#45 The Secret
Back in the mid 2000’s, whilst parenting two noisy young boys, Kelly had a very difficult neighbour who couldn't stand kids. In this short story, she shares how a book - The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, had quite an unexpected affect on the situation.
This episode ends with an opportunity for you to think about a person who’s been unkind to you. We can never really know what’s going on in anyone else’s head and heart.
Read the Transcript for this Episode below:
Episode 45 of the Project Me podcast.
Hi, I'm Kelly Pietrangeli, the creator of myprojectme. com. This podcast is designed to be an entertaining, light hearted, inspirational, personal growth journey. Each episode goes in a mostly chronological order as I piece together the books, modalities, people, and experiences of my life. 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.
Hi guys, I was gently pondering which story to share for this next episode. I have six ideas written down and I didn't know which order to share them in. It's always a bit like piecing together a puzzle. Some episodes require searching through old journals to pull out details and timeframes, and I'm always transported back in time and into old emotional states, and I need to feel strong and ready for some of those stories.
Peace. So, I'm sitting here at my desk and I'm pondering this list of ideas, and there was this bank letter on my desk that needed filing, and I got up and I pulled out that folder just to drop it in, and when I did that, a card fell out from some other file and onto the floor. I picked it up, It was a greeting card with a beautiful photo of bright pink flowers on the front, and when I opened it up, it took me several moments to understand who it was from.
The signature was not a name I could make out, and the written message did not initially make sense. Suddenly, a rush of memory flooded in and I realized who this was from and what this was about. So since it fell on the floor and back into my awareness, just as I was pondering which story to share next, I feel this must be the one.
Not on my list, but clearly wanting to be told. So here we go. Episode 45.
It was the summer of 2004 and our family were spending our first summer in Ibiza in our brand new home. It We had bought a gorgeous apartment and a piece of incredible land directly overlooking the mystic magical Es Vedra. Es Vedra is a magnetic mountain that juts out of the Mediterranean Sea just off the southwest coast of Ibiza.
When we first bought the apartment in 2002, the entire complex had not been constructed. We were buying off plan before the developer had even built it. We studied the photos and drawings of how the complex would look and the individual layouts of each apartment. We chose a two bedroom and one of the upper levels as we felt that would offer us the very best views.
We knew it was all gonna take a couple of years, but I was pregnant with my second baby at the time and we were okay with waiting because we were so magnetized by Es Vedra, we wanted that view and we were willing to wait for it. But, once construction was well underway, We went over to take a look at how it was all coming along, and to our horror, we realized that our apartment would not have a view at all.
The way it had been done, ours was slightly sunken down, and we'd be looking at the back of the apartments in front of us. Of course, we were outraged and demanded the developer move us into a two bedroom with a view, but they had all been sold. All he had left was the piece de resistance of the entire complex, a four bedroom huge apartment with an enormous terrace and private swimming pool.
It was way over our budget, but he refused to refund our money. We either had to stick with the lemon or stretch to the four bedroom. After a lot of agony and advice from my husband's father, We bought the four bedroom rather than buy something we'd never be able to sell again. So yes, it was now summer of 2004.
We were in the finished amazing apartment. We just had a super fun housewarming party with friends in June. And we were now there with our boys who were four and nearly two years old. My husband had to go back and forth to London for work, but the boys and I stayed for the whole summer. Well, I'm sure those listening who are parents know what holidays can be like with kids that age.
Not much of a holiday. The same amount of cooking and cleaning is back home. The kids out of their routine and not used to new bedrooms and beds or cots. But I am looking back at the
fun times too. But. There was a problem brewing. There was an Italian lady named Mercedes living above us who did not seem to like kids and was always scowling over her terrace at us when we were in our pool or the kids were playing. Now, I want to say I have a lot of respect for other people, and I have never allowed my kids to just scream and shout in public places.
And I soon realized that our huge terrace felt kind of like a public place, with neighbors above us, below us, and on either side. Something I didn't even think of when we bought the place and had one very quiet child. Now we had two, and it was constant shushing for them to play quietly. Fast forward to the next summer of 2005.
Now, I had a five and nearly three year old. If you have read my book, Project Me for Busy Mothers, know that this was the age my kids were at when I was beginning to properly lose my mind. Now they were fighting incessantly, the younger one never listening to a word I said. The older one getting into a rage if I did not constantly discipline his little brother for being naughty.
These were the days before the parent practice and learning the parenting skills that turned our family life around a short while later. The younger one just cried a lot anyway. He screamed and cried if he was too tired, or too hot, or too hungry, and often for reasons nobody could ever figure out. We did our very best to keep them quiet.
