Workshops

Devotion is the Divine streaming through you, from that place in you, before time. — Vijnana Bhairava Tantra

A beautiful longing for the sacred lives in each of us, awaiting our surrender to the currents of devotion. In this workshop, song, story, and yoga connect us to the great mystery and imbue our hearts with deep remembrance. By learning the stories and songs of the ancestors, we reclaim a sense of belonging. Nature ritual initiates a fresh spiral of rebirth for our wild hearts. Meditation and embodiment drench us in the divine. With equal parts courage and tenderness, we’ll hone our beings to be vessels for devotion to move through.

Together, we’ll explore:

• Yoga and embodiment practices
• Songs and stories of the ancients
• Meditation and self-inquiry
• Sacred fire ceremony
• Rewilding and nature ritual

Our nourishing schedule of experiential practices will be balanced harmoniously with relaxing meals, community connection, and starlit soaks in Esalen’s healing baths. Music, nature, poetry, and relational play will be woven together artfully throughout. We lovingly invite you to discover the way of devotion, offering a pathway home to the vastness of your being.

Grace awaits.

This workshop includes an additional $25 faculty tuition.

Through the practices of 5Rhythms dance, mindfulness meditation and self care, we weave together a week of healing and celebration. In times of turmoil and change, self care, compassion and kindness are qualities required to help us resource and renew. Looking back at all we have, it is clear that many of us are exhausted. In order to begin to move forward with energy, passion and creativity, it is important we can seed these qualities in our daily life.

How much self care do you integrate into daily life? Would you like to be better resourced and have more energy? If the answer is yes to either of these questions, then you are in perfect alignment to participate in this workshop.

The 5Rhythms is an externalization process that through movement, releases and balances the systems of the body. It is a method focused on presence versus performance. While seated meditation offers us a process of quieting the heart and mind, allowing for stillness and integration. Bringing both practices together mirrors the dance of life. We come together to create an environment that cultivates and nurtures joy, calmness and ease.

Each session will be primarily focused on Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms moving meditation practice. We will complete each practice with a 10-15 seated meditation. Included will be a discourses on 5Rhythms, Dharma & self-care. All practices taught during this course lend to the experience and wisdom of resourcing and renewing our vital life energy.

No experience is necessary. All workshop hours contribute to 5Rhythms® Teachers Training.

This workshop includes $100 additional faculty tuition.

After the holiday season, it's time to return inward to focus on your inner artist. Whether you are just beginning or returning to your creative journey, this workshop utilizes approachable yoga, meditation, and writing modalities to unlock the creative within. 

Using humor and mindfulness, you are invited to affirm your inner artist, recognize your creative blocks, and understand your process. We will disconnect from our devices and default-world lives to immerse ourselves in the open air of Esalen. Move your body, find your breath, observe your mind, and fill pages with your words while being guided to relinquish fear and live fully in your creativity. 

This workshop will include: 

• Journaling and creative writing.
• Creative pathways to finding and writing your story.
• Hatha-inspired yoga movement and restorative yoga. 
• Yoga Nidra and awareness meditations. 
• A playful and supportive community to cultivate your inner artist.

As educators, storytellers, and human do-ers, Darnell and Cara believe in growth, happiness, and the powerful symbiosis between storytelling and movement — and they invite you to lean into the magic of that relationship. This workshop will foster an encouraging environment designed to cultivate techniques and rituals, fuel creativity, and provide the confidence to integrate it all into your daily life and discover your identity as an artist.

A journey to heal oneself and awaken deeply from within. Through meditation, yoga, and time in nature, we will tap into the stories our bodies have to tell and develop skills to nourish ourselves in 2024.

This workshop focuses on the transition from one year to the next as an opportunity to purposefully cultivate a sense of renewal. During our time together, you will be guided to explore and experience what this means for you personally.

Ritual invocations of energy and the power of the Esalen grounds themselves will support your healing journey by providing an intentional space for you to reflect on all you have experienced individually and collectively within your community during the past year.

Throughout the weekend, we will share new ways of grounding and connecting to the sacred energy of nature and the elements constantly surrounding us.  This supports the act of renewal, cultivates greater presence, and creates capacity to build and replenish energy throughout the coming year to support continued health and well-being.

In this workshop, all participants are invited:

• To understand themselves at a much deeper level.
• To begin deep personal transformation and discover tools to support their work.
• To gain a heightened sense of awareness and presence in ritual practice.
• To experience new ways of relating to nature, to receive the energy around them, and to form relationships with the natural world.
• To experience how healing resonates within a community.

“I have never seen anyone who took a huge risk for growth that was not rewarded 10,000 times.” — John O’Donohue

To encounter someone, something, or someplace implies that it’s unexpected or a surprise. Encountering the moment means coming face-to-face with the unknown. In movement practice, we train ourselves to stay open, curious, centered, and responsive at the front edge of any encounter — counterbalancing those innate primal reactions to fight, flee, freeze, or please.  

