Everything Happens with Kate Bowler (Everything Happens Studios)

Author and speaker Jen Hatmaker ruled the Christian marketplace as the evangelical darling. But when her theology shifted, she learned how harsh the penalties could be. Kate and Jen speak about what it means to lead faithfully when you lose certainty.

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/jen-hatmaker-the-preachers-wife/

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What can we expect in the first moments of loss? How is it possible to grieve someone we may have never met? How can we best support people who are in mourning? In this special conversation, Kate speaks with Reverend Dr. Susan Dunlap about how our minds, bodies, and hearts respond to deep loss and the best practices for allowing ourselves space to grieve well.

Death of friend Rachel Held Evans

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/how-to-grieve-well-a-special-conversation/

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Are some people more empathetic than others? By studying those on the opposite end of the compassion spectrum–those with psychopathy–researcher Dr. Abigail Marsh discovered something surprising. 

In this conversation, Kate and Abigail discuss: 

• The usefulness of fear
• What it means to be “brave”
• How we can all learn to belong to one another
• The power of empathy (and why it actually feels good to give to others)

This conversation originally aired in 2020, but is one we return to again and again as we think about how empathy expands our capacity for others. Listen for an update from Abigail on what her recent research is exploring.

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

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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.

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We become the sum of so many people throughout our lives. Kate speaks with one of the funniest people on the entire planet, comedian Samantha Bee, about the people who made her, her. What virtues did they create? What absurdity ensued? How does she think about how she impacts her own kids? 

In this conversation, Kate and Samantha discuss:

• Samantha's hand of God moment that changed the trajectory of her life
• How the people who love us shape us into who we become
• What siblings or friends or partners teach us about intimacy

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

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The TODAY Show’s Jenna Bush Hager sits down for a wide-ranging conversation with Kate Bowler. Together, they share about the importance of family and intergenerational relationships (Jenna shares such tender stories about her grandparents), how they hope to let their kids make mistakes and be met with grace, and how they both (try to) find beauty in ordinary, regular days and regular problems. 

In this conversation, Kate and Jenna discuss:

• How to model openness and empathy across difference (even when people really, really disagree)
• Why they want to raise their kids to be curious and independent
• How the love of others makes us brave—brave enough to make mistakes (and why that’s okay)

Kate visited Jenna in New York City for this conversation. And Jenna is just as lovely and generous of spirit as you’d imagine.

CW: fertility issues; Alzheimer’s 

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

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We don’t usually have repeat guests on this podcast… except we’re making an exception for the wonderful and wise Alan Alda. Alan Alda, of course, is an award-winning actor, writer, director, and podcast host. You probably know and love him as Hawkeye on M*A*S*H or Senator Arnie Vinick on The West Wing. He is endlessly curious on just about every topic—which makes him the perfect person to talk to about empathy, learning across differences (and disagreement), and how we might age into new hobbies and careers. 

In this conversation, Alan and Kate discuss: 

•  Tricks for staying curious as we age
• How to talk to someone you disagree with
• How Alan hopes to destigmatize Parkinson’s Disease
• The difference between empathy and compassion and how to practice these important skills

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

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There is a strange tension when we want so badly for the people we love to support us, but want to shield them from the pain at the same time. This is a beautiful, terrible kind of love. 

In this conversation, Kate and bestselling writer Suleika Jaouad discuss:

• What it is like to be the one suffering—all the guilt and shame and rage and mercy and grace 
• How we can create better economies of love around those who need it
• The toll illness takes on those around us

This episode originally aired in 2021, but is one of our all-time favorites for an honest conversation on being a cancer patient and how to support people in your lives who are undergoing treatment. Kate ends with a blessing for those who feel like their problem is too much to handle—a blessing if you feel like "the bad thing."

If you liked this episode, you might also love: 

• Suleika Jaouad on living between the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick
• Tig Notaro on being the luckiest unlucky person
• For When You’ve Been Diagnosed Support Guide
• You are Not the Bad Thing Printable + Phone Background
• A blessing for the lives we didn’t choose
• A blessing for keeping our hearts soft when everything is broken

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Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

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Are you living your best life now? Not always? GREAT, ME NEITHER. 

My name is Kate Bowler. I’m a Duke professor, bestselling author, and your friendly neighborhood Canadian.

This is a show for people who have learned that life is… well, complicated. And we need better language to tell the truth about all of our ups and downs and in-betweens. I’ve always been fascinated by how we, as humans, try to make sense of suffering and happiness. Spoiler alert: there’s no magic formula, but there are some pretty brilliant minds who’ve given it a go. And I’m bringing them straight to your earbuds.

So, if you’re tired of coffee mug platitudes and are looking for something…more, join us. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Subscribe now and, together, let’s find a bit more hope, in a world where, well, everything happens.

A new season of honest-to-God funny conversations starts on September 3rd. 

Mark your calendar. Make sure you’re subscribed. You won’t want to miss this. 

EVERYTHING HAPPENS is available everywhere you get your podcasts. 

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In this conversation, Kate and Anna discuss:

• How conversations might engender the intimacy we need to get by
• Fostering the right interpersonal and listening skills it takes to approach a difficult topic (especially when you’re feeling nervous)
• Best practices for responding to someone’s hard news
• How learning to listen might bridge differences of all kinds

What do we lose when we don’t talk about hard things? And what might we gain if we do?

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Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

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When bestselling author Kelly Corrigan experienced the death of her dad and dear friend back-to-back, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t living as gratefully as she wanted to. She reflects on her love and loss through ordinary moments and everyday sayings. Together, Kate and Kelly explore the phrases we cling to in order to find deeper connection and meaning during difficult times.

CW: Death of parent, death of friend, cancer

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/kelly-corrigan-tell-me-more-s3e2/

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We all carry stories. Some smooth over the past, making things easier to bear. Others—the truer ones—break us open. Amy Griffin knows what it’s like to hold a secret so tightly, it starts to define you. As a child, she was sexually assaulted by a teacher—a painful truth she buried for years. But eventually, staying silent became harder than telling the truth. So what happens when the person who spends all their time championing others realizes they need to tell their own story?

In this conversation, Kate and Amy talk about: 

• The relentless churn of perfectionism—and what happens when we finally let some of it go
• How psychedelic-assisted therapy helped Amy unlock long-buried trauma 
• The surprising joy of telling the truth—even when it feels impossible
• Why healing isn’t about erasing the past—it’s about learning to carry it differently  

If you liked this episode, you may also enjoy: 

• Charles Spencer on Confronting the Past
• Rachel Denhollender on The Pursuit of Justice
• Our support guide for processing a painful childhood
• As well as our episodes with Minka Kelly, Beth Moore, Maggie Smith, and Wilma Derksen

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.

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In every deep relationship, there comes a point where we are asked to give up something of ourselves or change in ways we never anticipated. Who will this make me? What will this love cost? Tembi Locke fell in love with an Italian chef named Saro when she was studying abroad in Italy during college. Their romance was a story for the big screen. (Quite literally. One starring Zoe Saldana.)

A rare illness upended it all. Tembi spent ten years as Saro’s caregiver before he died. In her grief, Tembi took their young daughter back to Sicily to see what of her husband she could find there—in his culture, in his food, and with his family.

In this conversation, Kate and Tembi discuss: 

• becoming the architect of your life 

• the effects of long-term caregiving (both the beauty and the cost)

• who grief makes us

If you liked this episode, you’ll also love: 

• Katherine and Jay Wolf on what caregiving costs us

• Thomas Lynch on how we become who we miss

• John Swinton on living at the speed of love

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.

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This week we're introducing you to a show we love called A Slight Change of Plans with Dr. Maya Shankar. Kate was actually a guest on the show, where she joined to talk about how her entire belief system was thrown into question when she was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 35. 