We respected Spanish siesta time in the afternoons and the boys had naps. If we weren't at home, they slept on the beach under an umbrella with the promise of ice creams if they slept, which always did the trick. But of course, sometimes they were noisy back at our apartment. They're kids. One day, my husband was carrying a screaming, crying maraco down the stairs to the car when Mercedes appeared.
She started shouting at him in Italian, telling him to keep that brat quiet, or words to that effect. Well, my husband's Italian blood came out and he shouted right back at her using a lot of choice Italian swear words, which I assume were telling her exactly where to shove it. Well, the rest of that summer, and the following summer of 2006, I was on edge a lot of the time trying to find a balance between being super respectful of the neighbors and also knowing that kids need to play and it's our house too.
We befriended the other neighbors above us. There were three smaller apartments all directly above ours. Thierry, a super fun French extreme sports film producer, who we are still such close friends with, and Victor, a Spanish deep sea diver. Both of them told us, ignore Mercedes. She's a miserable woman, always complaining about something, never happy.
We also became friends with some of the other neighbors in the complex by sometimes bringing the kids up to the communal pool. Everyone agreed, this woman was not nice, and we all began bitching about her. Well, it was the final day of our summer holiday in 2006, and I was packing our bags and packing up the house, when suddenly, Victor upstairs said, he better tell us something.
Mercedes had called a meeting, and invited all of the community in our complex to her place. The subject of the meeting? Us. Us, and our noisy kids. Only we were not invited to represent ourselves. I was horrified. I mean, crying. The kids had gotten so much better after the parenting skills classes I'd done.
I was not working for the parent practice by then. I knew we were not being bad neighbors and I knew my kids were not bad. My husband was furious and decided to crash the meeting. He went in and told her, anything you want to say about us, you say it to me. He came back from that meeting and said it was clear that it was only her who had a problem with us.
The other neighbors looked embarrassed and apologetic to even be there. Some said that even though their kids were grown now, they remember how kids are when they're small and were very supportive. Someone pointed out that she was living in a communal apartment complex and if she'd wanted total quiet, she should have bought a private house in the countryside.
That's when she revealed that she'd originally bought a private home in the countryside off plan from the same developer. But planning permission had fallen through, and the developer would only offer her this apartment instead. Well, that sure explained her bitterness and unhappiness with any noise whatsoever, but still, not our fault.
I packed and cried all the way home. We did come to our apartment at other times of the year, over New Year, Easter, other school breaks, and thankfully Mercedes was never there. We really enjoyed our times there. And then, coming up was the summer of 2007, and I was in a different state of heart and mind.
If you go back to Episode 8, I share how reading a book called The Secret by Rhonda Byrne woke me up to energy and the law of attraction. I discovered that my own thoughts were always creating my reality, and I decided Right there and then, that I would envision a happy, peaceful summer with my seven and nearly five year old.
I wrote out my dream vision of that summer, and that included there being peace with Mercedes. I imagined sending her love from my heart, and I'm not sure where I got this crazy idea, but I decided to buy another copy of The Secret, and I packed it and brought it to Ibiza. I thought, if only Mercedes could understand this, the more she holds onto negativity, the more she's just going to attract it.
On our first day there, I bravely and boldly placed the book anonymously on her front doorstep and then bolted it back to my apartment. My heart was beating a mile a minute. Would she know it was from me? Oh my god. It was the English edition. I should have tried to find the Italian version. The other neighbors were Spanish or French.
She was gonna know it was from me. Oh crap. Why did I do this? How is she gonna react? I quickly snuck back there, but the book was gone. Oh crap. Oh crap. Well, three or four days went by and nothing. No sign of her. Her car was in her drive, so I knew she was home. The boys wanted to go up to the communal pool, which meant walking right past her door.
I quickly ushered them past it, found a sun lounger, sat under an umbrella, and watched the boys splash in the shallow end of the pool. And then, I saw her. Mercedes, in her sunglasses and sun hat, heading straight in my direction. But then she stopped. At the pool, right where Max and Marco were playing, lowered her glasses and said, Ciao, ninos!
Was she being evil? Sarcastic? The boys were stunned and looking at me with panic in their eyes. Then she made her way directly over to me and sat on the end of my sun lounger. In perfect English, she said, Ciao! How are you? When did you arrive? Was this a setup? A way for her to determine if I was the one who put this book on her step?
Uh, yeah, a few days ago, I'm not sure, Friday, Saturday, I'm not sure. You know, time fades when you're on holiday. Well, I'd like to invite you and your family over for an aperitivo this evening if you're free. Uh, was this the code for there's going to be another meeting and some rules are going to be set for this summer?
