If You’re Exhausted by the World, You Need to Hear This (Anne Lamott + Kate Bowler) Kate Bowler 2026-09-24 | If You’re Exhausted by the World, You Need to Hear This (Anne Lamott + Kate Bowler)
Alexi Pappas on Mental Pain Relief: “Actions First” When Feelings Won’t Budge Kate Bowler 2026-01-12 | If you keep waiting to feel better before you move, you may be waiting forever. Alexi Pappas shares the shift that helped her climb out: actions change first, then thoughts, then feelings. This conversation is for anyone who feels trapped in the dark and needs something doable—without pretending it’s easy.
Cindy McCain on Courage When Life Falls Apart: What If “Brave” Is Just Breath? Kate Bowler 2026-01-12 | What happens after the speeches, flowers, and “you’re so strong”? Cindy McCain shares what helped (and what didn’t) when grief became public property—and how her body finally made space to grieve later. A grounded conversation about courage after loss, when you’re still expected to function, show up, and keep going.
Love When You’re Hurting: How to Unclench Without Losing Hope with Richard Rohr Kate Bowler 2026-01-12 | “Let it go” can sound holy—until you’re holding a life you can’t release. Kate Bowler and Father Richard Rohr talk about the push-pull of wanting to unclench and needing to hold on, especially when pain is loud. A conversation about love that isn’t earned, spirituality that isn’t a ladder, and why presence is hard—yet still possible in small, ordinary moments.
Incalculable Loss: What Helps When Grief Won’t Get “Better”? With Jerry Sittser Kate Bowler 2026-01-12 | It may not get “better.” But it can get carried—differently. Kate Bowler sits with Jerry Sittser, whose life was shattered by sudden tragedy, to talk about bodily grief, bewilderment that doesn’t resolve, and the slow widening of a life that holds both pain and love.A gentler companion for the days you can’t imagine surviving.
Positive Thinking Culture: The Hidden Cost of Staying Upbeat with Susan David Kate Bowler 2026-01-12 | “Choose joy” sounds harmless—until it becomes a rule you have to obey to be lovable, faithful, or okay.Kate Bowler and Harvard psychologist Dr. Susan David unpack why forced optimism backfires, how it erases real suffering, and what it looks like to live with a full range of emotions without shame.
Philip Yancey on Faith in Suffering: What If God Lets You Down? Kate Bowler 2026-01-12 | After betrayal, faith can look like ashes. Kate Bowler names the quiet panic of realizing you trusted the wrong people—or trusted too much. Philip Yancey shares a life shaped by fundamentalist certainty, family wounds, and the slow work of separating God from cruelty dressed up as faith. What’s worth keeping? What needs to go? Let’s talk.
Grief, Healing, and the Food That Brings Us Back with Antoni Porowski Kate Bowler 2026-01-12 | Forget aesthetic bowls and aspirational wellness. This is comfort food that arrives in mismatched Tupperware and tastes like someone noticed your pain. Kate Bowler and Antoni Porowski talk about food that carries memory, identity, and care—especially when life is messy, slow, and unresolved. A conversation for anyone craving comfort without performance.
Grief Support That Works: Humor, Laundry, and Real Presence with Rabbi Steve Leder Kate Bowler 2026-01-08 | What do you say when someone is grieving—and every sentence feels wrong?In this episode of Everything Happens, Kate Bowler talks with Rabbi Steve Leder about how to show up for people in deep loss without resorting to clichés, explanations, or spiritual shortcuts. Drawing on decades of experience presiding over funerals—and his own grief as a son—Steve offers grounded wisdom about what actually helps.If you’ve ever wanted to help but didn’t know how, this episode offers honest guidance—and permission to be human.
Community When You’re Exhausted: Priya Parker on How to Gather Anyway Kate Bowler 2026-01-08 | Community doesn’t have to be big, holy, or high-effort to matter. Sometimes it’s cereal for dinner with one friend and elbows on the table. Kate and Priya talk about “the sacredness of time,” the relief of specificity, and why it can be a gift to let people know how to love you—carols, a quitting party, a grief ritual, a ridiculous taste test—whatever fits the season you’re in.
