What is it like to attend a Dr. Joe Dispenza advanced student retreat?
I've seen myself there in my meditations, learning directly from Dr. Joe many times but what I actually got was an experience which was so much more profound and life-changing than what I’d envisioned.
I attended the Dr. Joe Dispenza Cancun, Mexico retreat in January 2022. I knew I loved Dr. Joe Dispenza's work; I knew I would have loved his retreat; I saw in one of my visualisations that the key to my healing was to learn the tools from him on how to heal myself through the power of the mind. However, I never expected what was about to come next.
I was blessed with the opportunity to attend this event on a scholarship from the Give 2 Give Foundation - check them out as they do amazing work not only supporting people to attend these events, but also working in Mexican female prisons and fundraising to drive research! When I arrived in sunny Mexico a day early to ensure I could settle in, I was greeted into a paradise hotel. The excitement of what I was going to learn from Dr. Joe himself kept me up on the first night. Maybe it was the jet lag mixed with anticipation. After waking up a few times only to find it was still the middle of the night, 6 am finally came around, a reasonable time to wake up.
Still pitch black outside you could see the stars, as the sunrise would be in less than an hour. I got myself ready with my book, bathing suit and all the necessities for a morning meditation, swim and/or an adventure. I wasn’t sure what to bring. I was just excited and wanted to start my day strong with meditation.
I was looking forward to some quiet, me time to start. As I got closer to the beach I saw some people. The closer I got to the shore, the more and more people I saw. I guess I was not the only one with this brilliant idea to meditate before the training started! I noticed many of them were standing, with earphones in, arms out to the side with palms opened or on their heart and they all were in a state of bliss. They all looked like they were in a trance. I kind of wanted to ask what they were listening to? Had I already missed something for the course?
It was a quiet space and clearly not appropriate to interrupt so I just stood for a few moments whilst trying to figure out what to do. To make myself feel better, I told myself that's probably his team and volunteers during a pre course warm up meditation to juice themselves up for strong vibes to share (Eventually I found out that was exactly what was happening!). I walked to the front of the beach on the right side for some space and a non obstructed view of the sunrise.
I had planned to sit and go for my regular meditation but something told me I should stay standing up like everyone else. I put my bag down next to a palm tree, opened my feet hip width and started grounding through the soles of my feet into the sand. Boy did the warmth of the sand between my toes feel good.
I started with my eyes open staring at the glimpse of light that would soon turn into a full blown magnificent sunrise. It is always really hard for me to put into words how I feel when I meditate, but I will try as it was such a magical moment. A moment of realisation.
As I was grounding and settling into my space, I could already feel connected; switched on, not sure on what but I was on and an outpouring sense of gratitude started flooding my body till eventually it led me to tears. I had just started and all the emotions were present. Tears of joy for all the beauty in this life. After the sense of gratitude and tears of joy, a sense of serenity started. I felt like I belonged. I belonged here to this event, to this view, and to this connection. Again another pouring of tears; something more like a release this time, more letting go of those feelings of insecurity and doubt. Another sense of serenity filled me up. I just kept feeling better and better. The sun kept rising and a few rays started to peek through.
I noticed they look just like that one sun-ray I kept seeing as a child in my recurring dream. Often I would see it when I would get upset or hear my parents argue. I would hide in bed for reassurance. In the dream nothing ever really changed. One long ray of light would come down extending from the sun and inviting me on. I would always stare at it and sometimes adventure on taking a few steps on but I never really went all the way up. The sun told me it was my True Parents, my true home and that used to comfort me. At this point when I realised it was there for me all along, I burst into laughter. How could I have not seen it before? I've been dreaming this dream since I was about seven or eight years old. I had been connecting but never fully letting in. That was my first “ah-ha” moment.
I also remembered my other reoccurring dream, which was actually more of a nightmare. How did I allow it to grow stronger than my dream? Looking back I can now see the commonalities with my health issues and my recurring fears from that nightmare. How did I allow that nightmare to outshine such a beautiful dream?
No sense of guilt. When I realised this I didn't get upset with myself. Forgiveness towards myself peeked in before I even looked for it. The sun kept rising. The sun rays started to get more and more defined, shooting in all directions with a strength and beauty you can only get from the sun and that's when IT happened. When I wasn't looking for it or asking for it (ie last night in my meditation) here with my two feet in the sand, the wind was getting stronger, my heart was feeling more and more open, growing bigger and for the first time it happened. I lit up.
That's when I felt it. I felt connected to something greater than me, something that might have been the source or connected to the divine. I don’t know, all I know is a light shot up from my feet to my head tilting it back with my forehead reaching for the sky and I was in a state of euphoria. “If my health doesn't improve and I have to live this external life with some discomfort, So be it. “I am here. I'm alive and I am happy as I lie on this beach” I thought.
I was already so grateful and surprised that the Dr. Joe Dispenza’s advanced training still had not started and yet I already received so many beautiful gifts. If I was to leave that day, I would have been so grateful.
“You are greater than you think you are. You are here to have a love affair with the divine.” Dr. Joe told us on the first day. “Anything that is not loving to you must die.” Man, was I ready to kill anything that was not loving to me. His work was to install the neurological imprint in the brain so we can apply it daily, to execute the will that is greater than our old environment. I loved when he said “we do not pray. We get up and act as if our prayers are already answered.”
Some of my favourite teachings of day 1 were:
- “The heart has a magnetic field. Allow the heart to attract things to you.”
- “Never give up on yourself. Keep doing the meditations and condition your body physically into the future as you are worthy to receive”
- “Overcome your fear. Don't listen to the doctor's prognosis and overcome your doubts. Trade those fears for love.”
- “You're making love to your brain.”
- “Gratitude is the ultimate mode of receivership.”
On our first day, we started at 5:30pm. Dr. Joe Dispenza got on the stage and gave us some sort of recap of what we had to study pre training. He was just as charismatic as I expected him to be. Our first meditation went for around one hour. I loved it. In my first meditation with him, I felt my body and head pulling me up and back and a weird sense of my body being dismantled into many particles becoming one with a galaxy. I’ve had deep meditations but this reached a whole new level straight away.
On the course, Dr. Joe Dispenza went deeper into his teaching and every day we had at least three meditations. In each meditation, something new came up. It was so moving that I thought it was the most amazing meditation, that I would have never reached an experience like that, and then the next meditation would start and I thought that was an even better one. It was just such a build up of amazingness that I could not have ever expected what I felt. Our meditations varied from seated, laying, standing and walking. I had never done walking meditations before, they were beautiful. I had also never been knocked out from energy, so that was really cool! Luckly there were guardian angels like Alex, volunteers that supervised us and there to catch us before we fell. I am so grateful he was there for me whilst I was having such a beautiful experience.
In this blog, nor in the vlog videos on YouTube that accompany this blog, I do not try to teach any of Dr Joe teachings. I am simply sharing my experience in hope to inspire you. Yes, you who read all the way to this point, to dig deeper working on yourself and your meditations.
I have taken short videos 2 days after the training ended to try and share what happened each day in my meditations as I had so many people asking. My words will likely not do it justice to the experience. There is not fancy editing and sometimes in the video I can’t even read my own writing but at least I tried my best to share. I hope these can inspire you to go deeper into your meditation, to believe in yourself, to tune into your energy centres, to feel and receive and to open your heart.
Instead of writing about my meditations, I invite you to go on to the YouTube channel where I uploaded some videos of me reading my diary of each meditation. I created a mini intro for the six days of meditations and then an extra one with the coherent healing meditation. Enjoy.
