The Lazy Genius Podcast - #253 - How to Give Yourself Permission with Kate Bowler

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

A note from Kendra: In this conversation, Kate and I exchange a joke about going to prison for someone we love, and I have since been shown the harm that reaction causes people in communities affected by disproportionate and unfair policing. For that, I am genuinely sorry. Thank you for graciously leaving space for all of us to continue to learn and do better in our work of allyship. Kate Bowler is here! If you’ve been around here for a while, you know we don’t have many guest interviews as regular episodes on this show. But today is a special day! Kate joins me to talk about ways to give yourself permission, life advice that we wish we could retire, and what she does when living in a hard season. Helpful Companion Links Find Kate online and on Instagram Check out her three books: Good Enough, No Cure for Being Human, and Everything Happens for a Reason This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 253, How to Give Yourself Permission with Kate Bowler. You guys know who Kate Bowler is, right? She is a three-time New York Times bestselling author. She's a professor at Duke Divinity School, and she is a fantastic permission giver in the area of being human. Today, Kate and I talk about life advice that needs to be retired, what she does to live in a hard season, and what she wants to give us permission to do or not do. I hope you enjoy this conversation between me and Kate Bowler.

Hi, Kate. Hello. It's so good to talk to you at last. We have a lot of mutual friends, and so it feels like the time is now we get to have a conversation and become friends. This is friendship transitive property. A equals B, B, C, therefore A equals these two people. I love it. I like that math.

That's really good math. So I am so glad you're here. I'm so glad for my audience to get to know you. And I can't wait for us to just jump right in. So let's do it. You deal in life advice. You understand and often comment on all these sayings and phrases that we become so accustomed to saying.

And I am just curious, what piece of life advice? Are you like, hey, this just needs to go. we're going to retire this one. Oh, wow. The focus of my rage just varies daily. I guess, yeah, and it's funny because every time I feel like kind of like upset or hurt or something by a little catchphrase, that's always usually the moment where I've, I've learned to something historically about like how we got to that phrase and why we're so committed to it. But lately it's, lately it's oh everyone's trying their best some reason for some reason what sounds in one way like grace like well we all have this you know we all have things these are these are true these are true

things about the basically impossibility of our lives but there's a strange minimizing quality to saying that like no one's ever really allowed to be upset at anyone else because quote everyone is trying their best like apparently it's just like a It's like they got to check out a statistician of effort. And they polled everyone. Everyone's at peak 100% trying. And I was like, well, Dana, I doubt it given that that doctor just said. So I love it when people say things like, uh, that person sounds like the worst.

And we will find their address. Just homicidal love is sometimes what I, what I need to go on. I have a friend who regularly offers to key someone's car on my behalf. Yeah, that's right. And part of me is like, thank you. Thank you for caring about me so much. But also, I really like having you around. Please don't go to prison.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can support me. That's right. I know. I feel so bad because I love Jesus and whatnot. And I'm like, surely, surely my Lord forgives all. But a friend the other day turned around and said two to five. That's all she says.

She walked out of her. She's like, I can't go to prison for more than five. And it was like an offer. she was making. Like she saw my tragedy and she was going to meet it with two to five, which feels like love. I'm really here for your friend vibe. You have great friends. I was thinking about that the other day actually about trying your best and how, you know, not like when you're at the Walgreens and you're like, everyone's trying their best. Like we want to, you know, be kind to humanity. But on the other side, we sort of say it to ourselves, like almost as a like a bootstrap thing,

you know, like everyone's trying their best. But I've sort of. I've sort of. started to notice that what that communicates is if you don't try your best, then you have also failed, you know, like that we all have to try our best all the time. And sometimes it's okay to be done and say, like, no more trying. I've hit peak trying for today. I'm going to go take a nap. Like, you don't always have to try your best at everything. I do think that's probably the most freeing bit of wisdom I got in the pandemic. And that was from Anne Lamont, who is just so funny and surprising and kind and pokey, like very pokey with her wisdom. And she said something like, oh, you, as if she was talking to me specifically, she's like, you will disappoint people every day.

I was like, man, what do you know about me? But I, yes, I think she described herself like she had been a plane that was like freighted was too much and was flying too low. And she, uh, so I thought, I thought, wow, what don't. So it was so funny, but for weeks after I met her, I woke up every day and I said, Kate, you will really disappoint people today. And I found that to be very liberating. I love that that's the segue into my next question, which is what piece of life advice? Do you want people to hear more often? And maybe it's like, you will disappoint people. Disapply Disapply People. I guess I find, because I guess if we are willing to say that, we would probably be pretty quick to apologize, knowing that it's already true that we are imperfect. But maybe we would feel, I don't know, I sometimes just feel like my humanity is intolerable, like intolerable to me and to others, you know, like, well, what if I couldn't?