Sarah Sentilles on Learning to Love a Stranger: Can You Parent Without “Ours”? Kate Bowler 2026-01-08 | There’s a quiet mythology around foster parenting: be endlessly giving, never want to keep, don’t mention your heartbreak. Kate and Sarah dismantle the “self-sacrificing foster parent” script and talk honestly about limits, attachment, rage at broken systems, and what it means to love a child fully—even when reunification is the goal and your heart is the collateral.
Happiness Without the Hustle: Gretchen Rubin on A Gentler Way to Live Kate Bowler 2026-01-08 | We’re told that if we just try harder—optimize our habits, fix our mindset, follow the plan—we’ll finally feel whole. But what if life isn’t a project to complete?In this conversation, Kate Bowler and Gretchen Rubin explore the narrow, human space between “nothing is possible” and “everything is.” A wiser way to think about happiness, control, and the dignity of small choices—especially when life has already come apart.
Blindsided by Change: How Do You Live After the Undoing? With Maggie Smith Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | What if your life fell apart quietly? No big explosions. Just a slow unraveling of what you thought would last.In this raw and tender conversation, Kate Bowler talks with poet and bestselling author Maggie Smith about what happens when you're blindsided by change—a painful divorce, a life unspooled, a plan that no longer fits.Together they trace the shape of a life in the aftermath. What if there's no clear “before and after”? What if healing looks more like nesting dolls—layer upon layer of memory, pain, and grace?This episode holds space for anyone asking: What happens now? If you're living in the shadow of lost dreams and surprise endings, this is for you.
Spiritual Misfits Welcome: Why Faith Doesn’t Always Fit, with Jeff Chu Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | What happens when your faith no longer fits? When the church that raised you becomes a place you can’t return to—or won't let you in?In this tender, wry, and deeply honest conversation, Kate Bowler sits down with Jeff Chu—writer, preacher, and co-leader of Evolving Faith—to talk about growing up in a Chinese Baptist church, coming out as gay, and the painful beauty of learning to belong in new ways.This episode is for the spiritual misfits, the doubters, the ones who crave certainty but live in ambiguity. Together, we explore the ache of unbelonging, the wisdom of our ancestors, and the defiant hope that love might still find us—right where we are.
The Striver’s Curse: When Ambition Fails to Satisfy with Arthur Brooks Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | What if your life checked every box—but still felt hollow? Kate Bowler talks with Harvard professor and happiness expert Arthur Brooks about why success doesn’t always deliver joy. They explore the “striver’s curse,” the cost of ambition, and how to build a life that’s rich in meaning—even when the dream isn’t what you imagined. If success hasn’t fulfilled you, this one’s for you.
Still Christian After All That? Hope for Wounded Believers with Randall Balmer Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | Is it possible to stay in a faith that has wounded you—and still find something beautiful there?Kate Bowler talks with historian and priest Randall Balmer about evangelicalism, heartbreak, and the aching work of keeping hold of what’s worth loving. For anyone struggling with a shifting belief system, this conversation offers honesty, spiritual depth, and a glimmer of hope.
Susan Cain on The Bittersweet Truth: Longing Makes Us More Human Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | What if the pain you carry is not a weakness but a doorway?Kate Bowler and Susan Cain talk about how longing, grief, and imperfection connect us to each other—and to something transcendent.This episode is a balm for tender hearts, and a beautiful reframing of sorrow as something sacred, not shameful.
Why Chronic Pain Feels Like It Will Never End, with Haider Warraich Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | You’ve heard it before: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” But what if that’s just... not true? In this gripping conversation, Kate Bowler and Dr. Haider Warraich unravel the painful myths we tell about suffering. Drawing from personal experience and clinical expertise, they explore why chronic pain isn’t a test of will—but something far more human, and far more misunderstood.
