Workshop Descriptions

Main conference fee does not include pre-conference intensives; see registration info page for fees.

Mystical Activism: The New Calling (A01)
Caroline Myss
There’s a new calling in the contemporary world: To live the life of a mystic while living “in the world.” The great classic mystics of history often lived in seclusion; their bodies were cloistered and their souls were doing deep work. In our contemporary world, however, it is difficult to live in retreat. But the need for the guidance of our soul is greater than ever. In this intensive, Caroline Myss presents the teachings and tools of the monastic traditions and shows how we can bring them into our daily lives. Mystic service, she says, no longer has to be a career move that requires monastic seclusion. She teaches us that our own souls can do the inner work of the mystic journey wherever we are. By learning to channel grace and make a “bold move of the soul,” we each become an active force for change.

The End of Suffering: The Work of Byron Katie (A02)
Byron Katie
Byron Katie is a renowned teacher and guide who’s helped thousands of people make dramatic, transformative changes in their lives. She begins by challenging our assumptions: “The world isn’t safe.” “I’m ugly.” “My wife needs to change.” Then she asks: “How different would our lives be if these thoughts never bothered us again?” In this intensive, we explore The Work of Byron Katie and learn step-by-step how to use this tool to locate more deep-seated underlying beliefs that shape our perceptions of reality and that can cause fear, pain, depression, and internal violence. We delve into our beliefs about the past and fears about the future; stories that keep us from experiencing divine presence. Many report profound shifts after experiencing The Work for the very first time: improved relationships that seemed impossible before, massive stress reduction, and a new clarity and openness to life.

Day of Enlightenment (A03)
Brian Weiss, MD, James Van Praagh
Spend a day with two world-renowned experts on life before birth and after death. James Van Praagh is a medium and author of several best-selling books, including Talking to Heaven: A Medium’s Message of Life After Death. Brian Weiss astonished the world of psychiatry more than a decade ago with his theories of past-life regression documented in his book, Many Lives, Many Masters. Coming together now for this unique and transformative intensive, Van Praagh and Weiss offer us an opportunity to participate in a variety of group exercises designed to expand our consciousness, develop our psychic abilities, experience past-life regressions and inner states of deep relaxation, and help us receive healing and loving messages from loved ones in the spirit world.

Finding Your Personal North Star (A04)
Martha Beck, Ph.D.
For centuries, explorers have depended on the North Star when there were no other landmarks in sight. Each of us possesses an unalterable North Star that guides our ideal life. It’s easy to get off course, and even harder to get back! Martha Beck is a monthly columnist for O magazine and author of five books, including Finding Your Own North Star and The Joy Diet. With her wit, charm, and humor Beck has helped thousands of people clean out their emotional attics and create fulfilling, amazing lives. In this intensive she teaches you how to access your essential self, find out who you really are, and help you take a stand for the unique contribution you alone bring to the world. Take a deep breath and dare to experience a more joyful, peaceful, and fulfilling life. CE credit available.

Rock Your World: Life Launch (A05)
Debbie Ford
We often have a vision for our lives but are not able to reach it. Why? Discovering the answer to this question will undoubtedly rock your world! When we’re willing to be deeply honest with ourselves, we have to admit that at some level we’re in agreement with our mediocre results. Seduced by self-doubt and self-criticism, we default to the same behaviors and thoughts that bring about the results we’re all too familiar with. Join New York Times best-selling author Debbie Ford to rocket beyond a life of predictability and rise above the gravitational pull of your past. With Debbie’s penetrating insight and compassionate wisdom gained from years of coaching experience, this intensive promises to be a demarcation point—a day to ignite the fire in your soul and to begin designing the action plan for launching your most cherished dreams with ease, enthusiasm, and certainty. CE credit available.

Discovering Intimacy Through Tantric Practice (A06)
Alan Lowen
Our relationship with anyone—even with existence itself—begins in our own being. It is here that we create what happens or does not happen between ourselves and others. We let life touch us or we prevent life from touching us. On this depends whether intimacy can bestow its gifts on our lives. If we wish for intimacy we have to learn how to be intimate, and we can only learn this by opening deeply to our own inner life of feelings, senses, and sensitivities. This intensive explores ways of being touched at the deepest levels of our being. Working in small groups, pairs, individually, and with the whole group, we learn to embrace and befriend all that is touched in us as we open to all aspects of life. In this is found the real meaning of tantra. CE credit available.

