Inspired by 20th-century French writer Marcel Proust, we here at Esalen have created our own version of his favorite parlor game to dig just a little deeper — and differently — into our incredible faculty and staff.
Perry and Johanna Holloman, intimate partners and friends for over three decades, open up about their current state of being and what it’s like to teach at "the most beautiful retreat center on earth." Here we ask the pair to share a few thoughts on love, work, life, and fictional heroes. Read on to discover which one prefers a hobbit to a god and why Perry wishes to bear witness as a millennia-old tree.
What is Esalen to you?
Perry: I remember Dick Price saying, “Esalen is a place where people are confronted with what they need to learn.” I’ve found this to be both wonderfully and painfully true.
Johanna: Dick called it a “Karmic washing machine.” Esalen magnetized me in my 20s when I was a psychology student. Its alchemical cauldron of cutting-edge explorations of body, mind, and our shared humanity beckoned me all the way from Germany
What do you do/are you doing at Esalen?
Perry and Johanna: Teaching practices of awareness: Integrative Gestalt, Hologenic Breathwork, Esalen Massage, and deep bodywork.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Johanna: Perfect happiness is an idea. I witness chasing happiness as the cause of much suffering, and it seems to be a barrier to something I value much more: freedom, which includes freedom from needing the condition of happiness to be there.
Perry: When all my internal need to grasp at things and “hold on for dear life” truly ends.
What is your greatest fear in your work?
Perry: To not embody my life purpose in my career.
Johanna: Not to be able to make enough of a difference during these challenging times in the world.
Which living or dead person do you most admire in your field?
Johanna: My teachers, Hameed Ali and Karen Johnson, founders of the Diamond Approach®, a wisdom path to inner realization and the exploration of reality.
Perry: Dick Price and his family. He, Chris, and Jennifer changed my life with their generosity when I was just 20 years old in 1979 when they took me into their home and created space for me to live at Esalen, learn from its master teachers, and become a healing artist.
What is your greatest extravagance related to your practice?
Perry and Johanna: Having the privilege to often work in the most beautiful retreat center on earth, Esalen.
What is your current state of mind?
Perry and Johanna: We prefer to frame the question as “state of being” as the mind arises within that matrix and the ordinary mind can be so fickle. Our state of being is much more simple and spacious these days and constantly unfolding through our practice of inquiry.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Perry and Johanna: Whether or not a virtue is overrated depends on the context and the person. For example, selflessness is a wonderful virtue but can become harmful when not balanced with taking care of one’s own needs.
What is the quality you most like in a human?
Perry and Johanna: Compassion. A warm, kind, and generous heart balanced by clarity.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Perry: My wife, children, and father who is still alive, and the consciousness that we and all that exists share.
Johanna: Love itself. Experiencing it more and more deeply, vulnerably, and fully in so many facets and dimensions — learning to be and embody it.
What about your work brings you the most happiness?
Perry: When someone who is suffering truly smiles for the first time in a long time.
Johanna: When a student experiences what is true and authentic in them.
Which talent would you most like to have?
Perry: To be musically gifted.
Johanna: To be a brilliant writer, poet, and public speaker — in many languages!
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Perry: To embody undefended, loving kindness.
Johanna: The multi-generational echoes of what used to be an immense inner critic, but I think it makes me understand the deep suffering it causes for most of us.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Perry: Taking “the path less traveled” in my life and career.
Johanna: Raising a truly kind, good man. Not Perry, I mean our son.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Perry: An ancient, 1,000-year-old Redwood. To witness the life cycle of so many generations from a space of massive stillness would be awesome.
Johanna: As a blessing to anything and everything across time and space.
What would living at Esalen for a month be like for you?
Perry: I did it for three years when I was 20–23, and moving off property saved my sanity.
