An Inwards Journey of Remembrance

Brains : Meet

11 September 2019

Chloe Isidora is a self-care advocate and author of Sacred Self-care: Everyday Rituals for a More Joyful and Meaningful Life. Here, she shares with us how she made a life-changing career pivot.

My journey started around eight years ago at your sister magazine, Tank, where I started as Fashion Coordinator and then two years later, I became the Fashion Editor. Although I had my dream job, inside I was deeply unhappy, so I began to seek out my own meaning and purpose. This is where my Sacred Self-Care voyage began.

It all unfolded when a chic woman called Sonia came into the TANK office. After a few conversations, a small quiet voice inside prompted me to ask if she knew of any healers – and by chance, she did. It was one of those cosmically connected moments that I will never forget! It was then that I was put into contact with a woman named Wendy, a five-element acupuncturist and Shamanic healer. During our sessions together, she encouraged me to take part in my first self-improvement retreat. It was called the Hoffman Process and it was my first insight into spirituality. I had a visceral experience of my heart cracking open and what I can only describe as a feeling of light pouring in and out of my body.

Shortly after, I took to the ancient practice of Shamanic studies and I enrolled at The Four Winds Society, a Shamanic School founded by Alberto Villodo. The process I went through was called the ‘medicine wheel’ and the first direction I took was called The South. This is all about identifying your ‘core wounds’ – these are the drivers behind everything you do. What I found shocked me. My whole life was driven by fear. Every decision I was making or not making was a fear-based one…

This first week of the medicine wheel was not easy at all, I was so closed down and armoured, unable to feel or connect. There were a lot of people in my class, some were very advanced and I didn’t have any extra sensory modality at that point, so, I would often find myself feeling riddled with jealousy and comparing myself to the other students. At the end of our week, Alberto warned the class not to be surprised if our whole lives changed when we return home.

And he was right. The day I arrived back at home in London my boyfriend of three years ended our relationship and then the next day I went to work and got fired from my Fashion Editor job. Within 24 hours, my life as I knew it was no longer. Whilst I was in deep grievance for the loss of my relationship, there was a space in my heart that lit up at the thought of a change in career; I had an opportunity to choose another path and tapped into what really inspired me.

I then went on to travel around America, Peru, Chile and Thailand where I had so many adventures. I completed my Shamanic studies, initiated into crystalline consciousness and even lived with a witch!

For me, all of the work I do now is to remember that we are sacred. Everything around us has their own living consciousness and they all need to be respected: the plants, the trees, the flowers, the rivers, the air, and even buildings. So many of us have lost our connection to nature – we have forgotten that water is sacred and that the earth is a living consciousness. However, we are now living in a time where this has to be remembered and we must learn how to live in a relationship with nature as a part of us and not treat it as a separate entity.

But how do we do this? I believe it is by loving, honouring and respecting ourselves. When we do this, it has a ripple effect out into our surrounding world. Ask yourself how can I love myself today? How can I respect myself today? How can I honour myself today? And ask those same questions in relation to the earth, water and nature. You should then follow through on the information you receive. Simple things that you can incorporate into your daily life that make a difference are: taking time to slow down, coming back to your breath, take your shoes off and walking barefoot on the grass to receive the earth's energy.

What I have learned is that only you have the power to make an inner change, only you can choose to think and act differently – no one else can do this for you. And yes, it’s very important to seek support and guidance from others who are aligned with truth, but really, healing is an inside job! It isn’t all sunshine, rainbows, love and light, which is what it’s often portrayed to be. Healing is also about going into the deep, dark, uncomfortable shadows of ourselves. We need to be honest with what is truly there and feel and acknowledge that parts of yourself are often hidden or too hard to face. When we go into these spaces of darkness and face them, we become luminous warriors and inner alchemy occurs. I use the word healing here as it's a word most people can understand, however, what I mean is that this is a journey of remembrance – we are sacred, whole and complete.

Slow down, relax and honour yourself. The book Sacred Self-care: Everyday Rituals for a More Joyful and Meaningful Life, is available now via whsmith.co.uk and Amazon.