Riding the Wave Fearlessly (A08)
Gabrielle Roth
We live in turbulent times, and many of us struggle to stay steady with the energy that moves through and around us. We can’t become fearless if we’re not familiar with the hold that fear has on our body. Fear is real. It’s not an idea you can turn off. Rather, fear is energy. It moves in patterns, cycles, waves, and vibrations—it’s a dance. Investigating fear as a dance is liberating and fun. In this intensive we learn a practice called The 5Rhythms™—a dynamic moving meditation that offers a way to ground us when we are in chaos, flow when we feel frozen, and surrender to our natural state of being, which is a fluid body in motion. Join Gabrielle Roth for a day of movement, and learn how to ride the waves of life, stay embodied when afraid, and transform turbulence into courage and faith. Please note: This intensive begins at 10:00 a.m. and ends at 5:00 p.m.

The Art of Living Translucently (A09)
Arjuna Ardagh, MA
“We all have an intuitive sense of our real potential,” writes Arjuna Ardagh in his new book, The Translucent Revolution: How People Just Like You Are Waking Up and Changing the World. “We all have an intuitive feeling about who we are, what our life could become, and what this planet could be.” Experiencing this potential within us—what Arjuna calls “translucence”—inspires in us a greater sense of joy, purpose, and compassion. In this powerful intensive, working with the fabric of our daily lives, we learn simple and effective tools that help us tap into this translucence so we can live beyond our habitual fears that keep us falling short of the depth of intimacy with ourselves and with others that’s needed for individual and collective awakening. CE credit available.

Welcome and Opening Keynotes
Ubaka Hill, Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr., Malcolm Gladwell

Welcome from
Omega Institute

Community Song
Ubaka Hill

Profiles In Courage
In each of us, there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone. —John F. Kennedy

At the close of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy wrote about how stories of courage "can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration." Anyone who heard Christopher Reeve speak at Omega's Being Fearless conference in 2004 will attest to the power of one person's courageous story to teach and inspire hope. This year, Omega is bringing four ordinary, yet heroic people to the conference to share their stories of courage—stories about overcoming hardships and turning difficult times into courageous acts of service and love. Before each keynote talk we will meet one of these extraordinary people and hear their profile of courage.

Profiles In Courage
Shelley Saywell is an independent documentary filmmaker whose subject matter has consistently focused on issues of human rights. Her 10 films include Kim's Story: The Road from Vietnam; the Emmy Award-winning Crimes of Honour; and A Child's Century of War, which was short-listed for the 2003 Academy Awards.

Keynote
Malcolm Gladwell
Change, Intuition & Fearlessness
With his two New York Times #1 best-selling books, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference, and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell is changing the way people do business—and live their lives. In this keynote, he gives us new tools to understand how and why change happens and explores how we can learn to be better at mastering the kind of instantaneous thinking at the heart of successful decision-making. Drawing on ground-breaking research in psychology, sociology, and neurology, as well as on lessons from professional athletes, surgeons, and musicians, Gladwell helps us tap into the components of intuitive expertise as a powerful resource that can guide us to lead more confident, fearless lives.
CE credit available.

Keynote
Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Jr.
Overcoming the Spirit of Fear
Fear is a gift of nature for our survival. What is destructive is the spirit of fear, which consumes and immobilizes us even when there is no specific menace. We must overcome the spirit of fear by cultivating the confidence that thoughtfulness, courage, and solidarity can enable us to face and overcome every obstacle. Senior minister at the famed Riverside Church in Manhattan, the Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Jr. is one of the nation's most remarkable, effective, and charismatic preachers. He offers this keynote to end our day and set our course for the weekend.

Wake-up sessions
Yoga with Brian Liem of OM Yoga Center
Meditation with Ethan Nichtern of OM Yoga Center
Qigong with Steven Michael Pague

Community Gathering and Keynote
Elizabeth Lesser, Ubaka Hill, Wayne Dyer, Ph.D.

Welcome from
Elizabeth Lesser and Ubaka Hill

Profiles In Courage
Immaculee Ilibagiza is a member of the United Nations Development Program. She survived the savage Rwanda genocide and has devoted her life to sharing the importance of the virtues of unconditional love, understanding, and forgiveness.

