FF/FC
Internal use ONLY
Familiar Faculty
Offering Familiar Content
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 […]
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 […]
The Body of Belonging: An Exploration of Community and Connection
With Rahshaana Green
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 […]
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, […]
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 Alchemy of Awareness: Transforming Burnout into Meaning and Purpose
With Eve Ekman and Alejandro Chaoul
What lies behind today’s evidence-based mind-body practices for well-being, resilience, and purpose? This three-day workshop explores the deep lineages and sacred traditions from which many modern methods arise, guided by teachers who walk both worlds of rigorous science and timeless wisdom. At MD Anderson Cancer Center, Alejandro Chaoul pioneered programs to support patients with chronic […]
Being With the Body in Depth Psychology: Trauma and its Transformation in the Unspoken Realm
With Barbara Holifield
The body is a portal to the numinous dimensions of the soul’s life. It can lead us to healing and wholeness far beyond simple relief of traumatic symptoms — and to increased access to our feelings and a renewed sense of soulful aliveness. Jungian and depth psychology orient to the deepest currents of the soul, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Values Based Path to a Life of Purpose and Meaning
With Robert MacPhee
If your thoughts, decisions and actions are not being determined by your own highest values, they are certainly being determined by someone else's. — Living a Values Based Life Join this engaging, interactive experience designed to support the discovery, clarification, and meaningful application of your highest personal values. It's a surprising fact of life that […]
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 […]
Relational Gestalt Practice: The Transformative Power of Emotion
With Dorothy Charles
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 […]
Moving into Stillness
With Janet Stone
Restore. It can take time and great effort to move away from the ego affirming busyness of modern day life toward a reflective stillness. In this workshop we will cultivate this slowing, deepening, and going within. In a community setting, we will allow ourselves to dive below the surface of our thoughts and identities to […]
Esalen® Massage for Couples, Partners and Friends
With Robin Fann-Costanzo and Lori Lewis
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 […]
Nourish
With Janet Stone
Join Janet in this nourishing and revitalizing weekend, designed to replenish the nervous system and adrenals, boost the immune system, and ground our hearts and minds in simplicity. We will drop down through body-mind-spirit to find space between effort and surrender, allowing our internal systems to release toxins and integrate the powerful wellness generated by […]
Movement as a Metaphor in Life and Art
With Daria Halprin
Everything I have experienced in my life, I take into my art. —Anna Halprin What if everything you’ve experienced in your life could be danced? What if an image drawn carried a message for healing? What if a dance inspired a drawing that sparks words for a poem and the poem transforms a difficult story […]
Tibetan Dream Yoga
With Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
We sleep one-third of our lifetime, an average of 20 to 25 years. Dream yoga is a practice that spans every moment, waking and sleeping. It is a powerful tool of awakening used for hundreds of years by the great masters of the Tibetan traditions. Foundational practices in dream yoga change the practitioner’s relationship to […]
Meet Your Better Half: Unlock Your Right Brain
With William Donius
Learn to activate the right side of your brain to unlock the intuition and insights necessary to break through self-limiting patterns. Based on a Nobel Prize-winning discovery in neuroscience, this methodology helps you think outside the box and live a more creative, productive, happier life. William Donius, author of the New York Times bestseller Thought […]
Past Lives and Present Questions: What Can Children’s Past Life Memories Tell Us About Human Existence
With Jim B. Tucker and Christine McDowell Tucker
What if reincarnation is not a mere cultural belief or spiritual metaphor, but an emergent data set pointing toward a deeper structure of reality? For over sixty years, researchers at the University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies have compiled more than 2,000 rigorously documented cases of young children who recall past lives — often […]
