7 Days of Joe Dispenza Intensive Meditation Review
Last week I spent seven days at a Joe Dispenza intensive retreat in San Diego.
I didn’t go looking for answers.
I went because something in me felt… dimmer than it used to.
The experience was intense. Borderline brutal.
We were waking up at 4am for five-hour meditations. No easing into anything. If you were late, the doors were locked. Three thousand people deep breathing and meditating on top of each other, day after day.
I’ve never cried so much in my life - and that’s saying something, because I never cry. Ever. All of it came out through meditation.
Joe talks about the idea that we live in a 3-dimensional world, where the past and the future exist on the same plane. Most of us aren’t really present.
We’re living either in a memory - some artifacted idea of the past - or in the constant anticipation of the future.
Almost every thought we have is just an artifact of the past. Old experiences. Old fears. Old wiring running on repeat. The thought itself isn’t the issue - it only becomes a problem when we attach emotion to it.
At least the way Joe teaches it, thoughts are just energy moving through. Most of the time, you wouldn’t even notice them. You only become aware of a thought when you attach emotion - when it deregulates your body, sends signals to your brain, and throws your system into high gear.
That’s the loop most of us are stuck in.
If you go deep enough in meditation, you can step outside of that loop and reach what he calls the quantum - a state where you’re nobody, no one, nowhere. No past. No future. You don’t exist as an identity anymore. You’re just awareness. Just matter.
That’s where the reset happens.
Stuff I Didn’t Expect
During my first deep-breathing meditation, I saw people I hadn’t thought about in years - my childhood friends Jam, Darrell, and Doug… and my stepdad Len, who was my hero growing up.
They all had one thing in common.
They’re all gone. They all left this world way too early.
They’re people I miss deeply, and for one reason or another, I never really got the chance to say goodbye.
I don’t ever “see” people like this. Ever.
They were calm. Reassuring. The message was simple and consistent: Everything you’re going through… it’s going to be okay.
Then it got weirder.
When I first moved to LA, I didn’t know anyone except my friend Shaan - one of my best buds from the East Coast. He opened his apartment to me when I had nothing. To this day, he’s one of the few people I know I can count on. I love this guy.
Two months before I moved to LA, Shaan lost his sister to cancer. He was incredibly close to saving her. It wrecked him.
During one of the meditations, a woman showed up in my awareness. I didn’t know who she was. She checked in on me. Calm. Kind. I finally asked who she was.
She said she was Shaan’s sister.
I had never met her. Not once. Not in real life.
She was wearing a pink outfit and a gold necklace. That detail stuck with me.
A meditation, I called Shaan and said, “This is going to sound crazy, but can you send me the most recent picture you have of your sister?”
He sent it.
Pink outfit. Gold necklace.
I don’t have an explanation for that. I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything. I’m just telling you what happened.
There was a lot of energy in that room. Stuff I don’t fully understand - and honestly, I don’t need to.
Why I Really Went
After the Palisades fire and a few other things in my life, I’ve been dealing with a mild form of PTSD. I’ve been struggling more than I’ve let on.
I went to this retreat to get my fire back. To feel possibility again. To wake up without the weight.
My kids and my wife are my rock. They’re what I’m excited about every day. But even there - my wife has been dealing with gallbladder issues after pregnancy, and all I want to do is help heal her. That’s become my mission.
People assume that once you “make it” - money, family, success - you’ve got life figured out.
You don’t.
You’re just given a different version of yourself to work through.
And honestly, 2025 has been the hardest year of my life.
I walked into it cocky as hell, thinking I had it all figured out. Thinking nothing and no one could touch me.
I was wrong.
The Moment That Broke Me (In a Good Way)
On the final day, during one of the last meditations, something surfaced that I hadn’t really processed - the immense pain I felt from the Palisades Fire and seeing my community burn.
I saw myself walking down the street of our neighborhood. There was water everywhere - Juan had figured out a way to hose down the entire block. I was standing there with a pail of water, burnt the fuck out, crying my eyes out.
I don’t even remember that exact moment happening in real life, which is strange - but it was crystal clear there.
I started sobbing. Not for myself. For everyone who lost their home. Their sense of safety. Their life as they knew it.
It felt unfair. It felt senseless.
And then out of nowhere my stepdad appeared again - this time holding my daughter in his arms.
That image wrecked me.
I was crying like a little kid, but at the same time I felt this overwhelming peace.
Like somehow, in some way I don’t need to explain, he got to meet her. That was enough.
The Only Point I Want to Make
This newsletter is a bit of a mess. I know that.
But life is messy sometimes.
The only thing I want to leave you with - especially during this holiday season - is this: Magic can happen. And it still does.
How you feel today - if you’re struggling, anxious, depressed, or lost - is not how you have to feel tomorrow.
You can change your reality by making a single decision:
Not to accept every thought that passes through your mind as truth.
You are not broken.
You are not stuck.
And this chapter is not the whole story.
I feel better than I have in a long time. And if sharing this helps even one person feel a little less alone, it’s worth it.
Thank you for letting me be real with you, and telling the story as it is.