Keynote
Wayne Dyer, Ph.D.
Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling
In this new talk based on his forthcoming book, Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling, best-selling author Wayne Dyer explains how to live an inspired life—one that evolves from Spirit. We were all born for a reason, Dyer says, and in this keynote he helps us understand and acknowledge what that purpose is. He provides specific examples of ways to recognize our ultimate calling, and shows us how to start living an inspired life today.

Community Gathering and Keynote
Caroline Myss

Profiles In Courage
Netanya Bell is a social worker and life empowerment coach who centers her work around women healing themselves. Netanya's innovative life coaching program, Victim to Victory, is designed to support trauma survivors on their journey to self-empowerment.

Keynote
Caroline Myss
Mystical Service: The New Calling
In this keynote talk, renowned visionary author and healer Caroline Myss illuminates the gifts of the great teachings from the classical mystics of history. She shows us how to use these teachings to develop a "soul with stamina" and become a fearless force for positive change in the world. While living in monastic seclusion is not possible for most of us, Myss shows us with her penetrating insight and far-reaching wisdom how we can bring the inner work of the monastic journey into our daily lives.
CE credit available.

The Other Side: Past-Life Regression & Messages From Spirit (B01)
Brian Weiss, MD, James Van Praagh
This is a rare opportunity to explore the greatest of human mysteries: life before birth, and life after death. Brian Weiss, America’s leading authority on past-life regression therapy, discusses techniques for accessing memories from childhood and prior lives to find healing in the present. James Van Praagh, a renowned spiritual leader and gifted medium, shares methods and exercises on how to develop your own intuition and how to recognize spirits around you. In this workshop you experience an expansion of your mind, an opening of your heart, and a strengthening of your potential for healing. Come experience an open, interactive dialogue between the audience and these two leading voices.

Loving What Is: The Work of Byron Katie (B02)
Byron Katie
“I need more money.” “I need to lose weight.” “My partner should listen to me.” Thoughts like these may run through our minds dozens of times a day, creating fear, anger, stress, or depression. In this workshop, Byron Katie, best-selling author of Loving What Is and I Need Your Love, Is That True?, introduces you to The Work, a revolutionary way to question the thoughts that keep you from living in peace and joy. Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, calls The Work “a razor-sharp sword that cuts through illusion and enables you to know for yourself the timeless essence of your being.” With characteristic humor and lovingly incisive clarity, Katie shows you how self-inquiry can bring you a happier life.

Realizing the Prophecies of a New Era (B03)
John Perkins
The Legend of the Eagle and Condor prophesied that the year 2000 would usher in a new era of transformation—a time in which humankind could rise to higher levels of consciousness and restore balance between male and female, heart and mind, intuitive and rational, human societies and nature. This Andean prophecy is similar to others found among the Mayan, Bushmen, Zulus, Hopis, Tibetans, Siberians, and other cultures where John Perkins has lived and trained as a shaman. “These prophecies of courage,” he says, “empower us to shake off the barriers of fear and inspire us to create a world of peace, prosperity, and compassion.” In this experiential workshop, we explore our relationship to the prophecies, identify and break through our deepest fears, and learn to use arutam (the fifth shapeshifter’s element) to materialize our dreams. CE credit available.

Finding Your Personal North Star (B04)
Martha Beck, Ph.D.
For centuries, explorers have depended on the North Star when there were no other landmarks in sight. Each of us possesses an unalterable North Star that guides our ideal life. It’s easy to get off course, and even harder to get back! Martha Beck is a monthly columnist for O magazine and author of five books, including Finding Your Own North Star and The Joy Diet. In this workshop, she teaches you the tools you need to access your essential self, find out who you really are, and help you take a stand for the unique contribution you alone bring to the world. CE credit available.

The Tao of Courage: Living Outside a Framework of Fear (B05)
David Morehouse, Ph.D.
American writer Ambrose Redmoon once said: “Courage is not the absence of fear, rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” How might we exist outside of a framework of fear? How can each of us renew our emotional, psychological, and spiritual contracts with this existence to live our lives focused on making a positive difference on an individual, as well as a collective level? In this workshop, we explore the seven categorical imperatives of courage; a simple roadmap to living a courageous life outlined by those who have existed in the zenith of human fury, from poverty and injustice, to global war. Learn to be the most extraordinary influence you can be in a world pierced by hatred and fear.