Johanna: I lived at Esalen as a work scholar for several months and in its neighborhood for decades. By the time I arrived in 1990, Esalen had changed from its wild, experimental youth to a slightly more introspective phase. It was a universe unto itself, like the cosmic love child of Woodstock and Oprah, where everyone embarked on a quirky quest for truth and meaning. It was the kind of place that still makes me tilt my head and wonder, “Did that really happen?” Pyramids as headpieces or management being informed by a psychic channeling nine extraterrestrial guides — oh, the many stories I could tell! It was wild, witty, and wonderfully weird all at once. But my Esalen story had its heartbeat in the rhythm of Gestalt practice, passed down through Dick and Chris Price and others after them. Gestalt practice was woven into every aspect of our days, whether in work or workshops. On the “hot seat," we took the plunge into the uncharted territories of our minds, bodies, and souls. The emotional journey sometimes left us shaken, like a snow globe given an unexpected shake. I witnessed raw processes and listened to life stories from newfound friends that were unimaginable to me before. There were rough edges, but in the end, it was this very process that made us a bit more whole, more human, and profoundly connected.
What is your most treasured possession?
Perry: A handmade acoustic guitar built by a master luthier.
Johanna: The memories of pure goodness elicited by a delicate cup, laced with tiny wildflowers, from my grandmother, in which she served me hot cacao after a shared afternoon working in her vegetable garden.
How do you maintain your practice(s) during challenging times?
Perry: There have been so, so many challenging times! The support I find in my relationship with my wife has been the most important element.
Johanna: The practices are a part of my everyday life and are what carry me through challenging times. So, it is the other way around: I am not maintaining them; they maintain me and my sanity.
What is your favorite component of your work?
Perry and Johanna: Supporting and witnessing true alchemical transformation and maturation of the human soul.
What is your most marked characteristic?
Perry: Being able to teach complex subjects in a simple, fun manner through storytelling.
Johanna: Most people describe me as warm and motherly, with a twinkle of lighthearted joy.
What do you value most in your work/practice?
Perry: The appreciation I have for my clients for their courage and sincere willingness to self-inquire.
Johanna: That I love what I get to do and the fact that I am, at the same time, a student and a teacher of the practices we share. The continuous unfolding and weaving of many practices of embodiment of presence, such as breathwork, movement practices, conscious touch, and inquiry, keep my work and practice deeply intertwined and alive.
Who are your inspirations?
Perry: The first one that comes to mind is my sister, who was given six months to live and survived 11 years until her girls were grown.
Johanna: Anybody I meet who meets life’s challenges and adversity with grace, grit, honest vulnerability, and resiliency.
Who is your hero of fiction?
Perry: Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods.
Johanna: Tolkien’s Frodo, a reluctant hero resisting the ring’s temptation of corruption of power. His resilience in the face of all the challenges and setbacks, his humility and courage, his innocent selflessness to sacrifice for the greater good, and his deeply felt friendship opened the floodgates of my heart for this big-hearted, small-bodied creature.
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Perry: Albert Einstein, who taught us that matter and energy are equivalent. This has helped me understand that who and what we are isn’t a rigid, unchangeable structure but instead a moving, dynamic, self-aware consciousness capable of growth and change throughout life.
Johanna: I don't identify with any historical figure. I have enough on my plate with my own history and the many identities I am either integrating or shedding.
Who are your heroes in real life?
Perry and Johanna: All the people, known and unknown, who sincerely desire to know themselves and rise above adversity with the capacity to truly forgive and keep their hearts open.
What is your greatest regret?
Perry and Johanna: Not “trusting my gut” earlier in our lives and some of the painful detours it led us on or paths it held us back from, and the pain it caused for others and ourselves.
How would you like to die?
Perry and Johanna: Consciously, at home, hopefully in the loving presence of our family and dear friends, ideally in each other's arms.
What is your motto?
Perry: Mottos are like New Year’s resolutions: As meaningful as your self-discipline and focus.
Johanna: I am not a fan of mottos. It makes me feel like squeezing life’s wisdom on the little tea bag tag in a one-size-fits-all manner. If I had to choose one, I like the one I learned at Esalen when I first arrived: “Trust the process.” But even that one I’d take with a grain of salt, like when it is used as a cop-out after making a mistake instead of sincere self-reflection.
