#13 The Empty Nest: A New Chapter Begins

Kelly finally shares the big news she’s been hinting about and reveals where she’s moving to begin the next chapter of her life. She also tells the incredible story of what happened within an hour of her youngest child flying the nest. This short episode will inspire you to keep your dreams alive, let go of the 'how', and follow the breadcrumb trail.
Are you willing to believe that the best years of your life are yet to come?

*See the show notes of episode 10 for the free My Dream Vision PDF to explore your own big dreams on paper.

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Read the Transcript for this Episode below:

Episode 13 of the Project Me Podcast.  Hi, I'm Kelly Pietrangeli, the creator of myprojectme.com, and I'm on a mission to help women to step out of autopilot and into higher levels of conscious living where life is no longer happening to you, but by you and for you and through you.  I created this podcast to share stories of how I've turned the many challenges in my life into opportunities and how to keep dreaming big as you grow older.

I hope to inspire you to do the same,  to rewrite old stories with a fresh narrative and to look to the future with positive expectation and belief. Even when things are uncertain,  join the project, me movement of women from all over the world, who are following the project, me life will framework, checking in with our eight key life areas every month.

What's working. What's not, what could use some extra focus in the month ahead.  Having a monthly date with you will keep you out of autopilot.  Get the free Project Me Life Will Tool at  MyProjectMe. com.  And if you'd like to work on your Project Me alongside me and women from all over the world, come and join Project We.

Something magical happens when me becomes we. The collective energy of everyone working on their own individual lives in a group keeps motivation high all year long, not just in January.  Join this month to get the 2021 Design My Year Workbook. Find out more at my project, me. com.

Hi guys. Happy new year, 2021. I hope you're having a smooth start so far, despite what's going on in the world.  Here in the UK, we've gone into another national lockdown with schools closed and the stay at home order. I've got a major change coming up at the end of this month, which I'll share more about in this episode.

I'm keeping very Zen about it all and trusting that it'll all work out beautifully despite the pandemic.  In the meantime, I'm really throwing myself into welcoming the new project. We members and giving everyone their 2021 workbooks. We're releasing the past year and welcoming in the new with a fresh mindset and positive intentions.

This is an annual ritual I've done for 20 years in a row, and I love sharing this with others and seeing what happens in their life when they do this too.  I love helping Project WE members to identify the stories that they want to drop, the clutter they want to clear, physically and emotionally, and what they will make time for in the new year ahead.

It's less about setting specific targets and goals, especially with so much uncertainty going on. And it's more about the practical ways we can help ourselves to be who we want to be in our everyday lives, no matter what's happening in our outer world. Not letting outside influences dictate our inner peace.

Many of our members are mothers who are navigating parenting, homeschooling, and all else, while understanding the importance of carving out me time for themselves. We can't give what we haven't got, and we certainly can't be our best selves when we're running on empty. So there's a lot of support in Project We Around This and a sharing of resources and tips to make life run more smoothly in trying times.

In this new episode, I'm excited to share another story with you about the importance of dreaming big and the big change I've got coming up later this month.  Okay, here we go. Episode 13.  Back in the year 2000. My husband and I went to the Spanish island of Ibiza together for the very first time. He'd been before, but this was our first time together, and I was quite reluctant to go, having seen some documentaries showing only the trashy side of the island.

Yes, there is the notorious party side of Ibiza, and my husband does do DJing, and we both love to dance. But what we discovered about this island is that it's a natural paradise with a really special energy.  We love the stunning beaches and coves, gorgeous sunsets, orange groves and almond blossoms, discovering new hikes, plus amazing food and the special friends we've made there from all walks of life over the past 20 years in a row now we've been going there.

And there's also the spiritual aspect of the island. There is this incredible energy there that's hard to describe. We feel it as soon as we step off the plane. I now know why.  Ibiza is situated on a series of ley lines which intersect and create an energy vortex, creating more energy than any normal place would.

Glastonbury is said to be built on this kind of an energy vortex, as is the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and the ruins of the Mayan city of Tulum in Mexico. These are all also places I've traveled to and clearly I've been drawn by their energy.  The most magical place in Ibiza is Espedra. A beautiful, uninhabited rock island that juts out of the sea like something out of Close Encounters from the Third Kind.

It's said to be the third most magnetic place on Earth. And what a magnet it is, because it's what attracted us to buy our holiday home there in 2003, with a terrace with unobstructed views of Es Vedra.  Our two boys ended up growing up between London and Ibiza.  Many years ago, we did sell that holiday home to someone who wanted to pay more than double what we bought it for, just for that view of Es Vedra.