Dealing With Your Dark Side (B06)
Debbie Ford
Join New York Times best-selling author Debbie Ford for a workshop that promises to rock your world and open up unforeseen possibilities as you discover the gifts contained in your dark side. This experiential workshop is based on Debbie’s renowned Shadow Process Workshop, in which thousands of people have embraced and integrated aspects of themselves they had spent years privately struggling to hide or fix. Are you interested in regaining your confidence, power, and the freedom to fully be yourself? Join Debbie for a shift in perception that could change your life forever. CE credit available.

New Beginnings (B07)
Iyanla Vanzant
Iyanla Vanzant’s extraordinary path to success took her through a multitude of life-changing experiences that shaped the insights she now shares with others. In this workshop, she shows us how to move beyond fear and the chains of our pasts to acknowledge our soul’s true purpose. When we learn to recognize and acknowledge our life’s purpose, we become empowered to control the events of daily living and to make more valuable contributions to the world. CE credit available.

Vocal Power: Harnessing the Power Within (B09)
Arthur Samuel Joseph, MA
In many traditions, the throat is the center of creative power. The voice reflects this power and has the capacity to help access our full creative expression. This workshop with Arthur Samuel Joseph, author of Vocal Power: Harnessing the Power Within, combines the powerful practices of Vocal Awareness™ with principles of creativity theory to help us realize our creative potential. Not just a vocal training class, this workshop also helps us step toward empowerment along life’s path. The Vocal Awareness™ approach—which views the voice as a metaphor representing an individual to the world—includes vocalizing, sound meditation, movement, song study, and development of the speaking voice as a means for deepening contact with the Self.

Four Simple Steps to Freedom: The Work of Byron Katie (B11)
Byron Katie
Do you suffer from anger, stress, frustration, or depression? Have you “tried it all?” Perhaps you simply want more clarity and joy in your life. The Work of Byron Katie is one of the most powerful methods ever devised to end human suffering. Simple, radical, and life changing, The Work can lead to a life of freedom and joy that most of us can’t even imagine yet. It requires no religious, spiritual, or intellectual preparation; no belief; and no psychological acuteness. All you need is a desire to re-know the simple truth about you. Many people report an immediate sense of release and freedom from thoughts that were making them miserable. Who would you be without your pain? Come and find out.

Big Mind, Big Heart: An Experience of the Transcendent (B12)
Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi
Zen master Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi’s teachings facilitate a direct experience of Big Mind—the state of clarity and wisdom—and Big Heart—the state of compassion. His beautifully simple approach helps us circumvent mental busyness to rest in states that are completely natural, yet outside ordinary experience until they are recognized and encouraged. With Roshi’s guidance and through lively participatory exercises, we learn to shift to these mind-body states, shed our fears, and live more purposeful, joyful lives.

The Translucent Revolution (B13)
Arjuna Ardagh, MA
We are in the midst of a dramatic shift in human consciousness. Author Arjuna Ardagh has spent the last several years researching the emerging paradigm and has found people he calls “translucent.” Some of the people he interviewed include the renowned spiritual teachers Ram Dass, Ekhart Tolle, and Jean Houston. He found that they have all been affected deeply enough by a radical awakening that it has transformed their relationship to who they are and to reality. In this workshop, we explore the vast implications of individual and collective awakening, this “translucent revolution.” We look at how our allegiance to living this very moment wakefully can become a powerful and potent force of change in the world. CE credit available.

Divine Intuition: Your Guide to Creating a Life You Love (B14)
Lynn Robinson, MEd
You have within you an unwavering and reliable source of wisdom to guide your life. In this workshop, Lynn Robinson, one of the nation’s leading experts on the topic of intuition and author of Compass of the Soul: 52 Ways Intuition Can Guide You to the Life of Your Dreams, shows you how to tap into this remarkable inner resource that can lead you unerringly to your hopes and dreams. CE credit available.

The Universal Experience: A Soul-Touching Encounter With Your Own Death (B15)
Alan Lowen
“If somebody could only take part in a single workshop with me,” says Alan Lowen, “I would say to them, make it this one!” In this workshop, we are invited to discover all that the word good-bye touches in us, and to remember all the significant good-byes of our lives. Possibly the most beautiful and life-transforming workshop available on the theme of death, dying, loss, and letting go, this remarkably real journey into life’s greatest mystery has been for many people around the world the key that released them from old, destructive behavior patterns and attitudes, and restored their joy in life. CE credit available.