Rather than withdrawing, playing it safe, or tolerating things you shouldn’t, imagine being adept at staying present and standing your ground clearly and authentically. Picture a world where we are able to express opinions, feelings, discontents, and appreciations skillfully while remaining wholeheartedly open to outcome and change.  

In this workshop, within a supportive and challenging environment, we will create “safe emergencies” — situations intense enough to command our attention that are managed with care and support, to help us risk moving beyond habitual self-defeating patterns. Participants can receive real feedback and gain plenty of practice making new choices in relation to others.  

20 CE units available for full attendance of this course

• CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual

Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

• The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• SCA is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California. RNs must retain their certificate of attendance for 4 years after the course concludes.
• For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact Nicole@AndreaJuhan .com

For questions about CE, contact Spiritual Competency Academy at info@spiritualcompetencyacademy.com.

By slowing down and tuning in, we can allow sound, wonder, and movement to usher us into an altered state of consciousness. Many physicists call this the quantum field; other scholars and shamans refer to it as “unity” or “cosmic consciousness.” Sound journeys with alchemy crystal singing bowls can transport us into a deep state of inner tranquility and lighten the way by clearing and releasing the stress and tensions held within.

We welcome you to join us for a wonderful experience of renewal, healing, and love as we gather together to restore body, mind, and spirit. Authentic movement will invite us to embody the vibrational qualities of the heart. As these grace states are elevated, we can begin to transform the world within and around us.

Each day will include a blend of nourishing sound journeys, experiential activities, movement, bespoke teachings, and group discussion. Together, inspired by the beautiful earth, healing mineral waters, ancient redwoods, fresh ocean air, and starry skies, we’ll find connection and wonder. Come away with new practices and inspiration for the journey ahead.

• Open your heart’s capacity to give, receive, and attract love.
• Remove blockages, tension, and stress.
• See and hear the world with new appreciation.
• Learn the science of sound healing, why and how it works.

Special guest Damaris (Penny Vieregge) will join us to share the poetry of Hafiz as we join together to celebrate World Sound Healing Day and send out a sonic Valentine to our beautiful world!

Come away with a renewed sense of peace, gratitude, and love, as you return home with new practices and inspiration for the journey ahead.

Recommended Reading: The Ancient Language of Sacred Sound: The Acoustic Science of the Divine by David Elkington; Sound Medicine: How to Use the Ancient Science of Sound to Heal the Body and Mind by Kulreet Chaudhary, MD

Awaken the codes of radiant love with yoga, nature, and community. In the yoga tradition, there are seven key energy centers called chakras that support transformation in body, mind, and heart. Each chakra helps to transform wounds into wisdom and pain into love.

Learn how to activate these seven centers with breath, movement, and sound currents. The chakras help us to embody prosperity, intimacy, courage, love, clarity, intuition, and connection. They support us with greater vitality and healing energy. Think of the chakras as portals through which we unlock gifts in body, psyche, and life.

Together, we’ll explore the alchemical practices of:

• asana (physical yoga postures)
• pranayama (breathing techniques)
• mantra (healing sound vibration)
• mudra (energy seals created by the hands)
• meditation (expanded states of awareness)
• guided visualization with the seven chakras

Alchemize from root to crown on this journey through the seven chakras uniting the mystical and physical forces within you. Key practices include asana (physical postures of yoga), pranayama (breathing techniques), mantra (healing sound vibration), mudra (energy seals), meditation (expanded states of awareness), and vichara (self-inquiry).

In this Alchemy of Love retreat, Sianna and Masood will share stories, music, and practices to amplify the love frequency in your life. There will be four thematic journeys:

Friday: Radiance — a welcoming practice with breath and asana, grounding energies, root support, setting the foundation, calling in intentions, and soaking in deep rest for full-body restoration. This session focuses on the first two chakras connected to earth and water.

Saturday: Power to Transform — a more up-tempo practice of dynamic breathing techniques, core work, functional movement, introduction to backbends, and creative patterns of movement. This session focuses on the chakras connected to fire and air.

Saturday: Renewal and Rejuvenation — a more relaxed practice to explore deep hip openers, forward folds, and twists with expanded states of consciousness through mantra and meditation. This session focuses on the upper three chakras to the elements of space, unification, and transcendent energies.

Sunday: Alchemy of Love — a soulful practice with deep breath, heart fire vision, standing poses, backbends, and community connection. Culminating with a Chakra Radiance dance party with mantra, music, and love frequency!

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 our bodies through our physical practices. Slow and fluid movement, restorative postures, meditation, pranayama (breathwork), and chanting will refill the mind, body, and spirit.

