We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Walking Our People Through Hard Things with Kate Bowler

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

1. What we should STOP saying to people who are struggling—and what to say, or do, instead.  2. How Kate received the support she needed because people were willing to embarrass themselves in their attempts to show up—and why we shouldn’t be scared of doing it wrong. 3. Kate offers some words to a Pod Squader feeling anticipatory grief—and how to accept that we can’t always make it okay for the people we love.  About Kate: Kate Bowler, PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change. She is the author of Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel and The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities. After being unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 35, she penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved) and her latest, No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear). Kate hosts the Everything Happens podcast where, in warm, insightful, often funny conversations, she talks with people like Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Lamott about what they’ve learned in difficult times. She lives in Durham, North Carolina with her family and continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School. Book: No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) Instagram: @katecbowler Twitter: @KatecBowler 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

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it. Download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at 12.99 per month. Welcome back to We Can Do A Few Hard Things, maybe on our best days, with our dear friend Kate Boller, who is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth.

Okay, so if you haven't listened to Tuesday's episode, go back and listen one of my all-time favorite, not just podcasts, but conversations of my life. We're gonna jump in Kate with, we're gonna call this, yes please or no thank you. Okay. This is actually from your appendix from everything happens for a reason. And it's just, 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. I tried. I tried. I was actually in a family gathering and I someone said something

and I got really mad and I went into another room and I wrote this list. So origin story, I'm full of rage. Yes. And rage is so creative. It's love creative rage. Okay. Kate, how about this?

When someone tells us about something painful that happens in their life, should we start the next sentence with, well, at least? Yes. Never, never. It's a horrifying cruelty. Yeah. Congratulations. You see, go ahead.

In the end, you just relativized somebody's pain. You 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 gonna be game over. No, thank you. Helpful, that's a no thank you. How about it's going to get better?

I promise. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Buller. 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 just, you can't promise people sunshine. It makes them feel bananas.

Okay, no promises. How about this? Is my personal favorite when someone dies and then someone else says it looks like God needed another angel. No, no, no, not only is it just horrifying, it makes God a weird sadist who like collects beloved people for a kind of like, angel supply chain problem. And that's right. There's so real. He's like, there's a trophy case, a real exactly a strange derf of angels around him singing his braces. No, it's also, you know, 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 they're not people. They're just made angels. Okay, so don't do it for option A or be illogically inappropriate or two if you don't want to be an asshole. You don't want to be a her be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, be, or be, or be, or be, or be, be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, be, or be, be, or be, be, or be, or be, be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, or be, be, or be, be, or be, or be, the first time people said me books, books, books, books.

Yeah. The first time I looked at your book cover, yeah, I saw everything happens for a reason and I pushed it to the side. I almost didn't read it. Rightfully so. And then because I was like, oh hell no. 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? 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.

But mostly it tries to justify why things are happening to you, like a different version of of karma. So for all those people who are suffering in the world, it means that they haven't just suffered, they failed. 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 applying that you know the reason. And you're just about to explain it to them. Ah! Which would be the worst thing that could happen. Okay, how about when everyone is convinced,

capable, or that they have done some research that you need to know about? I've done some research. Oh my gosh, yes. My cousin Larry. 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

actually done, I've read peer review studies from each of our respectable journals, then I'm listening. But mostly people mean I heard something recently, and I'm very much like to burden you with this recent knowledge acquisition. And I would just love to trust experts and, you know, usually my doctor and people who know a lot about something and not this random dude I just met at a party. Excellent. Thank you. When my aunt had cancer. Oh no. The ants of the world are doing very poorly. I just have to say, just I've taken a poll based on my experience and they're all dying. Yeah, no the world are doing very poorly. I just have to say, just 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. But when you have a bad thing, they are free associates 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 just put that in your back pocket. Mm-hmm.

Thank you. And this one's super interesting to me. So how are the treatments going? How are you really? Yeah. Who is that the emotional tourism? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, 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 I as a as a patient, you you end up feeling like you owe everybody a lot of information because they've they've helped you in some way they've prayed for you. They think about you and then you're like, Oh gosh, I just 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 bury here out loud that many times.

So I find that just offering like a lighter touch, something like, hey, just you know, really been thinking about you and you know, to give me an update, just want you to know you're on my mind. And it lets them opt out of the sort of the truth of a moratorium. You know, lighter touch. I love that. You should know that my sister and I are huge whimp. So we have this problem even when we're not facing life threatening situations. 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 she that's two that's another to do a thing on her list. So she'll be like, can you just give mom an update

on my day? Or we could just add websites and be like, guys, just check my website. Yes. How am I doing? Come from there. Yes. Is there somewhere? 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? Yeah. If you ask, 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. So yeah, offer something concrete or send something dumb in the mail. It doesn't have to be useful. And then the best gift I got was like, dumb or racer shaped like cats.

