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Are you living your best life now?
Not always? This is a podcast for you.
Duke Professor Kate Bowler is an expert in the stories we tell about success and failure, suffering and happiness. She had Stage IV cancer. Then she didn’t. And since then, all she wants to do is talk to funny and wise people about how to live with the knowledge that, well, everything happens.
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Becoming Enchanted
With Katherine MayLiving in uncertainty can lead to a sense of languishing. How do we wake up from this feeling? Katherine May has written gorgeous books like Wintering and Enchantment that help us better understand how to live wide-awake to the world around us.
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Everything Can Be True at Once
With Bozoma Saint JohnBozoma Saint John is a successful marketing executive, but she is also a woman who knows the rollercoaster of profound love and deep loss. She shares her hard-won wisdom and complicated grief as she faced her husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis.
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Laughter is the Best Medicine
With Iliza ShlesingerComedian Iliza Shlesinger is refreshingly candid, especially about things many women can relate to, like the sheer exhaustion that comes from juggling life’s demands (dare we say, it’s like a badge of honor?), pregnancy loss—a topic that often remains in the shadows, and how our accounts of self-care really go off the rails when bubble baths become the solution to all of life’s problems.
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Love That Carries Us
With Steph CatudalHow do you think about faith and hope when your prayers aren’t answered? What about when they are? Rivs and Steph have the kind of story you might see in a blockbuster movie. Rivs was a professional endurance athlete who was suddenly put on life support with a mysterious lung disease. But then a confluence of shocking events occured to get him the care he needs to survive. His wife, Steph, grew up as part of the Church of Latter Day Saints, a faith that believed that if she prayed hard enough, miracles would happen. But then her dad died…
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Serious About Fun
With Catherine PriceDon’t Waste Your Life. Savor Every Moment. Live in the Present. Culture has a lot of prescriptions for how to live a good life. But what if we don’t know where to start? Writer and researcher Catherine Price started to notice how much time she was spending on her phone and how the habit was sucking joy from her life. Instead, she wanted to learn how to have fun again. What is fun? How do you have it? Can you become a more fun person? Catherine debunks the myths around what it means to have fun—especially when we think we’re…
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The Art of Noticing
With Margaret RenklMargaret Renkl calls herself a backyard naturalist—but not because she has any particular expertise. From the birds in her yard to the bugs in her flower beds, she has learned the art of attention. Nature has taught her a speed at which to live, to hope, to stave off despair.
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How to Really Know Someone
With David BrooksWe 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 curiousity on how we might get better at really knowing people. Perhaps that simple skill can help combat…
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The Rituals of Grief
With Clover StroudSo many of us have experienced a before… and an after. The lovely writer Clover Stroud had her before and after at a young age. When she was 16, her mom was in a horse-riding accident that left her severely disabled until she died… 22 years later. The suddenness of that accident layered with the ongoingness of that level of caregiving bonded Clover and her big sister, Nell in remarkable ways. Then, Nell unexpectedly died.
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The Mystery of God
With NT WrightScripture can become a weapon in the hands of the ultra-certain. As if every pain or suffering is part of “God’s divine plan.” So how should we understand and apply the Bible to our real lives with our real-life problems? NT Wright, a New Testament scholar, is a trusted expert to help us understand what truths resound across time and circumstance and which don’t. In this conversation, Kate and Tom dig in especially on Romans 8:28 which is the Pauline version of EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON. Is that what Paul intended to say? Is there maybe another, more life-giving…
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The Caring Power of Community
With Angela WilliamsHow do you sustain a life of service…especially when your job costs you something? Angela Williams has dedicated her life to advocating for others. She joined the military. She became a lawyer. She became a minister. Wait, now she runs one of the largest service organizations in the world, United Way, as its CEO? Incredible. But what’s behind all this is a story about service. About what it takes to stay in the long, slow work of community. You will believe when she says that it’s hard…and it’s good. At the same time.
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The Cost of Survival
With Emi NietfeldWhat does it really mean to “survive” when what you survive… lingers? Emi Nietfeld went from being homeless to graduating from Harvard. But the rags-to-riches story isn’t ever completely true. It skips over the hardest parts—complicated families, long-term trauma on brains and bodies, the ways we wish we could go back and undo what has been done.
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Understanding Today’s Teenagers
With Lisa DamourHow difficult 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.
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A Heart that Works is a Heart that Hurts
With Rob DelaneyComedians 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.
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Get in the Game
With Jenna Bush HagerThe 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.
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The Luckiest Unlucky Person
With Tig NotaroHow 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.
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Life Worth Living
With Miroslav VolfWhat 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.
