504. Being Joyful Anyway: A Conversation with Kate Bowler
UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone
Kara Loewentheil
4.6 • 5.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joy doesn’t always arrive when you expect it, and sometimes it shows up when life feels the hardest. In this episode, I talk about making space for joy with Kate Bowler, a professor at Duke University, 5x bestselling author, and host of the podcast Everything Happens. We discuss why happiness is overhyped, how microjoys and unexpected moments can interrupt your day, and why cultural narratives often make women feel like they are failing if life isn’t constantly “good.”
This conversation is a reminder that joy is not something you can control or manufacture. It shows up when you are paying attention, when you let your guard down, and when you allow yourself to be human. Listening will help you notice the small delights, accept life’s unpredictability, and welcome joy into your day, even when everything else feels messy or uncertain.
Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://schoolofnewfeministthought.com/504
Watch episodes over on YouTube: youtube.com/@karaloewentheilcoaching
Follow along on Instagram: instagram.com/karaloewentheil/
Learn more about Kate's work, books, podcast, and more here: https://katebowler.com/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to unfuck your brain. I'm your host Kara Lowentile, master-certified coach, and founder of the School of New Feminist Thought. I'm here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you're truly excited to live. |
| 0:22.6 | Let's go. |
| 0:26.0 | Okay, my friends, I am really excited for today's interview with now, of course, literally |
| 0:31.1 | anytime I introduce someone new, I read how to pronounce their name, I'm like, I got it, |
| 0:34.8 | and then I get on the screen or the mic, and I immediately start being like, oh my God, I'm going to do it wrong. It's just your brain, the brain never stop. So this is Kate Bowler. Is that right? Got it right. Okay. Kate is a, I don't even know how many bestsellers you've written. Like it was like 73, like so has is a bestselling author times a million. But I really love her work because |
| 0:56.6 | it is just like, I think, the antidote to so much of the toxic positivity, spiritual gaslighting, |
| 1:03.8 | blah, blah, blah, stuff that we all know we do not tolerate on this podcast, but is a big part |
| 1:08.4 | of women's support space in the world. Anyway, so I'm so excited |
| 1:12.5 | to talk to Kate, but first we have to do the gauntlet. We make everyone do where we make women brag about |
| 1:17.2 | themselves because more women should brag about themselves. So Kate, please brag about yourself. |
| 1:22.0 | Tell us who you are and what you do in the most bragging, impressive way possible. |
| 1:26.1 | Okay. Kar, this is hard as a woman and as a Canadian. |
| 1:29.6 | This is going, and as a men a knight, who is raised to be sweet and humble, just find |
| 1:36.3 | me scraping the ground where I belong. |
| 1:38.4 | I am a professor at Duke University. |
| 1:41.0 | I teach cultural history, in particular, like religious stories about how |
| 1:47.0 | we tell ourselves what we deserve in terms of health, wealth, and happiness. So I'm very niche |
| 1:53.9 | in that I have interviewed most televangelists in this country, which is a lot of fun. I have written |
| 1:59.8 | five New York Times bestsellers and eight books. So I write a lot of fun. I have written five New York Times bestsellers and eight |
| 2:02.0 | books, so I write a lot of books. And I've got a podcast I really love called Everything |
| 2:06.6 | Happens. Not everything happens for a reason, just everything happens, period. But lately, |
| 2:11.5 | my deep love is, I've got a great community on Substack. And it's just full of kind, smart |
... |
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