If you want to hear more conversations like this one, listen to A Slight Change of Plans wherever you get your podcasts. Plus, the show has new episodes coming on November 11.

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When a group of young moms died around the same time, clinicians Dr. Justin Yopp and Dr. Don Rosenstein wanted to refer their widowed spouses to a grief support group… but none existed. So they started their own. 

In this conversation, Kate, Justin, and Don discuss:

• The grief of imagined futures 
• The particular needs of parents with cancer and those of widowed parents
• How to talk to kids about cancer 
• How to parent while you have cancer

Together, they uncover the magic of we.

This summer, we are re-sharing our all-time favorite episodes. While this conversation originally aired in 2020, Kate caught up with Don and Justin to get an update on what they are working on lately. You won’t want to miss their important (and practical!) update.

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

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Mark Lukach felt like he was hit with a tsunami when his beautiful marriage was upended by mental illness. With one diagnosis, he lost his wife and gained a lifelong patient. Mark and Kate explore the cost of caregiving and the importance of finding the true believers who will love through it all.

CW: Bipolar disorder, mental illness, caregiving for spouse, suicidal ideation

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/mark-lukach-true-believers/

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Writer Andrew Solomon never felt like he fit in. But studying other communities that celebrate differences transformed his sense of belonging and his parenting. Which aspects of our kids should we attempt to change and which need to be celebrated? Andrew and Kate discuss what it's like to be different from our family, find our people, and love our kids across difference.

CW: Homophobia, disability

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/andrew-solomon-the-stories-of-who-we-are/

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How do we prepare our kids for a world we can't always protect them from? Sesame Street creates educational programs to make the most vulnerable among us smarter, stronger, and kinder in the face of difficult realities. On this episode, Kate speaks with Sherrie Westin, the President of Global Impact and Philanthropy at the Sesame Workshop on how to tell our kids the hard truths in age appropriate ways.

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/sesame-street-how-do-we-talk-to-kids-about-hard-things/

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We may think we understand people. Where they are coming from. Why they act the way they act. … But what if we’re wrong? 

New York Times columnist David Brooks’ family motto was “Think Yiddish, Act British.” He knew how to keep a tight lid on his emotions, which could be useful… until he realized that he would need to learn a lot more about the role of empathy to love the people around him. Now, he’s sharing the result of his curiosity on how we might get better at really knowing people. Perhaps that simple skill can help combat the loneliness, despair, and the divides in our social fabric.

In this conversation, Kate and David discuss: 

• How to love people with severe depression
• How to see people as beloved children of God
• Practicing intimacy and empathy
• The difference between illuminators and diminishers

CW: suicide

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Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

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How do you have faith that can hold all of reality—the beautiful, the terrible, and everything in-between? The TODAY Show’s Savannah Guthrie thinks carefully about this question, especially given that her job is reporting the news every morning. 

In this conversation, Kate and Savannah discuss:

• Savannah’s trick for handling difficult news every day
• How to adjust the dial on fear and hope when there is so much to be afraid of
• Making sense of the wisdom we can learn in the midst of difficult times—without saying ‘everything happens for a reason’ (because we would never do that to you)
• How we hope to be transformed by God’s love

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

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How do you stay close to someone whose pain you can’t fix, whose questions you can’t answer? In this episode, Kate sits down with her dear friend, the Rev. Dr. Sam Wells, a longtime advocate of “being with,” a theology that goes beyond advice and into the sacred space of simply staying. Sam–vicar at London’s St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, an astonishingly wise thinker, and one of Kate’s favorite people on Earth–invites us into a deeper courage: to show up without trying to tidy things up. 

In this beautifully honest conversation, Kate and Sam talk about:

• Why love can be so hard

• What it means to let go of the need to “help”

• The surprising beauty of just… showing up 

For everyone exhausted by easy answers, this episode is a hand to hold in the dark.

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.

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What does it mean to live alongside people you don’t agree with? And love them anyway? Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and conflict mediator from Ireland, where belonging has always been complicated and peace is fragile at best. In this conversation, Kate and Pádraig explore what it takes to live together in the midst of disagreement—the beauty, the cost, and the messy, sacred hope of it all.

In this conversation, Kate and Pádraig discuss:

• Why peace is exhausting, fragile, and still worth fighting for

• The surprising role of curiosity in transforming division

• How belonging can comfort us—and cost us

If you liked this episode, check out:

• Safiya Sinclair on Rewriting Roots

• Nadia Bolz Weber on the Insight of Outsiders

• Lanecia Rouse on When Hope Seems Lost

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.

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A basketball coach, a doctor, and a history professor walk into a bar….

This might be the start of a great joke OR the start of an episode of Everything Happens. 

In this conversation, Kate Bowler speaks with Duke Men’s Basketball Coach, Jon Scheyer and the current US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy. Together they discuss:

• What is ailing Americans (especially young people)—loneliness (and why it can be so embarrassing to admit)
• Practical tips to connecting with others
• The usefulness and pitfalls of social media use

This conversation was taped live at Duke University as part of the Surgeon General’s We Are Made to Connect Tour. A huge thank you to Chris Simmons, the Office of Student Affairs, and the Office of the US Surgeon General for making this possible.

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

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How do we stay hopeful in the face of despair and disillusionment—especially when politics threaten to tear us in two? Kate speaks with Parker Palmer, a writer, teacher, and activist. As you’ll hear, he has gone through seasons of deep clinical depression, and has hard-won wisdom to share with us on how to survive, how to regain a sense of agency, how to remain hopeful despite it all. 

In this episode, Kate and Parker discuss:

• finding agency in the midst of depression and despair (including his trick of redefining achievement)

• why it is important to recalibrate our sense of reality—especially in the face of 24-hour news cycles and social media algorithms

• how a broken heart can either shatter or break open into a larger, more compassionate way of being

So on a day like today when we all might be thinking about the state of our nation or the state of our world or the realities at stake for our families and friends (....or perhaps, more tempted to keep our head in the sand to just make it through Thanksgiving), might we pull up close and listen to what Parker has to teach us about how to keep our hearts soft and remain hopeful, still. 

If you liked this episode, you’ll also love: 

• Sharon McMahon on the small differences we can make

• Will Willimon on aging into a new vocation

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.

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Nurse and writer Christie Watson found herself in a grocery store fish-finger freezer and realized something was very, very wrong. Why was she so desperate for more? (And also, why was she so extremely overheated? Oh wait…hormones?) In this hilarious and hopeful conversation, Christie speaks with Kate about the importance of prioritizing joy in the face of our emotionally expensive professions and roles, as well as joy’s importance as we get older (and how lucky we are to age in the first place). 

In this conversation, Kate and Christie discuss:

• The intricate aspects of aging for women

• The significance of nurturing strong female friendships 

• Making room for the absurd in our life

If you liked this episode, you will also love: 

• Christie Watson on what nurses teach us about the language of kindness

• Emma Gannon on whether we are in shut-it-down seasons or creative seasons

• Elizabeth Gilbert on finding our "purpose" (and why that is a load of BS)

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.

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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.

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US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy embarked on a listening tour to determine what was ailing Americans. The answer surprised him. In this soulful conversation, he speaks with Kate about loneliness as a public health crisis and how the experience of disconnection affects our ability to weather life’s most difficult storms.

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/vivek-murthy-the-loneliness-epidemic/

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We are kicking off Season 12 of the Everything Happens Podcast (!!) with a little bonus situation because we’re having a little bonus moment. Kate’s new book HAVE A BEAUTIFUL, TERRIBLE DAY! Is available everywhere books are sold today. 

