The Transformational Listening Playground
Transformational Listening™:
Let Life Speak to You
A new program for new times.
Deeper Presence. Inner Authority. Clear Decisions.
October 11-15, 2026 • Rising Circle Ranch at MEAWisdom • Santa Fe, NM
A Circle of 10 | Gail Larsen with special guest Estelle Bingham
Especially for Transformational Speaking alumni, teachers, leaders, facilitators, coaches, thought leaders, dreamers, map makers, and evolutionaries—those of you who hold space for others and want to bring your own big questions to a gathering of peers.
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Why This Program Now? A Message from Gail
We long for transformation, not as a buzzword or empty promise, but as a way of living where we are alive, aligned, and connected to something larger than ourselves.
Innovation comes from the mind.
Creativity comes from the soul.
Transformation comes from the Mystery.
Yet we can’t think our way to transformation. It emerges when we connect with a deeper intelligence, one that often speaks without words.
At Transformational Listening, we engage life from a different level of perception—where clarity, direction, and a new story can begin to emerge in support of ourselves and the world we want.
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Years ago, I was struck by the Rumi quote: “Speak a new language so the world may be a new world.”
I knew Rumi was pointing beyond the spoken word toward the many ways Life speaks to us beneath the noise—languages such as intuition, synchronicity, the body, imagination, dreams, deep listening, and the patterns and gifts of our ancestors.
Now, after three extraordinary gatherings exploring how Life speaks and guides us, I know that learning these languages is essential to our capacity to remain alive to life, aligned with our purpose, and connected to a much wider intelligence that wants to support us in how to live, especially now, when the old maps no longer work
Transformational Speaking calls forth our truth.
Transformational Listening calls forth what is waiting to be born.
“What was remarkable about Transformational Listening was that it was experiential. We didn’t have to ‘work’ to find insight; we simply opened ourselves to being found by it. Wisdom and connection arrive in the most unexpected ways—and often at the most unexpected times.”—Bruce Mezan
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Mapmaking in Partnership with the Mystery
In a world between stories, we need new kinds of mapmakers—people willing to listen for what is trying to emerge before there is clear evidence of what awaits.
Wherever you are in your life and work, you’re likely witnessing daily the impact of an amped-up world on your nervous system, your capacity to be present, and the people around you. Too much calls for your attention. It all feels necessary.
We are living inside a kind of cultural trauma with a constant flood of information, urgency, and noise. You know it’s not just you, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling overwhelming at times.
At the same time, many of us sense we are no longer standing at the edge of change. We are living inside it. The maps by which we’ve been taught to navigate our lives are failing us, and many of us are flailing.
As Angeles Arrien often said: “Each day there are two plans: my plan and the Mystery’s plan.”
What if transformation begins when we become willing to walk the emerging path with practical feet? Not abandoning reality, but learning to listen differently inside it.
What if life didn’t require more effort or figuring out…but more listening in?
The mind can work only with what it already knows. But perhaps the most exciting moment in your life—and on the planet—is happening in the unknown.
You sense it. You dream of what’s possible and want to participate consciously in what comes next. Mapmakers are not people with answers. They are people willing to explore new territory, whether chosen or unexpectedly arrived upon, before there is a clear roadmap.
If, like me, you sense this is what’s being asked of us now, let’s gather with others who dare to imagine what we truly want for ourselves and our world and the part we are ready to play in creating it.
This is an invitation to step into a playground of possibility, a place where your mind can rest from trying to figure things out and your soul can lead.
In a circle of just 10 “important strangers,” we’ll explore the four dimensions of listening that can reshape how we live, lead, love, create, and serve.
“Gail’s workshop genuinely changed how I listen. I’ve spent about thirty years relying almost completely on my analytical mind, and I never realized how much I was missing. She showed me that listening isn’t just a head exercise. There are other tools I can lean on in both business and life, and I’ve already started using them. I’m listening at a much deeper level now, and it’s opening doors in my relationships and in how I lead.”
—Derek Gehl, CEO, MEAWisdom
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The Four Dimensions of Listening
Over four days, we explore four dimensions that reveal a deeper compass for your life.
- Listening to Yourself
Where are you in your story? What thread has guided you all along? What patterns in your lineage support you, and which are hindering you? What is your body asking you to notice, release, reclaim, or trust? How do you recognize your “Holy No” and your “True Yes”? How do you know you know?
This is where we begin creating a clearer relationship with your own inner map.
