Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

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 frightening.

Together, they wonder what makes someone a good friend, why some friendships deepen while others fade, and how love sometimes looks less like having the right words and more like simply keeping pace.

Show Notes

On Friendship — Andrew O’Hagan

Mayflies — Andrew O’Hagan

Caledonian Road — Andrew O’Hagan

The Illuminations — Andrew O’Hagan

Andrew O’Hagan — London Review of Books

Edna O’Brien — RTÉ Archives

Sam’s Cafe — Primrose Hill

Dignitas

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 from joy (hint: one requires everything to go right, the other doesn’t), the strange gift of a copperhead snake bite, why Jennifer went paragliding after her cancer diagnosis despite being terrified of heights, and what it means to be a “witness” instead of just a friend.

Plus: religious upbringing and how it shapes how we experience joy, letting-go rituals, raising teenagers, and why older women deserve more credit for staying vivid, capable, and alive.

If you’ve ever felt like your life was supposed to add up by now and it just hasn’t, this one’s for you.

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 menopause, why symptoms like brain fog, frozen shoulder, and anxiety get dismissed or misdiagnosed, and what the evidence really says about hormone replacement therapy after the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative study derailed women’s care for two decades.

They also cover practical, low-cost tools for this stage of life — bone density screening, strength training, protein and fiber, cardio guidelines — and why replacing shame with information changes everything.

This conversation was recorded on location at the Aspen Ideas Festival: Health.

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 motherhood forced her to confront her own limits—and reconsider the impossible standards she’d absorbed about what makes a “good mom.”

Together, they talk about boundaries, trusting your own needs, and letting go of the exhausting work of looking like a good parent so you can focus on what actually helps your children feel safe and loved.

Show Notes:

Watch the conversation on YouTube.

Follow Libby on Instagram.

Read Libby’s book, Honest Motherhood.

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 other up.

As U.S. Surgeon General (twice!), Vivek confronted some of the biggest public health challenges of our time—addiction, youth mental health, the opioid crisis. But at the heart of it all was something deeply human: our need for each other. In this conversation, Kate and Vivek talk about what actually makes a life full—not perfect, not endlessly productive, but anchored in love and belonging.

Together, they discuss:

• The quiet ache of loneliness and why so many of us feel it

• Why relationships, purpose, and service are the real building blocks of a fulfilled life

• Small, practical ways to reach out, even when it feels awkward

• How asking for help might bring us closer, not pull us apart.

This episode originally aired February 2025