“Remembering to be as self compassionate as I can and praying to the divine that we're all a part of.”
–Aaron
“Prayer, reading, meditation, walking.”
–Karen
“Erratically — which is an ongoing stream of practice to find peace.”
–Charles
“Try on a daily basis to be kind to myself and to realize that making mistakes is a part of the human condition. Learning from our mistakes is a journey. But it starts with compassion and caring. First for oneself.”
–Steve
“Physically: aerobic exercise, volleyball, ice hockey, cycling, sailing. Emotionally: unfortunately I have to work to ‘not care’ about people or situations which may end painfully. Along the lines of ‘attachment is the source of suffering’, so best to avoid it or limit its scope. Sad though because it could also be the source of great joy. Is it worth the risk?“
–Rainer
“It's time for my heart to be nurtured on one level yet contained on another. To go easy on me and to allow my feelings to be validated, not judged harshly. On the other hand, to let the heart rule with equanimity and not lead the mind and body around like a master.”
–Suzanne
“I spend time thinking of everything I am grateful for, and I try to develop my ability to express compassion for myself and others without reservation. I take time to do the things I need to do to keep myself healthy and happy. This includes taking experiential workshops, fostering relationships, and participating within groups which have a similar interest to become a more compassionate and fulfilled being.“
–Peter
“Self-forgiveness for my own judgments. And oh yeah, coming to Esalen.”
–David B.
“Hmm, this is a tough one! I guess I take care of my heart through fostering relationships with people I feel connected to. Spending quality time with them (whether we're on the phone, through messages/letters, on Zoom, or in-person). Being there for them, listening to them, sharing what's going on with me, my struggles and my successes... like we do in the Esalen weekly Friends of Esalen Zoom sessions!”
–Lori
“I remind myself in many ways of the fact that " Love is all there is!" LOVE is the prize and this one precious life is the stage we get to learn our lessons. I get out into nature, hike, camp, river kayak, fly fish, garden, I create, I dance (not enough!), and I remain grateful for each day, each breath, each moment. Being in the moment, awake, and remembering the gift of life and my feeling of gratitude for all of creation.”
–Steven
“My physical heart by limiting stress and eating a heart-healthy diet. My emotional heart by staying in love with the world and by knowing that all disappointment and loss will pass.“
–David Z.
Today, September 29, is World Heart Day. Strike up a conversation with your own heart and as you feel comfortable, encourage others to do the same. As part of our own transformations and self-care, we sometimes ask for others to illuminate and enliven our hearts or speak our love language.
What if we could do this for ourselves too, even if just for today… or to start a heart practice, forever?
Inspired by 20th-century French writer Marcel Proust, we here at Esalen have created our own version of his favorite parlor game to dig just a little deeper — and differently — into our incredible faculty and staff.
Perry and Johanna Holloman, intimate partners and friends for over three decades, open up about their current state of being and what it’s like to teach at "the most beautiful retreat center on earth." Here we ask the pair to share a few thoughts on love, work, life, and fictional heroes. Read on to discover which one prefers a hobbit to a god and why Perry wishes to bear witness as a millennia-old tree.
What is Esalen to you?
Perry: I remember Dick Price saying, “Esalen is a place where people are confronted with what they need to learn.” I’ve found this to be both wonderfully and painfully true.
Johanna: Dick called it a “Karmic washing machine.” Esalen magnetized me in my 20s when I was a psychology student. Its alchemical cauldron of cutting-edge explorations of body, mind, and our shared humanity beckoned me all the way from Germany
What do you do/are you doing at Esalen?
Perry and Johanna: Teaching practices of awareness: Integrative Gestalt, Hologenic Breathwork, Esalen Massage, and deep bodywork.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Johanna: Perfect happiness is an idea. I witness chasing happiness as the cause of much suffering, and it seems to be a barrier to something I value much more: freedom, which includes freedom from needing the condition of happiness to be there.
Perry: When all my internal need to grasp at things and “hold on for dear life” truly ends.
