The Menstruality Podcast - 120. My Journey from Self Doubt to Cycle Aware Creativity (Chloe Isidora)

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Chloe Isidora is the creator of My Moon Power, a set of essential oils to help you connect to yourself and your inner seasons. She's also the author of 'Sacred self-care: everyday rituals for a more joyful and meaningful life' and is a graduate of our Menstruality Leadership Programme and has a deeply devoted practice of menstrual cycle awareness. We invited her to the podcast to explore her creative process over the past several years, through a cycle-aware lens. It’s a beautiful, inspiring and very relatable journey from self doubt, uncertainty and low self esteem, through a series of unexpected twists and turns to a wildly creative life.We explore:The surprising underground spiritual influences that have sustained Chloe’s connection to herself, her womb wisdom and the soul of the project.  How to practice letting go into deep self-acceptance throughout the inner seasons, as a way to prepare for the great letting go at the bleed.How Chloe is navigating the bumpy, challenging ‘birthing’ moment of this project; including holding herself through increased visibility and staying true to the visions through moments of slower momentum.---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyChloe Isidora: @chloeisidora - https://www.instagram.com/chloeisidora

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey there, welcome back to the podcast. In this conversation today I got to do one of my favourite things which is explore how menstrual cycle awareness helped my guest to know and understand and live and embody her calling in life. I'm chatting with Chloe Isidora,

the creator of My Moon Power, which is a set of essential oils to help you connect to yourself, to your cycle, to your inner seasons. She's also the author of Sacred Self-Care, Everyday Rituals for a More Joyful and Meaningful Life. And she's a graduate of our menstruality leadership program. She's got a really deeply devoted practice of menstrual cycle awareness. And we invited her to the podcast to explore her creative process over the past several years through a cycle aware lens. It's beautiful. It's inspiring. It's a very relatable journey from self-doubt, uncertainty and low self-esteem through a series of unexpected twists and turns to a wildly creative life. And Chloe and I were actually on the menstruality leadership program together so it was a real

joy to sit down with her. So let's get started with my journey from self-doubt to cycle-aware creativity with Chloe Isidora. Oh Chloe, sitting here with you, I'm so excited to talk with you because you were just saying before we started recording that the last time we saw each other we were sitting on a bench outside Hawkwood having just completed the menstruality leadership program in 2018 and you were holding this dream that has become my moon power which we'll explore today and I'm so excited yeah it's wonderful to be with you thank you so much for joining us oh my goodness thank you so much for having me it's like an absolute dream come true. Let's let's cycle check in first yeah where where are you at how are you feeling?

Yes I'm on day 23 and I'm actually feeling really sprightly today I had my menstrual like earlier a few days ago I just felt so crazy ragey and so I like got in the car and like raged out all of the things that I really was annoyed about and just like screamed them at the top of my voice and they like made a lot of space and then today I just feel quite in flow with things and yeah it feels like there's a really nice feeling of aliveness that's the word that I would say I love that I'm on day four and I wonder if that full moon took us both for a ride then because we've just had a felt I'm not I don't feel massively connected to the moon I'm really much more in tune with my cycle but I think because I bled and the full moon at the same time I got taken into just a very deep dark kind of cave I actually got a migraine it's like it

was like my body was saying no dark and in dark and in and I really had to go in grief jealousy bitterness like it was a lot of difficult emotion oh oh interesting oh my god I was so jealous like that was my main one and I had to give myself a real talking to same there's something so shameful about jealousy I think it's hard to own isn't it I mean I find it quite hard to own totally yeah that was like the main emotion that was coming up I have a kind of relationship with myself where where I talk to myself and I find the humor and what I'm going through so even though it was like this really icky, awful, like jealousy, I was like, talking all out in the car to myself. And then I was like, okay, my love, like, you done with that? Do you feel like you need to feel a

bit more? And I'm like, I need to feel some more. And then I end up laughing because I'm like, okay, now enough. I love it. I think that's one of the things I most appreciate about Alexandra and Shani's teachings around the critic is if you can bring even a tiny splash of humor it dissipates the charge totally yeah oh well I really appreciate feeling us together in our opposite ends of the cycle being with our jealousy I mean one of the reasons why I'm excited to talk to you Chloe is because you're so alive in your cycle awareness practice and yeah I feel like we could really yeah we can we can go to some depths but the place I'd really like to go first is for you to share about your calling you know the the pulse in you that brought this dream about

and that has kept you going through the the manifesting of this dream and just I'd love to hear how you would give voice to your calling like how you would describe it now. Well I'll start a little bit further back than the oil so I used to work in the fashion industry and I was you know this is a very kind of like classic story of you know doing a job that looks great on paper but really just feeling like the most awful inside and I really had so low self-worth self-esteem and literally felt like a black cloud was like following me around all the time and I really just I was really struggling and part of it was because I felt like that I wasn't doing what I was meant to be doing but I didn't know what I was meant to be doing I was just like just really

