlooked.
You get this. You’ve opened the door to a more holistic way of health and well-being. You’re showing up to make some positive changes, but where do you start? There’s an avalanche of alternative options, and the various parts of you have differing patterns.
Ayurveda teaches you to listen to your body’s needs. Your body heals best when properly supported. Natural remedies and mindful lifestyle choices are safe and effective. Once you understand your body’s patterns, you can personalize your wellness strategy and support.
In an intimate group setting, participants will have the opportunity to focus on their own personal wellness and identify impactful changes needed to support health and well-being. With her empowering East-West mind-body version of Ayurveda, Siva Mohan offers tools and approaches to optimize the core building blocks of a wellness lifestyle: digestion, sleep, immunity, and routine.
Selah is the call of grace to make art at the edge of the world. At the end of the world. — Bayo Akomolafe
We are often reminded that for social change to be transformative, it must be scaled up. It must be big, written in bold fonts across the night sky. Unambiguously clear. We are told that this is how differences come to bear; this is how the “new” shows up — with a messianic roar that rends the clouds asunder. With a splash that makes headline news.
The Selah retreats are a turning to grace. A concourse outside of the normal vicissitudes of citizenship. A tuning fork for grace. Grace is movement: finding safety in leaving safety.
The Selah retreats are an attempt to create art together – art without subjects or objects. The art we make isn’t a finished product, an imposed goal, a pre-designed fabrication, or a project for museum installations. The “art” is undefined, incomprehensible, composed of many griefs and many questions, a tracing of the slightest tremors of perception, a lingering at the material precipices of normal perception, a working with failure to craft gestures that might sensitize us to different differences.
The question at the heart of the Selah retreats is how do we become good hosts to “this monster” — to awkward grace? What could it look like to nourish the minor, to sing to it, to bring something incomprehensible into the world?
Surrounded by story, song, poetry, reading together, and crafting work, we will seek to build mbaris, an Igbo indigenous aesthetic of art, communal responsibility, and experimentation at the edges of crisis. These simultaneous streams of vocations that soften the neurotypical gaze will travel alongside the teachings and guidance of Bayo Akomolafe.
Esalen Institute
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
US: 1-831-667-3000
info@esalen.org