ART International offers life-changing courses that empower you to be more alive, awake and aware in all your relationships – with self, other, and the world.
Seasons are changing around the world, from the impending monsoons of Bali to the falling leaves and temperatures in the US and Europe. As many people start going into hibernation in the coming weeks and months, we’re closing out a huge year feeling incredibly grateful for how our work has been expanding and having an impact on more and more people.
We’re now delivering our courses on four continents and have served over 500 amazing participants since we started last summer, and have been learning a ton about how to deliver this work more and more potently and usefully.
We’re excited to share some big updates, so please read on!
As always, please be in touch anytime with any questions, reflections, stories, ideas, or anything else that’s alive for you – we want to connect.
Much love from everyone at ART International!
ART News
It’s been a busy few months here at ART, with some exciting milestones to mark our growth.
We recently opened our fourth continent, bringing our Level 1 courses to Europe and finding a wonderful audience for our work there. As of this writing, we’ve led courses in Amsterdam (twice), London, and Berlin, with several more planned on the horizon.
We’re coming off our biggest month ever – we led six Level 1 courses to over 150 people in September (including one for 23 inmates at the Buena Vista Correctional Complex in Colorado), led two concurrent courses on the same weekend for the first time (London and Portland), and sold out our Level 3 Leadership Course in Bali this coming December.
Our nonprofit arm, Authentic Relating International (ARI), got its official 501(c)3 nonprofit status last month, and is now poised to bring this work to more prisons, schools, and other institutions around the US and beyond.
We recently launched monthly Masterclass calls (check out our last one here!) and ART Graduate calls, both led by Ryel and Jason, in support of our vision for an interconnected global community of authentic relating practitioners.
Looking ahead, our next big event is the Summit Conference in Los Angeles Nov 2-4, at which we’ll be presenting two sessions and running several Human Connection experiences for conference attendees. And then it’s off to Bali for our Level 3 Leadership Course and the Ecstatic Awakening Retreat right after, at which we’ll be running the authentic relating program.
It’s been an incredible year so far, with tons of learning, connecting, revealing, and growing. We find ourselves deeply moved again and again by how people have been engaging and resonating with this practice, and ever more committed to sharing it as far and wide as possible, to as many people as possible.
Thanks for being on the ride with us!
Brisbane 
Maui, Hl
Bali (July) 
Boulder, CO 
Amsterdam (Aug)
Bali (Sept) 
Seattle, WA 
London 
Berlin
Authentic Relating International Nonprofit
We’re really excited to have received our 501(c)3 status from the tax authorities here in the US so we can continue delivering our courses and training materials to prisons and other institutions.
ART facilitators Ryel Kestano, Laurie Lazar, Jahmaya Kessler and Jennifer Ludders recently led our largest prison course at the Buena Vista Correctional Complex in Seattle, and have been invited to integrate our work into the pre-release program designed to prepare inmates for integration back into society.
We’ve also been invited to submit a proposal to train the entire 6,000-person staff of the Colorado Department of Corrections, which represents a paradigm shift of extraordinary impact – imagine prison guards using authentic relating skills to relate with inmates as their default means of communication. We’re committed to making this a reality.
Check out our new ARI website here: https://www.authenticrelating.org
Summit Conference in Los Angeles, November 2-4
We’re thrilled to be working with Summit at their flagship annual conference in Los Angeles to highlight Human Connection as a core theme of the conference.
Through a series of invitation-only events, Summit fosters a global community of entrepreneurs, academics, athletes, artists, astronauts, authors, chefs, engineers, explorers, philanthropists, spiritual leaders, scientists, and beyond.
We’ll be presenting two hour-long workshops at the conference:
Authentic Relating for Leadership and Business – Saturday, 4pm
The tools and skills of authentic relating lead to exponentially greater group cohesion, trust, respect, clarity, and connection. Authentic relating in the workplace empowers people to both speak their true experiences and perspectives, and to listen with empathy and curiosity. Authentic relating rehumanizes each individual person’s experience, and collectively leads to greater productivity, excitement, and engagement. Join ART International for a tour of authentic relating’s most powerful and immediately applicable skills and tools that you can use in your life and business right away.
Conflict as Connection: Authentic Relating in the Workplace – Sunday, 1:30pm
Authentic relating offers the most powerful and transformational tools for managing conflict in the workplace, and for using conflict as a catalyst for greater connection, empathy, and understanding. ART International has developed tools and frameworks that work efficiently and consistently to both welcome conflict and transmute it into fuel for growth and productivity. These tools work as effectively in the workplace as they do at home and in community, every time and in every circumstance and context.
ART Level 2 Advanced Course in Seattle, November 17-18
Deepen your practice and learn even more powerful and transformational skills by taking our 2-day Level 2 Advanced Course in Authentic Relating. These courses are smaller to provide more individualized attention for each participant, and are led by our most advanced course leaders.
