“I made a decision in that moment that I was going to hear. I decided.”

Maria had been deaf in her left ear since she was three years old, after a case of mumps damaged her auditory nerve. Specialists told her repeatedly nothing could be done. The nerve was dead, they said – and she would never hear from that ear again.

But after attending her first few retreats with Dr Joe and witnessing others’ Stories of Transformation, Maria began to shift her belief about what was possible. “Someone was talking about curing cancer and something in my mind clicked,” she recalls. “If people are doing all these great things ... why can't I recreate my nerve?”

Once she returned home, Maria began meditating daily; visualizing her auditory nerve regenerating. Over time, she began to feel subtle sensations. Finally, at a recent retreat, she began to hear faint vibrations ... then sounds ... in her left ear.

Recorded at the Cancun Advanced Follow Up Retreat in February 2025