We will create space in our body for introspection and move out of the cyclical fight-or-flight response to cultivate sustainable power, rest and healing.

We’ll practice:

• Slow yoga to build sustainable power.
• Restorative postures for regeneration.
• Meditation toward stillness.
• Pranayama to balance hormones and the whole being.
• Chanting to awaken the heart’s longing.

Please bring an eye pillow. If you are driving, please also bring a sandbag and bolster.

CE Credit Available: 10 hours Continued Education credit for Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT) available through Yoga Alliance; see leader.

This workshop includes an additional $110 faculty tuition.

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 know ourselves more intimately and untether from the chords that hold us to old behaviors and belief structures. Our practice will include:

• Slow nourishing yoga movements.
• Restorative postures to cultivate regeneration.
• Meditation, mantras, writing, and intentional silence.

With the power of this land, the healing waters, strength of community, and nourishment of slowing down, we will move toward a listening, supple, healing body.

Please bring an eye pillow, and if you are driving, please also bring a bolster and sandbag.

CE Credit Available: 25 hours Continued Education credit for Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT) available through Yoga Alliance; see leader.

This workshop includes an additional $220 faculty tuition.

The body is a living narrative, an interconnected web of our physical, emotional, and intellectual experiences. Every organ, bone, body part, and movement holds an energy, a feeling, a memory that calls our attention and seeks expression. With curiosity and care to the stories our bodies hold, we become embodied artists, choreographers of our life experience.

This workshop will be a creative exploration and discovery of what truly matters in your life through movement and art making, listening to the body, and listening to the heart. When we don’t take time or know how to be creative listeners, the body will tell its stories in disabling ways. Encountering our bodies creatively, we discover artful ways to re-story ourselves, bringing new vision to the life themes that matter to us.

A process called Body Mapping will lead participants through an art based journey with each body part. Challenges and resources will be identified and explored as rich material for movement, art making, group collaboration, and ritual. Participants will explore personal and group creativity, body-mind connections, and engage with psychological themes relevant to our historical and everyday lives.

Morning sessions will focus on somatic awareness – individual and group movement exploration to tune the physical body to sensation and feeling. Afternoon sessions will facilitate creative encounters with the art mediums of dance, drawing, and spoken and written narrative. Evening sessions will be devoted to presentations of the work created, reflection, and questions generated by the day’s work, releasing activities and meditative art practices.

Participants will explore:

Expanding body awareness through somatic movement experiences.

Utilizing the creative arts to explore life narratives. Learning methods for movement/dance and expressive arts that can be applied to their personal and professional practices.

Practicing approaches to improvisation and performance designed for the beginner and the experienced alike.

Employing the arts as a psychological process and communication tool.

The Halprin Life Art Process developed at Tamalpa Institute innovated groundbreaking work in the fields of somatics, psychology and artistic practice. Anna and Daria both worked with Fritz Perls, Ida Rolf, and Will Schultz in the early experimental days of Esalen.  

This is an approach to movement/dance as a healing art that is accessible to everyone and is offered in underserved communities. 20% of faculty tuition goes to Tamalpa ArtCorps social justice programs.

Recommended reading: The Expressive Body in Life, Art & Therapy, by Daria Halprin

Nature heals. Water is life. The motion of our bodies is a tool to map our inner and outer landscapes as we navigate our life’s journey on Mother Earth.

People have always come to water and nature to receive guidance, clarity, and healing. Our weekend experience weaves the philosophy of the 5Rhythms® with sacred natural teachings inspired by the waters at Esalen Institute. We will journey together on a deep dive into the infinite source of creativity that resides within us all to balance the mind, body, and spirit. We will use the plant medicine of cacao in ceremony with the 5Rhythms movement practice to reconnect us to the flow and sacredness of water.

Together, we will:

• Explore how to work with the ancient plant medicine of cacao to heal our hearts and move stuck emotions.
• Share a water offering ritual to connect with the sacred waters of Esalen.
• Experience the 5Rhythms movement practice as a catalyst and tool for integration.

Utilizing the power of the elements, we’ll practice fluidity and call upon ourselves to turn inwards, with clarity to express our outer nature, with courage to surrender to those forces bigger than ourselves, with ease to be effortless, and in the spirit of stillness to integrate our instinct and intuition.

Recommended Reading: Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth

This workshop has an additional $60 of faculty tuition.

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, our own dreams, visions, and creativity are emerging from their winter gestation. The fertile and dynamic land of Esalen is a perfect setting to hold us for this exploration of Spring.

During this retreat, we will combine three healing practices to revitalize the body and calm the mind in the exquisite and rejuvenating natural environment of Esalen. Together, we will focus our attention on the practices of:

• Yoga to yoke body and mind for present-moment awareness.
• Meditation to cultivate concentration and empathy.
• Chanting, or bhakti yoga, the practice of the heart.

