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Living Authentically: A Journey with Human Design
With Anne Van de Water
Imagine reaching the end of your life and realizing your biggest regret is that you never found the courage to live authentically because you lived the life others expected. In this workshop, we will embark on a transformative journey inspired by the wisdom of Human Design and the spirit of Esalen. Human Design blends ancient […]
Laughter, Sound, and Consciousness
With LARAAJI and Arji OceAnanda
Are you ready to escape the grip of everyday seriousness and soften into your own vibrant aliveness? Join us for a soul-soothing, laughter-filled playshop designed to help you lighten up, loosen your edges, and let yourself flow. Set against the breathtaking backdrop of Big Sur and the healing spirit of Esalen, this immersive experience is […]
The Art of Improvisation: From Sound to Song
With Shahzad Ismaily
Join acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, composer, poet, and record-doula Shahzad Ismaily for a deep and inspiring journey into the liberating realms of spontaneous sound and written word. This unique workshop invites participants to embrace the creative process of making music in the moment — free from judgment, structure, or expectation. We begin each day with the gentle […]
Into the Field of Possibility: Welcome the New Year With Dance and Ritual
With Jovinna Chan
Dance is one of the world’s most ancient transformative rituals. From the whirling dervishes to the shamans, the waltz to the rave, we dance for joy, healing, and connection — guided by wisdom that transcends the thinking brain. As the old year ends and the new begins, come to sweat, honor the past, and make […]
The Self, Reframed: Exploration Through Somatic Self-Inquiry
With Lihi Benisty
In a world that often pulls us away from ourselves — into roles, expectations, and chronic busyness — there is power in returning to the body, the breath, and the truth of who we are. This weekend workshop offers an immersive experience in embodiment — a space to inquire, move, and breathe your way back […]
Starting the New Year Meditation Retreat: Self-Love and Kindness That Benefits All
With Mark Abramson
This retreat is a quiet, reflective New Year celebration with the opportunity to discover a deep, centered place within and brings together the rich, sensual experience of Esalen — the sounds of the ocean, the feeling of the air, and the beauty of its colors and textures with an opportunity to deeply connect with oneself […]
Awaken Your Heartfelt Intentions Through Movement, Sound, and Stillness
With Tracy Lease and Miyu Tamamura
If you are capable of living deeply one moment of your life, you can learn to live the same way all the other moments of your life. — Thich Nhat Hanh This workshop is for anyone feeling the need to slow down, reconnect with themselves, and step into the New Year relaxed and awake. Whether […]
The Shared Heart New Year's Couples Retreat
With Barry Vissell and Joyce Vissell
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 […]
Mindfulness, Metabolism, and Mitochondria: Improve Your Vitality, Nutrition, and Metabolic Control
With Elissa Epel and Robert Lustig
Explore the dynamic connections between mind, body, and lifestyle for optimal vitality. Drawing from decades of research, this workshop weaves together the latest scientific insights in metabolic health and mindful eating with experiential practices to support greater awareness and agency in your approach to well-being. Participants will engage in evidence-informed practices derived from clinical trials […]
Writing and Mindfulness: Cultivating a Daily Meditation and a Daily Writing Practice
With Janis Cooke Newman
A consistent meditation practice lowers stress, improves health, strengthens relationships, and increases happiness. A consistent writing practice not only helps you make sense of the world, it also can make you a better, and more creative, writer. This combination writing and meditation workshop invites writers and meditators of all levels to delve deeply into both […]
Entering Your Creative Universe
With Paul Heussenstamm
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 […]
Meditation and Modern Life: A Zen Meditation Retreat
With Dan Zigmond
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. Today our days are filled with convenient distractions that promise happiness while mostly delivering busyness and frustration. Many of us live life in a […]
Working in Three-Dimensional Space: Psychodrama for What Was Missing
With Bessel van der Kolk and Licia Sky
In this experiential workshop, pioneering trauma researcher and author of The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk and somatic educator and co-founder of the Trauma Research Foundation Licia Sky apply psychodrama and theater techniques to create virtual experiences of safety, belonging, and protection. While trauma treatment tends to focus on “What happened to […]
Metta and the Divine Abodes: Meditation, Yoga, and Wisdom to Live a Better Life
With Hannah Muse
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? —Mary Oliver 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 […]
Nurturing Connections Through the Art of REPAIR
With Hazel-Grace Yates
An apology will shut a conversation down. A good repair opens one up. — Dr. Becky Kennedy Conflict is inevitable. The health of a relationship depends not on whether conflict happens but on how skillfully we repair. The Art of REPAIR is a practical, embodied, and deeply relational process that transforms rupture into connection, clarity, […]
Stop Holding Yourself Back
With Justin Michael Williams
This workshop will give you the tools to help you stop holding yourself back. Whether you have a desire to lose 20 pounds, write a book, launch a business, start a side hustle, open your heart to love, shift your relationship with money, or figure out your next chapter — whatever goal you set — […]
Being Present for Your Life: Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation
With James Baraz
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 […]
The Healing Art of Deep Bodywork®: Addressing Acute and Chronic Pain in the Back, Shoulders and Hips
With Perry Holloman and Johanna Holloman