Nadine Burke Harris on Healing Childhood Trauma: It’s Not Too Late to Change the Story Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | Many of us were told to move on, toughen up, or stop looking backward. But what if your body never got that memo?In this conversation, Kate Bowler sits with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris to explain how childhood trauma can quietly shape our health, stress, and sense of safety decades later.With clarity, compassion, and hard science, they explore why lingering pain isn’t a personal failure—and how healing can still begin.
Grief, Joy, and the Courage to Feel Both at Once with Cecily Strong Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | When everything falls apart, we’re left with choices. Denial. Numbness. Or a kind of fierce grace that holds both sorrow and beauty at once. Kate Bowler talks with Cecily Strong about the years that cracked them open—the losses they didn’t choose and the unexpected joys they found anyway. This is a masterclass in emotional courage, for anyone trying to hold a full heart in a fractured world.
You Are Not the Bad Thing: When Illness Feels Like Failure, with Suleika Jaouad Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | What if the hardest part of being sick isn’t just the scans, the surgeries, or the slow mornings—but the feeling that you’ve become a burden to the people you love?In this conversation, Kate Bowler sits down with author and advocate Suleika Jaouad to talk about the shame and self-erasure that often accompany chronic illness. Together, they name the ache of trying to seem “fine” to protect others, and the grace that comes from being loved exactly as you are.This is for anyone who has ever felt like the bad thing—not just someone going through something hard, but the hardship itself.
Fake Awards Season Kate Bowler 2026-01-05 | No gold stars required. Just existing, eating snacks, and resisting the urge to optimize our personalities.
Joyful, Anyway Kate Bowler 2025-12-23 | Advent joy doesn’t mean everything is okay.It means love comes anyway.Light breaks in anyway.We rejoice, anyway. 🕯️PS. My new book JOYFUL ANYWAY releases in April, but is available for pre-order now.
ADVENT WEEK FOUR Kate Bowler 2025-12-22 | December often sells us a shiny, merchandised version of love—sparkling ads and grand gestures. But Advent tells a quieter truth. God comes not in luxury, but in vulnerability: a baby in a Bethlehem stable, a frightened young family, love wrapped in rags. This small, fragile love is the love that remakes the world—slow, human, and unbearably tender.As Christmas nears, this reflection invites us to look for love in the small things: a check-in text, a kind neighbor, a God who comes close and unnoticed, but never unneeded.If this Advent series has felt extra special for you or you just want to join a community of deeply thoughtful people, join Kate over on Substack: katebowler.substack.com.
Need a Witness? Honest Joys from a Complicated Year with Kelly Corrigan Kate Bowler 2025-12-17 | What if you didn’t have to explain why this year felt like both too much and not enough? In this honest and gently hilarious episode, Kate Bowler and Kelly Corrigan offer up their “happies and crappies” — the delight, the mess, the bittersweet joys that need a witness. From birthday parties that doubled as resurrection stories to cross-country moves that rewrote family rhythms, they reflect on what made them feel most alive.If you’ve been quietly carrying your own mix of beauty and heartbreak, this episode will meet you there—and bless it all. Because every year deserves to be seen.
When Crappies Outnumber Happies: Kelly Corrigan on What to Do Now Kate Bowler 2025-12-17 | If you feel like your “crappies” are winning this year — the pain, the let‑downs, the daily wear‑and‑tear — you’re not doing it wrong.In this honest, wry, tender conversation, Kate Bowler and Kelly Corrigan walk through what happens when life doesn’t match the highlight reel. They name the ache, the humiliation, the quiet surrender — and give you permission to say, “This sucked” without shame. Then they invite you into a deeper story: one where your worth isn’t measured by how many happy snapshots you can post.
Advent Isn’t Instant: Learning to Wait with Hope with Kate Bowler Kate Bowler 2025-12-17 | What if this season of sparkle and celebration is also the one where you feel most lost in the waiting? In this Advent reflection, Kate Bowler offers a beautifully honest invitation into the holy ache of expectation. Through stories, history, and tender listener voicemails, we’re reminded that Christmas doesn’t arrive all at once—it’s something we prepare for in the dark. If you’re longing for peace, missing someone dearly, or just trying to make it through, this gentle episode will meet you there.
