Encore | Kate Bowler: Learning to Live When Life Falls Apart

What lessons does life’s uncertainties offer? Kate Bowler’s stage IV cancer diagnosis ushered her into a world of fear and pain. Living in 60-day increments, her future held no promises. Angry about losing the life she had created, the love of family, friends, and her faith community helped Kate forge a new type of strength—learning to lean on others. This conversation between the nation’s doctor and Kate Bowler illuminates how we find truth and beauty within the uncertainties of life.

(05:07)    How did Kate Bowler’s cancer diagnosis at age 35 affect her life? 

(09:32)    Where did Kate Bowler navigate the uncertainty of her illness? 

(12:02)    How did Kate Bowler re-define strength? 

(14:26)    How did Kate Bowler’s community support her during her most acute phase of illness? 

(17:23)    How can other families build a village for their children? 

(20:27)    How has Kate Bowler’s health precarity changed how she thinks about life? 

(25:56)    How can we encourage our kids to strive in a healthy way? 

(29:38)    What is the message of Kate Bowler’s most recent book? 

(31:37)    When Kate Bowler was ill, how did others seem to expect her to fix her life? 

(34:43)    How did Kate Bowler’s experience with cancer impact her faith? 

(39:15)    When is the last time Kate Bowler laughed uncontrollably? 

(40:49)    Kate Bowler closes with a blessing. 

 We’d love to hear from you! Send us a note at housecalls@hhs.gov with your feedback & ideas. For more episodes, visit www.surgeongeneral.gov/housecalls. 

Kate Bowler, Writer & Professor 

Instagram: @katecbowler 

X: @katecbowler 

Facebook: @katecbowler 

 

About Kate Bowler 

Kate Bowler, Ph.D. is a 4x New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host, and professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change. She wrote the first and only history of the American prosperity gospel—the belief that God wants to give you health, wealth, and happiness—before being unexpectedly diagnosed with stage IV cancer at age 35. While she was in treatment and not expected to survive, she wrote two New York Times bestselling memoirs, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved) and No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear). After years of being told she was incurable, she was declared cancer-free. But she was forever changed by what she discovered: life is so beautiful and life is so hard. For everyone. 

Kate is determined to create a gentler world for everyone who wants to admit that they are not “living their best life.” She hosts the Everything Happens podcast where, in warm, insightful, often funny conversations, she talks with people like Malcolm Gladwell, Tig Notaro, and Archbishop Justin Welby about what they’ve learned in difficult times. Author of seven books including Good Enough, The Lives We Actually Have, and her latest, Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day!, she lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her family and continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School.