This immersive weekend will leave us balanced, revitalized, and ready for the full and active days of Spring and Summer.

This workshop includes an additional $45 faculty tuition.

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 states” or the “four immeasurables.”

In this workshop, we will explore the four Buddhist virtues and ways to cultivate them, including:

• Loving-kindness (metta) practices for self-acceptance, relational healing, gratitude, forgiveness, and kinship with all beings.  
• Compassion (karuna) practices for tenderness, resilience, an open-heart to suffering, and a greater sense of our shared humanity.
• Sympathetic joy (mudita) practices for enthusiasm, authentic joy, generosity, and celebratory participation in life.
• Equanimity (upekka) practices for wisdom, perspective, clarity, and an unwavering sense of trust.

Our days will follow a nourishing schedule of experiences and reflections balanced harmoniously with relaxing meals, community connection, and starlit soaks in Esalen’s healing baths. Music, nature, poetry, shadow work, journaling, breathwork, and ritual will all be artfully woven into our time together.

Whereas some spiritual practices are aimed at otherworldly enlightenment, the four divine abodes help us awaken to the beauty, clarity, and vast possibility available right here in our complex, often messy, mundane, and wholly sacred human experience. They are a pathway to unburdening ourselves of self-doubt, resentment, and regret. They guide our way home to that wellspring in our hearts from which unconditional love flows, where we contact our wholeness, discover radical acceptance, and remember our belonging in this world.

No matter who you are, where you are on your spiritual path, or what you’ve been through, discovering renewal is possible. Join us if you long for a deep, playful, tenderizing workshop that may touch your heart and leave you forever transformed.

We will become our opposite if we do not learn to accommodate the opposite within us. — Carl Jung

At the heart of contemplative life is the archetypal journey home to our essential nature, our basic goodness. The Buddha taught that we come to experience this essential nature through the embodied integration of meditative quiescence (shamatha) and contemplative insight (vipashyana). In this workshop, we will cultivate quiescence and insight through the “four applications of mindfulness” of the body, feelings, mental states, and phenomena, which invite us to develop a self-aware gaze, or metacognition.

We will meditate indoors and out, practice gentle yoga, and learn how to work with challenges along the path through Feeding Your Demons® (FYD). This Buddhist-based practice is an exquisite five-step process in which we offer attention and compassion to our inner obstacles, our “demons,” rather than struggle with them. In this context, demons are those thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that block our experience of freedom. A 2018 FYD pilot study found that FYD was associated with increased self-compassion, emotion awareness and self-regulation, satisfaction with life, and decreased stress, craving, depression, and intolerance for uncertainty. FYD transcends spiritual constructs, serving as a meaningful tool for anybody, regardless of religious affiliation or personal philosophy.

In this retreat, you will experience:

• Meditation indoors and in nature, gazing over the Pacific Ocean, weather permitting.
• Discussions on the seminal Buddhist teachings called the “four applications of mindfulness.”
• Feeding Your Demons (FYD) practice.
• FYD with drawing/art.
• Gentle and accessible therapeutic yoga to bring more comfort and ease to your meditation practice and your life.

All are welcome. Please bring loose, comfortable clothing, a journal, and writing implements. Paper and art supplies will be provided. If you have art supplies you like, such as colored pencils, pens, pastels, or watercolors, feel free to bring them.

Recommended Reading: Minding Closely: The Four Applications of Mindfulness by B. Alan Wallace and Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict by Tsultrim Allione.

This workshop includes an additional $5 for materials.

Wouldn’t it be nice to feel comfortable in your own skin? How do you “do” you?

Return to Source is a dance and movement-based deep dive into the 5Rhythms® movement meditation practice to explore, celebrate, and connect to the beautiful authenticity that is you. Your authentic presence is as unique as your own fingerprint. It is a source of great potential that requires courage, curiosity, and support to harness. The motion of our bodies in alignment with our intentional breath is an accessible tool to sculpt, hone, and discover your unique self.

During this impactful weekend, you will have the opportunity, through movement, group shares, and sensory awareness, to explore your edges, move with intention, and unearth your own relationship to authentic being.

In this dynamic program, we will explore:

• Movement
• Group sharing
• Sensory awareness
• Leadership exercises
• Didactic practices

The 5Rhythms® can be a powerful lens through which we can track, express, and embrace how sensation moves and is felt within the body. Return to Source honors the maps of the 5Rhythms® practice through authentic expression of the body, in all shapes and forms.

No prior experience necessary.

Recommended Reading: Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth

This workshop has an additional $60 of faculty tuition.

This is an era of chaos, change, and grief for the world. As we continue moving through these unprecedented times, we are required to face difficulties that may seem insurmountable. We invite you to a weekend retreat to hold together what should not be held alone.