Hope in Hard Times: Singing Through the Ache with Fred Penner Kate Bowler 2025-12-17 | What keeps us soft in a world that can feel so relentlessly hard? In this heartwarming episode, Kate Bowler talks with beloved musician Fred Penner about how music, memory, and childlike wonder can help us stay open and kind. They explore grief, joy, and the ways tenderness survives even through loss. With stories of Fred’s sister Susie and the magic of Fred Penner’s Place, this conversation is a balm for the weary. If you’ve ever felt like the world wants to make you tougher than you want to be—this is your invitation to stay tender.
Family Disappointment: When Your Roots Don’t Support You with Julia Samuel Kate Bowler 2025-12-17 | What if the people who were supposed to love you well... didn’t? In this tender, honest conversation, Kate Bowler and psychotherapist Julia Samuel explore how unspoken family pain can echo through generations. Whether it’s the silence around grief or the absence of apology, they help name what hurts and offer a way forward—even when healing feels incomplete. With warmth and wisdom, they reflect on how to face our stories without being trapped by them. If you've ever felt let down by the people you needed most, this episode is for you. There's still hope for something more whole.
Faith and the Unknown: How to Live When There’s No Easy Fix with Stanley Hauerwas Kate Bowler 2025-12-17 | What do you do when life refuses to make sense – when pain lingers, relationships wobble, and faith doesn’t provide a neat formula?In this episode, theologian Stanley Hauerwas joins Kate Bowler on Everything Happens to talk about living when the why isn’t clear. Drawing on decades of experience, Stanley explores the difference between pain and suffering, the burden of explanation, and the strange freedom of simply saying, “I don’t know.”
What is Blue Christmas? Kate Bowler 2025-12-17 | For everyone who feels out of sync with the sparkle—this one’s for you.Not every Christmas can be merry. But may it be meaningful. 💙
ADVENT EPISODE THREE Kate Bowler 2025-12-16 | When the world insists this is “the most wonderful time of the year,” it can feel like a demand—especially when life is heavy. Advent makes space for the truth that the holidays can hurt. Many churches hold Blue Christmas services to honor grief with soft light, quiet music, and the reminder that Jesus was born into real darkness. Joy didn’t come because life was perfect; it came...anyway.This Advent reflection invites you to make gentle room for sorrow and joy together—through honest practices, quiet moments, and the small spaces where God slips in beside our grief. Joy doesn’t erase sadness; it grows in the cracks where truth is told.If you'd like to go deeper, join Kate for Advent over on Substack: katebowler.substack.com/s/advent - make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing!
Hard Conversations: Anna Sale on How to Say What’s Unsaid Without Breaking Kate Bowler 2025-12-16 | It’s easier to talk about the weather than the things that keep us up at night—fear for our kids, slipping health, crumbling relationships.In this episode, host Kate Bowler sits down with journalist Anna Sale, whose work invites us into hard conversations with curiosity, grit and compassion. Together, they explore what happens when we finally bring our fears and truths to the table—what we lose by staying silent, and what we might gain when we don’t.
Giving Up on Perfect: How to Live a ‘Good Enough’ Life Kate Bowler 2025-12-16 | Ever feel like you’re failing at being your best self? Like if you just found the right routine or habit tracker or meal plan, life would finally click into place? Kate Bowler knows that ache—the craving for perfection and the disappointment when it all still feels like too much.In this warm and wise episode of the Everything Happens podcast, Kate reads from her book Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection, co-written with Jessica Richie. Through stories of failed resolutions, pandemic fatigue, and a grandpa who found joy on a dance floor padded with horse hair, Kate offers a new way of living: not perfectly, but beautifully enough.
