Kate Bowler: Know Your Own Belovedness

0:08  
Good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening, wherever you are, you're listening to the Jann Arden podcast. We have a great, amazing guest today that we cannot wait to talk to. This is going to be a four hour podcast. Because I'm here with Caitlin green. I'm here with Sarah Burke. They're both in Toronto. Kate bowler is coming to us from North Carolina. She's a fellow Canadian. She hails originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She has her own podcast. It's an award winning podcast called Everything happens and doesn't it just effing just she is also on top of everything else. She's a professor at Duke University, went to Yale. She is an incredible author. I've got two conflicting reports. And this is really sad. One of them says she's a three time New York Times best selling author. The other one says she's a four times just she writes brilliant things, things that I'm gonna let Caitlin actually lead this podcast off because she has such a personal connection with UK and you've done a lot to help her. Please welcome Kate bowler to the Jann Arden podcast. Caitlin, I just want to let you lead off because it's a great story. It's about grief.

1:23  
Yeah, well, I mean, I found Kate after our son died. And I think I was looking for like grief resources. And I heard the episode that you did on terrible thanks for asking with Nora McInerny. And I just I loved it so much. And I was taking in, I was like a little sponge for people that I liked that have sort of been through something that was terrible, and weren't there to say, you know, everything happens for a reason, it was that everything happens period approach that you had, that I really liked, and it felt positive, but without kind of the phoniness of it. So that's when I got no cure for being human. And I just fell in love with it. And one of my really good friends who I our friendship really deepened after our son died, because she was diagnosed with an inoperable form of esophageal cancer. And she's, she's steady, she's steady right now. But you know, there's really no quote unquote cure for it. She'll be living with it in some way for her whole life. And she has a young child and her story had so many parallels to yours. And she lives in Australia, and I sent her all of your info, and she just became obsessed, like ravenously got your books and listen to all your podcasts. And it's exactly the same as me. And I just felt like, there are so many lessons to learn and so many valuable insights that you have on the most difficult parts of life that so many people avoid that I really meant so much to me at that time, because it was it was positive and it was real. And and I feel like when someone's struggling, I frequently send them your way I send them to your website. Like if they have a family member who's sick if they've lost a loved one, whatever it is, I'm like you should go to her website or listen to her podcast because it's very, very illuminating Kaitlan Ah, so that's my fan girl oh

3:04  
my gosh, and like what a joy to be here and thank you so much for telling me the really the really real because it's a terrible kind of fellowship when you really know somebody because the very worst thing took your life apart and it does feel like such an incredible honor to be able to share language and because then you get a chance to be part of somebody's kind of like the most tender thing which is the way we make meaning of what happens to us so honestly Caitlin thing that is the most ridiculously beautiful way to be your friend and I'm so grateful to like meet meet you. And I'm like the such a stupid fan of this podcast. So this week I've been like so lightly sweaty and excited to be on with you guys today. I've just brought like a sprite of bombers hat just in case we need that it's the vintage one gets the throwback looks a lot like the Huskies one, which is confusing for everybody.

3:58  
But very nice. Just

4:00  
ready to just ready to be Pete Canadian with you guys being real people.

4:05  
Well, we try and be real. We were so real. We're in trouble at least like three times a week with someone yelling at us that we haven't represented an opinion properly, which is good because it's all about making people think and at least we know that they're listening. You might find this interesting. Kate is last week we touched on the medically assisted is assistance and dying. And so many people that are in a marginalized, disabled situation in their lives be at mental health, be it a physical disability. I mean, it runs the gamut. And they really came at us very loudly to tell us that hey, listen to us. Made is not everything that it seems to be because for people who have no options that are struggling with grief, struggling with depression, struggling with anxiety, that is their only option. And I just wanted to ask you what you thought of that. I didn't even think about people wanting assistance in that because they literally can't do their laundry or they can't leave their house or they can't afford to pay for their. From the privilege perspective. Yes, it really shocked me because I think I came at it from a place of privilege, and I feel very bad

5:18  
about it. Well, it's hard when we're trying to think about life as a set of choices. And sometimes like the euthanasia debate gets presented to us as just part of that framework is like, well help me make choices then about how we live and how we die. And part of the supervision of the made processes, they do outtake interviews with people. And there's a really stunning article that was written, I think, by plow that took parts of the transcripts of those interviews that people did when they had applied and then received permission for made. And those I have to admit, I was like, I was too sad for a whole weekend after reading that article, because it was it was quotes like, well, it's not that I want to die. It's just that I can't afford to live. And yeah,