It is a book of daily meditations meant to ground whatever day you’re having—all of the ups and downs and inbetweens. And who better to talk about that with than my friend, Bob Crawford. Bob is the bass player for the wildly popular band The Avett Brothers, and someone who knows too well how terrible and beautiful life can be. 

In this conversation, Kate and Bob discuss:

• How there can be a strange comfort in our worst moments
• How they continued despite the ongoingness of their kinds of tragedies 
• Why they both long for more spiritual language around living like this

Everything Happens is brought to you by Cologuard®. Are you 45 or older? Start screening for colon cancer with Cologuard, an effective and noninvasive screening option for adults 45 and older at average risk for colon cancer. Rx only. Learn more at Cologuard.com/everything

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

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How do you live knowing life can just come undone at a moment’s notice? In the span of a few months, Tig Notaro received three life-threatening illnesses, unexpectedly lost her mom, and went through a breakup. Tig is a brilliant comedian whose real life informs her comedy and has a lot to teach us about living honestly in the face of reality. 

In this conversation, Kate and Tig discuss: 

• Tig’s “hands-off” parents and her journey of self-discovery, eventually uncovering her talents in the entertainment industry and making her a respected figure in comedy
• How Tig Notaro's family of “real characters,” served as an abundant source of comedic inspiration in her life (including the best graveyard story ever)
• How to live alongside fear of what you know could actually happen?

CW: cancer, death of parent

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.

Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

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What makes a good life? How would you answer that question? Not just life in the abstract… but what makes YOUR life good? Professor Miroslav Volf teaches a popular class at Yale University which guides students through these kinds of questions and might help us all think a little more deeply about what our lives are adding up to be.

In this conversation, Kate and Miroslav discuss:  

• Why just practicing the habits of a good life doesn’t make a life meaningful (hint: we need to be thinking about the ends)
• Importance of asking questions we don’t always have the answers to
• How to define joy
• What does flourishing look like when we feel like we’re “losing” 
• How joy and suffering can coexist

On a personal note, this is a special interview for Kate because Miroslav was also her professor at Yale and someone she looks up to with joy and admiration.

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.

Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

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Our most precious relationships are often our most complicated, aren’t they? Poet and bestselling author Kwame Alexander wrote an honest book of poems and essays that name the difficult and beautiful and heart-wrenching conversations we have (or should be having) with the people we love and with the ones who love us. 

In this conversation, Kwame and Kate discuss: 

• How we can’t outrun our grief
• How our own parents love us in the ways they want to be loved, but maybe not in the ways we need—and how we find our ways back to each other
• The desire to share with our kids how we love, where we fail, where we tried, and who we were before we were their parent

CW: death of parent, divorce

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.

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How do we stay soft in a world that has taught us to be tough? Actress Minka Kelly is known for her roles as Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as Samantha in HBO’s Euphoria. Despite her fame on the big screen, one might not realize the chaos that surrounded her childhood. Being raised by a single mom who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka had to learn how to take care of herself and the adults around her, and, eventually, to forgive her mom. 

In this tender conversation, Kate and Minka discuss:

• How we can be built from the outside in through our friendships and how our friends become our chosen family
• How anger tells us that a boundary has been crossed
• The unfinished ways people love us—reconciling our complicated childhoods with the love we feel for each another
• How Minka has processed her difficult childhood through a lens of love and grace
• The way Minka’s mom was changed by her cancer diagnosis, and how once they found their way to one another again, there could never, ever be enough time

CW: colon cancer, death of a parent, brief mentions of abuse and neglect

***

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Some people are the LEAN IN sort. They lean into your unsolvable problems, show up on your impossible days, and walk with you all the way to the end. How do we become them? How do we create belonging when the people we love experience such uncertainty? Practical theologian and mental health nurse John Swinton knows a thing or two about this kind of love.  

In this conversation, Kate and John discuss: 

• The importance of learning to be present for people with intellectual disabilities, dementia, or in mental health crises 
• How two places that should be known as places of belonging—the church and the hospital—have become difficult for fragile people… and how we might begin to make these institutions better
• A theology of hope we might all be able to sign up for (Spoiler: Hope is a long story.) 
• How love moves at a certain speed, so we all might need to slow down a bit

***

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Maggie Smith (poet and author of books like Keep Moving and You Could Make This Place Beautiful) chronicles the aftermath of a painful divorce she didn’t see coming. How do we raise our kids in the wake of such change? And how do we reconcile who we are and who we are becoming? 

In this conversation, Maggie and Kate discuss:

• How to support someone going through divorce
• The metaphor of nesting dolls as how we contain who we were before (and how our befores and afters might not be as dramatic as we thought)
• Speaking honestly with our children about the beauty and tragedy of the world
• Why tragedies are not worth the “lessons” that we might learn from them

CW: divorce

***

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What happens when the people we built our lives around stop needing us? Or when we have to pick between our meaningful careers or our family? And what do we do with the ambiguous grief that comes with every expected and unexpected change? Today, Kate takes an honest look at juggling the demands on our time and on our heart with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly.

Kate and Mary Louise discuss: 

• Debunking the women can “have it all” paradigm and what happens when the things we love come into conflict
• The limitations of gratitude
• How our callings pull us into a wider sense of who we belong to
• How to savor (and mourn) all the lasts as your children grow older

This may be a conversation about parenting, but I think there might be something in here for anyone who wonders: Who am I as my relationships change? Can I still find myself there?

***

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How should you show up for people in grief? What do you say? What should you do? Why is it that beauty can exist alongside deep suffering? What can be said at funerals when the person who died was complicated? These are just a few of the questions I wanted to ask Steve Leder—a bestselling author and a rabbi who has presided over a thousand funerals with wisdom and kindness. 

In this conversation, we discuss:  

• The mysterious way beauty can be found the closer we inch to death (our own or someone else’s).
• The importance of just showing up. And being you. 
• Honoring someone’s memory at the same time being truthful about how human they were
• The peace that comes from acknowledging that life is full of dualities 
• “If you have to go through hell, don’t come out empty handed” (Steve Leder), but no, the lessons were never, ever worth the pain

CW: suicide, adult language

***

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Historian and Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff explores the cracks in our seamless worldviews… or at least the worldviews we thought were seamless until we’re faced with tragedies of all kinds. In this wide-ranging exploration, Kate and Michael probe humanity's enduring attempt to console ourselves and construct meaning from our pain.

In this conversation, Kate and Michael discuss:

• Why truth and trust are so important when it comes to finding meaning in our pain
• The difference between comfort and consolation 
• The limits of stoicism and hyper-futurism 
• What it means to be hopeful
• The importance of community through pain and suffering

Michael does not denigrate anyone’s attempt for comfort, but asks us to look carefully at the consolation that lasts. He asks: What is consolation? And why do we all crave that practice of meaning-making?

***

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Supermodel Paulina Porizkova has been in the public eye all her life. But it has been a rollercoaster of soaring successes and deep heartache. Grief and pain comes to us all, and in those moments, we need our shared humanity (and not our super-anythingness) to build a bridge back to others.

In this tender conversation, Kate and Paulina discuss:

• How to show up to friends in unsolvable pain
• Why “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” is just plain wrong
• Why the assumptions we make about one another are untrue 

CW: Spicy language

***

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The Reverend Tom Long wrote the book on funerals. No, really. When grief threatens to swallow us whole, Tom reminds us of our place in a bigger story of hope and faith, of interdependence and the importance of community. He describes the necessity of ritual to pull us into a wider, truer story than the trite version our culture likes to tell.

In this warm conversation (trust me! You will laugh!), Kate and Tom discuss: 

• What it means to be called into emotionally-expensive professions (jobs where you decide to really care!) 
• The importance of truth-telling at a funeral
• Seeing people through the prism of God’s love for them (more specifically—through the lens of their baptism)
• Why people die at all and what happens with all the love we have for one another (hint: it’s never, ever, ever lost)
• The importance of the rituals we create to walk people through death and dying

No one likes to talk about funerals, but this one is a must-listen. 