feeling unhappy and kind of feeling like that surely there must be more to life than this you know that type of a feeling and um and then I was seeing a shamanic practitioner at the time she encouraged me to start um doing shamanic studies and um and that's kind of how like the door opened for me because I thought that literally you had to be born with like magical powers and were like had to be magically gifted and and she was like oh no you you can get initiated and you can learn this and I was like oh my god and so I went to my first um I was doing the medicine wheel that at the light body school at the four winds and the first um turn of the wheel was was the south and the south was all about connecting to your core wounds and your your the things that are ruling you but you don't know and so I'm there

in like this group of you know probably over 60 people and there were some really advanced people in the class and they were all well not all but a lot of people were were like oh my god did you hear that did you see that did you see that energy did you feel that and I was so closed down I was so armored I couldn't feel anything. I was just so emotional. And so that was even harder for me because I was like, I'm so like not good enough. And basically, you know, I realized that my whole life was being ruled by fear. Like every single decision I was making was from fear.

And this feeling of not good enough was like my main life's driver and so it was shocking it was genuinely shocking to to unearth all of this stuff and I was like oh my god no I'm thinking wait I just thought I was going to feel better about myself but no you're going to go down and in further before you start feeling and then literally I came back from this training and and my teacher said he was like you know don't be surprised when you go home if your life changes literally you got home next day boyfriend broke up with me following day got fired from my job and so everything instantly got wiped out like a very very um yeah very fast didn't have to make any decisions it just all got taken out for me so in a way it's kind of a bit

easier because I'm you didn't have to I didn't have to think like oh should I leave this job or not it's a good job but I get paid not well and blah blah blah you know and you know so the decision was made and so the path was cleared and then I had a another decision shall I get another job in in a different magazine or shall I um uh follow this calling and the calling was a feeling of a feeling that made me feel excited that made me feel like that the world was more expansive than I thought it to be it made me feel like that there was magic in the world and that um it made me feel alive yeah that was it and then I was really you know like as with these journeys happen um you know you meet people

and then this incredible woman she became my mentor she really really trained me a lot and like you know I'd be in session with her and she'd be like right Chloe you do this and I was like okay and so then she was always going to meet her work on her clients and so I had this amazing mentor that would just be like come on come on come on come on but it was also super intensive where she lived because like the energy was so extreme that um things would happen so for example like the plumbing would just go because like because the energy everything that wasn't in alignment would get shown so there of course like everything that's not in alignment within me was just like popping left right and center and so I was like um and then part of my shamanic training I one of my teachers was a woman called Marcella

Lobos and she is Alberto Fildo's wife and and we went off and and we did a plant medicine ceremony in Peru together and she was holding this one for for. And in this ceremony, what we now know as the right of the womb came through to her and was gifted to her in this ceremony. And so she didn't share anything about it at the time. But then at my next training, she was initiating all of the women. And so again, it wasn't something that I was thinking like, oh, I feel that I need to be doing womb work or I had a calling to do womb work.

I didn't know what womb work was. It wasn't on the radar. Like it was like, we're back, we're in, I think, 2016 here. It wasn't like a main thing, you know, like womb work now is like so widely spoken about, periods is so widely spoken about, like we're within our niche.

I mean, in the wider realms, it's still a bit further um but really at the time there though it I it wasn't in my awareness at all um and then um Marcella so she held this incredible ceremony and the room was set up uh like a giant uterus and so all of the women were in the ovaries. So we were in the ovaries. And then Marcella and two other women were down the vaginal canal. And they were there in the center initiating all of the women. And then all of the men were around the outside holding the space. And it was so powerful. And as I walked down the vaginal canal, my womb started vibrating and it was like, and I was like, oh my God, oh my God, never felt anything like that before. And so I was like, this is really powerful.

I can feel something is happening. And then after I was initiated into the right, the following day, I started bleeding. And I wasn't, I don't remember like my period being due I remember thinking like oh whoa like that was unexpected and also the blood was really dark and it felt like ancient blood coming out and it felt like ancestral it wasn't like my normal color like it was a lot a lot darker and then other women who had also been initiated that day as well they also started bleeding too yeah yeah and so that put me on the path of of of being you know like really intrigued and like what is this room work and this feels like really powerful and and

then you're as soon as you're initiated into the right you know like part of the gift of it is that you share it with other women and so you know your womb is is now alive consciousness is in your womb she's vibrating she has light and so really you feel like what I felt like this this duty to share it with other women as well and so I came back to London and again everything just like went to a yoga class and they were like oh we want to run some workshops and I was like um I actually would like to run a workshop they were good great do that and so and I had a full house like straight away so it was amazing so that put me on the initial journey of of being interested in in um in womb work and womb healing and feminine empowerment and um and then as the years and time went on I just you know I kept learning kept learning and then I came across Alexandra and