Have you experienced loss and the natural emotions of sadness, anger, fear, and love? How do you process your losses and move through your life? Many of us have not yet found safe and effective ways of expressing these emotions and we can feel burdened, both emotionally and physically, with the cumulative weight of our unfinished business.

Using the tools of the 5Rhythms movement practice combined with a process of grief work grounded in emotional presence, non-judgment, and supportive witnessing, participants will come together in a safe space to help heal mind, body, and spirit:

Lucia is a dancer and Trauma Sensitive mindfulness teacher with more than 25 years of global teaching experience. She will facilitate the 5Rhythms movement practice as a way of experientially accessing and transforming the emotional states that come with grief.

Peter is a physician with more than thirty years of experience in HIV/AIDS, palliative care, and grief work for caregivers, and was certified as a 5Rhythms teacher in 2021. He will facilitate an exploration of stages of grief, using story-sharing as part of releasing and working through losses.

The weekend also includes didactic and experiential sessions focused on natural and distorted emotional responses to grief, caregiving vs. caretaking, and more.

Please bring photos or other mementos of anyone whose memory you would like to bring into the workshop.

Suggested Reading: Surviving The Fall by Peter Selwyn, Dancing With the Dharma Edited by Harrison Blum, Maps to Ecstasy by Gabrielle Roth

This workshop includes an additional $75 faculty tuition.

For more information about 5Rhythms, click here.

Spring brings renewal to our lands. After the isolating winter chill, it is time to expand, bloom, and gather in community. During this full moon week, including Earth Day, we’ll celebrate with a campus-wide event that will weave together our most potent offerings: the 5Rhythms® dance, mindfulness, meditation, and art!

Together, we’ll honor our common ground as living beings and our interconnection with Mother Earth. We will dance in nature and be danced through the 5Rhythms, Gabrielle Roth’s map of the earth’s primary energies and their movement through our bodies and in the world around us. Working with this system helps us to attune and align with ourselves, one another, and the earth. Dance supports neuroplasticity and uses the body’s intelligence to help us experience reality in a more balanced and healthy way.

We will be accompanied by world-famous musicians Sanga of the Valley and Nick Ayers. With Tracy Powell, our artist-in-residence, you will bring into being a series of community-made, “created in nature” pieces. In addition, TED speaker and environmental psychologist Renee Lertzman will discuss the importance of “attunement” with the environment and how to inspire and create a better future.

This course will include:

• 5Rhythms dance at inside and outside venues, by daylight and moonlight
• Creating art in nature
• Trauma-sensitive mindfulness, including a Dharma talk, sitting and walking meditations
• Group sharing circles, optional groups for men and women’s circles
• Live music and recorded music

In this fiercely changing landscape, some may feel emotionally called to grieve or may be disconnected and numb from all that is happening. These practices will offer a pathway into conversation with the natural forces. In the splendor of nature, we will celebrate the gift of life on this Earth. Join us for a week of celebration of the Earth and our bodies!

Recommended Reading: Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth,  Maps to Ecstasy by Gabrielle Roth, Connections by Gabrielle Roth, Dancing with the Dharma Edited by Harrison Blum

This workshop includes $100 of additional faculty tuition.

The seemingly opposing forces of stability and chaos are powerful currents we navigate daily. The dance between the two can become an intense emotional process that leaves us yearning for a sense of balance and ease.

Without inner stability, chaos can easily overwhelm, flood, and leave us feeling lost. We must redefine chaos, which is often compared to a natural disaster: a hurricane of emotion, a tsunami of details, a whirlwind schedule. These descriptions denote a quality of being out of control and unsafe. Learning to stabilize ourselves in an embodied way provides grounding, safety, a means to pace ourselves, and a resilient inner core. It transforms chaos from hazard to opportunity.

When we can meet chaos with an embodied sense of stability, we can expand our curiosity and delight in the unknown and unpredictable. This workshop will equip you with the physical and emotional tools needed to navigate the storms we encounter both within and outside ourselves.

10 CE units available for full attendance of this course

• CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
• The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• SCA is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California. RNs must retain their certificate of attendance for 4 years after the course concludes.
• For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact Nicole@AndreaJuhan.com

For questions about CE, contact Spiritual Competency Academy at info@spiritualcompetencyacademy.com.

Join us for a total reset done the Esalen way: seven powerful days tending to heart, mind, body, and spirit. Reconnect with your sense of purpose and power while immersed in the medicine of our iconic, energized setting within a community of similarly minded seekers.

Not for the faint of heart, this deep retreat experience is a heroic dose of Esalen. You’ll engage daily with our lineage practices (Sensory Awareness, breathwork, intuitive movement, Gestalt process, and more) as never before —  intensely, purposefully, and under the close and compassionate care of our world-class resident faculty to usher you toward the most expansive version of yourself yet.

