Social Wellness for the Modern World
Welcome to The Uplift Center, Eli Walker’s Belonging School & Consultancy. We empower organizational and community leaders with proven + playful strategies to build cultures of belonging and engagement through the art of live experience design.
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We Design Belonging For You
(+ Teach you how to do it for yourself)
We teach humans and those who lead them how to get along better + we create the experiences that make it happen. Through play, presence, and science-backed strategies, we help organizations and community leaders make belonging inevitable.
Live Experiences
Born from Drunk Yoga®, we work with event organizers to create world-class social wellness experiences that spark radical belonging at your live events.
Education + Consulting
Eli offers workshops, strategy sessions and live virtual trainings that teach organizational and community leaders practical tools to build cultures of belonging.
Street Cred.
From Google to Porsche, TikTok to Indeed, our clients trust The Uplift Center to transform their events and community culture with equal parts play & professionalism.
How We Build Belonging for You
The Uplift Center emerged from Eli Walker's internationally acclaimed (albeit subversive) brand Drunk Yoga® - the world's first "yoga drinking game" that proved making wellness fun creates profound connection. What started as a social experiment became a global phenomenon, teaching us that the gateway to belonging is play.
Now, we bring that same magic to diverse event environments, whether team-building for corporate off-sites in NYC (and beyond), conferences, company retreats, brand experiences, or entrepreneur communities, with the strategic intention your gathering deserves.
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Wellness for Corporate Activities
Our curated social yoga, icebreaker and meditation experiences are designed to help you foster camaraderie through playful-yet-meaningful containers.We specialize in corporate retreats, off-sites, and we have a long history of working with NY and NYC based teams in the Hudson Valley. Looking for something virtual? We offer virtual wellness activities that build belonging, as well.
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Looking for “something fun and different” for your next conference? (We’ve so got you.)
We make wellness and networking a one-stop solution, and our experiences are what attendees rave about long after your event is over.
We curate premiere yoga experiences seamlessly designed to provide all-level mindfulness breaks for relaxation after a long day of learning, as well as fun, interactive sessions for attendees to network + make new friends. Learn more about our conference wellness activities.
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You gather your people, we’ll lift their spirits (while building your brand awareness at the same time).
Luxury brands, event producers and organizations hire us to create unique, immersive pop-up experiences for their communities.
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Our social wellness programming for corporate retreats is unlike anything else out there. More than “just” a yoga teacher, Eli curates entertaining scripts that include icebreakers for community-building, intelligent yoga sequences for rejuvenation and music playlists designed to foster camaraderie through play. *Also available: Professional development talks & workshops on community engagement.
Learn Belonging as a Skill
Talks, Workshops & Trainings
Eli’s in-person + virtual talks and workshops break down social wellness techniques that make belonging [playfully] possible.
Perfect for corporate team-building, conferences and off-sites + company retreats.
Community Engagement Consulting
With studies showing that nearly 60% of people feel lonely in our increasingly digital world, learning techniques to build belonging is a must-have.
Belonging Toolkit
Self-study resources that help you understand your social wellness patterns, practice authenticity, and cultivate meaningful connection in your personal life. Includes Eli’s Social Wellness Quiz, Belonging P.L.A.Y.Book, and UplifTV digital yoga library.
Choose Your Path
Whatever your role + in whatever the room, belonging is a skill you can learn and a culture you can build.
I'm an event professional.
You design conferences, retreats, brand activations, and team-building experiences and you want people to leave changed, not just entertained. You're looking for tools, training, and a framework for designing belonging into every touchpoint of your events.
I’m a people leader or HR professional.
You're responsible for team culture, employee engagement, and the human experience inside your organization. You know that belonging drives retention, performance, and wellbeing, and you're looking for practical ways to build it.
I’m a community builder.
You run a paid community, a membership, an entrepreneur network, or a social impact initiative. Your people show up but don't connect the way you imagined. You want a repeatable system for creating real belonging in your community.
I’m a belonging-curious individual.
You're done waiting for belonging to find you. You want to understand how it works, practice the skills, and bring more genuine connection into your personal and professional life.
Bring Eli into your organization.
You want Eli to bring the belonging experience directly to your team, conference, or community through a keynote, workshop, icebreaker experience, or live Drunk Yoga®-inspired event.
THE P.L.A.Y. METHOD™
Our Framework for Belonging
Belonging doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design. And, as architects and facilitators of human experiences, it’s up to you to learn how.
(But we help make it easy with Eli’s proprietary P.L.A.Y. Method™.)
P — Place: Shape physical and figurative environments where you feel safe to engage with others.
L — Language: Choose your words wisely; the right language invites inclusion, commitment and safety.
A — Acknowledgment: Leverage play to get out of your head and into connection.
Y — You: Through mindfulness techniques, embody the presence through nervous system-regulation that makes belonging contagious.
Enroll in a virtual belonging training cohort
We offer training programs in the form of virtual cohorts for event professionals, community and people leaders who are ready to stop bringing individuals together and “hoping for the best” and start deliberately designing belonging into every experience they're responsible for.
Meet Our Founder —
Eli Walker
Eli Walker is a social wellness speaker and strategist, solo-performance artist and the creator of Drunk Yoga®, the viral global phenomenon that pioneered the social wellness movement by turning yoga into a drinking game. With a background in theater, yoga and live experience design, Eli founded The Uplift Center to continue that mission: to help people [playfully] remember how to be human together through the art of getting over themselves, engaging community and sparking radical belonging.
Why We Do This
Physical health has gyms. Mental health has therapy. But when it comes to social health? We cross our fingers in the hopes of “finding our people,” because no one taught us the social wellness strategies that make belonging a practice.
Belonging is a skill, and The Uplift Center is here to teach it.
Ready to Build Belonging?
Let’s design an experience your people will never forget. Whether you’re hosting a conference, planning an off-site, or investing in your team’s culture through workshops, a corporate retreat or wellness brand activation, The Uplift Center will help you create belonging through play.