Archives: Events

Imagine how your life would change if you had the mental focus, confidence, and resilience of a professional athlete.

Joe Aquilina is a Family Medicine Physician, retired Navy Captain and lifelong athlete who loves using the lessons of sports psychology in leadership and in life. After completing a 22 year career in the US Navy, he received his MBA from UC San Diego and over the past 30 years has held multiple leadership positions. He is interested in why some people perform best when the stakes are highest while others seem overwhelmed by the pressure. Learn how to apply the principles of Sports Psychology to achieve the athlete mindset and bring your best, at work and at home.

Learning to Live with Less and Why it Matters
What are the financial and psychological costs that clutter can have on your personal and professional life? Leave this session with solutions to help you declutter and be motivated to discard unneeded ‘stuff.’ Presentation will include group discussion related to struggles with letting go of items in your home.

Decluttering: 10 Items to Let Go of Today
Get inspired to go home and declutter those 10 items that are no longer are serving you, so there is less to manage, clean, and dust. Get motivated to clear out the clutter to create space for new things to enter your life that are in alignment with your values and priorities.

Amy Carstensen, a San Diego based Professional Organizer, started her business “Organizing with Amy” in 2013. Amy holds a Master’s degree from UCSD in International Relations. She’s taught high school Spanish, worked for the International Community Foundation and was the Founder and Executive Director of Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center.  When she’s not out helping clients let go of excess Tupperware and bags, she’s home annoying her husband and two teenage boys reminding them “to never leave a room empty handed.”

Get your Nature Groove on! Be Dazzled by signs of Wildlife up Close and Personal
Examine a variety of nature items and explore some of nature’s mysteries and experiences right here at the Ranch. Be awed by this nature exploration presentation as Judie Lincer shares fascinating wildlife tales and tidbits.

Whose Scat is That? And Other Signs of Wildlife
Learn about what wildlife lives at Rancho La Puerta, what they are dining on and what is dining on them. You will put on your Naturalist Investigator’s hat and examine animal tracks, scat (poop), and other animal signs in order to understand the ecological relationship between wildlife and their surroundings.

Judie Lincer, M.S. Ed.  is a Naturalist Educator with San Diego Audubon, who has over 30 years of teaching experience and guides hikes educating people about ecosystems, adaptations, ethnobotany (the study of a region’s plants and their uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture). She is an enthusiastic speaker who inspires others to develop an appreciation of the environment. Judie is a Workshop and Tour Director for the California Native Plant Society-San Diego.

Join Catherine Price, author of The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again, for a two-part “Funtervention” workshop—inspired by her viral TED talk—devoted to helping adults and families understand the value of fun and have more of it, both during family week and in their everyday lives. The two workshops can be taken independently, though they’re designed to complement each other.

The Power of Fun: What is Fun, and Why is It Good For Us?
We use the word “fun” in our everyday speech, but what is fun—and why is it important? In this workshop, inspired by her viral TED talk, Catherine will reveal some common misconceptions about fun (spoiler alert: it’s not frivolous or irresponsible!). She’ll propose a new definition that she believes captures its true power and importance, and will explain some of the surprising ways in which fun is essential for our happiness and health. She’ll invite participants to reflect on their greatest personal sources of fun, and will provide concrete suggestions for how to have more fun during Family week, both individually and as a family. While younger children are welcome, this workshop is designed for participants 13 and older.

The Funtervention: How to Have More Fun as a Family
In this workshop, Catherine will lead families through a hands-on “funtervention” — a series of conversation prompts and brainstorming exercises designed to help them identify their “fun magnets” and “fun factors”— both individually and as families—so that they can have more fun.  She’ll also reveal common “fun blockers,” and offer families the chance to take her “fun compatibility” quiz to see where their tastes in fun do (and perhaps don’t!) align. Participants will leave with a new concept of fun and easy, practical ideas for how they can build more fun into their family lives, both at the Ranch and at home. While younger children are welcome, this workshop is designed for participants 13 and older. It builds upon some of the concepts from Catherine’s first workshop on fun, though it can also be taken on its own.

Catherine Price is a health and science journalist, speaker,and the author of books, including How to Break Up With Your Phone and The Power of Fun. Her work on fun and screen/life balance has been featured in media outlets around the world, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, the BBC, CNN, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and The Today Show, among many others, and she has led talks and workshops for events including TED, SXSW, the Aspen Ideas Festival, Leadercast, and Oprah Winfrey’s “The Life You Want” series.

Catherine writes the Substack newsletter, “How to Feel Alive,” and her TED talk on fun has been viewed more than 5 million times. Her recent talk, ”Kids, Smartphones, and Social Media: The Risks and the Solutions,” has been described by Jonathan Haidt (the bestselling author of The Anxious Generation) as “the talk every parent should watch,” and has led to a collaboration between Catherine and Jon’s team, in which they’re working together to roll back the phone-based childhood.