Finding Your Personal North Star (B16)
Martha Beck, Ph.D.
For centuries, explorers have depended on the North Star when there were no other landmarks in sight. Each of us possesses an unalterable North Star that guides our ideal life. It’s easy to get off course, and even harder to get back! Martha Beck is a monthly columnist for O magazine and author of five books, including Finding Your Own North Star and The Joy Diet. In this workshop, she teaches you the tools you need to access your essential self, find out who you really are, and help you take a stand for the unique contribution you alone bring to the world. CE credit available.

Past-Life Therapy: An Experiential Introduction (B17)
Brian Weiss, MD
For more than a decade, Brian Weiss has been exploring past-life therapy as a way of treating anxiety, depression, and other difficulties. In this workshop, he teaches the basic techniques for going back in time to retrieve and release memories from childhood and before. Using regression exercises, healing visualizations, and intuitional and right-brain training, Weiss leads us on a journey of awakening that is of value to health-care professionals and lay people alike. This deeply relaxing experience is healing even for those who are skeptical about past lives. CE credit available.

The Courage of Authenticity & Being Present (B18)
Stephan Rechtschaffen, MD
As time moves faster and our lives become more rushed and stressed, we lose our deeper connection with ourselves and others. Striving to keep up with it all, we try to go faster, running on automatic too much of the time. This workshop, led by Stephan Rechtschaffen—a physician and cofounder of Omega—offers us an opportunity to stop, to come into our authentic self, and to notice what keeps us from being more present in our daily lives. Through discussion, meditation, and experiential exercises, we find wisdom and freedom in the pause. CE credit available.

Acts of Faith: Discovering Our Soul’s Purpose (B19)
Iyanla Vanzant
In building a life of transformation on the foundation of a troubled past, Iyanla Vanzant has become a standard bearer for the power of spiritual faith to uplift our lives. In this workshop she shows us how to choose a fearless life no matter what obstacles get in the way. Often our stress, fear, relationship issues, or financial challenges are the result of an internal, spiritual conflict. We may feel stuck, fragmented, or simply confused about what to do, and how to do it. The way out of this is an act of faith. Using lecture, dialogue, prayer, meditation, and partner exercises, Iyanla inspires us to make that leap. CE credit available.

Optional Session
Bringing Omega Home: Keeping the Experience Alive
George Kaufman, Omega's resource development director, shares strategies for keeping the Omega spirit alive after you go home.

Special Evening Event
Gabrielle Roth
Waves, Light & Shadow: An Ecstatic Dance Session With Gabrielle Roth
The fastest, purest, most joyful way to break out of your own box is by dancing. How do we dance so deep, so hard, so full of the beat, that we are nothing but the dance and the beat and the sweat and the heat? Let Gabrielle Roth bring you there. A perfect way to end a long day of sitting!

Wake-up sessions
Yoga with Brian Liem of OM Yoga Center
Meditation with Ethan Nichtern of OM Yoga Center
Qigong with Steven Michael Pague

Community Gathering and Keynote
Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD

Profiles In Courage
Shqipe Malushi, originally from Kosova, came to the United States 25 years ago with $50 and 50 words of English. In her journey of transformation, she became a poet, writer, leader, teacher, producer, lifecoach, consultant, and humanitarian helping women and children between war and peace.

Keynote
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.
Coming to Our Senses-Fearlessly
"It seems that the world is on fire and so are our hearts, inflamed with fear and uncertainty, lacking all conviction, and often filled with passionate but unwise intensity." So writes Jon Kabat-Zinn in the opening lines of his new book, Coming to Our Senses, echoing both the teachings of Buddhism and William Butler Yeats's 1921 poem, "The Second Coming." Bridging East and West for 25 years, Kabat-Zinn has become one of the nation's most informed and most articulate authorities on stress, mindfulness meditation, and healing. In this keynote address, Kabat-Zinn shows us how to courageously wake up to our rich and textured capacity to influence the unfolding of our lives and the health of the world.
CE credit available.