6:06  
this, this was the narrative that we were hearing over and over in the last few days from our podcast on Friday. And I have to tell you, I'm very shaken, because I didn't know I didn't know, I think

6:17  
what's so lovely and important about everyone being willing to engage in how we think about being sick and terrified is one of the our greatest fears is losing control. And one of our greatest fears is then becoming a burden to others. And depending on where we are in our set of abilities, I remember one of my biggest fears, when I got sick was I did the math and realized almost immediately that I was going to bankrupt, everybody that I loved. And that like hit me in a very difficult. I start you know, my shame button is too big. And I really started to think No, I am, I am the bad thing. I'm the thing that happens to people. And it's a it's a lie. Of course, we are all kinds of things. And we are at our very core, like, we are precious, we are actually a gift. But sometimes when we're sick, when we get scared, we can get overwhelmed by the by feeling like every bad thing that happens is part of our responsibility to make everything easier on others. So I think that's part of what the difficulty around how we think about being weak and fragile is it's it's like a hard, but it's such a beautiful conversation, because we're all trying to figure out a way to feel our own belovedness, you know, in the best and in the worst.

7:31  
Yeah, I think, you know, you said something, just now I am what happens to people. It's like a Taylor Swift song. You know? Hi, it's me, I'm the problem, it's me. I think a lot of us can feel like that sometime that we have leaned on our family too much. Or we always feel like we're in a state of flux and in a state of chaos. And you even feel bad about bringing up a conversation with you've had somebody at work or an argument that you've had with someone at the office. Katelyn just came from, you know, a really tricky situation where she worked for 13 years. And I think I felt like she was like, I don't want to burden you guys with the details, and that she was kind of keeping it to herself. I don't know how much of that's true, Caitlin. But I did feel like that. Yeah, for

8:26  
sure. I mean, spoiler alert, I was laid off. And it's not, it's the desire to make everyone else comfortable in conversation. And to sort of like gloss over the difficult things. But then when you go through something like I didn't have as much of a hard time, I think because of having my previous experience with loss. So I do think that I learned that, you know, going through something difficult can kind of be the superpower because as you articulated Kate, it is a shorthand with other people who've been through something and so you immunity. Yeah, it is exactly. And a term I heard was post traumatic growth instead of post traumatic stress like that. And I Yeah, and I feel like it's a nice reframing of of going through difficult times, because we're all going to go through difficult times. So I don't Yeah, maybe I was glossing over it. I think it's you do without even realizing it. You minimize stuff that's happening in your life without even realize you're realizing you're doing it, maybe to make yourself feel better, but definitely to make other people more comfortable. And because you don't want them to have a bad conversation or a bad time, or you don't want to feel and you also want to feel like you're complaining, because I know that I am fortunate in other ways. But yeah, you're still handling a difficult situation.

9:35  
There's a couple ways you can usually tell if you're doing it too, because I find that I mean, I've got a pretty like low, flat aspect, which I do for the sake of also being able to be slightly, slightly more honest. But I can always tell when I'm like telling the truth, and then I'm starting to notice that it's going really good. We're out like and I could just tell that sadness is like I launched a plane and I'm worried that there's not runway, especially if you see the look on their face and you're like, Oh, I, I broke a rule. And now I can't find it. Yeah, you just want to like, soften it the second you said it, but the truth is, you usually set it. Because, frankly, it needed to be said you just realized there wasn't a there wasn't a landing pad.

10:18  
How are you asking for help? Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's terrible for me. That's my I will sit alone for three days. I'm getting better. I mean, 62 years old. I'm finally my mother's Alzheimer's. I always say good things come out of bad things. My mother's Alzheimer's actually shifted my ability to reach out to my friends and ask for help. And I'd never people always said that to me. You never need anything. Like, are you okay out there? And I'm like, I'm not really okay. So how are you good at it? Oh, yeah, I'm

10:54  
real. I'm terrible. I'm a huge liar. Yeah. Especially like, how are you? Fine. I'm wondering like, when Jan, can you remember the time in which like the was it a breaking moment? Or was it a, you just realized it was, you were the only one that was gonna have to break the momentum. I was scared.

11:10  
I was very scared. And I think everyone assumes that memory loss is never going to affect them. My parents seemed like these steadfast, steady on people. And they both kind of got sick at the same time. But when people are together, you don't notice it as much. And when my father died, cat was out of the bag. But I was scared Kate, long, long winded answer. And I felt like I was making myself sick.

