Lisa Dunlap of Nurse Your Soul On Becoming Free from The Fear of Failure

An Interview with Savio P. Clemente

Keep trying and failing. If we aren’t failing, then we aren’t trying and we aren’t growing. If we don’t try and fail, we stay stuck. Staying stuck is what we should be afraid of. Celebrate your failures as much as your successes.

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 Lisa Dunlap, AGPCNP & Burnout Coach.

Lisa Dunlap AGPCNP, is a nurse burnout coach, workplace wellness consultant, and holistic nurse practitioner. She helps nurses restore and revive themselves so they can thrive and live a life they love. As a certified herbalist, clinical aromatherapist & energy healer, also trained in mindfulness and self-compassion she targets the mind, body and spirit.

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’?

Thank you for having me. I’d love to share my backstory. I founded Nurse Your Soul and became a nurse burnout coach in August of 2020. This was after I transformed my own rock-bottom burnout, into spontaneous healing and following my dreams. I had been working on the frontlines of the pandemic in Seattle as a Hospice NP when burnout, opened a door for me to pause and pivot my 14-year career as a nurse and adult-geriatric NP.

On a more personal note, I had a very non-traditional upbringing. My Catholic Father and Russian orthodox mother were both hippie-liberals. Sounds crazy, I know. We were a middle-class family living on Capitol Hill, Seattle where the annual “Gay Pride” parade marched down our street.

Raised primarily by my father for the first 9 years of my life, I threw myself into academic achievements, friendships, and sports. My mom was on a personal journey to uncover and heal her major depressive disorder. I became the rare kid of divorced parents whose childhood dream came true. At 10 years old, my mom remarried my father and was back in our lives.

I always knew I’d have a career in medicine, even though I came from a family of teachers. At the age of 20, I discovered alternative medicine as I sought healing modalities for my own anxiety, depression, and multiple injuries I incurred from snowboarding and soccer.

My first degree was in Biology-Anthropology, (pre-naturopathic medicine). My plans to become a naturopath shifted at the age of 26, after doing a medical mission in Belize and an ethnobotany internship in the Solomon Islands. I became fascinated with helping underserved populations and realized the world needed the integration of eastern and western medicines. At the Age of 26 I was off to another island, alone. This time it was Hawaii, where I embarked on my 8-year journey to becoming a nurse practitioner.

It was in Hawaii that I met and married my marine biologist husband, and we had our first child. Currently we live near Wrightsville Beach, NC with my 7-year-old daughter and 4-year- old son. We spend our free time surfing, kayaking, snorkeling, stand-up paddle-boarding, hiking, fishing, listening to live music and running.

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?

Great Question. Nurses certainly have endless stories to share, but perhaps the most impactful story from my career as a nurse was on my journey to becoming one. During my 18 month nursing undergraduate program, I found many ways to manage my stress, but the most powerful was healing touch. I saw a critical need and opportunity for my fellow classmates to cultivate holistic stress management techniques also. I suggested to the nursing faculty that we offer healing touch training for the nursing students.

My teacher, at the time, told me I would make a terrible nurse, and that I needed to re-focus my priorities on my clinical nursing skills.

Rather than take his words to heart, I allowed those words to fuel my deep desire to integrate eastern and western medicine and prioritize holistic tools for healing. Not only did I not listen to him, but I also proved him wrong.

Five years after graduating from nursing school, I was offered a very high paying, highly sought after, inpatient “Holistic Nurse” position. I really wanted to send that teacher, my job offer, but didn’t. LOL. This taught me to believe in myself, my vision, and my truth regardless of what others believed or thought.

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?

Thank you, that’s so kind of you. The three-character traits that continue to be instrumental to my success are: courage, self-compassion, and vulnerability

Having Courage and overcoming fear, have been themes for most of my life. Perhaps the first opportunity to overcome my greatest fear happened when I was 19 years old. While snowboarding in the backcountry at Mount Baker in 1998, I fell off a 50-foot cliff and was buried 3 feet beneath the snow. I faced my worst fears, being buried alive and dying. During the time beneath the snow that I was awake, I was able to face my fear, remain calm, and surrender to my reality. I didn’t panic, and I reflected on the life I had lived that point. I was at peace with dying, though I really wanted to live. I sent energetic wishes to my friend to report me missing and went into “diver mode.” My body went to sleep. I was found in the dark, 3 hours later, with mild hypothermia and a dislocated shoulder. I would carry this courage, forward with all challenges I faced for the next 23 years of my life. It also gave me a sense that I had a purpose on this planet and was meant to live and share my gifts.

Self-compassion and self-acceptance have become the keys to my happiness and recent success in my business. I was not born with these, traits. These grew out of a lot of failures. LOL. And a lot of self-healing. I used to find worth in achievements and what I could do for others. But this only led me to burnout. Now I find value in being who I am, (the good, the bad and the ugly) which comes with self-compassion. This allows me to celebrate and prioritize myself…. which in turn gives me a greater capacity to nurture my family, my coaching clients, and my hospice patients.

