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 MoreAll 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.
.jpeg)
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.
.png)
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.
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.
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.
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.
.png)
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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
.png)
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 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.
.png)
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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
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.
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.
A weekend of transformative exploration to bridge physical movement with the subtle layers of internal flow, connecting body, energy, and perception. This retreat goes beyond traditional practices and invites participants to discover the intelligence and freedom inherent in all forms of movement — not only in the body’s gestures but also in its inner energy and shifting perspectives.
Together, we’ll blend imaginative, expressive movement (Bohemian) with grounding, introspective practices (Gravity) to create a holistic and adaptable approach accessible to anyone, regardless of age or experience. Through a fusion of yoga, somatic therapy, and movement meditation, we will explore both dynamic and deeply relaxing states, accompanied by carefully curated ethnic, electronic, and instrumental music that supports our journey.
The experience fuses a diverse array of techniques, including:
Led by multidisciplinary artist Yemi A.D., founder of Moonshot Platform, these sessions are uniquely designed to unlock the body’s stored energy, release long-held tensions from unconscious movement patterns, and open up space for creativity, joy, and inner freedom.
The healing path has a trajectory. Gabrielle Roth called this, The Path of The Wounded Healer. It is here that we look closely at our healing process. We mark both where we are and where we want to be. We dance through the five stages of healing in relationship to being the victim, the survivor, the healer, the transformer and eventually the one who rests in compassionate service.
It is my belief that our sacred task in life is to transform the most difficult things we have been through, into our greatest strengths. These are the stories of our resiliency, vulnerability and strength. It is here one may learn how to move with what is and transform it to what we want it to be.
In the Heartbeat Map, we investigate what is moving through the shores of the heart. Through understanding the relationship of the emotional polarities we come to respect and appreciate what we have been through. Without fear, we do not experience courage. Without anger, we cannot experience forgiveness. Without love, we cannot experience grief. Without loss we cannot experience or appreciate the full spectrum of joy. Without all of these qualities, we cannot know the true nature of compassion.
You are invited to join this journey of movement and awareness, focused on how emotions transform the heart. This map is Gabrielle Roth’s living wisdom. I am here to pass this gift on to you to be carried in your own bones and blood.
Each session will be primarily focused on the 5Rhythms® moving meditation (dance practice). We will integrate each movement session with a seated meditation practice, focused on one of the Buddhist Heart Practices (Brahma viharas) which are equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion and joy. Included in the group will be optional sharing and a question and answer period.
Recommended Reading: Sweat Your Prayers & Maps To Ecstacy By Gabrielle Roth and Dancing with Dharma: Essays on Movement and Dance in Western Buddhism by Harrison Blum
This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.
When the wisdom of the sky and the wisdom of the earth are braided through the human heart, then there will be a rainbow of people.
This prophecy of the Indigenous peoples speaks to the practice of braiding together traditional (earth) and contemporary (sky) knowledge to create something new that embraces both rather than replacing one or the other. Through this braiding, or weaving, we can learn to live modern lives guided by ancient wisdom, bringing the sacred home to ourselves.
In this experiential workshop, we will engage in cross-cultural practices and non-ordinary states of consciousness through trance drumming, guided journeys, and ceremony. These practices have been shared by Indigenous cultures over thousands of years to deepen connections to the self, cultivate a relationship with the planet, and find more balanced ways of being. You will be introduced to different techniques designed to ground and integrate these non-ordinary states and discover how to incorporate these teachings into your daily lives.
This workshop will cover the components of ceremony, including:
In our time together, we will explore the braided way. You’ll have the opportunity to reconnect with wisdom practices that forge sacred space for self and community. Come ready to restore, reveal, and leave inspired!
Participants are encouraged to bring a Journal for note taking, a blanket or wrap for floor work, and a water container.
.png)
Learn to tap the source and break through creative barriers during this hands-on workshop. Together, we’ll explore a variety of mediums and techniques to find entry into creative expression, including:
The poet Rumi speaks of a river of joy that courses through the world. Through these creative practices, we invite that river to flow freely through us and the powerful energy of Esalen’s natural environment to fill us, dissolving internal blocks and flowing through our hands onto the page.
The core of this workshop is inspiration and energy, but we’ll explore techniques and design principles that will inform your aesthetic and native mark-making language in an intuitive way, without fear of criticism or failure.
