#22: Six Lessons Learned Since Starting the Project Me Podcast

In the Season One finale, Kelly reflects on 6 lessons she’s learned since the podcast idea came to life during her 'home retreat’ in lockdown one year ago.

Finally heading off to begin the next chapter of her life in Spain, she also shares the exciting details of her latest ‘Dream Vision’ come to life.

As always, the episode ends with a turn-around; an opportunity for you to reflect on your own life lessons and what magnificent outcomes you’d like for yourself.

Open your mind, open your heart and stay curious. We all need some space in our lives for the magical and unknown.

Come and join Project WE , Kelly's online membership club for women with a growth mindset who want to work on their lives in a positive we-space.

Get the free Project Me Life Wheel® to help you stay out of auto-pilot living.

Read the Transcript for this Episode below:

Episode 22 of the Project Me podcast.

Hi, I'm Kelly Pietrangeli, the creator of  myprojectme. com. This podcast is designed to be an entertaining, lighthearted, inspirational, personal growth journey.  Each episode goes in a mostly chronological order as I piece together the books, modalities, people, and experiences that have fallen onto my life path exactly when I needed them.

And how often I resisted the very things I needed the most, or didn't see the gifts contained in the challenges until later.  By sharing my stories, I hope to inspire you to reflect on your life path. What are the seeming coincidences that have led you to where you are today?  What are the hidden gifts within your challenges?

And what magic is out there waiting for you as you let go of resistance and follow your own breadcrumb trail?  At the end of each short episode, there's an opportunity. For you to reflect on how my story relates to your own life. You'll also find a PDF of journal prompts in the show notes or in the podcast section at myprojectme.com.

Hi guys. Welcome back. I'm still here in London's Camden town. However, after nearly four and a half months of Airbnb surfing, we are finally able to fly off next week to begin our new life in Spain. We have signed a one year contract on a rental apartment right in the center of Madrid. I created a dream vision a few weeks ago of what I wanted this ideal apartment to be like.

In a great centrally located neighborhood so we could walk everywhere, but not on a busy road. I wanted modern, light, spacious, good kitchen, great bathrooms, at least one spare room so our now grown up boys can come and visit anytime. I wanted an office space for me because I work from home, a laundry room with a place to hang wet.

Clothes, good wardrobes, plenty of storage space. They'd need to, of course, accept pets for our two Bengal cats. And really important to me, a terrace for the cats and I to enjoy that Spanish sunshine. I knew much of this stuff was a very big ask for an apartment, but hey, this was my dream vision and I always say, if you don't ask, you don't get.

Oh, okay. My husband also wanted a parking space as sadly he'll need to become a car owner again because his office is actually outside of Madrid. That's a really big ask for it to include a parking space. But since that's all he mentioned, I added that to my dream vision too.  So we started looking online as it's the only way to view an apartment in Madrid when you're living in London during travel restrictions.

And we saw several potential places, but to me, none of them was the one. Either it didn't have a terrace, or my home office would be squeezing a desk next to a bed, and then having nowhere to work when someone comes to stay in the spare room. Or it had lush carpets throughout, and with two cats, that's not ideal.

Or the washing machine was in the kitchen, and I knew that meant hanging wet clothes all over the house. None of it, of course, included any parking, but Luca had already resolved to needing to probably find underground parking space to put the car somewhere. Okay, Luca narrowed it down to two he really liked, and they were lovely.

But on major roads and not taking enough of the boxes on my dream vision, men don't seem to care about laundry facilities or storage space.  I refuse to allow myself to feel anxious about it. I just trusted that my dream place was out there waiting. And I found it like literally the moment I clicked the link, I felt tingles.

And that was before I'd even looked at every photo and then studied the floor plan and then Google map the location. It literally ticked me off. Every. Single. Box.  It even comes with a parking space included in the rent. And the rent was less than the two Luca had it narrowed down to. It's got a fabulous modern kitchen, a separate laundry room, a walk in dressing room, a separate storage room, hardwood floors throughout, lots of natural light.

It's in a quiet residential street. Yet it's right in the heart of Madrid. And in the photos, I could see it had one proper guest room. And then there was another room set up as a baby's nursery. I zoomed in and there were some block letters above the baby's cot in the picture, and they reminded me of the ones that used to hang above my son, Max's baby cot.

