We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sharon Ann Rose a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sharon Ann, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us a story about a time you failed?

“Failure will only remain alive in the eyes of its beholder,” I hear a voice say from deep within. I soften, exhaling into it.

When we gain new perspective about our supposed defeats, we discover maturity awakening. She beckons us into conscious relationship with time’s seasons and cycles. The wisdom gained along our path far outweighs any predetermined destination or outcome.

This is my story of failure… actually, it’s a revelation of grace.

As a writer who follows inspired impulse, I answer when Spirit knocks at my door. And so it was with my first book – a call I couldn’t ignore.

A seed had been percolating within me. After sitting on it like a mother hen, I tried different approaches to nurture its emergence. I felt called to write a book about the insights and wisdom I’d seen emerge in my clients over the previous 15+ years of my healing practice.

I said a prayer, set an intention, and with a breath of faith – took the risk and stepped into the unknown. Following intuition and my experience with collaborative creation, I invited fellow journeyers into my endeavor.

Creating alongside women has always sparked something vital in me: giving me more energy, a deeper commitment, and greater stamina to see vision into reality. With this particular project, I crafted a container to hold women through a curated transformational process, knowing their stories would weave and showcase something bigger and more common to us all.

We embarked on a three-month inner pilgrimage into the multifaceted archetypes of the Sacred Mother. Each step unfolded through grace, and inspiration blew at our backs. I scribed the journey as we traversed its uncharted territory, gathering our collective wisdom into a tapestry of storytelling, memoir and artistic expression. My personal mission was to decipher and articulate the profound complexities of feminine creation, healing and self-discovery.

Throughout my career, I’ve been humbled by the trust women have placed in me as their spiritual guide and witness. This project drew together heart-centered, creative women – each bringing her unique gifts into our exploration of the feminine archetypes.

Within this intentional container, we navigated challenges and liberation, supporting and amplifying each other’s transformation. Serving as Travel Guide and Weaver of Stories, I was not immune from the impact of our passage.

Within a few months of the book’s initial publication and release, my world as I had known it began to spiral. Like the underworld descent of the Goddess Inanna, one travesty after the next showed up on my front door, asking me to release each layer of my envisioned dream.

Slowly, an internalization of shame grew. “I wasn’t destined to be an author… I was being punished for stepping into greater visibility with my work… I should give up on my dream because it wasn’t of real value (otherwise everything wouldn’t be so hard and complicated, right?!).”

The hungry ghosts that appear along any business owner’s or creative’s path of actualizing vision, began to awaken, sharply clawing at my psyche. As a sensitive, shamanic edge-walker, the lines of professional/personal and past/present/future became entangled. Trusted definitions of who I was, what I was built for, and why I was writing this book began to blur. I let the underworld have its way.

Add to this process, the compounded expectations and engrained guilt of a woman navigating her dreams of a larger vision for herself and her ancestral lineage. The launch of my first book became a perfect storm, pushing me into a replica of the feminine archetypal journey I had just written about.

What does it take for a woman to express her true feminine wisdom and creative power in our modern-day culture?

I was invited to walk the path of wisdom’s descent… to unravel an ever-deeper experience of what it meant for me to be the embodiment of the creative feminine.

I didn’t hold a blueprint of a joyful working mother following her intuition and dreams, living her own vision of fulfillment. After the initial burst of my book’s launch – a magical release party, national event tour, direct sales, rave reviews, and the excitement of finding its way into libraries and bookstores across the country – I confronted a long-standing inner pattern of not feeling I would be supported or held, if I didn’t carry the compounding weight alone.

I had built my business upon grassroots, solo pioneering trial-and-error, following inspiration and intuitive impulse, no matter the risk. I hadn’t turned to experts, or paid for professional support, to carry me through the highs and lows of a competitive market. I hadn’t built a sustaining financial foundation to buoy me in a storm.

As I navigated the collision of family and personal health crises, financial hardship, and the dismantling of my dreams, I didn’t know how to say, “Please support me – my dream is worth it.”

I didn’t know that other creatives and professionals had also faced what I was experiencing. It wasn’t something writers, artists and entrepreneurs in my circles spoke about. I presumed I’d hit insurmountable defeat… I was the failure. All the ways I’d followed inspired guidance must be an egoic farce!

My inherited beliefs told me I should be able to manage this – if not, then give it up. Women of my immigrant ancestry carried the silent weight of the world’s suffering on their shoulders. Women raised under patriarchal conditioning had internalized ideas that to be successful, they must don heavy armor and fight the good fight, and figure everything out alone.

I surrendered into the magnanimity of not knowing how to become the influential writer I felt inside me. Through that season of my life, I turned inward – toward my health and home, towards my clients, children and marriage. To gather up these burning hopes and offer them into the center of myself.

The previous dream for my book got filed in the storage as I turned to face my own vitality, committing to walk a path of sustained support where I would learn to welcome inner/outer resources and become the face of the feminine that lived deep inside me.

Eight years later, I’m stepping into the relaunch and circulation of my first book!

Along the way, I’ve learned to trust and savor support… to be carried through potential pitfalls into brave resourcing and stature. This is what it means to birth a dream and see it through its full life cycle. I can feel the impulse to mother a new world into being.

