Walking Our People Through Hard Things with Kate Bowler
December 30, 2021
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do a Few Hard Things. Maybe on our best days, with our dear friend, Kate Bowler. Who is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So if you haven’t listened to Tuesday’s episode, go back and listen. One of my all time favorites, not just podcasts but conversations of my life.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re going to jump in, Kate. We’re going to call this Yes Please or No Thank You. Okay? This is actually from your appendix, from Everything Happens for a Reason.
Glennon Doyle:
You wrote us a beautiful resource on things we, basically, shit we should stop saying to people who are struggling. But then you generously offer us shit we can say instead. Okay? Helpful.
Kate Bowler:
I tried. I tried. I was actually in a family gathering. And someone said something and I got really mad. I went into another room and I wrote this list. So, origin story. I’m full of rage.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, and your rage is so creative. I love creative rage. Okay. Kate, how about this? When someone tells us about something painful that happens in their life. Should we start next sentence with, “Well, at least … “
Kate Bowler:
Yes. Never. Never. It’s a horrifying cruelty. Yeah. Congratulations. So what, in the end, you’ve just relativized somebody’s pain? You’ve told them that somewhere out there … They’re at a wonderful hospital, it’s okay if they’re dying? Yeah. Anything with “at least” is going to be game over. No thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
Helpful. That’s a no thank you. How about, “It’s going to get better. I promise.” How about that Kate Bowler?
Kate Bowler:
Oh yeah. Never.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah. No, thank you. No, thank you, never. You can’t promise that. You can say things like, “I’m going to be here the whole time.” If you plan on being there the whole time. Otherwise, you can’t promise people sunshine. It makes them feel bananas.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. No promises. How about this, this my personal favorite. When someone dies and then someone else says, “It looks like God needed another angel.” How about that?
Kate Bowler:
No, no, no. Not only is it just horrifying, it makes God a weird sadist who collects beloved people for kind of like-
Amanda Doyle:
This is an angel supply chain problem. In heaven or something.
Kate Bowler:
Yes. That’s right. They’re so real. It’s like there’s a trophy case, surreal. Exactly. A strange derf of angels around him singing his praises.
Kate Bowler:
No. It’s also, just if we want to be nerdy about it, theologically inaccurate. Because the whole tradition of angels is that they’re just made and they’re not people. They’re just made angels.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So don’t do it for option A.
Amanda Doyle:
Or B.
Glennon Doyle:
Because it’s theologically inappropriate. Or two, if you don’t want to be an asshole, right?
Kate Bowler:
Yeah, it’s cruel.
Amanda Doyle:
If you don’t want to be a heretic or an asshole, don’t say it.
Kate Bowler:
Right. Right. Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
How about this one? I love this one. “Everything happens for a reason.” And I will tell you Kate, that we almost didn’t meet.
Glennon Doyle:
We almost did not have this beloved soul experience with each other. Because the first time people send me books, books, books, books.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
The first time I looked at your cover.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I saw Everything Happens For A Reason and I pushed it to the side. I almost didn’t read it
Kate Bowler:
Rightfully so.
Glennon Doyle:
And then, because I was like, “Oh hell no.”
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
But then somehow I went back and saw that it says, And Other Lies I’ve Loved.” And that’s when we became best friends. So can you talk to us about why we should never say, “Everything Happens For a Reason?”
Kate Bowler:
Oh yeah. Sure. I’d love to. The idea that everything happens for a reason describes a causal universe. That even if it is true, we can’t prove. So in a good way, it makes people congratulate themselves for good things.
Kate Bowler:
But mostly it tries to justify why things are happening to you, like a different version of karma. So for all those people who are suffering in the world, it means that they haven’t just suffered, they’ve failed.
Kate Bowler:
So it is one of the most unkind things you can say to somebody who’s just trying to live their life. Is that everything happened for a reason. Because you’re usually implying that you know the reason and you’re just about to explain it to them.
Glennon Doyle:
Which would be the worst thing that could happen. Okay. How about when everyone is convinced, Kate Bowler, that they have done some research that you need to know about? I’ve done some research.