***

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Over thirty years ago, Elaine Pagels’ young son and husband died within the same year. In this tender conversation, Kate and Elaine discuss surviving the aftermath of such devastation, the painful explanations religion often offers, and how we love and keep loving even after so much tragedy. 

Together, they discuss:

• The need for connection to others during grief
• Religion’s often painful and punitive explanations for suffering (and why they aren’t helpful or complete)
• Why parents often feel like they’ve “failed” when a child dies
• How suffering pulls us closer to mystery 

This episode is for someone who has ever had the thought “haven’t I suffered enough?” Elaine and Kate are trusted companions in a life that hasn’t turned out like we thought it should. 

CW: death of a child, death of a spouse

***

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A big thank you to Jed Meyers for contributing his beautiful poem to today's episode.

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Every problem New York Times columnist Frank Bruni faced had a simple fix. Doctors offered reasonable solutions for reasonable problems. Preventative care guaranteed future health. That is, until he woke up one morning without vision in his eye. This experience forced him to rethink how much of life is in our control and how to live fully in the face of unfixable problems.

In this conversation, Kate and Frank discuss: 

• Letting go of the idea that life is a series of choices and learning that there are things we can’t fix
• How the lacquered lives we see on social media deny us the fuller picture of each other’s problems
• Importance of finding the things that light up our lives and taking the hard stuff bird by bird, vine by vine. 

***

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Beth Moore has been in the limelight for almost thirty years, but during that time, she revealed very little about her formative family history. Now, this world-famous Bible teacher is ready to tell her story for the first time. 

In this episode, Kate and Beth discuss: 

• How Beth’s faith offered stability during a very unpredictable and unstable childhood 
• The complicated grief that occurs when family members cause deep, unforgivable harm
• What it means to be fully known (and why that feels better than anything else) 
• Beth’s long-faithfulness despite experiencing rejection, pain, and hurt from her faith community

This was Beth’s first interview about her new memoir, and Kate felt so honored to get to ask this wise soul about the role of faith in lives that haven’t worked out like we thought they should. 

CW: sexual abuse, mental illness

***

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This is the story of one young doctor’s race against the clock as he searches for a cure for his own rare disease that brought him to the brink of death too many times to count. In this episode, Kate and David Fajgenbaum speak about facing impossible odds and how love can turn hope into action.

CW: Death of a parent, chronic illness

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/david-fajgenbaum-hope-wears-sneakers/

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How do we find “enough” in a life that keeps getting…. harder? Our lives are shrinking. We are shrunk by the pandemic or by illness or by age or by any number of losses. And it can be difficult to feel satisfaction and enjoyment again, especially in the midst of a self-help culture that tries to tell you “EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.” In this episode, Kate speaks with writer and advice columnist Heather Havrilesky about finding contentment in our bodies, in our parenting, in our relationships, while living a life we didn’t choose. Sometimes we need a smoking appliance day (…that will make more sense when you listen).

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How do we navigate the life in-between? In-between relationships and jobs and friends. In-between independence and dependence. In-between the life we have and the life we’ve always wanted. In this episode, Kate and artist Mari Andrew discuss these liminal spaces, what to do when we’re stuck with the B-side versions of ourselves, and how to make a little more space to explore all the colors of this place in-between.

CW: Guillain-Barre Syndrome, loss of a parent

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What do you do with a world that is full of things to fear? People we won’t please. Kids who die. Parents who don’t change. Writer Anne Lamott doesn’t sugar-coat a single, terrible thing, but knows the kinds of truths we can stand on. In this conversation, Kate and Anne talk about the good, strong hopes we can reach for. That we are loved and chosen. And friendships and snacks hold us together when we're feeling lost.

For discussion questions, transcript, and show notes: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/anne-lamott-loved-and-chosen/

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Who are we when we can't answer where we're from? Who are we when we can't locate ourselves on family trees or on familiar religious traditions or among genetic traits? How do we live after we thought what was true about our identity is totally upended? In this conversation, Kate speaks with writer Dani Shapiro about uncovering life-altering and long-hidden family secrets, what it means to belong, and what to do when the truth is… complicated.

For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/

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There are some people who see need and, rather than feeling stuck by the magnitude of the world's pain, they move toward it. Today's guest is one of those kinds of people. Father Greg Boyle has worked with former gang members in Los Angeles for over thirty years with Homeboy Industries, which employs and trains former gang members and offers free services to facilitate healing. In this conversation, Kate and Father Boyle discuss how living at the margins turns us inside out, how crucial hope is to healing, and why we should all embrace his understanding of kinship.

For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/greg-boyle-the-case-for-hope/

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How do we find joy and connection when tragedy surrounds us? In this episode, Kate speaks with bestselling author and psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb about creating daily rhythms, living in the both/and, and experiencing grief in the time of COVID19.

CW: cancer, death of a parent

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/lori-gottlieb-does-my-pain-count/

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Our bodies tell a story, and we find ourselves having to live inside it. At home. At work. At church. At school. But what happens when the places we love don’t always love us back? In this episode, Kate speaks with theologian Dr. Willie Jennings about the way institutions don’t always value our embodiment and how instead we might create spaces of belonging and love.

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There is a strange tension when we want so badly for the people we love to support us, but want to shield them from the pain at the same time. This is a beautiful, terrible kind of love. In Part Two of our conversation with bestselling author Suleika Jaouad, Kate and Suleika discuss what it is like to be the one suffering—all the guilt and shame and rage and mercy and grace and how we can create better economies of love around those who need it. Kate ends with a blessing for those who feel like their problem is too much to handle—a blessing if you feel like "the bad thing."

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How do you get through a terrible day? What should you not say to someone with cancer? What keeps you believing in God? We thought it might be fun to have you, dear listener, interview Kate for today’s episode. She offers gentle ideas for how to be a good friend to struggling loved ones, how she has found pockets of productivity in this dumpster fire of a year, and what she is hoping for in the New Year. Plus, she ends with a benediction for a year that didn’t turn out like we thought it should.

For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/ask-kate-anything-season-five-finale/

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The pandemic introduced many to living with uncertainty. But for some, uncertainty has always been their norm. Actress Nikki Deloach has starred in several Hallmark Christmas movies, but her life hasn’t matched the happily-ever-after plot-lines of her characters. Nikki’s dad was diagnosed with an aggressive form of dementia and her son was diagnosed with congenital heart defects in utero… all in the same week. In this conversation, Kate and Nikki discuss how to live with constant uncertainty, how to stay open to both the terror and the beauty of living close to the edge, and how to make Christmas meaningful when hope is hard to come by. 

CW: suicidal ideation, postpartum depression, a parent grappling with a child’s fragile diagnosis, dementia 

For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/nikki-deloach-a-not-so-hallmark-christmas/

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What does it feel like to really live? Some people jump out of airplanes. Others prefer for their feet to stay on the floor. Some seek out the feeling of riding the edge of what is possible, and the rest of us are too tired to think about it right now in this pandemic season. Clinical psychologist Dr. Ken Carter studies thrill-seekers. In this episode, Kate and Ken discuss fear—how we manage it and how we live alongside it.

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/ken-carter-living-alongside-fear/

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Parenting isn't always Instagram-worthy, but the American myth of perfectionism rarely shows that messy middle. Kristen Howerton, mom of four, therapist, and author of Rage Against the Minivan, gives us the permission slip we all need. The one that says you can opt out of greatness. There is no winning in parenthood.