I remember even when I was really, really sick, I used to stay up late and just write names of people. I felt like I still owed a thank you to for giving me like food or help or. And in fact, the weaker, you know, the more the more I needed, the more I felt overwhelmed by all that I could never pay back. And I've heard that a fair bit since from people who said like, oh, I like, I like I asked for too much. but like I've called in all my, I've like, I already, I already called in all my favors and now I've got nothing left. So maybe, maybe just knowing that we are not ever going to be a great deal. Maybe our, maybe the goal in life is not to be a great deal for others, but just to be like a loving, a loving presence, then you won't be like me and be like up until 2 a.m. writing names down.

What did that do for you to write those names down? Was it, Was it positive and therapeutic in some ways? Or was it more like, I don't know, almost like flogging? I felt a lot of shame being sick. I felt like I was the bad thing. Like I was the bomb that went off. And so mostly I was just trying to make up for what I felt like I'd already done to everyone. So, you know, it did come out of a place of gratitude, but also just real embarrassment

about really not being able to get my life together. Sounds fun. It was, people don't recommend stage four cancer enough. And I have to say, it has some real benefits. Shame spiraling, paper skin. I honestly get so mad at the shame spirals. Like, they're so unkind. There's such a, such a slippery slope.

And, like, it's already hard enough. Yeah. I kind of imagine it, like, a tube slide at a park, you know, one of the slides where you can't see the end, you only see the entrance. And it's like kind of distorted already. It's like bright yellow. There are a lot of shadows, you know, the sun is shining in weird places. You can't really see where you're going. And then you're just in it. And it goes so fast. And you're just sliding down to the end and you don't know when it's going to be over. And shame is like, so sorry. Thank you for sliding on me.

We are nowhere close to death. This tube slide goes another six or seven miles. that's such a beautiful. I like that metaphor because it is. It's so disorienting. I think that's one of the trickiest things, at least for me, about having like an account of change, I guess, is because, you know, there's, there's the, in my opinion, truly terrible version, which is our self-help machine, right, where they find something wrong with you, usually mediocrity. And they're going to solve it with like a six-step plan to, you know, and like as a historical. and I like cataloged all these books. I've made enormous spreadsheets. I've read a bazillion of them. And I partly why I read them is as a Christian, I do like have an account of like we would use

the term sanctification, but like the hope of change, like the hope that transformation somehow is possible. And so how do we like I guess I would have a picture like how bad I was at stick shift driving, but that moment where you have to like punch the clutch in order to like right before, you know, right before you're like moving between gas and break, I guess that's always kind of what I hope for is like, gosh, we're going to like, we're going to hit the wrong thing, the wrong time. There's going to be so many negative feelings about not being able to change. I don't want to just all the lead to shame. But man, I do like hope in my life for for some transformation that like maybe I could be kinder, more empathetic, more.

less pissy, you know, than I am, then I am prone to be. Life goals, be less pissy. You know, that's actually why I wrote my book, The Lazy Genius Way, because it is so hard to try to get any kind of life advice from MacGyvering together systems from all these self-help books that don't, that don't actually work. Because you read these things, and when they don't work for you, you think the problem is you, not that. And it can be very discouraging, you know. And so I wanted to offer like principles and tools, not rules for people to follow, but things that kind of work to keep us out of this place of like, okay, you have to be perfect at literally everything or you have to be a hot mess on the floor all the time. Like those are your only two choices. And I,

I wanted to live in the middle, you know, like I wanted to be able to let things go. But also there were things that I really deeply care about. And I want to spend time on those things and not feel weird about it, not feel guilty about it, not feel like I have to dumb it down because it makes someone else uncomfortable that I really love this thing and being good at this thing or spending time on this thing or whatever. And so there's just no space for that in the self-help industry. You know, we all have to look kind of the same. I get the same stuff done and be, you know, mediocrity is not okay, like you said, and we need to be

optimized robots. And it's so tiring. It's so tiring to be that way. And what I wanted then and what I want to remind people of now is that, like, one of, this is actually, the reason I'm bringing this up is because it's a segue into my next question. One of the 13 principles in the lazy genius way is to live in your season. And we have not been taught how to do that. Yeah.