The Level 2 Advanced Course includes skills and practices in these areas:
- Nervous system training – how to be with any charge and stay empowered and composed
- Group attunement – how to tune into a group field and notice and name what’s present
- Integrity as a practice – how to establish, maintain, and restore a personal standard of integrity
- Body language – how to read, perceive and interpret all forms of body language
- Multiple perspectives – how to hold multiple perspectives and use them as a bridge to connection
- Own your experience – going deeper into owning your experience than at the Level 1
- Making the implicit explicit in culture and society
- Dignity and humility as an embodied experience and reference point
- Public speaking – how to be known and revealed in speaking to groups
- Other high-level advanced authentic relating tools and skills offered throughout the course
Our next ART Level 2 course is November 17 & 18 in Seattle. Learn more about this course and reserve your spot here.
ART Level 3 Leadership Course in Bali, December 1-8
We are running our Level 3 Leadership Course as a residential retreat for the first time, on the island of Gili Trawangan off the coast of Bali. While the course is sold out, if you’d like to be added to the waiting list, please visit the Level 3 page on our website and complete an application.
ART Level 3 Leadership Course in Bali, December 1-8
We are running our Level 3 Leadership Course as a residential retreat for the first time, on the island of Gili Trawangan off the coast of Bali. While the course is sold out, if you’d like to be added to the waiting list, please visit the Level 3 page on our website and complete an application.
ART Level 1 Courses in early 2019
We’re still working on the final schedule for the first quarter of 2019, but can let you know that we’ll be delivering courses in Boulder, Washington DC, Atlanta, Seattle, Amsterdam, London, Stockholm, Bali, and Australia.
If you’re interested in working with us to bring our programs to your community, please contact us here.
ART at Ecstatic Awakening in Bali, December 9-16
Jason and Ryel will once again be facilitating at the Ecstatic Awakening retreat, this time at the gorgeous Purnati resort in Bali. Ronja Sebastian, Ecstatic Awakening’s visionary creator and leader, has put together a profoundly transformational experience, with its blend of ecstatic dance, breathwork, deep spiritual practice, authentic relating, yoga and other complementary dimensions of awakening consciousness.
Visit here to learn more and register for this incredible retreat.
Authentic Relating Videos, Posts, and Links
ART’s Business Consulting with Jason Digges
Did you know that ART offers business consulting internationally? Check out the video below to learn how we can help you transform your company culture.
On the ART Blog
As Autumn continues, we encourage you to revisit “The Most Influential and Life-changing Books of All Time” according to ART friends, teacher and clients. Here are the top 20 followed by 21-40 according to number of votes received – an awesome resource as you enjoy the changing season!
Other Cool Links
Looking for your purpose in life? Ikigai, a Japanese concept meaning, “a reason for being,” suggests that we seek purpose rather than happiness and offers an awesome model to show us how to find it. In his fascinating Ted Talk, Zachary Wood says, “We get stronger, not weaker, by engaging with ideas and people we disagree with,” and that we need to be willing to stop, listen and change.
And this rad comic about the “backfire effect” illustrates how we protect ourselves by rejecting anything that goes against our core beliefs and offers us a humbling reminder: “Your worldview isn’t a perfect house that was built to last forever. It’s a cheap condo and over time most of it will turn to shit.”
Quotes of the Month
“An Ideal is merely an escape, an avoidance of what is, a contradiction of what is. An ideal prevents direct action upon what is. To have peace, we will have to love, we will have to begin not to live an ideal life but to see things as they are and act upon them, transform them.” – Krishnamurti
“Hope and fear: Fear is an enemy. We know this because when we are afraid, we react irrationally to things, we don’t think through. Hope is an enemy, too, though. That sounds kind of wrong, doesn’t it? Everyone likes to have hope: Don’t give up hope. But, here’s the problem with hope: Hope also deludes. We need to have a cold eye. We have to be able to look at reality in as alert and awake a fashion as we can. What is true higher consciousness? Well, it starts with awareness, with seeing things as they are, not as you want them to be, not as you hope they can be – you have to see them as they are. It is only through going over that first large hurdle, I feel, that we can really attain a true higher consciousness, a true awareness in which we are awake, not asleep.” – Richard Dolan
Recent Testimonials
“ART Level 1 has been monumental in allowing me to create the authentic world I want to live in. With simple, yet powerful practices, the workshop guided me through a path that will undeniably lead to greater authenticity and connection in all areas of my life.”
– Eme, Seattle
“Art Level 1 was exactly what I needed at that time in my life. The curriculum covered was extremely thorough and relevant. What’s more, the two leaders held such a safe space for personal transformation and reflection to take place. This allowed for many amazing moments shared amongst the group. I would recommend ART and the work they do to all my friends, family and clients.”
– Colleen, Brisbane
“I will use the things I learned from this workshop for the rest of my life. I now know I have to get uncomfortable to grab the pieces of myself that will make me the person I know I can be and want to be. This weekend was the first time in my life I’ve ever felt comfortable being myself. I’m grateful for everyone who made this possible and hope I can do it again.”
– Zach, Boulder County Jail
“I am still riding the connection wave led by Ryel and Jason during our Level 1 weekend course. It felt truly like a coming home. Since the workshop ended I’ve noticed a greater sense of peace within myself: less anxiety, a stronger connection to the present moment, a willingness to surrender, and an ability to connect more deeply with a people in my daily life. I frequently draw strength and wisdom from the course to help heal myself and show up more fully in my relationships. Thank you guys so much for coming and sharing this work with us!”
– Apryl, Asheville
