Everything Happens with Kate Bowler
by Everything Happens Studios
Are 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.Sales and Distribution by Lemonada Media https://lemonadamedia.com/
Episodes
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How to Disagree Without Hating Each Other with Tim Shriver
We all believe people deserve dignity. Until someone says something outrageous at Thanksgiving dinner. Or posts something truly unhinged on Facebook. Or votes differently than we do. So how do we hold on to our convictions without letting contempt take over? Kate talks with her friend Tim…
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You Might Be Wrong with Bill Haslam
We live in a world that rewards certainty, outrage, and being absolutely convinced that the other side is wrong. But what if faithfulness looks a little less like winning an argument and a little more like admitting we might not have all the answers? Kate talks with former Tennessee Governor Bill...
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Is There Really a Religious Revival? with Sociologist Mark Chaves
Is religion in America disappearing—or are we secretly in the middle of a revival? Sociologist Mark Chaves has spent decades studying what Americans actually believe and how our religious lives are changing. He joins Kate to separate the headlines from the data: why religious decline is real but...
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Losing Religion with Diana Butler Bass
Something strange has happened to American religion. More people are checking “none” when asked about religious affiliation—but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve stopped believing in God, looking for meaning, or longing for community. Historian Diana Butler Bass helps us understand how we got...
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You’re Going to Need Some Friends with Andrew O’Hagan
Who are the people who have made you who you are? Kate sits down with novelist Andrew O’Hagan for a funny and tender conversation about friendship: the childhood friends we swear we’ll love forever, the unexpected people who become essential, and the friends who know how to stay when life gets...
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Joy, Come Find Me with Jennifer Garner
Jennifer Garner joins Kate Bowler for a conversation about happiness, joy, and the particular ache that shows up somewhere around midlife when the disappointments start to outnumber the wins, and you’re still not who you thought you’d be by now. They talk about what actually separates happiness...
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Aging is a Privilege with Dr. Mary Claire Haver
Aging is a privilege — but perimenopause and menopause can still blindside you. Kate Bowler sits down with Dr. Mary Claire Haver, board-certified OB-GYN and bestselling author of The New Menopause and The New Perimenopause, to explain what’s actually happening in the body during perimenopause and...
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How to Break Generational Cycles in Motherhood with Libby Ward
What if becoming the parent you want to be requires unlearning some of what you were taught? Author and creator Libby Ward joins Kate to talk about breaking generational cycles, people-pleasing, parental burnout, and the complicated work of becoming the parent you didn’t have. Libby shares how...
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Listen Again: We Are Good Medicine with Vivek Murthy
Loneliness is more than just a feeling—it shapes how we see ourselves and the world around us. It can make us withdraw, hesitate to reach out, or convince us that connection is for other people. But Dr. Vivek Murthy has spent years reminding us of what is most true: we are meant to hold each…
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Listen Again: Where We Turn for Meaning with Michael Ignatieff
Historian and Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff explores the cracks in our seamless worldviews… or at least the worldviews we thought were seamless until we’re faced with tragedies of all kinds. In this wide-ranging exploration, Kate and Michael probe humanity's enduring attempt to console...
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Listen Again: The Luckiest Unlucky Person with Tig Notaro
How do you live knowing life can just come undone at a moment’s notice? In the span of a few months, Tig Notaro received three life-threatening illnesses, unexpectedly lost her mom, and went through a breakup. Tig is a brilliant comedian whose real life informs her comedy and has a lot to teach…
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Listen Again: Serious About Fun with Catherine Price
Don’t Waste Your Life. Savor Every Moment. Live in the Present. Culture has a lot of prescriptions for how to live a good life. But what if we don’t know where to start? Writer and researcher Catherine Price started to notice how much time she was spending on her phone and how the habit was…
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Listen Again: Hope is a Muscle with Nicholas Kristof
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof understands how to hope—especially in the face of despair or disappointment. He has spent his life shining a light on global tragedies like the Tiananmen Square massacre or the genocide in Darfur. And yet, despite all the horrors he has born...
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Listen Again: Am I Ruining My Kid? with Dr. Becky Kennedy
There are no training manuals for this. Just a child staring up at you with cartoon eyes and an inner monologue that asks: Am I doing this right? Am I ruining them? Kate sits down with Dr. Becky Kennedy—a clinical psychologist and creator of Good Inside—to talk about the heartbreak and hope of...
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Listen Again: What Makes Life Worth Living? with Atul Gawande
In this episode, Kate speaks with surgeon, writer, and public health leader Dr. Atul Gawande about the deeply human questions that surface when medicine meets its limits. What does it mean to be a good doctor when a cure isn’t possible? What do people really mean when they say they want “quality…
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Listen Again: Stay Curious with Alan Alda
We don’t usually have repeat guests on this podcast… except we’re making an exception for the wonderful and wise Alan Alda. Alan Alda, of course, is an award-winning actor, writer, director, and podcast host. You probably know and love him as Hawkeye on M*A*S*H or Senator Arnie Vinick on The West...
