Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

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 that does the same for others. Incredible.

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 mental health (hint: it’s about having the right-sized feelings that fit the situation at hand and managing those feelings effectively). 
• emphasize the importance of being a steady presence in kids’ lives, as well as offer scripts to try with your own teenager
• give language to what parents might be feeling if they missed this kind of parenting themselves

 CW: Mental Health awareness 

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter). 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 originally aired in 2022, but we’re revisiting it because I think it might be the best conversation I’ve ever had. I can’t wait to hear what you think.

CW: suicide, death

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 we find our ways back to each other
• The desire to share with our kids how we love, where we fail, where we tried, and who we were before we were their parent

CW: death of parent, divorce

***

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 2021, but is one of our all-time favorites for an honest conversation on being a cancer patient and how to support people in your lives who are undergoing treatment. Kate ends with a blessing for those who feel like their problem is too much to handle—a blessing if you feel like "the bad thing."

If you liked this episode, you might also love: 

• Suleika Jaouad on living between the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick
• Tig Notaro on being the luckiest unlucky person
• For When You’ve Been Diagnosed Support Guide

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Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 we think about how empathy expands our capacity for others. Listen for an update from Abigail on what her recent research is exploring.

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 said two perfect words to Heather
• How the divine sees everyone as good (and how we should seek to see through those same eyes)
• The difference between capacity building and deficit building

This conversation originally aired in 2020, but it is one we return to again and again for its beauty, its honesty, its courage. 

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 medicine should do 
• Sunita’s script for how to talk to patients facing difficult diagnoses 

This conversation originally aired in 2020 but it is one of our all-time favorites.

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 re-sharing our all-time favorite episodes. While this conversation originally aired in 2020, Kate caught up with Don and Justin to get an update on what they are working on lately. You won’t want to miss their important (and practical!) update.

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 (and the moving story about when she did)
• How fragility unites us
• How can we be more empathetic towards people we disagree with

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.