#29 Kundalini Awakening and a Yoga Retreat for the Soul

After reflecting back on her on-off love affair with yoga over the past 27 years, Kelly shares what happened on her long anticipated yoga retreat in Ibiza. 

Are you aware of Kundalini as a tool to activate lightness, joy, and love? What does it mean to move out of an auto-pilot state into awakening?

As always, the episode ends with a turn-around. An opportunity for you to reflect on how Kelly’s journey relates to your own.

High Vibe Journey programme:

https://myprojectme.com/high-vibe-journey

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Read the Transcript for this Episode below:

Episode 29 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. The 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.  Hey guys. I am back from my Kundalini yoga retreat in Iha. Kundalini Yoga is such a big part of my journey into what I affectionately call the wonderful world of woo woo. And yet I skipped over Kundalini in earlier episodes because I kept waiting until after this retreat so I could finally do a whole episode about it then.

So I'm very excited to finally be talking about Kundalini, but before I dive into the story. I want to give a quick shout out from my high vibe journey program. The September round ended just before I left for Ibiza and I've been reading through the feedback forms and I'm just so humbled once again, just thrilled to read about everyone's individual journeys and the way it's changing their lives.

Deborah said, my intention for joining the high vibe journey was to find more flow, get my mojo back and a spring in my step again, after a few low vibe months.  And to develop tools that would keep me bouncing back and staying high vibe long term. And I have definitely found all of this. The lessons here are so profound that I will keep revisiting and deepening.

Yes, Debra, what you learn isn't just a temporary quick fix. Once you join, you've got that ongoing access and you can keep returning to it over and over.  Carly wrote on her forum, Sometimes these programs are so full that you just feel stressed even trying to complete them each week. I didn't feel stressed or overwhelmed by the videos or the workbook with the HiVive journey, and I am a full time working mother.

I would want others to know that it is a beautiful and supportive way to find out more about energy and vibration and how to bring more of both into your everyday life. I've experienced a lot more patience with my kids and husband. There have been some pretty heavy things going on in my life over the past few weeks, and I've been able to deal with them in a very graceful way.

The old me would have probably fallen in a heap.  Thank you, Carly. Yeah, and Carly's in Australia and managed to get up early and be at the, there's one live call during the entire time. It's optional. It's a bonus call. I do, but Carly, Carly was up early at that call. And so was Alice in Australia. So it's just so great.

Um, yeah, I very deliberately designed the high five journey to not take a lot of time each week, but to make those videos so impactful  that it's how you immediately put it into your life. That brings the positive changes.  I've run this program over and over throughout 2020 and 2021, and those women now want to keep going higher with me.

So in 2022, I am going to focus on running my next level offerings for them, including my higher program and any beta retreat.  What that means is I'm going to do one more round of the high vibe journey for anyone who wants to get in on this before I turn my attention to the next levels. Registration is now officially open and we begin the week of November 8th so that we finished in early December just in time to slide into the holiday season with a whole new energy and end this year on a vibrational high.

For all of the high vibe journey information, you can go to myprojectme. com and you can head to the courses and workshops tab. Or just do a search online for the high vibe journey. I think it's the only one there. Treat yourself to an early Christmas gift or ask for it as an early Christmas present. I personally think it's a far more deeply valuable gift than anything material, like anything you could find wrapped under the Christmas tree.

A higher vibe you is a gift for everyone who spends time with you too.  Okay. With that special announcement said, Here we go. Episode 29.

Way back in episode two, I shared the story of how discovering yoga in my late twenties changed my life. It literally changed my vibration. And I attracted my husband straight after attending a workshop at the Sivananda yoga center in London. I mean, we met at a nightclub, not at the yoga center, but it was the same day.

And now that I understand about the law of vibration, I know that my vibes were so high from the Sivananda yoga. When I met  For quite a few years, I was devoted to Sivananda Yoga. Until Tri Yoga opened up in London. It's a beautiful studio offering all types of yoga. And as the name Tri Yoga suggests, I enjoyed trying them all.

Ashtanga, Hatha, Vinyasa flow. I then trained to become a yoga teacher. But instead of training in a type of yoga I loved or even knew anything about, I chose a course with a schedule that fit in around dropping my youngest off at nursery school and being back in time to collect him only a few hours later.

The only thing I could find to fit into those hours was a teacher training in a younger yoga. And sadly, although I put a lot of time and energy into it, It wasn't for me.  A yenger is all about precision alignment. We're talking line your left eyebrow up with your right big toe and hold it there for ages.

I'm kidding, but I mean, it felt like that to me. There was no sense of flow or ever letting myself go properly. And, you know, as a mother with really young kids, I think what I needed more in my life was like flow and not this kind of like hard discipline. It didn't help that the classes were held in a freezing cold community hall and I had a teacher who was so far removed from the loving spiritual essence I'd always associated with Shivananda Yoga.