Oh, nice. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is the first gift I've gotten that isn't trying to teach me something. And it doesn't make me feel eulogized. And I was like, completely in love. So yeah, doesn't that to be, you can be useful, you can be not useful, or you can just be loving from a distance. It's all good. Okay, and you have many more in here, but I, that people everyone should read and keep in their back pocket. I love, oh, my friend, that sounds so hard. I love that. I love the echoes. I love when people say like

it's you're tired because it's exhausting. You know, it just helps you like land the feeling. And how about this one? Silence. It's nice. They're especially they're nice face just moaning at you. Like they'll take it. Just loving looks, man. Gosh. They're like, power this whole battery on that. 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. Yes. That's so good. It's that's so good. That's so good. Yeah. I'm Jonathan Menevar. I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things.

But I grew up working class. My parents were immigrants with factory jobs. And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I want to talk about it. That's what we're doing on my new podcast Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food. I was like, Girl, we're not doing that anymore. You'll hear from people who told me awkward, embarrassing, and strangely intimate things about what class means to them. She said, you know, for the house cleaner, I hide the tag on the $6 bread. And I just thought, don't you think she knows that you're wealthy? You're hiding the tags from yourself.

Classy. A new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Now we would like to get to some questions from our beloved pod squad for Miss Kate Boller. Can we go to the first question? Then Kate will offer us a four part tutorial. And I'm happy.

Yeah. She was all the proper pain in the first five minutes. Well, good, because Wendy's waiting for it. All right. Wait, Wendy's waiting for her, for her, you know, powerpoint presentation. Hi, Glennan, Amanda and Abby. My name is Wendy.

I'm hoping that you can, 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. 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 4 cancer. It's a type of cancer you don't come back from. 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 a primary caregiver. 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. I've really struggled with the grief and for all that she has lost and all that we have lost. I can't fully agree this because I'm so busy doing all of the things. And I'm really trying to be present and open because I don't want to miss making more memories with her. It's things progress. I'm struggling more and more now with the grief of what's to come.

more and more now with the grief of what's to come. I'm getting support from different sources, but really appreciate and relate your podcast. I'm hoping for an approach or a way to look at this that can somehow help me get through. And thought of you guys because this certainly seems like one of the very hardest things. Thank you. Oh, Wendy. That is such a double burden there of love and pain and then the unbearable feature that constantly interrupts the present. And I think one of the greatest pressures we can feel when we feel

are finitude is that like trying to make everything add up, 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. And that was one of the biggest struggles I had was that finding that distinction between minutes and moments. When most of our days, especially for caregiving or doing hard things, are just minutes. 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 the, like it can make us accidentally of hum with the, like it make, it can make us accidentally brittle because we want to make it all fit. I think you think the only thing I would say then is that, is that it is, is okay, is okay to have your minutes, is okay to begrudge yourself, the, the joys that you've had to set aside or dreams and 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. And also just to credit those moments more, like there will be those precious moments where

you feel that gorgeous, transcendent love, and to let that count, like you're not feeling, you're just loving somebody in an unbearable situation. So not, 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 it is that the freight of caregiving is often that weird strange burden of love and guilt. And we can take ourselves off the hook for so much of that guilt when we know that all those little acts, they are so beautiful, but they are all terrible, terrible math. So no math. Is there your artist? I love things that aren't math, I can deal with that. Do you have art that helps you feel alive, that helps you feel hope and strength? Do you love music? Do you love

poetry? Do you? Are you a big reader? What do you, what do you like grab from? Because you give so much. What do you grab? That's such a nice question. I, yeah, and I think this is always like a struggle with caregivers or anything where it's like a huge such a nice question. I, yeah, and I think this is always like a struggle with caregivers or anything where it's like, oh, huge, a huge spend, what a spend people do. I, I love, I usually just pick something to be ridiculous about that helps me absorb, you know? So sometimes it's just like the endless love

of Taylor Swift, who would know of her, but I'll do like movie marathon, like all of our movie marathon, like all mark movie marathon, so like I have gingerbread, like I build a massive gingerbread mega church every year. And I dedicate it to a television. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I dedicate it to a television. Yeah. Two has made my life difficult, you know, and I try to make it bigger and bigger. I like and pretty realistic. Oh Take the bread from like, you know, people who are hungry around and then make it into the I rob it and then I can start and you charge people to look at it. I

Think it's hard to get out of that. Like 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 if you're right, if we're not taking in some beauty and some really, really loud music, I started, because I couldn't, because that being immunocompromised

that couldn't be around a lot of people. So I started driving around visiting the world's largest statues of things like the world's largest northern Lake trout, or the world's recently I saw the world's largest replica of the world's largest lighthouse. And replica was like really small. That's not it. It was not big. So It's not big. So, I just met her. But doing stupid things that, like, 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. Yes, it's the resistance of the math. Yes, it's the resistance of the math. It's the resistance of the math. I will do something that adds up nowhere that as you go on a spreadsheet. And that's human. That's your reclaiming. I love that. So the first Christmas, the 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.

