Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Katie 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. 

In this conversation, Katie and Kate discuss,

• The gifts (and limits) of hyper-agency
• The courage it takes to not fix things
• Why it is so scary to acknowledge our limits and our losses

Katie has so much to teach us about what happens when our problems cannot be easily solved—no matter how hard we try. In this vulnerable conversation, Katie shares candidly about the lengths she went to avoid grief, but why she had to learn to face it nonetheless. We need the courage to try (and the wisdom to stop). 

CW: colon cancer, death of a spouse, death of a sibling, some adult language

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My name is Kate Bowler, and I'm a professor at Duke, a writer of some books that have joyfully sarcastic titles, wife, and mom of a boy that is mostly made up of giant flashlight eyeballs and the kind of Canadian that reminds you that she is Canadian this quickly into the conversation.

On the road, less traveled. I took the bumpy one, the kind with those giant moguls. At 35, I was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. So I have spent a lot of time trying not to die while living in a world that is drunk on the idea that everything will always work out if you are extremely cheerful.

We might not have fewer problems, but we can make each other's lives more bearable when we let go of the embarrassment of not having it together. And then we can begin to feel the love and hope and truth that can be found right here where we are together. I would love it if you joined me.

New episodes begin on February 1st. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, so you don’t miss an episode.

In the meantime,

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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. 

In this live, funny and poignant conversation, David and Kate discuss:

• If a life is ever complete
• How to define hope if it isn’t just a type of optimism
• The limits of stoicism
• What I wish healthcare professionals would do instead

And you cannot miss David’s unplanned pun at the beginning. It was so bad and so funny and nothing can be better. 

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Find me on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Be sure to subscribe to my weekly email for bits of wisdom, prayers, free downloads, and more.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available wherever books are sold. Order your copy, today.

Need a little something to walk with you toward Christmas? Receive our FREE Advent Devotional, here.

Introducing, GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotions for a Life of Imperfection. Pre-order your copy, here.

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We're often 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. 

Writer Sarah Sentilles always knew she wanted to be a mom, so she entered into the foster system with the hope of adopting. But the process was not as simple as she had anticipated. 

In this conversation, Kate and Sarah discuss,

• How every child we welcome into our lives are strangers to be discovered
• The personal cost of impersonal (and often cruel) bureaucracy 
• How we must choose love, even if it costs us everything

Perhaps family is bigger, wider than we've been told. It is a story of belonging and loss and courageous love. And perhaps it involves learning to love a stranger.

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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...but also real medicine is probably better)
• What it was like to grieve on a public stage and her best advice for those experiencing loss

Together, we will discover how courage comes in many forms. The big and bold. The small and steady. Those who look pain and fear directly in the eye. Kate ends with a Blessing for the Brave. Perhaps, we can all gain a bit more courage after listening to this one.

CW: glioblastoma, death of a spouse, addiction

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Life 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. 

In this conversation, Kate and Richard talk about:

• How great love and great suffering can move us into a new stage of life 
• The spirituality of subtraction
• Making room for mystery of joy and suffering
• His secret to staying present to God

Together, might we all learn when to hold on and when to let go.

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When 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. 

In this conversation, Kate and Alexi discuss,

• The difference between stress and trauma
• The discipline—and joy—of sheer effort
• Good pain vs. bad pain and how to stay inside the uncomfortable for a bit longer 
• The highs and lows of realizing your dreams
• How viewing mental illness as an injury not only destigmatizes depression, but offers tangible next steps toward healing

Too often professional athletes fall into the pure motivational speaker category. But this conversation with Alexi gently threads the needle about what is possible if you stay a little longer in uncomfortable situations when even getting out of bed feels like a win. 

There is so much wisdom we can glean from Alexi’s discipline and willpower.

CW: suicide, depression, mental illness

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How 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. 

Now, thirty years after the accident that upended his life, Kate and Jerry discuss:

• Finding honesty about the pain you can never unknow 
• Why it isn’t possible to protect our kids from the tragedies of life
• How to stop counting or comparing people’s grief
• Why we cannot explain our suffering with simple formulas and shallow theology
• Whether miracles can solve our pain

This conversation is an Everything Happens Masterclass on learning to live alongside the reality of lives that come apart for no reason we can explain. 

CW: deaths of family members

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Do 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.

In this conversation, Kate and Susan discuss: 

• The relationship between prescriptive happiness and religion
• What it means to bottle or brood your feelings
• Better strategies to handle difficult emotions
• How to get unstuck from our feelings

This is the permission you were looking for to feel the full range of your human experience—the good and the bad, the beautiful and the terrible. 

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Stanley 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. 

In this conversation, Kate and Stanley discuss,

• How familiar recipes remind us of home—even if we’re far away
• Why it’s okay to be picky about what we eat (Especially bread. He has a lot of homicidal opinions about how bread should be eaten.) 
• The practical difficulties with eating that often accompanies an illness and treatment
• The anger that comes with great loss
• And the joy of bringing people together around the table

When life gets small, so often our pleasures dry up. But perhaps it is in that smallness that we might compress our attention, to discover the small joys and simple pleasures that make a life well-lived. 

CW: cancer, death of a spouse 

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Find me on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

Be sure to subscribe to my weekly email for bits of wisdom, prayers, free downloads, and more.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available wherever books are sold. Order your copy today.

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