The Subtle Power Way · A Foundation Program
You can watch the reaction start. You still cannot choose otherwise.
Know Thyself · The California Retreat. Three days in Nevada City, California, 16 to 18 October 2026. Twelve places.
Twelve places, four reviewer places available.
Participants are already traveling from Australia to attend.
You have practised for years. You have sat, and studied, and read the books, and possibly taught. You can watch the mind do what it does, and you can see a reaction begin before it arrives.
And it still arrives. The words still leave your mouth. Afterwards you can describe what happened in sequence and with accuracy, and none of that description changed anything while it was underway.
Your practice did exactly what it was built to do. It developed the ability to witness, and witnessing reveals what is so. Witnessing does not take command.
What no practice supplied is a second self to act from.
That gap becomes hard to ignore at a particular moment. A role ends, or a household empties, or the work that organised your days stops organising them, and you find out how much of your sense of yourself that arrangement was supplying. What is left is the configuration underneath, which was assembled a long time ago, by a child, out of conditions that no longer exist.
You can see it. Seeing it is real progress and it is not the finish. The next move is to replace the self in command.
Three days, twelve people, and your own life as the evidence.
For most of a life a person is organised by a Default Self: a configuration of sensitivities, memories, meanings, and verdicts assembled passively in childhood, running outside awareness, reproducing the same self-defeating patterns year after year to maintain its own existence. Know Thyself makes that configuration visible. You map it during the program, element by element, from your own history, so that the operating system running your life becomes something you can observe rather than merely endure.
The method is concrete. From the first hours you record your Snapbacks, the automatic counter-productive behaviours that happen without your choice. Later you read that evidence back to yourself and the pattern is unarguable, because you produced it. Real world evidence over abstract theory.
Then the process turns a corner. You uncover the Essential Self, the configuration given from your Essence rather than assembled from your past, constituted by your Life Purpose, your Values, and your Essence. Then you begin the practices that give that Self the power to run your life. The method is stated operationally and mapped, claim by claim, to research in cognitive science, memory, and psychology. It requires practice and your own verification.
Three days residential, on site each day, is the format this work was designed for. Nothing intervenes between one piece and the next.
What the Retreat Is
By the end of the three days you will have:
A complete map of the six elements that shape your Default Self: Genetic Programming, Training Data, Meaning Map, Solution Strategy, The Verdict, and the Default Setpoint, drawn from your own life, showing why your behaviour, your Default Setpoint, and your self-image are the way that they are.
Your self-defeating patterns understood and clearly named: the specific reactions that keep surfacing in your persistent problems, and a clear awareness of why you keep running them. That awareness is what begins to loosen their grip.
Relief from stress and self-judgement. As you re-evaluate the unrealistic expectations and harsh self-assessments installed long ago, the pressure you have considered normal starts to ease.
A realisation of who you are beyond the roles and functions you have performed, so that your sense of yourself is given by your essence rather than by your past.
Your Life Purpose and your Source of Joy, uncovered from your Essence, the part of you beneath all conditioning, and expressed as Purpose, Values, and an integrated life. This opens a path of continuing development whose meaning does not end when your life conditions change.
Stronger, more meaningful relationships. When you are no longer at war with yourself, the way you relate to other people changes, and connection and trust deepen through genuine inner alignment.
A disciplined practice you live. An Essential Self Map and a set of Intentional Consciousness Practices that travel home with you, so the change becomes permanently embodied and grows in your future.
What You Will Get
Dates. Friday 16 to Sunday 18 October 2026. Friday and Saturday 9 AM to 9 PM. Sunday ends at 6 PM.
Location.Moonrise on Mill Street, historic downtown Nevada City, California.
Format. Three-day residential intensive. Participants remain on site each day.
Breaks. Coffee morning and afternoon. Ninety minutes for lunch and for dinner, in the village or at the venue.
Places. Twelve.
Tuition. $2,400 USD / $3,400 AUD. Founding rate for the first cohort of this format.
Includes. Tuition covers the program and participant materials. Travel and meals are extra. On-site lodging is available for an additional fee. Payment schedule and cancellation terms are confirmed on enrollment, which begins with a short informed-consent step.
Two things you make for yourself and keep. The Default Self Map, a single coherent picture of the self your life assembled. The Essential Self Map, the Self you are discovering and choosing to embody, expressed as your Life Purpose, Values, Practices, and Projects.
You will also leave with a journal full of Insights, the record of your new thinking in the program, which participants say are the most valuable learnings they take home.
Yours To Keep
The Three Days
WHO IT IS FOR, AND HOW IT IS KEPT SAFE
Know Thyself is for accomplished adults whose self-defeating patterns persist after years of personal work. Prior programs are not required and prior work is an advantage, because you will recognise the material faster and go further with it.
It is an educational program of personal development, not psychotherapy or treatment, and it is designed for psychologically stable adults. Enrollment includes an informed-consent agreement. A qualified psychologist is on call throughout the program. The method is mapped, claim by claim, to research in cognitive science, memory, and developmental psychology, with a reference list available on request, so you can judge the fit for yourself.
What Participants Say
“Insights from one three-day weekend were like eight years of weekly therapy, and business coaching on root-cause issues, to boot.”
— MINDA AGUHOB · RESEARCH PSYCHOLOGIST & MEDITATION TEACHER
“Informative, fun, and immediately applicable. I came away with daily practices that improved my productivity and leadership.”
— NICK ARTMAN, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
Your Program Leader
Master teacher of human development and conscious leadership, with more than forty years guiding transformational programs for over 50,000 people worldwide. His clients range from middle-market companies to the Fortune 50, and include executives, artists, and entrepreneurs from traditions East and West.
Gabriel Sakakeeny, M.M.
Take the Next Step
To arrange a short conversation about whether this is the right moment for you, please contact us.
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Onsite Lodging Options
Do I need to have done The Power of Intention first? No. The retreat is a complete program and a standing entry point into the Subtle Power Way.
I have done a great deal of this kind of work already. Will this repeat it? The material sits a layer beneath behaviour, where perception, meaning, and intention are formed. Participants who arrive with years of practice tend to move fastest, because they already have the ability to observe and have been waiting for something to do with what they observe.
Is this therapy? No. It is education and personal development, designed for psychologically stable adults, with a psychologist on call throughout.
Where do I stay? On-site lodging is available for an additional fee.
How do I get there? Sacramento International (SMF) is roughly an hour by car; San Francisco (SFO) is roughly three.
Can I pay in installments? Payment schedule is confirmed on enrollment. Use the contact form and we will arrange it.
What if I am not sure it is right for me? Use the contact form to arrange a short, no-pressure conversation. If the fit is wrong, we will tell you.
QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK