Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sharon Ann Rose. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Sharon Ann, so great to have you on the platform. There’s so much we want to ask you, but let’s start with the topic of self-care. Do you do anything for self-care and if so, do you think it’s had a meaningful impact on your effectiveness?
“Self-care is communal care. It’s a revolutionary way we can show up to be our best when the world is revealing its worst.”
From a young age, I showed up purposefully for other people. I believed by caring for them, the deep ache within me would go away and I’d find some relief in my body. Giving my care to others came easily; I sensed the unspoken yearning people held in their hearts.
These natural inclinations grew into aspirations and a career of supporting others… working with children, women and families in underserved populations, and then creating my own practice – offering transformational support for women’s rites of passage.
Holding space and helping others was instinctual. I had the ability to guide women to turn towards themselves and listen to their body’s innate wisdom. The result was my clients learned to take powerful care of themselves and rebuild their lives from the inside out in a way they felt nourished by.
No matter how much I grew and matured into my calling, unconscious patterns played out. The little girl in me yearned to make her mother’s life happier – less filled with pain and hardship due to the sudden death of her father during her youth. This intention lived at the core of my unconscious actions and intentions, and a growing sense of failure, ineffectiveness and unworthiness eventually built up inside. This caused me to disappear inside myself, disconnecting from my own care and needs.
Throughout my childhood, I’d been trying to give my life energy away, to avoid turning towards my own power and vitality. If I did this, wouldn’t it mean I was selfish… I was inconsiderate? I was unaware of others and the turmoil and conditions of a suffering world? Wouldn’t I be causing others more pain if I took up space and fully existed…?
My young mind had drawn formative conclusions. Since my mother, my primary relationship, hadn’t found lasting happiness as a result of my tireless efforts, I was responsible and at fault. Nothing I could do would ever have lasting impact… I was and could never BE ENOUGH.
This contorted self-concept impacted the way I showed up to care for my needs and nurture my dreams. I became a master at denying myself. I believed I didn’t have the right to hold space for my own being, so I overextended my support to everyone and everything around me to prove that I cared.
Unexplained physical ailments would appear, causing me to slow down and pull out of life. As a child, medical providers didn’t offer answers and believed my symptoms, ranging from sudden injuries to periods of exhaustion and extreme intestinal complaints, had no discernible cause. As I grew, I spent my reserves seeking the root cause of these symptoms, which left me in breakdown as I moved into midlife.
During a 13-year initiation into menopause, I went through tumultuous cycles of physical, emotional and mental disruption. My hormones became dysregulated, and I wouldn’t sleep for months at a time as the exhaustion palpably wore down my brain and bones. I’d hear voices at night saying “they” wanted to kill me, and began living in a state of heightened anxiety and physical collapse.
As a holistic arts practitioner, I’d been guiding women, couples and communities into deeper states of rest and renewal. The numerous tools I’d gathered (i.e., meditation, ritual, intimacy with nature, dance and movement, sensuality, art, writing, sisterhood connection, etc.), I was no longer able to access in the trusted way I had.
I felt depleted, lost and alone. My health was a mess. My energy, nonexistent. And the once overflowing creativity I’d taken for granted, had been squelched. Here, lying on hardened, cold floorboards of a foundation that never would be able to hold me, I learned to pull out a sledgehammer and dismantle my former sources of self-care.
Turning towards my body and its uncomfortable sensations and feelings, taught me to ask the terrified one within what she needed. I began an intimate pilgrimage to uncover new and different ways to listen to my resilience.
Self-care is not something I do; it’s an energy source I’m in intimate relationship with. It’s the inner reserve of support I consult to craft and adapt the rhythms of my days in service to my wholeness thriving.
To deepen this relationship, I focus on the Woman I’m Becoming each time I show up for my self-care practices. It’s how I choose to be in presence with my body, versus focusing on the how-to details, that has the greatest impact and lasting effect.
I have a bedrock of self-care rituals that are non-negotiable. They’re also flexible, rotating seasonally and changing as my body requires.
Each day I engage in meditation, nature connection, writing, reading, exercise and movement, self-massage and oiling, and dietary protocols. Weekly, I offer myself time in nature, time for ritual, walks and hiking, bodywork and health practices like saunas, hot/cold water soaks, coffee enemas and self-pleasure. Seasonally, I rely on personal ceremony, time alone and overnight getaways, and dietary detoxes and cleanses.