We’ll provide multimedia sketchbooks to fill with your artistic experiments. They’ll serve as a repository, a totem, a teacher, and a reminder of what you can achieve when you dip into the river of joy. The blank white pages, which you will fill with a treasured collection of artistic ideas, will be a metaphor for our process.
Whether you are a seasoned professional in the arts or you’ve never picked up a paintbrush, these immersive sessions will awaken the artist within and help you make peace with your inner critic.
There is a $60 material fee for this workshop. All essential materials, including acrylic paints, watercolors, paintbrushes, writing pens, collage materials, sketchbooks, and painting surfaces — everything you need to participate fully in each exercise. Feel free to bring your favorite pens, brushes, or other art-making tools.
Recommended Reading: Drinking From a Cold Spring, a Little Book of Hope, and Color Duets by Erin Lee Gafill
Dance is one of the world’s most ancient transformative rituals. From the whirling dervish to the Shamans, the waltz to the rave, we dance for joy, healing, and connection — guided by wisdom that transcends the thinking brain.
This five-day retreat is an invitation to come together to awaken the forgotten wild, ignite your creativity, and dance our way to wholeness. Through an alchemical combination of movement, nature, and sound healing, we’ll reconnect our bodies and minds, digest our feelings and emotions, and open ourselves to the wisdom of our hearts. Most of all, we’ll expand our vision to include a bigger perspective on our spiritual and human interconnectedness.
The practices we’ll cultivate this week will help you:
Allow yourself to be nourished by this sacred land, the hot spring waters, the time we share together, and the friends you’ll make. Experience the beauty, awe, and wonder of being alive so you may return home rejuvenated and inspired to continue walking your unique life path.
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.
Our sense of self develops in connection with others and our experiences in early relationships. They shape our beliefs — about ourselves, other people, and what is possible for us in our lives. While we cannot change the past, we can change the parts of our lives that we find difficult or unfulfilling through new experiences of contact. When our need for understanding and emotional attunement is met, our limiting beliefs can change.
In this workshop, we will:
This workshop includes time for basic gestalt awareness practices, a mixture of didactic and experiential exercises, and some participants will have the opportunity to experience individual “open seat” sessions with Dorothy and with the support of the group
Recommended reading: Korb et al., Gestalt Therapy: Practice and Theory; Mann, Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques
Learn how mindfulness and self-compassion can change everything about how you feel, how you relate and how you live ― for good.
In this workshop, Dr. Shauna Shapiro ― a leading scientist studying the effects of mindfulness + compassion on well-being ― shows us that acting with compassion toward ourselves is the key. She explains basic brain science and offers powerful science-based practices to alleviate anxiety, boost creative thinking, and deepen our sense of belonging and purpose. With practice, we can literally rewire our brains for greater feelings of calm, clarity, connection, and joy. We will immerse ourselves in the natural beauty of Esalen, allowing the sounds of the ocean, the magnificent views and delights of the gardens to nourish and support us.
This workshop is appropriate for anyone curious about mindfulness + compassion and how to deepen our connection with the beauty and mystery of life. All are welcome.
Recommended Reading: Good Morning, I Love You: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Practices to Rewire the Brain for Calm, Clarity + Joy and Good Morning, I Love You: A Guided Journal for Calm, Clarity + Joy by Shauna Shapiro.
This workshop includes an additional $375 faculty tuition. *For anyone facing financial hardship, Dr. Shauna Shapiro invites you to contact her directly for a tuition scholarship at slshapiro@scu.edu.
Enjoy a rising tide of empowerment and end your daily guessing game about life. Find the guidance you seek when you say “Yes!” to the Beauty of Tarot.
Join renowned teacher Brenda Rose for this playful and magical journey through the sacred stories of tarot. You’ll gain a meaningful connection with the cards and learn to provide insightful readings. Stories of the major and minor arcana will be shared in an intimate setting and customized way. The Beauty of Tarot can amplify your spiritual transformation by helping you cultivate more unconditional love and intuitive guidance for your daily life.
This is an immersive and interactive workshop. The magic of tarot comes alive as you practice giving and receiving readings with your classmates under the supportive guidance of Brenda Rose and her graduate students. We’ll learn vibrant tarot spreads together and discover how both the evident and esoteric tarot stories are activated.
