• Jennifer Garner joins Kate Bowler for a conversation about happiness, joy, and the particular ache that shows up somewhere around midlife — when the disappointments start to outnumber the wins, and you’re still not who you thought you’d be by now.

    They talk about what actually separates happiness from joy (hint: one requires everything to go right, the other doesn’t), the strange gift of a copperhead snake bite, why Kate went paragliding after her cancer diagnosis despite being terrified of heights, and what it means to be a “witness” instead of just a friend. 

    Plus: religious upbringing and how it shapes how we experience joy, letting-go rituals, raising teenagers, and why older women deserve more credit for staying vivid, capable, and alive.

    If you’ve ever felt like your life was supposed to add up by now and it just hasn’t — this one’s for you.

  • What does it mean to live well when danger, loss, and grief are never far away?

    Kate Bowler talks with theologian, pastor, and writer Patrik Hagman, whose life has been shaped by profound loss—including the death of his father, his young son, and later his wife. Raised in Finland and now living in Sweden, Patrik brings a distinctly Nordic perspective on happiness—not as constant joy or self-optimization, but as contentment, trust, and gratitude that survives close proximity to fragility.

    This is a conversation about living with fewer explanations and more honesty. About faith that refuses easy answers. About the strange clarity that comes when life gets very small and very bright at the same time. And about learning to be less surprised by tragedy—and more surprised by goodness.

    If you’re trying to hold grief and gratitude at once, this episode is for you.

  • There are no training manuals for this. Just a child staring up at you with cartoon eyes and an inner monologue that asks: Am I doing this right? Am I ruining them?

    Kate sits down with Dr. Becky Kennedy—a clinical psychologist and creator of Good Inside—to talk about the heartbreak and hope of parenting. What does it mean to raise (or re-raise) someone with compassion and boundaries, especially when you never learned how?

    Whether you’re parenting toddlers, teens, or the little one inside yourself, this conversation offers grace for anyone trying again.

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