#54 Say a Little Prayer
Kelly shares the story of what happened within an hour of praying for something, even though 'prayer' is not normally a concept she connects to. Is prayer the same thing as ‘Asking the Universe’? Is it better to not pray FOR someone? Listen in as Kelly explores the subject of prayer.
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Read the Transcript for this Episode below:
Hello, I thought I'd squeeze in a quick podcast episode before I leave on my big USA trip. I'm finally going back to Cali for the first time since 2017. I am very excited to be seeing Amy, my old high school friend, who was also my roommate in California when we were in our early twenties. She comes up quite a lot in this podcast.
And then I'm heading to Aspen, Colorado. I want to share a story today that has me thinking a lot about the power of prayer. I, until very recently, associated the concept of prayer with religion. That kind of down on your knees, palms together, bow into God kind of thing. But just like in my recent podcast episode where Amy and I explored the word God and our lowering of resistances to the word, now that we realize it really is the same thing as saying universe, source, spirit, just say Gus.
So praying feels like what I do when I'm asking the universe for some assistance. I have zero resistance to that concept and I use it often, I just don't call it praying until the other day. Here we go, episode 54. It was early Sunday morning, May 21st, just over a week ago. I woke up and pressed play on an insight timer meditation.
The meditation teacher asked me to press pause and say a prayer for something I desired. She said to take some time to talk to the divine about what it is and have a good conversation about it, even out loud, if possible, to describe what's going on and what outcome I'm praying for. She said, all you need to do is ask for support for whatever it is as a devotional prayer.
And it will be answered. So I pressed pause and for some odd reason, the first thing that came into my mind was a work thing. And I say odd because it was a Sunday and I was not really thinking about a work day ahead. I had no big work projects that were on my mind. I really could have prayed for countless other things, but for some reason, the prayer that came out had to do with my Soul Explorers membership.
that I launched last March and launched it with 111 members, um, my prayer went something like this. I really pray for all Soul Explorer members to engage in order to activate their own soul connection. They all joined because their souls were nudging them to remember that they are souls having a human experience, yet several have still not joined the online community.
Many don't open the emails and I can see who's joined the live calls, but I don't know who's watched the replays or who's exploring the members portal. I know everyone has their own way of engaging and I ought to just let go of any concerns that people are signed up to something they might not be making the most out of, but I pray that Soul Explorers is helping them all in some way and I pray for answers in anything I can be doing on my end.
And then I resumed the recording and she said, and so it is, and I smiled and said, okay, and so it is. And then I stayed in bed and I checked in on the soul explorers and my high vibe journey community groups and the app on my phone. And I replied to some comments and I just generally hung out in bed for a bit.
I knew I'd soon be getting up, get dressed and head to the gym with my husband. Then while I'm still there in bed, my phone pinged with a WhatsApp message. It was from Rachel James, my old assistant. We hadn't communicated in over three months and even longer before that. I'd reached out to her then to offer her free Soul Explorers membership.
She'd been on the free Project Me membership from the beginning in my deepest gratitude for all of her incredible support she gave me in getting that membership platform built and launched at the end of 2019. This past February, she graciously accepted my offer, but I hadn't seen her in Soul Explorers or heard from her at all since.
So, on this Sunday morning, it was 9. 15am my time in Spain, 8. 15am her time in Wales, and then She sent me this message. Kelly, good morning. You've been on my mind all week and I wanted to let you know, I just found myself exploring the beautiful Soul Explorers portal at last, feeling connected to you and the community.
I stumbled on this section in the membership portal, and she copied the headline of an article that I posted in the Soul Explorers portal, and it's called Lessons from Nature in Building Community. Now, I had parked that article there for reference as I was building the platform, and then I forgot all about it.
So, Rachel went on to write, The author of this article is Tatiana, who I work with now. I'm not sure if you know the connection, or if it's a little hat tip from the universe, but either way, it made my heart happy. Anyways, have a beautiful Sunday, Kelly. And I replied, Oh wow, you know what? I felt so inspired by that article, and I wanted to use it as a kind of blueprint for the membership.