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Listen Again: The Mystery of God with N.T. Wright
Scripture can become a weapon in the hands of the ultra-certain. As if every pain or suffering is part of “God’s divine plan.” So how should we understand and apply the Bible to our real lives with our real-life problems? NT Wright, a New Testament scholar, is a trusted expert to help us…
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Listen Again: Everyone’s From Somewhere with Erin & Ben Napier
Erin and Ben Napier didn’t plan on becoming household names. They were just trying to build a beautiful life in their beloved hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, one house, one neighbor, one Main Street at a time. In this heartwarming conversation, Kate talks to the stars of HGTV’s Home Town about...
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Doubt, Depth, and the Future of Belief with Tomáš Halík
What happens to faith when certainty collapses? Kate Bowler sits down with theologian and former underground priest Tomáš Halík to explore belief forged under surveillance, the spiritual value of doubt, and why going deeper—not louder—might be the only faithful response to a fractured world....
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How to Love the World Anyway with Nadia Bolz-Weber and Sarah Bessey
Kate Bowler is joined by Nadia Bolz-Weber and Sarah Bessey for an honest, funny, and deeply tender conversation about what it means to be people of faith right now. When the world feels overwhelming—personally and globally—they explore small acts of love, embodied community, and “cozy faith” as...
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Joy, Absurdity, and the Weird Ways We Survive with Rhett McLaughlin and Jenny Lawson
What if humor isn’t just a personality trait—but a survival strategy? Kate Bowler sits down with writer Jenny Lawson and entertaining YouTuber Rhett McLaughlin to talk about the strange, often dark roots of comedy. From childhood anxiety and taxidermy-filled homes to lifelong creative friendships...
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Joyful Anyway (Yes, Even Now)
On the day her new book Joyful Anyway releases, Kate pauses before the interviews and travel to reflect on a harder question: what does it mean to talk about joy in a world that feels fractured, exhausting, and uncertain? In this short, personal episode, she pushes back on the pressure to…
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The Strange Gift of Joy with Rowan Williams
As Holy Week arrives, Kate talks with theologian, poet, and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams about joy that doesn’t erase sorrow. Together they explore longing, grief, music, gratitude, hope, and the strange, defiant way joy can sit right beside pain without denying what’s true.…
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Living the Questions (Without Fixing Yourself) with Suleika Jaouad
There’s a particular kind of pressure that creeps in when we start measuring our lives—where we thought we’d be by now, who we imagined we’d become, how things were supposed to feel. The instinct is to fix it. Optimize it. Get moving. But what if the invitation is something else? Kate Bowler sits...
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What If Prayer Isn’t What You Think It Is? with Malcolm Guite
What if Lent isn’t about giving something up, but about learning how to sit with what’s already gone? In this episode, Kate talks with poet, priest, and theologian Malcolm Guite about the kind of faith that can hold contradiction—the yes and the no, belief and doubt, beauty and sorrow. Malcolm, a...
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The Randomness of Everything with Mark Rank
We live in a world that wants life to be fair. Work hard, make good choices, believe the right things—and things should turn out okay. But what happens when they don’t? In this live conversation, Kate talks with sociologist Mark Rank, author of The Random Factor, about the role of chance in our...
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The New Shape of American Religion with Ross Douthat and Molly Worthen
Kate Bowler invites two of her sharpest friends—Ross Douthat and Molly Worthen—to help her make sense of the current American religious landscape: why the long “decline” story may be shifting, why religious curiosity is popping up in unexpected places, and why the loudest forms of Christianity...
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What If Happiness Isn’t What You Think It Is? with Patrik Hagman
What does it mean to live well when danger, loss, and grief are never far away? Kate Bowler talks with theologian, pastor, and writer Patrik Hagman, whose life has been shaped by profound loss—including the death of his father, his young son, and later his wife. Raised in Finland and now living…
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There Is More Good Among Us Than We Think with Bishop Michael Curry
When many people hear the word Christian today, it comes with a lot of baggage—power, certainty, exclusion, and culture-war posturing. But there are still people of faith whose lives look nothing like that. People whose beliefs show up as love. Patient, persistent, deeply practical love. Bishop...
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Anne Lamott on Love, Shame, and Being Human
What do we do when the world feels unbearably heavy—and no one is coming to save us? To kick off Season 16 of Everything Happens, Kate Bowler sits down live with beloved author and truth-teller Anne Lamott for a luminous, funny, and deeply honest conversation about shame, joy, faith, aging, love,...
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Listen Again: Clear Eyes, Full Hearts with Minka Kelly
How do we stay soft in a world that has taught us to be tough? Actress Minka Kelly is known for her roles as Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as Samantha in HBO’s Euphoria. Despite her fame on the big screen, one might not realize the chaos that surrounded her childhood. Being raised by a...
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Listen Again: Life After Dark with Barbara Brown Taylor
Author and Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor is no stranger to darkness. After experiencing devastating loss, Barbara explores our culture’s pursuit of the sunny side of life. But perhaps there are things we learn in the dark that we can’t learn in the light. Kate and Barbara discuss the two...
