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Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

By: Everything Happens Studios
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About this listen

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/

2025 Everything Happens Studios
Hygiene & Healthy Living Social Sciences Spirituality
Episodes
  • America’s Caregiving Crisis: A Conversation with Ai-jen Poo
    Sep 30 2025

    What happens when love isn’t enough to hold up a broken system?

    Ai-jen Poo—award-winning organizer and executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance—joins Kate Bowler to talk about caregiving in America. Who provides it. Who’s left out. And why we need a system that treats care as the sacred, shared labor that it is.

    Together they explore:

    • Why more than 100 million Americans are caregiving right now
    • What it costs to support a loved one—and why the math doesn’t add up
    • The long shadow of slavery in how we treat domestic workers today
    • Why dignity and agency are essential in every stage of life
    • What it would look like to build a policy solution that works for everyone

    If you’re carrying the care of someone else—or fearing the moment when you will—this conversation is for you.

    Show Notes

    • Caring Across Generations – A movement co-led by Ai-jen Poo to transform the way we care in America.

    • National Domestic Workers Alliance – Advocating for the dignity and rights of the people who care for our homes and loved ones.

    • The Age of Dignity by Ai-jen Poo – A powerful read on what the “elder boom” means for all of us.

    • Find your elected officials – Contact Congress to protect Medicaid and support caregiving policies.

    • State-by-state Medicaid info – Learn what Medicaid is called in your state and how it supports care.

    • Congressional Budget Office – For context on recent Medicaid budget cuts and projections for coverage loss.

    • Aspen Ideas Festival

    • Share your caregiving story on Substack – Join the conversation with others who are navigating care.

    • A Blessing for Care-Givers and Care-Receivers – A gentle word for those in the trenches of giving or needing care.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    41 mins
  • Jen Hatmaker on Divorce, Deconstruction, and Rebuilding from Scratch
    Sep 23 2025

    What happens when the life you were supposed to have… disappears?

    Jen Hatmaker joins Kate Bowler for a conversation about faith, divorce, and the slow art of healing. After the collapse of her marriage and being pushed out of the evangelical world, Jen had to figure out how to live again—how to co-parent, pay bills, go to therapy, and mother herself after decades of being the “pastor’s wife.”

    They talk about:

    • What it means to lose a marriage, a career, and a community—at once

    • The weight of being a “good” evangelical woman

    • Codependency, caretaking, and letting your kids have their pain

    • The deep joy of discovering you can rebuild from scratch

    This is for the people who are learning how to live when the story changes. A conversation about grief, grace, and not doing it alone.

    Show Notes:

    • Awake by Jen Hatmaker – her latest book on rebuilding a life after loss

    • Support Guides — for divorce, caregiving, and rebuilding from the Everything Happens Project
    • Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day! by Kate Bowler – meditations for the ups, downs, and in-betweens

    • The Preacher’s Wife by Kate Bowler

    • For the Love podcast with Jen Hatmaker

    • Jen Hatmaker's book club – a delightfully honest reading community

    • Come hang out in our favorite little corner of the internet, Kate's Substack.

    • Check out the last time Jen joined Kate on the Everything Happens podcast!

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    42 mins
  • Am I Ruining My Kid? A Conversation with Dr. Becky Kennedy
    Sep 16 2025

    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 parenting. What does it mean to raise (or re-raise) someone with compassion and boundaries, especially when you never learned how?

    Whether you're parenting toddlers, teens, or the little one inside yourself, this conversation offers grace for anyone trying again.

    Show Notes:

    • Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy — parenting platform, book, and podcast

    • A Blessing for When You're Not the Parent You Meant to Be
    • katebowler.substack.com — essays, blessings, and community reflections

    • Support Guide: When Your Child is in Pain — for parents supporting kids through emotional struggle

    • Support Guide: Those Who Care for Teens — compassionate care for older children

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    44 mins
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