Kate Bowler:
Oh my gosh. Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
My cousin, Larry.
Kate Bowler:
There’s so much exciting … If we could swap out the word research with the word Googling. Or I’ve recently seen this documentary. Then maybe I would. Unless they’re like, “Oh, I’ve read peer reviewed studies from major respectable journals.” Then I’m listening.
Kate Bowler:
But mostly, people mean, I heard something recently and I’d very much like to burden you with this recent knowledge acquisition. I would just love to trust experts and usually my doctor and people who know a lot about something. And not this random dude, I just met at a party.
Glennon Doyle:
Excellent. Thank you. “When my aunt had cancer.”
Kate Bowler:
Oh no. The aunts of the world are doing very poorly. I just have to say. I’ve taken a poll based on my experience and they’re all dying. Yeah. No. People are doing that nice thing where they see you and they try to connect with you by free associating.
Kate Bowler:
But when you have a bad thing, they free associate by telling you all the horrible people who’ve died of a similar thing. So unfortunately, if your aunt didn’t do really, really well. Or actually even if she did, you can just put that in your back pocket.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) Thank you. And this one’s super interesting to me. “So how are the treatments going? How are you really?”
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, is that the emotional tourism?
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Is that the emotion-
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay.
Kate Bowler:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And it can be very well intentioned. But I find that like that’s asking for a kind of intimacy that I really want to give the people really close to me. But as a patient, you end up feeling like you owe everybody a lot of information. Because they’ve helped you in some way. They’ve prayed for you. They think about you.
Kate Bowler:
And then you’re like, “Oh gosh, they need an update.” And then, by the end of the day, you are fully worn through with truth that you really couldn’t even bear to hear out loud that many times.
Kate Bowler:
So I find that just offering like a lighter touch. Something like, “Hey, just so you know, I’ve really been thinking about you. You don’t have to give me an update. Just want you to know you’re on my mind.” It lets them opt out of sort of the truth vomitorium.
Glennon Doyle:
Lighter touch. I love that. You should know that my sister and I are huge wimps. So we have this problem even more and we’re not facing life threatening situations.
Glennon Doyle:
Like my sister will actually call me and say, “Can you tell mom and dad how I’m doing, because I just can’t deal.” Like she doesn’t even want to tell anyone how she’s … That’s that’s another to-do thing on her list.
Amanda Doyle:
Totally.
Glennon Doyle:
So she’ll be like, “Can you just give mom an update on my day?” Yeah. Okay.
Kate Bowler:
Or we could just have websites and be like, “Guys, just check my website.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Kate Bowler:
How am I doing? It’s on there.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Kate Bowler:
It’s there somewhere.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So this is, I love this because these are some things we can say instead. “I’d love to bring you a meal this week. Can I email you about it?”
Kate Bowler:
Yeah. If you ask, “What can I do?” The answer will just be a vague middle distance expression. Nobody knows what they need. Because they’re overwhelmed and usually traumatized.
Kate Bowler:
So yeah. Offer something concrete or send something dumb in the mail. It doesn’t have to be useful. I think the best gift I got was like dumb erasers shaped like cats.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh nice.
Kate Bowler:
And I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is the first gift I’ve gotten that isn’t trying to teach me something and doesn’t make me feel eulogized.”
Kate Bowler:
And I was like completely in love. So yeah, it doesn’t have to be. You can be useful, you can be not useful. Or you can just be loving from a distance. It’s all good.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. And you have many more in here that people, everyone should read and keep in their back pocket. I love, “Oh my friend. That sounds so hard.”
Kate Bowler:
I love that. I love the echos. I love when people say like, “You’re tired because it’s exhausting.” You know? It just helps you like land the feeling.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm. Mm. And how about this one? Silence.
Kate Bowler:
It’s nice. It’s nice. And especially their nice face just mooning at you. Like I’ll take it, just loving looks, man. Gosh, I could power this whole battery on that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, because it’s like, there’s no lie in that. It’s not pretending to know something. Or like sweeping up the mess into like manageable piles that you can sidestep. It’s just the not being God together.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah. Yes. That’s so good. That’s so good. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Now we would like to get to some questions from our beloved pod squad for Miss Kate Bowler. Can we go to the first question? Then Kate will offer us a four part tutorial on how she will-
Kate Bowler:
Yes. She will solve the problem of pain in the first five minutes.
