A Modern Day Shaman a Conversation with Isabella Stoloff
VM: Our theme this month is Indigenous wisdom, which I think is perfect for your Shaman work Isabella. How did you start your work? I’m sure there have been many layers but how did the beginnings of your healings, your teachings and your group work start?
IS: In 1991 I had a complete life change, a total transformation of who I once was. I began a path of trusting the Universe. I knew that your thoughts became things. I followed Louise Hay and devoured her book, “You Can Heal Your Life”. I practiced those affirmations daily. Then I discovered Doreen Virtue and her beautiful Angel cards and I really started to trust a part of me that I had never trusted before.
Prior to that time I had been stuck in victim mode for many, many years. Through this newfound trust in myself and spirit my life really began to change. I started to empower myself with my thoughts and with my vibration. At the time I didn’t believe in God the way the rest of the world does. I found God to be in the flowers, trees and animals. Years later I found Church of Religious Science and I remember thinking to myself “My goodness there’s a religion that believes like I do!” At one point they started talking about other planes of existence and I thought they were crazy, so I left. You see at that time I could not expand my consciousness to believe in something so far out. This has been my process. At first I believe in a little, then a little more. Now if you told me an alien ship was in the parking lot I’d say, “Of course there’s an alien ship in the parking lot.” I try not to go there, but I have had people come to me that needed healing from this type of thing. I have also had X military, so I know it’s true, I know it exists. I just choose not to have it be a big part of my everyday life.
VM: So what brought you to Shamanism?
IS: In 2006, my mother had been in a rest home for a year and a half due to dementia. I could hear her calling me through the ethers, “Get me out of here.” I could feel how stuck she felt. She had raised me very eclectically. My mother believed in psychics and astrology and was very spiritual and psychic herself so it did not seem odd to me to hear her speaking to me although she was not there. I remember thinking, “How can I get you out of there, when I can’t get myself out of here!” I was in Idaho getting a masters degree in performing arts, and I was very stuck in my own life. I needed to make a lot of changes and I was not moving forward. I called someone for help and they introduced me to a shaman in Chile. Again I could not wrap my head around an over the phone healing, which is funny to me now since I give them. But I felt so stuck I knew I had to do something fast. So I had the over-the-phone healing with a woman named Marcella Lobos who is now the wife of Alberto Villoldo (she wasn’t at the time). Within one month my mom transitioned, and within 6 months I had a complete transformation. A few months later I called Marcella and asked her to extract my dead husband, he had been with me for over 20 years and he needed to go. It was not a happy marriage and I was still stuck in that darn victim mode. Once she had extracted him my life really began to change. I moved back to California with my daughter and began studying with Alberto. When I started studying shamanism I was not going to call myself a shaman, and I was not going to call myself a healer. You see I believe we are all shamans and healers of one kind or another, we have just forgotten how to tap into it. I teach people how to trust themselves once again. We all have an inner guidance system. It is time to turn that part of us on again and guide our lives in such a way that we can live the life we came here to live
.VM: And what way is that?
IS: It is the way of the Indigenous peoples. A few issues ago you published an article I wrote called A Modern Day Shaman. It spoke about us being the new Indigenous peoples. If we are going to make a change on the planet we have to tune into our inner guidance and trust spirit to support us. It is time to focus on the land, organic farming and clean water. This is what it means to be connected to the land and the spirit of the land. My first real connection to this was when I went with Alberto to Peru in 2008. He works with the Qero, the medicine men and women of the Andes Mountains. The Qero blessed me on sacred Mountain tops and performed Despacho ceremonies, which are Peruvian prayer bundles honoring the earth and your prayers. I had no idea what was going on but I learned so much. I now guide small groups there and show them the wonders of this beautiful land. In 2009, I joined Marcella in the Amazon jungle and for the first time I really I saw myself. I saw the power I was still giving away. Even though I had done so much work on myself I could still see the victim. It shocked me, but I overcame it. The last traces of it were finally being removed. I walked out of the Amazon a new person and was forever grateful. In 2010 I was asked to speak in Iquitos Peru. Here I was in the Amazon again only this time speaking. The sense of pride I felt in my accomplishments was immeasurable.
VM: So you now take people to Peru and the Amazon?
IS: In 2009-2010 I heard that I needed to take my first group to Peru. My guest included Peter Sterling, Ken Parsons and Mary Hill. We went to balance the masculine and feminine energy and bring that energy back to the states. I remember they wanted me to guide them to Lake Titicaca after the Sacred Valley experience and I told them I couldn’t as I had to return in time to teach. At the time I was teaching acting and public speaking at Fullerton College, so I said no. Within a few days I got a call from the Dean of Fine Arts who said he was sorry but they were letting all the adjunct faculty go. I was so excited! I had lost my job! I called my group back and said, “Guess what! It looks like we are going to Lake Titicaca!!” I had finally stepped into my power and spirit was supporting me 110%. It was obvious to me that spirit wanted me to do this full time. So I turned my home into the Orange County Healing Center and I got to work.