Shani and and I was like oh my god this is amazing and then um and the first class that I did with them was Wild Power and that was um in London. Can I ask you a question about this? Yeah yeah yeah. Because you just interviewed Alexandra and Sharni for your musings conversations that are part of the My Moon Power whole project it was beautiful you shared that I think it was like the day before the wild power workshop you had said to rich who's the man that became the perfume perfumer for my moon power that you had said look i when i get up in the morning i don't know how to plan my day i just i don't know what my mood's going to be like i don't know who i'm going to be that day and he said chloe i think you need to look into that that that sounds like it's a problem

and then the next day you went to the wild power into that. That sounds like it's a problem. And then the next day you went to the Wildflower course and learned that, oh no, it's because I am different each day and that there's nothing wrong with me. Exactly. Exactly. And my mind was blown. Like it was so blown. It was like, it was like a million light bulbs went off for me all in once and I was just and I laughed and I was like there's nothing wrong with me I'm just a menstruating woman that felt so amazing and again it's like with this work it's when that lights up within you it's like you want to share it with everyone because it's like you've been walking around in the dark ages and then it's like we don't need to be there we totally could have this whole realm of information that would be so supportive and um yeah and so that then I was like well I've got to share it

and then that eventually took you to the menstruality leadership program so then um as soon as I did wild power like I was like ready to do the leadership program and what happened after wild power so wild power was only a one day oh no no it was a two-day course in London and literally after that was the when the idea for my moon power came so from that moment on like the the idea was seeded within me because I wanted to do something with essential oils anyway but I you know when when all of this information came in I was like this is so powerful this is so needed this would help me so much and that's when the idea came and then I really wanted to deepen my studies as well and then and then I then started with the the leadership course as well so it's so beautiful to hear your story and I was moved by many things when you were describing

that shift from should I go and work for another magazine I know there's more to life than this to actually moving towards your calling you named some of the things which I think for our listeners who might be at certain points on that journey it's just something important for us all to be listening to all the time isn't it like what makes me feel alive what makes me feel excited you said expansive and magic that like the way you're able to give voice to that was really meaningful and then you started to notice these synchronicities and everything was was slotting into place until you got to this place where the idea for my moon power landed in you through all of that

is there um like a texture or a flavor or a way you would describe your purpose here through all of this? Like what's the golden thread that you see running through all of this? I mean, the golden thread behind it all. And this is this is this is like a deeper one. And I actually did talk about this with Shani and Alexandra because Shani felt it the second I sent her the box and it's actually the energy of Mary Magdalene so Mary Magdalene you know the work with her is all about returning back to yourself it's returning back to the heart it's returning back to the womb and it's that deep deep dive in so that you can meet

yourself you can hold your darkness you can hold your light and what happened with the oils is again synchronicity after synchronicity I was like whoa this isn't me driving this project this is Magdalene's energy so when I was looking for the bowl like I knew that I wanted a ritual bowl and an anointing bowl and and and I had these beautiful ceramic bowls made and I was like no they're not right they're not right and then my mum went to Egypt and she brought me back this alabaster bowl and I was like oh this this sounds amazing and I went down that contact and I was like oh no they're just crazy expensive and again I spoke to Rich and part of his companies in India and I was like oh no they're just crazy expensive and again I spoke to Rich and part of his companies in India and I said hey listen I think an alabaster bowl would be amazing he's like oh perfect we can

get those made and so then again I spoke to this amazing woman she was like absolutely we can get these made for you so each of the bowls are handmade especially for my moon power and then when my alabaster bowls arrived like I mean like literally it was it was just so amazing all of these bowls arriving and then the next week I got given this book and it's called Women with an Alabaster Jar and it tells the story of Mary Magdalene anointing Yeshua's feet from an alabaster jar and I didn't know that it was alabaster yeah wow my mind is going in so many different places now which is largely to do with being menstrual because I've got a very strong connection to Mary Magdalene myself but I never speak about it it's just kind of a little private

affair I've had over the past 10 years and isn't it amazing how the energy of a I mean mythical historical being can infuse different people's lives with the same message because I feel like my initiatory journey with Mary Magdalene has been about exactly the same thing going down into the depths to free up my light I guess I would describe it as and yeah there's so much magic there is so much magic as well and it's interesting because I didn't know whether to talk about that as well like I haven't put that openly on the website or anything but if someone asks me the question I'm happy to share it but part of me didn't want it to be too woo woo or too like you know um unaccessible because what I really want is for these oils to be you know a gateway into um menstrual cycle work which maybe somebody