11:38  
I could hide mine for such a long time, because I used to travel by myself for medical appointments. And then I just really got used to doing medical appointments alone, because I would spend so much time worrying about how other people received it. Or, frankly, if they say the wrong thing, it's kind of better to be in a room by yourself. And so I just found that as my coping strategies, were making me like lonely or sad or more convinced that I was the only person in pain, which is a lie, but it feels true. When you're the one going through something is

12:09  
traveling for medical what brought you down to the states? No, I,

12:13  
my journey into America was just the never ending school program was like, Well, you have me great. I'll be right there and just put stuff in my 1993 Privia. And head on out. The only places I lived in the States are basically just universities. Where I'm like, are what are we doing? Do I have a sweatshirt? Great, great. What

12:30  
a fantastic place to live, though. I mean, my one of my biggest regrets is always going to be not getting a secondary education, my lack of academic prowess, but I've just learned things that I want to know now Kate, I go and get a book, I look it up. When I'm interested in something I learned about it. The girls know that about me with history or things like that. I know more about Henry the Eighth that I eat than I should know. And now I have a metal detector. So look, that's

13:01  
so wild for me to hear you say you feel in any way insecure, because one of your unbelievable gifts is like your precision of language. You can land a phrase like nobody else. So and I just think that's so much of what I mean, what like raw intelligence is, is it's like it is the perfectly it's the perfect word.

13:22  
Thank you for giving me this intro into your latest book because you are also a gifted writer. I mean, when I think about Caitlin's experience and how the words that you put down on a page, and the words that you said on a podcast shifted the most horrible, terrifying, terrible moment in Caitlin and her husband's life and in her family's life. So kudos to you for being able to use your own sadness, your own failings your own I mean, that's where empathy comes from you, you have to know what that feels like in order to share it with other people. But tell me about have a beautiful, terrible day daily meditations for ups and downs, and the in betweens, and what prompted you to sit at a keyboard and start this book?

14:10  
Oh, I Well, I'm just a one woman mission to ruin small talk mostly. And I just couldn't think of I always just want more and more language to not sort of immediately step into that like performed cheerfulness that's really expected of women and in particular, and I was last year I was going through this I just got stuck in a pain loop because of chronic pain. I've gotten from too many kind of cancer related surgeries and so long after I wasn't battling cancer, I just found that I was I had so much chronic pain and I was so overwhelmed because I thought like well haven't I survived this already. Like Can't I be in the magical? Where is mountain top yoga available to me personally, and with goats? Exactly. Exactly. You give me that smoothie bar you give me If you give me a cat poster, and I want to be on it, and I, I felt the that same, like loop of despair that like my days, were getting too short because I couldn't manage my pain, it was probably going to be a terrible day. So I just but I remembered something I'd really learned when I was having to live in between, like treatments that really only guaranteed me two or three more years, two or three more months of life at a time. And I thought, you know, actually, it's a lot. It's a lot easier if you narrow the your horizon a bit. And then you just ask yourself like, well, if it can't be, it can't even be a fantastic day. Could it just be a beautiful, terrible day? And how to like, so I only had about an hour of brain space in a day because I was just not well enough. So within an hour, I would write these reflections on how to try to live inside the days I have. Well,

15:54  
you call it bite size reflections. And, and I think that's pretty much all the world can do. Yeah. Yeah,

16:03  
truly, you know, these

16:05  
these these morning salutations, or a 10 minute yoga, or a three minute meditation. I've got so many apps on my phone, Kate, that are two minutes, 90 seconds, a six minute reflection, like if I look on my phone, I'm like, six minutes.

16:20  
Yeah, that's exactly. Exactly Do

16:23  
you think I do? Do you think I don't work? Like, six minutes? I

16:28  
totally, that makes so much sense to me. And it's also to because we get the more anxiety or grief or just busyness short circuits are thinking, the more we need these little interruptions to our normal patterns. I think our normal patterns are like, I just think of them as a historian like what are the cultural scripts we get? Like, what are the inherited and one of the cultural skills we get is that everything always has to be magically teaching us a lesson. You're supposed to be learning that lesson or else you're failing today. Sorry, loser. Like, oh, okay, okay. Okay. Like, I can't be losing every day.

17:04  
Sarah, you brought this up? And one of the notes that you'd sent me this week, and you're just like, I want you to pursue this question with Kate, because it was about how do you not shove mindfulness down somebody's throat people? So I want you to expand on that a little bit. Because I when I read it from you, I was really interested in how people would perceive positivity, which seems so bizarre.