Chasing Enoughness: When a Full Life Still Doesn’t Feel Full, with David Brooks Kate Bowler 2025-12-16 | Is it ever enough? The accolades, the checklists, the carefully built life? In this raw and funny conversation, Kate Bowler and New York Times columnist David Brooks wade into what happens when you live with the ache of “not enough.” When you've done the work and still feel like you're chasing something just out of reach.Together, they explore what it means to grieve an unfinished life, to keep showing up when there’s no arrival gate, and to dare to believe that good enough might just be holy ground.
Tiny Joys, Big Grief: Stanley Tucci and Kate Bowler on Healing Kate Bowler 2025-12-16 | What do you do when life shrinks so small, you forget what it feels like to delight in anything? Kate Bowler and the one-and-only Stanley Tucci sit down for a vulnerable, hilarious, and tender conversation about learning to enjoy life again—bite by bite.They explore how illness, grief, and caregiving can squeeze the joy right out of life… and how rebuilding delight might mean noticing the crunch of a roasted potato, the warmth of a homemade cocktail, or the memory of someone you loved through their recipes.If joy has felt foreign, too expensive, or simply out of reach—this episode is for you.
How Do You Live with No Cure? Ask Kate Bowler Kate Bowler 2025-12-16 | What do you do when life won’t give you a formula to follow or a promise that everything will work out? In this intimate and moving reading from her memoir No Cure for Being Human, Kate Bowler invites us into the sacred, tender tension of living with limits.With humor, heartbreak, and piercing clarity, Kate asks what it means to be human in a world that offers endless advice but no guarantees. From late-night worries to giggling toddler breakfasts, from imagining the end to embracing the moment—this is an ode to fragile lives lived honestly.
Tony Hale on Why Awkward People Might Be the Most Human Kate Bowler 2025-12-16 | Are you the kind of person who still cringes at that thing you said years ago? Same.In this tender, hilarious, and spiritually rich episode, Kate Bowler sits down with Emmy-winning actor and king of compassionate awkwardness, Tony Hale. Together, they explore what it means to be a little out of sync with the world—and why that might actually be the most honest way to be human.From childhood costumes that didn’t make sense to roles that accidentally mirrored their inner lives, Kate and Tony dive into what makes us feel like we don't quite belong—and why that’s sacred ground.If you've ever needed a blessing for your cringe-worthy self, this one's for you.
Is Change Even Possible? Kate Bowler + Malcolm Gladwell on What’s Real Kate Bowler 2025-12-16 | Is meaningful change even possible—or just a pipe dream sold in five-step formulas and Instagram mantras?In this tender, fiercely intelligent episode of Everything Happens, Kate Bowler sits down with Malcolm Gladwell to ask one of life’s most spiritual (and suspiciously simple) questions: Can we do better? Together, they explore how history, humility, and forgiveness might offer more lasting transformation than self-help ever could.With Kate’s trademark honesty and Malcolm’s curious mind, they dismantle the myths we live by—about personal growth, about how people “should” act, and about the invisible grace that makes seeing clearly (and changing deeply) possible.Expect: no pep talks. Just real talk about the mess and miracle of being human.
The Difference Betweeen Hope and Optimism Kate Bowler 2025-12-10 | This Advent, we're not chasing peace. We're practicing it. In the ache. In the ordinary. In the promise that peace - real peace - comes as a baby.
ADVENT EPISODE TWO Kate Bowler 2025-12-08 | Mary is often portrayed as soft and serene, but the real Mary was impossibly brave. A teenage girl with a world-upending announcement—and what does she do? She sings. And not a lullaby, but a protest song of God’s justice: the mighty brought low, the humble lifted, the hungry filled (Luke 1:52–53). This is Advent peace that disrupts, reorders, and remakes the world. A peace that holds fear, hope, and holy courage all at once.In this Advent reflection, we remember Mary’s fierce song and the God who still brings revolution through unexpected people. Join us as we wait, hope, and hum along to the soundtrack of redemption.If you'd like to go deeper, join Kate for Advent over on Substack: katebowler.substack.com/s/advent - make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss a thing!