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To Be Loved Like That
With Kwame AlexanderOur 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.
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Clear Eyes, Full Hearts
With Minka KellyHow 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.
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The Art of Presence
With John SwintonSome 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.
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This Place Could be Beautiful, Right?
With Maggie SmithMaggie 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?
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No More Do Overs
With Mary Louise KellyWhat 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.
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Don’t Come Out Empty Handed
With Rabbi Steve LederHow 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.
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Where We Turn for Meaning
With Michael IgnatieffHistorian 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.
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Complicated Grief and Complicated Love
With Paulina PorizkovaSupermodel 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.
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Number Our Days
With Tom LongThe 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.
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Love Pulls You Forward
With Elaine PagelsOver 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.
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Adapting to Loss
With Frank BruniEvery 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.
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Back to the Beginning
With Beth MooreBeth 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.
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Blessing our ACTUAL Lives
With Jessica RichieWelcome to SEASON TEN of the Everything Happens Podcast! Kate and Jessica talk about their work on the Everything Happens Project and podcast over the past 10 seasons. They also talk about their new book The Lives We Actually Have, which is a book of blessings. Blessings are more than prayers, they also help give you language to describe where God is in real life situations.
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Here’s to the Happies
With Kelly CorriganAs we approach the New Year, we might need a minute to look backward. What even happened this year? Who was I? What went well? What didn’t? Before we start making those New Year’s Resolutions, maybe we could have a second of honesty together.
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Cheers to The Crappies
With Kelly CorriganThis 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.
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Why Your Creativity Matters
With Elizabeth GilbertThe indomitable Liz Gilbert (of EAT, PRAY, LOVE fame) joins Kate for a live conversation on the courage to create. Listen as Liz helps us expose our exhausting American need to make everything useful and lets us embrace beauty as a way of really living.
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Love Mercy
With Bryan StevensonBryan Stevenson (founder of the Equal Justice Initiative) is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable among us.
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The Season of Waiting (And Waiting…And Waiting)
With Kate BowlerAre you ready for Christmas? I used to hate that question. It usually comes when I am already overwhelmed and on the quick path toward burnout. Christmas can easily become another checklist in my already too-full life. But Christmas should feel different. Shouldn’t it? It is the symbol of plenty, of fulfillment, of more-than-enough-ness, and of the expectation that perhaps while we wait for Christ’s birth, we might practice being a little more loving, more forgiving, more patient. Advent is a chance for us to wait for the kingdom of God to break in together. This Advent season join us…
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Music That Makes Us
With Fred PennerFred 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.
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Every Family Has a Story
With Julia SamuelJulia 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.
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The Art of Gathering
With Priya ParkerHow 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…
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Wounded Healers
With Jay & Katherine WolfJay 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.
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More Life, Fewer Explanations
With Stanley HauerwasTheologian 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.
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Worthy of Boundaries
With Melissa UrbanMelissa 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).
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Full Circle Faith
With Jeff ChuWriter 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.
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Everybody Has Something
With Mary Laura PhilpottWriter 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.
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A Good Funeral
With Thomas LynchThomas 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.
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When Success Isn’t Success
With Arthur BrooksArthur 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?
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Wrestling With the Faith We Love
With Randall BalmerMany 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.
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Showing Your Scars
With Ibram KendiIbram 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.
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Suspicious of Joy
With Justin WelbyIn this special episode, Kate visited the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, at Lambeth Palace in London.
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Survival of the Kindest
With Susan CainHow 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.
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Embracing the Complexity of Pain
With Haider WarraichWhen 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 hardwon insight as he reexamines how we understand and treat pain.
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Remaking Home
With Tara WestoverWhat 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?
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Hard Topics, Softer Conversations
With Anna SaleOur 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…
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Mythbusting Parenting
With Cammie McGovernWe 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 to teach us something reasonably easy about ourselves. But what if we are not the parents we thought we’d be? Or…
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Counting Your Somethings
With Mitch AlbomBestselling 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…
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Behold, These Precious Days
With Ann PatchettBestselling 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…
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Peace for Our Anxious Selves
With Taylor HarrisEveryone 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?
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Being Church on Our Worst Days
With Liz TichenorAuthor 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.
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Tolerating Imperfection
With Kate BaerPoet 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.
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Giving Up on Perfect
Good Enough became a little permission slip for us. A little shrug that takes us off the hook for perfection and reminds us that we are human. Again today. Inside fragile bodies and contingent relationships and a whole web of love. Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection is available now wherever books are sold.
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Proud of Absolutely Everybody
With Rick MercerRick Mercer didn’t exactly know he was allowed to be proud. As a teenanger, 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…
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The Courage to Try (and Wisdom to Know When to Let Go)
With Katie CouricKatie 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.