Amanda Doyle:
Well good, because Wendy’s waiting for it.
Kate Bowler:
All right.
Amanda Doyle:
Wait, wait. Wendy’s waiting for her PowerPoint presentation.
Wendy:
Hi Glennon, Amanda and Abby. My name is Wendy. I’m hoping that you have a place of reference to speak to my topic. And then again, sort of hoping that you don’t, because it’s a tough one.
Wendy:
I need help with grief, and even more specifically, anticipatory grief. My younger athletic, beautiful wife was diagnosed a couple of years ago with stage four cancer. It’s a type of cancer you don’t come back from.
Wendy:
I’m very grateful for the time that we’ve had to this point that doctors would not have predicted for her. In my everyday, I work full time from home and I’m her primary caregiver.
Wendy:
We live a very quiet life in this house or from a hospital where she’s still getting some chemo and other treatments and surgeries to help her function.
Wendy:
I’ve really struggled with the grief for all that she has lost and all that we have lost. I can’t fully grieve this, because I’m so busy doing all of things. And I’m really trying to be present and open because I don’t want to miss making more memories with her.
Wendy:
As things progress, I’m struggling more and more now with the grief of what’s to come. I’m getting support from different sources, but really appreciate and relate to your podcast. I’m hoping for an approach or a way to look at this that can somehow help me get through.
Wendy:
I thought of you guys, because this certainly seems like one of the very hardest things. Thank you.
Kate Bowler:
Oh, Wendy. That is such a double burden there, of love and pain. And then the unbearable future that constantly interrupts the present. I think one of the greatest pressures we can feel when we feel our finitude is that like trying to make everything add up.
Kate Bowler:
You can just hear how much pressure that creates when she feels like she has to be, not just the transactional caregiver and appointment maker. But then also the one who finds the joy in all things.
Kate Bowler:
That was one of the biggest struggles I had, was finding that distinction between minutes and moments. When most of our days, especially for caregiving are doing hard things are just minutes.
Kate Bowler:
And especially when we’re scared, it can make us try to speed up and try to cram and cram more and more meaning into that feeling. And gosh, like it can make us kind of hum with, it can make us accidentally brittle because we want to make it all fit.
Kate Bowler:
I just think the only thing I would say then is that it is okay. It is okay to have your minutes. It is okay to begrudge yourself the joys that you’ve had to set aside or dreams. For being scared about what cancer means. For just all the ugliness of the feelings we have when we love someone and we’re going to lose them.
Kate Bowler:
And also just to credit those moments more. Like there will be those precious moments where you feel that. Or just transcendent love. And to let that count. Like you’re not failing, you’re just loving somebody in an unbearable situation.
Kate Bowler:
So, I think, if the struggle is how can I make this add up? It can’t. Pause. Just give yourself enough of that love and bubble wrap for yourself, to know that the freight of caregiving is often that weird, strange burden of love and guilt.
Kate Bowler:
You know, we can take ourselves off the hook for so much of that guilt. When we know that all of those little acts, they are so beautiful. But they are all terrible, terrible math.
Glennon Doyle:
So no math. Is there? You’re an artist. I love things that aren’t math. I can deal with that.
Kate Bowler:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Glennon Doyle:
Do you have art that helps you feel alive? That helps you feel hope and strength? Do you love music? Do you love poetry? Are you a big reader? What do you grab from? Because you give so much, what do you grab?
Kate Bowler:
That’s … Wow, that’s such a nice question. Yeah. I think this is always a struggle with caregivers. Or anything where it’s like a huge spend. What do spend people do? I love … I usually just pick something to be ridiculous about, that helps me absorb.
Kate Bowler:
So sometimes it’s just like the endless love of Taylor Swift, who would not love her? But I’ll do like movie marathons, Hallmark movie marathons. Or I have gingerbread, like I build a massive gingerbread megachurch every year. And I dedicate it to a Televangelist.