And as I zoomed in more, I got this big grin on my face. The letters spelled out Max.  I knew this was the one. So I asked if the baby's room could possibly be converted into a home office with a desk and a chair, and I was sent a more recent photo and It's already been converted into an office.  Honestly, when I say that it's everything I had on my dream vision, I really mean it.

It even has a small sunny terrace on the back overlooking an incredible old building. I've looked it up. And it's the Betty Jai Fronton, which is a historic sports stadium built in 1893 that used to take something like 2, 000 spectators to watch this traditional ball game of palata. It fell into complete ruin, but it was saved in the massive restoration project that was only completed in 2019.

Our terrace faces this incredible building and the quiet surrounding courtyards. It's a Once I'm there, I'll show you pictures of it on my Instagram and Facebook.  I totally forgot to add a bathtub to my dream vision. As a guest, I just kind of took that for granted. So instead of a bathtub, I've got a strange double shower, as in it's a huge ensuite shower with big overhead shower heads, but two of them side by side in the same shower stall.

I mean, if I'm going to share a shower with my husband, I don't mind being under the same shower head. So we'll see how that plays out. But. I love bath so much, particularly in the winter, candle it with essential oils, but I'm going to deal with that next winter. We're heading into the hot summer monsoon where I'll be grateful for that double shower.

I'll probably have both of them on and be standing under both of them.  I look back over these past four and a half months since we had to move out of our house in London and put everything into storage and start living in Airbnbs without any idea of when we'd be able to move to Spain. And I think now.

What an adventure! This had the potential to be super stressful, yet it was in fact the best adventure because I always stayed focused on the positive. When my husband was going down rabbit warrens of worries, what if this happens? What if this doesn't work out? How long is this going to be? I held on to positive expectation and belief.

Things always work out. Always work out.  For as long as I can remember, I've had this little self written jingle that I sing and I clap out when I'm delighted that something has worked out. I sing, I love it when things work out. I love it when things work out. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.

When things work out.  My kids knew this little jingle growing up and they double clap with me. Sometimes, for example, like I've lost my bank card and I'm looking everywhere for it and I'm about to bring the bank to cancel it and then I find it in a pocket of a jacket I'd completely forgotten I'd worn.

I'll just say, I love it when things work out.  We need to acknowledge and delight when things work out and that puts you in the vibration of being a person for whom things just always work out. Believe you are the kind of person for which life always turns out well for.  And if you're thinking, well, Kelly, you're just the kind of person who life works out well for.

Things don't work out well for me. Then go back and listen to the very start of this podcast seriously. Crappy things have sure happened in my life, but I've kept my dreams alive. I never gave up. I always knew there was a brighter future and I moved towards that. I participated in many healing modalities.

You've heard about all these things I've done. I've cleared past energies and I've gotten unstuck. I have become a personal development junkie. I feed myself with positivity. I move towards positive people. Things will absolutely work out for everybody who is in the energetic vibration of hopefulness and positive expectation.

It has to. It's the law of vibration.  I teach about all of this in my High Vibe Journey program. It's actually been one year since I finished running the High Vibe Journey for the second time during lockdown. It was actually the end of April, 2020. And as soon as that second round of the high vibe journey ended, I treated myself to a week long retreat in our spare bedroom.

I told my husband and two sons that I was going on a retreat in the spare bedroom upstairs and to just let me be. I come down when I needed food. No one needed to worry about me. And I proceeded to have the juiciest, most delightful week of alone time you could ever imagine. Maybe it was because I'd been locked up with these three others non stop for a couple of months by them, but having the space to just be was a slice of pure heaven to me.

I took the week off work. I did guided meditations, online Kundalini yoga. I did coloring in and journaling. I filled that room with essential oils. I created this Zen like environment. I did what was meant to be a 10 day course in the insight timer meditation app. It was about shamanic breath work, but I ended up completing the whole course in just four days.

And then I immediately joined Dakota or cloud walkers. 12 month soul warrior training program. I am definitely going to do a whole separate episode about the impact this shamanic mentorship has had on my life.  It was in week one of that program that I had a divine download about finally creating this podcast.

I'd had the idea before, but I parked it as it just didn't seem to make any business sense. I mean, if I was going to make a podcast, it made much more sense to match it to the Project Me framework in my book and to my Project We membership, right? You know, go through the Project Me life wheel, cover the eight different areas each week, bringing experts in relationships, parenting, health, money, work, that all made such logical sense, right?