And I took everything and I was like, what if it was 20 times bigger? 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. Or I did like massive ketchup taste test things where it wasn't just like five ketchup's who's like 17 and 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 in case anyone at the table was a secret representative of clients case anyone at the table was a secret representative of clients. I'm not to make sure. A mole. Yeah. There's a rarer. But it makes sense that the antidote to the absurdity of life would be absurdity. Think so.

Yeah. It's, yeah, it's, it's the, it feels like anti-capitalism. It feels like, yes. Really does. Yes, it does. See, sister, that's why I am lazy and ridiculous, it's because it's active resistance. I don't want to hear anymore about it. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, Let's go to 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 cultivated a strong, loving, and peaceful sense of self with strong boundaries. 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. 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. And I've walked her daughter through both her grief and the

fact that she was brave enough to come out in the past year. But on the inside, I'm 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.

A wonderful person. Wow. There's so much bravery in that. That's so many steps of rebirth after so much loss. I am, wow, I just, wow, want to honor how, how much work all that has taken. I guess it kind of reminds me of a recent conversation with this. He's a professor. I think he's Jerry Sitzer and he is maybe 20, 20 some years ago. He had lost his mom and his wife and his daughter in the same car accident. And he wrote a really beautiful, unbelievably honest book about grief that I, you can just tell

when no one is lying to you. I got a chance to talk to him recently about like, what, so because that first book, kind of like my first experiences of tragedy were just like in those terrible hard moments right after, it was nice to talk to him 20 years on and to be like, so then what? 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. And when he describes, he has this really beautiful life now where he, he was a wonderful parent to his remaining kids. He has, 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. There's been no math on that devastating loss. He's like, but he said it was such strength and such dignity, like, but I have really learned how to carry it. And I think that's a, 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, and carry it. And this, Alison is a mama. What, Kate, I'm never talked to you about this. I heard, what do you want? What do you teach Zach about?

Because you're at Divinity School, you're a God person. But your God is something I understand. I can like, not that we can understand, but you know what I mean, I can like, not that we can understand, but you know what I mean that feels true. What do you want, what do you teach Zach about? Like what life is and what God is? And like if you're not the center, what is the center? And if you know you say you don't,

you no longer have a foundation that is based on your plans. So what is the foundation then? It can really only be the miracle of love. And like, if I'm not the center, and there's no magical conspiracy that's going to make sure everybody is as good, taking care of, never taking on anything they can't handle. Like all of the, 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? When I look at him, I know that I have to give up on my first, you know, my parenting

prosperity gospel, which is that I can make him the kind of person that's invulnerable from pain, bullshit, 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, 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, trying to love the lives we have, and to have incredible courage in the midst of that. And that that is really the only thing we all that we all need, we can only borrow from each other. But to me, that whole thing has got to be a miracle, which is that like 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.

Yeah, I'll buy that. Okay, let's hear from I-N-S. My name is I-N-S, and we can do hard things. Question is dealing with friends or community members who have alled a child in a tragic accident. And how we can spare for the breathing parent to have suffered a loss that is beyond measure

and also something that we, or those who have not lost child, cannot relate to what we can say or do to help these community that they will be in the days and months and very sick. Thank you. I want 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. And I guess maybe the first thing to always remember is that the person who suffering doesn't know what they need because their needs are gonna change all the time. And like, it is okay to offer things that they don't need or want and be turned down and then

try again with something else like like inviting them to things that you worry will be painful for them. You don't know and they don't know either like it is it is always good it is always good just to offer it and then but offer it like it is always good to like food and gift cards and It is always good to like food and gift cards and and just a thoughtful card that says, I'm thinking about you. It is, 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?

And my like the firefighter friend is kind of good at rushing in at the first and can like boss and redirect traffic. And I actually more of the like loving presence person where I'm actually better in the long game where I can send, I mean, one of my favorite kinds of people is the person that doesn't forget who like writes down an anniversary and then puts it in the calendar year from now

and just says, right, a thoughtful car that says, I'm thinking of you during this hard season, sending you so much love. And maybe also this, she's taking a card. Like, I mean, everybody has their thing. And if your thing is present, 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.

And like, and if you can't help the main person, help the helpers, help the caregivers in their life, those people don't get it 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. Kate, how is your habit doing? I love your love story. Like you're, because it's real and it's beautiful, but it's funny and just the way, but it's funny. And just the

way you talk about him, I just told you so much. I mean, I told him when I was 22 years old. And I don't know why. And except that he looked like great, great real estate. And I love when you talk about how at your wedding that you played at last. Oh, amazing. That is your 22 ad. Let's do it. Wait, it's so lively. I volunteered to sing it.