“If you are ready to put a dimmer switch on performing, pleasing and proving and shine a light on authenticity, truth and meaning, Transformational Listening is the path that will bring you home. I am leaving with an unshakable knowing that I am here at this time to weave my unique thread into the tapestry that serves and heals all of life. I am remembering my worth and reclaiming my power.” Robin Rorex (2 decades of executive leadership at Nike, facilitator of leadership development)
- Listening to Life
When we put aside our busy minds, new forms of guidance emerge — synchronicity, intuition, timing, dreams, symbols, and the inner knowing that says “this way.”
Here, we learn to notice the ways Life is already speaking to us.
“As a high-powered CEO and mother of five, I’ve spent years moving from client meetings to the carpool line, constantly answering the needs of everyone around me while rarely stopping to listen to what I truly wanted for myself. This experience gave me the space and tools to reconnect with my own voice, to uncover the medicine, the juicy nectar, I first discovered through Transformational Speaking. You will be caught, cared for, and guided to see and hear things you may have been missing. This experience helps you to truly listen again to life, and what you begin to hear will shape what unfolds next. You’ll be part of a powerful container for continued growth and expression.” – Emily Reynolds, Founder of R Public Relations
- Listening to Each Other
There is a way of listening that awakens wisdom rather than debate.
In this kind of circle, presence is medicine and conversation becomes alchemy. You learn how to initiate Courageous Conversations where solutions are co-created rather than pre-determined.
“I am more secure in having courageous conversations without trying to control the outcome. I experienced cool growth in my relationship with my partner when I asked to be loved beyond what it is ‘supposed’ to look like, inspired by another in my group wrestling with similar questions.” Raven Diggs, Sober Coach and Companion
- Listening Together
When a group aligns, something extraordinary happens.
We begin to sense what wants to emerge among us — ideas, direction, possibilities, and stories none of us could access alone. Around the big questions that matter! And we see who we need to become to create the world we want.
This is collective intelligence.
This is where the future speaks.
“There is no hierarchy in the web of Life.
Only relationship.
When we play, we restore flow.
When we Listen, we remember how to belong.”
-From our October 2025 Collective New Story (see this and other new stories here)
“The future enters into us, to transform itself through us,
before it ever happens.”
—Rilke
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The Land that Holds Us
At MEA’s 2,600-acre Rising Circle Ranch, the world beyond words is a constant companion — the land, the wind, the sky, the animals, the silence. Here, listening naturally expands across species, across generations, and across time.
We listen not only to the land but to the beings who share it with us, and to the ancestors whose lives made ours possible.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread — places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
—John Muir
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“It’s not enough to know your story; one must listen deeply for what’s on the horizon. Transformational Listening doesn’t just change how we listen, it changes who we are when we listen. This work has fundamentally transformed how I show up as a listener, a leader, and a human being in this changing world.”
–Amy Hosford, CEO, KN Literary
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What We’ll Explore Together
This is not a curriculum.
This is a co-created field of play, exploration, and discovery.
Expect:
- Spacious embodied listening
- Soulful storytelling that sparks your own
- Partner practices for presence and clarity
- Cross-cultural wisdom practices and rituals to come home to yourself
- Shared inquiry that awakens wisdom
- Creative discovery
- Laughter, wonder, and permission not to know
- A collective listening process toward a new story for our times
All held in the high-desert beauty, expansive skies, and ancient whispers of the 2,600-acre Rising Circle Ranch • Santa Fe, New Mexico. A place made for listening, play, prayer, and possibility.
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Benefits of Coming to the Transformational Listening Playground™
What we want for you:
- A clearer relationship with your inner blueprint — the individual thread of your life and how it is trying to guide you now.
- Greater trust in your inner guidance, intuition, and the subtle cues that arise when you stop overriding what you feel and know
- A sense of orientation in uncertain times, grounded not in strategy but in listening to what is genuinely yours to do.
- A calmer, more spacious nervous system, created through practices that soften the mind’s grip and open you to the Unknown.
- An experience of being met and witnessed in a circle of like-hearted companions who value depth, curiosity, and exploration.
- Tools for listening to Life in real time—through synchronicity, body signals, resonance, and unexpected openings.
- More courage to follow what’s true, even–and especially!– when it leads beyond the familiar. There the new story awaits.
- Relief from the pressure to figure everything out, replaced by an ability to let guidance arise naturally.
- A renewed sense of direction, not as a decision but as a recognition: “Oh. This is what’s next.”