Embodied Belonging: Weaving Together Self, Community, and Earth through 5Rhythms and Ecopsychology
With Douglas Drummond and Jeanine M. Canty
At the very heart of “belonging” is the word “long.” To be-long to something is to stay with it for the long haul. It is an active choice we make to a relationship, to a place, to our body, to a life because we value it. Even knowing that it may not be all that […]
Shedding the Old to Enter the Magnificent Wild: A Women’s Third Rite of Passage
With Jovinna Chan
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 […]
Awakening Spring Within: Somatic Herbalism, Plant Spirit Meditation, and Nature Connection
With Marysia Miernowska
You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer. – Thich Nhat Hanh Join herbalist, medicine woman, and plant spirit teacher Marysia Miernowska […]
Mapping Your Hero’s Adventure: A Mythogenesis PlayShop
With Robert Walter
Joseph Campbell used to celebrate his birthday at Esalen. When asked why, he’d recount how Carl Jung — wondering, “What myth am I living by?” and realizing he didn’t know — wrote, “I took it upon myself to get to know ‘my’ myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks.” “That’s what a […]
Yoga Nidra Retreat: Rest, Restore, and Remember Who You Are
With John Vosler
Experience five days of deep rest, reflection, and rejuvenation through movement, guided meditation, and the profound practice of Yoga Nidra. This workshop is designed to restore the body, clear the mind, and shift the habitual patterns that keep us from experiencing a state of calm, clarity, and balance. Yoga Nidra, which translates to "yogic sleep," […]
Free the Resonant Voice
With Odeya Nini
The voice is calling me, to come home, to the river that is flowing within me. — Sophia Tuv The voice is more than sound — it is the breath of our being made audible, the vibration of our essence moving through space. It is our most innate instrument, a direct channel between the soul […]
Spring Equinox Yoga Retreat
With Sarana Miller
The March equinox, a time of transition and harmony, is a wonderful opportunity to deepen our practice of yoga. The light is returning from the dark days of winter, and balance is our theme — both on the yoga mat and for our emotional and spiritual selves. Just as the plants are beginning to bud, […]
Healing Ourselves & Our lineage: Gratitude for Our Ancestors
With Erika Gagnon
Gratitude for our ancestors! We are the reality of their dreaming. We are the tip of the arrow of our entire ancestral lineage, which traces back to the beginning of time. We all inherit our ancestors’ strength & resilience, their wisdom & their gifts, as well as their pain and trauma. Join ceremonial leader and […]
Awaken The Artist Within: Evolution
With Erin Gafill and Tom Birmingham
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. —Rumi Embark on a five-day journey of artistic discovery in a creative space that nurtures playful practice and community above all. This immersive multimedia experience is an invitation to explore an array of techniques and mediums, including: Torn paper […]
The Dance Between Consciousness and Form: An Experiential Journey in Non-Duality
With Gitanjali D'Costa
Immerse yourself in the eros of creation. Enter the divine dance between consciousness and form to explore the generative relationship between Shiva, the principle of pure awareness, and Shakti, the principle of creation and form. As these energies are engaged in the body, new layers of intimacy with self and the living world may be […]
Moving Like the Ocean, Sitting Like a Mountain: Soul Motion® and Embodied Gestalt
With Zuza Engler and Scott Engler
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 […]
Sacred Tobacco: Hapé and the Art of Presence
With Glauber Loures de Assis
Hapé, a sacred tobacco preparation, has been used by Indigenous peoples across the Amazon as a medicine for clarity, presence, and connection for centuries. Blown gently into the nostrils, this finely ground blend of tobacco leaves and sacred ashes activates the senses in a unique way, opening inner vision and anchoring attention in the present […]
Setting Your Heart on Fire: A Passionate Practice to Liberate Your Life
With Raphael Cushnir
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 […]
Luminous Yoga Spring Renewal
With Ulrika Engman
Revamp, reinvigorate, and polish your luminous self this season with innovative yoga practices for body, mind, and spirit! This yoga renewal workshop includes energizing movement, flow yoga, core activations, meridian sequencing, tapping, rejuvenating holds, and cleansing rituals based on the five elements. Yoga for the skin sloughs off the old with a potent five-step cleansing […]
Esalen® Massage and Energy Work
With Ellen Watson and Char Pias