Amanda Doyle:
Ah, prosperity bread.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
You dedicate it to a televangelist?
Kate Bowler:
Yeah. Two have made my life difficult. You know, and I try to make it bigger and bigger and pretty realistic.
Amanda Doyle:
Do you take the bread from people who are hungry around and then make it into the megachurch?
Kate Bowler:
That’s right. That’d be the metaphor. I rob it and then I construct it.
Glennon Doyle:
Then you charge people to look at it.
Kate Bowler:
Right. Exactly. Exactly. I think it’s hard to get out of that, everything has to be functional problem, which is when our lives get stripped down to the studs. It would be more efficient to make everything practical. But you’re right, if we’re not taking in some beauty and some really, really loud music.
Kate Bowler:
I started, because being immunocompromised, I couldn’t be around a lot of people. So I just started driving around visiting the world’s largest statues of things. Like the world’s largest Northern lake trout or the world’s …
Kate Bowler:
Recently, I saw the world’s largest replica of the world’s largest lighthouse. And the replica was really small. It was not big.
Glennon Doyle:
Very meta.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah, exactly. But doing stupid things, where you feel like you’re soaking up life again. I think that’s one of the only things that helped me cut through the noise of being scared about finitude. Is you just kind of get off the math paradigm altogether.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. It’s the resistance of the math.
Kate Bowler:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s the resistance of the math. It’s I will do something that adds up nowhere.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
That doesn’t even go on a spreadsheet.
Kate Bowler:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
And that’s human, that’s your re-reclaiming. I love that.
Kate Bowler:
The first Christmas, where I thought that was going to be my last Christmas, I made an 11 foot wreath. It was so big, it needed people to structurally support it. And then we had to attach it to a wall. I took everything and I was like, what if it was 20 times bigger?
Kate Bowler:
So we took enormous, I don’t know, like yoga exercise balls and made them look like Christmas ornaments and put them on the front lawn.
Kate Bowler:
Or I did massive ketchup taste test things, where it wasn’t just like five ketchups. It was like 17. Everybody had to blind taste them. It’s all red. I don’t know why I made everyone be blindfolded. But just like really dumb, devoted, specificity has always helped me. I mean,
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. In case anyone at the table was a secret representative of Heinz. You had to make sure.
Kate Bowler:
A mole. Yeah. There’s always a rare-
Amanda Doyle:
But it makes sense that the antidote to the absurdity of life would be absurdity.
Kate Bowler:
More absurdity. Yes, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like anti-capitalism. It feels like-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Really, yes it does. Yes, it does.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
See, sister. That’s why I am lazy and ridiculous. Is because it’s active resistance. I don’t want to hear anymore about it.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s go to Allison. Allison?
Allison:
My name is Allison. So I grew up in a very unhealthy, toxic, and in some ways abusive family. I had zero boundaries walking into adulthood. I’m 40 now. And like to think I’ve cultivated a strong, loving, and peaceful sense of self with strong boundaries.
Allison:
In March of 2020, my dear sweet husband passed away very unexpectedly. We were together for over a decade and had a lovely partnership. With him, I created the open and healthy marriage that I had always dreamed of growing up.
Allison:
We have a nine year old daughter who adored her father. For me, I was able to create the loving family that I had always dreamed of. Since my husband’s death, I’ve soldiered on. I’ve gone back to school, I’m working to become a grief therapist.
Allison:
And I’ve walked our daughter through both her grief and the fact that she was brave to come out in the past year. But on the inside, I am so, so alone. I miss my husband. I miss my partner. I know that logistically I can be strong and do this alone. But I’m wondering, how do we walk this path alone when we are missing one of our most integral people? And that is my question. Thank you so much. I love you all. Bye, bye.
Kate Bowler:
What a wonderful person. Wow. There’s so much bravery in that. That’s so many steps of rebirth after so much loss. Wow. I just … Wow, want to honor how much work all that has taken.
Kate Bowler:
I guess it kind of reminds me of, I had a recent conversation with this, he’s a professor. His name is Jerry Sitzer and he is … Maybe 20-some years ago he had lost his mom and his wife and his daughter in the same car accident.