maybe it's too much for someone to go to a workshop because you know like it is it is a lot like you've got to be really into it and you always have to have the confidence to to go into that space too and so what I feel like is that the oils are a bridge into it so that's what I was saying with Alexander and Shani it's almost like I want my oils to be like the bridge and then like then someone gets them it's like wow I really want to learn about this and then they go to the red school learn you know yes this is so fascinating what you're saying because what I'm seeing is when someone's holding a calling there are always multiple layers to that calling and part of the journey into leadership for each of us is to understand what to reveal to whom and how to share and how to transmit and communicate and you know that we

can talk about Mary Magdalene here because we're on the menstruality podcast and we can go wherever we want to go and go to the like the depths and the heights of the fullness of the calling because I know people listening will have their own version of oh can I say that out loud can I you know so there's something so powerful about that you brought that because I'm very curious that that's the place you went when I said tell me about your calling it's it's almost I feel like that her energy is infused within me so I don't feel like that I want to be her or that I was her or anything like that it's more that whatever I'm meant to do is supported by her. That's what it feels like. Yeah. Does that make sense? It makes complete sense to me. Can you tell us how it's looked to move from idea and concept to you now have this beautiful offering this beautiful product that

is out in the world how how how has the creative process unfolded first of all I was so grateful that we had done the creative process in uh in the leadership training because that actually had a huge impact on me and what I did at the beginning is is I had the idea and and I nurtured it and I I kept you know like looking into things I didn't tell too many people either and this is also what at the beginning of that training do you remember and it was like keeping that is this like precious seed and actually that's really what I did and it was that it wasn't that I consciously thought to do that it was just that naturally I felt that way it's like I kind of wanted to protect this idea so I didn't really tell too many people about it and I just kind of kept building it you know I was working with Rich on the oils and and then you know all of the smells were coming

together and I was like whoa this is amazing this is amazing and then one thing would lead to the next and then I would start researching um boxes I mean good god like the boxes took me years to find I can't even tell you it was like took such a long time to sort the box out and so really it was like the creative process for me was kind of like this underground a bit like finding and collecting almost like I'm sort of like seeing myself as a little squirrel like like gathering all of the things like you had your nose to ascent yeah and you just kept following whatever track you found next what I'm curious about though is how you knew when it was right oh yeah how did you know when the box was right because I think perfectionism can take us out of our creative

process so how did you know when it was like yes this is it yeah so the books I mean I knew the second it arrived like my whole body was just like yes have you always been someone with a very strong felt sense or is this something that you've had to hone and develop because clearly when you were working in the fashion industry you were feeling something but you didn't quite know how to feel it and then life pulled the rug out from underneath you yeah totally yeah so I've always been a feeler but it was to my detriment when I was in fashion and and like as a teenager and everything and so I just you know always thought that I was over emotional too sensitive and and and I didn't realize that it was actually a gift as well and is it cycle

awareness that has unlocked that then like has it how has cycle awareness helped you access your felt sense or help you channel it in a way which is creative and generative yeah I think that the cycle awareness has helped me in a way that when I'm having the extreme felt senses that I'm so much kinder to myself so for example like when I would go into my autumn time previously, before I knew any of this work, you know, I was so mean to myself. I thought my whole life was imploding. I thought I was useless. I thought like that everything was falling apart and I hated myself.

And like, you know, everything was swollen and all this, you know, it was just so mean and now I'm like oh I'm into my autumn oh my body's changing a little bit and I'm like oh my mood's shifting and instead of that like in not wanting to be in it it's like oh okay so let me just take a breath let me create some space and what am I actually feeling okay what do I need right now no and so it's like I'm it's it's a lot kinder yeah yeah yeah your crit so it sounds like your critic is very active in inner autumn so I'm curious about this something that I found is the more I've got befriended my critic in autumn the more I've sat in my authority and the more my inner spring has become

a troubling time for me where my like inner maiden can now come out and show her full of vulnerability now that my inner teen that is very present in in autumn we're sort of down together now like I listened to her we dialogue you know and so I'm curious how the creative process has been for you in your inner spring is that a time of creative flow and ideas or can there be a challenge there too? Springtime I'm a bit more wondering what all my friends are doing so I could get distracted actually at springtime and I'm like I'm like I can feel myself sort of like start bopping you know I think that the the areas that I have this struggle with is the drop into bleed it's coming and I so want to go there and I so want to let go and I'm like so wanting it but I'm holding on because I'm like, I just need to finish off that and send that email and

just keep going one tiny bit longer so I can do the thing. But I want to drop in. So this is the bit that I've noticed of late. And so I'm actually really consciously working with this. And the way that I'm doing that is to practice actually within the whole cycle so that I'm not having to let go just at that point because ultimately it's also around like accepting myself as well so like throughout whenever I feel like that pulling forward or that I'm trying to go that way and I actually just want to be here in the center again I just keep taking a breath and I just go, I accept myself, I accept where I am. And then I feel like I'm back more.