- A felt experience of the Mystery, and how it partners with the greater intelligence within you to create the life you are here to live.
“I came carrying questions I couldn’t answer alone and leaving with clarity I didn’t expect to find. This week helped me a pattern that had been running through my lineage, one I am now ready to face and to break. This experience will ripple through my lineage for generations to come.” Erica Carrico, Best-Selling Author/Purpose & Prosperity Mentor
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Who This Playground Is For
This circle is for those who value curiosity, depth, and a willingness to follow the individual thread of their lives — the greater plan that reveals itself as we listen. We play first and understand later!
- You sense a new future calling and want to listen for what’s emerging
- You want to live and lead in a more aligned, intuitive way
- You are self-aware and curious
- You crave depth, meaning, resonance, and clarity
- You are energized by playing with new possibilities — and by being surprised!
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Program Details
Dates: Begin 4 PM Sunday, October 11, 2026 • Conclude 10 AM Thursday, October 15, 2026
Location: MEAWisdom — Rising Circle Ranch, Galisteo, NM (just outside of Santa Fe)
Group Size: 10 participants
Guided by: Gail Larsen, Playmate-in-Chief & Provocateur of Sacred Possibility
Tuition:
Set by MEA and includes four nights of lodging, exceptional cuisine, and exquisite hospitality at one of the World’s Greatest Places! Modern Elder Academy: World’s Greatest Places 2024 | TIME. You will also have two follow-up group Zoom calls with Gail to reflect and integrate your discoveries and commitments.
- Private accommodations: $5400
- Shared accommodations: $3600
(50% deposit upon registration; balance due 6 weeks prior)
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Listen to Gail’s conversation with Derek Gehl, CEO of MEAWisdom, as they had a rich conversation about Transformational Listening—and how, in our pilot program last fall, we learned to tune in to the deeper intelligence that is always speaking through our lives.
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About Gail
Gail Larsen is a master teacher of transformational communication and the creator of Transformational Speaking, a body of work that has guided leaders, visionaries and change-making for decades. Fast Company describes Gail’s work as “transforming your relationship to your voice via the deepest stirrings of your soul.”
Known for her clarity, compassion, humor and grounded presence, she creates learning spaces where people feel both supported and challenged to show up honestly. She is described as “a teacher of the teachers” and goes beyond traditional speaking or coaching. She helps people access the deeper source of their voice where truth, presence, and purpose originate. Transformational Listening™ is the natural evolution of her life’s work, where she invites participants not to just speak from truth but to live from it, in alignment with the life that is waiting for them.
“Gail is simultaneously a master teacher, laser-focused listener, keeper of ancient wisdom, and comedian. She has an uncanny ability to help us put aside the noise of the world and focus on what really matters. I felt a profound sense of healing while I was there. Regardless of your profession, this is necessary life work … The ripple effects will flow into your sense of self, your relationships, your work, and the world at large.” -Kari Cardinale, VP Content, MEAWisdom
With special guest Estelle Bingham—Transformational Speaker alumna—joining us from London
Estelle Bingham, known as ‘The Heart Whisperer’, is an internationally renowned holistic therapist, healer, and metaphysical teacher. For over two decades, she has guided others through profound journeys of healing and empowerment, helping them embody their true joy and potential. Estelle is the host of leading podcast Love Purpose Connection and its namesake retreats that facilitate deep healing, transformation, and manifestation.
Estelle’s work has been featured in major media outlets globally including Vogue, Elle, The New York Times and Goop. In April 2025, Estelle released her debut book, Manifest Your True Essence: Clear Your Blocks, Find Your Joy, Live Your Truth. The book is a practical guide offering heartfelt guidance to support building a daily practice that aligns the reader with their True Essence— where joy, potential, and the power to co-create reality reside.
Estelle will join us in exploring heart coherence, listening for the wisdom of the ancestors as we approach Día de los Muertos, and creating simple practices to help us live into the new stories emerging through our time together.
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Your Next Step
Are you curious?
Do you find yourself singing or sighing in relief?
You’re listening!
Join us to listen your way back to your own knowing and the life that is waiting for you.
Email gail@realspeaking.com to let me know you’re ready to play. You can email to set a time to talk to learn more, or use the enrollment link below and tell me what is inspiring you to come!
Transformational Listening™ Oct 11-15, 2026 – Enroll Here
We will play, pray, create, and listen
as though the future depends on it.
Because it does.
“There is a voice inside you that doesn’t use words. Listen.”
—Rumi
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