Kate Bowler:
And he wrote a really beautiful, unbelievably, honest book about grief. You can just tell when no one is lying to you. I got a chance to talk to him recently about what … So, because that first book, kind of like my first experiences of tragedy are just like in those terrible hard moments right at after.
Kate Bowler:
But it was nice to talk to him 20 years on and to be like, so then what? Like, and then you had to live without them. He said, “You know, people always ask if it gets easier? And I have to be honest and say, it doesn’t. But I have learned how to carry it.
Kate Bowler:
And when he describes, he has this really beautiful life now where he was a wonderful parent to his remaining kids. He went on to remarry. He’s had beautiful friends, he’s walked other people through their grief. But there’s nothing that … Yeah, we’re just getting back to math.
Kate Bowler:
There’s been no math on that devastating loss. But he said it was such strength and such dignity. Like, “But I have really learned how to carry it.” And I think that is a big hope we can have for ourselves. Is that we can have lives that are beautiful and meaningful and true. And also, we can have suffered devastating loss and carry it.
Glennon Doyle:
And this Allison, is a mama. What? Kate, I’ve never talked to you about this. What do you want, what do you teach Zach about? Because you’re at divinity school, you’re a God person.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
But your God is something I understand. Not that we can understand, but you know what I mean? That feels true.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
What do you want, what do you teach Zach about what life is and what God is? And if you’re not the center, what is the center?
Kate Bowler:
Yeah. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And if you say you no longer have a foundation that is based on your plans. So what is the foundation then?
Kate Bowler:
It can really only be the miracle of love. If I’m not the center and there’s no magical conspiracy. That’s going to make sure everybody is as good, taken care of, never taking on anything they can’t handle.
Kate Bowler:
If all of those assurances are gone and then we’re faced with that great existential horror, which is how do we make things okay for the people we love.
Kate Bowler:
When I look at him, I know that I have to give up on my first, my parenting prosperity gospel, which is that I can make him the kind of person that’s invulnerable from pain. Bullshit.
Kate Bowler:
That I can prevent every terrible thing from happening to him. I mean, demonstrably impossible when I’m the thing that might be the thing that is the hardest thing in his life. My suffering, my pain, my …
Kate Bowler:
And so it has to be something closer to, that we can be courageous together. That the work of being a parent is the work of facing the future as it is and trying to love the lives we have. And to have incredible courage in the midst of that. And then that is really the only thing that we all need.
Kate Bowler:
We can only borrow from each other. But to me, that whole thing has got to be a miracle, which is that when we can’t be the plan, that we have to pray and act in such a way that we demand that love shows up. Like in other people, the people that surprise us, the people who haven’t yet come into their lives. Like if we’re not it, then the whole plan has to be love.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm. Yeah, I’ll buy that. Okay. Let’s hear from Inez.
Inez:
My name is Inez and my We Can Do Hard Things question is dealing with friends or community members who have lost a child in a tragic accident. And how we can be there for the grieving parents who have suffered a loss that is beyond measure?
Inez:
And also, something that those who have not lost a child cannot relate to? What we can say or do to help these parents heal? And obviously, be a part of the loving community that they will need in the days and months and years to come? Thank you.
Kate Bowler:
What a thoughtful question. How can I bubble wrap somebody whose pain is unimaginable to me and I’m so scared of doing it wrong? I mean, I feel scared of doing it wrong all the time. And yet, I know it’s only because people were willing to embarrass themselves to try. That I got the community that I needed.
Kate Bowler:
And I guess, maybe the first thing to always remember is that the person who is suffering doesn’t know what they need, because their needs are going to change all the time. That it is okay to offer things that they don’t need or want and be turned down.
Kate Bowler:
And then try again with something else, like inviting them to things that you worry will be painful for them. You don’t know and they don’t know either. It is always good. It is always good just to offer it, but offer it lightly.
Kate Bowler:
It is always good to like, food and gift cards and just a thoughtful card that says, “I’m thinking about you.” But, it’s also good. Maybe just as the friend or as the community to have a moment where you’re like, “What’s my best thing?”