And then also I feel more rooted in my womb and almost like that there's a foundation building there as well. Okay, I'm just going to pause my conversation with Chloe for a moment to share an invitation with you. I always find it so refreshing to spend time with people like Chloe who really get the potential of cycle awareness. And I think it's especially because the menstrual cycle has been denied and demonized and rejected for centuries in most cultures and we've been led to believe it's a limitation or a weakness that we have to overcome in order to succeed in our world. The underground mission

of the Red School Menstruality Leadership Programme is to help as many of us as possible to embody the extraordinary truth that the menstrual cycle and the menopause process aren't something that we have to overcome. They're actually our custom-made initiatory path to embodying our power. The doors for the 2024 Menstruality Leadership Programme are open now and if you're feeling called we would absolutely love to have you with us for this journey please visit menstrualityleadership.com to find out more and register and I was lucky as I mentioned at the beginning to be on the same MLP training as Chloe and in our conversation she shared a little bit about her menstruality leadership program experience so here's what she said the main thing I'm taking away from MLP is a deeper connection to myself a deeper understanding about myself the word that is coming is is power and Alexandra and Shani are it makes me emotional because I feel like they are such incredible facilitators they are

meticulous with the way that they hold space their space holding is impeccable you feel so held so supportive you feel their love and how much they want this for you that you feel their passion and as the course goes on they're both learning with us it's not like that they've got all the answers they're like having oh wow I didn't think about like that and it's so exciting because you feel like you're all in it together as you're speaking about the different seasons and your capacity to come back lean in sit in to yourself exactly as you are and ask yourself what you need I'm imagining that your anointing process with the oils has been key to you discovering how and then embodying this capacity

to sit down back within yourself lean into yourself however you are so I'm really curious to follow that thread and speak about anointing back to Mary Magdalene too yeah can you tell us about yeah how you understand the practice of anointing and how it supported you yeah so the way that I understand it and the way that I've created it for for the my moon power oils as well is that you're connecting to your own supply of source light so that source light that's always there that's always we're always connected to but you're consciously bringing it down and then you're anointing your centers and what I also have is a prayer I'll take us through it as well and what you're doing is you're bringing essentially heaven to earth so you're bringing

source light down into your body and then anchoring that down into earth so what it means is that every morning when you're getting ready it's like you're blessing yourself and then you're bringing source light down into the earth so you're also blessing the earth as well and then you go off and do your day but then at the end of the ritual too I always do a check-in like you know how am I feeling what do I need. Howie what you what it means to you when you say source light I just love to open up that that idea a little more. So for me it's again it's a feeling sense and it's like for me it it feels like luminous light liquid light that like cascades all the way down and around me and then all the way through my central channel and it's like everything just goes and it's like I

kind of feel the centers all lit up and then I just feel more energy and more radiance coming into my body and into my energy field. Beautiful. One of the things that I've long admired about you is your relationship you have with your body. And there was something that you shared on Instagram. I just took a walk through your world this morning, which was a delight. And there was a video of you, I guess, with one of your good friends, and you were both naked by a river. And you were bringing the oils to your body with so much reverence and care and tenderness. And again, because of your feeling nature, there is this transmission of just acceptance love honoring devotion to your body is this something you know about yourself it is something that I really

practice as well and and I practice it because you know in my teenage years I really did not have that relationship at all um I was very much a body bully and and really unkind to myself and as most teenagers do actually I don't know if as most teenagers but I didn't have a full-blown eating disorder but I definitely had eating issues you know and also in my fashion days as well I was very very body conscious you know always had to be wearing the right thing always felt like too short too fat to this to that um and um and it's only from from doing all of the work that I do now that the relationship with my body has has changed and that I'm just so much kinder like so much kinder um and and also I look after her really well as well

and I feed her really good foods like I exercise but I don't exercise from the perspective of exercise to be thin I exercise to be strong and to look after her rather than a different you know whereas in my teenage years it would be like I'm just going to exercise because I want to be thin but it's definitely been a whole whole process for sure back to the calling again I'm just tracking how so often the calling is so connected to our our deepest wounds or how our shadows show up or how our challenges show up the fact that your teenage body was crying out for anointing and honoring and to understand the female body as sacred to understand the hormonal cycle is sacred and perhaps something about that pain