In this workshop, you’ll be invited to:
This immersion welcomes all levels of experience and includes an additional $100 material fee, as each participant receives Brenda’s original deck, The Beauty of Tarot, and a workbook chronicling each card.
“A brain without a body couldn’t think.” — Moshe Feldenkrais
“We want to get you to a place where gravity is your friend, a nourishing force.” — Dr. Ida P. Rolf
Human beings are relational by nature. We are an intricate web of anatomy, energy, space, and time that takes shape through our life experiences. Our physical structure, function, and sense of self are reflected in our fascial layers and formed by our early development, by principles of self-organization, and by how we engage with our environment.
When we fall into habitual patterns, parts of ourselves become undeveloped, unseen. If our bodies are given a setting in which to relate to gravity, others, and our environment with curiosity and attunement, we can be free to move and relate with more choice and ease.
Using the grounds, waters, and spirit of Esalen as our laboratory, Kate and Kevin will use the Feldenkrais Method and Gestalt process as a guide to contact and nurture the influences of the subtle body – our relationship to ground, gravity, and the space between.
In this workshop, participants will:
Recommended Reading: Feldenkrais, The Potent Self: A Study of Spontaneity and Compulsion; Gladis, Tales of a Wounded Healer: Creating Exact Moments of Healing; Bodywise: An Introduction to Hellerwork for Regaining Flexibility & Well-Being.
.png)
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. – Alan Watts
In these ever-changing times, our familiar and habitual ways of being and knowing the world are often shaken to the core. Many of us find ourselves confronting anxiety, impermanence, and disconnection. Yet, life invites us to remember our innate capacity for resilient adaptation, an open heart, and living intimately with the mystery of the unknown. While mystery can evoke fear and discomfort, it can also be experienced as a profound sense of awe and wonder. We are called to meet uncertainty, both within and around us, with openness, courage, and a willingness to say “yes” to life — to join the dance, even in the face of what we cannot know and is often out of our control.
This workshop offers a gentle exploration of how to cultivate curiosity, courage, and compassion to live more closely with the mystery of life. Together, we will begin where we are and embrace “what is” with kindness and a deepening awareness of our human experience. By acknowledging, turning toward, and befriending the discomfort of not knowing, we can transform it into a powerful source of energy that awakens the potential of the body, heart, and mind.
We will practice individually, in pairs, and in group settings, drawing from mystic wisdom traditions, contemplative practices, and contemporary neuro and somatic psychology, to:
Embracing the great mystery of life is a process of letting go of the need for definitive answers and allowing space for the unexpected and unfamiliar to unfold. By living with an open heart, body, and mind, we can dance into the interconnectedness of all things, allowing life to live through us as we navigate an ever-changing world.
Join us in this transformative journey of discovery, where we learn to welcome the mystery with grace and live more fully from a place of embodied presence.
How can we know the future? Is it determined? How does the past, specifically past lives, influence the future? In this workshop, we will explore how our previous existences are impacting us in the present and how understanding our past lives can transform the future we are creating.
Together, we will reveal the wisdom of the past and how it relates to where we are now. We’ll participate in group past life regressions to help uncover past life memories and engage with practical tools to integrate and use the knowledge of your own past in your life today.
By understanding the idea that we are souls, not bodies — that all of the identities we have formed during this current life are actually false identities — we can embrace the fact that we have all lived many lifetimes in different forms and bodies, with different backgrounds, races, and religions. Through this perspective, we can eradicate the concept of “other” and eliminate bias, prejudice, and hate. Accessing past life knowledge could be the key to building a future society filled with compassion, empathy, equality, and love.
During the week, we will engage in intention setting, journaling work, creative exercises, and group past life regressions, leaving plenty of time for questions and discussions. On Thursday night, we will have a fire ritual to release our past lives in order to free ourselves for a brand-new future for both ourselves and all of humanity.
This workshop is open to all. Join us and help create a future that is free of the past!
Recommended Reading: Who Do You Think You Are? An Interactive Journey Through Your Past Lives and Into Your Best Future by Michelle Brock
Discover research-backed tools to create a loving relationship. Together, we’ll engage in a comprehensive exploration of the psychological and scientific aspects of dating and healthy relationships. We’ll delve into the science of attraction, unlocking the mysteries of chemistry and creating and sustaining meaningful connections — all grounded in the latest research on relationships.