I parked it there and basically forgot about it. So listen to this, I wrote. About an hour ago, I did a meditation and she said to pause the recording and put out a prayer to the divine, that the divine always listens and responds to our prayers. So I paused and I found myself praying for clarity and soul explorers.
I explained that I feel a bit anxious that after so much excitement around the launch, some people, especially those not very active in the group, might not be feeling very connected to it. I prayed for clarity and divine inspiration around how to engage and inspire members to live in higher levels of consciousness.
Then, I let it go, trusting that it would come through in some kind of an inspired idea, and now you're a message out of the blue. Of course, this very article was what initially inspired me, and then I forgot all about it. Man, Gus works quickly when we ask for help. I'm over the moon that you're feeling drawn back into the community, and I hope you won't hesitate to drop into conversations, create posts, etc.
My heart is bursting with happiness right now. Thank you for putting this back into my awareness. I'm 100 percent convinced the answer is within this article. P. S. I did not at all know the connection to you nor I'll admit even noticed the author of this article. Tell me more about her and what kind of work you're doing with her.
And then Rachel immediately replied, Oh, wow, this has made my heart sing. I journaling, reflecting, thinking session this morning. The first in a long time and all signs took me to the high vibe journey soul explorers and you And it was probably exactly when you were sending out your own prayer and tatiana is wonderful Her work is all around community businesses building deeper connection in communities leadership and creating sustainable community centered businesses It's worth looking around more of her blog if that's helpful.
Lots of brilliant stuff there. I work with her in her community, mostly tech and operations, but I'm learning a lot about community. So those are our messages to each other and you know, have a think about this. At the same time that I was praying, about how to engage members. I haven't seen around much at all.
Rachel, a member I hadn't seen around at all, gets a sudden urge to go into the Soul Explorers portal for the first time that morning and she discovers a piece of content that I'd parked there. About how to learn from nature about building community and points me back to it when I'd forgotten about it.
And that piece of content happens to be written by the very person that my old assistant is now assisting. So she feels called early on a Sunday morning when you probably wouldn't normally message someone you hadn't been in touch with for a while. She immediately messages me and lets me know. Was it her being inside of the Soul Explorers portal that put the energy out that caused me to pray on this particular subject?
Or was it my prayer that put the energy out for Rachel to log into the portal and explore? We aren't actually sure, as it felt like around the same time for both of us. It was one hour earlier than when she'd sent this message. Now, this alone would have been quite enough to demonstrate the power of prayer and asking for what we want.
But hang on there's more. I got out of bed And I'm about to go to the gym when I notice I have a private Facebook message. It's from Soul Explorer member Simone Bowles in Australia. It's a voice message, and she's apologizing for messaging me on a Sunday morning my time But she felt called to let me know that she's feeling called to do another charity fundraiser like we did for Project We only now for Soul Explorers.
I was like, what? Her hand painted peg dolls was an incredibly generous and enormously time consuming project resulting in members all over the world being united by these little Project Me mascot dolls that she hand painted for everybody while raising money for the children's charity Paper Boat, that fellow Project We member Deborah Weatherall works for.
And now. Well, Simone is suddenly here this Sunday morning offering to create something new for Soul Explorers. I mean, I prayed for how to engage members to connect with their souls and our collective energies. And a fresh charity project arrives that morning. And hang on, I look at the time of her message and it was 6am my time while I was still asleep.
Before the meditation, I don't have notifications set for Facebook. So I hadn't noticed that earlier. So it was Simone putting that community vibration out into the universe in the first instance. And Rachel and I both connecting with that. Just incredible. This is the magic of energy, synergy, how we are all connected.