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Never, Ever Enough
With David BrooksHow 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…
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Loving a Stranger
With Sarah SentillesWe’re 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.
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A Special Kind of Brave
With Cindy McCainWhat 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),…
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Learning to Hold On, Learning to Let Go
With Richard RohrLife 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.
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Staying Awake to Our Pain
With Alexi PappasWhen 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.
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Life After Loss
With Jerry SittserHow 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.
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Toxic Positivity
With Susan DavidDo you ever feel a pressure to be positive? Harvard psychologist and bestselling author of Emotional Agility, Dr. Susan David studies the psychological skills critical to thriving in times of complexity and change. Spoiler alert: we don’t need to force ourselves to think happy thoughts. Perhaps there is a better way.
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Simple Pleasures. Small Joys.
With Stanley TucciStanley 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.
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The Scandal of Grace
With Philip YanceyPhilip Yancey is well-known for his bestselling books like What’s So Amazing About Grace and Disappointment with God. But behind all of that spiritual wisdom was a family secret: his sick father left the hospital against the doctor’s advice, trusting in God to heal him. He wasn’t healed. Out of this experience, Philip has wrestled with deep…
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BOOK LAUNCH DAY: No Cure For Being Human (and other truths I need to hear)
With Kate BowlerThe bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) asks, how do you move forward with a life you didn’t choose? In this episode, Kate reads an excerpt of No Cure for Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear) — her new memoir that releases TODAY!
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Gentleness for Our Awkward, Anxious Selves
With Tony HaleWhat 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.
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Taste Like Love
With Antoni PorowskiWhat 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.
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Can We Be A Tiny Bit Happier?
With Gretchen RubinIs it possible to be happier? Bestselling author Gretchen Rubin wondered if she could discipline herself to take tiny steps in order to be more content with her actual life. But what about those of us facing something daunting or insurmountable or tragic? Is it possible for us to be happier?
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What Your Childhood Means for Your Health
With Nadine Burke HarrisCan trauma you experienced as a kid still affect you now? What about the traumatic experiences of our parents and grandparents? Is there a way to undo what California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris calls the “toxic stress response”?
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Embracing the Yes/And
With Cecily StrongCan 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.
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Can People Change?
With Malcolm GladwellThe Self-Help Industry would like to convince us that everyone is capable of change. Just drink this! Read this book! Pick up this daily habit! Follow these 5 Steps! But how much change are we really capable of? It’s such a tender question that is best reserved for a brilliant and agile mind, so who…
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Bonus Episode: Debunking “Everything Happens for a Reason” with Kelly Corrigan
With Kelly CorriganThe 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…
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Season Finale: How Far We’ve Come
With Kate BowlerIn 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.
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Julianna Margulies: Getting Unstuck
With Julianna MarguliesChaotic 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.
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You Are Not The Bad Thing
With Suleika JaouadThere 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.
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The Kingdom of the Sick
With Suleika JaouadThere are two different worlds people inhabit. In one world, people feel infinite bounce. They can see every silver lining and believe in their bones things will always get better and that any set back is probably temporary. But then, there’s the other world. These people know what it feels like to live scan-to-scan and…
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Leaning into Uncertainty
With Adam GrantEverything is in flux. Nothing is the same anymore. How do we live amid all of this uncertainty? Well, psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant believes we may have to do some re-thinking.
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Be Where You Are
With Heather HavrileskyHow 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…
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Beautiful, Terrible, and Everything In-Between
With Mari AndrewHow do we navigate the life in-between? In-between relationships or jobs or friends. In-between independence and dependence. In-between the life we have and the life we’ve always wanted.
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Our Bodies Keep Score
With Bessel van der KolkWhen something truly awful happens, we can’t forget. That memory isn’t just stored in our brains. Our bodies keep the score too. Researcher and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk has spent his life studying the effects of trauma on adults and children.
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Weddings, Divorces, and Loves That Carry Us
With Jamie LeeComedian Jamie Lee is now Netflix’s The Wedding Coach where she’s on a mission to help couples survive the craziness of planning a wedding. A wedding is an event, but a marriage is not an event. During the filming of the show, Jamie’s own relationship began to unravel.
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The Art of the Absurd
With Jenny LawsonOur culture’s obsession with hyper-instrumentalization has meant everything has to be FOR something. But when you are facing unfixable or chronic problems, maybe it’s better to do something for no reason whatsoever. Depression, anxiety, and a grab bag of auto-immune diseases have made humorist Jenny Lawson an expert in the art of the absurd.
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What Good is Prayer?