Through her writing, talks, and courses, Catherine aims to provide evidence-backed resources to help people of all ages scroll less and live more.

Join Catherine Price, TED speaker, and author of How to Break Up With Your Phone, for two workshops dedicated to helping families create healthier relationships with technology — both during family week and back at home. The first workshop is geared toward helping people create better screen/life balance for themselves; the second is oriented more toward families. The two workshops can be taken independently, though they’re also designed to complement each other.

How to Break Up With Your Phone*
In this workshop, Catherine Price, TED speaker, and author of How to Break Up With Your Phone will reveal the ways in which our phones and apps are designed to be hard to put down and the effects that constant connectivity is having on our relationships, memories, attention spans, creativity and productivity. Catherine will help you identify your personal goals, lay the foundations for new habits, and make changes to your settings and routines that will help you establish better boundaries with technology and create a relationship with your phone that feels good. She’ll also provide some practical tips for how to spend your week at the Ranch bonding with your family, not your phone. This workshop is appropriate for adults and teens (13 and up). It’s geared primarily toward helping people improve their *own* relationships with their phones and devices. *Don’t worry: no phones will be harmed during this workshop!

How to Create Screen/Life Balance as a Family
Is screen time a source of conflict in your family? Do you want to create healthier habits but don’t know how? In this workshop, which is designed for families to do together, Catherine Price, TED speaker, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone, and core member of Jon Haidt’s The Anxious Generation team, will lead families through conversations and exercises designed to help them achieve better screen/life balance as a family. Catherine will reveal the ways in which our phones and apps are designed to be hard to put down and invite families to explore some of the effects that technology and devices are having on their relationships (and attention spans, creativity, memories, and productivity). This workshop will include guided conversations, discussions, practical suggestions, and hands-on activities, all designed to help families use Family Week to lay the foundations for new habits that they can take home with them. Be sure to bring your phones! This workshop is designed for adults and children ages 10 and up (regardless of whether they have phones), though younger children are also welcome. It’s geared toward helping people create healthier relationships with technology as a *family.*

Catherine Price is a health and science journalist, speaker,and the author of books, including How to Break Up With Your Phone and The Power of Fun. Her work on fun and screen/life balance has been featured in media outlets around the world, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, the BBC, CNN, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and The Today Show, among many others, and she has led talks and workshops for events including TED, SXSW, the Aspen Ideas Festival, Leadercast, and Oprah Winfrey’s “The Life You Want” series.

Catherine writes the Substack newsletter, “How to Feel Alive,” and her TED talk on fun has been viewed more than 5 million times. Her recent talk, ”Kids, Smartphones, and Social Media: The Risks and the Solutions,” has been described by Jonathan Haidt (the bestselling author of The Anxious Generation) as “the talk every parent should watch,” and has led to a collaboration between Catherine and Jon’s team, in which they’re working together to roll back the phone-based childhood.

Through her writing, talks, and courses, Catherine aims to provide evidence-backed resources to help people of all ages scroll less and live more.

Live Your Great Story!

Healthy Inner Dialogue – Discover Your Joyous Adult

Emotional Fluency – Permission to Feel

Powerful You – Ownership and Responsibility

Create Your Best Life – How to Manifest Your Dreams

Jeanine Mancusi, CPCC, LMCC is a Certified Professional and Personal Life coach based in the mountains of Northern California. She has been coaching clients and training coaches since 1997. She supports her clients to come into deep self-acceptance with self- love and live rich, satisfying lives that are the best expression of their true gifts and their unique Soul’s calling. Jeanine has been a guest at Rancho La Puerta many times and is delighted to return and serve others in navigating the internal dialogue that comes with making a commitment to physical well- being and change.

All presentations will be on the iPhone; Android users welcome too. If you miss a session, it’s fine to show up for any sessions that work for your Ranch schedule. Bring you iPhone, fully charged, or just enjoy the presentations. For the third session download the Snapseed App by Google.

Welcome to the world of iPhoneography
The best camera is the one that is with you! In this engaging workshop, we will explore how to maximize the photographic potential of your iPhone or any mobile device. Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned enthusiast, come to discover essential photography techniques, from mastering digital capture to selecting subjects that truly shine on the iPhone’s camera. This workshop is designed for all iPhone models and welcomes Android users as well. Bring your fully charged iPhone and be ready to participate or simply come and enjoy the presentation. Questions are encouraged throughout.

Unlock the potential of the camera in your iPhone
Elevate your images from ordinary to extraordinary by mastering its settings and uncovering its hidden features. Delve into best practices for exposure, focus, and composition, and learn how and when to utilize all built-in modes to capture stunning photographs. Join us for an informative session followed by a Q&A to enhance your iPhone photography skills.