What is your greatest fear in your work?
Perry: To not embody my life purpose in my career.
Johanna: Not to be able to make enough of a difference during these challenging times in the world.
Which living or dead person do you most admire in your field?
Johanna: My teachers, Hameed Ali and Karen Johnson, founders of the Diamond Approach®, a wisdom path to inner realization and the exploration of reality.
Perry: Dick Price and his family. He, Chris, and Jennifer changed my life with their generosity when I was just 20 years old in 1979 when they took me into their home and created space for me to live at Esalen, learn from its master teachers, and become a healing artist.
What is your greatest extravagance related to your practice?
Perry and Johanna: Having the privilege to often work in the most beautiful retreat center on earth, Esalen.
What is your current state of mind?
Perry and Johanna: We prefer to frame the question as “state of being” as the mind arises within that matrix and the ordinary mind can be so fickle. Our state of being is much more simple and spacious these days and constantly unfolding through our practice of inquiry.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Perry and Johanna: Whether or not a virtue is overrated depends on the context and the person. For example, selflessness is a wonderful virtue but can become harmful when not balanced with taking care of one’s own needs.
What is the quality you most like in a human?
Perry and Johanna: Compassion. A warm, kind, and generous heart balanced by clarity.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Perry: My wife, children, and father who is still alive, and the consciousness that we and all that exists share.
Johanna: Love itself. Experiencing it more and more deeply, vulnerably, and fully in so many facets and dimensions — learning to be and embody it.
What about your work brings you the most happiness?
Perry: When someone who is suffering truly smiles for the first time in a long time.
Johanna: When a student experiences what is true and authentic in them.
Which talent would you most like to have?
Perry: To be musically gifted.
Johanna: To be a brilliant writer, poet, and public speaker — in many languages!
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Perry: To embody undefended, loving kindness.
Johanna: The multi-generational echoes of what used to be an immense inner critic, but I think it makes me understand the deep suffering it causes for most of us.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Perry: Taking “the path less traveled” in my life and career.
Johanna: Raising a truly kind, good man. Not Perry, I mean our son.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Perry: An ancient, 1,000-year-old Redwood. To witness the life cycle of so many generations from a space of massive stillness would be awesome.
Johanna: As a blessing to anything and everything across time and space.
What would living at Esalen for a month be like for you?
Perry: I did it for three years when I was 20–23, and moving off property saved my sanity.
Johanna: I lived at Esalen as a work scholar for several months and in its neighborhood for decades. By the time I arrived in 1990, Esalen had changed from its wild, experimental youth to a slightly more introspective phase. It was a universe unto itself, like the cosmic love child of Woodstock and Oprah, where everyone embarked on a quirky quest for truth and meaning. It was the kind of place that still makes me tilt my head and wonder, “Did that really happen?” Pyramids as headpieces or management being informed by a psychic channeling nine extraterrestrial guides — oh, the many stories I could tell! It was wild, witty, and wonderfully weird all at once. But my Esalen story had its heartbeat in the rhythm of Gestalt practice, passed down through Dick and Chris Price and others after them. Gestalt practice was woven into every aspect of our days, whether in work or workshops. On the “hot seat," we took the plunge into the uncharted territories of our minds, bodies, and souls. The emotional journey sometimes left us shaken, like a snow globe given an unexpected shake. I witnessed raw processes and listened to life stories from newfound friends that were unimaginable to me before. There were rough edges, but in the end, it was this very process that made us a bit more whole, more human, and profoundly connected.
What is your most treasured possession?
Perry: A handmade acoustic guitar built by a master luthier.
Johanna: The memories of pure goodness elicited by a delicate cup, laced with tiny wildflowers, from my grandmother, in which she served me hot cacao after a shared afternoon working in her vegetable garden.
How do you maintain your practice(s) during challenging times?
Perry: There have been so, so many challenging times! The support I find in my relationship with my wife has been the most important element.
Johanna: The practices are a part of my everyday life and are what carry me through challenging times. So, it is the other way around: I am not maintaining them; they maintain me and my sanity.
