Ground Control: Cultivating Steadiness in Wild Times

Modern life asks more of the nervous system than it was ever meant to hold. When urgency, productivity, and constant availability become the norm, it is easy to feel fragmented, depleted, and disconnected from the present moment.

This workshop offers a different approach: not escape, but steadiness. In times of uncertainty and rapid change, groundedness becomes a vital inner resource, helping us stay responsive, perceptive, and connected to ourselves and the world around us.

Through an immersive blend of yoga, breathwork, meditation, rhythm, and embodied presence, participants are invited to explore how regulation can be cultivated from within. Drawing on nervous system science, contemplative practice, and the body’s natural intelligence, the weekend creates space to experience time, attention, and pace in a new way.

Long before clock time became the dominant force in daily life, human experience moved through cycles, repetition, ritual, seasonality, and return. The body still understands this language. With intentional practice, participants can reconnect with these deeper rhythms and discover what opens when urgency begins to soften.

Across the weekend, the group will examine how acceleration shows up internally, shaping breath, posture, thought, emotional response, attention, and relationships. A carefully sequenced range of practices, from grounding yoga and restorative stillness to rhythmic breathwork and guided meditation, turns the body into both a laboratory and a teacher.

Rather than treating regulation as a fixed endpoint, this work frames steadiness as a trainable, living skill, one that grows through repetition, awareness, and direct experience.

This is not about leaving modern life behind, nor returning nostalgically to an imagined past. It is an experiment in reorganization, an invitation to build steadiness within contemporary life itself.

What becomes possible when groundedness is no longer accidental, but practiced? When presence becomes sustainable enough to travel with you beyond the retreat space and into everyday life?

About the faculty

Sadia Bruce is a creative force and educator at Esalen, known for transformative work at the intersection of yoga, breath, somatics, and ancestral wisdom. Her teaching invites embodied inquiry, playful experimentation, and deeper connection with self, others, and the unseen.

What's included

• Housing accommodations
• Breakfast, lunch, dinner
• Coffee, tea, snacks
• Access to the hot springs and other Campus Features
• Classes on the Open Schedule

What's extra

• Healing Arts sessions including Esalen Massage or Holistic Services
• Hand-crafted specialty coffee and tea or alcohol purchases from the bar
• Bookstore purchases

Teachers & classes

Rooted in Esalen’s spirit of openness and exploration, the teachers are experienced, credentialed facilitators who bring both skill and encouragement to Self-Guided guests.

With backgrounds in psychology, mindfulness, somatics, creative arts, and holistic healing, they offer a supportive structure for personal exploration and immersive experiences that encourage introspection, creativity, and inner growth.

Participants are invited to go deeper into their inner landscapes, opening space for insight and shifts in consciousness.

Meet Our Teachers

Sadia Bruce (she/her) blends breath-based movement, deep respect for the human experience, and energetic gifts to guide participants toward a vivid sense of embodiment. With more than 20 years of teaching experience across disciplines and settings, and over 15 years of dedicated yoga practice, she creates energized, radically inclusive learning environments shaped by breath and inquiry.

Megan Cassamas has offered a somatic approach to yoga for nearly a decade. She is passionate about helping others bridge meditation and motion through empowering embodiment classes. She is the founder of Moja Yoga.

Jovinna Chan, E-RYT 500, YACEP, is co-founder of Shakti Initiation Yoga Leadership School and A Wild Life Sanctuary™. She is a certified Soul Motion™ and LetYourYogaDance Teacher, and co-founder of Pranotthan School of Yoga. She leads transformational programs around the world.

Cara Chandler discovered her path of holistic healing at Esalen. Drawing on her background in entertainment along with yoga, meditation, and psychology, she has developed a practice that supports self-expression, self-discovery, and a stronger mind-body connection.

Micha Merrick shares vibrational ritual and embodied herbalism as a heartfelt communion with the living ecosystem. Through mentorship with shamanic Lahu medicine women of Thailand and spiritual midwives in Bali, Micha facilitates the Herbal Clearing Ritual at Esalen, an energetic healing practice combining sound, touch, herbs, and intention.

Sam Stern hosts the Voices of Esalen podcast, a deep-dive interview series focused on Human Potential, with more than 1 million downloads to date. He is a graduate of Brown University and holds an MFA in Critical Studies and Integrated Media from CalArts.