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/kristen-howerton-worlds-okayest-mom/

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What do we do when the institutions that are supposed to protect us, fail? As a child, Rachael Denhollander was sexually abused by USA Gymnastics team doctor, Larry Nassar. When she came forward with her story, over 300 other women came forward too—eventually bringing him to justice. In this episode, Kate and Rachael talk about how love must be the motivation behind justice and how our worth cannot be taken away, no matter what happens to us.

CW: Sexual abuse and assault

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/rachael-denhollander-the-pursuit-of-justice/

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How do we reach for wisdom instead of self-help solutions? Much to their embarrassment, New York Times columnist David Brooks and Kate Bowler often find their books in the “Self-Help section.” David sat down with Kate at the historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, D.C. to talk about her book, No Cure For Being Human, and the twisty-turny journey of living without easy answers. 

In this live, funny and poignant conversation, David and Kate discuss:

• If a life is ever complete
• How to define hope if it isn’t just a type of optimism
• The limits of stoicism
• What I wish healthcare professionals would do instead

And you cannot miss David’s unplanned pun at the beginning. It was so bad and so funny and nothing can be better. 

***

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Stanley Tucci is a total foodie—of course, he starred in Julie and Julia and brought us the mouth-watering CNN special, Searching for Italy. But when he was diagnosed with oral cancer, his ability to enjoy food might be ruined permanently. 

In this conversation, Kate and Stanley discuss,

• How familiar recipes remind us of home—even if we’re far away
• Why it’s okay to be picky about what we eat (Especially bread. He has a lot of homicidal opinions about how bread should be eaten.) 
• The practical difficulties with eating that often accompanies an illness and treatment
• The anger that comes with great loss
• And the joy of bringing people together around the table

When life gets small, so often our pleasures dry up. But perhaps it is in that smallness that we might compress our attention, to discover the small joys and simple pleasures that make a life well-lived. 

CW: cancer, death of a spouse 

***

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We're often given a story of birds and bees where two people fall in love and out of their love blooms a perfect little creature. But far too often and for far too many, that isn’t the case. 

Writer Sarah Sentilles always knew she wanted to be a mom, so she entered into the foster system with the hope of adopting. But the process was not as simple as she had anticipated. 

In this conversation, Kate and Sarah discuss,

• How every child we welcome into our lives are strangers to be discovered
• The personal cost of impersonal (and often cruel) bureaucracy 
• How we must choose love, even if it costs us everything

Perhaps family is bigger, wider than we've been told. It is a story of belonging and loss and courageous love. And perhaps it involves learning to love a stranger.

***

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Ray Hinton spent 30 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. With the help of justice lawyer Bryan Stevenson, Ray won his release in 2015. In this episode, Kate and Ray discuss the experience of not being believed, a justice system that works against you because of the color of your skin, and the sustaining power of unconditional love.

CW: Incarceration, death penalty, racism

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/anthony-ray-hinton-the-sun-does-shine/

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What does courage look like in the face of the impossible? Cindy McCain had a front row seat to history, as wife of Arizona Senator and presidential candidate John McCain. In this conversation, Kate and Cindy discuss:

• The two-for-one careers that cost both spouses
• John McCain the Stand-Up-Comedian (and how humor is the best medicine...but also real medicine is probably better)
• What it was like to grieve on a public stage and her best advice for those experiencing loss

Together, we will discover how courage comes in many forms. The big and bold. The small and steady. Those who look pain and fear directly in the eye. Kate ends with a Blessing for the Brave. Perhaps, we can all gain a bit more courage after listening to this one.

CW: glioblastoma, death of a spouse, addiction

***

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When a group of young moms died around the same time, clinicians Justin Yopp and Don Rosenstein wanted to refer their widowed spouses to a grief support group... but none existed. So they started their own. Kate, Justin, and Don discuss the loss of imagined futures and the particular needs of young, widowed parents. Together, they uncover the magic of we.

CW: Doctors describe their work with patients who have cancer, death of a spouse

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/justin-yopp-and-don-rosenstein-the-magic-of-we/

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What if we never fit in? Or always miss the script that everyone else seems to so easily understand? From Arrested Development’s Buster Bluth to Veep’s Gary Walsh or Toy Story 4’s Forky, Emmy Award Winning actor Tony Hale is an expert in awkward. 

In this episode, Kate and Tony talk about:

• How acting is an act of empathy
• What it feels like to feel outside of the Acceptable People
• Having grace for our most awkward moments

This conversation will offer you a little gentleness for our awkward selves, our in-pain selves, our out-of-step selves, our misunderstood selves. Bonus: it will also make you laugh.

***

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What kind of food tastes like love to you? Food has a beautiful way of making us feel less lonely in our pain or in our isolation or in our grief. Star of Netflix’s Queer Eye, Antoni Porowski understands the power of a delicious meal to bring us together and remake us with love. 

In this episode, Kate and Antoni discuss:

• How food transcends time and distance and can remind you of who you are
• Antoni’s biggest cooking mistake (and how it might give us all a little permission to fail and try again)
• How food can help us to grieve
• What NOT to do when you deliver food to people who are going through a tough time

***

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What if your life hasn’t turn out like you thought it would? When writer Heather Lanier’s daughter was born with a rare genetic syndrome, she learned that the world will not always see her beloved as good. In this conversation, Kate and Heather discuss how it’s okay that we are not summed up on bell curves. Perhaps the bodies in which we dwell are whole enough.

CW: Difficult labor

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/heather-lanier-whole-and-holy/

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Life is painful. Period. But are there some aspects of our faith or our posture toward the world that can change how we experience it? 

Father Richard Rohr is everyone’s favorite preacher of love. Love for each other. Love from God. 

In this conversation, Kate and Richard talk about:

• How great love and great suffering can move us into a new stage of life 
• The spirituality of subtraction
• Making room for mystery of joy and suffering
• His secret to staying present to God

Together, might we all learn when to hold on and when to let go.

***

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We all wish we could fix our lives. And it works!

Until it doesn't.

Until we lose someone we love. Or an addiction ruins the family vacation. Or our parents die. Or we never get that baby. Or we lose our financial security. Or, I don't know, a global pandemic takes away all of our plans. 

Until we realize that we are Fragile. Finite. Prone to hangryness. And just... human, again today. And maybe that isn't such a bad thing.

My name is Kate Bowler. I'm a professor at Duke University. A wife. A mom. and... at age 35 I was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, which was not exactly something I would have picked either. 

How do we live alongside the things we didn't choose? The things we can't get back? How do we learn to live when our lives can't be so easily fixed ... like the wellness and self-help culture would like to convince us?

Join me for this season of the Everything Happens Podcast where I will speak to thinkers, authors, experts, comedians, and actors about what they’ve learned in difficult times. Together, we will break down common formulas for how to live… mine them for their truths, and, hopefully, discover something thicker, richer for how to live, beautifully in our actual, fragile lives and broken bodies and delicate relationships. 

Because there’s no cure for being human. But we are all good medicine. 

New episodes begin on August 17th. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, so you don’t miss an episode.

In the meantime,

• Find me on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.
• Be sure to subscribe to my weekly email for bits of wisdom, prayers, free downloads, and more.

Oh! And I have a brand-new book coming out on September 28th called No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear). Pre-order your copy today.

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Timothy Omundson knows what it feels like to have well-made plans come apart after he suffered a massive stroke at the height of his acting career. Kate speaks with Tim and Joel McHale about the power of hard work and friendship.

CW: Stroke, Chronic illness

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/timothy-omundson-joel-mchale-flying-buttresses/

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When she was a child, Alexi Pappas lost her mother to suicide. So when Alexi faced a season of deep depression she knew had to find a different way forward. That’s when her training as an Olympic runner became invaluable. 

