Relationship & Communication
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. […]
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 […]
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. […]
Bohemian Gravity: Transformation Through Movement and Meditation
With Yemi Akinyemi Dele
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Learning Tarot: Awakening the Magic of Your Own Inner Guidance
With Brenda Rose
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 […]
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: Saying Yes to Life
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 ways of being and knowing are often shaken to the core. Yet, life invites us to remember our innate capacity for resilience, an open heart, […]
Designing for Warmth: Creating Transcendent User Experiences
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Prophecy of The Eagle and The Condor: Ancient Healing Ways for Modern Times
With Erika Gagnon and Claudia Cuentas
The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor is an ancient Indigenous prophecy from the people of the “Americas,” that spoke of a time when the Eagle and the Condor — representing the indigenous peoples of the North and the South — would reunite once again with their original knowledge, strength, diversity and connection to […]
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: […]
The Self, Reframed: An Exploration Through Breath and 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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
Generative Resourcing for Wonder and Wisdom: Caretaking the Next Generation
With Jasmine Star Horan
Step into a sanctuary of renewal and self-inquiry, a space where caregivers can resource and reconnect with the heart of their service. This is an opportunity to slow down, breathe, and nurture yourself through transformative practices that will replenish your soul and deepen your work with children. Open to a more embodied and authentic way […]
Elegant Aging: Cultivating Grace and Gratefulness During Life Transitions
With Marilyn Schlitz
How can we navigate life’s transitions with elegance, grace, and gratitude? This is a fundamental question for growth and transformation, no matter where we are in our stages of life. This workshop is designed for anyone pondering their aging process as well as active caretakers for those entering their third act. Using an experiential approach, […]
Foraging: Fall in Love With Nature Through Wild Foods
With Maria Finn
Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond. ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass Foraging is the antidote to our too-too-busy lives and […]
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 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 […]
Breaking Free From the Likability Cage: A Replenishing and Empowering Workshop for the Emotionally Exhausted Woman
With Nancy Colier
Summer is the time to take a break, step off the treadmill of modern life, take care of oneself, and refill the tanks before gearing up for the busyness of fall. What does taking care of yourself really mean—for you? What do you want and need at this moment in your life; what genuinely takes […]
Clown Church: Mindfulness, Healing, and Your Deepest Self
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. Clown is about being soft, brave, and available to the moment. This workshop is an immersion practice that explores our deepest, most vulnerable, creative self. Using […]
Experiencing the Esalen Farm and Garden
With Candice Isphording, James House and Becca Gallagher
Have you ever wanted to learn how to grow your own food? Experience a dynamic week in the Esalen Farm and Garden and fully participate alongside our talented and experienced staff. Local food security is a major issue facing communities worldwide. It is said that there is no greater form of activism than growing one’s […]
Living Authentically: A Journey with Human Design
With Anne Van de Water
Imagine reaching the end 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 wisdom from astrology, […]
Free Your Energy, Transform Your Life: Liberate Emotions and Creative Change with Biofield Science, Psychoneuroimmunology, and Tantric Healing
With Shamini Jain
Discover the profound connection between ancient practices and modern science as we explore the transformative potential of the biofield. Western science is uncovering the power of this energy for healing, from cells to communities. Published research demonstrates how subtle energy healing can reduce pain, alleviate anxiety, shift hormone and immune function, and even prevent the […]
Understanding Negotiation Systems: Transformative Conflict Management Practices for Leaders in Complex Environment
With Arvid Bell
In today’s unpredictable world, mastering negotiation is essential for effective leadership. This highly interactive workshop will immerse you in real-world negotiation scenarios that mirror the complexity of today’s challenges. Using the Systemic Multi-Constituency Exercise (SMCE) method, you’ll engage in dynamic role-play simulations where competing interests, shifting alliances, and high stakes force you to think strategically, […]
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 […]
Eve's Domain: Rewriting Our Inherited Stories
With Zita Tulyahikayo
We are all born into a story that is already being told. It is woven into our very being, much like the DNA passed down from Mitochondrial Eve, the mother of all humanity. Just as we inherit genetic traits, we also inherit stories, expectations, and emotional patterns that shape our lives. Like Eve in the […]
Finding Humans Less Scary
With Jacob Towery
Do you struggle with shyness or social anxiety? Do you feel intimidated or scared to meet new people or worry others will judge you? If so, come face your fears and discover tools to connect to people authentically! In this workshop, you will learn how to enjoy meeting new people and interact more successfully with […]
Hardwiring Happiness: Rewire Your Mind for Calm, Clarity, and Joy
With Shauna Shapiro
Revolutionary findings in neuroscience have demonstrated that we can literally re-architect the very structure of our brains. In fact, we can even rewire our neurology to be more focused, calmer, and happier. In this workshop, Dr. Shauna Shapiro — a leading scientist studying the effects of meditation on well-being — will teach you the most […]
Beyond Duality: Healing Wisdom and Ceremony for Personal Health and Well-being
With Erika Gagnon
Join ceremonial leader and wisdom carrier Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey as we gather to look beyond the false duality of a divided self and the destructive concept of “self versus nature” to discover how to live in harmony and balance within ourselves and the world around us. You are your greatest healer and […]
Wild Presence: Relational Gestalt Practice in Nature
With Dorothy Charles, Noël Vietor and Fletcher Tucker
“Wilderness, by itself, has its own way of teaching. The direct experience of wilderness can spontaneously bring wholeness back into the human community.” – Manual of Gestalt Practice in the Tradition of Dick Price When we are present in the here and now, every moment in the natural world represents an opportunity to enrich, heal, […]
Authenticity Unleashed: The Science and Soul of Unlocking Your Power, Confidence, and Truth
With Justin Michael Williams
What does it truly mean to show up as your authentic self at work, at home, and in all your relationships? How can true authenticity enhance your relationship with yourself and others? What does science have to say about the practice of authenticity? The good news, research conducted at Harvard University has proven that authenticity […]
Moon Lodge: Honoring the Sacred Feminine
With Lucia Horan and Dr. Julie Von
How empowered do you feel as a woman navigating this world? What is your relationship to the feminine? And to female wisdom? Join us inside the Moon Lodge, a place for exploration — for women to find tribal and ritual healing. The 5Rhythms is a map that teaches us how energy moves. It shows us […]
Resource and Renew: 5Rhythms and Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness
With Lucia Horan
Through the practices of 5Rhythms dance, mindfulness meditation, and self-care, we weave together a retreat focused on healing and celebration. Looking back over the past few years, it is clear that many of us are exhausted. In times of turmoil and change, self-care and kindness are needed to connect us to the ability to recharge […]
Healing Waters: Return to One
With Douglas Drummond and Little Bear Tom Nason
We invite you to step into a powerful, immersive experience weaving the dynamic energy of 5Rhythms® movement with the deep wisdom of Indigenous traditions. Rooted in the teachings of the Esselen people, this workshop is an invitation to reconnect — with yourself, your community, and the natural world. For millennia, rites of passage and sacred […]
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 […]