17:28  
Yeah. Don't you feel like that mindfulness word is thrown around a lot in the conversation surrounding the word hate you do? It's,

17:34  
and mindfulness I think, has become another shorthand for a kind of performance of emotional mastery. And then now we're back into the framework we really all need to get out of which is control and letting go, like everybody then becomes I think the problem is, we started this kind of, we all use therapeutic language all the time, we mostly talk about how we feel, if someone says how are you we say, I feel before like before the 1970s, we would have answered with usually like mental language, like, I believe that or I'm arguing that. But since 1970s, we've become so emotional in our language. And part of the consequence is that we think of our emotions as constantly being so important that if we're not demonstrating this, like super Zen, like calm at all times, then we are we are at our core, either defective, too anxious. And we've started to really demonize, like having a wide range of human emotion. So that's kind of one of the more interesting sort of trends as a historian is watching the way that now this turned towards the therapeutic is a little bit eating us alive.

18:44  
And even with like the idea of, like therapeutic language, like it's still important, and it's still useful. But your emotions are not more important than someone else's, is sometimes hard to understand.

18:59  
No, no. And actually, I mean, one of the reasons is because we have, and this is one of my great pet peeves is like I'm a religious historian. So I think what a lot of what people are missing when they use therapeutic language is they're actually attaching religious language to therapeutic language. So that's why we talk about vibes all the time. vibes are a religious ideology. It's the idea that we have vibrations that and like we're in parent we have that have like layers, and then the positive emotions are higher. And

19:29  
while millennials really screw they, Oh, my gosh. And the problem then

19:33  
is that goodbye. We assume then that there's good emotions and bad emotions. And the problem is, is like people who would never think that they're kind of forcing their religion on other people are going to be the first ones. They're screaming good vibes only at you. And I find it pretty oppressive. For all of us who need to be able to say actually, today's a really difficult day because I'm living in reality. And if you don't let me live In reality, it actually has it just it's compressing who we think that we have to be in the world in a really negative way.

20:07  
I also feel like, it seems as though the goal for many people is to create eternal happiness as this baseline, which is insane. Because no one is happy all the time, happiness is not a baseline emotion. And so if you get over that successfully, it does feel like a relief, the relief of knowing that you're, you feel sad, and then you feel happy, or you feel angry, and you can feel happy again, and you're just toggling through these different things. And I found that that was, this goal that I had, that I had, that then was taken apart when I was so grief stricken is that I was like, Hey, you're not going to feel happy for a while. And so many friends would, you know, my friends who then apologize, because there's a lot of people get worried about how they're responding to you in those moments. And so they say, Oh, I didn't, I didn't reach out. I feel like I didn't reach out enough. But sometimes I wanted to talk to you about it. But I didn't want to bring it up because I thought you were having maybe a really good day. And I and I was like guys, I was never having a good day. So nothing you said could have ruined it. And like and that's fine. It's fine to just be honest. And say like, I wasn't having a great day like hearing from you and talking about it would have been just fine. And we can all be okay with me feeling like complete crap right now. And that's sort of where a lot of your work was really helpful, because it reinforced the idea that, yeah, I'm not doing okay. And that was like Nora McInerny podcast that I discovered you almost like terrible. Thanks for asking, like, that's how I'm doing. And I think it really normalized so much of that. And I just, it's so it's endlessly helpful. And when you find a good therapist that you click with, which I did, I when I would talk to her about that she She used you in like recommendation to a lot of her patients as well, for just that reason, because it was like, this notion that we're all supposed to be happy in the midst of difficult times, even if it's not happening to you personally, even if you're just reading the news, you're not going to be happy every single day all day. It's not it's not realistic. Is

21:54  
there not a parallel here and I I say this, because I think all three of you have like specific and relatable recent grief that I maybe haven't experienced. But like a parallel here might be like, okay, so what Jana is sober, she still wants to be invited to go out and participate?

22:11  
I don't know, I'm quite happy here.

22:14  
But isn't it interesting that humans avoid like just what they don't know. And understand. It's easier for someone on the other like, you know, a friend in the circle to be like, I'm not going to ask her about that today. Because it doesn't, I don't want to ruin her day. But it's it's all based on assumption.

22:28  
And I think people don't want to take it on Sarah. Like, I really feel like we're living in such fast times. And you know, maybe it was fast times in the 60s, maybe it was fast times in the 20s. I don't know we all we know is that we're here now. And this is what we're experiencing. And it's a precarious time. And we are so not equipped. And I'll be really honest, sometimes I don't want to take on other people's stuff. I feel like I'm barely just on the Saturday train. And I'm coping and I'm sleeping. Okay. And I, I selfishly think I can't do it. I just can't do it, I still will step up into myself and kind of get my shit together. But I still find it hard to sometimes I'm not going to ask that question. Because I don't want to fucking know. And how terrible is that? And then you sit and then you sit in that case. I like that.