And when we are in a quiet meditative state. Our channels are open to receive insights, inspiration, guidance, and our connections to each other are especially strong. Think about it. If you're just in your head, busy, busy, busy all the time, or you're just consuming content, you know, you're just scrolling through and reading stuff or listening to the news or, you know, any, headspace these days.
But when you are in a quiet state, Like Rachel was like I was, it's just, you're able to pick up on these incredible vibrations. I just love it. So, um, yeah, I got back to Simone. We exchanged some, some back and forth messages. I felt drawn to send her this picture of the Zen tarot card that I'd drawn on retreat.
It's a beautiful illustration of people holding hands in a circle around a world globe, and the people are all in rainbow colors with a galaxy of stars. And the card is called, We are the world. So I sent that to her and she was like, no way. So Simone had been having a really busy day when she kept getting this message through to clean out her handbag.
It was just like, niggling, nagging at her. And finally, she's like, okay. I'm going to listen to this. And she stopped what she was doing. She got the damn handbag out and she was pouring the contents out when she came upon a coin at the very bottom. And she sent me a picture of it. It's a limited edition Australia day, 50 cent piece.
With people in a circle all holding hands, just like the tarot image I'd sent her. We were like, okay, I think we've found the inspiration for the artwork for this next charity project. A way for all soul explorers to see themselves as a part of the collective, all over the world, united. And we both agreed that we'd like to raise money for the paper boat children's charity again.
Simone has a big house move coming up. So I said, listen, do not think any more on this for like a couple of months, get moved, get settled in. But we both know that the wheels have now been set into motion. And then the next day in the soul explorers circle, A wonderful appearance in the forum by Becky Lewis, a member who hasn't shown herself there yet, saying she suddenly felt drawn to the group.
And after reading posts there, she realized how much she needs the energy from this community. And later I do a post every Friday called Weekend Wonders. And it's where you reflect back over the week you've just had and you pull out some wonders that have happened or something wonderful. And Becky wrote, I have found real joy this week starting to connect with this group.
I've not yet been present here for various reasons. And loving having the space now to start connecting with you all here, such a gorgeous vibe from everyone. And just now, before I started this recording, I saw in the group that Susie Bashford in Scotland, another fab member who hasn't been around in ages, suddenly posted a picture of herself on a bike ride saying she was thinking of us and wanted to say hi.
So that prayer is bringing in this collective connecting energy. It's just like drawing people back in again. And I know from my own soul plan that I'm here in this lifetime to be a magnet that draws people to my projects for the highest good of all. I know that I'm here to be a catalyst for positive change, bringing groups together so that we can exchange information.
None of us actually holds all the truth, but we each hold pieces of the truth. And when we form conscious groups and openly share what we know, we are piecing together a beautiful puzzle. The pieces on their own don't have the same beauty as when they're all pieced together to create this incredible vision.
It's just like the individual petals that make up the beauty of a flower. When we come together, we create something far more beautiful than the individual petals. A very individualist approach to life leads to separation, and separation leads to division. And in order to feel whole, we need to see ourselves as part of the collective whole.
And that's what I want from my Soul Explorers membership, and that's what I prayed for that morning. And, um, okay, just now I decided I better go into that article, that article that Rachel flagged up for me. It's called Community Building Lessons from Nature. And the author is Tatiana. She doesn't seem to use her last name on her website, or I would tell you what it is, but the website is the business of community and Tatiana speaks of the collective intelligence of nature, the shared wisdom that emerges from the collaboration of many individuals.
It is the recognition that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Exactly. Exactly. She writes about birds. And how a decision by one bird affects the direction of the entire group. And I remember I just mentioned that in a podcast a few episodes ago about just how I'm always in wonder at birds when they just all fly like that, or fish, when one changes direction, they all change direction.
Um, and she gives these questions to think about for your community. How can you make more opportunities to share knowledge between members? What becomes possible when you take a step back from sharing your knowledge? Meaning me, the one who's um, you know, running the group, the one who's the organizer of the group, what becomes possible when, when I take a step back from sharing my knowledge?