But my heart was not there. My heart desperately wanted to break out of the woo woo closet and share my best personal stories and talk about this kind of stuff.  Well, during week one of my shamanic mentorship, I wrote down what my main resistances were to doing this kind of a podcast and I discovered it was actually less about the fear of putting myself out there and talking about this stuff.

And it was more about a fear of actually taking on something that could tip me into overwhelm. I loved how beautifully balanced my life had become because of using all the Project Me tools and the framework. And I just wasn't interested in starting something that could potentially stress me out. So, when I dug deeper on paper, I realized the fear was all about the time I thought it would take me to learn the tech for recording a podcast and editing and uploading each episode, and then the time it would take me to do all this extra work every week.

Right there and then, I decided. If I'm creating a podcast, I will absolutely hire an editor. I'll press record. I'll send them the rough recording and they will edit it, upload it, and do any of the tech stuff, and then I could happily focus on just creating the content. That felt so much lighter. It's amazing to think that I thought initially it was about me being afraid to like talk about this stuff.

But once I put a pen to paper and explored it, I realized that wasn't what it was about. So I just took a little bit at me asking around. I asked my friend Kiki, she just started her podcast, which is called Mind Health 360 about mental health. Well, She recommended her editor, Marco, and he has been perfect.

Hi, Marco. You don't have to edit that part out. You know, I think you're brilliant.  And so I thought initially I'd just have him upload it for me too. But then once I got a Libsyn podcasting account, I found it's actually easy enough just to do myself. Okay. And listen to how I got my podcast cover arcs. I don't think I ever told you this story.

During my home retreat, I went into Facebook just once and up popped a post in my B School business group by a B School member called Daria D. Cieli.  She was offering to do illustrated entrepreneur headshots. I looked at some of her examples and I thought, this is so cool. So we hopped on a zoom right there from my home retreat space and I described to her Wanting an illustrated version of me with Angel rainbow wings.

My last name is Pietrangeli and it literally means rock angels in Italian. Pietra is rock and Angeli is angels. So you must know by now I'm obsessed with the rainbow. So it was a combination of like rainbow angel wings. I was telling her this whole thing and she was like, yeah, yeah, I get it. I asked for my hair to be an equipment.

Like I wear an Ibiza, I sent her a picture of me and she gave me a tan while she was at it. And that became my podcast cover art. It was like easy peasy. Like I could have actually taken ages for me to think about what I wanted to be my podcast  artwork. But that's what I mean. Like it all just flowed from that one journal entry in my retreat space where I just paused to identify my resistances to start in the podcast.

And once that resistance was cleared, everything just lined up and flowed naturally. By June, it was out into the world and it's been so incredibly received.  Honestly, your five star reviews and all your writing to tell me about how my stories have made you reflect and learn about your own life lessons, or I've inspired you to read one of my recommended books, Or to start meditating or explore one of the modalities I've shared.

All of that gives me the energy to keep going with this. So thank you.  I hear how some of you found this podcast midway through and then went right back to the start and binge listened to get caught up. Natalie wrote in to say that it's the line of duty of podcast. I've never seen line of duty, but I think she means it's really addictive.

I've heard from some of you who listen while on a run or walking the dog and then you go back and listen again and use the journal prompts of PDFs and I love that.  I love what Pam wrote in to tell me. She said she never thought she had time to listen to podcasts.  Then she decided to listen to one of mine while she was doing the ironying and she now looks forward to listening to all of mine whilst doing the ironing that she used to detest.

Well, I hope your ironing basket isn't overflowing in between episodes as I'm not very consistent with them. I simply haven't wanted to put any pressure on myself whatsoever to record one a week. As it really needs to feel energetically right for me to press record on such personal stories, I go back into my old journals to map out how it's all unfolded for me.

And this takes a lot of time. It's often also really emotional. And cathartic.  So, before I fly off to Spain, and so Pam's ironing basket doesn't get too out of hand, here's a little episode called Six things I've learned by starting the project, me podcast,  number one, nothing is merely a coincidence and everything truly does happen for a reason.

It sounds so cliche and in the hard, crappy, awful moments, it doesn't always help to hear everything happens for a reason, but with hindsight I can see it's always true.  If I hadn't been left by my birth father, I might've had a father figure in my life putting expectations and limitations on me. And I wouldn't have felt so limitless.