The more vulnerable and less afraid I am to share who I really am with the world, the happier I become. As a person who has struggled with anxiety and walking the line of hypomania and depression my entire life… the less I try to “fix myself” and the more I accept and love all of me, the more whole I feel. I used to feel shame about who I was, but by allowing what is and accepting all parts of myself… I now inspire others to do the same. By sharing my humanness, it gives others the courage to heal and be their most authentic selves.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the 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?

As a burnout coach, I absolutely love this question because it gets right to the core limiting-beliefs that block people from finding happiness.

In my experience the fear of failure is driven by the desire not to be fully exposed or “found-out.” People fear being “found-out” because they fear that their true self is not good enough, not likeable, not worthy.

The underlying emotion that people feel with failure is shame. Shame leads to vulnerability which can feel so lonely and isolating. Ironically though, the more vulnerability we show each other, the more connected we feel as humans.

It really comes down to the EGO and how a person defines success. If a person believes success is measured by how much money he or she makes, the degrees he or she holds or the achievements he or she has, then failure would be feared.

On the other hand, if a person believes success is measured by finding inner calm, happiness, overcoming adversities, living a soul aligned life and by how much he or she is learning and growing, then failures would be seen as welcome steppingstones to these.

My failures have been my greatest spiritual teachers.

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

There are so many downsides to fearing failure, yet it is so human. The fear of failure will never disappear. It’s staying stuck in the fear of failure that paralyzes us. Fear of failure will ultimately hold a person back from their truth and living your soul-aligned life. It keeps people focused on the mirage of success and prevent personal growth. To me, the fear of failure limits happiness and joy.

If you really think about it, failure is all about perception. It isn’t real. A situation is only perceived as a failure because of the meaning a person gives it in that moment. If a person looks back on their life, they’ll see that all their failures led them to this moment, and it will all make sense.

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

Of course. I wouldn’t say that a person is ever completely “Free from fearing failure.” But by cultivating an awareness of their fear, they can honor it, accept it, and move past it.

In my own life, and for the women that I coach, becoming moving past the fear of failure allows us to let go of our need to succeed, achieve or be perfect. Which in turn has allowed me to:

• Align all my decisions with my core values and thus my soul’s purpose. Which means I set healthy boundaries.
• Manifest complete and spontaneous healing of a debilitating ovarian mass.
• Step away from my 14-year nursing career, to prioritize my mental-emotional health, find joy, and start my business, Nurse Your Soul.
• Move my family across the country, to pursue our vision of a simpler life, surfing more and working less.
• Fail more often & begin to see my failures as the successes.
• Trust and accept myself

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?

Of course, I have had so many failures. LOL. But perhaps the most profound was when I hit a mental, emotional, and physical rock-bottom, right before the pandemic began. I was given an opportunity to transform my perceived failures into personal growth and “wake up.”

The first “Failure” came right after my 40th birthday. I woke up one morning barely able to walk. I went from: running an 8-mile race (the previous week), working full time as a Hospice NP, and mothering 2 small children to debilitating hip and low back pain. This pain became the loose string, you find on your clothes, that if you pull it… unravels the entire shirt. I was the shirt about to completely unravel.

For the next few months, I bounced on and off work disability and sought medical answers for my hip and low back pain. Not once did it occur to me that it could be a physical manifestation of burnout. I was mentally exhausted, dreading work, and depressed. After months of bouncing around different medical providers, injections, and physical therapy… no cause for my pain was identified. But it did offer me the opportunity to slow down and reframe my mindset to choosing what thoughts I wanted to focus on and believe.

Unable to do anything that I formerly could, I felt like such a failure, and my self-esteem plummeted. As a physically active, adventurous, NP and mom, all my identities were stripped away. I was getting complaints at work from patients, that I was “just checking off the boxes.” This wasn’t me, who was this person?

If you can believe this failure story gets worse, it does. Four months into this pain journey… COVID hit. It was March of 2020 and I had returned to work on the frontlines as a Hospice NP. I was seeing patients in 5 different nursing homes a day, without any protective gear. Meanwhile, our childcare was falling through for my (then) 2- and 5-year-old children. My stress and anxiety were through the roof.

Right before Seattle’s first “lockdown/ shelter in place” orders took effect, in March of 2020, we decided to take a family ski trip to the mountains. My pain had improved enough to get back on my snowboard, and help my kids learn to ski.

As we drove up to the mountain, I got that call from my doctor, no one wants to get. My OBGYN asked me to sit down and proceeded to tell me that they found a solid, grapefruit sized mass in my ovary. Everything in my world went quiet and I had tunnel vision. I paused and saw my life up until that moment flash before my eyes and all my hopes and dreams drifted away. Being a Hospice NP, I knew this could be Ovarian Cancer, who is usually found too late to treat.

This felt like the ultimate failure… I had potentially failed at life. And over the next 3 months I would stare in the eyes of this potentially life limiting illness ping-ponging between victim mentality, fear, and anxiety and total empowered, heart aligned joy.