23:25  
I really appreciate that honesty, because that's, I mean, sometimes we can feel this. We do just get these grief hangovers being a person in the world right now. I mean, the way that we consume media now, because the way it's packaged to us and for us, we do know too much. And we know it in doses that we are unable to like, I mean, our poor sweet little parasympathetic nervous systems like cannot handle. And then when it comes to just the, you know, the people we want to be to the people in our lives, I think we have the scale of our lives is too big. We go on social media. And I think that's the first feeling we have is this is too many people. I cannot care equally about this number of people who my heart will implode I'm positive, I'll dive empathy related deaths, you know, we're

24:14  
going to be right back after these brief messages.

We forget how big our circles are, like how big the acquaintance circles are. My inner circle is very manageable, and it's very small, and it's getting smaller, which is very much by design. I have a handful of friends. And I know a lot of people there's certainly people that I enjoy seeing. But when I really think about what I need to make my life work in a manageable healthy way. It's It's just where I'm at it's usually it's People that have known me, you know, quite a long time I've got really old friends. And, and I've got new friends too, although I find it harder to make friends as you get older, you know the kinds that will be there for you and that you can share grief stories with and you can share, you know, trauma stories with that you don't feel like am I? Am I? Is it too much information I think I want you to speak to that is people that really give you too much information, people that you've maybe known for two months, and all of a sudden you are you are handed a basket full of snakes. Yeah. And

25:37  
sometimes certain people and their giant open Moon faces. They get too many of those baskets. I mean, like, sometimes you're the people that people want to tell. And Jan especially because you've got like the the fun ironic tone, I bet you people's assumption is like, oh, I can just I can say anything. And then our hearts were like, oh, no, but I can't hear everything. I could hear everything. i It's, it's 1000 times too much information, I'm just thinking of a conversation I had on Friday with a new person that I thought was going to be a very manageable conversation. And then I realized that because of their assumptions about who I am, that's like, because that's not real intimacy, you know, that's just like to holograms meeting. And then the assumption then that I can carry the whole weight of a whole life. And I think we sometimes do that to each other where we don't kind of take the longer road because at this point in our lives, all of us have befores and afters and kind of stories that take some time to unpack. So I think intimacy takes a lot more time than we think it does. How do

26:44  
we tell those people in practical terms, so you're standing there, someone's handing you a basket that's on fire? With 18 sticks of dynamite? What is your advice to those of us? Like, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings? I don't like contention. I don't like any problems. I'm a peacemaker, for the most part. What do we do? How do you explain to that person that you don't know that? Well, that you can't accept it? Yeah, I don't even know where to start? Well, and there's

27:12  
a certain version of that to where they almost say so casually. Like, it's not like they're giving you a gift, like their most precious thing. They're giving you everything that they I just find that people do that oftentimes for small talk is the just describing every bad thing of every person they're aware of, and then they just give it to you. The casual illness, honestly, I find really painful. Because I've no, no, no, like when I hear something like, I'm really going to care and I can't, I can't I can't hear all of it. So I sometimes I just like put my hands up. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's gonna be that's, that sets you right? That's so much to hear, are just trying to offer something kind of like body language G on like, whoa, that's that that is so hard, but like stop hands. Because in so many settings in my life, I really don't mind hearing it. I have a glitchy wonderful glitch where I can hear most things. And it doesn't hurt me because the people that come talk to me, they frankly, like they're trying to give me I don't know how to describe this. I remember when I was getting chemotherapy, you sit in that stupid chair for like eight hours. And my nurse came by one time and she sat down and she she just touched my arm in the lightest way. And she said, I'm sorry, I just wasn't sure how to tell you, but I lost a son. And she she said it in the lightest way. But I knew that she was just trying to give me the gift of our common love something

28:36  
relatable. Like don't worry, you're

28:38  
not over there. I'm not over here. I'm just like you. And so for when you can tell someone is giving you a present. And when they're trying to like dump something on you. And it's the gift that you want to hear. And it's the dumping that's too much. And

28:52  
the other part of this Kate is when people are stealing from you. So when they want advice and you're thinking, Okay, I'm offering you my earnest opinion here, but you just see your words, all the letters just floating over their heads. And they're just you see them coming the DS and the FCC e's are coming out their ears and you're like, No, no, no, you got to put that in your brain like plug your ears all the words are coming out. That drives me bonkers to is the ability that we all have to be stolen from that we don't know how to say, Well, I really don't know. I don't think I have the experience to tell you like I'll usually give an opinion. I don't like being stolen from either. I don't like people, you know, using my time in a way that's not beneficial to either party. Yeah,

