TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA
Email: rosalie@healthinharmony.com
Website: www.healthinharmony.com
What does creativity mean to you?
It means bringing to the surface an essence that lurks within my soul. It means saying things in my own way, with fun, passion and empathy. It means continual development either in my own field or branching into another. It means being unique, different from others, yet being able to relate to others.
What is your creative passion? How do you approach it?
Right now my passion is to write and to speak to audiences to bring all I've learned about health and wellness to others. As a board member for a foundation that promotes orthomolecular treatment of mental illness, I speak, write articles and volunteer for their many events. I bring my creativity, my excitement and belief to all I do for them.
I have had many creative passions in my life, from the time I was a child. Creative passion is getting in touch with that little ember that burns within and then fan those flames with everything we’ve got! It’s taking the things that I love and pursuing them. It started with my love of fun, music, swimming, dancing and learning at a young age. I loved school and learning. I loved music and studied violin, took ballet and tap dancing lessons, took swimming lessons and won swimming trophies at 7 and 8 years of age. We were a working class family, yet my mother found a way to have me do all these things. Folk dancing, then rock and roll music were other passions.
I recall as an adolescent learning all the words to each new pop tune that came out on the "CHUM chart" (a listing of every new pop song.) Playing in the school band and orchestra were thrilling to me. Learning international folk dance was another passion of mine along with dancing the jive. Getting married and becoming a young mother was my next passion. I made sure I learned about communication skills to help my relationship. After all, the odds of success were against me - getting married at 18. (We're still together 42 years later.)
I loved being a mother and read every book on child care and had fun with my 2 kids. I took them on subway rides, to the museum, enrolled them in karate, gymnastics, religious schooling and anything to enrich their lives and their souls. Still I strived to enrich my own. I studied creative writing, poetry, guitar, taught music for young children in the Library system in Toronto.
Later, I became a singer/performer (when my children were adolescents) I started a career in music and the arts as a singer/songwriter and part of the Canadian Singing Duo, Jim & Rosalie. We recorded three albums, were nominated for 2 Juno awards and then I was a solo performer for a few more years and recorded two more albums.
I was becoming interested in health and wellness due to the fact that at times my own health was suffering. Again I studied everything I could about it. I decided to switch careers - I felt a calling to that area. I returned to school and became a health and wellness consultant, stress management consultant and nutrition consultant.
Still I work to continually evolve and keep in step with the times, yet in step with my own direction.
Describe the feeling you have when heavily into a creative activity you love.
When I'm writing an article, or standing in front of an audience to speak or to sing, I feel an excitement, a passion to create my best, to bring to the world the best that was given to me. In a sense it's a wanting to succeed, yet it is balanced with a wanting to do good. It's a joyfulness that exudes from my soul, so that I can hardly wait to get the words out of me. It's a hope for the future, a positive fountain that keeps on pouring out what's in my heart. "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine."
What does the creative process do you, or for, you?
It makes me feel alive, that I feel I'm a co-creator in the universe. It helps me feel joyful, happy, inspired. It inspires me go forward in life. It makes me feel that life is worthwhile.
How have you fulfilled your own creative urges?
By getting excited about things I like to do. I studied violin as a child after begging my mother to take lessons. I took up singing, guitar, and became a singer and songwriter - as I mentioned earlier part of the Canadian Singing Duo "Jim & Rosalie". It’s all because I felt a surge of excitement each time I thought about these things. It was a ‘knowing’ that I could do it. We all have that ‘knowing’. Don’t let others or your own self doubts dampen it.
I wrote poems and studied creative writing and song writing. I wanted to become a speaker on health and wellness issues. I studied the craft of speaking, writing, presentation. I taught stress management at the same college I studied wellness. I speak on stress & wellness issues (and sing about them too). I wanted to be a nutritional consultant. I returned to school once again and became a Registered Nutritional Consultant - one who speaks and sings.
Now I want to write books and I'm learning the latest writing skills for e-books and articles for the Internet. Have I fulfilled my own creative urges? Most of them so far. But at 61, I still have many plans. To me that's the only way to live life, as if I'll never die, but yet as though I'll die tomorrow.
What do you do to satisfy your soul?
Give money and groceries to the homeless. Speak on nutrition and health at homes for schizophrenics. Volunteer as a board member of the International Schizophrenia Foundation, www.orthomed.org promoting orthomolecular treatments for mental illness. I empathize and give helpful information to people who call me with their problems with their mentally ill children.
Through nutritional consulting, I help many family members who are stricken with mental illness. I also sing when I'm driving in my car. I try to be forgiving of people who may have hurt or offended me. I notice beautiful things all around me - and take that beauty into my heart and soul; gorgeous orange/purple sunsets, striking architecture, city lights on a clear dark night, nature at every season - even winter, laughing children, beautiful clothing, wonderful art that speaks to me, enjoy beautiful people - inside and out. I pray.
How are you creative in your life?
I'm spontaneous and change course if I want to or have to. I decorate my home with unusual paint colours, whimsical decor and lots of brightly coloured furniture. I work hard, but take time for yoga, walks, voice lessons, or writing poetry. I find time to cook new recipes and bring family members together for parties.
Who has inspired you in your life to achieve your potential? How?
My mother, with her encouragement, praise, love of fun and beauty in the world and her persistent nature. Her belief in me was the most inspiring. When I was a young mother, my own mother (Doris Fleishman) and I even had a mother and daughter act for about a year. It was great fun. We were called ‘The Team of Mama & Rosalie’.
Certain people not encouraging me or thinking I could not achieve in life also inspired me to plod on and achieve in spite of their lack of belief in me. For this negativity creates hurt and hurt often turns into a passion for greatness. Writers, poets and artists often get their greatest ideas when they are in the depths of despair. At times of difficulty in my relationships, I was inspired to write. When it seemed like all doors were closed to me, somehow I got inspiration to try something else. Perhaps it was God, an angel or the universe or my higher self or all of the above speaking to me - to persevere.
