I Forgot What Being Present Felt Like

Seven days offline, 1,875 strangers, and the reset I didn’t know I needed.

I’m writing this while I still feel it — that rare, slightly stunned “I’m actually here” feeling.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I was truly present.

My brain runs a checklist all day. Next text. Next fire. Next thing that will fall apart if I look away. That list is sneaky. It keeps you busy enough that you don’t notice you’re not really connecting with anyone — including yourself.

You can look like a person who has it together and still be living three steps ahead of your own life.

Not a retreat. A boot camp.

I just finished a 7-day Joe Dispenza “retreat.”

I’m putting “retreat” in quotes on purpose. This was 35 hours of meditation and 25 hours of lectures. Packed. Immersive. Straight-up boot camp.

No spa playlist. No polite stretching and a green juice. Just thousands of people sitting still long enough to meet the parts of themselves they usually outrun.

1,875 people came from more than 65 countries. Different languages. Different lives. Same hunger:

Wholeness.

And a real recipe to calm a nervous system that has been running the show for way too long.

The irony of my job

Here’s the wild part for me.

I haven’t been able to put my phone down for more than a few minutes since I opened my business nine years ago. I have access to 40 healers through my wellness business. I thought I was ahead. I thought I was already living a mindful life.

I wasn’t.

I was informed. I was surrounded by the right language. I knew the tools. I recommended the tools. And I was still half-listening to my own life while my brain stayed at work.

Nothing prepared me for what happens when you actually unplug. Fully. No inbox. No “just checking.” No performing presence.

Just you. Your body. Your breath. And the quiet you have been postponing.

I didn’t realize how badly I needed that reset.

What presence actually cost me

Presence isn’t a mood. It’s a practice that keeps losing to urgency.

The checklist makes you useful. It also makes you unavailable. You answer everyone except the moment you’re standing in. You build a business that helps people heal and forget to put your own nervous system on the list.

That was me.

Seven days without the constant tug of my phone didn’t make me softer. It made me clearer. The static dropped. The connection came back — to other people, and to myself.

The hype is real.

I’m officially a Dr. Joe Dispenza fan.

Not because a room of almost two thousand people can create a mood. Moods fade. This felt like a system reboot I didn’t know I had scheduled.

If your mind has been running the meeting without you, start simple. Pick up one of his books. I recommend beginning with Becoming Supernatural.

Then, if you’re willing, try being unreachable for longer than a few minutes. Not as a luxury. As maintenance.

A question, if you’re still here

Are you actually present — or just very good at looking busy?

If you’ve done this work, or you’ve been circling it, I’d love to hear from you. Dispenza fans, nervous-system rebuilders, phone-on-the-table experimenters: you’re not the only one who needed a reset you didn’t know you were starving for.

Wendy Shulman

Founder/ Owner Roslyn Salt Cave