Matter is Energy ... Energy is Light ... We are all Light Beings — Albert Einstein Each of us walks around within our own energy halo. When two people touch, they spark an energetic exchange. This felt relationship is the heart and soul of Esalen® Massage. With a spirit of gratitude, we invite you to […]
Role Mate to Soul Mate: The Art and Discipline of Love
With Warren Farrell
Since falling in love is biologically natural, but sustaining love is biologically unnatural, Soul Mate focuses on the art and discipline of sustaining love. You begin with learning how to appreciate your partner so specifically and frequently that your partner feels fully seen and loved. You then practice both the art and discipline of hearing […]
Connecting With Nature: Discovering the Gifts of Botanical Inks
With Janne Larsen
Creating a profound connection to nature begins with observing and understanding the plants surrounding us, awakening to our symbiotic relationship with them. This workshop offers an opportunity to cultivate an intimate bond with a diverse selection of plants thriving in the Esalen landscape, learning their unique characteristics, stories, and the wisdom they impart. Together, we […]
Reiki: Finding Your True Nature Through A Japanese Healing Tradition
With Diane Domondon and Justin Stein, PhD
Misconceptions about Reiki place its origins anywhere from ancient Egypt to Tibet — even from angels and aliens — but we hold the truth in the palms of our hands. In this workshop, we’ll explore the roots of this Japanese practice and discover the transformative power of universal life energy through Reiki meditations and transmissions. […]
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 […]
Bohemian Gravity: Transformation Through Dance and Meditation
With Yemi Dele Akinyemi
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 […]
Mythology, Yoga, and Falling in Love with Existence at the Edge of the World
With Hannah Muse
When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence? —Gabrielle Roth Your life is not simply a task to be managed but a mythopoetic mystery to be lived. Take a break from the mundane and let yourself be enchanted […]
Sleep Alchemy: Secrets of Daoist Sleep Practices for Inner Peace and Renewal
With Simon Cox
What if sleep could be more than just crashing into your pillow at the end of a long day? What if it could be a portal to transformation and self-discovery? In this workshop, we’ll dive into the ancient Daoist art of sleep alchemy, where the Wudang Hibernating Dragon and Five Dragons Sleeping methods teach you […]
Finding Your Spirit Guides: Building a Relationship With the Unseen World
With Brenda Rose
You are never truly alone — loving guidance has always been by your side. Your spirit guides, part of your soul family and spiritual GPS, are waiting to assist, support, play, and dance with you. In this five-day immersion, you’ll explore how to access their wisdom with patience, trust, and an open heart, and discover […]
Wild Pilgrimage: Backpacking Journey to Esalen
With Fletcher Tucker and Mike Smith
In the mountains east of Esalen, an enchanting, ecologically diverse, and psycho-spiritually fertile wilderness awaits. Over four nights and five days, we will engage in a contemporary form of pilgrimage, backpacking as reverent seekers through these ancestral lands of the Esselen Tribe, now known as Big Sur’s Ventana Wilderness. Our journey concludes at the coastal […]
The Power of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion
With Shauna Shapiro
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 […]
The Transformational Enneagram: Mindfulness, Insight and Experience
With Russ Hudson
More and more, people are discovering the Enneagram as an accurate and profound map of personality. In this workshop, we’ll explore the full scope of its power to illuminate our greatest wisdom, become our truest selves, and face life’s challenges with fortitude and grace. The nine Enneagram types are based on the three primary centers […]
Designing The Life We Want: Self Renewal in the Spring
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 […]
Joyful Metamorphosis: Embrace Change Through Play
With Stacie Blanke and Anthony Veneziale
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than a year of conversation. — Plato This interactive workshop is designed to ignite your creativity and foster connections through the transformative power of improvisation, play, and imagination. Embark on a captivating journey in which science and spontaneity collide, delve into the world […]
Big Sur Wilderness Experience
With Steven Harper