We were sorry to move out, but it seemed crazy not to accept that money, so we banked it with the intention of buying another place. But we never did. Instead, we accepted invites to stay with friends, or we rented in different parts of the island.  When the boys were still little, my husband and I dreamed up the 2020 plan.

We worked out that our youngest would finish school in the year 2020, which sounded positively futuristic back then. If he and his older brother went off to university, we calculated that in 2020, we'd be empty nesters and we'd head and go live on our beloved island of Ibiza.  In all of these years since we hatched the 2020 plan, my husband continued to work long, hard hours.

Meanwhile, I read the four hour work week by Timothy Ferris and I started my business with the dream of being able to work from anywhere and retire him. I put the 2020 dream on my vision board every year and I shared it out loud with friends. The kids knew about it and everyone was super supportive.

Fast forward all the way to 2019 is New Year's Eve. The clock struck midnight into the year 2020. My husband and I kissed and hugged each other tightly. Oh my God, it was finally the year 2020. Would our 2020 vision come true?  He admitted he wasn't quite ready to leave work, and I admitted I still wasn't earning enough to retire him yet.

We realized that in reality, we wouldn't know if we'd become empty nesters until late August if our son passed his A level exams and got into university for September.  But I put Ibiza on my vision board again and continued to keep the dream alive, trusting that if it was meant to happen in 2020, it would happen.

And I surrendered to the outcome.  Well, of course, that January of 2020, none of us had any idea that a global pandemic was about to set in.  Yet I have to say it was one of my best years yet, personally and professionally.  It's almost hard to say that out loud. As I know how hard and even devastating 2020 has been for so many people.

For me, I got to have my eldest son back home again.  I got to experience months on end of not worrying about where my teenager was. I didn't have to play bad cop and get on his back about studying for exams because they were canceled.  My husband worked from home and with no commute. He was so much more present with the family.

We all played cards in the back garden and did big weekend house cleaning blitzes, and shared the cooking. What more could a mother ask for at the end of her tenure after years of looking after them?  I'm so sorry for those with young kids and the homeschooling and my heart absolutely goes out to you. I feel so grateful for the ages of my boys during this pandemic, turning 18 and 21.

We even managed to get a summer family holiday in Ibiza in July when lockdown measures were loosened.  Being in my happy place again was a real highlight of the year.  We did look at a few houses and we even put an offering on one, but we offered way under the asking price because it needed total refurbishment and our offer was not accepted.

But one of my unexpected surprises of 2020 is that an online program I created in January before the pandemic, the high vibe journey became the smash hit of the year.  I was able to run that program five times in a row and it helps so many women from all over the world to raise their vibes during a challenging year.

It was incredibly fulfilling and rewarding for me. It raised my own vibe sky high and it earned me the income I dreamed of for so many years.  And listen to this next part.  My youngest son did get a place at university studying international business management at Manchester university.  My husband and I drove him up there in September and after dropping he and all of his boxes off, we checked into a hotel in Manchester.

We went straight to the hotel bar to toast getting two kids off into the world successfully. We did it! We were toasting each other. We were like, man, it's been a challenging 21 years of parenting, but we toasted this major achievement. It was now time to begin the next chapter of our lives.  And then, my husband's phone rang.

It was not a call we were expecting.  Remember that house in Ibiza we'd seen in July?  The owner had changed his mind and was now prepared to accept our offer.  Yes, less than one hour into becoming official empty nesters. Our 2020 vision was coming to life.  If you haven't heard episode 10 of this podcast, check that one out.

It's about how, even as a kid, I had a long term vision of leaving Minnesota and moving to California, and how talking about it and putting pictures of it above my bed helped to manifest it into reality.  Guys, don't be afraid to dream big. Don't be afraid to share your dreams out loud with others. We all need things to look forward to, to daydream and fantasize about.

Over in Project We, we openly share our dream visions, and it's so fun to see everyone's vision boards and hear about their big juicy dreams in our community forum. Helen has a dream of a VW Cali beach camper with a fold away stove. In addition to using it for fun family adventures, she also plans to use it as her secret hideout to read, write, teach, and coach from in peace.

Emma dreams of her own studio in a beautiful location and posted a picture of what it might look like.  Elizabeth dreams of creating a little sewing business, teaching kids how to sew.  Louisa dreams of becoming a successful, best selling author, her books touching the hearts and minds of millions of readers all over the world, now and for generations to come.

