Zen of Authentic Relating with Keith McGuinnes |

Welcome to The ART of Being Human Level 1

Authentic Relating Training

Residential Retreat

July 29 – August 1, 2021

Crestone, Colorado

Zen of Authentic Relating

Authentic Relating is often likened to relational meditation. Please join this unique immersive retreat of relational meditation practices set in the beautiful, contemplative, Crestone Mountain Zen Center. You are invited to spend 4 days and 3 nights in this serene environment. This unique Level 1 course will be an immersive course hosted at the beautiful Crestone Mountain Zen Center on the slopes of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in Southern Colorado. We will guide you through a thoroughly tested and proven sequence of exercises designed to teach you the most powerful tools to create and deepen connection, with facilitated group conversation after each exercise to ensure maximum learning. We’ve constructed the exercises to ensure that the foundational skills of Authentic Relating are most efficiently and effectively absorbed by participants, no matter their level of prior experience or training.

The course begins with arrival on Thursday afternoon, July 29th, and concludes with a departure around noon on Sunday, August 1st.

Optional morning meditations in the Zendo will complement the relational and communication work that we do together throughout the day. There are incredible nearby attractions if you decide to extend your trip.

Level 1 Course Description

ART International’s flagship Level 1 course has introduced the foundational tools and skills of this life-changing practice to thousands of people around the world. The course is designed to make the learning of authentic relating as accessible, adaptable, practical, and engaging as possible so that graduates can apply their new skills to their lives right away with immediate results.

We’ve designed this course to give you the experience of profound connection, intimacy, trust, and aliveness with anyone you want, anytime, anywhere – all within just a few days. The tools and skills we teach work across all social contexts, from the workplace to the living room, from strangers to partners, and everyone in between.

Keith will expertly guide you through a curriculum that strongly emphasizes embodied and experiential learning. This is not a lecture or seminar – it is a deep dive full-immersion training that will leave you enlivened, heart and mind-opened, and deeply connected to yourself and others.

We’ve delivered the same Level 1 Course to spiritual seekers in Bali, inmates in Colorado, executives in New York City, and people from all across the social, cultural, economic, and political spectrum, of all ages and nationalities, on four continents. Universally, participants report profound and lasting transformation in all aspects of their lives. The course speaks in the shared language of human connection and is designed specifically to include everyone in the practice of Authentic Relating, no matter what path they’ve traveled in life.

We believe that we all have the capacity to be bridges – between parts of ourselves, ourselves with others, and together with the world. The course’s mission is to build bridges, and use our bridges to heal, connect, and co-create a more enlivened, awakened world – together.

You Will Leave This Course With:

Keith and his co-facilitators will guide you through tested and proven sequences of exercises designed to teach you the most powerful tools to create and deepen connection, with facilitated group conversation after each exercise to ensure maximum learning. We’ve constructed the exercises to ensure that the foundational skills of Authentic Relating are most efficiently and effectively absorbed by participants, no matter their level of prior experience or training.

The ability to engage in deep, meaningful, soulful conversations with anyone, anytime, anywhere
A powerful language and skill-set to accurately and transparently express your authentic experience in real-time, and to invite others to do the same
The awareness to identify your true, core desires, and the ability to articulate them to others
A profound understanding of the dignity of speaking your authentic voice, and the humility of using your eyes and ears to pay attention to – and learn from – the world around you
The ability to see and reflect the essential being in others, and to gently guide them into a space in which they can be fully, wholly themselves – one of the greatest gifts we can offer each other
A complete set of powerful tools to de-escalate conflict and to use conflict as a vehicle leading to deeper connection, understanding, and empathy
A restored connection to childlike genuine curiosity, and a perspective that regards the world with awe and wonder
The ability to set powerful context at both the personal and collective levels, and a clear understanding of how influential context is in informing our experience of life
An experience of profoundly vulnerable, intimate, beautiful connections with other participants that will leave you inspired, delighted, and heart-opened