is part of what has propelled you into this yeah definitely I feel like that you know a lot of the the the underlying message of all of the work that that I offer is a remembrance of that we're sacred and that our bodies are sacred that we're sacred beings and and so of course that is self love as well and and it's the age-old thing You teach what you need the most. And that's the thing that I needed the most for sure. I bet you just trust. So when it came to taking this precious offering that you've been crafting for so long and holding, you know, holding the seed of it and following the sense, literally,

how, how was it? what kind of challenges did you have to negotiate to bring it out into the world into form oh my goodness I mean my personal challenges sort of understanding the way that I work I have one idea and then I'm off doing another idea and then I'm here then I'm there then I'm there so I have to be okay with who I am actually instead of trying to change it all and for me I really struggle with writing as well so that took a long time and thank goodness I have the most amazing woman called Abby that works with me. And through us working together, that really helped me get all the copy down. But that was a challenge, huge challenge for sure. And then, you know, now the challenge as well is, you know, you think, oh, you've made a product and it's out in the world.

And that's great. I'm on the next idea now. I'm like already like, right, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. But no, now you've got to nurture this one that's out there and you've then got to get it out into the world. And I actually wasn't really expecting that so much, you know, so I just kind of thought, you know,

like it's out, done. I was a bit shocked. you mean everyone is just buying them immediately and um and also what other challenges did I have um well can we stay with that one for a minute yeah because I know um for sure that there are so many people in this community around this podcast who have these dreams and but and are scared of this bit that you're in because it involves visibility because it involves staying true and keeping going and dedication and tenacity and um yeah what is keeping you what is fueling you to keep spreading the word communicating yeah okay so what's fueling me I think I was like you know I've gone to all of

this effort I just can't drop the ball now yes and it feels really important that it's out there and then it reaches the women that it needs to reach and every time I share the oils in person and I share them at a workshop or if I'm holding um you know like I did this beautiful festival this uh last this year called sisters heart of the rose and and I was showing the women there and I could feel them when they were receiving it and it was like whoa and I was like okay this is really powerful this is really amazing and they would walk away and something had shifted within them and so it's again it's it's not really so much like yes of course I want it to be successful and of course I want it out there

and of course I want it to be a sustainable business so that I can really get my teeth into it and everything but then also there's another bit which is again maybe the Magdalene energy the the driving force that is like no it just needs to be out there because this remembrance of anointing needs to uh needs to be brought forward this remembrance of menstrual cycle uh needs to be brought forward this remembrance of menstrual cycle awareness needs to be brought forward and and for us to be in relationship with it and and the oils help that so so there's a wider purpose and you know and it's it's it's I guess like the the mission of of my moon power is is to help you come home like is is to remember that you're sacred to come home to yourself to come home to your heart to come home to your womb and like when I tap into that

oh my god that feels so good and I'm like oh yeah I'm there and then that gives me the energy again but you know listen it's hard like showing up on Instagram like I don't want to show up on Instagram all the time I'm a really private person like I only want to share when I feel like sharing and so and so it's difficult when actually you have a brand and really what I should be doing is posting every single day but I don't feel like it no yeah honestly I've heard that so so so many times and I think it's why a cyclical approach to everything we do is so needed isn't it because what I'm hearing in you is well what I heard in you is you're sort of dancing between the seasons as you were describing what's keeping you going

because part of it is kind of autumnal go drive like I there's a momentum behind this thing and I'm going to let the momentum carry me and then I also heard an inner winter visionary you know the Magdalene is infused in all this and I and I want this medicine to be out there and then like a landing back in your why yeah of you know this is what I'm here to serve and I also felt some summertime you know I'm just going to get out there with people and see this actually changing their lives and seeing how beautiful it is and yeah yeah totally yeah and it's dancing it's absolutely dancing between between all of it um and also knowing at the same time that it's an embryo it's only was birthed in May I mean it's a baby baby baby yeah I wanted to ask you where you feel that that you're at in the

creative cycle here with this because since it was born in May it's November now that we're speaking does this feel like the springtime still what What would the summertime look like for you? Do you think like, how will you know? I still feel like I'm planting seeds. And again, you know, like I, I assumed it to be quicker, but you know, like a tree doesn't grow. You don't plant a seed and a tree grows. And so what I, the way that I've been talking to myself is like, Chloe, you're planting all of these seeds

and you're going to keep planting them and then at some point is those ones that are meant to grow are going to grow and and then again I rest back again because it's I don't also want it to be fast because I'm a you know a baby business if it was to be too fast I wouldn't be able to handle that either so it's like everything has to be paced and then also it's really important to see the places that that actually I'm not very good at and like need extra support and need extra help and like the things that I am really good at and like okay that feels really solid but being quite honest with myself as well I just feel like that's it's such a major gift of cycle awareness and Alexandra often speaks about it in the context of menopause which I just hear is like the holy grand moment of this of going do you know what I'm good at this and I'm just not good at this and that's who I am and that's okay

