Embracing Lunacy with Dr. Bowen White: How Laughter and Play Transform Health and Wellness
Season 13: Ep. 604
Rethinking health and happiness, physician, author, and speaker Dr. Bowen White joins Dr. Michelle Robin and Bayleigh Soza to explore why being “normal” isn’t always healthy. Drawing from his book Why Normal Isn’t Healthy and his experiences as a medical clown, he shares how self-acceptance, playfulness, and loving-kindness can help us overcome fear, embrace mistakes, and build meaningful connections.
Reflecting on aging and life’s transitions, Dr. White encourages listeners to follow what brings heart, meaning, and passion. He highlights the importance of gratitude, curiosity, and community in living a fulfilling life, reminding us to play more, worry less, love more, and begin with ourselves.
Key Takeaways:
- Self-acceptance helps us grow and learn from mistakes.
- Playfulness sparks creativity, joy, and stronger relationships.
- Love and vulnerability help us move beyond fear.
- Gratitude and community make life’s transitions more meaningful.
- Following our passions helps us live authentically and share our unique gifts.
We couldn’t highlight incredible stories like this without the support of our sponsor, CommunityAmerica Credit Union. Thank you for helping us promote connection, well-being, and stronger communities. If you’re looking for trusted financial wellbeing resources, we invite you to connect with their team and take the next step toward greater financial confidence.
About Dr. Bowen White:
Bowen F. White, M.D. combines the talents and expertise of a physician, speaker, consultant, and author. He travels the world conducting seminars, consulting and speaking to public and private organizations.
In 1983, Dr. White founded the Department of Preventive & Stress Medicine for Baptist Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri and the Department of Wellness and Health Promotion before leaving to pursue a private practice and a career as a consultant and speaker. He has given hundreds of keynote addresses and some highlights of his consulting experience include a six-month team building project at NCAA headquarters, three years as corporate medical consultant to the Hazelden Foundation, multiple presentations for Medtronic, Inc. (including their Medtronic Leader program), has been the graduation speaker for MFS leadership training programs, multiple presentations for the Institute for Management Studies, lectured to graduate students at Stanford University on play, design thinking and innovation and worked with the Kansas City Royals on performance enhancement.
As an organizational physician he is interested in the “people piece” of the workplace puzzle: Creating Healthy Work Environments, Team Building, Leadership, Well Being, Performance Enhancement, Stress, Managing Change, Ethics, Sales and Communications. His programs emphasize the need for individuals to take responsibility for their own health and well being as he helps organizations create suspiciously healthy workplaces and homes.
Dr. White’s training programs, seminars, keynote speeches, management retreats, executive mentoring and spouse programs have had an immediate, practical application for such diverse organizations as: Duke University Medical Center, Association for Play Therapy, Hallmark Cards, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, DuPont, 3M, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, AVEDA, Association of American Medical Colleges, New York Life Insurance, Federal Reserve Bank, Beth Israel Hospital, Mercury Marine, Inc., the Foreign Service Institute, MFS, Ameriprise Financial and the Georgetown University Law Faculty.
His message is international. In addition to presentations throughout the US, he has presented at conferences in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Germany, Austria, India, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Panama and Israel. He has spoken to educators, managers and the aviation industry in the UK (London, Manchester, Edinburgh), and to staff members stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, Hungary.
The International Management Center in Budapest asked Dr. White to share his expertise with managers studying their emerging market economy. He has also discussed aspects of executive training and quality programs with industrial managers in Osaka, Japan.
In addition to appearing on the front page of the Wall St. Journal and on national television programs such as CBS This Morning, Desmond Morris’ The Human Animal and the PBS series The Promise of Play, Dr. White is often interviewed by radio, television, newspaper and magazine journalists. For example, he was interviewed at his home by CNN on the topic of play and relationships. And then was in New York on CBS Saturday Morning talking about adult play. He has eight years of experience as a weekly TV health commentator for Kansas City’s CBS-TV affiliate and also had a three-year stint writing a weekly newspaper column, entitled “Patient Potential,” for the Kansas City Business Journal.
Dr. White is married with four daughters. He contributes his time to The Gesundheit! Institute and is a founding board member for the National Institute for Play. He is the author of two books: Why Normal Isn’t Healthy and with John MacDougal, A Clinician’s Guide to Spirituality. In addition he created two audio series: The Cry of the Heart and Dr. White’s Complete Stress Management Kit.
Connect with Dr. Bowen White at:
Connect with Dr. Michelle and Bayleigh at:
https://smallchangesbigshifts.com
hello@smallchangesbigshifts.com
https://www.linkedin.com/company/smallchangesbigshifts
https://www.facebook.com/SmallChangesBigShifts
https://www.instagram.com/smallchangesbigshiftsco
https://www.youtube.com/@smallchangesbigshiftsco
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