Each morning begins with embodied movement and seated meditation practice, followed by a silent communal breakfast. You’ll spend the first part of your day experiencing Sensory Awareness and Gestalt process. After some integration time and a nourishing lunch, you’ll transition to a yoga-based therapeutic movement session.

Afternoons are devoted to one-on-one, presence-based coaching sessions and bodywork with expert practitioners and gifted energy workers. A communal dinner is followed by either the balancing, down regulating practice of transformational breathwork accompanied by music at the silent baths — an experience reserved for this group — or the sublimely transportive modality of Yoga Nidra.

Prior to arrival, you’ll connect privately with a faculty member to set your intentions for the week. During your time at the Institute, you will experience:

• Daily morning meditation and embodiment practice.
• Therapeutic movement and breathwork each afternoon.
• Small group and one-on-one Gestalt coaching sessions that allow you to metabolize your learnings.
• Opportunities to engage with the healing properties of the water and the land.
• A private ceremonial bathing ritual.
• Two Esalen Massages.
• An alternative healing service (astrology reading, Reiki, energetic cleansing)
• Premium accommodations and communal meals
• Additional only-at-Esalen encounters designed expressly for your cohort

We’ll follow up with you after your experience, and you’ll have the opportunity to join a remote reintegration session and receive guidance to help you stay on the path.

This experience is most appropriate for those in sound health. The activity level, while accessible and adaptive, is high.

This workshop includes an additional $500 tuition fee.

Welcome spring and nourish the spirit of renewal with this fresh and cleansing Mother’s Day weekend yoga workshop. By moving and weaving body, mind and spirit  through creative variations of Sun Salutes we revolve around the solar plexus to stimulate metabolism and a radiant, nourishing flow of energy.

All practices focus on sloughing off the old and welcoming new energy with playful flows, gentle backbends, and energizing movements. Learn prana pulsing, coconut oil joint rejuvenation, simple chi activation, the art and science of dry brushing for healthy skin, and tension-clearing yoga for the face and feet.

Certified in Anusara Yoga and the Halprin Life Art Process, Ulrika blends holistic practices of yoga, somatic movement therapy, and Swedish skin rituals with the elements of nature into movement medicine. The many layers and systems of the body are addressed with balanced attention given to the physical and the energetic, to form and to formlessness, to the unique individual and collective universal patterns.

Make sure to bring a dry brush, body oil for the skin, and your playful self for this fun, seasonal renewal weekend — deep nourishment for body, mind, and spirit!

Participants should have a minimum of three months of yoga practice.

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 ritual. Revitalizing and fluid yoga sequences stimulate the body before thoughtfully weaving muscles and mind together into a recreated and radiant being. We will even take advantage of the potent Esalen springs with a specific bathing ritual. The daily practices of the sparkling Yoga Summer Renewal workshop will be fresh, fun, and rejuvenating — and will leave you feeling the same!

Certified in Anusara Yoga and the Halprin Life Art Process, Ulrika blends holistic practices of yoga, somatic movement therapy, and Swedish skin rituals with the elements of nature for movement medicine. The many layers and systems of the body are addressed, with balanced attention given to the physical and the energetic, the form and the formless,  the unique individual and the collective universal patterns.

Participants should bring a dry brush, coconut oil, and a facial clay mask.

How do we celebrate aging and become wisdom holders for our communities in a youth-obsessed culture? As we ripen into the late summers and autumns of our lives, how can we let go of what no longer serves us and enjoy the abundance of each precious moment?

The experience of living through many years and different eras affords the ability to see life through the lens of compassionate presence. In this retreat, we will celebrate this perspective and create space in our hearts and minds for joy and curiosity about the future.

During this time together, we will:

• Build the foundations of a consistent, sustainable self-care practice, including qigong, gentle meridian stretches, and shiatsu self-massage.
• Explore the profound influence of breath on the autonomic nervous system and the relationship between breath and the quality of mind.
• Open to the subtleties of the energy body, thus recognizing ourselves and all things as manifestations of the life force.
• Develop healthy routines for a daily sitting practice and learn to consider meditation as intimacy with the self.
• Practice silent inquiry, followed by group dialogue about grief, loss, death, mentorship, gratitude, and freedom.
• Savor poetry from different wisdom traditions as nourishment from the divine.
• Dance and sing — or, if you prefer, walk and hum — and play improv games offering laughter as gifts of the spirit.

Students aged 50 and older are welcome. Basic mobility is required; otherwise, please come with someone who can assist you. You must be able to lie on the floor and put your legs up the wall for five minutes and accept your physical limitations without judgment. Please come with a beginner’s mind, even if you’re not a beginner.