This was like a strict form of boot camp and my teacher had an ego that I just couldn't relate to or even begin to understand.  I began to feel very disillusioned, confused about what yoga was even meant to be about and whether I really wanted to be a part of it.  I became an official yoga school dropout just before my final assessment.

I think I was terrified to be alone in a room with that teacher.  That whole experience really put me off yoga for ages.  I'd do an occasional class here or there, but I never settled back into any kind of a routine.  In 2010, I moved with my family to Madrid. And I started doing yoga classes at the gym as they were included as a part of my membership.

These were great for flexibility, but I missed the spiritual aspect of yoga that had drawn me into it in the first place.  It's hard to go deep when in the fitness studio next door they're blaring out Rihanna and shouting, Vamos! Vamos! Then, my wonderful friend Denise introduced me to a yoga teacher she knew called Gabriel Phil.

Apparently, she taught a form of yoga called Kundalini, which I'd never done before, and she taught her classes in English, yeah! I went along, and it was certainly not like any yoga class I'd ever experienced. It was all kinda weird. Downward dogs and sun salutations were replaced with Sitting on the floor with arms outstretched, pumping my navel in breath of fire for several minutes on end until my arms felt like they were going to fall off.

Or, going on all fours and sticking my tongue out as I gravitated my hips.  It was all a bit bonkers, and yet, I'd feel exhilarated afterwards.  There used to be this joke. Why did the man beat his head against the wall?  Because it felt so good when he stopped.  Well, yeah, well this was something like that. So hard while I was doing it and yet such bliss afterwards.

Actually, the tough sequences were mixed with really lovely easy ones like simply dancing like nobody's watching, which they weren't. Because you do entire Kundalini classes with your eyes closed. I loved that. Nobody eyeing up anyone else's flexibility or checking out each other's leggings brand.  No two classes were ever alike.

And I crave variety, so this was right up my alley. I never knew what to expect from Week to Week.  The classes were set to exquisite, heavenly music. And at the end, we laid on the floor while Gabrielle played her gong. During her gong sound baths, I'd go all trippy. Seeing purple lights or feeling like a bright spotlight was flooding over me.

I'd crack open an eye, convinced she had some kind of special lighting effects going on, but nope,  something was waking up inside of me.  Those lights were coming from within.  I got hooked on my weekly Kundalini fix, and I wrote my friend Patty into coming along with me every Wednesday morning after the school run.

We would float out of each class, vibrationally high as kites.  It was during this period of weekly kundalini classes that I now see I was raising my vibrational frequency, even if I had no idea what that meant at the time.  When I found out I was moving back to London in 2016, I prioritized finding a school for my kids and finding a new Kundalini teacher, and not necessarily in that order.

For a while, I traveled into the center of London for evening classes with the two Katherines, Katherine Page or Katherine LeCluster. They were held in a weird small basement medical office where we had to move all the furniture back into place after each class.  Then I started traveling to Tri Yoga in Ealing, West London, for incredible classes with Ramonda Richards.

This was around the time I was waking up to energy and really understanding myself as a vibrational being.  My weekly kundalini fix was expediting my growth and expansion and I'd have what I called divine downloads during class. I could hardly keep up with the ideas that were pouring through, and I'd fill up pages and pages in my journal.

It was Christmas of 2019 that I received my dream present from my husband, that Kundalini Yoga retreat in Ibiza the following April.  A whole week away doing Kundalini Yoga every day.  The retreat was called Vibrate at Your Highest Frequency and I was literally about to launch the my brand new High Vibe Journey program, which was one of my divine downloads I'd had in a Kundalini Yoga class.

I found out that the retreat teacher, Trish Whelan, was coming to London to run an all day Kundalini workshop on January 11th, 2020, which happened to be the start date for the High Vibe journey. I just love the 1 1 1 of January 11th. I invited the women on my new High Vibe Journey program to join me for Trisha's workshop and the ones based in the UK who could make it arrived by train from all parts of the country.

Meanwhile, this Kundalini workshop was only a 15 minute walk from my house. All of these beautiful synchronicities were just so exciting for me.  I met Trish after the workshop, and I told her I'd see her again in three months at her Ibiza retreat, of course, having no idea that a global pandemic was about to sweep in only a month later.

That April retreat was rescheduled to October, and then rescheduled again to May of 2021, and I finally got to go in October 2021. I'm just back.  What an amazing week. Where do I even begin? So I have run retreats in Ibiza, but I've never been on one myself. And to be honest, I resisted going away to Ibiza because it's like home to me.