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 had two choices in this situation. Become the victim, focus on what I didn’t have, resist my reality and spiraling into fear and anxiety. Or I could choose to accept “what is”, control my own thoughts, and find joy amidst the chaos. Of course, I did a little of the former because I’m human. But truthfully, the moment I got the call from that OBGYN, I practiced self-compassion and for the first time in my life, I paused instead of spiraling in fear. I asked myself what I needed in that moment. And the answer was clear…to continue with my family ski trip and live my best life that weekend, regardless of whether I was dying. And that I did. I rode deep powder in the back country and taught my 2-year-old how to ski for his first time.

For the next 3 months, at home with 2 small children, waiting on answers and surgery, I learned to find joy in the present moment. I realized in this situation, the only thing I could control was my heart and thoughts, so that’s what I did. I chose to live like each moment was my last. I chose laughter with my kids, barefoot mindful moments in the grass and sat on my meditation mat every day at noon.

I asked myself every day what I needed to feel nurtured in that moment, and I gave myself whatever the answer was. For the first time in my life, I allowed myself to feel in the moments that I needed to feel them.

When we aren’t well or feel like we are failing our inner critic can be cruel. So, I spent time practicing self-compassion. I placed my hand on my heart, spoke kindly to myself, and envisioned the mass dissolving. I asked for a community of people to envision healing. I envisioned and manifested how I wanted to feel and live, should I get through this. My husband and I envisioned a life in a sunnier climate, spending time on the beach, surfing, buying our first home, living on one income, and spending more time with our kids.

I learned how to choose joy and peace amidst the muck, and that living my dream life was a choice to find my bliss in this moment. My biggest moments of formerly perceived failures became my biggest opportunities for growth.

And with all this personal work I was doing, and holistic practices, When the surgeons went in to remove my grapefruit sized ovarian mass 8 weeks later, it didn’t surprise me that it wasn’t there. It had completely disappeared, to the Doctor’s disbelief. I was cancer negative, and my pain had also dissolved at that point.

I knew why my mass had dissolved. Because my mind and body had worked together for healing. My rock-bottom burnout (failure) became my greatest gift. Over the next month, I pivoted my NP career to help other women in my shoes. I knew that if I became physically and mentally ill from stress, so could other women in healthcare. It became my mission to help them, overcome their own fears and perceived failures and transform them into thriving.

One year after this spontaneous healing, my husband and I would carry out our dream and move across the country to Wilmington, NC and we do spend our days at the beach, in and around the water, and we both have more time with our children.

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.

I think my stories shared above are great examples of how I beame free of the fear of failure, but here are 5 steps everyone can take regardless of your situation.

1. Keep trying and failing. If we aren’t failing, then we aren’t trying and we aren’t growing. If we don’t try and fail, we stay stuck. Staying stuck is what we should be afraid of. Celebrate your failures as much as your successes.
2. Recognize that Failure is a construct of our minds and only exists because we give it meaning. Anything that happens to you, that you perceive as failure, can be reframed, and given a different meaning. It’s a choice. Ask the questions, “How can I learn from this? What is the opportunity here?” Recognize that your failures may not make sense until later when you can look backwards and connect the dots.
3. Name and honor your fear of failure. We cannot deny our thoughts or emotions. But by allowing them, we can then let them go, and transform them. Self-awareness is the best way to recognize that our thoughts and emotions are not our reality, and we can choose what we focus on
4. Be kind to yourself. Practice Self-Compassion. The most important conversation you will ever have been the one you have with yourself. Self-compassion transformed and healed many deep patterns and wounds in me, especially perceived failures.
5. Define what success means to you. What do you value most? Spend time doing those things. Celebrate those successes, and you will never fail. This is what living a soul-aligned life is.

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?

Interesting. This is the first time I’ve heard this quote, while I 100% agree there are many ways to fail. On a deeper level I do agree with him that there is only one way to succeed. It’s in our minds and hearts that we succeed. It’s how we personally define success that matters. For me, living my soul-aligned life, and sharing my gifts are my definitions of success. That may not be yours, so don’t try to fit into my definition of success. Define it for yourself and live by it.

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. :-)

Thank you. And Fantastic question. My vision is to empower anyone with mental illness to cultivate tools for self-healing. I want to tear down the stigma and begin to see mental illness as a strength rather than a weakness. I also envision and want to implement workplace burnout prevention programs in all healthcare organizations. I want to inspire a culture shift in healthcare, where self-nurture and a work-life balance are celebrated.

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 :-)

Wow, no one has asked me this question yet, and I love it. We must name our dreams and truth, share it with the world, for them to come true. I would love to meet with Brene Brown or Oprah. These have been the 2 most influential females in my life’s quest to love and accept myself. I also appreciate the paths they have paved for us women, and both have such amazing hearts.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Thank you for having me, Savio, it has truly been a pleasure.

Readers can receive my free monthly newsletter by going to my website. It includes free tips on overcoming burnout and anxiety and making shifts to pursue a life you love.

Or readers can follow me on: Facebook or Instagram.

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