These are only a few examples.  We're all casting positive vibes on each other's dream visions and excited for one another.  If you have friends, relatives or a partner who throw a wet blanket on your dreams, or you're afraid to share in case they think you're silly, Come and join my tribe, where we only support and encourage you.

So, I alluded to the fact that I have a big change coming up later this month, and I am moving country, and it is indeed Spain, but the house in Ibiza needs renovation and won't be ready for some time. We have never been able to get over there and even see it again since we bought it.  So we are moving to Madrid.

I should say back to Madrid as we lived there with the boys from 2010 to 2016. And we really loved it  because of Brexit and a change in my husband's job. We are flowing back to Madrid this time, just the two of us. It's not quite Ibiza, but it's a 45 minute flight away from our dream island, so we are getting closer.

The thing about dream visions is that, once you plant the seed, you need to let go of the how and all the reasons it might not turn out, and trust. Not overthink it. Not overplan it. Get into the vibration of it by visualizing it and imagining how you'll feel, and then leave it to the universe to do the hard work for you.

You may feel impatient. You may feel frustrated. It may not come as soon as you want to.  This is what's important to know and understand. Impatience and frustration are low vibe emotions.  The key to manifesting what you want versus working really hard to try to get it It's to recognize when you're feeling impatient or frustrated or trying hard to make things happen and let go.

I don't mean let go of the dream outcome. I mean let go of the efforting. Relax. Visualize the end outcome. Get into the feelings of what it will feel like when your dream vision is your reality.  Hold positive expectation and belief.  Say to the universe, this or something even better, and trust.  Then keep alert.

Pay attention to all the little signposts that will begin to appear, like a breadcrumb trail for you to follow.  Seeming coincidences will come along. Don't write any of them off, because the more you pay attention to them and delight in them, the faster they will appear. This is how it works. A series of these will lead you there, without all of the hard work.

Take small, inspired actions as they come to you.  Nothing needs to feel like an upstream paddle. And in fact, when it does feel upstream, like hard work, frustration, that's your sign to relax, trust, and let go of control.  I didn't want to make my Ibiza Dreamhouse story too long and detailed, but there was a definite breadcrumb trail that led to this house.

And which led me to leaving Minnesota and landing my dream career in Hollywood and leading me to meet my husband. You know, you've heard those stories in the previous episodes. We all have our own stories of the amazing coincidences which have led us towards the best things that have ever happened in our lives.

I know you have some brilliant ones too.  As we get older, it's so important that we don't lose that magic amongst the busyness, the mundane, the relentlessness of life.  There are still so many more big juicy dreams to come, I promise you. The only thing you need to do is dream them up, and then get excited about them.

When I hear about people who are dreading their 40th birthday, or dreading their 50th, and feeling like their best days are behind them, and they're getting older, I think, come on, wake up. You have so much more to live for. What if the best is yet to come?  That's the way I choose to live my life.  Are you willing to choose to live this way too?

Thanks for listening to the Project Me podcast. There's no PDF of journal prompts for this episode because Dreaming Big is also the prevailing message of episode 10. And if you haven't used the PDF from episode 10 yet, grab that one from the show notes in the podcast section of myprojectme. com. And if you did fill it in, go back and revisit it.

You've got to keep those dream visions in your heart.  And if you want to surround yourself with the positive energies of other women who are creating their dream lives. Come and join my power posse this month. We're clarifying how we wish to feel and be in 2021  next month. We're creating fresh vision boards and all year long.

We're keeping each other inspired and motivated.  Go to myprojectme. com forward slash project. We all love to meet you there.  I want to give a quick shout out to whoever left the most incredible review of the project. We podcast on Apple podcast. She wrote five stars, hands down the best podcast ever. I'm hooked.

And she went on to say, she's thinking of joining project. We it's signed beach goddess, Australia. And I want to say, thank you. Please message me via Instagram, Kelly project me or email me. Hello at my project me. com.  Thanks to you and everyone who's left five star reviews for the podcast. They add to what has made 2020 such a positive year for me.

So I'm very grateful you're enjoying hearing my stories.  Next time, I'll share my Word of the Year for 2021.  I've been choosing a Word of the Year for the past nine years, and I can see year on year how this helps plant a seed of intention that goes on to make a positive difference to my life long term.

I want this for you too.  Until next time, open your heart, open your mind, and stay curious.  We all need some space in our lives for the magical and unknown.