I may have done it to a recording or I doubt that there was anyone with a live instrument with air and I was just like tapped up to up. Is this thing on 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. I guess the best part of loving somebody is just that they teach you who you are over time. And like, because we just group we really grew up together We were little I mean, I've known since I was 14

He was the very first person I'd ever seen look good in a purple low scoop neck tank top Let's get let's let's let's let's Miracles I was like let's never do this again. Something I said out loud but I Guess it's been It's the surprise of knowing that you're you're all the hard things you really can't do by yourself and that you won't even know who you're gonna be I mean 14-year-old Kate wasn't gonna be the one with like

14 year old Kate wasn't gonna be the one with like Gosh eat abdominal surgeries on our ninth belly button like we become people completely different to whoever we thought we were gonna be and Just having somebody who can be home Feels like the big, I know I'm a historian. I love a good archive that when people who love you are like the best archive You're like remember when you did that Really do I'm sorry are like the best archive. You're like, remember when you did that? Yeah. You do, I really do. I'm sorry. Yeah. Sister always says that about, she says about our,

because we are each other's great love story. So beautiful. So beautiful. And we do think of it as an archive for better or worse. Like, it's a keeper of all of the things, right? Yes. That I'll keeper of memories of who you were and then like a shepherd to take you into whoever the hell you're going to be next. 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're doing something

stupid. I'll be like, I will be a witness to your life, which usually man, I was gonna file the police report. Okay. I will be a witness. Is like, cause yeah, cause we're just, we're the most self-forgetting things. I don't even honestly, I don't even know who I was before this.

Like I am. I'm the one who's self-forgetting. And that is good, I think. I like that part of us. It's like, I feel that beginner's mind constantly. Yeah. 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 all that way for sure. Yeah, but then we can change. If we remembered who we were, I mean, if those roots were planted too deep, gosh.

Yeah. We could never, 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 and get very like, I prickly, I'm like, oh my gosh, something, there's something new. Like thank God. What a fucking miracle. Yes. Are your words for them the same because you of 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 you today. Yeah, I'm just so it's such a it's such a sweet that that just brings up such a sweet memory because gosh, because that was, because when I wrote that, it was three years ago, and I've gotten to have three more years of hope for that. Like, I got to change. I got to, man, I still cry when a plane lands because I was so happy to be going on a trip. I last time it was an Indianapolis and everything. Why are you crying? But I was like, you know, you don't understand.

I think, because I think I would, yeah, I think 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, it is so painful and so beautiful and so fragile. Gosh, I don't... Yeah, that makes me feel like there's like that weird matrix moment. Oh, you're like, oh, this is it, isn't it?

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 to 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, just to feel like it's okay to be, to be alive again, a new. I think that's why I'd pick. Well, what, where would you pick for you, Kate? I saw more.

More. More. All right, let's hear from our pod sweater of the week. Hi, the Leiden. This is Julie, and I wanted to call and tell you first of all how much I am obsessed with your podcast. And I don't couple weeks ago you had said you had asked about what is the bravest thing you have ever done. And I just wanted to share with you my bravest thing. Last year in the middle of the pandemic, my sister passed away unexpectedly, 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. So it was the bravest and hardest thing I will ever do. I love you guys so much. Listen to the show all the time. And I'm just feeling so happy. What a hero in the most like,

what a gutsy gorgeous person. I love all the layers. That is like, that is grief of an imagined future. And that is like the deepest kind of costly love. It's like she knows that the most beautiful things are going to be the ones that cost her the most, like a comfortable home and routines and the whole plan. And yeah, that's going to be the only one that she's going to want to pay into. I just, you meet those people and you think, yes, that she's gonna wanna pay into. I just, you meet those people and you think, yes,

love is so, it is so costly. And it like, it bulldozes a path where there was no path available. Bad ass. Love is so costly. I love that. That is a truth that can quiet the big lies.

That's a good one. Kate Boehler. You guys, I love you. This was so special. So, this was really special. Really special. So special to us. We love you.

I just wanna say a few things to you. I wanna leave you with these ideas. It gets darkest before the dawn. Okay, everything happens. Capable or what does not kill you will in fact make you stronger. And God wants you to be rich. Finally, we can keep that one. We can keep that one. Thank God. I can't get life insurance, so I'm sure. Home, so. As a matter of God has a plan. Kate, we adore you. We wish for you joy and compassion and more, more, more, more, more.

and compassion and more, more, more, more, more, more. And we will be looking for your non-inspirational wall to court, I will put it all the fact over my house. Oh my gosh, I just wanna give you the medium sadness that all of our hearts desire. Thank you. Thank you guys, thank you. You really, it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful.

What you're doing. Thank you, Kate Boller. Thank you, my darling. 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.

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