And I guess I didn't think it would feel adventurous enough, but Trisha's retreats are called soul adventures. And my soul was so ready for an adventure. The theme was a focus on a different chakra each day. And the wonderful chef Christina prepared the most incredible vegan meals to match the chakra of the day.

My body felt like a well oiled machine, just so pure and clean. There was no animal products, we had no alcohol. We had just two meals a day, plus a cleansing juice. It was just phenomenal.  In addition to two amazing kundalini yoga classes every day, Trish also hosted a daily workshop where lots of very powerful shares took place.

Tears were shed as we reached new levels of awareness.  Something magical happens when women let their guards down and open their souls to one another.  Now, I will say that a big part of the growth I experienced on retreat was a simple but profound acknowledgement that Of just how far I've come.  I was the oldest in the group of eight and I saw my younger self in each of them.

There was this absolutely lovely pair of friends, young, single professionals working really tough hours in jobs that suck them dry. But with all those fears over financial security and what they do next,  wanting to start something of their own, but not knowing what that would look like yet. I mean, that was me.

I have totally been there.  And there were the mothers of young children, leaving them behind so they could carve out this important time for themselves. I looked at them and I just wish I'd had the courage to go on a retreat while mine were young. I was always afraid to ask for the support I'd need if I was to go away.

I just thought about the school runs and I thought about homework and I thought about, you know, just everything that I did, you know, cooking for them and all that. I just thought, Oh my gosh, you know, if I went away, someone else would need to do all that, or I'd need to rope in different people. And I just never thought I could do it.

And I looked at these guys and how they were making it happen for themselves. And yeah, it was just really enlightening.  And my heart went out to all the women on the retreat who are very caught up in extended family issues, instability, deep uncertainty, all the stuff I've been through myself, until I learned to reframe all of my challenges as growth opportunities and gifts, and to learn to trust and surrender to outcomes.

But that only comes from experience and coming out the other side of challenges.  Now, I am not trying to say that I felt above anyone else or that I've got it all figured out, like no way. It was just simply a powerful awareness of how far I've come and how I can apply my own inner wisdom to any future challenges and find greater perspective on the stuff that used to tangle me up in knots.

So for a few days, I gently journaled on this awareness of my growth. And to be honest, I'd have been very content if this is the most I came away from the retreat with.  I used to suffer from breakthrough envy if others were having big breakthroughs and I wasn't, but I wasn't feeling that way at all.

Then on day five, it happened.  It was throat chakra day. And if you'd heard my previous episode about opening up my throat chakra in a transformational breathwork session and finally finding my voice, you'll know that I thought I had my major breakthrough then.  So I wasn't expecting the kundalini yoga class on the throat chakra that morning to break me wide open.

I don't even know which kriya we were doing. Or it was probably a combination of them all, along with the incredible music Trish played. She is the DJ of the Kundalini world.  But suddenly, I was having all these powerful, divine downloads.  I heard that I am here to wake people up out of a sleepwalking state.

I heard meet them halfway. And bring them to your level of awareness.  Teach them what you know now. That's all you ever can do.  And when you know more, share that out.  You have a gift for channeling through high levels of information and translating it into a language others can easily understand.  And then I got flashbacks.

My grandma, via the clairvoyant saying, you're playing small.  You're here to help others on a much deeper level.  And a flash of the man at dinner saying, you are here to do very important work. You are more powerful than you can possibly imagine right now.  And right there on my mat, I just burst into tears,  deep, profound, awesome tears of this overwhelming awareness of my power.

And then that led to complete overwhelm,  a fear of my power and a responsibility to live up to my power.  And then a voice said, Keep doing what you're doing. Keep taking your women higher and higher.  Meet them halfway and your energy will lift them to where you're at.  Do not be afraid of your power.  And when the class ended, I just stayed on my mat and let the tears roll down my face.

In our sharing circle later, I remember that the throat chakra is so much more than simply our voice.  It's linked to the Sacral Chakra, which is the center of emotions and creativity. The Throat Chakra's focus is on expressing our creative ideas clearly, gracefully, and honestly, and projecting one's authentic creativity out into the world.

As the Throat Chakra expands, we deepen our commitment to expressing the truth.  We listen more carefully to our inner voice and we cut out the external noise.  I cried in the group circle as I shared my fear over my own power  of not knowing exactly how to harness my power for the highest good.  I received a lot of beautiful confirmation from the others about the wisdom they see in me.

It was my breakthrough day  and so much more throughout the entire week. I mean, I spent most of my downtime on my own, just reading the spiritual books on Tricia's bookshelves. We've got a lot of the same books. Plus she had lots of others I've never read. I devoured as many as I could in her lovely garden, and I also devoured figs while I was reading the trees.

