Stay ConnectedAre 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. Find her online at @katecbowler.
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Writer and poet Safiya Sinclair describes her childhood growing up in a Rasta family in Montego Bay, Jamaica. In this live conversation, Kate and Safiya explore what it is like growing up in more fundamental families, with worldviews we didn’t get to pick, and how—through it all—we become ourselves…somehow.
In this conversation, Kate and Safiya discuss:
The intertwining of personal and national history
The power of poetry as a means of self-discovery and resistance
How Safiya broke free from familial and societal expectations
If you liked this conversation, you’ll also love:
Tara Westover on navigating complicated families
Minka Kelly on learning to love your parents for who they are
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.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year here at Everything Happens. And you're invited to join along.
Advent is a season that leads us up to Christmas. And it is all about living with eyes wide open—seeing the world as it is, with all its cracks and flaws, and still holding on to the hope that everything wrong will one day be made right.
And if that sounds like your sort of thing, we made a free daily Advent guide just for you. It's filled with:
daily reflections
questions to mull over
response activities
opportunities to dive deeper
So, for today’s episode, I’m excited to share with you an excerpt from this year’s Advent guide. We’ll be exploring one of the days to give you a taste of what’s inside. Whether you’re following along with the guide or just listening in today, I hope this reflection speaks to you and brings a little more light into your day.
Download your free Advent guide at katebowler.com/advent.
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.
Today’s conversation is dedicated to the many loves that make up our lives—especially that of our friends. Dolly Alderton is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling writer and memoirist. She recognizes the great gift of the friends who have walked with her through many seasons of life—all the highs and lows and inbetweens.
In this conversation, Kate and Dolly discuss:
The great loves that make up a life
The push-pull of loving relationships with your body
The power of witness
If you liked this conversation, you'll also like:
Liz Gilbert on fostering creative lives
Sarah Bessey on living inside our (actual) bodies
Tim Omundson and Joel McHale on being a friend through hard times
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 you stay close to someone whose pain you can’t fix, whose questions you can’t answer? In this episode, Kate sits down with her dear friend, the Rev. Dr. Sam Wells, a longtime advocate of “being with,” a theology that goes beyond advice and into the sacred space of simply staying. Sam–vicar at London’s St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, an astonishingly wise thinker, and one of Kate’s favorite people on Earth–invites us into a deeper courage: to show up without trying to tidy things up.
In this beautifully honest conversation, Kate and Sam talk about:
Why love can be so hard
What it means to let go of the need to “help”
The surprising beauty of just… showing up
For everyone exhausted by easy answers, this episode is a hand to hold in the dark.
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 are some realities we can never get over. And yet, we keep living. How do we do that well? Wilma Derksen writes and speaks on the topics of victimization and criminal justice. Her wisdom is hardwon. In the mid-80s, Wilma’s daughter, Candace, was murdered. Their family’s response to this tragedy has inspired so many people…and you’ll soon see why.
In this conversation, Kate and Wilma discuss:
How we live with the things we cannot change
What does forgiveness look like in practice
How to start forgiving yourself
If you liked this episode, you might also like:
Malcolm Gladwell on whether people can change
Jerry Sittser on reflecting on tragedy decades later
CW: murder of a child
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.
This week we're introducing you to a show we love called A Slight Change of Plans with Dr. Maya Shankar. Kate was actually a guest on the show, where she joined to talk about how her entire belief system was thrown into question when she was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 35.
If you want to hear more conversations like this one, listen to A Slight Change of Plans wherever you get your podcasts. Plus, the show has new episodes coming on November 11.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How do we stay hopeful in the face of despair and disillusionment—especially when politics threaten to tear us in two? Kate speaks with Parker Palmer, a writer, teacher, and activist. As you’ll hear, he has gone through seasons of deep clinical depression, and has hard-won wisdom to share with us on how to survive, how to regain a sense of agency, how to remain hopeful despite it all.
In this episode, Kate and Parker discuss:
finding agency in the midst of depression and despair (including his trick of redefining achievement)
why it is important to recalibrate our sense of reality—especially in the face of 24-hour news cycles and social media algorithms
how a broken heart can either shatter or break open into a larger, more compassionate way of being
So on a day like today when we all might be thinking about the state of our nation or the state of our world or the realities at stake for our families and friends (....or perhaps, more tempted to keep our head in the sand to just make it through Thanksgiving), might we pull up close and listen to what Parker has to teach us about how to keep our hearts soft and remain hopeful, still.
If you liked this episode, you’ll also love:
Sharon McMahon on the small differences we can make
Will Willimon on aging into a new vocation
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.
We need more room to be honest about what it costs when people or institutions fail us. Today's conversation is with Lord Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer. You might also know him as Princess Diana's brother. His latest book, A Very Private School, is a courageous and beautifully written memoir about his time in an abusive English boarding school that was shrouded in secrets, abuse, and cruelty. While his circumstances may be unlike something you’ve experienced, Charles speaks so candidly and tenderly about his painful childhood and what it has cost him and others too.
In this conversation, Kate and Charles discuss:
the challenge and catharsis of writing about personal trauma
the casual cruelty Charles and his peers endured
what happens when our innocence is stolen from us at a young age
what healing looks like 50 years later
If you liked this conversation, might also like:
Rachel Denhollender on getting justice you deserve
Tara Westover on how our parents’ best might still not be enough
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.
In every deep relationship, there comes a point where we are asked to give up something of ourselves or change in ways we never anticipated. Who will this make me? What will this love cost? Tembi Locke fell in love with an Italian chef named Saro when she was studying abroad in Italy during college. Their romance was a story for the big screen. (Quite literally. One starring Zoe Saldana.)
A rare illness upended it all. Tembi spent ten years as Saro’s caregiver before he died. In her grief, Tembi took their young daughter back to Sicily to see what of her husband she could find there—in his culture, in his food, and with his family.
In this conversation, Kate and Tembi discuss:
becoming the architect of your life
the effects of long-term caregiving (both the beauty and the cost)
who grief makes us
If you liked this episode, you’ll also love:
Katherine and Jay Wolf on what caregiving costs us
Thomas Lynch on how we become who we miss
John Swinton on living at the speed of love
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 you started thinking really concretely about small, hard choices? That’s exactly what palliative care physicians do every day. They help us think about what we really want—knowing that we have limited time and limited resources. You’re going to love our guest today, Dr. Kathryn Mannix, palliative care physician and cognitive behavioral therapist. She offers practical steps to help people and their loved ones make sense of what limited choices they have, navigate any pain and fear they may experience, and gives the most comforting speech on what the end of a life looks like that we’ve ever heard. (I promise this is not scary at all. It is perfect.)
In this conversation, Kate and Kathryn discuss:
Why we want to keep a lid on the scary things of life
What even is palliative care
How palliative care-type thinking can help us live better
What happens to hope when facing end of life
This is a masterclass in walking right up to the edge with people, in the most gentle, compassionate way.
If you liked this episode, you’ll also love:
Sunita Puri on living in uncertainty
Rev. Tom Long on the importance of the rituals for death and dying
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.
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