and I'm excited for that in my life not to belittle the huge initiation that menopause is and can be for people but I know for my own cycle awareness practice and actually motherhood is really working me here is I'm just I'm just unlike I turned four I'm 42 now but you know turning 40 was it was a big thing for me I'm settling into yeah same okay my cycle is showing me every month that these are my strengths and these are my weaknesses so why don't I just call in more support there and why don't I really lean into that yeah it's definitely cycle awareness that's allowing me to befriend that rather than keep pushing against my own nature yeah totally and I think that's that is the the absolute gift as well so it's just such a gift and and it's really interesting earlier this when as soon as the oils were birthed the exact same day that I birthed them my relationship ended

and so I was in really like I was in expansion and contraction all at once and also it was you know I was so excited about the business but also in heartbreak and all the things and my cycle was really affected and I actually didn't ovulate for three whole months and so it was amazing though because through my cycle it was showing me you're really stressed you know and so instead of like really pushing myself I was like oh my god my fertile fluid's gone I was like having a complete meltdown obviously but then then I was like okay whoa I'm really stressed I need to actually look after myself and like do all of the things which of course when you're in a stress situation you forget everything and so thank god for friends because your friends are going to remind you

and this is what I always say is like with this type of work and and with womb work and and with with a lot of healing work as well it's like when you forget there's going to be someone else that's remembering and when they forget you remember and it's always like when you forget there's going to be someone else that's remembering and when they forget you remember and it's always like that you're holding a hand out both directions and so when I was in that space and I was I spoke to my friend and and she was just like and I was like oh yeah thanks I really needed to hear that yeah yeah I had a direct experience of that this morning because I was in the co-working space with the hive which is the red school graduates community so people have done the menstrual leadership program and I showed up anxious because it's day four and a lot happened

already this morning aid didn't sleep very well so it was me dog walking taking arty to nursery getting ready for work blah blah blah and I just showed up just realizing how overwhelmed and overloaded I was and then there was this circle of women all looking at me lovingly and that's all it took to go oh I'm okay there's nothing wrong with me it's that togetherness is everything isn't it particularly cycle aware togetherness which is so imbued with acceptance and just a capacity to de-shame instantly yeah totally I know and then when someone else has got their moon and you're like don't worry I'll carry your bags and they're like so beautiful and thank you for sharing that's that's a really challenging place to find yourself in personally with something really important dissolving. Whilst you're simultaneously, the world is calling you to be a tension that we're holding. And I just really appreciate you naming

it because we don't often share those, those things. And it looks like everything's perfect on the outside. And the more that we can just be really honest and true about what's actually happening, the more that we can just dispel, dispel, dispel this myth of perfection that this capitalist patriarchal system would would have us yeah live inside of totally and I think this is for for other people that are listening as well is you know whenever you're shifting gears in your life like expect big stuff to happen like I know on the really big pivotal moments and just like I shared at the beginning bit which was when I came back and boyfriend broke up and I got fired from my job it's the same story with like birth a new business and then relationship

ends on the same day it's like there's when there is a birth there is a death and it's like it was the birth and the death and rebirth portal all in one day and and so because it was happening and because I had that awareness I was like I know what's going on here doesn't make it any less painful like no way but there is um trust I guess yeah it feels like our callings keep us spiraling as we're expanding and evolving we spiral around and we and we hit the same moments again and we get to see how we can respond differently to a a mirror of a challenge that we've had in the past and wow the antidote of of trust there is just everything alexandra and alexandra shani have started saying that they say we just take the next feeble step sophie we just take the next feeble step because they've been so humbled by

like the force of the calling that's coming through them both and what they have to field and manage and and integrate and move through as leaders and they just keep listening being willing and then taking the next step and that's what I hear in the trust that you just said yeah yeah oh I love that the feeble next step yeah let's do this next and by the way just so that you know like it's it's like a a decision to keep having to come back into trust as well because it's really easy to pop out and then you come back and then pop out and you know with all of this with all of this work it's a process always and I'm like just as deeply in the process being messy behaving in ways that I wish I wasn't behaving in

oh absolutely yeah I just every every month in autumn I catch myself going this is it this is the end I'm never gonna do this again this is the worst thing that's ever happened and then a little voice goes so if you're going to bleed and everything's going to look really different, there'll be like fresh white snow on the ground and you can make new footprints. And yeah, thank God for cycle awareness. Thank God this.