What is your favorite component of your work?
Perry and Johanna: Supporting and witnessing true alchemical transformation and maturation of the human soul.
What is your most marked characteristic?
Perry: Being able to teach complex subjects in a simple, fun manner through storytelling.
Johanna: Most people describe me as warm and motherly, with a twinkle of lighthearted joy.
What do you value most in your work/practice?
Perry: The appreciation I have for my clients for their courage and sincere willingness to self-inquire.
Johanna: That I love what I get to do and the fact that I am, at the same time, a student and a teacher of the practices we share. The continuous unfolding and weaving of many practices of embodiment of presence, such as breathwork, movement practices, conscious touch, and inquiry, keep my work and practice deeply intertwined and alive.
Who are your inspirations?
Perry: The first one that comes to mind is my sister, who was given six months to live and survived 11 years until her girls were grown.
Johanna: Anybody I meet who meets life’s challenges and adversity with grace, grit, honest vulnerability, and resiliency.
Who is your hero of fiction?
Perry: Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods.
Johanna: Tolkien’s Frodo, a reluctant hero resisting the ring’s temptation of corruption of power. His resilience in the face of all the challenges and setbacks, his humility and courage, his innocent selflessness to sacrifice for the greater good, and his deeply felt friendship opened the floodgates of my heart for this big-hearted, small-bodied creature.
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Perry: Albert Einstein, who taught us that matter and energy are equivalent. This has helped me understand that who and what we are isn’t a rigid, unchangeable structure but instead a moving, dynamic, self-aware consciousness capable of growth and change throughout life.
Johanna: I don't identify with any historical figure. I have enough on my plate with my own history and the many identities I am either integrating or shedding.
Who are your heroes in real life?
Perry and Johanna: All the people, known and unknown, who sincerely desire to know themselves and rise above adversity with the capacity to truly forgive and keep their hearts open.
What is your greatest regret?
Perry and Johanna: Not “trusting my gut” earlier in our lives and some of the painful detours it led us on or paths it held us back from, and the pain it caused for others and ourselves.
How would you like to die?
Perry and Johanna: Consciously, at home, hopefully in the loving presence of our family and dear friends, ideally in each other's arms.
What is your motto?
Perry: Mottos are like New Year’s resolutions: As meaningful as your self-discipline and focus.
Johanna: I am not a fan of mottos. It makes me feel like squeezing life’s wisdom on the little tea bag tag in a one-size-fits-all manner. If I had to choose one, I like the one I learned at Esalen when I first arrived: “Trust the process.” But even that one I’d take with a grain of salt, like when it is used as a cop-out after making a mistake instead of sincere self-reflection.
“Remembering to be as self compassionate as I can and praying to the divine that we're all a part of.”
–Aaron
“Prayer, reading, meditation, walking.”
–Karen
“Erratically — which is an ongoing stream of practice to find peace.”
–Charles
“Try on a daily basis to be kind to myself and to realize that making mistakes is a part of the human condition. Learning from our mistakes is a journey. But it starts with compassion and caring. First for oneself.”
–Steve
“Physically: aerobic exercise, volleyball, ice hockey, cycling, sailing. Emotionally: unfortunately I have to work to ‘not care’ about people or situations which may end painfully. Along the lines of ‘attachment is the source of suffering’, so best to avoid it or limit its scope. Sad though because it could also be the source of great joy. Is it worth the risk?“
–Rainer
“It's time for my heart to be nurtured on one level yet contained on another. To go easy on me and to allow my feelings to be validated, not judged harshly. On the other hand, to let the heart rule with equanimity and not lead the mind and body around like a master.”
–Suzanne
“I spend time thinking of everything I am grateful for, and I try to develop my ability to express compassion for myself and others without reservation. I take time to do the things I need to do to keep myself healthy and happy. This includes taking experiential workshops, fostering relationships, and participating within groups which have a similar interest to become a more compassionate and fulfilled being.“
–Peter
“Self-forgiveness for my own judgments. And oh yeah, coming to Esalen.”