I flowed to California with no money or job and I made it happen for myself without anyone telling me it's a crazy idea and I should finish my degree or whatever fatherly advice I may have received. And then I needed to fall head over heels in love with a British guy. So I'd moved to London on a whim and he needed to treat me like dirt.

So I'd end up with the guy I was actually meant to be with over here and to appreciate him so deeply.  I also needed to have a really tough start to motherhood so I could overcome those struggles and then write a book about it that helps so many others  by going back and tracing the unfolding events of my life.

By doing this podcast, I now see absolutely every challenge has contained a gift.  We are here to learn and grow, and that comes from overcoming the challenges and apparent obstacles in our life. And we need to go back and look at that stuff in order to really appreciate it.  Number two,  the second thing I've learned is the true power of dreaming big and stepping out of that comfort zone.

As I've been sharing these stories, I'm seeing how this must all look through the lens of you guys working for Johnny Depp, making music videos in Hollywood, becoming a record cover designer, living and traveling around the world. I mean, The way I see myself, honestly, is I'm just a girl from Minnesota. My mom worked the night shift in a factory to support us.

I had no golden spoon in my mouth. I still walk by Big Ben or Buckingham Palace here in London after living here for nearly 30 years, and I honestly think, what the heck? How did I get here? What?  This is my life? Like, what? Really?  But by sharing my journey on this podcast, I'm seeing exactly how I got here.

By daring to dream big, stepping way out of my comfort zone again and again. By believing that anything is possible, by living in flow, taking chances, staying positive, using the Law of Attraction before I even knew what that was, and then applying the Law of Vibration and the Law of Least Effort and other universal laws more consciously once I understood those,  now I can see where Dreaming Big has gotten me, and I'm not ever going to stop Dreaming Big.

There's no age limit on it that I know of. I mean, I'm 55 this year and my dreams are still very much alive and I'm super excited for the continuing unfolding. The best years of life are absolutely not behind us.  Number three,  I learned that I have a way of making the woo woo make sense.  I've heard from so many listeners that they've never been into anything like alternative therapies or esoteric practices or the kind of books like I've talked about here.

And now they are, they're exploring them for themselves and they're really connecting with them. And this makes my heart sing. People want to hear and talk about things outside of their normal reality and to expand their understanding of life beyond what they can hear, see, smell, and taste and touch.

It's such exciting stuff, but I didn't feel qualified to talk about it, or I certainly didn't think my audience was interested in it. I now really see myself as a bridge between the practical aspects of life and everything beyond that. It's important to stay grounded in the now and to get our lifestyle into order.

You know, all that project me stuff that I've been talking about for years, but at the same time we need to be open to what else is out there. I love it that my podcast is opening so many hearts and minds.  Number four,  since the podcast launched and I fully stepped out of the woo woo closet so publicly and with such a positive reception.

I am finally doing one on one sessions with people online that aren't about productivity and time management and practical lifestyle stuff. Yay.  As a direct result of episode 17 about tarot cards, I've done so many Osho Zen tarot sessions, I've lost count and they've all been amazing. Amazing. It's so fulfilling to me, and that led me to become certified in soul transformation therapy.

And I've been offering several soul transformation therapy sessions per week, which is so fulfilling. I honestly have not even had the time to put this anywhere on my website. The sessions are just coming organically so far, and it just all feels so light and right. I will share about STT in a future episode once I'm settled into Spain,  100 percent this has come from doing this podcast and be learning that people really are curious and open to all of this.

It feels so good to finally be working in these realms. It's like an itch that has finally been scratched.  Number five,  a big learning for me from this podcast is.  Some of my stories are not just mine to tell.  I deleted one episode after I realized I'd hurt someone I love very much.  It wasn't my intention, yet as soon as I realized it, I was able to see it clearly from their perspective.

I'm an open book, as you might tell, and I need to remember about the other living, real life characters in my stories.  Now that I've found my voice, I'm realizing firsthand that words carry a big impact.  There's a guided meditation in the Insight Timer app called Speak Gently Into the World. And that's been a really powerful one for me to listen to.