Heaven & Earth: Making the Psychic Connection (C01)
James Van Praagh
Death is not the end of existence, nor is it something to be feared; there is indeed life beyond this physical world. Earth is only one part of a vast multidimensional universe. Spirit beings from other worlds are around us all the time. In this workshop, we learn how these spirits serve us all in many ways—as teachers, companions, creative inspiration, and protection. It takes courage to look beyond our three-dimensional world and know that something greater exists.

The Tao of Courage: Living Outside a Framework of Fear (C02)
David Morehouse, Ph.D.
American writer Ambrose Redmoon once said: “Courage is not the absence of fear, rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” How might we exist outside of a framework of fear? How can each of us renew our emotional, psychological, and spiritual contracts with this existence to live our lives focused on making a positive difference on an individual, as well as a collective level? In this workshop, we explore the seven categorical imperatives of courage; a simple roadmap to living a courageous life outlined by those who have existed in the zenith of human fury, from poverty and injustice, to global war. Learn to be the most extraordinary influence you can be in a world pierced by hatred and fear.

Fearless Tai Chi & Qigong (C03)
Michael Craft
Qigong is a profound ancient Chinese mind-body system that encourages well-being, longevity, and spiritual development. It is closely related to tai chi, another age-old Chinese tradition. Originally a subtle martial art, tai chi is now used by millions around the world as a graceful, meditative exercise. In this lab with Michael Craft, a practitioner of qigong, tai chi, and meditation since the late 1970s, we explore gentle, powerful practices integrating qigong and tai chi that help us increase internal energy, develop personal confidence, and maintain fluid energetic boundaries with others. CE credit available.

The Seductive Power of the Best Year of Your Life (C04)
Debbie Ford
Your greatest self—that clear, confident, wise, and powerful part of you—does not need to be created. It already exists within you, right now, in this very moment. Join Debbie Ford, internationally acclaimed teacher, coach, and author of The Best Year of Your Life, to discover how to gain instant access to the part of you that holds an alluring and deeply captivating vision for your life that will propel you forward no matter what’s going on in the outside world. Come to this workshop with a specific goal in mind and prepare to go deep within to call forth the part of you that has the power to transform your deepest dreams into vibrant realities, right here and now. CE credit available.

Same Soul, Many Bodies: Tapping Into the Power of Fearlessness (C05)
Brian Weiss, MD
This workshop, based on Brian Weiss’s latest book, Same Soul, Many Bodies, explores the latest in hypnotic regression and progression therapy to find a new level of healing for our bodies, minds, spirits, and relationships. Using experiential techniques, including regression exercises, future progressions, visualizations, and intuitional and right-brain training, Weiss shows us how to harness the power of love, understanding, and fearlessness, and how to use this power to transform our lives and ourselves. This workshop is valuable for both healthcare professionals and lay people. CE credit available.

The Art of Translucent Relating: The Deeper Love (C06)
Arjuna Ardagh, MA
More and more people, both single and in couples, are discovering a deep longing to bring the depth of meditation and awakening forth into their intimate relationships. Some speak of a schism between the depths of spiritual life and the day-to-day dramas of personal relating, which can be profoundly painful and frustrating. In this workshop, you come to understand why this gap occurs for almost everyone, and how relationships can become an embodiment of your spiritual life instead of a distraction from it. Arjuna Ardagh shares how his own marriage has become a vibrant spiritual practice, and offers simple and short tools to keep intimacy marinated in divinity. CE credit available.

Sacred Sex: The Body, Heart & Soul of Intimacy (C08)
Alan Lowen
This workshop is for couples and singles alike—anyone who wants to experience the heart of tantra. “Tantra is not about technique,” writes Alan Lowen. “It is about learning to be in love; not essentially with somebody, but as a way of being. It calls us to embrace in friendship the totality of our being so that we are able to pour ourselves fully and fulfillingly into life.” This workshop offers a process of gradual surrender to your own nature, a return to your natural body, heart, and soul. It opens you deeply to yourself, and as much or as little as you wish, to others. In the process, you dissolve old survival patterns that sabotage intimacy and happiness.

Heaven & Earth: Making the Psychic Connection (C11)
James Van Praagh
Death is not the end of existence, nor is it something to be feared; there is indeed life beyond this physical world. Earth is only one part of a vast multidimensional universe. Spirit beings from other worlds are around us all the time. In this workshop, we learn how these spirits serve us all in many ways—as teachers, companions, creative inspiration, and protection. It takes courage to look beyond our three-dimensional world and know that something greater exists.