In this conversation, Kate and Alexi discuss,

• The difference between stress and trauma
• The discipline—and joy—of sheer effort
• Good pain vs. bad pain and how to stay inside the uncomfortable for a bit longer 
• The highs and lows of realizing your dreams
• How viewing mental illness as an injury not only destigmatizes depression, but offers tangible next steps toward healing

Too often professional athletes fall into the pure motivational speaker category. But this conversation with Alexi gently threads the needle about what is possible if you stay a little longer in uncomfortable situations when even getting out of bed feels like a win. 

There is so much wisdom we can glean from Alexi’s discipline and willpower.

CW: suicide, depression, mental illness

***

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How do you move forward after an incalculable loss? 

Jerry Sittser lost his wife, young daughter, and his mom in one horrific accident. But even as his world stopped, the world kept spinning. He had to learn how to parent his three surviving children in the wake of such grief. 

Now, thirty years after the accident that upended his life, Kate and Jerry discuss:

• Finding honesty about the pain you can never unknow 
• Why it isn’t possible to protect our kids from the tragedies of life
• How to stop counting or comparing people’s grief
• Why we cannot explain our suffering with simple formulas and shallow theology
• Whether miracles can solve our pain

This conversation is an Everything Happens Masterclass on learning to live alongside the reality of lives that come apart for no reason we can explain. 

CW: deaths of family members

***

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Can hilarity and sorrow co-exist? Comedian and actress Cecily Strong (of Saturday Night Live fame) is professionally funny. But after a series of losses, she was forced to discover how devastation and love sometimes exist at the same time—both in great measure. 

In this conversation, Kate and Cecily discuss:

• Why we need to practice changing
• How much of our lives is determined by almostness 
• Moving past the “winning” and “losing” paradigm for illness
• When we can stop being afraid (and how maybe fearlessness is for psychopaths)
• Loving people’s uniqueness
• Why allowing yourself to feel big emotions can be daunting, and how love, beauty, and maybe even magic can be present simultaneously

Kate ends with a Blessing for the Both/And. This deep conversation about the cost of love will surprise you with its tenderness and offers us all a little room to grieve the things we’ve lost.

CW: glioblastoma

***

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The Everything Happens team is still on a bit of a summer break, but don't worry! We'll be back in August with all new episodes. We thought it might be fun to surprise you with this bonus episode. Kate spoke with her friend, the brilliant and hilarious bestselling writer Kelly Corrigan on Kelly's Podcast: Kelly Corrigan Wonders. Together, the two debunk conventional wisdom like the notion that "Everything Happens for a Reason."

Kate Bowler has trouble nodding along when people say things like “Don’t put that into the universe!” and “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” But what she simply CANNOT endure is when someone assures her that “everything happens for a reason.” Her point of view is tied to two absurd truths of her life: she’s a divinity professor at Duke, and she had Stage 4 cancer. She split her time between studying how religion works and getting surgeries that move her belly button around and then recovering from them with her husband who she’s been with since she was in braces and her son, who at six, doesn’t really get why sometimes she can’t do dance parties with him. This conversation will fill you up. Guaranteed.

Listen to more episodes from Kelly Corrigan Wonders.

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In our season six finale, Kate takes us back to the very beginning. In this episode, you’ll hear the unlikely beginning of the Everything Happens podcast, the most terrified Kate’s ever been (for fun reasons), and how love and beauty can surprise us in some of the most unlikely of spaces. 

Our team needs a little rest and vitamin D then we’ll be back with new episodes in August (don’t worry!). In the meantime, listen to some of our all time favorite episodes:

• with M*A*S*H* actor Alan Alda on the power of empathy
• with The Fault In Our Stars author John Green on living with chronic illness
• with palliative care physician Dr. Sunita Puri on living with uncertainty
• with humorist Samantha Irby on the power of the absurd

In the meantime, visit nocurebook.com to learn more about Kate’s NEW BOOK coming out at the end of September. Find Kate online @KateCbowler and subscribe to our weekly email newsletter at katebowler.com.

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Chaotic childhoods can leave us feeling stuck. Stuck in the roles and relationships and chaos that once felt familiar. Actress Julianna Margulies (best known for her roles in ER and The Good Wife) found incredible success, but nothing seemed to free her from living into past, traumatic dynamics. In this conversation, Kate and Julianna discuss the roles we get trapped inside (I’m the cheerful one! I’m the dutiful one! I'll keep it together!) and how love can surprise us through unlikely strangers and new relationships. Kate ends with a blessing for a permission to change. 

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People love to pretend that there are simple formulas for living your best life. Now eat this and you won't get sick. Find that love and you'll never be lonely. Get that promotion and you won't feel like a failure to have that kid and you'll be fulfilled forever. Our culture tells us that we are the masters of our destiny until we aren't. Until a diagnosis or loss or global pandemic or divorce or transition sweeps over our lives and changes everything, then we realize there are some things you can choose and some things you can't. And it's OK that life isn't always getting better.

We can have beauty and meaning, community and love, but we will need to face the truth. Life is a chronic condition and there's no cure for being human.

This season of the Everything Happens Podcast, I will have conversations with some wonderful and kind and hilarious people who've given up on the idea of best life, now I'll talk to actors about their loves and losses, researchers on how our bodies remember our stories, writers who've discovered their families were full of secrets, and spiritual teachers who remind us to look for the light.

This podcast is a place for us to see life as it really is beautiful, terrible, full of hope and despair and everything in between. So let's be human on that journey.

Let's be human together.

A new season of the Everything Happens Podcast launches on Tuesday, February 9th. New episodes will release every week.

Visit katebowler.com to sign up for regular notifications and find show notes, transcriptions, and more.

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This time of year can be rough. Somehow we are supposed to wrap it up or feel complete, but, more often than not, we can look back at a year that, well, sucked. 

Rather than just showing you the shiny parts of life, today is your permission to Cheers to The Crappies. Kelly Corrigan (of Kelly Corrigan Wonders and Tell Me More) and I are exchanging our crappiest moments: in our personal lives, in our inner circle, during our 9-5, and one real Zinger round that takes the cake. 

In this bonus crossover episode, Kate and Kelly discuss: 

• Their own personal crappy lows of the year—like managing chronic pain, endless parental worries, and walking with a friend through divorce
• Kate’s strong policy against gratitude as a shellac to suffering
• Why talking about pain can be so tricky and sometimes it can’t be fixed by love alone

This episode is for if you aren’t feel warm and fuzzy about this past year and you want a minute to say: Wow. That really didn’t go well. This isn’t getting better. I’m really disappointed or heartbroken or hurt… still. So here’s to a moment of very crappy honesty, my dears. You, in all your problems and hopes and unmet expectations are worth listening to.

***

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Wajahat Ali was about to give a TED talk on the global case for having more kids, when he received news no parent should ever hear. Kate and Waj speak about parenting amid fear, unexpected kindness, and how kids really are our greatest act of hope.

CW: Pediatric cancer, transplant

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/wajahat-ali-make-me-a-gardener/

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Fred Penner is a Canadian sensation whose television show and hit songs like “The Cat Came Back” was part of so many of our childhoods. But what few of us knew was how much he understood the pain of growing up. He lost his alcoholic father and his 12-year-old sister in the same year. He turned to music. And his gentle wisdom and songs have invited us—children and adults alike—to stay curious and kind in a hard world.

In this episode, Kate and Fred discuss: 

• Music as the language of the heart 
• How to speak to the heart of a kid
• Plus, we get to hear Fred sing some of his favorite songs

I have so many memories singing along to Fred’s music as a kid and felt so lucky to get to speak to him today. 

CW: alcoholism, death of sibling

***

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We are going to practice the season of Advent together. Download a free Advent guide, here.

Introducing THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (releasing February 14, 2023). Learn more, pre-order, and receive a free pennant, here.

