Julia Samuel is a psychologist in the UK who specializes in working with families who have experienced complicated stories of loss and love. So often we can feel overwhelmed by our histories – our family histories – and need a boost to confront dysfunction, speak the truth, and find trusted people to help us look back and look forward. In this episode, Kate and Julia discuss: What to do when we’ve inherited the pain of our parents or grandparents and when our own problems might be the pain we pa...
Nov 15, 2022•42 min•Season 9Ep. 11
How do we gather in meaningful ways? After the pandemic took apart so many of our favorite ways of hanging out, we might be out of practice. Or too tired or overwhelmed. Priya Parker is an expert facilitator who encourages us all to practice being together for different reasons. And they don’t have to be nearly as fancy or predictable as we might think… In this episode, Kate and Priya discuss: How do we show up for other people and ourselves in creative ways How to know when a change might be ne...
Nov 08, 2022•45 min•Season 9Ep. 10
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 ...
Nov 01, 2022•55 min•Season 9Ep. 9
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas has written some of the most influential books on religion in the 20th century. But behind closed doors, he was suffering more than most of us knew. Here, Kate and Stanley talk candidly about his rollercoaster highs and lows of being married to someone with severe mental illness. And why doesn’t God fix our pain? They have some spicy opinions about that. In this episode, Kate and Stanley discuss: Why Christians are not exempt from difficult circumstances Why people ne...
Oct 25, 2022•41 min•Season 9Ep. 8
Melissa Urban’s (CEO of The Whole30) experience of chronic illness forced her to accept her body’s limitations. You are going to love her practical advice for setting healthy boundaries as a way to protect our relationships, manage our limited capacity (especially for those of us navigating chronic pain or illness or caregiving), and remind ourselves of our inherent worth (regardless of how much you can do). In this episode, Kate and Melissa discuss: How boundaries help us better live inside our...
Oct 18, 2022•43 min•Season 9Ep. 7
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 Ho...
Oct 11, 2022•40 min•Season 9Ep. 6
Writer Mary Laura Philpott had all the regular kind of parental worries until her teenage son had his first seizure. She had to learn to balance her fear alongside her love all the while recognizing that everyone has something they are dealing with. In this episode, Kate and Mary Laura discuss: Why love sometimes makes us afraid for all we have to lose Why remembering that “everyone has something” can make us feel less alone (and more likely to bring snacks) Why worry isn’t the mental work we th...
Oct 04, 2022•43 min•Season 9Ep. 5
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 d...
Sep 27, 2022•51 min•Season 9Ep. 4
Arthur Brooks was a professional musician and spent his twenties touring all over the world. Until one day, he stopped being able to hit the notes. He had to reinvent himself entirely, and wonder… what does happiness look like after I lose the career I had worked so hard for? Now, Arthur writes about high achievers and how they might find meaning and purpose as they experience decline in their bodies or minds or in careers through his bestselling book, Strength to Strength . In this episode, Kat...
Sep 20, 2022•37 min•Season 9Ep. 3
Many of us miss the churches of our childhood and are trying to figure out what pieces of our faith to keep and which to leave behind. My guest today knows that better than anyone. Randall Balmer is a historian of American religion at Dartmouth College, THE expert of American evangelicalism, and a pastor’s kid (PK!) of a fundamentalist preacher. In this conversation, Kate and Randy talk about: How to reconcile the evangelism of today with its progressive past The cost of a more manufactured wors...
Sep 13, 2022•46 min•Season 9Ep. 2
Ibram Kendi and Kate Bowler have more in common than they would have liked. Historians and professors. Parents of young kids. Diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer at age 35. No history of the disease in their families. In this conversation, Dr. Ibram Kendi (who Time magazine’s called one of the most influential people of 2020) and Kate discuss: How a diagnosis like the one they share creates a sense of urgency in their work How to address the policies behind health care disparities Why addressin...
Sep 06, 2022•42 min•Season 9Ep. 1
I'm Kate Bowler and I am so excited to be back for another season of EVERYTHING HAPPENS. A podcast where we don't have to pretend to explain away our suffering. If your life is not going the way you hoped, I'm someone you do not have to pretend around. About seven years ago, I was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer at age 35. And I have ruined small talk ever since. Thanks to the wonders of immunotherapy, I'm no longer in that sort of endless danger zone of cancer, but it means that I live wit...
Aug 30, 2022•4 min
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 (an...
May 03, 2022•57 min•Season 8Ep. 14
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 lon...
Apr 26, 2022•40 min•Season 8Ep. 13
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...
Apr 19, 2022•41 min•Season 8Ep. 12
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 famil...
Apr 12, 2022•38 min•Season 8Ep. 11
Our culture seems convinced that going off-script is unbecoming. Instead, we are rewarded for being buttoned up, perfect (or at least appearing to be), and never ever no-matter-what admit weakness. But… don’t we need each other, especially when facing the most difficult moments? Author and Death, Sex, and Money podcast host Anna Sale leans into every hard conversation no matter how difficult the topic. In this conversation, Kate and Anna discuss: How conversations might engender the intimacy we ...
Apr 05, 2022•45 min•Season 8Ep. 10
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...
Mar 29, 2022•39 min•Season 8Ep. 9
Bestselling author Mitch Albom was at the height of his career when his favorite professor was dying. Mitch then spent his Tuesdays with Morrie —conversations that would change the trajectory of his life and career. Mitch continues to walk right up to the edge with the complicated questions around grief, loss, and hope in his books and charitable work. In this conversation, Kate and Mitch discuss: Why the loss of a child feels so different than the loss of someone farther along in years What que...
Mar 22, 2022•38 min•Season 8Ep. 8
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 be...
Mar 15, 2022•44 min•Season 8Ep. 7
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 ...
Mar 08, 2022•39 min•Season 8Ep. 6
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 w...
Mar 01, 2022•40 min•Season 8Ep. 5
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 experienc...
Feb 22, 2022•31 min•Season 8Ep. 4
I do not imagine that I will settle centuries of debate about just how good we are, except that I believe that it is somewhere between two poles: everything and nothing. Perfection is impossible, but transformation isn’t. We can change a bit, if we really want to. This is the choice embedded in every day, the moment we wake up. We will have to find enough momentum to reach for a life that is never perfect, but good enough . Jessica Richie, my executive producer and co-writer and co-dreamer of th...
Feb 15, 2022•16 min•Season 8Ep. 3
Rick Mercer didn’t exactly know he was allowed to be proud. As a teenager, he was barely making it through high school and traveling the island province of Newfoundland, Canada, as the sidekick to a kindly clown. But being an outsider gave him a unique perspective. His razor wit, biting political commentary, and celebration of small town dreams would make him one of Canada’s most beloved voices. Together, Kate and Rick talk about: Their shared love of being Canadian (and why the Meech Lake Accor...
Feb 08, 2022•42 min•Season 8Ep. 2
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—...
Feb 01, 2022•43 min•Season 8Ep. 1
My name is Kate Bowler, and I'm a professor at Duke, a writer of some books that have joyfully sarcastic titles, wife, and mom of a boy that is mostly made up of giant flashlight eyeballs and the kind of Canadian that reminds you that she is Canadian this quickly into the conversation. On the road, less traveled. I took the bumpy one, the kind with those giant moguls. At 35, I was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. So I have spent a lot of time trying not to die while living in a world that...
Feb 01, 2022•2 min
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...
Nov 30, 2021•44 min•Season 7Ep. 16
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 pers...
Nov 23, 2021•40 min•Season 7Ep. 15
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 ...
Nov 16, 2021•35 min•Season 7Ep. 14