Recommended Reading: Still Here by Ram Dass

Alchemize your life with the wisdom of the 13 moons! This is a spirited call to soul sisters, magic makers, and wise women of all ages. If you feel called to awaken and amplify your magic, this is for you.

Women throughout the ages have gathered under the light of the full moon, steeping in the mysteries and soaking in the healing essence of moonlight. Rituals with the moon help to heal the body, channel the emotions, and guide the soul with real power.

When we come together in true sisterhood, profound healing happens within a woman’s psyche. The heroine’s journey awakens to guide and help us navigate life with greater joy, confidence, and authenticity. We learn how to recognize and dismantle toxic narratives to live with full radiance.

In this immersive retreat, participants will dive deep into the realm of priestess — learning how to honor their own heroine’s journey with rituals, inner trance, storytelling, divination, shadow skills, astrological understanding, moon magic, and embodied wisdom. Through a combination of experiential activities and soulful connections, this will be a brave space container for personal growth, healing, and alchemical transformation with daily ritual, yoga, meditation, connection with nature, dream tending, and earth ceremony.

During this pilgrimage, we will celebrate through:

• Sacred rituals to awaken your inner priestess and tap into your innate wisdom.
• The Heroine’s Journey to retrieve your soul’s purpose and gifts.
• Intuitive development to enhance your intuitive gifts through hypnosis, trance, and earth-based ceremony.
• The magic of the moon with crafting spells and dream-tending skills.
• Alchemical Archetypes to learn the Wheel of the Priestess and how to work with each archetype for your life.
• Sisterhood and connection to build deep connections through sharing circles, collaborative rituals, and initiations.
• Self-reflection through journaling and integration of experiences and teachings.

Rooted in the RITUAL Mystery School, this is a transformative journey into the path of the priestess to quantum leap your life in Sisterhood. Magic is afoot!

We are not separate from nature. We are nature. If we separate from nature, then we separate from ourselves.

Join Erika Gagnon and Jovinna Chan for their first collaborative workshop: a dynamic weaving of ancient wisdom, somatic movement and dance, sound healing, breath practices, and traditional ceremonies and rituals.  

The four elements are the basis of life on this planet and the foundational makeup of our human body. Our ancestors understood our interconnected relationship with nature, but in this modern society, we are forgetting to honor this sacred truth. This is an opportunity for us to gather in community, remember our origins, and support one another as we reconnect to the natural and spiritual elements of this planet.

In this workshop:

• We will embody and explore Earth, Air, Fire, and Water and how they relate to the body, mind, spirit, and soul and to the Chakra system.
• We will examine how the elements influence our thoughts, emotions, and physical health and how we can transform and heal unhealthy patterns.
• There will be opportunities to participate in a traditional South American healing ceremony, a sound healing and “doctoring” ceremony, and a water blessing prayer.

When we live in harmony and balance within ourselves, with others, and with the world around us, we naturally realign with our higher purpose. If you feel this call, we invite you to join us for this celebration of life.

Please bring a journal to write in, an eye pillow for sound healing, and items for our altar, including photographs of loved ones or ancestors and sacred objects that have meaning for you.

Special Note on Gift Economy: For this workshop, Esalen will not be collecting the typical leader fees. Erika and Jovina embrace the tradition of the gift economy and reciprocity, and their compensation will be self-determined by each attendee. At the end of the workshop, participants will offer a donation amount that reflects their feelings of gratitude, value and their desire to support Erika, Jovinna, and their ongoing work.

Scholarship: Erika has established a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color) scholarship fund for her workshops. For more information on receiving a scholarship to participate, please contact her at ErikaGagnon11@gmail.com.

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, and dance our way to wholeness. Through an alchemical combination of movement, nature, and sound healing, we’ll reconnect our bodies and minds,  digest our feelings and emotions, and open ourselves to the wisdom of our hearts. Most of all, we’ll expand our vision to include a bigger perspective on our spiritual and human interconnectedness.

The practices we’ll cultivate this week will help you:

• Release fear, inhibition, and judgment.
• Trust your body’s innate wisdom to guide you.
• Revive a sluggish nervous system.
• Clear energetic blockages.
• Step into your uniqueness and self-expression with confidence.

Allow yourself to be nourished by this sacred land, the hot spring waters, the time we share together, and the friends you’ll make. Experience the beauty, awe, and wonder of being alive so you may return home rejuvenated and inspired to continue walking your unique life path.

This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.

Tibetan yogis, monks, and nuns are human like you and me; they have feelings, emotions, and obstacles in their lives, and they understand ancient yogic practices that help them enrich those lives and overcome those obstacles. These same practices can benefit and transform our lives, too.

Tibetan mind-energy-body wellness practices remained secret recipes for centuries. Only in the last couple of decades, as they have been researched scientifically, have they started to become known in the West, where they are now practiced by thousands of people. Those who engage with them can discover and tap into a radical sense of presence — an aliveness in the midst of chaos,  like a lotus flower coming out of the mud or the sun illuminating everything without bias.

