When fear is overwhelming, sometimes you need to press the button—the emergency button. In this special episode, Kate gets real with the people that she calls when she needs to push the button. You'll hear from actor Joel McHale, writer Nora...

The Emergency Button

Are you living your best life now? Not always? This is a podcast for you. Duke Professor Kate Bowler is an expert in the stories we tell about success and failure, suffering and happiness. She had Stage IV cancer. Then she didn’t. And since then, all she wants to do is talk to funny and wise people about how to live with the knowledge that, well, everything happens.  Find her online at @katecbowler.
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Chantal Kreviazuk is a Canadian singer, songwriter, composer, and pianist—her voice is the soundtrack of all Kate’s Canadian’s teenage angst. She has had an incredible career with a passion for helping others. Among many things, she’s a powerful advocate for destigmatizing mental illness—a cause near and dear to her heart after her brother struggled to get adequate care for nearly 20 years. She’s said, “When a family member is sick, the whole family is sick.” She offers such wisdom for people who struggle with a hurting family member, or their own mental health, or for their marriages that are sometimes not as easy as we had hoped. 
In this conversation, Kate and Chantal discuss:

Setting necessary boundaries in complicated families
The ups and downs of a marriage and the unexpected gifts that only reveal themselves when you commit to staying in it for the long haul
A trick to starting a hard day

 

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.
Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chantal Kreviazuk: Finding the Melody

Sometimes we can fix our lives and sometimes can’t. So when self-help and self-care fall short, what do we need to turn instead? Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute of NBC’s The Office) says that what we need is a spiritual revolution. This conversation is rich and challenging and invites us all to think about the virtues we need to sustain a life and how we might cultivate these virtues not just for our own wellbeing but for that of the people around us. Spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with bubble baths or the latest cold plunge trend. Wouldn’t it be nice if it were that easy?  
In this conversation, Kate and Rainn discuss:

How self-care is often a form of toxic individualism
The current mental health crisis and the need for spiritual tools that provide vision, mission, and purpose
How making oneself useful can be an antidote to despair

A big thank you to our friends at The Fetzer Institute for making today’s conversation possible. 
 

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.
Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.
  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rainn Wilson: Brave, Beautiful, and Good Things

Our lives are rarely predictable or at all in our control. Sometimes what happens to us or around us can reshape our entire trajectory. Nicky Gumbel is someone whose life was dramatically changed. He thought he was going to be a very fancy lawyer… just like everyone else in his family, but that’s not what happened. Nicky became one of the pioneers of the Alpha Course where 30 million people have been introduced to Christian faith around the world.
In this conversation, Kate and Nicky discuss:

Nicky’s reluctant conversion to Christianity
How to stay open to the things we didn’t expect to happen.
How age isn’t necessarily the limiter we might assume—perhaps there are opportunities or new ventures that can open up in our later third of life
Why the church should be more like a hospital than a museum

 

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.
Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nicky Gumbel: Questions of Meaning

So much of modern culture emphasizes success, hard work, and ambition. But what if we don’t conquer every problem or reach every mountaintop? How do you live with the hunger for more while letting yourself have limits and be tired and say no and shut it down too?
In this conversation, Kate and Emma Gannon discuss:

Why ambition isn’t necessarily a bad thing
How Emma reacted to a season of severe burnout and what wisdom she has for all of us
How bucket lists can inadvertently place us in a game we are never going to win (Psst… It’s okay to simmer down a bit) 

 

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.
Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emma Gannon: The Butterfly Era

These are uncertain times for so many of us. 
But, according to writer Maggie Jackson, perhaps there is deep wisdom to be uncovered too—surprising gifts of curiosity, creative thinking, open-mindedness, and ways forward through the (often) unpredictabilities of life. 
In this conversation, Kate and Maggie Discuss:

How uncertainty might foster creativity, resilience, and mutual understanding
Why we avoid ambiguity and a few small steps to help us become more comfortable with not knowing
How the practices of imagination and perspective-taking can help us see the potential in others
Why focusing on outcomes can close you off from picking up new information, nuance, or other peoples' perspectives
Why experiences contrary to our beliefs take longer, sometimes even weeks, to process

 

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.
Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Emergency Button

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