29:44  
there's one other category like that, that I've only met a few of but I realized that there was a perfect and horrible word for them. And it's when people can't wait to share. Want to find out information And, but it's extractive like it's not trying to make me feel better. It's not so that they can go off and magically make me a casserole and come back. Like, they want something and it feels kind of delicious. And those people just feed off of the pain of other people. They just like knowing but it's not to love you. And those people are ghouls,

30:21  
or I call them grief thief's actually sometimes you really Kailyn

30:24  
that's a really good were they like, want to know, kind of

30:29  
Yeah. And then they'll quickly you know, put like, pivot it to be about them. And so you know, that's kind of like a common thing that happens. And it's funny because there is no etiquette handbook I find on like grief, although it is something that's kind of coming for us all, even if you're not losing, you know, like a loved one necessarily. And in this moment, you've had a disappointment that would present as grief. And I think it could, I do feel as though your writings and a lot of the stuff that you put out into the world helps people navigate a little bit of that. But it's also hard because no one's looking forward until they need it. That's so true. Like, it shouldn't be like a high school class where people are like, Hey, we're gonna help you navigate how to talk to people who are really struggling and things that are helpful to them. And things that are not helpful to them. Like don't say everything happens for a reason. And don't try to assign meaning to like someone necessarily like losing a parent or a child, because maybe there isn't any meaning there. And it's just something that happened. And I think that's a yeah, that has been helpful for me at least because otherwise you can get stuck with the grief thief's everywhere. Or the goals.

31:31  
That is such a good phrase. Let's

31:33  
get T shirts, Grecia.

31:35  
We're working on merch that could be one of them. Do you find that your background in like, your religious studies background? Do you think that it helped equip you sort of for looking at your struggles, your diagnosis and then the and then the struggles of others? Do you think that that helps you because it's funny when I would talk about you to other people or recommend you? I'd say that, you know, she has a background. She's a professor of divinity. She has a religious background. And you You did a lot of work in what was it the like it's a prosperity what how would you describe that? Yeah,

32:05  
prosperity gospel. The God wants to give you health, wealth and money people. Yeah, yeah. So

32:08  
like you do good stuff and stuff. Good stuff happens to you. You do good stuff, stuff, good stuff happens to you. And when that gets fractured, and people don't know what to happen, or is this bad thing happening to me, because I'm bad in some way. It's this like magical thinking, Do you feel like your studies and your background? Made you look at things in a different way? And like, how did that feel for you being a religious person, you know, how do you how do you marry all that?

32:31  
Yeah. And like I probably shouldn't have been surprised that the people because I teach in a Divinity School, which is a lot of people are just doing academic work. And but a lot of people are thinking about how it's going to fit into the lives and communities of people around them. And I should probably shouldn't have been surprised that the people who are most trained to deal with grief and difficulty are therapists and chaplains. I mean, they go to school for that. They're like they work in hospitals all day long. They're actually like, and I should have known that because they were really lovely with me. They were the flagrant violators of hospital visiting privileges, who just like pop their little clerical collars on and like, come on over while I'm wearing some like, hideous scale. And I'm like, Stop looking at me. And they were like, Oh, the things they would do, they would like just make I would wake up sometimes for surgeries wearing socks, I obviously didn't put on like you love me. It's embarrassing the way you love being part of what I mean, it's a it's a weird specialty. I spent almost all my 20s interviewing televangelists. And I got to know the prosperity gospel because of a giant Winnipeg church that blew my mind. And I ran around telling everybody I was like, Absolutely not. This is for Americans. But it turns out, it was Canada's largest church, run by a man who refuse to let anybody grieve or be poor, or be a person in any fundamental way. And I was so outraged by it in a way that you kind of look at something you just have absolutely like contempt and no connection to. And that's what got me started on this, like, oh my gosh, someone needs to write a history of places like this, where God has to reward everyone with every good thing. But it was it took me a long time till I realize that we all often have a set of expectations and how of how life is going to go and in that desperation. We need some tenderness for ourselves of the lives we wished that we would have and just how heartbroken we are, you know, when they don't always turn out the way we wish. And