During this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Tibetan mind-energy-body wellness by:

• Experientially practicing meditative yogic techniques.
• Utilizing the healing power of breath-energy and sounds as links to support a healthy body and a more aware state of mind.
• Learning the current scientific research in the field.

All are welcome at this workshop, which will encourage participants to explore the potential of their subtle bodies as described in yogic and medical texts. Composed of channels and chakras, these powerful tools for meditative practice can benefit all and be brought into everyday life.

This workshop includes an additional $20 of faculty tuition.

Rhythm is the universal mother tongue. It is the language of the soul. — Gabrielle Roth

Silent introspection through seated meditation and the dynamic movement practice of the 5Rhythms® both support unlocking gateways to celebration and joy. Together, we will unite these healing modalities in an environment that cultivates peace, balance, and well-being. Through sweat and stillness, we will ride the rhythms of the mother tongue and turn the heart toward self-realization.

The 5Rhythms dance method, focused on presence versus performance, is where movement becomes the metaphor for all of life. It teaches us how energy moves and where it gets stuck. The rhythms of Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness help us to more skillfully understand and navigate the inner and outer landscapes of reality.

Trauma-sensitive mindfulness builds a container to hold both movement and stillness in a way that supports all you are facing. This approach offers tools that allow you to both “work with” and “be with” what is present.

This workshop will include:

• 5Rhythms practice and theory (expect both gentle and vigorous movement)
• Trauma-sensitive mindfulness practice and philosophy
• Seated meditation
• Walking meditation
• Live music
• Sound healing
• Sharing circles

Please note that though this is trauma-informed work, trauma is not the specific focus of this workshop.

This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.

When we experience moments of ecstasy, we taste what life is meant to be. — Gabrielle Roth

The 5Rhythms® maps hold all the information required to lead us where we want to go. What is your destination? There is a science to achieving ecstatic states, and this is the mastery we have come to share. This workshop is designed for all who want to discover these possibilities for entering altered states in a natural way.

"I want to take you to a place of pure magic ... It's the place athletes call ‘the zone.’ Buddhists call ‘satori’ and ravers call ‘trance.’ I call it the Silver Desert. It's a place of pure light that holds the dark within it. It's a place of pure rhythm,” wrote Gabrielle Roth. Her dance and somatic meditation can assist you in navigating your way out of resistance and into ecstasy and help you build a skill set that supports balance, ease, and joy. If you have been looking to increase appreciation, gratitude, and happiness, now is a perfect time to celebrate being alive in the wild, wondrous, natural beauty of Esalen.

This course will include:

• 5Rhythms dance both indoors and outside by daylight and moonlight
• Creating art in nature through group projects with resident artists
• Trauma-sensitive mindfulness, including Dharma talk and sitting and walking meditations
• Group sharing circles with optional men’s and women’s circles
• Live and recorded music
• An evening program guest speaker

Lucia and Douglas, the dancing duo, invite you to join them for a week of dance and celebration under the new moon. Together with our team of musicians and artists, we seek to bring you inspiration and lightness so you return home feeling nurtured and alive.

Recommended Reading: Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth, Maps to Ecstasy by Gabrielle Roth, Connections by Gabrielle Roth, Dancing with the Dharma edited by Harrison Blum

This workshop has an additional $100 of faculty tuition.

The highest spiritual practice is self observation without judgment. — Swami Kripalu

Welcome to Esalen, a sacred haven, where the echoes of nature harmonize with the rhythms of self-discovery. This workshop invites you to embark on a transformative seven-day experience designed to nourish your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Take a deep dive into yoga wisdom and immerse yourself in the profound teachings of Yoga and Yoga Nidra.

More than a workshop, this experience can help you discover the roadmap to your true self. Guided by seasoned instructors, we’ll explore the intricacies of the ancient science of Yoga and Yoga Nidra to create a foundation for conscious living.

We believe in weaving the timeless threads of ancient practices into the fabric of contemporary life. Our workshop is a celebration to synthesize this age-old wisdom with the modern world and all of its demands. Discover how these teachings become a guiding light in your daily existence.

Whether you’re a seasoned yogi or just beginning your journey, our workshop caters to all. With a focus on modifications for diverse bodies, we create a safe space where rejuvenation and restoration are accessible to everyone.

Experience a holistic integration of body, mind, and soul through a carefully curated blend of Yoga, Yoga Nidra, meditation, mindfulness, and immersive nature experiences that goes beyond the mat, fostering a transformative environment to extend into all aspects of your life.

Escape the mundane and embrace the extraordinary.  Embark on a transformative journey for rejuvenation, for self-discovery, and to find your true, whole self.