2023 Retreat Open Dates
March 10-13; April 21-22
Other dates available upon request. Details below.
Longer stays available as well. Group rates for four + participants.
Free open house 1:30-4:30 Sunday March 19

Practice.Place

Designed for individuals, teams, companies and nonprofit organizations, Practice.Place is a platform for transformative change in culture.

Is stress a making it hard for you or your team
to be productive, healthy or happy? 

We all want to live happy, healthy lives.  We want to work productively and harmoniously with others.  We want to make a difference and feel whole.  The secret ingredients for great teams is really no secret: dependability (accountability); structure and clarity (excellent communication); meaning (shared purpose); impact (results); psychological safety (trust). However, we get derailed along the way by instinctual reactivity, fear and other factors.

MAKING TEAMS WORK

Most people can do the job they were hired to do, but they get blocked and stuck in patterns that take them off course.  Teams often experience distrust, poor communication, unclear purpose, lack of accountability and lousy results.

RELATIONSHIPS

As we navigate our world of relationships, we are challenged by what we feel and think when we hear things that trigger reactions.  We project fear, anger and sadness onto others and we reflect back to others the energy they send toward us.  We are surrounded by a whirl of thoughts, sensations and feelings that spin us around until we are dizzy.  

HEARING EACH OTHER

Fundamentally, each of us wants to be heard.  We want others to allow us to express the truth that bubbles out, accept that truth and acknowledge that it is what it is.  Having the space to bring your truth forward and feel that it is accepted is an important step in building trust in any relationship.

BUILDING AWARENESS

When we become aware of our feelings and thoughts on a deeper level, it helps us realize that we have choices going forward.  It gives us a bit more space to recognize what's really going on and how to respond - rather than react.  Ultimately, by building more discipline and mastery of what's going on inside ourselves, we have a greater capacity for tackling what's going on outside.

If you want more information, go to the Join Us page and put in your contact info.  An email will go directly to the principal facilitator of Practice.Place and will not be shared with anyone.

Through a mix of physical and awareness-building activities, Practice.Place helps individuals find openings, teams build trust, improve communication, find shared purpose, codify accountability and produce better results.  Our approach starts with listening to you and looking carefully for pain points that may be blocking your organization from achieving its potential.

Then we design custom retreats that can happen on site in your organization or off site in Northern California.  Our work is designed for everyone from executives to front-line workers.  It is organized to open up new channels for strategic thinking planning that lead to stronger, happier, more resilient employees and teams.

Each of us looks at the world through a different lens.  Viewpoints are important.  The challenge is to tolerate and accept them when they are contrary to yours or different from what you expect.

The key to building trust in a team is to allow and accept the viewpoints of others.  Trust is the fundamental building block of every relationship.  Once you have that, you can work on open, honest communication as well as shared purpose and vision. 

The deeper you get and the more real you make it, the easier it becomes to hold people accountable and produce the results everyone wants and needs.

Practice.Place is designed for opening up people so we can open up possibilities.  Sessions can include strategic planning, Theory of Change process, team building, organization development and transformation.  We can work in your living room, your conference room, at an offsite location of your choosing or our retreat spaces, indoors and outside.

Strategic Planning and Stress Reduction. Coaching. Join Us!

Human scale:

listen, Learn,
Explore and Open up to new possibilities

Learn to practice being accountable to yourself so that you can share purpose with others.  Practice building trust.  Practice open, fearless communication.

Spend an hour or a day practicing things that build your awareness and make you better at what you do.  Experience something that opens you up to new possibilities while building internal discipline that helps you and your team manage everything that comes at you day to day and moment to moment. 

We offer a customized blend of yoga-based physical activities, mindfulness and team building activities in your workplace on-site or off-site in the city or in nature - in a house on a quarter acre by the beach or at select retreat centers in the redwood and bay forests of Northern California.  We start with where you are, listen for clues that can improve your well being and help you carry a feeling of openness and creativity back to your workplace and your home life.  Our activities and coaching help you practice stretching yourself and feeling good about being yourself.  Alone and with others.

practice in place - short session

The magic of mindfulness-based stress reduction and the cultivation of strategic awareness can happen anywhere.  We can start in your office or conference room with a one to two-hour session that gives you a sense of the power of this practice while identifying the things you want to work on.  It allows us to get to know each other and listen for the clues that lead to the kind change in organization and culture of well-being you want.

half-day of practice in place

Staying on-site with your team, our trainers will come to you and spend a half day going a little deeper to find the blockages and pain points that need attention.  It is a group exploration that usually leads to a series of excavations and restorative work over weeks and months, but it can happen at whatever pace you want.  Transformation takes time, but the results are well worth it.

Overview of a day of practice.place outdoors

Start the day with a discussion about mindfulness, awareness and openness.  We will set the tone for the day together with the goal of exploring and enhancing openness. Then enjoy warm up yoga that will get your circulation and breathing going.  This will prepare us for guided quiet time for enhancing mindfulness and awareness.

We will break for a locally-sourced meal and continue into afternoon activities in nature that might include kayaking on Bolinas Lagoon and contemplative walking and play at the beach. Our afternoon break will include a discussion of the fundamental elements of healthy teams and healthy relationships.

The day will end with a light dinner and reflections on what was explored, learned and improved during the day.

Options for a two-day retreat include:

• Overnight accommodations

• Yoga indoors

• Nature Yoga

• Horseback riding

• Surfing

• Kayaking on Bolinas Lagoon

• Tennis

• Hiking

• Bird watching

• Environmental restoration work