Thank God. So back to the question that you had around like the creative process around birthing the oils. So felt like the initially idea, when it came, I was like in seed form and I was nurturing it and looking after it. And then I was in full creation. So I feel like that that was my spring. Then I was creating, finding all the packaging,

finding working with the designer. And it was like all like flourishing and was all coming together as a as a um as a product then when I went further around as well I was like right I need people to try this now so that then I felt like was the autumn and so I got lots of samples made and sent those to 30 different women to try and so that also felt like the critic stage as well where I felt confident enough to send it out into the world and let people try and give me feedback and all of that then when I birthed the oils and launched them in May that felt like you know through the birth canal and then and then you're kind of in the void because it's been let go of and it's

like it's out there now it's its own thing it's going to be doing its own thing and then also what I think that people don't reference very often or not that I've heard and the reason I know this is because when I um uh when I did my book back in 2019 the same thing happened is is you birth it but then you're kind of like and you're in this space and because I didn't know about it when I did the book then I felt really depressed and I felt like purposeless and I didn't really know what I was doing and like why wasn't I feeling so amazing I've just created this book it's out in the world I just felt kind of like huh like oh and I just felt a bit lost so then

and that's what I feel like it is that you're in the void so but then with this time with the oils because I knew the about the void bit then they birthed out and then I was a bit more expecting that and I was able to drop into it and like okay so it's its own entity it's off doing its own thing now and then for me um to receive that void like space is what it felt like as well so what what held you so you knew the void was coming which is everything and then what did you do in the void or how did you hold yourself in the void well I was also going holding a lot I was holding a lot yeah I was holding a lot and because I also knew that um I knew that I wasn't going to allow the breakup to affect me and so I was holding so strong like I like called on like summoned on all the power within

me to be like and so I felt very strong very powerful and very uh like just on a mission that that I was going to be able to birth this through but then as the time went on, then I had to let go. And I went into deep, deep, deep, deep grief. And so part of that was, of course, the breakup. But then also part of that was like that I was in the void space again. So it was so intertwined, you know, like I'm separating it out actually as we're talking. I haven't really thought about it that deeply you know yeah because we don't we don't we don't have time and we don't give time and space our world doesn't create time and space to to explore these things so much it it really correlates to me to the postpartum

window after having given birth because everyone's so interested in everyone was so interested in me as a pregnant person and then as soon as the baby is born of course everyone's interested in the baby but you've I've just been through like 10 marathons in a row it felt like and yeah there was a big open space and I think it's so beautiful and generous of you to share this so that everyone listening who whatever void they're in after whatever creative process like I even had it last night because I put a podcast episode out and then I was just alone in like it meant it meant a huge amount to me that episode now I don't know how it's going to land with people and I get I got to do a little mini holding of myself

um but yeah generous for anyone who is in that void moment to know it's natural if you're feeling grief it's natural if you don't know what's going on you're in the void and it will change and it will change yeah yeah and so that's I felt so grateful that we had done um this work on the creative process because I felt like I had a map whereas with my book I didn't have that map at all and so I you know I didn't have any awareness and and and this one I was like well no I'm in it and that's okay yeah again it's just always like I'm always taking a breath and I'm always a big talker to myself I'm always like babe okay babe you're all right back background full circle to that self-love how can people connect with you and connect with my moon power if they're curious they want to get

the oil they want to connect um so my moon power has its own website called my moon power and there's an instagram as well and we have everything on there and it also has another component that was really important for me is that it was educational as well so i didn't want it just to be the oils you know the exciting bit for me is that we get to have conversations and you know like with interviewing shani and alexandra and um so there's a whole section on there called the muse where I've had amazing musings with lots of different women. And, and we talk about all different things, whether it's sexuality, whether it's creativity, whether it's cycle awareness,

whether it's painted with menstrual blood, you know, the list goes on. So that's, so it's a really good resource as well. And then you find the oils on there too and on the Instagram. And then my website is Chloe Isadora. And then my Instagram is Chloe Isadora as well. And then I do womb work. And currently my course is about healing after a breakup. Surprise, surprise.

I think I put all of those golden nuggets to good use yeah transmuting the pain into gold for others I learned so much I was like oh god I learned so much and I was like right now time to share it gorgeous thank you Chloe it's been wonderful to be with you and I can't wait to get my I've got the oils on my Christmas list, so I can't wait for them to arrive and to start my anointing practice with them. Thank you so much. Oh, Sophie, thank you so much.

It's been so fun. I've loved talking with you. Thank you for joining Chloe and I today. I'd love to hear how this episode landed with you. You can always email me at sophie at redschool.net. I love to hear from you. I'd also love to hear if you have any recommendations for anyone that you'd love us to interview

on the podcast in 2024, or if there are any themes that you would really love us to speak about. As always, please subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen. And it's great if you can leave us a review, it helps the podcast to reach more people. Okay, that's it for this week. I'll be with you again next week. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.