Psychology & Self-Awareness
Website program category as of 2022
COME TOGETHER! A Festival of IntraConnectivity and Spirit | Day Pass
With Daniel Siegel, Elissa Epel, Little Bear Tom Nason, Rhonda V. Magee and Douglas Drummond
We live in times of high existential stress with both ever-increasing personal, societal, and global pressures and the constant pain of witnessing ecological crises and widespread social injustices. These challenges also create opportunities to reconsider our relationships to self, one another, and the planet — and to choose a life of peak purpose and interconnectedness. […]
COME TOGETHER! A Festival of IntraConnectivity and Spirit | ETMC Day Pass
With Daniel Siegel, Elissa Epel, Little Bear Tom Nason, Rhonda V. Magee and Douglas Drummond
We live in times of high existential stress with both ever-increasing personal, societal, and global pressures and the constant pain of witnessing ecological crises and widespread social injustices. These challenges also create opportunities to reconsider our relationships to self, one another, and the planet — and to choose a life of peak purpose and interconnectedness. […]
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 […]
Make Peace With Your 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, […]
Cancelled | Secret to Belonging: How to Create Authentic Connections that Transform Communities
With Lee Mun Wah and Yi-Li Godfrey
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 […]
Love Yourself for Everyone Else’s Sake
With Mark Abramson
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 […]
Transforming Adversity Into Insight: Feeding Your Demons and Cultivating Emotional Balance
With Chandra Easton and Eve Ekman
Across various wisdom traditions, there is a common yet paradoxical invitation: Turn toward what is difficult to find freedom from what is difficult. However, when we find ourselves feeling anxiety, loss, judgment, irritation — the full bouquet of difficult emotions — facing these feelings is the last thing we want to do. Fortunately, there are […]
Integrative Gestalt™ and Hologenic™ Connected Breathwork Immersion Training
With Perry Holloman and Johanna Holloman
"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 […]
Seeding Self Renewal
With Didier Sylvain
The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars." — Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower All beginnings have seeds — the starting point for new growth and new branches of our lives, the sources for new chapters. This is what annual cycles and seasons promise: As our intentions and ambitions sharpen, […]
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 […]
Nurturing Connections through The Art of REPAIR
With Hazel-Grace Yates
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 […]
Metta and the Divine Abodes: Meditation, Yoga, and Wisdom to Live a Better Life
With Hannah Muse
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 practices, self-directed neuroplasticity, yoga, and somatic play to explore the classical Buddhist Heart practices known as the “boundless […]
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 […]
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 […]
Embodied Belonging: Weaving Our Relationship to Self, Community & 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 […]
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 […]
Total Immersion for Total Transformation
With Raphael Cushnir
Get ready for ecstatic rebirth! This small group workshop is for you if you are prepared and willing to: Determine the aspects of your life calling for healing and change. Move toward healing and change on the very first day. Commit to an action plan. Take a giant leap forward in consciousness. Help create and […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Children's Memories of Previous Lives: What They Can Tell Us About Our Own Lives
With Jim B. Tucker and Christine McDowell Tucker
Part of a new chapter of Esalen’s history, this seminar-style workshop considers the audacious possibility that reincarnation may be an empirically established fact rooted in robust and compelling scientific data. Numerous young children from across the world have reported memories of past lives. These cases have been a focus of careful study at the Department […]
Learning to Love Midlife
With Chip Conley
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 […]
Psychodrama for Recovery from Traumatic Stress: an Experiential Workshop
With Bessel van der Kolk and Licia Sky
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 […]
Selah: Untaming
With Bayo Akomolafe and Nora Bateson
Selah is the call of grace to make art at the edge of the world. At the end of the world. — Bayo Akomolafe We are often reminded that for social change to be transformative, it must be scaled up. It must be big, written in bold fonts across the night sky. Unambiguously clear. We […]