How are you spreading out power so that each member feels empowered to, to contribute? So I'm going to be answering these questions in a journal session for sure, and of course asking my community to get involved in answering them too. But for now, I have been focusing on prayer, and combining that with what I understand about energy.
When we are praying, We are holding a clear intention for an outcome that intention carries a frequency, which is picked up and it responds as long as it's for the highest good of all involved, you can pray nonstop for a certain outcome that you want. But it may not be actually for the highest good. I held no mixed feelings on the subject when I pressed play that Sunday morning and vocalized that prayer.
I had no fear mixed in with my vibes. It was just a pure, clear call out for some divine support on this particular subject. It's easier to ask for things which don't carry any resistance. But we often resort to prayer or asking the universe for help when we are quite desperate. And when we are in the vibration of desperation or lack, you know, we don't have what we want, when we're really in that vibration of not having what we want, it's not that pure, clear channel.
I remember a few years ago, I went to a big auditorium talk in London. It was an American speaker. His name was Mas Sade, and I was interested in seeing him speak. He had three NDEs, near death experiences, and he came back to life each time, filled with more insights from the other side. And one of them, I'll never forget this.
It was, um, someone in the audience had asked him about prayer. I don't remember the exact question, but I remember his reply. I remember him saying, don't pray unless you can do it from a pure place. He said when one of his nervous aunties says, I'm going to pray for you. He's like, please don't energy is a two way street.
And when they are thinking of him with fear, as they pray, they're actually sending him their fear. He feels it. And he said, praying when you yourself are not in a good place and you cannot hold that person with only pure love in your heart. And you are fearful. It's more dangerous than helpful. I don't know if that's true or not.
I've thought about it a lot. Every since he said that I do tend to hold someone in my heart with love rather than send them prayers as I don't want to energetically send them anything unhelpful ever since I heard that I'm like, Hmm. So I'm really make sure that when I do feel like I'm in a really pure loving space and somebody else.
could really use my love, my energy. That is when I will hold them in my heart and kind of hold the vibration of a magnificent outcome for them, that kind of thing. Um, more than I'm praying for you, you know, I'm praying for you. I don't, I don't really do that. I don't do that. Um, I remember when my shamanic mentor.
Dakota Earth Cloud Walker, she said that the indigenous people don't pray for rain, they pray rain. Did you get that? They don't pray for rain, they pray rain. She explained that when you pray for something to occur, you've just acknowledged that it's not existing in that moment and you may actually be denying the very thing that you're wanting to bring forward in your prayers.
She said that when the natives pray rain. They imagine it as if it's happening now. They plant a seed for the possibility of that rain, and they feel gratitude and appreciation in their hearts as if the prayer has been answered. And I love that. Try it the next time you want to pray for someone you care about, maybe someone who's sick or who's going through a challenging time.
Don't pray for them with worry in your mind. Get into the most positive state you can and pray their name. Like, you know, say it's your dad, pray, dad, pray, dad, not pray for dad, pray dad, or, you know, pray, insert whoever's name is, is, and, and just more than anything, I don't even think you have to use the word pray, but just hold them.
With love in your heart and with a vision in your mind of them healthy or at peace Whatever it is that you're that you're praying for and also don't think you have to wait for something super significant to pray for What this little prayer story has shown me is that the more I have a conversation with the divine about what's going on Even the smaller stuff and then ask for support the quicker and easier it just shows up.
I do that a lot in my journal anyway. I guess I just hadn't been thinking of that as prayer. You know, I write about what's going on and I write about the outcome I would like. So I do it a lot in my journaling sessions, but I think this particular meditation was interesting for me to press pause like that and actually just have like a conversation, a vocal conversation with the divine, you know?
In Soul Explorers this month, several of us have been reading Ask and it is Given by Esther and Abraham Hicks. And we've been doing the various processes to ask for what we want. And it really has been magical. I am finding that Though that I am needing less processes to play with these days as my trust is there.