Vocal Power: Harnessing the Power Within (C12)
Arthur Samuel Joseph, MA
In many traditions, the throat is the center of creative power. The voice reflects this power and has the capacity to help access our full creative expression. This workshop with Arthur Samuel Joseph, author of Vocal Power: Harnessing the Power Within, combines the powerful practices of Vocal Awareness™ with principles of creativity theory to help us realize our creative potential. Not just a vocal training class, this workshop also helps us step toward empowerment along life’s path. The Vocal Awareness™ approach—which views the voice as a metaphor representing an individual to the world—includes vocalizing, sound meditation, movement, song study, and development of the speaking voice as a means for deepening contact with the Self.

Transforming Fears Into Action (C13)
John Perkins
In his new New York Times best-selling book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins reveals a chilling tale of how he worked for an international consulting firm where his job was to convince less developed countries to accept multibillion-dollar loans for infrastructure projects, and to see to it that most of this money went to American corporations. Motivated by 9/11, Perkins defied the code of silence he had obeyed for nearly four decades, and wrote a book that many had warned him not to. In this workshop, he tells his own story of moving beyond fear, and guides us through an experiential journey to shapeshift our fears, raise our level of consciousness, and create a more balanced and compassionate world.

Broken Open: Overcoming Our Fear of Change, Loss & Death (C14)
Elizabeth Lesser
How strange that the nature of life is change, and yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be. This experiential workshop is for people who want to explore their resistance to change, loss, and death. We use meditation, discussion, and guided visualization to uncover, feel, and release fear, grief, or cynicism. We discover how on the other side of our resistance to death is the ability to really live—be it the death of a dream, a job, a relationship, a loved one, or the body at the end of life. CE credit available.

Big Mind, Big Heart: An Experience of the Transcendent (C15)
Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi
Zen master Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi’s teachings facilitate a direct experience of Big Mind—the state of clarity and wisdom—and Big Heart—the state of compassion. His beautifully simple approach helps us circumvent mental busyness to rest in states that are completely natural, yet outside ordinary experience until they are recognized and encouraged. With Roshi’s guidance and through lively participatory exercises, we learn to shift to these mind-body states, shed our fears, and live more purposeful, joyful lives.

In the Name of Love (C16)
Debbie Ford
Love encourages us to rise above the mediocre tendencies that we see around us, and commit ourselves to living a life of excellence. Love shows us that we are more than the obstacles and limitations that we face as we grow and evolve into the greatest expressions of ourselves. Do you want to live inside this kind of love affair with life? What old beliefs and behaviors are you willing to give up in the name of love? Join best-selling author and renowned coach Debbie Ford for an unforgettable workshop to unmask anything that’s in the way of being fully penetrated by love, and prepare to create inspiring love affairs in your life…and inside your heart. CE credit available.

The Courage of Authenticity & Being Present (C17)
Stephan Rechtschaffen, MD
As time moves faster and our lives become more rushed and stressed, we lose our deeper connection with ourselves and others. Striving to keep up with it all, we try to go faster, running on automatic too much of the time. This workshop, led by Stephan Rechtschaffen—a physician and cofounder of Omega—offers us an opportunity to stop, to come into our authentic self, and to notice what keeps us from being more present in our daily lives. Through discussion, meditation, and experiential exercises, we find wisdom and freedom in the pause. CE credit available.

Prosperity! The Intuitive Path to Creating Abundance (C18)
Lynn Robinson, MEd
Intuition is a guide for creating a life you love; a life that is full, rich, and prosperous. As a professional intuition consultant for more than 20 years, Lynn Robinson has helped thousands of people make changes and achieve their goals, both personally and professionally, by following their intuition—and to develop trust in their ability to achieve greater abundance. In this workshop, through lecture, group discussion, and experiential exercises, she can help you, too.

Closing and Keynote
Jerry Lewis

Closing Statements from
Omega Institute

Keynote
Jerry Lewis
Being Fearless & the Power of Laughter
Jerry Lewis's movies, television shows, stage performances, recordings, books, and personal appearances have brought his unique humor and creativity around the world. Also a beloved humanitarian renowned for his efforts to find a cure for muscular dystrophy, he has an ongoing love affair with people from all walks of life. "I shall pass through this world but once," he says. "Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now." In this closing keynote, Jerry inspires us to continue our lives with a fearless but light heart.