34:37  
most of us have such a fractured idea of God to begin with, because our parents were no more equipped to teach us any kind of Religious Studies is as the people that were running the churches. I know that you know, when I was a teenager and it dawned on me that everything that I seem to be doing and everything that I believed in was based on punishment and reward that this system is very simple system of if you've do good things, you'll be rewarded. And if you do bad things, you're going to be punished. And that was that idea goes back in antiquity, it goes back 1000s of years of how people controlled people, I mean, taxes were paid, so that you went to heaven. You know, taxes were paid, so that you, you couldn't go into a church, God forbid, and everything was in Latin. So people didn't even have access to the sacred books that they could only dream about, you know, you imagine not being able to be buried inside of a church yard. If you were a certain kind of person, you had to be thrown in a ditch, you know, two miles away in unconsecrated ground like, all that stuff sunk so deeply into me, that really shook my idea about is there a God? And I guess my long winded question is, do you believe in God? What is God to you?

35:52  
Yeah, because the wood we know, those fractured, those fractured views, like they do go so deep. And sometimes we don't realize we have been really hurt by something until we feel some kind of like deep unworthiness. It's something we really do deserve. And I think that was what he says, Well, this is all very embarrassing, because, like, as a historian, I'm, like, very good at being like, look, it was 1425. And I'm very good at describing things in the past, and I'm really good at ruining historical movies you like, but when it comes to like, describing my own spiritual experiences, I like never talked about it. It wasn't until I was very sick. And I was so I was so angry. And I felt really hurt mostly by both Christian things people were saying at me, but also the wellness community is just lethal with it was something I ate it was something I've done, have I not manifested that this is all just different versions, the prosperity gospel, or like God had a plan,

37:01  
your Jesus no pun intended.

37:04  
Yeah, it was, it was the amount of dying in a culture that seems to have an explanation for why it's me. They have

37:13  
a fucking catchphrase for everything. catchphrase from God doesn't give you anything that you can't handle. I don't want to offend anybody out there. You know, your God is your God. And my god is whatever it is, but it does, it comes down to and I would imagine the wellness community. And it's variations on the theme of things that people have been taught to say. And this goes back earlier in our conversation of grief thief's how people are equipped to deal with hard things that are going on, especially when someone is sick, especially when someone has a critical, perhaps terminal disease right in front of them, it comes down to these fucking Hallmark card sayings. And it's not helpful to anybody.

37:56  
It isn't. It's crushing. Because it's not a life. It's yours. It's not a son, it's your kid, no one can know. And I know you know, when you're being lied to. I mean, I believe in heaven. And yet nothing in heaven is the was going to be promised to me if anything, but that I would miss it all. And I would miss it all. And so I was just like, do not fucking lie to me.

38:21  
Jan, like your friend last week, or you were saying was pointing at the floor or that

38:25  
did 92 year old. Yeah. But my friend's mother in law, who was doing the assisted death program. She pointed at the floor. And she said, I hope I don't end up down there. And I said, Well, if you do say hi to my dad, and, you know, we had a good laugh. I think I was proud of myself the way I went into the room. It was it was it's hard, but I'm not the family. I'm not the son. I'm not the daughter in law. And I just said you guys are going on an adventure. Anyway, I just I was curious about you know, if you believed in a personal God and someone someone sitting there doling out you know, you're you're good. You're not yes, we'll let this holocaust go on. No, the war is fine. Like, I'm telling you just with how this plays out. It's just not something my brain will accept anymore. Maybe when I was scared to not believe scared that something terrible was going to happen to me but not anymore. I'm just like, I'll take my chances. Because I don't believe in this.

39:21  
Yeah, I really hear you because the feeling where you're in a like deserve matrix, you know, where you have to deserve something like love. It did deserve something

39:33  
like punishment. And that's the hardest language to write.

39:36  
I think it falls away I think the I think I hope just part of living with life as it is I hope I hope that stuff falls away for everybody. Because when it did for me and I was such a little Stryver you know, I love to like I loved like a metals wall and but like in the hospital when I was at my most heartbreak And most angry that it was happening to me, I did feel such an overwhelming incomprehensible amount of supernatural love, like love from God love from other people so much love that I felt like I should have been more angry and I wanted to be more angry. And that feeling of very intense love, like really cared me through the worst, like the worst of the surgery aftermath, the worst of how devastated I was. And I've, I've kind of come back to that every now and then as being I'm just so I'm, I'm so surprised, but I'm so relieved, because it really was at the moment when all of my ideas of what I thought religion was gonna get me really had failed me, because I was like, or wasn't a pretty good like, was really kind of not a bad Christian. Exactly. Like, I know, you're not gonna say that. But like, I was pretty much a veterinary school professor, like, it's always gonna earn their way into something better, like, it's gonna be me that I was not. So