Class Descriptions

Below are sample open class descriptions. Kindly note that actual offerings will vary from day to day and week to week.

• A Brief History of Esalen: The 60's (Sam Stern): Explore Esalen’s archives with Sam in a deep dive into the transformative origins of the Esalen Institute and Human Potential. Discover the roots of a movement that reshaped personal growth and self-discovery.
• Bathing Rituals of Self Renewal (Micha Merrick): Meditate with the power of the waves and let tension drift away on the ocean breeze. Adorned with flowers and local healing herbs, this experience at the Esalen baths blends personal inquiry, herbal education, and sensory delight.
• Body Language (Sadia Bruce): A spacious, slow-paced exploration of the body as home through therapeutic yoga and somatic modalities, creating room for breath, easing tension, and supporting mobility and fluidity. Accessible to all levels.
• Breathscapes (Sadia Bruce): A transformative breathwork journey rooted in rhythm, designed to reconnect participants with the body’s natural cycles and the rhythms of the natural world. Breath, sound, and movement support release, balance, and embodied presence.
• Cultivating Creativity with Yoga Nidra and Writing (Cara Chandler): Yoga Nidra is a guided meditation that brings you into the space between waking and sleeping, helping repattern mind and body so creativity can flow freely onto the page.
• Find Your Authentic Voice (Cara Chandler): Go beneath mental chatter and outer layers to access your authentic voice and express who you truly are through meditation, movement, and written reflection.
• Healing Circle (Megan Cassamas): A supportive space to step out of ordinary time and into a safe, accepting environment for witnessing, sharing, breath, meditation, ritual, and group reiki.
• Holistic Yoga Flow (Cara Chandler): An all-level Hatha-inspired practice paired with breathwork and mindfulness to help rediscover intuition and strengthen the mind-body connection.
• How to Drop Into Esalen (Staff): A welcoming introduction to Esalen’s history, vision for human potential, and core values, along with guidance for settling into this unique community and sacred land.
• MojaFlow (Megan Cassamas): A dynamic experience designed to elevate energy, encourage movement beyond barriers, and support body-mind connection through a somatic warm-up, breathwork, and strengthening exercises.
• Pranotthan Yoga (Jovinna Chan): A practice of philosophical reflection, mindful movement, sustained poses, breathing exercises, and meditation to deepen focus and inner listening.
• Soul Movement Sanctuary (Jovinna Chan): A conscious dance practice for anyone curious about movement, offering space to explore expression, creativity, empathy, and shared movement in community.
• The Body Electric (Sadia Bruce): A somatic descent into the self through vigorous moving meditation, ancestral movement, sound, dance, and seated stillness, deepening connection with the body and the world.
• Visionary Convergence: AI and the Awakening of Creative Potential (Sam Stern): An interactive, process-based class exploring the playful intersections of art and artificial intelligence, inviting participants to co-create with AI through hands-on projects, music, language, and philosophical inquiry.

Accommodations & pricing

Prices include the workshop, any additional tuition if applicable, lodging, meals, open classes, and 24-hour access to campus amenities.

Sleeping Bag Space

For guests seeking a budget-friendly option, Sleeping Bag Spaces accommodate up to six people and are gender-inclusive, with a maximum stay of seven days. Guests sleep on the floor and should bring their own sleeping bag, blanket, pads, pillows, and similar items. Towels and face cloths are provided, and shower facilities are available in multiple locations across campus. Belongings must be packed up and stored during the day.

Note: Due to the shared nature of Sleeping Bag Spaces, service animals cannot be accommodated. If you require ADA accommodations, please contact us to discuss how your needs can be best supported.

all-inclusive rate for Sleeping Bag Space*: $560

All inclusive price for one guest, specific to this workshop and accommodation type. If applicable, price includes extra faculty and/or materials fees.

Bunk Bed

Bunk Bed rooms accommodate four to six people and are gender-inclusive, with a maximum stay of seven consecutive days. Each room includes a private bathroom with a shower and twin-size bunks. Towels, bath soap, and bed linens are provided.

all-inclusive rate for Bunk Bed*: $760

All inclusive price for one guest, specific to this workshop and accommodation type. If applicable, price includes extra faculty and/or materials fees.

Standard Shared

all-inclusive rate for Standard Shared*: $958

All inclusive price for one guest, specific to this workshop and accommodation type. If applicable, price includes extra faculty and/or materials fees.