Esalen is the trailhead to one of the most spectacular mountainous coastlines in the world. With the Big Sur wilderness as the primary teacher, participants will explore the beauty of this wild coast which includes ancient canyons of redwoods, dramatic coastal beaches, rugged rocky mountains, and soft grassy slopes. Drawing from nature and guided by […]
Into the Field of Possibility: Meeting Your Essence Through Dance
With Jovinna Chan
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, […]
Holotropic Breathwork®: Expanded States of Consciousness
With Stacia Butterfield
For thousands of years across many cultures, enhanced states of consciousness have been used as a strategy for meaningful transformation and self-exploration — marking life’s major transitions and rites of passage and deepening one’s connection to self, community, and the natural world. In this workshop, we will gather in the rich field of community for […]
Ordinary Mysticism: Reclaiming the Landscape of Your Life as Sacred Ground
With Mirabai Starr
As organized religion begins to lose its relevance, a fast-growing community of the spiritual but not religious rises to take its place. We are thirsty for the sacred and long to experience it within the heart of our everyday lives. In this experiential workshop, we will cultivate a mystical way of seeing to reclaim awe […]
The Heart of Relationship: A Weekend of Gestalt Inquiry for Couples and Friends
With Johanna Holloman and Perry Holloman
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 […]
Befriending Mortality: Living an Awakened Life Through Mindfulness of Death
With Nikki Mirghafori
In this transformative workshop, you will explore Maranasati, mindfulness of death, a profound practice for embracing life’s natural cycles of birth and death with greater aliveness, presence, and fearlessness. By facing impermanence directly, you can open your heart to live with deeper intention, presence, and less fear, freeing yourself to embrace life in its fullest […]
Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Doorway to Joy, Wisdom, and Wonder
With Mark Coleman and Lori Schwanbeck
...how easily you can belong to everything simply by listening. — David Whyte Held by the cliffs, verdant gardens, and vast Pacific horizon, this workshop invites you to slow down, awaken your senses, and rediscover your connection to the living world. Listening deeply to the life within us and around us, we are able to […]
Pathways to Partnership: Scientific Strategies for Healthy Relationships
With Amy Chan
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 […]
Body of Research: Meditation and Dance
With Manoj Dias and Max Vallot
Mindfulness can help us understand the patterns of the mind. Movement can help us understand the patterns in the body. By bridging the two, we begin to develop a clearer, more embodied understanding of who we are. In this three-day retreat, we’ll explore meditation, breathwork, and improvised movement as an integrated toolkit. We’ll approach these […]
Mythic Yoga Flow®: A Full Moon Retreat
With Sianna Sherman and Masood Ali Khan
Be inspired and transform your yoga practice with the stories of yoga and the power of myth. Awaken the hero’s journey within you as you explore the legends, lore, and archetypes of the yoga tradition. Deepen your love of yoga, elevate your creativity, and infuse your practice with mythic codes that support your purpose in […]
How We Change and Why We Don't: The Art and Science of Transformation
With Cassandra Vieten
Have you ever worked hard to make a change, only to find yourself slipping back into old habits? Want to supercharge your ability to stimulate behavior change in others when it comes to the issues you care about the most? Is it time to break free from old patterns and build your next chapter? This […]
Advanced Cortical Field Reeducation® (CFR) Five More Powerful Days for Deeper Healing
With Judy Greenman, Melissa Krikorian and Kim Blue Flavey
This course builds on your previous seven rich days of exploration in CFR® Week One. During that crucial week, you laid the foundation for releasing your childhood survival patterns and moving through life with more ease and presence physically, mentally, and emotionally. In CFR® Week 1, you reorganized the stranger you once called “self” to […]
Cultivating Vitality in Body, Mind, and Spirit: The Ecosystem of Mental Well-Being
With Cassandra Vieten and Elissa Epel
What is vitality? Exuberance, vibrance, sparkle, spirit, and verve — terms rarely found in psychology textbooks. Vulnerability to depression and anxiety is widespread, and our culture traditionally emphasizes reducing symptoms with drugs that alter certain neurotransmitters, which is only part of the picture. We are living in a new era where vulnerabilities can become strengths, […]