I really think that is what it is all about. Take what you are given and make the best out of it. If you can take that moment and be excited for whatever it is, your life will get better. If you are experiencing challenges you have to see it as a golden nugget to do something different and then ask spirit to guide you and do something new. What stops so many people is the fear of how it’s going to turn out. It is the attachment to the outcome. Not knowing what is around the corner. Feeling out of control. But it just is the fear of moving forward that stops us. For me, I just do it anyway. I never know how things are going to turn out. But if I feel guided, I just do it. What is the worst that can happen? You fail? What is life about anyway if not to risk, take chances and grow? I could have absolutely no money in the bank, and absolutely no idea of what tomorrow’s going to bring, and I just say “OK Universe, we’re all in this together, let’s make something happen! And it always does. The one thing I know is I’m deeply rooted in the mother and that all of our seeds are planted in Pachamama, mother earth, Gaia, and that if we plant our seeds in the mother, and expect our mother to take care of us, she will. To me this is the Indigenous wisdom. The Indigenous people knew that if they took care of the mother, the mother would take care of them. And from that place of deep, deep knowing they pray to the stars. But they pray to the mother first with all their heart and soul. They then take that connection to the mother and pray to the god of their own understanding. We can all learn much from this.
VM: Can you tell us a little about your upcoming Sedona retreat April 26th-28th?
IS: I love guiding people on spiritual journeys and am so excited to have one locally. We will be staying at the Sedona Mago retreat center. They have actual Vortexes on the land and I will be connecting the participants to the energy of Peru and Sedona, as well as giving channeled meditations. During my transformational retreats people are able to release layers and lifetimes off the energy field. I will teach the participants how to cut cords and balance their Chakra’s so they can detach from the day-to-day drama and really tune into and trust their intuition. We are going to have a great time!
VM: So when you cut these cords, all the energy is released and you’re free to explore whatever passion or creativity you want to realize.
IS: Exactly! Our energy fields are blocked and we need to find the root cause and cut the cords so we can move forward in our lives. It’s about taping into the creative genius we all have, and downloading more of our own light. Whatever other people think of us is none of our business; it’s what we think of ourselves. The work that I do assist in clearing at such a level people feel lighter and are able to focus more clearly on their passion. I believe we spend too much time beating ourselves up, and we are constantly in the negative mindset. We are always thinking about what’s not working. Why? Why do we waste so much time on what is not working? I ask people to focus on what is working in their life. I tell them to say Cancel-Clear-Delete to what’s not working, to the negative mind, so they can expand their consciousness and have more space in their head to create what they want
VM: Wow, that sounds great.
IS: I started teaching people about the 17-second rule. Did you know it takes 17 seconds to release an old thought and imprint a new one? So here comes a negative thought, and rather than let it take over your energy body and imprint and cord you to that situation you catch it and let it crash it the shore of your mind. Then pinch your index finger and thumb down as hard as you can and re-imprint Love into your mind and cells. Say Love, Love, Love, Love. Love, Love…and take deep breaths in and out for 17 seconds. Hold the vibration of Love in your mind, body and soul. Do this often and watch your thoughts change. Then listen to your mind and what it is saying. Awareness is half the battle. You will begin to notice the negative thoughts are gone and you will say, “Oh my gosh, I’m not thinking. Listen, I’m not thinking, there’s no thought…Yeah! Now I have an empty board and I can dream a new world into being.” Use your mind to serve you instead of tear you down. Visualize what you want, or how you want to feel. Then here comes that negative monkey mind again, right? You may say, “ Wait, I can’t see it!” I ask, but can you feel it? Can you feel the life you want now? Continue to practice this. I promise you, it works. Another great tip is what I call, “Blow it into the stone”; this technique really helps you to release your issue into the light. Find an everyday stone to carry around and when things come up just blow it into the stone. You can clear the stone by putting in the moonlight or sunlight. Call in the Angels and blow it out off the stone into the Universe knowing all is well. Spend time everyday telling yourself, “I am divine, I was not born into sin, I was born into light, and love and laughter. And so it is.”
VM: Tell us a little bit about your Shaman work.
IS: The work that I do is much like a spiritual therapy session. People come to me from all walks of life and talk to me about their problems. I have them blow their issues into a stone they have chosen from my Mesa. Stones have been around since the beginning of time so they can carry the weight of the issue. My Mesa is my medicine bag. It is filled with stones I have worked through my own issues with. So the client blows into the stone all that no longer serves them as they are talking to me. While they are speaking I track their deepest wound. I look at places they may have had that same feeling before. I do past life soul retrievals, but have found the present day soul retrieval to be very powerful. And most past life issues are directly connected to the present time. I have been gifted by spirit with a new type of present day soul retrieval, and something called, the Crystal Star Light rites. During a session I have a way of tuning into exactly what the soul needs to move forward. I release many layers of trauma, pain and suffering off the energy field and balance the Chakra’s so my clients can live the life they came here to live. It is much like peeling back the layers of an onion. Everything that has ever happened to us, we store on our energy field, and at a cellular level. I call those memory imprints. We can still be corded to the trauma. This is why many people are easily triggered, and find it hard to have peace and calm in their life. I go in and heal the old wound at the deepest level, and bring back fragmented soul pieces. The healing is very deep. I feel that my private shaman training program is going to be good for therapist that want to learn energy medicine to incorporate into their practice. Because now you are not only taking about the issue but you are actually removing it from the energy body and out of the cellular memory. It’s brilliant. I’m so pleased that spirit has given me this information so that I can teach it to others. This technique heals at such a deep level people have profound life changes.
I am so honored to be on the planet at this time. Coming from where I came from to where I am now is nothing short of a miracle. Energy medicine really works.