It used to be kind of a game. It was like, Oh, I'm going to try this process and let's see what happens. And then I'd be like super delighted. You know, when it, when it, you know, worked out and now I'm getting more like, yeah, like I just, I just know that it happens. I don't kind of need the magical element so much or like the gamified.
Um, element of it as much as I, as I think I used to, I'm realizing that this month because we're all meant to be like doing loads of these processes and I'm like, yeah, yep. I'm kind of just doing that naturally. Um, I can just ask in my journal or ask in my mind and I receive, I know that one thing I'm really going to focus on is to take the time to get specific.
When I'm vague, I don't get a clear response. I mean, it's obvious, right? It's like going to a restaurant and the waiter comes and you just go, oh, I don't really know what I want Just bring me anything and then you wait and you wait and you wait and finally they bring out something and they put it in front of you and it actually doesn't appeal to you at all and you feel bummed that you're eating a piece of fish when you Really would have preferred a burger Life is like that endless menu of choices, and when you don't choose anything You just get what you get.
You can complain about what you get, but it's really in your own power to get what you want. You just need to get specific and ask for it. So I am going to do that much more right now. Just get more specific. And I want to add one more bit to this story. I had planned to record this episode this morning, but I ran out of time because I needed to hop on a zoom and give a tarot card session to my client, Andrea in Austria.
There's a whole sequence of synchronicities that brought the two of us together. I think it was 2019. We, we bumped into each other, met each other in London, just this one time. And she lived in, she lives in Austria. We've only met that one time, but, um, we're still seeing these synchronicities just keep happening and we're seeing where they lead.
But basically she won, She's doing my current round of my high vibe journey program. And she won the tarot reading with me. I always give away one tarot session during every round of the high vibe journey program. And during her tarot reading today, the cards were all really resonating with her. They were telling this unfolding story.
She was getting really beautiful messages in answer to the question that she'd put forth. And then. I flip up the next card and the card is that we are the world card. The one I talked about with the people all around the world holding hands. And she was like, huh, I'm not really getting that card and how it relates to any of this.
And I was like, um, I'm sorry. I actually think this card is for me. I pulled this card and he beat that. And it's like, Served as inspiration for this upcoming soul explorers charity project. And I, if I had recorded my podcast this morning, as I'd planned to, I'd have completely forgotten to share that part about this drawing this card in Simone in Australia, finding the matching coin in her handbag for some reason, when I was kind of outlining my notes for this podcast episode, I just missed that part out completely, just Forgot about it.
I felt like I was forgetting something, but I couldn't think of what it was. And as soon as I drew that card in Andrea's reading this morning, I was like, ah, yes, that's it. Remember that. So, um, thank you. Thank you very much. But I do think this card is for Andrea too. It is for all of us. It's about unity and how we are all joined together in the great miracle of existence.
It's an invitation for us to surround ourselves with others who are walking this path. We are so much stronger together. So that's my story for today. I hope it gets you to think about the power of prayer, or if that word doesn't resonate with you. The power of asking, and I don't know what you think about praying for other people, but I hope this is giving you something to contemplate and feel into for yourself.
Thanks for listening to the project me podcast as always. I'm super appreciative of you sharing the podcast with others and for your reviews and Apple or Spotify podcast, be sure to follow or subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. My new website is being slowly and heartfully created and for now you can still find me at myprojectme.
com And that's where you can join my newsletter list You'll see the thing to sign up for the Project Me Life Wheel tool and once you're on my list you get regular updates including when I'm posting Dropped a new podcast episode, um, when I'm running my high vibe journey program again. And that program leads into my soul explorers membership.
That's where my retreats and my workshops all come into play. But yeah, my newsletter list is the best place to hear about all that stuff. On Instagram. I am Kelly project me and on Facebook project me, Kelly P 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.