With James MartinWe don’t always know how to move through this strange, distended season. The season before the cure or the vaccine or the answer. Before the money comes through or the job opens up or the heartbreak is over. The season where this is hope for someday, but someday is not now. Perhaps here, we need…
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Belonging
With Willie JenningsOur 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?
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Family Lore
With Nicole ChungWhat if the story you’ve been given about your family isn’t the whole truth? Writer Nicole Chung had been told a story like so many adoptees. Your parents wanted a better life for you. God chose you to be part of our family. But then she found out the truth was far more complicated than…
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Stories We Tell Ourselves
With Matthew McConaugheySometimes there are stories about ourselves that just need to be true, even if they aren’t. Stories about our ancestors or younger selves that help to explain who we are and offer us a little purpose. When it comes to telling a good story, no one does it better than our guest today: Academy Award…
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Loved and Chosen
With Anne LamottWhat 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 that we also need the kinds of truths we can stand on.
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Family Secrets
With Dani ShapiroWho 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?
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The Case for Hope
With Greg BoyleThere 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…
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Love Big
Today’s episode is all about love, the loves that constitute us, the loves that break our hearts, and the loves that keep us going. Actress, producer, and entertainer Priyanka Chopra Jonas is one of the most recognizable people in the world.
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Ask Kate Anything: Season Five Finale
With Kate BowlerHow 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, instead. Kate offers gentle ideas for how to be a good friend to struggling loved ones,…
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A Not-So Hallmark Christmas
With Nikki DeLoachThe pandemic has 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…
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Beauty in the Breaking
With Michele HarperEmergency 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…
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Bless the Nurses
With Christie WatsonAt 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…
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I’m Doing My Best (Life Now)
With Samantha IrbyThough magazines and movie stars try to convince us otherwise, we aren’t all living our BEST LIFE NOW. When humor writer Samantha Irby lost both of her parents at 18, she developed the perfect coping mechanism: finding the absurd in everything. In this conversation, Kate and Samantha have a wide-ranging conversation about topics like grieving…
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Stubborn Hope
With Jan RichardsonWhat 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…
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Extraordinary Empathy
With Abigail MarshAre 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 episode, Kate and Abigail talk about the use of fear, what it really means to be brave, and how we can all learn to better belong to…
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The Power of Ordinary Love
With Bishop Michael CurrySometimes it feels like the world is irreparably broken. A climate crisis leading to more hurricanes, fires, warming oceans, a political season that has ripped families and friends apart. A pandemic that has left us more isolated than ever and even more delicate than before. Even the strongest among us may wonder, “What hope is…
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Bless This Body
With Susan BurtonThere 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…
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Medicine with a Soul
With Victoria SweetHow 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…
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Your Work is a Calling
With Will WillimonWhat 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…
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When Hope Seems Lost
What do you do when all hope feels lost? Abstract artist Lanecia Rouse Tinsley is no stranger to the hopelessness that comes with grief. In extended isolation, 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…
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The Art of Aging
With Mary PipherWho are we as we age? Our culture has such poor language for the who-we-are-ness across time. The ways we grow and the things that threaten to diminish us. Clinical psychologist and bestselling author, Mary Pipher knows a lot about the opportunities and costs embedded in aging. In this episode, Kate and Mary offer us…
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Blessed Are The Mirrors
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…
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Spread Too Thin
With Shauna NiequistOur lives have shrunk and our choices have been dramatically restricted. But the obligations never stopped, did they? How do we get off the achievement train and build a beautiful life within constraints? Writer Shauna Niequist was on the fast track to burnout when she received advice that changed the pace of her life entirely.…
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Living Alongside Fear
With Ken CarterWhat 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.…
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World’s Okayest Mom
With Kristen HowertonParenting 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.
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The Pursuit of Justice
With Rachael DenhollanderWhat 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…
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The Sun Does Shine
With Anthony Ray HintonRay 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,…
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The Magic of WE
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,…
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Whole and Holy
With Heather LanierWhat if your life hasn’t turned 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 maybe it’s okay that we are not summed up on…
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Flying Buttresses
Timothy Omundson knows what it feels like to make something, then 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.
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Blank Space
With Jason RosenthalWhen Jason Rosenthal’s wife died, she left him a gift that he couldn’t even have known to ask for—in the form of a viral Modern Love article. Today’s episode is about the kind of love that walks us to the very edge and charts a way forward. Even when forward seems impossible to imagine.
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Ordinary Miracles
With Sarah BesseySarah Bessey speaks right to the soft spot where our deepest pain and deepest hope meet. The place where in the bleakest of nights we whisper, What if this doesn’t get better? If you find yourself in that tender spot today, this conversation is for you.