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

Liberate Yourself, Set Yourself Free

September 20–24, 2021

with Justin Michael Williams and Shelly Tygielski

What the world needs right now, more than ever, is for all of us to wake up together and to truly claim our authentic voice--both for our lives, and for the collective movement toward equality.

Liberate Yourself, Set Yourself Free is a workshop based on the expansive eight-week course that Justin and Shelly have co-created called Liberation Experience. The workshop combines personal growth, spirituality, activism, wellness, science, social justice, and mindfulness to show what it really means to set yourself free, and set one another free.

A hint: coming together through proximity, intimacy,  vulnerability, and connection.

Together, Justin & Shelly model the power of coming together across gender, age, race, and sexual orientation. In this work they create a channel for a wildly inclusive and compassionately interactive week of shifts, calls into action, and the building of a roadmap to step back into your life with greater clarity, freedom, and ease.

Participants in this workshop will learn the ‘Feel > Reveal > Heal’ model, and how to process your challenging emotions. You will learn deep shadow work, how to set boundaries, and how to call people forward (instead of “out”) when you need to make a change.

We’ll move beyond  “fighting against” and instead move “towards” one another to heal our individual and collective trauma and create a new vision for the world.

In this five-day retreat, you will practice embodying:

  • How to heal from intergenerational trauma and break free from the binds that hold you.
  • Evidence-based tools on weaving compassion, empathy, and collective wellbeing into your inner- and outer- work in the movement for equity, diversity, and change.
  • Why “oneness” is not enough, and how to actually come together as we create a new vision for our lives and the world.
  • How to take action in your life, reset, and make commitments toward what matters to you most.  
  • How we might, together, end racism in one generation--and change the world.
  • How to set boundaries with a clear, three-step process for having difficult conversations across divides with friends and family
  • Practical action steps each person can take, from where they are now, to make an impact today.

Expect both a deeply invigorating, yet rejuvenating week with a  diverse group, and a profoundly opening experience.

Recommended reading: Stay Woke, by Justin Michael Williams; Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson; How to Be An Anti-Racist, by Ibrahim Kendi; Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark, by Robert Augustus Masters.

Recommended reading: Stay Woke, by Justin Michael Williams; Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson; How to Be An Anti-Racist, by Ibrahim Kendi; Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark, by Robert Augustus Masters.

Justin Michael Williams

Justin Michael Williams is a transformational voice bringing people together across divides with a multigenerational message of hope, empowerment, and unity. He is an award-winning speaker and teacher, a Grammy-nominated recording artist, and the author of the groundbreaking book Stay Woke.

Full Bio

Shelly Tygielski

Shelly Tygielski is a humanitarian, trauma-informed mindfulness teacher, author, and activist. She is the founder of Pandemic of Love, a global organization that was recognized by CNN Heroes, and the author of the award-winning book, Sit Down to Rise Up.

Full Bio