January 2, 2023 • 24 mins
Is acceptance overrated? What happens when you have to face a new year without your person in it (or without the health you used to have!)? In this special two-part episode, we face the new year together - with a re-release of my conversation with historian, author, and queen of awkward conversations, Kate Bowler.
In this episode:
- How do you have hope for the year to come when right now maybe isn’t so great?
- Acceptance, moving forward, and ferocious self-advocacy
- The Math of Suffering: this year, last year, and measuring love
- Why social bonds matter, and what happens when no one sees you
Notable quotes:
“Aggressive futurism prevents us from being honest” - Dr. Kate Bowler
“I want my suffering to be translatable. If I can't be translated, I can't be seen.” - Dr. Kate Bowler
“We weaponize acceptance. It's applied from the outside as this end goal that you need to get to in order to be palatable to the others around you.” - Megan
About Kate:
Kate Bowler, PhD, is an associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School. Author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason, Dr. Bowler stages a national conversation around why it’s so difficult to speak frankly about suffering through her popular podcast, Everything Happens. She has appeared on NPR, The TODAY Show, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and TIME Magazine. Her latest book, No Cure For Being Human), grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with limitations in a culture that says anything is possible. Follow her @Katecbowler on all social Platforms.
Get in touch:
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your comments or thoughts, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right.
Have a question, comment, or a topic you’d like us to cover? call us at (323) 643-3768 or visit megandevine.co
For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.Megandevine.co
For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on IG, FB, TW, and @hereafterpod on TT
Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s Okay That You're Not Okay and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is here after, and I'm your host, Megan Divine,
author of the best selling book It's Okay that You're
Not Okay. This week on the show, part two of
my Stellar Conversation with historian, author and deeply human person
Dr Kate Bowler. In this special two part mini series,
we faced the New year together with real, actual hope,
(00:23):
not like everything happens for a reason, false hope, trash.
It's a rerelease of one of your favorite episodes from
season one, complete with a listener Q and a all
of that coming up right after this first break. Before
(00:43):
we get started, one quick note, Well, I hope you
find a lot of useful information in our time together.
This show is not a substitute for skilled support with
a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision related
to your work. All right, everybody, welcome back. Glad you're
here with Kate Bower and I talking about New Year's
(01:03):
even the change of the Gregorian calendar and resolutions is
what we're going to talk about next. So this next
listener question is related to something I want to spend
a good chunk of time on the New year, and
specifically the end of the New year is about setting resolutions,
usually resolutions to become better and better versions of yourself, which, honestly,
(01:24):
when you think about it, is kind of rude, this
idea that you need to take some inventory, figure out
where you're screwing things up, and commit to doing them better.
So I could rent on this for a while, but
I want to read you something from Kate's book No
Cure for Being Human from the introduction, as I think,
Kate talks about this really well here. American culture has
(01:46):
popular theories about how to build a perfect life. You
can have it all if you just learned how to
conquer your limits. There is infinity lurking somewhere at the
bottom of your inbox or in the stack of self
help books on the bedside table. It taunts you as
you grip the steering wheel and traffic attempting your new
breathing practice, or in the pre dawn minutes when you
could be working out. I've seen these guides to endless
(02:08):
progress for sale in airport kiosks. Some are written by
spiritual guides, promising to reveal God's single plan and purpose
for my life. Trust God in the path will reveal itself.
Other books call for wild action their oceans to plumb
and mountains to climb, and planes to exit midair carpet dum,
try the four hour work week to escape the daily grind,
(02:28):
or check out the latest research on eliminating distraction. There
are bucketless galore with glossy photographs of thrills and architectural wonders,
calendars with rituals to eradicate inefficiencies, and writing journals juiced
with visionary wisdom from gurus and titans of industry. There
are formulas for a meaningful life, how to live one
(02:48):
and how to end one. But the truth is, somewhere
inside me, there is no formula. We live, and we
are loved, and we are gone. And you can hear
it in my voice, everybody. That's a rough passage. It's
(03:09):
a beautiful passage, and I think it's really appropriate as
we walk into the changing of the calendar, the changing
of the year, and talking about this relentless annual need
to write down the ways that we're failing. Let's talk
(03:30):
about that nice emotional intro for you handing that right off, well,
and thank you for like loving me, and that that
is just that means that means so much to me
because when we think about what we could do, like
what how we could stretch and flex and try like
(03:51):
we're also just like overwhelmed with with a feeling of
finitude with our limits, with our resources, which are are
feeling that we're always is hoping for something and it's
almost like we can feel the leash kind of pulled
back on us over and over and over again. And
it's like a category in my head I sort of
think about, is we're given a story about unlimited agency,
(04:11):
just everything is going to be bigger, better, best life
now and nearest resolutions are like that in a nutshell
is you're always going to be better, And then you
know we and we know intuitively we don't want the opposite.
We don't want nothing can never be better. Despair. We're
very concerned. Americans are what's very concerned. The immediately slide
to despair, But the feeling in the middle is like
(04:32):
how can we come up with some version of like
limited agency, The feeling like it is okay to be
inside of numbered days, inside of our fragile bodies, that
a friend can read a passage from you and know
that like that hope is really hard if it's found
at all, so I feel such a struggle every time
we get to the new year, because I love the
(04:54):
feeling of trying, like that open lane, feeling like when
in your sales kind of go, go go. And then
I'm also just aware that this has been a season
and a long stretch of a lot of accumulating losses,
and so each little hope feels a little extra tender
right now. And that's a beautiful lead into our next question,
(05:16):
which is really a question about the impossibility of hope. Yeah,
so this question is from a healthcare worker. They just
noted that they were a healthcare worker. They didn't say
what industry or which kind of healthcare worker. Here's our question.