Master the art of organizing and editing your photos
Explore the comprehensive features of the built-in Photos App with a focus on effective organization strategies. In this interactive workshop, discover essential photo editing techniques to enhance your iPhone captures effortlessly. Time permitting, we will delve into advanced editing with a live demonstration using the Snapseed App by Google, available for both iPhone (from the App Store) and Android (from the Play Store. Follow along as we demonstrate how to elevate your images and unleash your creativity digitally. Join us for hands-on learning and a Q&A session to refine your editing skills and create stunning digital pieces.

Top Ten Tips for iPhoneography
Discover how to maximize the potential of the camera that’s always at your fingertips. Learn to unleash your creativity and capture stunning images using your smartphone. We’ll explore accessories and websites to elevate your photography skills. Gain practical advice on saving, organizing, backing up, printing, and sharing your photographs effectively. Witness a live demonstration showcasing before-and-after photos to see these tips in action. Bring your questions and photos to share and edit.

Yoni Mayeri brings over three decades of professional photography experience, with a passion for pioneering iPhoneography over the past seventeen years. Her dedication to mastering this medium is evident through numerous exhibitions in prestigious galleries and museums. Beyond her artistic pursuits, Yoni shares her expertise in technology and art through courses, workshops and presentations at renowned institutions such as UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Google, and Rancho La Puerta. Her instructional career includes roles as an educator for Nikon, Minolta, and Polaroid, further underscoring her deep knowledge of photography. Yoni’s Instagram blog showcases exclusively iPhone-captured and edited photographs, offering a glimpse into her creative journey: http://instagram/yonimayeri

Here we explore foundational principles of wellness from the perspective of a Naturopathic Doctor (ND). The Ranch offers an ideal place to dive deeply into practicing the principles discussed, and participants will leave with practical, creative ideas for implementation in daily life. We begin with an introduction to Naturopathic Medicine, followed by a lecture on the therapeutic benefits of water, both during times of health and illness, and then an experiential session on mindful eating. Finally, we will discuss strategies to proactively support the mental health of our youth, knowing we all want young people in our lives to thrive.

Foundations and Applications of Naturopathic Medicine

Hydrotherapy: The Healing Power of Water

Mindful Eating: An Experiential Journey with Food

Empowering Youth Through Intentional Allyship: Practical Actions for Supporting Mental Health in the Next Generation

Dr. Amanda Watters is a licensed naturopathic physician who enjoys lecturing nationally on topics such as mental health and nutrition. She is the executive director of Neurotherapeutics, a nonprofit in Oregon that provides over 35,000 hours of therapeutic services to children with disabilities every year. She is adjunct faculty at National University of Natural Medicine where she teaches Pediatrics and Psychology, and educates community members through her online platform PediaChat. She is also the founder and CEO of EllyPop, LLC, which makes freezer pops with real fruit, herbal teas, and balanced electrolytes. @ellypop @nt4kids

Intro to Improv…The Power of Agreement
The joy of improvisational comedy lies in its spontaneous creativity and seemingly effortless collaboration. The secret to both aspects is simple:  listen and agree. In this workshop we’ll learn the power of saying “Yes, and…” and “Yes, because….” We’ll sharpen listening skills (useful in all areas of life!) and, before you know it, we’ll be improvising hilarious scenes.

Follow the Fun
Improv can take you anywhere and let you do anything. You can set an improv scene anywhere in the universe and give yourself and your scene partners any traits or powers. BUT you have to clue the audience in, so they can follow the fun. This workshop will focus on quickly conveying the “who, what, where” of a scene, so you can move on to exploring your unique world. We’ll also tackle “character work” and “object work” – i.e., working with imaginary props.

Group Games, Group Mind
There are no wallflowers in improv. Everyone can get in on the fun. Not in a scene? We’ll learn how to tag in and out and provide back line support (like sound effects). We’ll also learn group games where everyone participates in scenes. If your real life includes working with any kind of teams, you will see how improv principles apply.

We’ve Got Your Back!
We’ll review all the techniques we’ve learned and put them together in what is known as a “montage” set. And for those who want to perform Thursday night, we’ll use this workshop as show practice. (You don’t have to be in the show but, hey, what better place to try something new?)

Thursday Night Live!
Move over Kenan Thompson and Kate McKinnon. We are going to give this our best shot! Come one, come all as the RLP Improv Troupe creates a unique and original show based solely on audience suggestions. We’ll also talk about applying the principles of improv to your everyday world…because life today requires lots of improvising!

Arlene Matthews is an improv comedian and humor writer who studied with Groundlings in LA and with Upright Citizens Brigade in New York, where she completed the highly selective Academy graduate conservatory. As part of the improv team, Dad’s New Girlfriend, she performed frequently in NYC. Since moving to San Diego, she’s joined forces with Finest City Improv, where she performs regularly on two teams.