–David B.
“Hmm, this is a tough one! I guess I take care of my heart through fostering relationships with people I feel connected to. Spending quality time with them (whether we're on the phone, through messages/letters, on Zoom, or in-person). Being there for them, listening to them, sharing what's going on with me, my struggles and my successes... like we do in the Esalen weekly Friends of Esalen Zoom sessions!”
–Lori
“I remind myself in many ways of the fact that " Love is all there is!" LOVE is the prize and this one precious life is the stage we get to learn our lessons. I get out into nature, hike, camp, river kayak, fly fish, garden, I create, I dance (not enough!), and I remain grateful for each day, each breath, each moment. Being in the moment, awake, and remembering the gift of life and my feeling of gratitude for all of creation.”
–Steven
“My physical heart by limiting stress and eating a heart-healthy diet. My emotional heart by staying in love with the world and by knowing that all disappointment and loss will pass.“
–David Z.
Today, September 29, is World Heart Day. Strike up a conversation with your own heart and as you feel comfortable, encourage others to do the same. As part of our own transformations and self-care, we sometimes ask for others to illuminate and enliven our hearts or speak our love language.
What if we could do this for ourselves too, even if just for today… or to start a heart practice, forever?
Inspired by 20th-century French writer Marcel Proust, we here at Esalen have created our own version of his favorite parlor game to dig just a little deeper — and differently — into our incredible faculty and staff.
Perry and Johanna Holloman, intimate partners and friends for over three decades, open up about their current state of being and what it’s like to teach at "the most beautiful retreat center on earth." Here we ask the pair to share a few thoughts on love, work, life, and fictional heroes. Read on to discover which one prefers a hobbit to a god and why Perry wishes to bear witness as a millennia-old tree.
What is Esalen to you?
Perry: I remember Dick Price saying, “Esalen is a place where people are confronted with what they need to learn.” I’ve found this to be both wonderfully and painfully true.
Johanna: Dick called it a “Karmic washing machine.” Esalen magnetized me in my 20s when I was a psychology student. Its alchemical cauldron of cutting-edge explorations of body, mind, and our shared humanity beckoned me all the way from Germany
What do you do/are you doing at Esalen?
Perry and Johanna: Teaching practices of awareness: Integrative Gestalt, Hologenic Breathwork, Esalen Massage, and deep bodywork.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Johanna: Perfect happiness is an idea. I witness chasing happiness as the cause of much suffering, and it seems to be a barrier to something I value much more: freedom, which includes freedom from needing the condition of happiness to be there.
Perry: When all my internal need to grasp at things and “hold on for dear life” truly ends.
What is your greatest fear in your work?
Perry: To not embody my life purpose in my career.
Johanna: Not to be able to make enough of a difference during these challenging times in the world.
Which living or dead person do you most admire in your field?
Johanna: My teachers, Hameed Ali and Karen Johnson, founders of the Diamond Approach®, a wisdom path to inner realization and the exploration of reality.
Perry: Dick Price and his family. He, Chris, and Jennifer changed my life with their generosity when I was just 20 years old in 1979 when they took me into their home and created space for me to live at Esalen, learn from its master teachers, and become a healing artist.
What is your greatest extravagance related to your practice?
Perry and Johanna: Having the privilege to often work in the most beautiful retreat center on earth, Esalen.
What is your current state of mind?
Perry and Johanna: We prefer to frame the question as “state of being” as the mind arises within that matrix and the ordinary mind can be so fickle. Our state of being is much more simple and spacious these days and constantly unfolding through our practice of inquiry.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Perry and Johanna: Whether or not a virtue is overrated depends on the context and the person. For example, selflessness is a wonderful virtue but can become harmful when not balanced with taking care of one’s own needs.
What is the quality you most like in a human?
Perry and Johanna: Compassion. A warm, kind, and generous heart balanced by clarity.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Perry: My wife, children, and father who is still alive, and the consciousness that we and all that exists share.
