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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. 

LISTEN TO NEW EPISODES OF EVERYTHING HAPPENS EVERY TUESDAY.
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Podcasts on What Not To Say

  • Season

    Episode

    Whole and Holy

    With

    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.

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    Whole and Holy
  • Season

    Episode

    Love That Carries Us

    With

    How 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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    Love That Carries Us
  • Season

    Episode

    How to Really Know Someone

    With

    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 curiousity on how we might get better at really knowing people. Perhaps that simple skill can help combat…

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    How to Really Know Someone
  • Season

    Episode

    The Rituals of Grief

    With

    So 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 Rituals of Grief
  • Season

    Episode

    The Mystery of God

    With

    Scripture 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 Mystery of God
  • Season

    Episode

    A Heart that Works is a Heart that Hurts

    With

    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.

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    A Heart that Works is a Heart that Hurts
  • Season

    Episode

    Cheers to The Crappies

    With

    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. 

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    Cheers to The Crappies
  • Season

    Episode

    Every Family Has a Story

    With

    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.

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    Every Family Has a Story
  • Season

    Episode

    Hard Topics, Softer Conversations

    With

    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.

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    Hard Topics, Softer Conversations
  • Season

    Episode

    Proud of Absolutely Everybody

    With

    Rick 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 small town dreams would make him one of Canada’s most beloved voices. 

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    Proud of Absolutely Everybody
  • Season

    Episode

    Never, Ever Enough

    With

    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. 

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    Never, Ever Enough
  • Season

    Episode

    A Special Kind of Brave

    With

    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), and what it was like to grieve on a public stage and her best advice for those experiencing loss.

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    A Special Kind of Brave
  • Season

    Episode

    Ask Kate Anything: Season Five Finale

    With

    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, instead. Kate 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.

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    Ask Kate Anything: Season Five Finale
  • Season

    Episode

    It’s Okay to Laugh

    With

    Nora McInerny had a miscarriage, lost her father, and lost her husband all within a few weeks. Much to her surprise, she kept living. But she didn’t “move on.” Nora and Kate discuss how grief is messier and less linear than we imagine. And even when you may feel like you might never “get over” what happened, love is there somehow. Nora shows us why it’s time to reframe how we think about a happy ending. 

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    It’s Okay to Laugh
  • Season

    Episode

    How Do We Talk to Kids about Hard Things?

    With

    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.

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    How Do We Talk to Kids about Hard Things?
  • Season

    Episode

    There’s No Good Card for That

    With

    Why is it so hard to say the right thing to those going through difficult circumstances? Artist Emily McDowell has been on the receiving end of some terrible responses after her own diagnosis. Now, she creates kind and irreverent greeting cards that teach us all how to be a little more human. She speaks with Kate about the best and worst things to say and do when our loved ones are hurting.

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    There’s No Good Card for That
  • Season

    Episode

    Can You Hear Me Now?

    With

    Alan Alda is best known for his prolific acting career. But he has also spent years learning about, and teaching, communication. The Emmy-winning actor and star of television’s M*A*S*H teaches doctors and scientists to communicate more effectively and wrote the recent book, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?. He talks with Kate about why human beings are so bad at talking about sickness– and about what helps them improve.

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    Can You Hear Me Now?
  • Season

    Episode

    Joyful, Anyways

    With

    Bestselling author and speaker, Margaret Feinberg was writing a book about joy when her world fell apart. Suddenly, she was fighting for her life and re-writing the book from scratch. Feinberg talks about how she learned how to be happy again, despite everything.

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    Joyful, Anyways
  • Season

    Episode

    The Luckiest Unlucky Person

    With

    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.

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    The Luckiest Unlucky Person
  • Season

    Episode

    Life Worth Living

    With

    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.

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    Life Worth Living
  • Season

    Episode

    To Be Loved Like That

    With

    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.

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    To Be Loved Like That
  • Season

    Episode

    Clear Eyes, Full Hearts

    With

    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.

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    Clear Eyes, Full Hearts
  • Season

    Episode

    The Art of Presence

    With

    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. 

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    The Art of Presence
  • Season

    Episode

    This Place Could be Beautiful, Right?

    With

    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? 

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    This Place Could be Beautiful, Right?
  • Season

    Episode

    No More Do Overs

    With

    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.

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    No More Do Overs
  • Season

    Episode

    Don’t Come Out Empty Handed

    With

    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. 

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    Don’t Come Out Empty Handed
  • Season

    Episode

    Where We Turn for Meaning

    With

    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.

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    Where We Turn for Meaning
  • Season

    Episode

    Complicated Grief and Complicated Love

    With

    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.

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    Complicated Grief and Complicated Love
  • Season

    Episode

    Number Our Days

    With

    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.

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    Number Our Days
  • Season

    Episode

    Love Pulls You Forward

    With

    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. 

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    Love Pulls You Forward
  • Season

    Episode

    Adapting to Loss

    With

    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.

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    Adapting to Loss
  • Season

    Episode

    Back to the Beginning

    With

    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.

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    Back to the Beginning
  • Season

    Episode

    Blessing our ACTUAL Lives

    With

    Welcome 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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    Blessing our ACTUAL Lives