Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.
Learn More.

Learn more.

Due to road closures along Highway 1 to our north and south, Esalen is closed through April 11.
Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.
past workshop

The Enneagram and Healing Humanity: Practical Applications for Connecting and Belonging

June 13–17, 2022

with Dr. Deborah Egerton

As Dr. Egerton’s book Know Justice Know Peace: A Transformative Journey of Social Justice, Anti-Racism, and Healing through the Power of the Enneagram is released, we invite you in to learn how to use the Enneagram and IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity, anti-racism) for reconnection and oneness. As human beings, we all have a desire to belong. Our connection to one another is what allows us to survive and thrive as a species. We will explore the roots of our disconnects, both externally and internally, in order to begin to heal ourselves and thus heal humanity.

In this experiential workshop, you will have an opportunity to surface your similarities and explore and celebrate differences. You will gain new insight into how you are a conscious or unconscious participant in “othering” and marginalizing people based on some aspect of their being.

Through a blend of experiential activities, grounding meditations, Enneagram exploration, enlightening and informational background discovery, and a deep dive into inner work, you’ll be empowered with new tools, knowledge, and community connection to activate as an authentic advocate for all of humanity.

Together we’ll explore in-depth:

  • Using the Enneagram and I.D.E.A. (inclusion, diversity, equity, and anti-racism) to create internal and external expansion to open our mind-body-spirit connection, stand in love against “othering”, and explore the ways that we can heal across differences.
  • Integrating practices for intentional engagement of our three centers of intelligence:
    • The Head Center: An exploration of what we know about all forms of “othering” and where we see the emergence of differences and division.
    • The Heart Center: Experiential practices of seeing and experiencing through the heart to stand in in love, compassion, and oneness.
    • The Body Center: Through exercises and discussion, we will build awareness of what we feel in our bodies — Fight-Flight-Freeze-Fawn. This section will focus on finding where and how your body holds onto experiences of “othering” and prevents you from healing.
  • Engaging with presence to participate in experiential practices, and become more familiar with our own patterns that contribute to “othering”. By learning how to release the underlying emotions of anxiety, fear, anger, resentment, shame, and blame, we can heal from past painful experiences that have been inflicted on us or that we have inflicted on “others”.
  • Using the Humanity Mosaic to explore self-identification and the multidimensional aspects of diversity. As we explore our Humanity Mosaics and the early messages we received about value and othering, we can begin to unravel the complexities of our own value systems and the implicit biases that may be affecting how we connect to other human beings.

Prerequisite: In order to prepare for this experience, please go to Deborah’s website for a fundamental overview of the Enneagram. At the beginning of the workshop, Deborah will provide an overview of the Enneagram to ensure that everyone has the same basic foundation to build upon.

Foundational Enneagram knowledge can been found on deborahegerton.com and enneagraminstitute.com.

Dr. Deborah Egerton

Deborah Threadgill Egerton, Ph.D. is an Internationally Respected Psychotherapist, Best-selling Author, and Unity & Belonging Advocate for the Healing of Humanity. In her multifaceted roles of Consultant, Coach, Mentor, and Spiritual Teacher she focuses on guiding humanity toward a more compassionate approach engaging inner work by harnessing the insights of the Enneagram. 

Full Bio