Johanna: Love itself. Experiencing it more and more deeply, vulnerably, and fully in so many facets and dimensions — learning to be and embody it.
What about your work brings you the most happiness?
Perry: When someone who is suffering truly smiles for the first time in a long time.
Johanna: When a student experiences what is true and authentic in them.
Which talent would you most like to have?
Perry: To be musically gifted.
Johanna: To be a brilliant writer, poet, and public speaker — in many languages!
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Perry: To embody undefended, loving kindness.
Johanna: The multi-generational echoes of what used to be an immense inner critic, but I think it makes me understand the deep suffering it causes for most of us.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Perry: Taking “the path less traveled” in my life and career.
Johanna: Raising a truly kind, good man. Not Perry, I mean our son.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Perry: An ancient, 1,000-year-old Redwood. To witness the life cycle of so many generations from a space of massive stillness would be awesome.
Johanna: As a blessing to anything and everything across time and space.
What would living at Esalen for a month be like for you?
Perry: I did it for three years when I was 20–23, and moving off property saved my sanity.
Johanna: I lived at Esalen as a work scholar for several months and in its neighborhood for decades. By the time I arrived in 1990, Esalen had changed from its wild, experimental youth to a slightly more introspective phase. It was a universe unto itself, like the cosmic love child of Woodstock and Oprah, where everyone embarked on a quirky quest for truth and meaning. It was the kind of place that still makes me tilt my head and wonder, “Did that really happen?” Pyramids as headpieces or management being informed by a psychic channeling nine extraterrestrial guides — oh, the many stories I could tell! It was wild, witty, and wonderfully weird all at once. But my Esalen story had its heartbeat in the rhythm of Gestalt practice, passed down through Dick and Chris Price and others after them. Gestalt practice was woven into every aspect of our days, whether in work or workshops. On the “hot seat," we took the plunge into the uncharted territories of our minds, bodies, and souls. The emotional journey sometimes left us shaken, like a snow globe given an unexpected shake. I witnessed raw processes and listened to life stories from newfound friends that were unimaginable to me before. There were rough edges, but in the end, it was this very process that made us a bit more whole, more human, and profoundly connected.
What is your most treasured possession?
Perry: A handmade acoustic guitar built by a master luthier.
Johanna: The memories of pure goodness elicited by a delicate cup, laced with tiny wildflowers, from my grandmother, in which she served me hot cacao after a shared afternoon working in her vegetable garden.
How do you maintain your practice(s) during challenging times?
Perry: There have been so, so many challenging times! The support I find in my relationship with my wife has been the most important element.
Johanna: The practices are a part of my everyday life and are what carry me through challenging times. So, it is the other way around: I am not maintaining them; they maintain me and my sanity.
What is your favorite component of your work?
Perry and Johanna: Supporting and witnessing true alchemical transformation and maturation of the human soul.
What is your most marked characteristic?
Perry: Being able to teach complex subjects in a simple, fun manner through storytelling.
Johanna: Most people describe me as warm and motherly, with a twinkle of lighthearted joy.
What do you value most in your work/practice?
Perry: The appreciation I have for my clients for their courage and sincere willingness to self-inquire.
Johanna: That I love what I get to do and the fact that I am, at the same time, a student and a teacher of the practices we share. The continuous unfolding and weaving of many practices of embodiment of presence, such as breathwork, movement practices, conscious touch, and inquiry, keep my work and practice deeply intertwined and alive.
Who are your inspirations?
Perry: The first one that comes to mind is my sister, who was given six months to live and survived 11 years until her girls were grown.
Johanna: Anybody I meet who meets life’s challenges and adversity with grace, grit, honest vulnerability, and resiliency.
Who is your hero of fiction?
Perry: Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods.
Johanna: Tolkien’s Frodo, a reluctant hero resisting the ring’s temptation of corruption of power. His resilience in the face of all the challenges and setbacks, his humility and courage, his innocent selflessness to sacrifice for the greater good, and his deeply felt friendship opened the floodgates of my heart for this big-hearted, small-bodied creature.