41:04  
it feels like the reward is that like being open to that feeling of love, and like having that community and I do really also feel like community seems so missing. And that's a piece that happens and it touches on so much we've covered in the podcast so far. But with made, you know, when we talk about the part of it, that's sad, because it's some people who don't feel cared for. So they aren't, they are looking at other options for themselves made might be one of them. The feeling of not wanting to burden other people with your own stuff. What's really missing in is community. Increasingly, I think everyone's leading a more isolated life emotionally. And the church was a bigger part of people's life previously. And as that has sort of fallen away, through, you know, various awful things that various churches have done, maybe perhaps contributing to that. But that role and that important center point that it was for so many people in their life and creating that sense of community and belonging, the good stuff that you took with a lot of religion. With that being gone, it makes people feel very alone. And I think that some of your work again, like you know, when you listen to the podcasts and all the stuff that you've done, I feel like that sort of what we all need to kind of get back to, or that's the piece of religion that if we could just grab it and hold on to it would carry people through these tough moments. Because you build that sense of community and whatever it looks like, whatever that looks like for you. But like, you know, he said that being open to feeling like in the depths, you're gonna have some feelings of love and care whether that comes from family members, or just internally would be like the goal that I that I would want for everybody at least

42:33  
Yeah, it doesn't matter if your God is Ted Danson or someone else. I don't know if you've seen the good place, but it's just such a funny thing to think about love.

42:43  
That's better than Ted Nugent. You know, it's not easy being a person. And I, like I said, I'd like to keep you here for four hours. But I do want to let you go at some point. And I hope you'll come back and talk to us again, Kate. I think I want to leave people with that whole idea of hope and action. How do you think we can help each other you've written seven books and they're all very different from each other. But I think the the theme throughout is that love and decency and respect and forgiveness seem that runs in all of us. Yeah, we're gonna get sick. And yeah, things are gonna happen to our friends, terrible things are going to happen. And if you think they're not, I think that's when you're the most ill equipped. I'm not saying to expect the worst, but to not live in this world of I'm a good person, nothing's going to happen to me is not helping anybody. How do we talk to each other? How do we how do we help each other? And that's a huge question.

43:42  
I think that framework of deserve of like, good or bad reward or punishment has been really, it's been too heavy for all of us. And like, I think just stripping it down, what we really desperately need is the vulnerability that love creates. Like the more love we have, the more realize we realize like that we are desperately both needy and wantI. And both are good. And it's a little embarrassing, because you'll look and feel a little ridiculous, but you'll do exactly what you did January you're like actually this framework has broken down and I will be asking for 10 favors. But I think the embarrassment of being of trying to be superhuman has put us in an absolutely unsustainable place. So we're just like stripping it down. We've got to get back to being people who know our own belovedness because we because we want to share that same feeling with other people know

44:39  
our own belovedness my mom used to always say and God bless you Kate bowler. When you're easy on yourself you're easier on other people and when you're hard on yourself you're hard on other people and others so many little Joan isms that she's left with me. But listen, I can't thank you enough for spending time with us today and I mean that in all sincerity please come back and share your wisdom. Kapler has written seven amazing books, go online, go to your local bookstore, go find any one of Kate's books, you don't have to read them in order. It's not Lord of the Rings. any of her books you can take into the bathroom, the toilet with you and open it up. And while you're peeing, you can find some wisdom. And I know that's probably a terrible sell point for your literature. But to me, I always find the greatest solace in reading things in the bathroom. Just one page like a one page pool. That's what I call it.

45:41  
That's like what I do. That's what I do with podcasts and showers. Kate has had a shower with me more times than I can count. This is going on the cover

45:47  
of every of every new book is the great endorsement make these true like me part of your bathroom, it's all

45:55  
Kate bowlers book, you'll have a run around your butt from just sitting there longer than you need to, to read her books. And please use that put me on the front cover of your next one. She also has a terrific podcast, everything happens podcast. And also if you have a moment today something if you're if you're doing the Doom scrolling. Kate has an amazing TED Talk. And as we sit here and talk today, there's over 10 million views. And it's a terrific it's a terrific thing to watch. If you want to be uplifted encouraged, you're going to fuck up. And the people around you are going to fuck up. But we have to learn to I'm gonna just I'm leaving with the last sentence and then we're going to say goodbye. What we have to learn to what Kate Oh, be embarrassingly in love with ourselves in the world. Kate bowler has been our guests. You've been listening to the Jann Arden podcast. We'll see you next week. guys. Thanks so much for listening to Lee do