Sara Billups Explores ‘Nervous Systems’ and How to Build a Non-Anxious Life
Good Faith
Why I Wrote Nervous Systems
Sara explains her motive: exploring personal anxiety, family history, and how that led to connecting personal and collective anxiety.
Can We Move From Fear to a Holy Indifference That Teaches Peace and Presence?
Seattle-based writer Sara Billups joins host Curtis Chang to explore how faith, mental health, and spiritual practices can help calm anxiety in our bodies, families, churches, and politics. Drawing from her book Nervous Systems (available November 4, 2025), Sara shares practical ways to find peace, emotional balance, and spiritual resilience amid today’s chaos. Together, Curtis and Sara discuss how understanding our stories and grounding in faith can help us live with calm and clarity in an anxious culture.
(02:23) - Navigating Anxiety in Uncertain Times
(04:35) - Understanding Anxiety Across Generations
(18:58) - Navigating Anxiety With Holy Indifference
(26:00) - Anxiety in Churches, Politics, and Systems
(28:15) - Churches Cultivating Non-Anxious Presence
(33:43) - Finding a Spiritual Home in Crisis
(41:20) - Sara’s Message a Generation of Anxious Young Adults
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Mentioned in this episode:
- Sara Billups’ Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics
- What is Epigenetics? (Cleveland Clinic)
- Curt Thompson discusses generational trauma and epigenetics (episode of Curt’s podcast)
- Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises
- St. Teresa of Lisieux’s Divine Office
- The story behind the hymn It Is Well With My Soul
- Frederick Buechner describes his daughter’s anorexia and praying Psalm 131 (video)
- Frederick Buechner’s Telling Secrets
- Matthew 26:36-46 (ESV) Jesus prays in Gethsemane
- Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
- Edwin Friedman’s Six Measures of Effective Leadership (Jack Shitima’s Non-Anxious Leader blog)
- Mark Sayers’s A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders
- The ignatian concept of Indifference
- Thomas McKenzie’s The Anglican Way: A Guidebook
- Tim Keller’s The Church in the City (Series of audio messages)
- Christianity Today’s The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill (podcast) 22
- Explore Grace Church Seattle
- Good Faith episode featuring Paco Amador of Little Village in Chicago
More from Sara Billups:
- Sara Billups’ Orphaned Believers: How a Generation of Christian Exiles Can Find the Way Home
- Sara Billups’ Bitter Scroll (substack)
- Sara Billups’ That's the Spirit podcast (with Morgan Page)
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