Our key focus will be the art of building deeper connections through effective communication techniques and empathetic understanding. You’ll learn how to nurture skills that foster intimacy, trust, and lasting bonds. Mastering a comprehensive framework for effective communication is essential for stronger, more resilient relationships, and you’ll learn practical ways to apply these skills in your daily interactions.
In this workshop, you’ll find out how to create a personal relationship narrative that aligns with your current life. Reflective exercises will help you identify and rewire limiting beliefs about love for healthier and more fulfilling bonds. The “Dating Funnel” framework, a structured approach that demystifies the various stages of relationship development, will provide a clear strategy for navigating the dating world, from initial contact to a committed relationship.
By the end of our time together, you will be equipped with a comprehensive set of tools to navigate your relationship journey with confidence and clarity. Understand the foundations of attraction, develop communication skills, and reshape your love narrative.
This workshop is open to all gender identities and expressions and all sexual orientations.
This workshop includes $10 additional fee for a workbook.
Recommended Reading: Breakup Bootcamp: The Science of Rewiring Your Heart by Amy Chan
Imagine reconnecting with a part of you – the Divine Feminine – that brings you back into balance and harmony with yourself and all your relations. This transformative workshop combines social and political knowledge, energy- and earth-based practices, and embodiment exercises to help you release fears, resentment, and pain while inviting intuition, surrender, and flow to create a deeper sense of wholeness in your life. I call this Decolonial Wellness, a way of healing relationships.
At the root of social, political, and economic inequities between men and women is the patriarchal culture’s colonial denigration of femininity. This central conflict in our society is something we learn at an early age and carry in our emotional, perceptual, sensory, and physical selves. Embracing femininity benefits not only women and femmes. Femininity is a spiritual energy and quality of the universe that is necessary to balance and restore us all. The Feminine Principle includes qualities like allowing, intuition, patience, nurturing, connection, mother love, and the generative principle of life itself.
During the workshop, you will experience:
This workshop is an opportunity to see beyond the distortions of patriarchy to something truer about ourselves where our heart’s desires are not at odds with one another. To connect with the Divine Feminine can be a balm and antidote that heals the instilled resentments, hostility, and fear that divide us. The workshop is open to people of all gender identities and expressions.
We are erotic primates living in culturally imposed domestication. We have the lineage and bodies of hunter-gatherers, but we exist in a modern context that is deeply afraid of Eros. Like other domesticated animal species, we have been removed from the wild to live a more settled life. For many of us, this has had the unfortunate effect of cutting ourselves off from the somatic and erotic aliveness within our own bodies, both in our relationships and from the whole of our lives.
In this modern world, we are often left wondering, Why does my sexuality feel so difficult, unsatisfying, and limited? Why do my erotic relationships seem unsustainable and challenging? How do I access my erotic aliveness? Am I sexually broken, and how do I fix…me?
You are not broken! It’s not you. It’s the domestication — the context that cuts so many of us off from our bodies and aliveness.
In this workshop, you will be invited to:
Together, we’ll explore traditional, experiential, and somatic learning, including exercises with movement, consensual touch, and group interaction. Participants will have agency to modify any exercise for their boundaries and safety. Although erotic healing and growth are part of this experience, this workshop will not be supportive for people with unaddressed primary sexual or somatic trauma.
This workshop is for individuals, couples, and people of all relationship orientations. People of all sexual and gender identities are welcome and celebrated. This workshop is sex-positive and erotic-inclusive and will rest on a foundation of embodied consent and boundaries practices. Though Eros is invited into the space, no overt sexual behavior will be part of the workshop.
You are invited to bring a couple of small items for a shared altar that we will build together. The first item could connected to your family, lineage, or ancestors and the second could be connected to your body or sexuality. All items will be returned at the end of the workshop.
Recommended Reading: Come As You Are, by Emily Nagoski, The Spirit of Intimacy, by Sobonfu Somé, The Body is Not An Apology, by Sonya Renee Taylor, Reviving Kinship and Sexual Abundance, Dr. Kim Tallbear on For the Wild podcast
Get notified about new programs.
Esalen Institute
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
US: 1-831-667-3000
info@esalen.org