Kate Bowler:
Am I like the firefighter friend, who’s kind of good at rushing in at first and can boss and redirect traffic? Am I actually more of the loving presence person, where I’m actually better in the long game? Where I can send …
Kate Bowler:
One of my favorite kinds of people, is the person that doesn’t forget. Who writes down an anniversary and then puts it in the calendar a year from now and just says, “Write a thoughtful card that says, I’m thinking of you during this hard season, sending you so much love.” And maybe, also this cheesecake gift card.
Kate Bowler:
I mean, everybody has their thing. And if your thing is presence, great. Presence. If your thing is funny texts, great. But like, nobody really expects you to know what to do. Because they have no idea what they’re doing and their grief will evolve over time. But just being the person who keeps showing up and taking cues.
Kate Bowler:
And if you can’t help the main person, help the helpers. Help the caregivers in their life, those people don’t get nearly enough of what they need. So you don’t have to muscle your way into the very center. You can love that second tier or that third tier. And everybody is lifted by that kind of love.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm. Kate, how is your hubby doing? I love your love story, because it’s real and it’s beautiful, but it’s funny. Just the way you talk about him. I just love it so much.
Kate Bowler:
I married Tobin when I was 22 years old. And I don’t know why, except that he looked like great, great real estate.
Amanda Doyle:
I love when you talk about, how at your wedding, that you played “At Last.” And how amazing that is when your 22. At Last … You waited so long, Kate.
Kate Bowler:
I volunteered to sing it. I may have done it to a recording. Or I doubt that there was anyone with a live instrument there and I was just like tap, tap, tap, “Is this thing on?” At my own reception. I forced everyone to listen to my special number about just my long road to the altar and the longing in my heart. Suddenly, finally fulfilled.
Kate Bowler:
I guess the best part of loving somebody is just that they teach you who you are over time. Because we just really grew up together. We were little, I mean I’ve known him since I was 14. He was the very first person I’d ever seen look good in a purple, low scoop neck tank top. And I was like, Damn, looks good. Let’s, let’s, let’s.
Amanda Doyle:
Speaking of miracles.
Kate Bowler:
I was like, “Let’s never do this again.” Is something I said out loud. But I guess it’s been, it’s the surprise of knowing that you’re … All the hard things you really can’t do by yourself and that you won’t even know who you’re going to be.
Kate Bowler:
I mean, 14 year old Kate, wasn’t going to be the one with like, gosh, eight abdominal surgeries, on her ninth belly button. Like we become people completely different to whoever we thought we were going to be. And just having somebody who can be home feels like the big, I don’t know.
Kate Bowler:
I’m a historian and I love a good archive. That when people who love you are like the best archive. You’re like, “Remember when you did that?”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Kate Bowler:
“I do. I really do. I’m sorry.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Sister always says that about, she says about our … Because we are each other’s great love story.
Kate Bowler:
So beautiful.
Glennon Doyle:
And we do think of it as an archive, for better or worse. Like as a keeper of all of the things.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Kate Bowler:
Yes. That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
The good and bad. A keeper of memories of who you were and then like a shepherd to take you into whoever the hell you’re going be next.
Kate Bowler:
That’s exactly right. I love it when people say, “Witness.” I used to start, I said it with one of my best friends as a threat, whenever they were doing something stupid. I’ll be like, “I will be a witness to your life.”
Kate Bowler:
Which usually meant I was going to file the police report. I will be a witness is like … Because, yeah. Because we’re the most self forgetting things. Honestly, I don’t even know who I was before this. I’m listening now.
Glennon Doyle:
We are self forgetting, but that is good, I think. I like that part of us.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like, I feel that beginner’s mind constantly.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And I used to think it was a bad thing, like something was wrong with me. I don’t remember anything that just happened. It’s just like everything’s brand new. But that’s a beautiful thing. It’s like constantly being. There’s more awe that way, for sure.