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Listen Again: Loving Mercy with Bryan Stevenson
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...
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Listen Again: Living with the End in Mind with Kathryn Mannix
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,...
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Listen Again: Oliver Burkeman on New Year, Same Me
Does life ever feel like an endless to-do list? Like if you could just wake up tomorrow with a little more discipline, you’d finally master your schedule, achieve balance, and feel…enough? On today's episode, Oliver Burkeman (bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals)...
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Third Annual Happy Crappy: Let’s End with the Happies
What happens when joy shows up anyway? In their third annual Happy Crappies, Kate and her dear friend Kelly Corrigan dare to name what went right in 2025 — personally, professionally, and globally — without apology or superstition. From deeply human moments that no machine could replicate, to...
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Third Annual Happy Crappy: Let’s Start with the Crappies
What happens when the things you tried to fix turn out to be forever? In their third annual Happy Crappy, Kate and her dear friend Kelly Corrigan wade into the personal, professional, and global losses of 2025. From chronic pain that refuses to budge, to families that shrink and institutions…
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Advent: Love Comes Down
By this point in December, love has been merchandised within an inch of its life. It jingles in ads that say if you really love someone, you should buy them a luxury car with a bow the size of a house. But Advent tells another story. God did not arrive in a grand gesture—no skywriting, no...
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Listen Again: Jenna Bush Hager - Get in the Game
The TODAY Show’s Jenna Bush Hager sits down for a wide-ranging conversation with Kate Bowler. Together, they share about the importance of family and intergenerational relationships (Jenna shares such tender stories about her grandparents), how they hope to let their kids make mistakes and be met...
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Advent: Blue Christmas
Every grocery store speaker is now officially blasting “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” And let’s be honest: sometimes it feels like a demand. The happiest Christmas music can feel like salt in the wound when life is heavy. If this season is not “merry and bright” for you, you’re not...
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Listen Again: Father Richard Rohr on Learning to Hold On, Learning to Let Go
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...
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Advent: A Protest Song
We’ve all seen the Christmas pageants where Mary is very sweet and demure and she is wearing a tablecloth pulled from the church dining hall. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how much impossible courage Mary had from the beginning. She finds out that she is pregnant in a completely scandalous way....
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Listen Again: Nikki DeLoach on a Not-So Hallmark Christmas
The pandemic introduced many to living with uncertainty. But for some, uncertainty has always been their norm. Actress Nikki Deloach has starred in several Hallmark Christmas movies, but her life hasn’t matched the happily-ever-after plot-lines of her characters. Nikki’s dad was diagnosed with an...
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Advent: Begin Again
Well, here we are. December has arrived (shudder). And with it, the great cultural sprint: decorations, office parties, and the annual anxiety dream about whether you will accidentally forget someone on your gift list (spoiler: you will). Some of you already finished your shopping over…
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Listen Again: Anna Sale on Hard Topics, Softer Conversations
In this conversation, Kate and Anna discuss: How conversations might engender the intimacy we need to get by Fostering the right interpersonal and listening skills it takes to approach a difficult topic (especially when you’re feeling nervous) Best practices for responding to someone’s hard news...
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Nikki Grimes on Complicated Childhoods, Forgiveness, and Extraordinary Grace
What happens when childhood teaches you more about survival than safety? Poet and author Nikki Grimes joins Kate to talk about growing up with profound instability—and still choosing to see beauty, feel joy, and offer forgiveness. In this moving conversation, they explore memory, trauma, faith…
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More Happier: Do Holidays Leave You Exhausted, Not Restored? Priya Parker, Francis Lam & Kate Bowler on Celebration
Today, we’re sharing a conversation from the More Happier podcast between Kate, Gretchen Rubin, Priya Parker, and Francis Lam. It’s easy to get swept up in a cycle of holidays that feels more like a relentless to-do list than a source of joy. In this Celebration Roundtable, we talk about how to...
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Through the Lens of Love with Tim Shriver
Tim Shriver—educator, author, and longtime Chairman of Special Olympics—joins Kate for a tender, funny, deeply practical conversation about dignity: what changes when we decide everyone matters, how relationships (not information) do the real work, and why service is more than “being nice.”...
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Small Talk Survivors with Sarah Wildman
What happens when you live on a planet where grief rewrites the language of everyday life? Kate Bowler speaks with writer and New York Times editor Sarah Wildman about her daughter Orli’s incandescent life and staggering courage while living with terminal cancer. Together they explore the limits…
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Relentless Tenderness: A Conversation on Healing with Sophie Grégoire Trudeau
It’s tempting to be a very serious person in a very serious world. But what if staying soft was the most loving thing we could do? In this vulnerable and playful conversation, Kate sits down with Sophie Grégoire Trudeau—mental health advocate, speaker, and writer—to talk about childhood wiring…
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About this show
Are 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.Sales and Distribution by Lemonada Media https://lemonadamedia.com/
Hosted by
Everything Happens Studios