I’m not sure I recognize failure by that name anymore. When I hear someone speak about it, I feel reflective. If they were to ask about my experience, I’d tell them I wished I had thrown open the doors when this notion first arrived. I’d call to it by its true name, “Welcome Maturity! Come right in, my friend. Show me your path of wisdom, rebirth and freedom.”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As the youngest of four daughters, I grew up witnessing the quiet dismissal of the feminine way… its intuition, creativity and heart-centered perspective of life. This inspired me to create spaces where women’s wisdom would be honored and reclaimed. From this vision, my work in Feminine Alchemy was born, dedicated to guiding women through transformational thresholds to heal from ingrained patterns and reconnect with their power, depth of heart, and natural leadership.

Through transformative Rites of Passage, I guide women to release old patterns, reconnect with their innate vitality, and to make self-care the foundation of their journey. Drawing from ancestral wisdom, somatic practices and holistic tools, I offer intentional processes to help them embody and create sustaining, real-world change.

I support women through the misunderstood initiation of collapse into radiance, providing a proven pathway through four essential stages of transformation (the 4 R’s: Restore, Remember, Rebuild and Rebirth).

I believe in the power of rest and embracing life’s natural rhythms. These practices aren’t indulgences; they’re essential for rediscovering the pleasure and guidance that resides within women. The world is yearning for the wisdom we carry. It’s time to lead with the authenticity of our feminine grace.

As a holistic healing arts practitioner, I offer a range of retreats, courses, mentorship and creative works designed to support women in reclaiming their aliveness. Through immersive experiences, self-leadership practices, workshops and healing circles, I guide my clients in reconnecting with their wisdom and wholeness. My background in feminine somatics, energy work, ritual and holistic coaching informs my one-on-one mentorship, where women receive curated support to navigate their deepest thresholds.

In addition to live offerings, I extend my impact through books, online courses and a rich media presence, providing women with tools for transformation. Rooted in over 25 years of hands-on experience and community enrichment, my services are both a sanctuary and catalyst for women seeking to rebuild their lives.

Unlike traditional coaching or therapy, my holistic offerings provide a feminine container that honors the profound initiation our ‘underworld descent’ represents. Through 25 years of guiding women through life’s thresholds, I’ve developed a methodology that:

• treats collapse as a sacred initiation rather than a problem to fix
• integrates ancient wisdom traditions with practical modern tools
• provides spiritual depth and grounded strategies
• creates sustainable change through the somatics of our bodies, clarity of our minds, opening of our hearts, and creative expression of our souls
• builds grounded and supportive community among women walking this initiatory path

I’m most proud of the deep, soul-centered connections I’ve cultivated over the past 25+ years, guiding women into transformation, sisterhood, healing and authentic leadership. My work is not just a profession for me… it’s a living prayer. It’s my devotion to women across the world in reclaiming their strength and radiance, especially in these times of great upheaval and reinvention.

I want potential clients and followers to know that all I’ve created is rooted in direct lived experience, extensive training, and a profound commitment to holding safe space for the female body and psyche to transform. I provide high-integrity sanctuaries for women to heal, remember their innate brilliance, and step into a fulfilling and creative life.

For me this is not just about self-discovery or personal growth. It’s about serving the creation of a world where the truth of who we are ushers forth the deepest potential of all that we can be together.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The lesson I’ve unlearned is that I’m not responsible for other people’s feelings or the collective conditions of our world. I’m not at fault or to blame for floods happening, earthquakes shattering, families falling apart, and fires burning it all down.

This may sound strange and even egoic… to think I actually believed I was to blame for the heartache of the world.
Or to presume I had no impact on how it will unfold for humanity.

Growing up I held a contorted concept that it was imperative I help heal everyone and everything around me. I did not understand my own needs and limits, nor did I have healthy role modeling of self-responsibility. This created inner confusion embroiled in low self-worth and over-responsibility. I entered life believing the suffering of others was mine to bear and fix. As a young girl, I never learned that the first person I needed to be responsible for/to was myself.

It’s taken me 50 years to find and feel the edges of my flesh and the boundaries of my form, while honoring the depth of heart and compassion I hold for the well-being of all life. It’s a delicate and fierce art… learning to care for/about others and learning to hold care for oneself. These states are so inextricably connected.

This is a daily practice of unlearning… finding my way into a robust and sincere embodiment that values the woman I am, alongside holding and offering the care I feel inside my heart to the collective well-being of life.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I built my reputation through sharing my sincerity, interest and devotion to the women in my community. My mission arose from a deep yearning to create a world where the female body would feel safe and be known as sacred.

By honoring my tender heart, I built and fostered the sustaining and intimate relationships I have co-created with peers, colleagues and clients. I hold these connections in mutuality and respect; others feel my dedication to enduring connection and partnership.

The descent I took after publishing my first book, helped me dismantle ideas about my own feminine wisdom, about what’s most important to me, and about how I stand in my integrity and values. I value people’s lives over methodology. I care about sustaining breakthrough over upholding a professional image. What lives in quietude is more valuable to me than what is shouted across the airwaves.

Through my professional career, I’ve learned the art of letting go and surrendering to a vision beyond and inclusive of my own, which has created a reputation for sharing high-integrity services, impeccability in my offerings, and living in vibrant collaborations.

As a holistic arts practitioner, I’m known for the value I bring to supporting women on their path – an igniter of fire, a catalyst for sustained transformation, I am one who hears the deep desire below all false desires. I show up fully and dive straight into the deep, each time a woman needs a midwife to walk beside her into her next rebirth.

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://linktr.ee/sharonannrose

Image Credits

Jewelz Ann Lovejoy
Karissa Love
Krisiey Salsa
Courtney Neron