Intermediate Friendship (Saturday & Sunday)
“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” - Ram Dass
Study after study, including the longest-term study on human happiness conducted over 80 years at Harvard, clearly and repeatedly show that it is the quality of our relationships that has the highest impact on our well-being and sense of purpose in our lives — yet there is a woeful lack of education in how to build high-quality relationships.
This is a weekend of playful games to help you take your friendship game to the next level. We will dive deep into the ways we make and break friendships; how to deepen existing relationships; how to repair disconnection and hurt. How to build relationships that are solid from the inside out. How to be authentically ourselves in our relationships.
We often try to be a better friend to others by sacrificing elements of ourselves. But changing yourself for connection only guarantees disconnection — as others are no longer connecting with you, only your mask.
Many of us tend to hide our “best” and “worst” parts in service of being “nice”, “appropriate”, and to avoid being a “burden” or “too much.”
This sucks.
Hiding keeps us from asking for help when we need it, from experiencing the gobsmacking miracle of being held by our community at exactly the moment we see ourselves as least deserving of love. Our friends want to be there for us just as much as we want to be there for them. And yet we deny each other this opportunity again and again.
Spoiler alert: There’s no need to do this. Acting this way never lets us find out what’s possible. Leaning into the edgier parts of our relationships does. Some of the best experiences in relationship only emerge when we bring our most withheld selves, our disowned shadows, our scariest desires, our softest cries, out to light.
This weekend is designed as a sandbox for you to experience the next layer of what’s possible.
Bring a friend if you like, but you don’t have to know anyone at this workshop beforehand; the tools you’ll acquire this weekend will make you better friends with everyone you meet for the rest of your life.
Intermediate Friendship was not designed as a one-off peak experience. It's built to enable positive change to take root well past this weekend.
Here are testimonials collected from participants on our followup call, which takes place one month after the workshop ends (included in ticket price):
“All the most important relationships in my life have become so much more easy”
“It’s amazing how much more you get out of one friendship with someone who knows you, vs ten friends who don’t”
“I saw all my relationships were exhausting. and then i started being authentic, and wow, I have so much energy now. This is a totally different way of being"
About us:
We've spent much of the last 8 years designing events for groups — and found hundreds of experiments and games that open people up to deeper connection without feeling like they're doing heavy 'workshop' work, and instead laughing with one another. Our facilitator team weaves dozens of lineages of practice including Byron Katie’s The Work, Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing, Alexander Lowen’s Bioenergetics, Integral Theory, as well as a deep appreciation of the evolution of consciousness and the sources of human suffering and joy. Our work evolved into a month-long residential experience called Sleepawake Camp, where participants immerse themselves into utterly new ways of being — some call it “How to Human”. If you have been wanting to reconnect with your own creativity and the vitality of your relationships, this will be a weekend well spent.
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Brass tacks:
We will meet from 10am-7pm both Saturday and Sunday
There will be a midday lunch break and several shorter breaks throughout the day.
Besides bringing yourself, nothing will be needed. You may want a journal or a water bottle.
No prior experience required - everything will be taught from the basics.
You will participate in everything from 1-on-1 exercises to full group games.
We welcome you coming on your own or with friends, partners, roommates, etc — folks have had great experiences at this event either way. If you'd like to bring someone, there is a 50% discount available for both of you. Send a quick email to info@sleepawake.camp with both of your names and we'll get you the discount.
Please do not let the ticket price become a block to your attending. If you need financial support for the program, please email info@sleepawake.camp and let us know and we will help make it happen.
This event is considered a weekend intensive. Many participants find that they want to limit their schedule the day after to fully integrate what arises during the weekend program. Please consider this when booking your schedule.
And yes, in case you were wondering, we have a program called Advanced Friendship. (Too spicy for a weekend.)
Facilitators for this event:
Jeff Lieberman is the Cofounder & Creative Director of Sleepawake Camp, started to help young adults find their way to a flourishing adulthood more easily than he did. He holds four degrees from MIT and is also founder of Wonder Machines. He is an explorer of the connections between consciousness, physics, psychology, and spirituality.
Jeff will be joined by one of our other lead facilitators at Sleepawake Camp.