Heal Yourself with Ayurveda
With Siva Mohan
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. […]
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 […]
Science and Spirituality: The Search for Meaning in a Secular Age
With Michael Shermer
The intellectual and spiritual quest to understand the Universe and our place in it is at the core of science, religion, and spiritual traditions. We are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals trying to make sense of the world. For millennia, we have told stories in the form of myths and through religions that have offered countless explanations. […]
Big Sur Wilderness Experience: Springtime
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 — one of the most spectacular mountainous coastlines in the world — which includes ancient canyons of redwoods, dramatic coastal beaches, rugged […]
The Path of the Wounded Healer: 5Rhythms Heartbeat and Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness
With Lucia Horan
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, […]
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," […]
Wild Pilgrimage: Backpacking Journey to Esalen
With Fletcher Tucker and Ariel Johnson
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 the Big Sur backcountry. Our journey will conclude at the […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Contacting the Space Between: Gestalt, Feldenkrais, and the Subtle Body
With Kate Flore and Kevin Dockery
“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. […]
Embracing Mystery: Embodying Presence and Grounding in a World of Change and Uncertainty
With Steven Harper
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. […]
Space, Water, and Wind: Tibetan Buddhist Yogic and Rejuvenation Practices
With James Bae
Profound relaxation and rejuvenation lie at the intersection of land and sky. In this weekend intensive, we will explore the Tibetan art of rejuvenation, also known as chulen, meaning “essence-taking.” These “rare” inner yogic methods of self-healing include meditations on the sky (space), bathing in natural springs (water), breathing (wind), and movement practices. Inner yoga, […]
Embodied Energy Through Drawing
With Lou Rainbow
Push the boundaries of your drawing practice, go deeper, and develop your mark-making, surface development, form, and composition using still life and nature as inspiration. In this experimental drawing course, you will be encouraged to explore playful techniques alongside more focused observational skills, all while considering scale and composition. You will be guided to work […]
Designing Warmth: From User Experience (UX) to Transcendent Experience (ZX)
With Daniel Gloyd
What I mean by good design is helping people find their natural, proper place in the cosmos. —Richard Buchanan Warmth is an essential principle of human connection, prioritized by the biological brain and spiritual heart alike. In order to thrive, we humans need to experience the interconnectedness between ourselves and the world around us. Yet […]
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 […]
Embracing the Divine Feminine: A Mystical Approach
With Elizabeth Philipose
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 […]
Pathways to Partnership: Scientific Strategies for Dating and Beginning Your Next Healthy Relationship
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 […]
Who Do You Think You Are: An Interactive Journey Through Your Past Lives and Into Your Best Future
With Michelle Brock
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 […]
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, […]
The Rewilding of Eros: Un-Domesticating the Erotic Body and Reclaiming Erotic Sovereignty
With Victor Warring
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 […]
Wild Kinship: Hiking and Connection with the Big Sur Wilderness
With Fletcher Tucker
The natural world – in all its arresting beauty and enchanting complexity – calls out for our presence and reverence.There are subtle currents of communion and communication happening all around us; the land and wild beings beckon us into expanded states of sensitivity, reciprocity and fellowship. Immersed in the wilds of Big Sur, and the […]
Higher Self & You: Illuminate Your Inner Compass Through Hypnotherapy and Your Spirit Guides
With Aja Daashuur and Laurnie Wilson
What binds your Higher Self from soaring? What untapped reservoirs of power lie dormant within you, waiting to be awakened? How can you deepen your connection with your Highest Self to access its limitless wisdom and guiding light? Embark on a sacred four-night journey of self-discovery and spiritual elevation with renowned medium and spiritual guide […]
Emotional Wisdom: Inside Out
With Dacher Keltner
