I met Mama Rose through her music and got to know her through her compassion. We’ve had several lovely chats and sometimes I run into her on summer walks near my house. She’s always uplifting, yet even knowing that I was impressed with her new publication, Fearless!
We have chatted many times, but for folks who are new to our conversations, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I sure can, thanks for asking Ann! I’ll start with a bit about how I arrived here, as Mama Rose, with the title of author and as a world traveling musician and mother of four. I’m sure it comes as no surprise, given our history and the nature of your platform that my story starts with music. Well, it starts with music and trauma. In my early 20s I found myself at a place where I was ready to heal my early life and tapped into the creative means that I found myself leaning into since I was a young child; music. I dropped out of Nursing school and went to McNally Smith College of Music, then left music school and had my first child. Almost as soon as I became a mother, I became Mama Rose. The name found me, I just knew it was right and my brand as a creative blossomed as my purpose evolved. Everything I was doing and the reason behind it all came more into focus as I evolved through motherhood.
I’ve always been a writer, a songwriter, a singer, a visual artist, I’ve even been modeling since a young age so it wasn’t necessarily new for me to continue on these paths, however, I faced the challenges that come as one reinvents themselves. After years of repressing who I was in order to fit into the relational and life circumstances that kept me small – I was tasked with convincing myself that I was, in fact, an artist. This process of healing through PTSD, anxiety and more was the beginning of my work with affirmations and the seed point of my book, Fearless: 27 Affirmations to Change Your Life.
Your new book, Fearless, is grounding. I’m hoping to share it with one of my daughters now that I’m done. What inspired you to write it? And what gave you the fortitude to finish?
What a beautiful question Ann. I’m so grateful to have had every experience, no matter the label (good, bad, hard, etc.) that has allowed me to create something that can serve as a companion to your daughters’ growth. How cool is that?! I am still in awe everyday at what this book can do, at what all of our creations can do when we take the initiative to start them and find the strength to bring them to others.
What gave me the fortitude to finish this book? A vision. I believe in the power that our vision has to create our dreams. I write about this throughout Fearless as well. I held a vision of the life that would come after this book was published and the world that this book would co-create. I imagined it finished, I envisioned the people it would meet and how they’d find a home in its pages. I dreamed of the way the words would do their work in the world and I thought of my children. I thought of everything I build for them; in the quiet moments as I create their childhood and in the work I do on a larger scale that creates shifts in the collective consciousness. I wrote this book for a reason. I built it on an intention that was strong enough to carry it and me through. In the late nights that I was writing Fearless on my phone with one hand, holding my sick baby on my hip with the other, I found the same sense of purpose that was there at rock bottom on my darkest days. I found the deep sense of self that whispers, “don’t give up”. And that is why this book is about courage.
I was inspired by the hard things and the beautiful things. I wanted others to know that we can cultivate the courage it takes to meet ourselves no matter what. That the ultimate form of self love is self acceptance and that is where all positive change stems from. This is where self forgiveness occurs and this is where we free ourselves. My vision was to create a companion that others could bring into the spaces where they don’t let anyone else see them. Because even through hundreds of 1:1 sessions with my coaching clients, I knew that most of their work was done alone, in the moments that their voice was the only one speaking. I wanted to be there. I wanted to remind them, and myself, and our children and everyone that we have power in the way that we speak to ourselves.
So, instead of allowing my pain, my hardship and my trauma to become the story of why I couldn’t achieve my big dreams, I rewrote my own stories of abuse and victimization to allow those things to become the fuel for my dreams instead. Fearless is a book about retraining the inner voice, changing the stories we carry so that they support us and cultivating the courage to meet every part of our experience with transformational presence.
I know your spiritual work, but I’m better acquainted with your music. How does one inform the other?
It’s all the same. It all touches the soul. For me, my music is an extension of my spirit – we all have different words for the deep self and I typically use as many different words as I can in order to invite those from all walks of life into my work. Spirit, soul, essence, deep self, higher self, etc. It’s all the same and it’s where our creations flow from. To realize one’s truth as a creator is the most honest work we can do. Because the reality is, we are creating all of the time, whether we know it or not. When we start to create on purpose, with awareness, everything changes. That’s why this book includes “…To Change Your Life” in the title. It is profoundly life changing to wake up to your power as a creator.
I am a creator and I know myself as such. I have done and continue to do the deep inner work of reconciling with the immense responsibility that comes with the acknowledgement of my power as a creator. I know most of us avoid this responsibility and avoid coming to terms with the fact that the way we speak to ourselves tells the world who we are and tells us who the world is. We create the framework through which we filter every single experience. I cannot overstate the importance of doing this work intentionally. When that responsibility is avoided, we say “no” to the greatest opportunities of our lives. We say “no” to the dreams that would fulfill us. I want to raise a generation of children who refuse to say “no” to their dreams, who refuse to self-abandon, who refuse to fit into boxes and who are equipped with the tools to take on the courageous, momentous opportunity of creating their lives and our world purposefully.
My music does this. When something is created in the flowstate – the energy which flows from the higher self, soul, etc. – it reaches the higher self of the one who listens. It touches them, soul to soul and gently invites, “wake up”. My music and spiritual work and writing do not inform one another, they are one in the same. This is what it means to be inspired and to create work that inspires others.
You have a new song and video that just came out. Can you tell us about it?
Crown is a very special song. I was given an artist residency for January of 2026 at a beautiful studio called Studio Apparatus in North Minneapolis. My pitch was that I wanted to create a song and music video that aligned with my book both in sonic and visual concept. They were overjoyed to work with me as the mission behind the song is so poignant for the times we’re in. I actually premiered the song and video in the same space the video was filmed because Studio Apparatus is also an event venue that goes by The Art House and I held my book release party there in February. It was a stunning experience. I will never forget bringing my mother to tears and watching my children see fifty some adults melt into the softness that Crown invited. I could feel us co-regulating our nervous systems to the music and my years of study and practice in sound design, guitar, production, singing and songwriting all reached a pinnacle moment as I was able to share the fruits of that labor.
When you listen to Crown, you can expect to be reminded of who you truly are through the lyrics. Many of us who come here with a larger-than-life missions or even unusual interests are branded as “crazy” or “too much”. Those of us who are multi-passionate are often told there is no space for us to be all of who we are. We learn to tuck parts of ourselves away or sever them entirely. This is a big part of why so many adults are drained of their life force energy or child-like essence. I’m not willing to live that way. My vitality is too important to me. I know people will see my big dreams as crazy and too much, they always have. Will that stop me? Absolutely not. That is the energy you’ll receive through this song.
My singing/songwriting style is typically a mix between country, jazz, folk, blues and soul. This song leans more into folk and is built through a strong story on a feather bed of dozens of stacked vocal harmonies and acoustic guitar. I recorded Crown in my home studio and was assisted by my friend Richard Shallbetter in building out the complex harmonics.
The video uses movement and dance along with the interplay of light, shadow and texture to make the song’s message tangible.
Please tell us where folks can get the book.
Fearless is available through all booksellers including many local bookstores (Tao Natural Foods, Magers and Quinn, etc). If you check your local bookstore and don’t see it there, please encourage them to order it! I invite you to keep an eye on my website or join my email list to learn about upcoming readings and book signing events. My dream for this book is that everyone will order two copies: one to keep and one for the little library down the street, or your therapist’s office, or your chiropractor’s waiting room, or your book club friends, or your child, or your neighbor. I want your help in spreading this message. I appreciate everyone who allows Fearless to change their lives.
Mostly Minnesota 