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Jay and Katherine Wolf were 26 years old, newly married, and brand new parents when Katherine survived a brain stem stroke that upended their lives. That was fifteen years ago. Today, they continue to live with the enduringness of recovery, caregiving, and care-receiving, all while trying to maintain hope. Theirs is a story of commitment and love in the face of tremendous odds. 

In this episode, Kate, Jay, and Katherine discuss: 

• Why, in the face of impossible circumstances, sometimes the best we can do is to learn to love what must be done
• How to talk to your kids about the difficulties they might face
• The different experiences of being a caregiver and care-receiver over the long haul
• The story of hope and love that Jay and Katherine live into
• Why you are worth caring for—no matter how broken your body or mind or heart is

I felt so grateful to speak with them fifteen years after the original crisis. This tender conversation offers a wide view of their story of hard-won hope.

P.S. If you are someone for whom people didn’t stick around after your crisis, we see you. We love you. I hope you will hear Katherine’s words: “You are worth it.” 

CW: stroke survivor

***

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Writer Jeff Chu was raised in a devout Chinese Baptist community, yet struggled to reconcile being gay with the conservative faith of his family. And the feeling of not-quite-belonging gave his life a strong purpose. He became a journalist and a pastor determined to make communities a place where you don’t actually have to “fit in” to belong.  

In this episode, Kate and Jeff discuss: 

• Navigating certainty and doubt when ambiguity is so uncomfortable
• Why great resumes sometimes mask lives of pain
• How Jeff has discovered grace for himself and his family (and others who many have different versions of faithfulness)

***

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What do we do when our families are sources of pain, confusion, or harm? How do we (or can we) outgrow our complicated childhoods when we no longer need the defenses we created?

Today, I am speaking with Tara Westover. Tara earned her PhD in history from Cambridge, which is incredible on its own, but particularly when you remember that she had never stepped foot in a classroom until she was 17. She is the author of the bestselling memoir EDUCATED which describes growing up in a survivalist family and her costly pursuit of learning and unlearning. 

In this conversation, Kate and Tara discuss: 

• How to navigate the religious baggage of our childhoods
• Learning to hold people’s point of views but without letting go of your own
• Why people aren’t always doing their best (and why knowing that helps restore some dignity)
• How to approach people who have different worldviews than us 
• How to outgrow the defenses we develop as kids in painful or abusive homes

CW: physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse

***

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In this special episode, Kate visited the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, at Lambeth Palace in London.

In this funny and poignant conversation, the Archbishop and Kate discuss:

• Why sometimes we feel God’s love (or don’t) 
• How to pray when you have run out of words (he gives us permission to be impolite with God)
• Why he is suspicious of joy, and why they both use the theology of Winnie the Pooh 
• How people in emotionally expensive professions can feel permission to do small acts of love (and angry when it’s not enough)

***

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How is it that joy and pain seem to coexist at once? Susan Cain (author of the bestseller Quiet) explores this question in her new book, Bittersweet. 

In this conversation, Kate and Susan discuss:

• How we are literally hardwired for compassion 
• Susan’s advice for pushing back against compassion fatigue
• How that feeling of longing isn’t something to be ashamed of but allows us to see things clearly—the beautiful and the terrible

If you ever feel like you didn’t have a word for the sweetness of longings (and why your compassionate heart is a gift), this conversation is for you. 

***

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When a random weight-lifting accident left cardiologist Dr. Haider Warraich in chronic pain, he went from being a physician to being a patient in one moment. His experience of chronic pain gives him a hard won insight as he reexamines how we understand and treat pain.

In this conversation, Kate and Haider discuss:

• the difference between pain and suffering
• why pain might be subjective, yet should be taken just as seriously (and perhaps invites doctors to not just treat blood work or an x-ray, but the patient in front of them)
• why we should erase the arbitrary demarkations between mind and body when it comes to understanding and treating chronic pain
• the value of accepting the reality of pain as a fundamental truth of being human (and why that doesn’t mean “it’s all in your head”)

If you are someone (or loves someone) who suffers from chronic pain, this episode is for you. Haider talks with such gentleness about when your pain isn’t believed and how doctors can do a better job at treating their patients in pain. 

***

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We often have very romantic expectations about parenthood. Parenthood is about a mythical child who will be perfect in a way we haven’t quite put our finger on, and the journey to love them will teach us something reasonably easy about ourselves. But what if we are not the parents we thought we’d be? Or our kids are not the kids we thought we’d have.

Writer Cammie McGovern’s oldest son, Ethan, was diagnosed with autism as a small child. Soon though, he was not just a toddler learning how to play or a child needing adjustments in the classroom. He is an adult who wants to participate in the world, and Cammie is still determined to learn what it means to be an advocate for him and others living with disabilities as they enter adulthood. 

In this conversation, Kate and Cammie discuss:

• The myths parents of children with autism might face
• How to build inclusive communities (and how both parties might benefit from them)
• How the role of every parent is to discover their kid for the mystery and wonder they are
• Why parenting shouldn’t always be about becoming heroes or martyrs and how we might need communities and systems that better support our needs

This heartwarming conversation covers everything from love to policy and everything in between, as Cammie describes her son and his future.

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Bestselling novelist Ann Patchett knows how to walk right up to the edge with people she loves. She is the friend who sits with you during chemo, or lets you spill your secrets in the car. She shares what powerful lessons she learned early on about how to approach suffering with humility, knowing you can rarely change a life, but you can be there to witness and be amazed.

In this episode, Kate and Ann discuss:

• Why no one cares what you write about (and why that should give you freedom) 
• How to bear witness to someone’s life—even when you can’t change their circumstances
• Why the question of the fullness of a life isn’t how long you live but something else entirely

CW: addiction, death of friends, cancer

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No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available wherever books are sold. Order your copy, today.

Introducing, GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

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Poet Kate Baer found herself inundated with the demands of motherhood and little time to write. Nothing was easy and then, at a breaking point, it felt impossible. If she wanted a creative life, she was going to have to redefine “perfection” (perfect mom! perfect woman!) and learn to tolerate a lot more imperfection instead.  

On this episode of Kate & Kate, they discuss:

• How friendships give permission to speak honestly (and why your friendships are actually important)
• Why not every experience (motherhood, marriage) is “fulfilling”
• How they each went off-script to find meaning
• Kate Baer’s great love for Panera Bread

CW: postpartum depression

***

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No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available wherever books are sold. Order your copy, today.

Introducing, GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

Join us for Lent. Receive a free lenten reflection guide, here.

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Everyone loves to get VERY BOSSY when it comes to our fears. “Don’t worry, be happy!” Just be brave! But maybe ‘being brave’ doesn’t mean ignoring our fears but living alongside them. After all, we live in a world that offers us few guarantees, don’t we? 

Writer Taylor Harris has dealt with severe anxiety since she was a child. But when she became a mom, she had to learn to hold her fears alongside her love, especially when her son has an unsolvable illness.

In this conversation, Kate and Taylor discuss:

• Balancing fear with love 
• What it means to be brave in a world that is so unsafe (and how to parent kids you can’t protect from everything)
• How to live in the uncertainty of a non-diagnosis
• How to make sense of God and faith without guarantees that things will work out  

This conversation will give you courage to hold both your faith and fear, hope and disappointment, especially when we don’t have problems with simple solutions.

CW: a sick child without a diagnosis

***

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

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No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available wherever books are sold. Order your copy, today.

Introducing, GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

Join us for Lent. Receive a free lenten reflection guide, here.

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Author and priest Liz Tichenor lost her mom and her baby in the same year. Brand new to leading a church and reeling from the grief, the pain was enough to break her. But it didn’t—because other people carried her through. 