Kate Bowler:
Yeah. But then we can change if we remembered who we were. I mean, if those roots were planted too deep. Gosh.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Kate Bowler:
We could never tear the ones out we need to. I do, every time I can solve a problem, which is rare. Or I change even the tiniest bit, I find I get very eye prickly. I’m like, oh my gosh. Something, there’s something new. Thank God. What a fucking miracle.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Kate Bowler:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Are your words for them the same? Because you have this part where you choose a word for Tobin and a word for Zach. And I think you chose joy and compassion. Would those still be the things that you most identify for wanting for each of them? Like if you had to pick ones today?
Kate Bowler:
Yeah. It’s such a sweet, that just brings up such a sweet memory. Because gosh, because when I wrote that, it was three years ago. I’ve gotten to have three more years of hope for that. Like I got to change. I got to …
Kate Bowler:
Man, I still cry when a plane lands, because I’m so happy to be going on a trip. Last time it was in Indianapolis. And they were like, “Why are you crying?” But I was like, “You don’t understand.”
Kate Bowler:
Because I think I would … Yeah. Having my hope for my kid is just always that he be as open to the world as this has made me. Like, I feel like I can see it now. I don’t think I could before. Like that it is so painful and so beautiful and so fragile. Like, gosh. Yeah, that makes me feel like there’s that weird matrix moment, where you’re like, “Oh this is it, isn’t it?”
Kate Bowler:
And then, I think for my husband, I would pick the same thing I would pick for caregivers. And that beautiful question we had, which is just permission to be awake again to the world. Because we feel so much, like when we carry other things that we’ve deferred too much. And just to feel like it’s okay to be alive again, anew. I think that’s what I’d pick.
Amanda Doyle:
What word would you pick for you, Kate?
Kate Bowler:
I just want more.
Glennon Doyle:
More. More. All right. Let’s hear from our pod squatter of the week.
Julie:
Hi Glennon. This is Julie. I know a couple weeks ago you had said, you had asked about what is the bravest thing you have ever done?
Julie:
I just wanted to share with you my bravest thing. Last year in the middle of the pandemic, my sister passed away unexpectedly.
Julie:
And now, I am taking care of her daughter. So overnight I became a mom. I have no children of my own. So I essentially became a mom to a 15 year old girl overnight, while dealing with the death of my sister.
Julie:
So it was the bravest and hardest thing I will ever do. Love you guys so much. Listening to the show all the time. Talk to you later, bye.
Kate Bowler:
What a hero. In the most like, what a gutsy, gorgeous person. I love all the layers. That is grief of an imagined future. And that is the deepest kind of costly love. Is that she knows that the most beautiful things are going to be the ones that cost her the most.
Kate Bowler:
Like a comfortable home and routines and the whole plan. And yet that’s going to be the only one that she’s going to want to pay into. You meet those people and you think, yes, love is so, it is so costly and it bulldozes a path where there was no path available. Badass
Glennon Doyle:
Love is so costly. I love that. That is a truth that can quiet the big lies. That’s a good one. Kate Bowler?
Kate Bowler:
You guys, I love you. This was so special.
Glennon Doyle:
So this is a really special, really special, so special to us. We love ya.
Amanda Doyle:
Never leave me.
Glennon Doyle:
I just want to say a few things to you. I want to leave you with these ideas. It gets darkest before the dawn. Kate, everything happens for a reason. Kate Bowler, what does not kill you, will in fact, make you stronger. And God wants you to be rich,, Kate Bowler.
Kate Bowler:
Finally. Gosh.
Glennon Doyle:
We can keep that one.
Amanda Doyle:
We can keep that one.
Kate Bowler:
Thank God. I can’t get life insurance. So I sure hope so.
Glennon Doyle:
It doesn’t matter, God has a plan. Kate, we adore you. We wish for you, joy and compassion and more, more, more, more, more. And we will be looking for your non-inspirational wall decor. I will put it all the fuck over my house.
Kate Bowler:
Oh my gosh. I just want to give you the medium sadness that all of our hearts desire. Thank you guys. Thank you.
Amanda Doyle:
You’re really, it’s so beautiful. It’s so beautiful, what you’re doing. Thank you, Kate Bowler.
Kate Bowler:
Thank you my darling.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. if you didn’t, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.