We give people an excuse to connect about things that matter with structure and support to invite intimacy and growth through witnessing each other’s humanity
We're here to make authentic, vulnerable connection the norm.
Our mission is to make authentic relating accessible, inclusive, and mainstream.
Our team is made up of social scientists with good ears, big brains, and tender hearts.
Our emergent community looks for local visionary humans to co-create and build exceptional learning laboratories with us.
DAKOTA QUACKENBUSH
CEO & Founder, She/They
Dakota has been taking up space in the Authentic Relating world for the last 5+ years. Their background working in addiction and mental health already had them rooted in vulnerability, depth, and analyzing social dynamics when they found AR. Once discovered, they quickly began incorporating this technology into their every day living. They are actively researching Authentic Relating’s Impact on Social Emotional Skills in Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Relationships. Their focus in life is reducing stigma surrounding mental health and making authentic, vulnerable connections the norm. Dakota regularly closes their eyes to connect to their emotions and physical sensations. When they are not facilitating connection, they can be found writing poetry, or dancing any time a beat comes on.
AHRAN LEE
Director of Training and Facilitation, She/Her
Ahran Lee is the Director of Training and Facilitation for Authentic Bay Area. She’s a 1.5 Korean American multidisciplinary artist, improv actor, and event designer and facilitator based in Berkeley, California. As an active practitioner of authentic relating, cultivating interconnectedness and kinship is central to her work as an artist, facilitator, and community organizer. Ahran loves designing community spaces where she can facilitate collective creativity and vulnerable sharing to alchemize trauma into collective healing. Themes found in Ahran’s creative work range from AAPI women empowerment, raising mental health awareness, to exploring decolonization of oppressive systems. Ahran wants to be the first generation in her lineage who boldly breaks away from oppressive patterns by creating and occupying space loudly and proudly. Ahran is an energy mover. Ahran is an ancestral pattern shifter.
JASON DIGGES
Advisor, He/Him
Author of Conflict = Energy, The Transformative practice of Authentic Relating, Jason is a modern renaissance man. Equal parts artist, philosopher, teacher, and media producer, from 2003-2012 he worked for Integral Institute to create thousands of hours of educational media on the topics of transpersonal psychology, spirituality, productivity, and personal growth. Obsessed with how humans can live and relate optimally, he’s facilitated groups and taught authentic relating and circling since 2012 and he has led courses in over 20 cities around the world.
We believe in the power of social health
BOOKS WE RECOMMEND
