Chloe Isidora is a Spiritual 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.


Writing about Sacred Self-care has been and continues to be a powerful teacher for me. When I first started writing my book, I went on an experiential process – it was as if the Universe said to me “Oh you want to write about self-care, well here you go here’s multiple opportunities to put self-care into practice”!  During my writing, I went through a massive heartbreak, so there is a whole chapter devoted to nurturing yourself when your heart is hurting – it’s called Affairs of the Heart. All of the practices and rituals in my book are very much tried and tested!



There are many ways to weave sacred self-care into our lives and one of my favourite ways is by creating an altar, which I talk about in my book. An altar is a special place where we can take time to slow down and bring our focus inwards. Mine includes everything that is important to me: family pictures to honour my ancestors, candles, crystals, flowers and sacred objects. This is a place where you can bring your dreams, wishes and prayers. It's important to look after your altar, to clean and bring your energy – imagine this as an extension of yourself. Let's say you create an altar but you never take time to sit there – your flowers might die or lack life and luster. Maybe this is a representation that you’re not actually taking time to self-care. In some ways, it’s a vision board that allows you to see how you’re caring for yourself. This is the first of many ways to embrace sacred self-care – you’re creating a sacred space that is just for you. 



There are so many simple actions that we can all get on board with doing every day to implement self-care. It’s the little things that count, like changing that ‘argh’ tired feeling first thing in the morning into a thankful moment for the day. It can be as small as saying thank you to your bed or thank you to your morning cup of tea. In a sense, you are reattuning yourself to start your day on a different foot. If you imagine a camera lens, it’s almost like we are just changing the focus... What are you choosing to focus on? 



One of my personal favourites is taking a moment to bless my food and water. We often don’t think of how our food got on our plate, a whole host of events had to happen to get it there! The farmer that grew the food and harvested it, the shop that stocked it, the money that brought it and the person that cooked it! Saying thank you and infusing your food with love and gratefulness actually elevates the vibration of the food.



Self-love, ooph, this is a big one! I know for myself it has been the most challenging and most rewarding. I was a self-confessed body bully all throughout my teens, I was so mean to my body, especially during my fashion editor days. Then I had a realisation – my body does absolutely everything for me and instead of giving it such a hard time I started to be grateful. How I do this is by bringing my attention to every part of my body and say a heartfelt thank you, acknowledging all my body does for me. This was a pivotal moment of changing how I was internally talking to myself. Another aspect of self-love is actually feeling the love you have for yourself. You’ll notice that it’s often so much easier to give your friends, family and pets love than it is to give it to ourselves. This is a visualisation practice that I share in my book that has been very supportive of feeling the love I have for myself.



Close your eyes, take some soothing deep breaths. Imagine someone you have a lot of love for standing in front of you, then send them all of your love. Imagine a beam of light streaming out your heart center into their heart center. Imagine another person or a pet and do this three to five times with different people. Feel the love that you are sending outwards to them and feel your heart giving unconditional offers of your love. Then imagine that all the love that you are sending out to them turns around in a U shape is sent back to you, directly entering back into your heart. Soften and allow yourself to feel and receive your own love. What do you notice?

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.


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