Deep Bodywork®, when applied with great sensitivity, is one of the most effective healing modalities available to the professional bodyworker. It combines the integrating qualities of flowing massage with therapeutic deep tissue work to promote relaxation, restore tissue health, and support long-term structural change. Developed by the Hollomans over the course of 40 years, the […]
Planets and Poetry: Embodying Astrology Through the Expressive Arts
With Heidi Rose Robbins
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 […]
SoulCollage®: An Enchanting Path to Inner Wisdom
With Kimberly Lee
Set out on an enlightening journey of self-discovery, guided by your own intuition and creativity! In this immersive workshop, you’ll uncover and access inner wisdom through the inspiring SoulCollage® method. Developed by the late Seena Frost, this enchanting personal practice harnesses the magic of images, imagination, and intuition as a way to excavate insight and […]
Sacred Groove: An Ecstatic Dance Ceremony
With Adam Clark
Our ancestors explored spirit-led movement to embody ecstatic states for generations. Whether as a form of celebration, mourning, or prayer, ecstatic dance has long served as sacred medicine to heal the hearts of individuals and communities. Join us on this sacred land for a transformative weekend of ecstatic dance ceremony — a journey to tap […]
Creative Catalyst: The Transformative Power of Making Art
With Dana Albany and Michael "Flash" Hopkins
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 […]
Personal Empowerment Through the Wheel of Consent®
With Betty Martin and Marcia Baczynski
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 […]
Sacred Clown: Reconnecting to Self Through the Spirit of Play
With Jet Eveleth
Our clown is the authentic, curious, and playful version of ourselves. Clowning as a life practice is the balancing of our light and shadow while laughing at our attachments. We will explore being soft, brave, and available to the moment. This workshop is an immersion practice that explores our most vulnerable and creative self. Using […]
Winter Renewal: Transitioning into the New Year with Ritual, Yoga and Time in Nature
With Toni Cupal
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 2026. This workshop focuses on the transition from one year to the next as an opportunity to purposefully cultivate a […]
Reawaken Creative Process
With The Brothers Koren
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 […]
Attuning to Love: A Sonic Sanctuary for Your Heart with Crystal Singing Bowls
With Deva Munay
Love is the bridge between you and everything. — Rumi What happens when we devote ourselves to attuning the heart through sound, breath, movement, and presence? In the beautiful setting of Esalen Institute, on the threshold of World Sound Healing Day and Valentine’s week, we’ll gather to awaken and stabilize the frequency of love in […]
Awe, Compassion, Gratitude, and Beauty: The Science and Practice of Self-Transcendence
With Dacher Keltner
Deep in the human mind and body are vast capacities for self-transcendence, felt in experiences of awe, compassion, gratitude, and profound beauty. These emotions enable us to gain perspective on our stresses, quiet the voice of the transactional self, orient to the well-being of others, and find a commitment to all sentient beings. These emotions […]
Vibration Transformation: Cultivating Daily Health and Wellness Practices to Raise Your Vibration
With Anne Van de Water
Vibration Transformation is the art and practice of transforming the vibrations (or energies) of your beliefs, thoughts, feelings, words, and actions to align with your truest, deepest, highest self. As Albert Einstein said, “Everything in life is vibration.” We are all vibrational beings. Everything in our universe is made up of energy and vibrations. We […]
Love, Sex, and Intimacy for Individuals and Couples
With Linda Bloom and Charlie Bloom
For one human being to love another, that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. — Rainer Maria Rilke Explore intimacy, love, and sensual pleasure — and learn to connect and successfully fulfill your desires. Nothing […]
Accessing the Genius Within: Healing Physical and Emotional Injury With Cortical Field Re-Education® and Feldenkrais®
With Tomas Prietto, Judy Greenman and Monica Lesslie
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 […]
Designing the Life We Want: Self Renewal in the Winter
With Mark Nicolson
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 […]
Encounter: Meeting the Moment
With Andrea Juhan
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 […]
A Black History Month Celebration: Exploring and Restoring Our Path to Healing through Empathy and Music
With LaVerne McLeod and Melanie DeMore
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 […]
Make Peace with your Judging Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Help Free You from the Inner Critic
With Mark Coleman
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, […]
Trauma, Memory and the Restoration of One’s Self
With Bessel van der Kolk and Licia Sky
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 […]
Fundamentals of Esalen® Massage
With Deborah Anne Medow and Rob Wilks
The mid-winter stars and sun-sparkled ocean waves—with glimpses of whale flumes—form a striking backdrop for exploring the renowned Esalen® Massage at its place of origin. This workshop offers an introduction to the foundational concepts and flow of the Esalen approach through a blend of experiential exercises, lecture-demonstrations, guided hands-on practice, and personal reflection. Participants engage […]
Stages of Tranquility and Insight
With Dustin DiPerna
Asanga’s Nine Stages of Staying is one of the oldest and most comprehensive systems of concentration in the Buddhist tradition. Sometimes called the Elephant Path, this approach was originated by the great Buddhist master in 506 A.D., and it is now the main method of training the mind in the Tibetan tradition. In this weekend […]
Thresholds and Altars: Nature-Based Rituals for Life’s Turning Points
With Day Schildkret
Everything begins by leaving. — Rev. angel Kyodo williams Life invites us into change, but rarely teaches us how to move through it well. Whether it’s a relationship ending, a role dissolving, a chapter closing, or a calling emerging, you may find yourself standing at the edge of what was — and unsure how to […]