Main conference fee does not include post-conference intensives; see registration info page for fees.

Shapeshifting to Higher Consciousness (D01)
John Perkins
Many indigenous cultures have known the art of shapeshifting: the actual transformation of a human being into another living creature. Lakota Sioux warriors would shapeshift into buffalo, and Andean shamans transform into plants from the jungle to learn healing powers. In this intensive, John Perkins explores with us these ancient shamanic practices and shows how it is within the capability of anyone to achieve a true unity with all things. Perkins has traveled and worked with master shamans around the world for 30 years. He teaches us the three levels of shapeshifting: cellular (transforming into animals, healing cancers), personal (opening to the divine self, dropping addictions), and institutional (changing organizations and cultures). We learn skills that help us break through barriers, access inner powers never before used, vibrate at increased cellular frequencies, invoke arutam (the fifth shapeshifter’s element), and soar to new levels of consciousness.

From Believing to Knowing: The Journey Inward (D02)
David Morehouse, Ph.D.
David Morehouse, a decorated special operations officer and a former career U.S. Army officer, was the first to bring remote viewing— a highly classified intelligence collection methodology—out of the shadows and introduce it as a transformational tool for personal growth. His first book was a recommended reference used in the U.S. Army War College addressing alternative modalities of conflict resolution at the tactical level. Now an innovative teacher and author he writes, “When the universe speaks, listen—it is on purpose. It is speaking to you right now; it is always speaking to you; it never stops. We spend our life embracing what is not possible, and yet we have unlimited potential.” In this intensive, Morehouse invites us to reclaim our life from the world of “I can’t,” and shows us how to enter the paradigm of “I can,” using basic tools from the science of remote viewing. We take home practical ways of living fearlessly and an understanding of the physics of transforming personal and collective destiny.

Vocal Power: Harnessing the Power Within (D03)
Arthur Samuel Joseph, MA
This daylong intensive offers you an opportunity to delve deeper into the subject matter covered in Arthur Samuel Joseph’s Vocal Awareness™ workshop. In many traditions, the throat is the center of creative power. The voice reflects this power and has the capacity to help access our full creative expression. This workshop with the author of Vocal Power: Harnessing the Power Within, combines the powerful practices of Vocal Awareness™ with principles of creativity theory to help us realize our creative potential. Not just a vocal training class, this workshop also helps us step toward empowerment along life’s path. The Vocal Awareness™ approach—which views the voice as a metaphor representing an individual to the world—includes vocalizing, sound meditation, movement, song study, and development of the speaking voice as a means for deepening contact with the Self.

Divine Intuition: Your Guide to Creating a Life You Love (D04)
Lynn Robinson, MEd
How would you like to have a constant and reliably accurate source of wisdom to guide your life? An inner sage that gives you unfailing direction towards your hopes and dreams? There’s good news. You already have it. It is part of your birthright, your instructions from the universe. “It” is intuition, and when you learn how it works and how to access it, you will be changed forever. Join Divine Intuition and Compass of the Soul author Lynn Robinson at this daylong intensive devoted to helping you create the kind of life you’ve always wanted. Through lecture, group discussion, and experiential exercises, we develop our intuitive gift and practice putting it to use as we discover that living an intuitive life means looking within for answers and living life with courage, faith, patience, and trust. CE credit available.

The Big Mind Process (D05)
Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi
This intensive lays the foundation for the practice and application of the extraordinary Big Mind Process. Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi’s teachings facilitate a direct experience of Big Mind—the mind of clarity and wisdom, and Big Heart—the mind of compassion. His beautifully simple approach helps us circumvent mental busyness to rest in states that are innate, yet outside ordinary experience until they are recognized and encouraged. With Genpo Roshi’s guidance and through lively participatory exercises, we learn to shift to these mind-body states, shed our fears, and live more purposeful, joyful lives. What makes the process work is Genpo Roshi’s skillful facilitation, the mutual trust he establishes with participants—and his unshakable, contagious confidence that every one of us can attain enlightenment instantly like the great masters of old, like the Buddha, whose essential teaching was nothing less than this.