Emotional well-being is the next frontier of health and a central challenge of the 21st century, according to US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Guided by Berkeley Professor Dacher Keltner, scientific consultant on Pixar’s Inside Out and Inside Out 2, we will tour the latest science and practice of emotional well-being. In this workshop we will […]
Awakening the Heart
With James Baraz
This workshop is designed to support us as we open to our own goodness and learn practices to awaken love in others. Based on timeless Buddhist principles, as well as key findings in modern neuroscience, we will explore how to cultivate and sustain certain wholesome states, which, through practice, become the perspective we embody. By […]
Designing the Life We Want: Self Renewal at the Solstice
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 […]
SoulCollage®: An Enchanting Path to Inner Wisdom
With Kimberly Lee
Embark on an enlightening journey of self-discovery, guided by the power of intuition and creativity! In this immersive workshop, you’ll uncover your own 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 […]
Renewing Purpose: Modern Rituals to Navigate Life Transitions
With Day Schildkret
As life changes, we also must change — yet this isn't guaranteed. Too many of us get stuck at our thresholds. Ritual can help us cultivate discernment, recognize gains and losses, and conjure possibility. Join us for a transformative workshop designed to provide the skills and understanding needed to create your own modern rituals. Learn […]
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, […]
Thinking Like a Multiverse: Embracing a Diverse World
With Ramzi Fawaz
One of life’s great paradoxes is that we all inhabit the same world, yet no single person, living being, or object within it is exactly like anything else. Thus, difference — the sheer diversity of the world’s countless inhabitants — is arguably the most immediate fact of our shared reality. This seminar style workshop asks: […]
Internal Family Systems and Ancestor Wisdom: Listening When Parts Speak
With Tamala Floyd
If we carry intergenerational trauma (and we do), we also carry intergenerational wisdom. It's in our genes and in our DNA. —Kazu Haga What if your healing journey lies within you and in the wisdom carried by your ancestral line? The Listening When Parts Speak workshop is a curated experience designed to help you access […]
Relational Mindfulness: A Path to Personal and Collective Awakening
With Deborah Eden Tull
Relational mindfulness offers 9 principles and practices for meeting the beautiful, dynamic, and messy field of human relating as our laboratory for awakening. It offers a path for cultivating greater peace, understanding, joy, resilience, and freedom within ourselves and our world. Sitting alone on a meditation cushion is a wholly different exercise than engaging socially, […]
Chakra Rituals: Heal, Transform, and Reignite the Spark of Life
With Cristi Christensen
The chakra system is one of the greatest gifts the ancient yogis and rishis of India shared with the world: a powerful spiritual map for our healing and the awakening of our consciousness so we can fully come alive! This week is an invitation to explore this map and unlock the unbridled joy, creative power, […]
Nature and Contemplation: Cultivating Wild Mindfulness
With Steven Harper and Gary Marcoccia
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed. — Mary Oliver From the beginning of time, the natural world has called humans to pause, reflect, and reconnect with life’s essence. This workshop invites you to immerse […]
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 […]
Authentic Consent: An Intimate Weekend of Play, Exploration and Clarity in Connection
With Amina Peterson
Join Amina Peterson on a transformative journey where you'll discover a revolutionary model of erotic communication. Immerse yourself in a safe and empowering space to cultivate deeper intimacy, pleasure, and connection. Through somatic tools, communication strategies, and boundary-building practices, you'll learn how to navigate relationships with authenticity and respect. This intimate weekend is a unique […]
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 […]
Midsummer’s Dream: Yoga, Chanting, Live Music, Meditation, and Dance
With Janet Stone
Come to Esalen for the long summer days and be greeted with a dynamic, nourishing yoga experience. We will create pathways to heal and reclaim our bodies and voices so we can share authentically. Let’s turn down the noise and tune into the heart’s rhythm with Janet Stone and DJ Drez. This will be a […]
The Shared Heart Summer 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 […]
The Luminous Darkness: Imagination, Possibility, and Conscious Intentions for 2025
With Deborah Eden Tull
All light arises from darkness, including insight, creativity, vision, joy, and possibility. The luminous darkness is the spacious 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 […]