She had figs just straight off the trees, like, so many delicious figs. I waved the other women off as they excitedly went to explore the island. I'd just spent six weeks in Ibiza over the summer, driving here, there, and everywhere, and so, what I needed the most was time to simply be.  One day after a workshop, I got into a wonderful conversation with one of my fellow retreatees, the delightful Lucy, who reads tarot and the Akashic records.

I told her about my soul plan readings and we agreed to do a session swap.  Then, She told me about a local beach she went to on her first day. It didn't sound like anywhere I'd ever been in my  21 years of coming to Ibiza. And when she drove us there, indeed, I had never been.  We had a beautiful day, pulling oracle cards, talking about soul plans, and swimming in the clear turquoise sea.

I had to smile that I was taken somewhere new in Ibiza by someone who'd never been to Ibiza before.  To think, I resisted coming on retreat to Ibiza because I wasn't sure if it would feel adventurous enough.  So much more happened at the retreat. But as the saying goes, what happens on retreat stays on retreat,  especially when it has to do with the tantric massage by Franco.

If you've never tried Kundalini Yoga, I really recommend you search for a local teacher and try a class. Go with a huge open mind and pay attention to how your body and mind feels afterwards, you know, your vibrations.  There are also online classes. Check out Trish Whelan on her Soul Adventures website. I feel so extra lucky that I got to go to her house in Ibiza because this was one of her very last retreats there.

She's ready for a change, so she's giving up the house next month and she's going traveling and thinking of her next steps on her own journey. But she plans to do more online offerings in the meantime.  Ah, and one more thing I want to add.  If you know about the scandal that rocked the Kundalini world in 2020, and you're wondering if I was going to mention it, the truth is, it completely passed me by.

I only found out from Trish on this retreat.  Apparently, Yogi Bhajan, the founder of Kundalini Yoga in the West, was implicated in dozens of sexual assault and harassment claims. Now, at first, I thought she was referring to the Netflix series I saw, but that was about the founder of hot yoga, Bikram. Both of these guys were absolute creeps.

Trish said that kundalini yoga teachers around the world were anguished and devastated with the revelations about Yogi Bhajan.  Most have continued to teach, but have stopped using his quotes or images. So, Trish stands by the power of Kundalini, but is dropped out of referencing him. As I never followed him, I didn't even know his name, I just simply love the awakening that I've experienced from doing these kriyas, these sets of exercises.

I see Kundalini as a tool, it activates lightness and joy and love, it absolutely raises my vibrations. We all have these locks in our body where energy is stuck and we're no longer in flow with our mind body connection. We lose this kind of connection with the universe and our highest potential.

Kundalini yoga pulls the energy at the base of the spine all the way up through the centers, the chakras, and up and out through your crown chakra and outwards so that the energy can flow and connect with the universal source energy.  Everything and everyone we interact with is energy. So Kundalini Yoga can help awaken you to the power of this internal energy, which leads to an expansive spiritual awakening.

This has absolutely been the case for me.  With this podcast, I'm taking you with me on my journey from sleepwalking autopilot state into awakening.  And this doesn't mean following a guru or subscribing to a certain set of fixed beliefs. On the contrary, it's about understanding yourself as a vibrational being.

And as you raise your vibration more consistently, life's beautiful synchronicities really open up for you in the most delightful and magical ways.

Dear listener, relax your forehead.  Take a long, slow, deep breath in.  And let it out with a sigh.  When's the last time you properly slowed down,  turned off the outside world and focused on your inner world?  How connected do you feel to yourself lately? Are you going through the motions or do you feel a deep sense of inner purpose?

How aware are you of your emotions and your energy and whether you're in or out of vibrational alignment,

do you have any regular practices that ground you in the present moment and help to separate you from your overthinking mind?

What are some of the ways that you can step off the treadmill and live with more intention?

Thank you for listening to the Project Me podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. And if you're listening in Apple podcast, I'm so grateful if you'd leave a review. I also really appreciate you sharing the podcast with others.  Spaces for the season finale of my high vibe journey program in November are limited to 25.

Email me hello at myprojectme. com if you'd like me to send you the details or if you've got any questions. I've deliberately kept this at a very accessible price point and you get my support for the entire month. I'm also going to start running my own Project Me retreats again. The first ones will be for the women who've already done my High Vibe Journey and higher programs, so that's another great reason to get in on this final round of the High Vibe Journey.

For information on my soul plan or intuitive tarot sessions, again, you can email me hello at myprojectme. com.  There is also my project we membership. Listen, if you're not on the project, me mailing list, hop on there so you don't miss updates about when I drop a new podcast episode or I run a free workshop or all the stuff that I've got going on.

You can just head to  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.