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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...
Nov 09, 2024•37 min
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 ...
Nov 05, 2024•43 min•Season 13Ep. 10
We need more room to be honest about what it costs when people or institutions fail us. Today's conversation is with Lord Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer. You might also know him as Princess Diana's brother. His latest book, A Very Private School, is a courageous and beautifully written memoir about his time in an abusive English boarding school that was shrouded in secrets, abuse, and cruelty. While his circumstances may be unlike something you’ve experienced, Charles speaks so candidly a...
Oct 29, 2024•43 min•Season 13Ep. 1
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, Temb...
Oct 22, 2024•45 min•Season 13Ep. 8
What if you started thinking really concretely about small, hard choices? That’s exactly what palliative care physicians do every day. They help us think about what we really want—knowing that we have limited time and limited resources. You’re going to love our guest today, Dr. Kathryn Mannix, palliative care physician and cognitive behavioral therapist. She offers practical steps to help people and their loved ones make sense of what limited choices they have, navigate any pain and fear they ma...
Oct 15, 2024•57 min•Season 13Ep. 7
Sometimes you really need someone to believe that you are good. Unshakably good. Over 30 years ago, Father Greg Boyle started working with gang members in Los Angeles through Homeboy Industries. The lessons that he learns from whom he calls “homies” are contagious. Every day, they teach him about what it means to heal, to belong to one another, to practice compassion, and to relearn how to feel good again to God and others. These are just some of the transcendent truths that he has to share with...
Oct 08, 2024•50 min•Season 13Ep. 6
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)...
Oct 01, 2024•35 min•Season 13Ep. 5
This week we have something special for you. Kate Bowler joins Rainn Wilson to explore the complexities of American Christian traditions and the nature of suffering on Soul Boom. Kate delves into her personal journey with stage four cancer, her struggles with the American healthcare system, offering profound insights into faith, resilience, and the misconceptions of positive thinking. Together, they discuss the dichotomy of American religious practices and the deep, often unspoken struggles that...
Sep 27, 2024•1 hr 8 min
It is a hard time to be a person in the world given the volatile political climate or state of our world or the realities we’re facing in our family. But the weight of the world’s problems are not on your shoulders alone. Sharon McMahon, America’s Government Teacher, joins Kate for a hopeful conversation that reminds us all of the small, faithful ways we can make a difference in our communities. In this conversation, Kate and Sharon discuss: why it’s not our job to fix every problem how ordinary...
Sep 24, 2024•50 min•Season 13Ep. 4
We all experience seasons where all we can do is scratch our heads and say, “WHAT EVEN HAPPENED?!” Dr. Francis Collins led the National Institutes of Health during 2020—our season of collective “WHAT EVEN HAPPENED!?” He is still picking up the pieces of heartbreak from how people responded to one another and to science at the time. Yet he hasn’t lost his faith in humanity. In this conversation, Kate and Francis discuss: Why faith and science seem at odds (and why they shouldn’t be) The importanc...
Sep 17, 2024•48 min•Season 13Ep. 3
Is it possible for anyone to change—change their mind, change their theology, change their priorities? What does it mean to hope when we live in such uncertainty? Richard B. Hays is a world-renowned scholar of the New Testament. He is also a dear friend and colleague of Kate Bowler. Richard and Kate were both unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer at the same time, which meant they spent many hours discussing the heart of what it means to hope. Their hard won wisdom adds such depth and heart to toda...
Sep 10, 2024•57 min•Season 13Ep. 2
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof understands how to hope—especially in the face of despair or disappointment. He has spent his life shining a light on global tragedies like the Tiananmen Square massacre or the genocide in Darfur. And yet, despite all the horrors he has born witness to, he maintains a sense of hard-won optimism. “Hope is a muscle,” he says, and one we can all learn to develop. In this live conversation, Kate and Nicholas discuss: How to maintain hope in the year...
Sep 03, 2024•44 min•Season 13Ep. 1
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...
Aug 27, 2024•1 min
Comedians have the ability to be unsparingly honest in ways that buck all cultural norms. It’s a truth-telling that so many of us crave. Cue Rob Delaney. Rob is a comedian, actor, writer, and director. His memoir, A Heart That Works is an unsparing account of the death of his beautiful son, Henry. Rob lives in London with his family where Kate visited him for this honest and hilarious conversation. Kate and Rob discuss: The importance of finding people who really understand what you’re feeling W...