Red Road Journey is bringing native elders and wisdom keepers to Rancho La Puerta, to share stories, pray, sing, teach and inspire; to celebrate the deeply rooted traditions and practices that can help us care for the earth, bring healing to our spirits and care for each other.

Creating Harmonious Balance in Self, Home, and Community within The American First Nations with Tony Skrelunas; Sunday 4pm Olmeca Gym

A Course in Voice Activation with Ilhem Khodja; Monday 4pm Milagros Gym

Interbeing: An Interactive, Healing Sound Journey That Connects Our Senses to The Universal Sacred Element with Ilhem Khodja; Tuesday 5pm Oaktree Pavilion

An Indigenous Way to Connect and Heal through the Four Sacred Elements of the Universe: Earth, Air, Wind & Fire Elements with Antonio Romero; Tuesday 4pm Oaktree Pavilion

Mountain and Earth Healing: Talking Circle with Song and Earth Offering, with Chimalli Wash Fernandez, Antonio Romero and Ilhem Khodja ; Wednesday 7am Central Lawn at Villas

A Talk on Traditional Mexican Cosmology and Ceremony with Chimalli Wash Fernandez; Friday 2pm Olmeca Gym

Tony Skrelunas, cofounder of Red Road Journey, who also serves as head of commerce for the largest 1st Nation in America, and a friend of Rancho La Puerta, will lead a discussion on his efforts to create harmonious balance in self, home, and community within the American first nations and how the lessons learned from their past can lead to better humanity in the future.    Tony is leading economic transition for a resource extractive dependent Nation to one that focuses on the culture, time tested food systems, communal commerce, respectful trade, and keeping the knowledge of the land and climate for future humans.   

Ilhem Khodja, whose name means “inspiration” in Arabic, is inspired by our ancestral connection to sound, and exploring innovative ways of healing through voice.  Her singing has been a core of her life’s work, starting a jazz career in France at the age of 10.  Her life’s work through shamanism and meditation shapes her current art expression: curating sound healing experiences by blending jazz, world music and electronic sounds.  She currently has residencies in Berlin and Mexico City through her solo project Interbeing, a sound journey experience that she is eager to share with the guests this week at the Ranch.

Antonio Romero is co-founder of Red Road Journey, a Native-run nonprofit organization based in Arizona that focuses on Conscious Tourism: placing tourism in the hands of tribal nations, while revitalizing traditions that teach us to heal through ancient modalities.  By leaning into his Native Mexican roots, Antonio was inspired to bridge the promise of indigenous wisdom to the modern world, which has led to the co-creation of Red Road Journey.  While at the Ranch, Antonio will spend the week sharing the traditional Mexican way of healing through the four universal elements: fire, earth, air and water.  This workshop will teach you how to reconnect with Nature and heal in a way that honors our sacred connection to Earth.

Chimalli Wash Fernandez is an Aztec/Mexica elder, ceremonial leader, historian and traditional linguist from Mexico City.  Chimalli is fluent in Nahuatl, the ancient language of Mesoamerica, and has spent the last twenty years travelling the world offering workshops and talks surrounding Aztec history and culture.  He is looking forward to sharing with the Ranch a talk on Aztec cosmology and ceremonial traditions, which continue in Mexico for thousands of years, as well as lead an offering and prayer for the sacred mountain Kuchumaa.

Join us for a captivating program presentation delving into Greenpeace’s storied history of activism. From their courageous beginnings confronting nuclear testing to Greenpeace’s iconic campaigns defending whales in the 1980s and 90s, Greenpeace has remained at the forefront of environmental advocacy. Explore how Greenpeace’s legacy of action has evolved to address contemporary challenges, including their pivotal role in securing unprecedented conservation measures. Today, they spearhead the largest act of global conservation in history while steadfastly opposing the destructive forces of the fossil fuel and deep-sea mining industries. Discover how Greenpeace’s unwavering commitment to environmental protection continues to shape the world for a more sustainable future.

Born and raised in the humble embrace of San Antonio de Padua, a pueblo in the heart of Zacatecas Mexico, Carlos Prieto De-Leon’s journey reflects a lifelong ambition to activate individuals in protecting our planet. He found his calling at the intersection of environmental protection and social equity, recognizing that the two are intrinsically linked. His passion for championing the environment led him to Greenpeace USA, where he has served 10 years as a dedicated staff member, channeling his energy into connecting influential donors with the organization’s impactful initiatives. Within Greenpeace USA, Carlos plays a pivotal role in showcasing the tangible impact of environmental activism and forging meaningful relationships with key stakeholders and donors. Through his efforts, he ensures that the vital work of protecting our planet receives the support it deserves. Outside of his professional endeavors, Carlos loves hiking the majestic redwoods and finding solace listening to the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean, near his home in Santa Cruz, California.