We don't have a lot of practice at noticing when we are in different seasons, when the things that worked then don't really work now. And we're cramming it into this new shape and it's not working. And again, we're like, something's wrong with me. I can't get this together. I can't figure this out. And what I want is for people to have a lot of freedom inside that wide chasm in the middle of like trying hard at everything or giving up entire.

When you're in your season, it helps you stay in that middle with more compassion. That's lovely. So what I want to ask you, Kate, is this idea of us not being taught how to live in a hard season. How do you see seasons and how do you personally live in hard seasons, whether it's on a practical level or on a soul level, what does that look like for you? Well, I wish I had thought more about seasons when I, I think that's maybe so much of the wisdom you're calling us to here on this is when we enter into especially a really difficult time. We can't even imagine it as a time because pain it lies to us.

It tells us that it will go on in that way forever, that we are alone, that nobody has hurt in the way that we are hurt and therefore no one ever would want to carry it with us. Like, it's got a weird flatness to it and yet a strange crystallizing quality. Like, I, like, I was diagnosed with colon cancer when I was 35 and I went from having sort of regular, I don't know, I think of like early 30s, ambitious lady season when I, like, I really, there were ladders everywhere and I was going to climb them. I was like I had a plan. It was very exciting. It was the time of making plans. And I'd had a lot of setbacks until that time. And then I just had this moment there where I felt like everything was coming together. And then the horizon seemed so big. And even if we think about seasons, a season like that never feels like a season. You're like, oh, this, this good luck will go on forever, ever, ever, you know. And then I was suddenly diagnosed. And I, because I'd never been through something that awful, couldn't have known that that would have its own logic to it, that there would be really beautiful things that I would find there, like love.

Like I had experienced love to like with a loudness that I hadn't ever experienced before. I just felt so much love from my community, from my friends, from God, from, I just felt love. And also I was, do we swear on this podcast? Yes, you can totally swear. I was, if we don't, I will just say it was, it was unbearably effing terrifying at all times. Like it was the grizzly specter of death. It was like, yeah, it was the yawning gap of of all fear and horror and it was everything was intense everything was you know it was fall and I wasn't going to make it till June and so fall was fall for me and there the one part that felt um like I learned something was I learned that it was I learned to accept time in a different way

I was so blown away by how beautiful fall was all of a sudden and the Christmas that was supposed to know how last Christmas was so stunning and hilarious. And my dad's a historian of Christmas and like his like giant inflatable wavy Santa Claus is outside. Every part of it seemed amazing. And I think in a way, um, I wish I'd accepted that as a season because I would, I would have learned that there are that when you, that's, that's crisis time and crisis time has its own logic. It, you have, you have to make a lot of asks. You're really not. going to be able to pay people back. You have to accept the embarrassment of a ton of asymmetrical relationships. You're going to see things the way nobody else will because you're seeing the gift of

your mortality and that it will be beautiful and awful at the same time. But then it's really, if you're really lucky, it's over. And then what is it? So I guess that that's the season that I've had a hard time sort of shifting into is, well, what happens when life is a chronic condition? And how do you accept a season that doesn't feel like it's bounded by like, oh, and then I'll have a resolution to my cancer. I've got sort of chronic cancer problems. So this new season, I've tried to learn, I guess, a different set of horrible lessons. Like some people are better in a crisis than they are in the long haul. You're going to be a different person and you've got to forgive yourself for that.

You might have different goals than you were. And oh, yeah, right, you're not the same. And so I have found these seasons that you're describing to be really, it's taking me a lot longer to recognize them. I wish I'd read your book earlier then. We'll be right back. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and county. Your story could be next. If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics.

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And even with people they know and love, let alone publicly. And every time you write or say words, there is this singular gift that you don't have to give. You don't have to do this. You don't have to talk to us about the feet. in the chasm in this season you're in. And I am so grateful that you choose to for as long as you choose to do it. Because it's giving people language and permission to do it for their own seasons, in their own lives, with their own people.