Aug 20, 2024•46 min
There is this quote by writer and theologian Frederick Buechner. He writes, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.” …But I always sort of wanted to amend his original words. Because the more honest truth is: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Be a little afraid.” Life is so beautiful. And life is so hard. For everyone. Sometimes at the same time. That is the premise behind my latest book of meditations called Have a Beautiful, ...
Aug 13, 2024•17 min
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 el...
Aug 06, 2024•53 min
This is the story of one young doctor’s race against the clock as he searches for a cure for his own rare disease. In this conversation, Kate and David Fajgenbaum discuss: how love can turn hope into action what limited agency means how small steps can lead to big change This episode originally aired in 2020. Stay tuned to the end to hear an incredible update from David and the work he is up to now. He has expanded from finding the cure for his own incurable disease to developing an organization...
Jul 30, 2024•43 min
How hard is it to be a parent today? After a pandemic? With social media breathing down our necks? It’s so hard! Navigating the delicate balance between granting independence and providing guidance can be daunting as a parent. Dr. Lisa Damour ( New York Times bestselling author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers) has dedicated her life to unraveling the intricacies of adolescence and offering practical, heartfelt advice. In this conversation, Lisa and Kate: offer a more reassuring definition of...
Jul 23, 2024•54 min
What do you learn standing so close to the edge with so many people? Listen for wisdom on mortality and hope—like how the habits of love are hard to break and what makes a ‘good funeral’ directly from a thoughtful and funny funeral director himself. In this episode, Kate and Thomas discuss: 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 What elements make up a good funeral This episode origina...
Jul 16, 2024•49 min
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 ...
Jul 09, 2024•38 min
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 202...
Jul 02, 2024•30 min
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 w...
Jun 18, 2024•50 min
What if your life hasn’t turned out like you thought it would? When writer Heather Lanier’s daughter, Fiona, 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. In this conversation, Kate and Heather discuss: When our kids are considered “bad” by the world’s standards The doctor who sai...
Jun 04, 2024•34 min
Pain is like a geography—one that isn’t foreign to palliative care physician, Dr. Sunita Puri. Kate and Sunita speak about needing new language for walking the borderlands and how we all might learn to live—and die—with a bit more courage. In this conversation, Kate and Sunita discuss: How to walk with one another through life’s ups and downs—especially health ups and downs What “palliative care” means (and how it is distinct from hospice) The difference between what medicine can do and what med...
May 21, 2024•37 min
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 ...
May 07, 2024•54 min
How do we navigate life within these beautiful, terrible days? In this special live episode of the Everything Happens podcast, Kate sits down with American broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff at the historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, DC to discuss Kate’s latest book, Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day! Together, they explore what it means to live through the best of days, the worst of days, and all the in-betweens. Together, they discuss: The apology Kate wishes she would have gotten (an...
Apr 30, 2024•42 min•Season 12Ep. 15
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 partne...
Apr 23, 2024•46 min•Season 12Ep. 14
Here on the Everything Happens Podcast we don’t shy away from difficult subjects, and today’s episode tackles a topic we’ve been wanting to discuss for awhile—suicide among teens and young adults. My guest today, Dr. Pamela Morris-Perez is someone who approaches this subject with the heart of a grieving mom and the mind of a professor and practitioner who wants to make change possible and wants to teach us how we can help. This is such an important conversation on how communities can help preven...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr•Season 12Ep. 13
Chantal Kreviazuk is a Canadian singer, songwriter, composer, and pianist—her voice is the soundtrack of all Kate’s Canadian’s teenage angst. She has had an incredible career with a passion for helping others. Among many things, she’s a powerful advocate for destigmatizing mental illness—a cause near and dear to her heart after her brother struggled to get adequate care for nearly 20 years. She’s said, “When a family member is sick, the whole family is sick.” She offers such wisdom for people wh...
Apr 09, 2024•40 min•Season 12Ep. 12
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 bubbl...
Apr 02, 2024•53 min•Season 12Ep. 11
