Dr. Jennifer B. Rhodes On Becoming Free From The Fear Of Failure

An Interview With Savio P. Clemente

The Fear of Failure is one of the most common restraints that holds people back from pursuing great ideas. Imagine if we could become totally free from the fear of failure. Imagine what we could then manifest and create. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who can share stories and insights from their experience about “Becoming Free From the Fear of Failure.” As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dr. Jennifer B. Rhodes

Dr. Rhodes is a licensed Psychologist, Author, yogi and tango dancer. She has traveled to over 30 countries solo, started and lost businesses and has been on a spiritual journey for quite some time. She credits a stubborn soul for facing her fears and continuing to follow her true calling.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I was never supposed to be a psychologist but my father died when I was 15 and that changed my goals. Not only did he have health problems but his mental health struggles were not being treated appropriately with conventional psychiatry. This led me to study relationships and healing and took me on a profound spiritual journey. Over the last 10 years, my career was thrown off track by a lawsuit instigated by family members and my need to heal my own PTSD. Turns out that social dancing was the key to getting back into alignment. But I had so much fear and resistance around it, plus the PTSD, that it would take years to heal my body so I could actually enjoy dancing.

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

As my spiritual journey went on, I had a massive psychic awakening and had to face many fears of the spirit world. They would show up and speak through my clients and I had to learn to not be scared. I’m still learning how to embrace these intuitive gifts and stay grounded.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Self study — in yoga it’s called svadaya. On psychology it’s called introspection. Without diving deep into your unconscious, fear will always stop you. My biggest fear that was passed down to me from the women on my family was the feat of men. So as it turns out, many opportunities have been caused by men so I could overcome these fears.

2. Love of learning — I love to learn about everything. It’s a good trait for a seeker but also provides the motivation to keep moving forward.

3. Love — everything I’ve ever done was for love. From my career to trying to help others not go through what my dad has gone through l’ve always been motivated by human relationships. This also meant overcoming a tremendous amount of fear of romantic relationships and learning about my emotions.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the concept of becoming free from failure. Let’s zoom in a bit. From your experience, why exactly are people so afraid of failure? Why is failure so frightening to us?

Failure is bred into us by our culture. We also do not do emotions well and often don’t even recognize that fear is present. I once had a supervisor refuse to take me off a case because she did the antidote to fear was running towards what you are afraid of. Most of us avoid rather than address fear. It’s leads to anxiety which most people don’t know how to manage.

What are the downsides of being afraid of failure? How can it limit people?

Missed opportunities. It has definitely derailed my career and I’ve had to do a lot of focused helping work on addressing fear. It also creates a very negative mindset so people often muss out on love.

In contrast, can you help articulate a few ways how becoming free from the free of failure can help improve our lives?

More love and emotional freedom. Knowing that fear can be managed is a gift and the key to happiness.

We would love to hear your story about your experience dealing with failure. Would you be able to share a story about that with us?

I think I’ve had more failure in my personal relationships than I would have liked (although the difficulties are in my astrology chart!). It would take the first half of my life to realize that I absorb energy and I had the stuck emotions of my parents and their trauma in my body. It caused me to not act like myself and I missed out on getting married at a younger age. It took a very long time to realize how to manage all of this and heal.

How did you rebound and recover after that? What did you learn from this whole episode? What advice would you give to others based on that story?

I wrote a book about the process to help others but when round 2 of healing started in 2020, I crashed and burned. I had to take significant time to dive into spirituality and learn about my family history. There are so many things that control our behavior that we have no conscious awareness of. You have to do the work of you want to move forward

Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that everyone can take to become free from the fear of failure”? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Activities to promote emotions — acting, singing, music, dancing — anything creative that helps you learn about emotions will help you learn new skills to channel emotions and feel safe around them. 2. Social dancing — relationships and the healthy energy of others is healing. Don’t take it for granted. 3. Journaling — talk to your fear. Where does she live in your body. What does he want you to know? Does it have advice or wisdom for you? Tall to your fear instead of avoiding it.

4. Yoga and meditation — fear lives in the body and learning to heal the nervous system is necessary for growth.

5. Normalize fear — we all have it as something to overcome in this lifetime. I like to now think of it as an assignment so I don’t self sabatoge.

The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.” Based on your experience, have you found this quote to be true? What do you think Aristotle really meant?

The way to succeed is to let go of the idea of success and realize the failures were part of the process. This is the only way so Aristotle would be correct.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

To take our physical health seriously as an avenue for connection not just to look good. When we all heal and interact with one another, we have the opportunities to help each other elevate. I would like to see the day when traditional talk therapy is not needed because we are all in energetic alignment with each other and feel connected to community.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them :-)

I would love to have breakfast with Jennifer Lopez. She is an inspiration in both the career and relationship world for women and I always enjoy going back to my NY roots. I think I used to help students in her old middle school in the Bronx!

How can our readers further follow your work online?

My website is drjenniferbrhodes.com and my Instagram is @jenniferbrhodes

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

About The Interviewer: Savio P. Clemente coaches cancer survivors to overcome the confusion and gain the clarity needed to get busy living in mind, body, and spirit. He inspires health and wellness seekers to find meaning in the “why” and to cultivate resilience in their mindset. Savio is a Board Certified wellness coach (NBC-HWC, ACC), stage 3 cancer survivor, podcaster, writer, and founder of The Human Resolve LLC.

He has been featured on Fox News, and has collaborated with Authority Magazine, Thrive Global, Food Network, WW, and Bloomberg. His mission is to offer clients, listeners, and viewers alike tangible takeaways in living a truly healthy, wealthy, and wise lifestyle.

Savio lives in the suburbs of Westchester County, New York and continues to follow his boundless curiosity. He hopes to one day live out a childhood fantasy and explore outer space.

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