Because it's so important to do, but it's also terrifying. And when we haven't had that practice of living that way, and learning how to talk about it when we haven't had the practice, the first time we enter into a hard conversation or a diagnosis or some sort of loss or anything, when we go into that hard thing, we're like, please don't make me do this. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. But when we see someone else do that hard thing, when we have those examples, it is such a gift. And you don't have to be an example for us, but you are choosing to. And it's, it's just so generous of you. But it's really only because I was, I've been very lonely. Like, I guess it's

entirely how this, uh, started is I didn't. Uh, I just, I felt so, I just felt so lonely. Like, like, like I'm at a kid's birthday party and everybody knows how to relate to each other with a set of roles that now feel obsolete and now I feel shut out of a life that I loved and I don't know how to connect anymore and not to say that everyone always has to live in the deep end all the time but man it has been so it has been so precious to me to share language with other people like these little phrases and then people just give them to you like I remember one of the first conversations I had after I was sick and someone said, oh, yeah, it's like about people like us where we, you know, they know something hard has happened.

And they said, oh, it's the, it's the fellowship of the afflicted. And I was like, what a, like, what a gorgeous, that little phrase has, like, given me a sense of, like, belonging with other people who, you know, not just with cancer, but who understand befores and afters. Or, like, I can. guess and what you were just describing about like the need that we all have for courage. I don't think I knew how much courage life was going to take until I realized that this, the terrible absurdity of our lives is something we all are like facing just with gritted teeth. So anyway, but thank you

for saying that. I have to say I have done this largely so I didn't have to do it alone. So it feels really nice to do it with you. How's this for a pivot? Can we celebrate the fact that you are a three-time, three-time New York Times bestselling author? That's stupid. That's not, that's not, it's not useful. You are exceptionally good at writing sad books. Well, it turns out I'm very sad inside. And it gives me, I think the, I think the gift for me has been, there's only a couple of things really truly love in this life. One is like the power of the absurd, you know, like what, what else feels, feels, turns the world, except random amazing things, being able to be desperately in love with everything, the light touches, and then being able to say something truly

horrible and socially unacceptable. And that's what writing has given to me. I love it. That's what writing is given to you. Can you tell us about your new book? You wrote it with a, with a co-author, right? With Jessica Ritchie. She's my podcast executive producer. And we, well, it's what's called Good Enough, which is just something we started saying with like a funny voice. We're like, well, good enough. But like good enough was like you were describing before is with like lazy genius. It's like how do we how do we not instrumentalize all of our lives? Like how do we find a way around our culture's obsession with excellence? And this superhighway of capitalism we're all supposed to be on. And I find that, um, so I am a professor in the divinity

school. So it's just like a lot of do-goaters of all kinds. And I just found how much that language of perfection and excellence was also sort of infecting our faith framework for how we, we can't just like, you know, be a, you know, just in this tone of voice, be a Christian. We have to like, be a Christian. We are bringing excellence to our faith, clap, clap, you know. And so, So I was like, well, what would it, what if I thought about like, you know, that some of the things I'd been thinking about with studying self-help and trying to embrace finitude, what if I just made some reflections around embracing that aspect of our imperfection and still hoping for that little piece of transformation that lights up our lives and challenges us to be more,

like without putting us back on the superhigh way of trying? So that's what good enough is about. And, but it is very funny because it is in the self-help section. And that also brings me joy. Mine is too. Mine's on the self-help shelf. And I had someone message me a while back after the Lacey Genius Way came out. And she said, I really wish that there was a new section in the bookstore that was like

next to self-help but not really self-help. And all that would be on it would be you, Brunay Brown. and Kate Bowler. Oh, that's so nice. That would be an amazing section. It's just me and you every day. But no, seriously, it's like we want, we want that shelf because we want permission to be alive and to enjoy things.

And we also want permission to like not have to enjoy things all the time. And like this, both of those things. It's just, it's just really hard to be a person. And I'm so glad you're helping us, you're helping us figure it out. And with this book, with Good Enough, you already sort of. said it, but can you kind of say again, like, who, who is this book for? Oh, we, so funny for the, because the audience that I find I always get to be around, which I love, or they just want things that are, are kind and smart and funny.

And I, that is my dream person. And it turns out there's millions of them of just lovely people to be friends with. And so, but who, who want a sense of a before and after? It's like, what happens when I'm done the superhigh way of trying? But I still want permission, permission to change. And so that's, that's actually been like the joy of the last few years. It turns out so many of us are exhausted and yet still want, like when you, when you were describing the spectrum, I just picture like lungs expanding and contracting, like being able to breathe. into our hope for more and then our desire for peace and a little bit of mediocrity. Mediocrity is, well, I was about to say it's my favorite thing.