The ingredients, flavors and approach I take to my care, changes as I go through life’s seasons and stages. The biggest impact, is that I’ve broken the cycle of giving myself away, discarding my dreams and diminishing my inherent worth. My routines support circling back to my commitment to live a generative life.
The impact on my effectiveness is palpable. Steady self-care moves me into feeling centered and connected to the wisdom of life’s coherence. It helps outside turbulence remain outside, providing inner safe sanctuary to make discerned decisions and next right actions. The commitment to my own care offers insight into relationship transgressions and situational breakdowns, and provides a sustaining floorboard to stand upon as I support my clients in their resiliency, joy and purposeful meaning-making.
There’s greater depth and lightness in my work. I love fearlessly, with less constriction or obligation, as I serve from a place that sees the pure intention of my care. I love because I can, not because I have to. Self-care is the way I choose to live for this. It provides a felt-experience of what it means to no longer abandon, hurt or disregard myself, and the tenderest places within others’ lives.
Releasing the constraints of feeling overly responsible to help, heal and hold an aching world, provides spaciousness to make conscious choice for the care of my own heart. The more I follow what feels honoring of my body, the more I’m available to care for those who show up in my world. Self-care is communal care. It’s a revolutionary way we can show up to be our best when the world is revealing its worst.
Self-care has become the pathway in which I live in service to the betterment of others: helping women find new purpose, supporting them in accessing their inner wisdom, and igniting ideas and possibilities for their vital path forward. The ground of my self-care has been torn up, floorboard by floorboard. Steadily rebuilt, until it’s become a fine-tuned instrument to support daily recalibration and finding my center in a world that hungers to know how to love the life we’re now building together.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am an igniter of the fire that burns below water.
As a transformational facilitator, shamanic priestess and ceremonialist, I liberate feminine wisdom. I work with sensitive, self-aware women who’ve been hit by life’s stressors, inequities, traumas and toxicity and want to transform the way they relate to their body. Through holistic healing processes, I help others reclaim and regulate neural pathways and nervous system states to experience more ease, trust and empowerment in their lives.
Known for my integrity and depth, I create spaces where my clients feel deeply seen and understood. Women choose to work with me when they’re done running around outside themselves looking for answers. They’re ready to tap into the stillness and power that resides within, to propel them into a new vision and version of who they’re here to be!
For over 25 years, I’ve worked in the field of Feminine Wisdom, supporting women through private sessions, group programs, retreats and mentorship. I’ve developed an in-depth body of work to help others discover the resources within themselves to live in active transformation amidst the conditions we currently face in our social, global and relational environments.
I’m an award-winning author and co-author of 3 books that explore women’s power, creativity, spirituality and earth-connection.
My award-winning book, Faces of the Mother… a journey, a collaboration, a feminine restoration has been re-released and I’m looking forward to expanding its reach and impact. I’m also working on updating and relaunching some of my courses that are more vital now and relevant to humanity than ever, (i.e. Fire & Fury, Brave Becoming, and Grief, Grace, God…dess!). These will be available in 2025.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Lean into the hard and uncomfortable. Each one of us is here to do unimagined, challenging and brave things… to rise above and deepen into what we never thought possible, to be a force of greatness on this planet for the well-being of all life.
2. Offer endless compassion to yourself every step of the way. We’ve all fallen, failed, fucked up, and feared becoming who we yearn to be. It’s not about spending our reserves perfecting the minutiae of our lives. It’s being willing to show that we’re real and vulnerable, and showering our hearts with all the grace and goodness we can muster along the way.
3. Embrace the small, the invisible, the unnoticed and condemned parts of yourself that the media, society and social platforms don’t regard. Listen to the things and people no one notices. Sit in quietude and let the still, unspoken parts of yourself and of this world greet you. This is where real wisdom lives.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
My ideal customer is a sensitive, self-aware woman who’s hungry for root-system change, and wants to fully trust in her own ability to radically transform. She’s here to live a life that feels good to her, and is willing to be introspective and vulnerable as she uncovers the depths that reside in herself. She’s ready to be supported, seen and heard like never before, through the brave work of unwinding from the conditioning that’s kept her brightness from shining. She’s ready to deeply invest in herself and experience a sustaining and irreversible change in her long-standing patterns, so that she can rise into her most influential leadership and creative expression for the betterment of the world in these times.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sharonannrose.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sharonann.rose/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-ann-rose
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVRR3Oy_wvB__-mGgqju3nA
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sharonannrose
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/author/sharonannrose https://www.sharonannrose.com/media.html
Image Credits
Krisiey Salsa
Lavinia Nitu
Jewelz Ann Lovejoy
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