#myEsalen — The container of community was strong enough to hold my voice safely

Before discovering Esalen, Sam Stern was mired in a professional slump — and his personal life wasn’t exactly on fire either. “I was working as a massage therapist in a strip mall in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. My main source of fun was checking out the staff favorites at the public library.” That all changed after Sam came across Esalen’s work scholar program (now called LEEP) when Googling one of his favorite authors.

“I saw that you could come and live at this unbelievably beautiful place in Big Sur,” shares Sam. “When I arrived, I was assigned to work in the Farm & Garden — the stroke of luck I needed. The land was incredibly healing. Even more, those daily Esalen check-ins set me straight — I was given the opportunity to share my feelings aloud with my co-workers and new friends. Somehow, that helped me shake off the shame and loneliness I’d been living with for years.”  

Within a few transformative years, Sam's journey at Esalen evolved from work scholar to extended student, ultimately leading him to join the staff while studying under the guidance of Esalen's renowned faculty. “My favorite workshops were loud and weird. Psychological, but rooted in the body. Ann Bradney’s Radical Aliveness and Paula Shaw’s the Max were both theatrical, almost confessional, with an emphasis on catharsis. When everything was clicking, people presented enormous versions of themselves in those rooms. I needed to express myself in a big way, and at Esalen, the container of community was strong enough to hold my voice safely.”

Today, Sam is a full-time content creator for Esalen and teaches The History of Altered States at Esalen and AI For Creative Synergy on the open schedule. “I love that I get the chance to teach about AI,” he says. “Esalen has always been about exploring the edge and being curious. If used creatively, in a spirit of exploration, I don’t think AI has to be antithetical to the pursuit of human potential. Everything can be used wisely if you let it.”

“Being part of Esalen for the past ten years has been joyful and expansive, and now, I have the opportunity to share my current curiosities and passions with my community,” Sam adds. However, it’s Voices of Esalen, which Sam created in 2016, that he remains most deeply committed to, slowly growing into a beloved platform with a devoted following.

“The podcast took a long time to catch on — like, about eight years,” says Sam, “and then, suddenly, I looked up, and we had almost 200 episodes and over a million downloads. I’ve been inspired by the diverse thought leaders expanding the frontiers of human potential I’ve interviewed. As a lifelong student, it’s the opportunity I was always hoping for.”

“It’s funny; the best episodes are the ones where something happens emotionally. My interview with Dr. Richard Schwartz, the creator of Internal Family Systems therapy, is so personal it’s almost embarrassing. It’s super raw, but it resonates with our audience. I suppose that makes sense, coming from Esalen.”

Esalen has fulfilled much more than Sam’s working aspirations. Somehow, unexpectedly, those lonely nights at the library were replaced with family. “My wife, Candice — who I met during my work scholar months as we planted endless rows of broccoli and chard, chatting the whole time about performing, writing, and growing up in the south — heads the Farm & Garden now. Our daughter has been going to the Big Sur Park School for almost three years.” 

Now, feeling a million metaphorical miles away from that lonely guy at the mall, Sam is proud his family sees him working hard in the field of human potential. As someone who has experienced it in major aspects of his life, he’s now focused on extending this gift to others — as far and wide as he can. "At Esalen, amid the relentless pursuit of self, it turns out that personal evolution is just another group activity. And somehow, despite everything, it works — surprisingly well."