I want to use my voice as a force of good.  Number six, speaking of the Insight Timer meditation app. My own morning meditation there has reached thousands of people. Thanks to episode 16 confessions of a meditation addict, I have finally stopped being self critical about the sound of my own voice after reading so many reviews under that meditation, complimenting me on my voice and even submitting the meditation to insight timer was a big help.

Big lesson in overcoming perfection, as I really didn't think it was good enough.  Last week, it made Insight Timer's own coveted playlist of new teachers. So even more people are discovering it now. And now I know that Insight Timer pays all teachers for the number of Plays and comments are meditations receive.

I never knew that before. I'd tick the box to have all my earnings go to charity. And I really didn't even know what I meant by that. But now I'm seeing like they give me a report at the end of each month and I'm seeing the amount of money that is going to charity for, because people are listening to my meditation and oh my gosh, I just love that energetic exchange.

I now also have started a circle in insight timer. If you go to insight timer app and you look for circles at the bottom, um, and just type in high vibe circle and come and join in. I host live group meditations there. So all of that has happened because of episode 16.  Okay. I'm sure I have learned a lot more than six things since starting this podcast, but I always aim to keep each episode short  for now.

I want to leave you with a gem that's come up in my project. We group.  We're having a hashtag Magical May, which is an invitation to read or reread The Magic by Rhonda Byrne.  I talked about that book in episode eight. It's a daily exercise you do for 28 days. And as the month goes on, more and more magic flows into your life.

It is already so fun in May to be seeing the members of Project We and everyone started on different days. Some people are only starting it now. Some people started on the 1st of May, but everyone's starting to share the magic that's unfolding for them. And it's just so amazing. So skipping ahead to day 21, it's all about how to attract magnificent outcomes into your life.

Simply bring something to mind that you may have been worrying about and then say, Oh, Thank you for the magnificent outcome.  Surrender and trust as you say it.  Thank you for the magnificent outcome.

Dear listener,  relax your forehead.  Take a nice, long, deep breath in,  and let it out with a sigh.  I invite you now to reflect on how my lessons here relate to your life.  Do you believe everything happens for a reason, even if it makes no apparent sense at the time? for listening.  Have crappy things from your past led you down a different path than they might have if things had worked out as you'd wanted them to?

Does knowing that help you to ride through the current challenges and disappointments easier?  Are you able to trust that things are always working out for your highest good?

Do you have a dream vision sitting on the back burner, waiting for the right time?  Are you willing to put a pen to paper to explore it, along with any resistances to taking action?  Remember, I nearly didn't start this podcast because I thought it would be too time consuming and technically challenging.

Explore your excuses on paper and see what comes up.

Do you believe there's more to life than what you can physically see and touch?  Are you open and willing to explore the seemingly woo woo aspects of life and higher levels of consciousness?

Do you speak gently into the world and use your voice for good?

Hold something in your mind right now that you'd really like to turn out well. The first thing that comes to mind is perfect.  Now say,  Thank you. For the magnificent outcome.

Thank you for listening to the Project Me podcast. The next time I record, it'll be from my new place in Madrid. I'm going to start calling that season two. If you've not caught up with all of season one's episodes, use this gap to listen to any whose titles might not have initially grabbed you. Some people are just like skipping by some of them and then going back because there's a gap in between and realizing it's like not about what they thought it was.

So Stay open minded and hear whatever messages they contain for you. You might just be very surprised.  I am always so grateful for your subscribes, reviews, and shares. I would not be recording these episodes if I wasn't hearing any feedback or seeing the ratings going up, so thank you very much.  If you aren't getting the Project Me newsletter, that means you haven't got the free Project Me Life Wheel tool.

I am told by a lot of people that my newsletter is the only one they actually look forward to reading as soon as it hits their inbox.  And the Project Me Lifewheel tool has changed a lot of lives. I know it's hard to remember if you're listening to a podcast while you're out walking your dog or you're out for a run, but when you're next at your computer, head to My project, me.

com and grab that life wheel tool.  If you'd like my support as you work on your life, come and join project. We it's my amazing online membership club, or email me to find out more about my tarot sessions or soul transformation therapy, or to get on the interested list for the next round of my high vibe journey program.

It's one thing to listen to these podcast stories. It's another to get involved and experience true transformation. Drop me an email, hello at myprojectme. com.  Until next time, open your mind, open your heart, and stay curious. We all need some space in our lives for the magical and unknown.