I found myself saying, uh, yeah, with the boys too? Of course, she delightfully replied. When I went back down to our apartment and told my husband, he was just as stunned and confused as I was. Only, I hadn't told him about the book. Was she gonna call me out in front of him? Walking up to her apartment that evening, I was whispering to the boys, Don't touch anything.
Sit quietly. Use your indoor voices. Be good boys, please. And when we got up there, She was just genuinely lovely. She had juice for the boys, glasses of bubbly for us, little trays of snacks. Nothing was mentioned at all about the previous summer in that meeting she'd called, or about the book. She just seemed genuinely interested to get to know us better.
And very soon, the others in the community began commenting amongst each other, What's up with Mercedes? Yeah, she's like a different person, saying hello, being friendly. What's up with When the neighbors downstairs hosted a drinks party, they invited Mercedes, too. And we all stood in shocked disbelief when she instigated a game of tag with all of the kids.
She was running around, laughing, playing. Much later in the evening, I looked over, and my jaw dropped even lower. My son, Max, was lying on his back on a lounger with his head in Mercedes lap. She had her hands over both of his ears and he looked to be in some kind of state of bliss. I actually just found that photo and I can see it now.
It looks like she's doing Reiki on him. She invited us over again one more time at the end of August, but I told her I couldn't make it as it was my birthday that day. On my birthday, Mercedes left something on my step. It was a small wrapped gift and a card, the very card that just fell onto the floor today.
I'm going to read it to you.
Dear Kelly, there are particular human beings that bring into our lives very special moments, a nod, an inspiration, a word, a suggestion, a kindness. You have been very special to me in the specific moment where I had to and have to supplicate The dearest sorrow and sadness I never thought could exist.
And as we are all connected, now I understand so many whys. I wish you a marvelous birthday. For me, it is the special day of the year. This incense has reiki, so it is going to clean the energy of your house. Um bacio, Mercedes.
You just never know what's going on with anyone else, right? What's behind the behavior. To read that she had suffered the deepest sorrow and sadness that she never thought could exist? I felt that in my own heart. And we are all connected. And I realized in that moment, she had known the book was from me.
even though she'd never mentioned it. I was never sure. We really never spoke over that summer. We never had a one to one conversation or anything. So for her to say that I had, you know, brought, been a very special person in her life, it could only be about this book.
Well, As it happens, I never saw Mercedes again. As I shared in episode 13, we had an offer on our apartment that we just couldn't refuse, more than double what we'd paid for it. Someone desperately wanted that view of Es Vedra and the bigger apartment, and finally we relented and we accepted the money. So yes, very happy we didn't buy that lemon without the view, and it all happened for a reason.
It did mean moving out in a hurry over that winter and putting all of our things into storage. And I never said goodbye. Looking at this card, that beautiful picture on the front, it's a pink Borgan Via plant climbing the white wall of a house with a window to the right of it. I now live in that house.
The house we were able to eventually upgrade to, thanks to doubling our investment on the apartment. I'm going to post a picture of this card and a photo of the same pink bourgogne via plant climbing up my house on Instagram, so you can see this for yourself.
Dear listener, relax your forehead. Take a long, slow, deep breath in and let it out with a sigh. Think about a person who has been unkind to you.
It could be someone you know or used to know, it could be the waiter or a shopkeeper, whoever first comes to mind.
Bring up the emotions you felt when that person was unkind. Did you feel angry, upset? Were your emotions aimed at them, or towards yourself, or both?
Now consider this. What if none of it had anything to do with you? What if it wasn't personal? What if it's about how they were feeling about themselves or something that's going on in their lives? or their upbringing, a past or present trauma. We never really know what's going on in anyone else's head and heart.
You don't have to agree with someone else's behavior to hold compassion and empathy for them. Hold that person you thought of in your own heart right now and hold compassion for them.
And if it's you who's not been so nice to someone who doesn't deserve it, Hold your hand on your heart and offer compassion to yourself. You are forgiven.
Thank you for listening to the project me podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. I'll share visuals to go along with this episode on my Instagram. It's Kelly project me. And on Facebook, I'm Project Me, Kelly P. I know I hinted in the last episode about big changes coming in the new year with Project Me, and this week, I shared those changes, first with my Project We members, as it affects them the most.
I am delighted to say that the response has been extremely positive. I do have some logistics to work out, and then I will share with my wonderful newsletter subscribers next, many who've been with me for coming up to 10 years. Please join my newsletter list if you're not already on it at myprojectme.
com as I never know how soon I'll actually get a podcast episode recorded. I still have this list of six stories to share with you so hopefully I'll find another quiet moment to record another episode soon. 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.