It used to be my mortal enemy for so long because I really like, I really like perfection. You know, it's part of how, it's part of how I was raised. It's what I developed to protect myself. It's what we, you know, we all develop something to protect ourselves. and now I look at perfection. I'm like, oh, man, it is so exhausting. And it doesn't do anything. It literally doesn't do anything except maybe drive people away

because no one wants to be around a perfect person. And what we so desperately are trying to do is hide the things that would actually endear us to people. It's not necessarily conflating, like having a mess. house and being a vulnerable person. Like you can be a vulnerable person and have a tidy house. Like those things are not mutually exclusive. But there is the sense that the very thing that we are trying to do, that we are trying

to draw people near to make ourselves acceptable is the very thing that drives them away. That's such a powerful point. I love what you said about it being a self-protective strategy. that's going to tuck that away for later. That's really helpful. I remember because when I was little, I formed a best friend's writing club with my sister and a girl named Michelle. Cool. We made ourselves badges. And I remember writing these. It was always just with this beautiful girl who had a horse named Artemis. And it was a very powerful experience between girl and horse. And my sister would read these books, books, quote, and it was like, she's not relatable. She doesn't have. any flaws. And I was like, so I gave her a single scar on her silvered and beautiful up her forearm. And I think that's like you often what we're looking for in like, especially in the relatable women's genres. Like she can be flawed, but she can only

have a single porcelain scar as opposed to like a personality disorder or like a tragic and incurable disease. So I think we should like up the, maybe up the ante on. on terrible flaws. That might be one of my favorite stories about a child writer like ever. So you said the word permission a second ago. And as we close, I wanted to actually ask you about what kind of permission you would give to the people listening. Because I, actually in my Instagram bio, it says resident permission giver. Because I think that we just need people to tell us that it's okay. You know, we need permission to do all kinds of. of things. Like that's half of my job. Half of my job is being like, okay, we got practical

stuff to do. Like, here's some tools. Here's some ideas on cleaning your kitchen and doing laundry and making dinner and all these things. But then the other side is like, okay, the other half is permission. And you are so good at giving permission and putting words to things that people need to hear. And so as we close, I would just love to hear for you. Is there anything that you want to offer permission for these listeners to do or think or not think or not do. Yeah. Well, I guess maybe it's just, I mean, this was just a little habit I started after I got sick that I have found helps me like reach for something, but then let it go. I, uh, I was so worried about not having enough days. Days of course, been very stressful. Um, and so I, I started trying to pay

attention to the moment. And there's always one every day that feels like brighter and lovelier than other moments. And it was one of the strange gifts of being sick is that, you know, is that things I love really did become a bit brighter. And since then, that has mostly just been like a habit I have to keep, which is there's a minute, a second. Time will feel really slow and stretchy and you'll notice it and it'll have a shape to it and it'll just fill your heart and in that second just take it like just take the beat and see it for all it is and then and then let it go but let it count for something like um mine is very often related to my son because he is so evil and his evil brings me an incredible amount of joy.

And like I'll walk into what I think is him having a bath and he's wearing ski goggles and he's got his towel over the vent. And it's blowing and I realize he's pretending to be a skydiver. Amazing. And it careening short of. And in that moment, I just, you know, like Kirsten Dunst in the movie, Elizabeth Town. And she holds up her hands like a little camera and goes, but like I keep it. And at the end of the day, I try to remember it because people love to just look ahead.

But the beautiful thing about the past is it's already ours. So that's my best daily thing. You guys, I'm just, I'm so thrilled and honored that Kate was able to come on this podcast and that you got to hear her words. And I just want to say that her words and her books are so incredibly. powerful and also desperately funny. Like, I don't know how a person can talk about pain and make you laugh. Like, it's just really strange. But she is a master at it, and her books are just a gift. They are such a gift.

Her newest book is called Good Enough, 40-ish devotionals for a life of imperfection. And you can get it wherever books are sold. I have talked about her book, No Cure for Being Human, that she mentioned earlier in the episode. I was so sad when it was over. Like, I was like, can I say the last couple of pages? because it's just, it was just such a beautiful companion. So I highly, highly recommend Kate's writing.

And I'm just so glad that she was on the show. So you can follow her at Kate Bowler, bowler like a bowling ball, like a person who rolls a bowling ball. And thank you so much for listening to this podcast. I'm so grateful that you are here. Don't forget that tickets are still on sale for the pub crawl. I'm going to be traveling in April mostly to celebrate the release of the Lacey Genius Kitchen. and I just, I cannot wait to meet you and see you.

So you can find all the details for that at the lazy genius collective.com slash pub crawl. Thank you so much for listening, you guys. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week. You ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life?

Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A-plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You, wherever you get your podcasts.