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Perry: Albert Einstein, who taught us that matter and energy are equivalent. This has helped me understand that who and what we are isn’t a rigid, unchangeable structure but instead a moving, dynamic, self-aware consciousness capable of growth and change throughout life.
Johanna: I don't identify with any historical figure. I have enough on my plate with my own history and the many identities I am either integrating or shedding.
Who are your heroes in real life?
Perry and Johanna: All the people, known and unknown, who sincerely desire to know themselves and rise above adversity with the capacity to truly forgive and keep their hearts open.
What is your greatest regret?
Perry and Johanna: Not “trusting my gut” earlier in our lives and some of the painful detours it led us on or paths it held us back from, and the pain it caused for others and ourselves.
How would you like to die?
Perry and Johanna: Consciously, at home, hopefully in the loving presence of our family and dear friends, ideally in each other's arms.
What is your motto?
Perry: Mottos are like New Year’s resolutions: As meaningful as your self-discipline and focus.
Johanna: I am not a fan of mottos. It makes me feel like squeezing life’s wisdom on the little tea bag tag in a one-size-fits-all manner. If I had to choose one, I like the one I learned at Esalen when I first arrived: “Trust the process.” But even that one I’d take with a grain of salt, like when it is used as a cop-out after making a mistake instead of sincere self-reflection.
“Remembering to be as self compassionate as I can and praying to the divine that we're all a part of.”
–Aaron
“Prayer, reading, meditation, walking.”
–Karen
“Erratically — which is an ongoing stream of practice to find peace.”
–Charles
“Try on a daily basis to be kind to myself and to realize that making mistakes is a part of the human condition. Learning from our mistakes is a journey. But it starts with compassion and caring. First for oneself.”
–Steve
“Physically: aerobic exercise, volleyball, ice hockey, cycling, sailing. Emotionally: unfortunately I have to work to ‘not care’ about people or situations which may end painfully. Along the lines of ‘attachment is the source of suffering’, so best to avoid it or limit its scope. Sad though because it could also be the source of great joy. Is it worth the risk?“
–Rainer
“It's time for my heart to be nurtured on one level yet contained on another. To go easy on me and to allow my feelings to be validated, not judged harshly. On the other hand, to let the heart rule with equanimity and not lead the mind and body around like a master.”
–Suzanne
“I spend time thinking of everything I am grateful for, and I try to develop my ability to express compassion for myself and others without reservation. I take time to do the things I need to do to keep myself healthy and happy. This includes taking experiential workshops, fostering relationships, and participating within groups which have a similar interest to become a more compassionate and fulfilled being.“
–Peter
“Self-forgiveness for my own judgments. And oh yeah, coming to Esalen.”
–David B.
“Hmm, this is a tough one! I guess I take care of my heart through fostering relationships with people I feel connected to. Spending quality time with them (whether we're on the phone, through messages/letters, on Zoom, or in-person). Being there for them, listening to them, sharing what's going on with me, my struggles and my successes... like we do in the Esalen weekly Friends of Esalen Zoom sessions!”
–Lori
“I remind myself in many ways of the fact that " Love is all there is!" LOVE is the prize and this one precious life is the stage we get to learn our lessons. I get out into nature, hike, camp, river kayak, fly fish, garden, I create, I dance (not enough!), and I remain grateful for each day, each breath, each moment. Being in the moment, awake, and remembering the gift of life and my feeling of gratitude for all of creation.”
–Steven
“My physical heart by limiting stress and eating a heart-healthy diet. My emotional heart by staying in love with the world and by knowing that all disappointment and loss will pass.“
–David Z.
Today, September 29, is World Heart Day. Strike up a conversation with your own heart and as you feel comfortable, encourage others to do the same. As part of our own transformations and self-care, we sometimes ask for others to illuminate and enliven our hearts or speak our love language.
What if we could do this for ourselves too, even if just for today… or to start a heart practice, forever?
Esalen Institute
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
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info@esalen.org