ADVENT WEEK ONE: HOPE Kate Bowler 2025-12-01 | December is here (shudder), and the cultural sprint has begun—decorations, office parties, shopping, and the nagging fear we’re already behind. But Advent invites us into a different rhythm: not frantic doing, but watching and waiting. Instead of letting December carry us away, we’re slowing down to remember the story of God’s redemption—where strength is found “in returning and rest… in quietness and in trust” (Isaiah 30:15). This is an Advent for the lives we actually have: messy, beautiful, overstuffed, and still deeply loved by God.In this Advent reflection episode of Everything Happens, we light a candle at the beginning, not the end. We practice small pauses of prayer, a quiet breath at the table, a reminder that God is coming, and we don’t have to hold everything together by ourselves. Whether you feel wildly prepared or already behind, you are right on time. Welcome to Advent—let’s begin again.If you'd like to go deeper, join Kate for Advent over on Substack: katebowler.substack.com/s/advent - make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss a thing!
How to Keep God Close Kate Bowler 2025-11-28 | Given all that @poetrynikki has endured, no one would blame her for turning away from God. A life marked by instability and uncertainty might make faith feel out of reach.But she did the opposite. In the darkest moments, she tucked God into her pocket—close enough to carry, even when nothing felt sure.
Finding Hope in Love Kate Bowler 2025-11-27 | @poetrynikki knows what it is to be loved. And what it is to go without. In and out of foster care growing up, she made it through the dark because a foster family had shown her love once—and she never forgot what it felt like.It’s not always tidy. But love can hold us. And sometimes, hope is just the memory of being loved, still flickering in the dark.
You Never Forget Kate Bowler 2025-11-26 | "You never forget. The memories are all there, but you're not bound by them anymore." Notes on forgiveness from the one and only @poetrynikki.
They did their best. Kate Bowler 2025-11-25 | This week on @everythinghappens, poet and truth-teller Nikki Grimes joins me for a conversation about the kind of forgiveness that isn’t earned or deserved—but necessary. Not to forget what happened. Not to excuse it. But to stop carrying it.It’s raw. It’s gentle. It’s what healing can sound like.Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube!
Growing Up, Letting Go: Nikki Grimes on Belonging, Memory, and Grace Kate Bowler 2025-11-25 | - What do we remember about our childhood—what we carried, what we forgot, and what still aches?In this rich, moving conversation, Kate Bowler sits down with author and poet Nikki Grimes to talk about growing up in foster care, the weight of early memories, and how love, forgiveness, and community can shape a life. They explore the complicated nature of memory, the transformative power of grace, and how joy can endure even when happiness feels far away.Together, they reflect on:- The emotional and spiritual legacy of childhood- Why love and belonging matter so much—especially when they come late- How memoir-writing makes you relive and reframe your story- What forgiveness costs, and what it gives back- Why children often know more about joy and God than grown-ups doThis is a tender, profound episode for anyone asking: How do I make peace with the story that made me?
Disagreeing with Dignity Kate Bowler 2025-11-24 | As we head into a week of gatherings—some delightful, some... deeply character-building—may we remember what @timothyshriver so deeply believes, dignity is still on the table. Even when Uncle What’s-His-Name brings that opinion. Again.Let’s try to be people of grace. Or at least people who don’t throw the mashed potatoes.
Why Does Dignity Matter? Kate Bowler 2025-11-24 | If anyone deserves the title "Patron Saint of Dignity," it’s @timothyshriver. As chairman of @specialolympics, he spends his life making sure people are treated like they matter. Because they do.So as we head into a week of gatherings—some delightful, some... sanctifying—may we remember: dignity is still an option. Even when Uncle What’s-His-Name brings that opinion. Again.Let’s try to be people of grace. Or at the very least, people who keep the mashed potatoes on the plate.
Why Its So Important to Try Kate Bowler 2025-11-21 | There’s a quiet kind of courage in trying. In showing up when there’s no guarantee it will work, no promise it’ll be worth it. Just the flicker of hope that maybe, just maybe, this effort matters. Even if it fails. Especially then. What a human thing. What a beautiful thing.