In this conversation, Kate and Liz discuss:

• How in the thick of tragedy we need the church and shared rituals of grief
• How to be faithful and authentic when going through the “unimaginable” 
• The courage it takes to show up for another in the midst of their worst days (and why we are called to do so… no matter how uncomfortable) 
• Why Lent is the season for the brokenhearted

This episode will restore your hope for communities of faith that can show up for our most tender moments. 

CW: suicide, death of a child

***

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Be sure to subscribe to our weekly email for bits of wisdom, prayers, free downloads, and more.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available wherever books are sold. Order your copy, today.

Introducing, GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

Join us for Lent. Receive a free lenten reflection guide, here.

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Katie Couric is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author. Her hustle and ambition not only served her career aspirations, but when faced with the unthinkable, she poured those same qualities into tireless advocacy. 

In this conversation, Katie and Kate discuss,

• The gifts (and limits) of hyper-agency
• The courage it takes to not fix things
• Why it is so scary to acknowledge our limits and our losses

Katie has so much to teach us about what happens when our problems cannot be easily solved—no matter how hard we try. In this vulnerable conversation, Katie shares candidly about the lengths she went to avoid grief, but why she had to learn to face it nonetheless. We need the courage to try (and the wisdom to stop). 

CW: colon cancer, death of a spouse, death of a sibling, some adult language

***

Find me on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

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No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available wherever books are sold. Order your copy, today.

Join us for Lent. Receive a free lenten reflection guide, here.

Introducing, GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Pre-order your copy, here.

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Emergency Rooms are the theater of life itself. For ER Dr. Michele Harper, work has become a calling—to bear witness to people’s problems both large and small, to advocate for better care, to catch those who fall through society’s cracks, to stand up against discrimination, to remind patients that the pain they have endured is not fair… it was never supposed to be this way. In this episode, Kate and Michele talk about the importance of radical honesty when it comes to advocacy as well as the racial and socio-economic disparities that keep people disproportionately affected by the pandemic… and the anxiety and stress that follows. And still, even after all she has seen and all she has walked through, Michele finds great hope in being broken. Yes, we are shattered, but yes, we will be made into something new.

CW: domestic violence, a doctor discusses a patient’s experience of sexual assault and a patient’s suicidal ideation, racial discrimination

For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/michele-harper-beauty-in-the-breaking/

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There are some secrets we'd rather not tell, but that eat us alive anyway. Writer Susan Burton was trapped in an eating disorder with no good name. Today's conversation is not a victory story. Issues with our bodies are not ones we overcome because our bodies are, you know, living things. Kate and Susan discuss how we struggle against shame and learn to have compassion for ourselves and our fragile, beautiful bodies.

CW: Disordered eating

For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/susan-burton-bless-this-body/

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We have thick cultural scripts for what is deemed inspirational and it usually goes like this: You can do it. Never give up. Everything you need is inside of you today. But what do you really need to hear when life is coming apart? Morgan Harper Nichols is someone whose words of encouragement gently lift our chins toward hope. In this episode, Kate and Morgan discuss how important it is to reflect truth and hope and beauty back to one another.

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/morgan-harper-nichols-blessed-are-the-mirrors/

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At the core of nursing is the ability to love a stranger, to care indiscriminately. Christie Watson was a nurse in the UK for 20 years before she began teaching nurses. But when COVID-19 hit, she knew she needed to stand with her colleagues. So she put on her scrubs once again. In this moving conversation, Kate and Christie discuss the cost of COVID on healthcare workers, chaplains, and those who can’t be by their loved ones’ side when they need it most. If you are a nurse, know a nurse, or have been cared by one before, this one is for you.

CW: COVID-19, dying alone

For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/christie-watson-bless-the-nurses/

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How do doctors, nurses, and other caring professionals keep their hearts soft when there are forces that make it hard to stay that way? With her radically compassionate approach to medicine, Dr. Victoria Sweet calls us to slow down in a world that loves quick fixes. In today's conversation, Kate and Victoria give us more language about what helps us all stay connected to the people we serve.

CW: Describes father's seizures and medical mistreatment, doctor describing patient care

For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/victoria-sweet-medicine-with-a-soul/

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What does it mean to be blessed? If you were to scroll through social media, you'd assume that "blessed" are the ones with gorgeous, matching families living in open style floor plans. But Jesus had other things in mind. When the Reverend Jan Richardson lost her husband, she continued to write counterintuitive blessings like “A Blessing for the Brokenhearted." In this episode, Kate and Jan talk about the ways grief cracks us open and the ways blessing invites us to stubborn hope.

CW: Death of a spouse

For show notes, transcripts, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/jan-richardson-stubborn-hope/

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What does it mean to be called to something? What if that job wears you thin? What if you think you've aged out of your vocation? In this episode, Kate and the Reverend Dr. Will Willimon talk about what to do when the roles we play cost us more than we're willing to pay and how aging invites us to take a new look at our purpose. (Also, you'll hear about the time Kate offered Will a bit of necessary... perspective.)

For show notes, transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/will-willimon-your-work-is-a-calling/

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What do you do when hope feels lost? Abstract artist Lanecia Rouse Tinsley is no stranger to the hopelessness that comes with grief. In extended isolation because of the pandemic, a nationwide reckoning with race, and our own personal losses, we could all use a bit of what Lanecia calls holy seeing. In this episode, Kate and Lanecia discuss how creativity can be an act of resistance and the hope she discovered on a blank canvas.

CW: Miscarriage, death of a child, racism

For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/lanecia-rouse-tinsely-when-hope-seems-lost/

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Welcome to SEASON TEN of the Everything Happens Podcast!

I started this podcast as a way to create language and community around some of life's most painful moments. I was so overwhelmed by the question of how do we live in the after? After a diagnosis, after a death, after a divorce, after something that changes our lives or takes it apart.

I had just been diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and I was only 35. I had a two year old at home with this giant lovey Disney eyes, and I had the job that I loved, and then suddenly, I had a picture of a future that was just never going to be. So I wanted to know, like, how do we do this? How do you find joy and hope and love even after life comes undone? And after years of treatment and years of uncertainty, I guess I realized somewhere along the way that this wasn't really a one and done kind of question. This is the sort of work that evolves over time as life continues to contract and expand and break our hearts and then put us back together all over again. And so thank you for being the people that I've had along the way. These are not, of course, the conversations anybody really wants to have, but we do, you and me and this gorgeous community here.

We have so many great episodes coming to you for SEASON TEN. We're going to be talking to tender and wise and funny people about what they've discovered during their before and afters. People like Beth Moore on long faithfulness when life really doesn't work out the way you thought it did. Mary Louise Kelly on empty-nesting and rediscovering yourself after the kids leave. Rabbi Steve Leder on how tragedies teach us and how we can just see beauty somehow. Plus SO MANY MORE.

New episodes coming your way every Tuesday this Spring.

This episode also includes a conversation between Kate and her producer, Jessica Richie about their new book of blessings, The Lives We Actually Have.

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THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (releases TODAY). Learn more, here.

We have free Lent guides for you to use by yourself, with a group, or with your church. Click here to get started.

Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

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Thomas Lynch is an essayist, poet, and funeral director in Milford, Michigan, where he has served since 1974 when he took over the trade from his father. Thomas speaks honestly about life and death and mortality from what he’s learned, standing so close to the edge. 

In this episode, Kate and Thomas discuss: 

• What elements make up a good funeral
• How the habits of love are hard to break, no matter how old the person died who you grieve
• How those we grieve know our hearts and our love more fully

I don’t know quite how to express this, but holy crap. This is one of the best conversations I’ve ever had. I can’t wait to hear what you think.

CW: suicide, death

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Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

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No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available wherever books are sold and now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

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