Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

The 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.

In this episode, Kate and Liz discuss: 

• Why we stop ourselves from being creative 
• How we are all capable of making anything (badly! medium-well!) 
• But how our creativity is best if it is for no reason whatsoever (not for impact or legacy or money or acknowledgement) 
• How curiosity quiets fear and control

CW: some spicy adult language

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

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No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

Introducing THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (releasing February 14, 2023). Learn more, pre-order, and receive a free pennant, here.

Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bryan 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.

In this episode, Kate and Bryan discuss: 

• The hope that motivates Bryan in this slow, sometimes frustrating work of justice
• What it means to be a ‘stonecatcher’ (and why it serves both the one being condemned and the one doing the condemning)
• The power of forgiveness, maybe especially toward those who don’t deserve it

CW: discussion of slavery, lynching, and other racist violence, death row

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Subscribe to receive blessings in your inbox every week.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

Introducing THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (releasing February 14, 2023). Learn more, pre-order, and receive a free pennant, here.

Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are going to practice the season of Advent together. Download a free Advent guide, here.

At the end of today's episode, we asked you what your traditions were for remembering the people who we've lost. Share yours on my Instagram or Facebook account. Whether it is the 1st or 4th or 22nd year without someone you love, the holidays can be especially difficult. We need practical ways to bring their memory into our special days. Making family recipes. Playing their favorite song. Putting their ornaments on the tree. Traditions that keep their love alive year after year after year.

What traditions does your family practice to honor and remember your loved one each year? Share yours on Instagram or Facebook.

Thank you for sharing your heartbreak and hope with us all. Bless you as you navigate another year dear one. You aren't doing it alone.

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Subscribe to receive blessings in your inbox every week.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

Introducing THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (releasing February 14, 2023). Learn more, pre-order, and receive a free pennant, here.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fred 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.

In this episode, Kate and Fred discuss: 

• Music as the language of the heart 
• How to speak to the heart of a kid
• Plus, we get to hear Fred sing some of his favorite songs

I have so many memories singing along to Fred’s music as a kid and felt so lucky to get to speak to him today. 

CW: alcoholism, death of sibling

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Subscribe to receive blessings in your inbox every week.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

We are going to practice the season of Advent together. Download a free Advent guide, here.

Introducing THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (releasing February 14, 2023). Learn more, pre-order, and receive a free pennant, here.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today, I have a very special BONUS episode for you all.

Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed, watched in awe as this simple phrase from Untamed – WE CAN DO HARD THINGS – the mantra that saved her life twenty years ago, became a worldwide rally cry.

Life is freaking hard. We are all doing hard things every day – we love and lose; we forge and end friendships; battle addiction, illness, and loneliness; care for children and parents; struggle in our jobs, our marriages, our divorces; we try to set and hold boundaries – and we fight for equality, purpose, joy, and peace right in the midst of all the hard.

On We Can Do Hard Things, Glennon, her wife Abby Wambach, and her sister Amanda Doyle, do the only thing that has ever made life easier: They talk honestly about the hard. They laugh and cry and help each other carry the hard so we can all live a little bit lighter and braver, free-er, less alone.

And they asked me to join them for a conversation on We Can Do Hard Things about navigating illness and other hard things that this community knows how to dig into with such courage. I can't wait for you all to listen.

CW: some spicy adult language :)

***

Listen to Part 2 of my conversation with Glennon and Amanda, "Walking Our People Through Hard Things," on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. We talk about what to do and say to people in pain and how to accept that sometimes there is nothing we can do to fix people's problems (and how to live with that helplessness).

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Follow Glennon on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. 

In this episode, Kate and Julia discuss: 

• What to do when we’ve inherited the pain of our parents or grandparents and when our own problems might be the pain we pass down
• How we navigate generational divides especially around how we express our feelings
• How to not pass down inherited trauma by understanding our bigger family webs

This conversation also is a much-needed reminder that you in all your actual problems and actual pain are far better than any idealized version of you. And maybe that is the exact honesty that might offer us and our families the freedom we long for.

CW: mention of suicide, some spicy adult language :)

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Subscribe to receive blessings in your inbox every week.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

We are going to practice the season of Advent together. Download a free Advent guide, here.

Introducing THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (releasing February 14, 2023). Learn more, pre-order, and receive a free pennant, here.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How 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…

In this episode, Kate and Priya discuss: 

• How do we show up for other people and ourselves in creative ways 
• How to know when a change might be needed in a regular gathering 
• Risk and the awkwardness of needing people

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Subscribe to receive blessings in your inbox every week.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

We are going to practice the season of Advent together. Download a free Advent guide, here.

Introducing THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (releasing February 14, 2023). Learn more, pre-order, and receive a free pennant, here.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jay 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. 

In this episode, Kate, Jay, and Katherine discuss: 

• Why, in the face of impossible circumstances, sometimes the best we can do is to learn to love what must be done
• How to talk to your kids about the difficulties they might face
• The different experiences of being a caregiver and care-receiver over the long haul
• The story of hope and love that Jay and Katherine live into
• Why you are worth caring for—no matter how broken your body or mind or heart is

I felt so grateful to speak with them fifteen years after the original crisis. This tender conversation offers a wide view of their story of hard-won hope.

P.S. If you are someone for whom people didn’t stick around after your crisis, we see you. We love you. I hope you will hear Katherine’s words: “You are worth it.” 

CW: stroke survivor

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Subscribe to our weekly email for blessings.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Theologian 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. 

In this episode, Kate and Stanley discuss: 

• Why Christians are not exempt from difficult circumstances
• Why people need fewer explanations (and why Stanley is suspicious of anyone who demands them)
• Stanley’s advice for going through something difficult

CW: bipolar, mental illness

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Subscribe to our weekly email for blessings.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melissa 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).

In this episode, Kate and Melissa discuss: 

• How boundaries help us better live inside our limitations
• The signs that a better boundary is needed 
• How to manage the awkwardness of saying no 
• How the Spoon Theory helps us understand limited capacity

CW: sexual abuse, addiction

***

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Subscribe to our weekly email for blessings.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.