Real Work, Real Change: Hands-on Tools for Integration and Release

Part of the What’s Going On? Workshop Series

Saturday, May 3, 2025

Co-Facilitated by John Ruskell, Founder of the Awareness Institute

These times call for more than a temporary escape from inner turmoil. Rather than manufacturing surface-level peace, the work of the Awareness Institute is an invitation to true presence – a spaciousness that arises when you give yourself time to pause, reflect, and be with your full range of feelings. Any pain or grief you feel is a messenger. We are here to meet it consciously, and to begin the alchemical process of integration and transformation.

Our new one-day retreat, part of the What’s Going On? Workshop Series, guides us further inward – into deeper reflection on the upheaval impacting us collectively, and into the subtle terrains of our own bodies, relationships, dreams, and nervous systems. If you’re feeling destabilized and even unmoored from what once seemed solid, you’re not alone. We consider this kind of disorientation not a pathology, but an initiation – a purposeful cycle of uncertainty, reevaluation, and aligning with what’s true and authentic for you now.

We will come together not to fix, but to feel, breathe and express. Catharsis can open the way to a deep and abiding stillness – a clarity born of facing and ultimately embracing each facet of our experience with compassion and courage.

This will be a grounded and embodied space. Through sound, breath, movement, symbolic languages like astrology, and the power of real connection, we will begin to integrate what has been frozen or exiled. We will explore how releasing blocked energy can open us to deeper truth, renewed inspiration, and the capacity to respond to life’s challenges with integrity and clarity.

We will draw upon:

  • Emotional release and energetic practices

  • The archetypal wisdom of astrology as a mirror for bringing the unconscious to light

  • Open and honest sharing in pairs and groups, to restore connection

  • Music, movement, and breathwork

You didn’t find the Institute or this retreat because you seek quick answers or tidy resolutions. This work is for those willing to face the internal and external messages life is offering, and to work through fear to presence. This is the foundation of personal transformation, and we warmly invite you to join the process.

Location:

This is an in-person workshop in the Sacramento, California area.

Schedule:

Saturday, May 3: 10:00 am - 8:00 pm (late lunch and snacks provided)

Sunday, May 4: 11:00-noon, Integration phone call

Pricing:

$150 Student Level (for anyone aged 21-25)

$200 Workshop Level (covers cost of workshop tuition)

$250 Sponsorship Level (covers workshop cost + scholarship assistance for students)

*If you aren’t a student but are experiencing substantial financial hardship, please contact us

ENROLL

Please fill out and submit the enrollment form and then pay for your workshop below. Your spot in the retreat is not guaranteed until payment has been received. Payments are non-refundable, though may under certain circumstances be transferable to the next scheduled retreat or workshop, minus an administrative fee of at least 10%.

SUBMIT ENROLLMENT FORM:

PAY TUITION:

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“What a glorious way to spend a weekend. I felt loved and understood and ushered gently into new understanding of my life choices.” -Jane

FAQ’s

  • Each workshop is different, so we encourage you to come in with an open mind. Our workshops are experiential, which means that we provide a platform where organic reactions and responses can arise, so you see yourself more clearly. We will be going beyond a conceptual discourse into an experience where ideas are blended with feeling and emotion, providing a more holistic experience. The workshop uses a variety of modalities: one-on-one and group sharing, movement, breathing, music, release work, etc. Strong emotions may surface and that could look like crying, anger, grief, etc. People will be coming to the workshop who are ready to change old patterns and begin trusting in the flow of life. This requires an objective look at why and how we shut down. For many of us, coping has become so normalized, that we don’t see it until we’re in this kind of workshop setting.

  • Although workshop registration payments are non-refundable, under certain circumstances the funds may be transferable to the next scheduled retreat or workshop, minus an administrative fee of at least 10%.

  • If you have any questions, please contact us at info@awarenessinstitute.org.