Can you too talk about the weight of yet another
year of COVID ahead of us with no end in sight,
(05:38):
The grief of giving so much as providers, with little
progress towards any resolution of the virus, the loss of
continued moral support or even respect towards healthcare workers from
the general public. How do we realistically face what we
know is coming and still find hope in a new
year ahead? Will next year be better? Will it bring
(05:58):
more grief and end steath? How do I find motivation
to create goals for myself in a new year when
this is what I live. I mean spoken like someone
who knows the cost of trying and then seeing everything
treadmill style slide back right to to a standstill. It's
(06:21):
also such a special quality of the the people that
I've met in healthcare who they have a wonderful bravery
about them where they it's like a bright clarity like
other people can afford to become delusional about what everything costs,
like all the tiny little and it'll be this like
(06:43):
this pace in the er, and it will be this
amount of turnover rooms and it will be this this
holding this person's hand like it. It's just it's one
thing to say let's talk about optimism, and it's a
very different thing to say, let's talk about optimism with
someone who genuinely understands the cost and its hit feels
like they have hit every branch on the way down.
I was in the hospital for something recently and I
(07:04):
would just always pass over then silence, but I am.
I had this wonderful nurse who I just I got
to know overnight, because that's you know, when you live
in the yard for a little bit, you really get
to know your people and uh, and she had just
lost her husband. Um, she's been her thirties and she said, Uh,
I don't know how to describe what it's like for
me to be here, because being here, in a way,
(07:27):
everything makes sense, Like I I like the the logic
of suffering is everywhere, and I feel it, and I
feel myself of service, like it was such a gorgeous,
such a gorgeous, brave, cool, terrible thing to say, And no,
and yet I know she needs to go home and
make dinner and take care of kids and move the
weight of her life forward in in light of what
(07:49):
she knows. And that's what that question reminds me of.
Is like for the person who was born the greatest cost,
how much will a little more hope cost me? Unfortunately,
I think hope is very expensive. And I would only
make one distinction. I would just say it is okay
(08:10):
to let go of the exhausting optimism that our culture
feeds us. It is really okay to let go, like
there's there's no version of crowding onto the happy side
of the spectrum, that is that is anything more than
a burden to someone like that who knows. And yet
we are creatures of hope, and that we need little, beautiful,
glittering truths in our lives that can pull us forward
(08:32):
into a future we can barely look at directly. So
part of it for me is just defining what hope
means to me. Hope is, if it's not blind optimism,
what lovely truths are enough to feel like they can
carry me into a new year. I love that it
brings me back to what we were talking about earlier
(08:53):
with the math of suffering, right, And now you know,
we're doing a lot of emotional cost benefit analysis here, yes, right,
Like what is what is optimism cost me? What is
hope cost me? And I also really like how beautifully
you framed the dissonance between our cultural belief in optimism
(09:15):
and possibility and the right mindset, and how not just
hollow but utterly completely freaking useless that mindset is when
you know the kinds of things that this person, this
listener knows, when you know what you know. Kate about
how little control we have over good things happening or
(09:39):
even bad things happening, but like the amount of control
or the amount of effect that optimism has for us,
And you've mentioned this actually a few minutes ago. We
don't just have that binary of two options. If you're
not being optimistic, you're being pessimistic, and therefore you're doing
it wrong. Okay. I think that's sort of our default
when we hear somebody struggling, especially with something like what
(10:00):
this listener described, which I know is the experience for
a lot of health care workers right now. The temptation
to be like, find some beauty in there, find some optimism,
find what moves you forward, all of these things, and
and it sort of skips over the fact that there
is an emptiness below being empty. Yeah, and that is
where a lot of people live, right. Yeah. It must
(10:22):
be strange when the suffering makes sense, Like you're you're
it's like a certain kind of wisdom, right and you're
you're in your job and you're like, wow, all this
suffering really makes sense. I know how to live here
like this? Yeah, And I also need to have a
feeling of small agency, the dignity of being able to
make choices and then see them come to fruition. That
(10:45):
like that grace of a little bit of like existential
rest that we all need. It's such a unique existential
weight to that, to that kind of to this very
hope expensive profession is to know. Then if we know
that a certain version of optimism can be poison, we
(11:07):
know that, and we also need to note that like
some things are I don't know, I always think of
it kind of like like graces, Like they're just little
the things that are so good they kind of just
create a little boost in us, like the feeling of
being really like the particularity of us seen and loved,
you know, the like long glass of wine for me,
(11:29):
and like a friend where someone where I get to
the end of a thought and then I get to
have another one, like the luxury of that. Like those
little graces feel to me like they they're they're kind
of things that fuel hope in me. They let me
feel like things could change, and we all need deep
down to feel like, even in the midst of so
much stuckness, that things really can change, even just a
(11:51):
little right, that we have some agency and that this
there's a stopping point or a rest stop, maybe not
a stopping point. I also really like that that application
there of these things, these tiny snippets of hope or
beauty or rest or connection, they aren't cures for this
having a really good t date with an awesome friend
(12:12):
who gets you is not going to fix the situation
for healthcare workers. Right, So we're not talking about applied
hope as a solution. We're talking about companions, Like where
where is there another channel? Otherwise we'd have another formula,
because if it was a formula, we would have one.
There isn't yea well we do have we do have math,
(12:34):
like we have we have the toxic math, right, which says,
I think the right thoughts, focus on the positive, dream
your best life, believe it, to live it, all of
these things, and then things will work out for the best,
like and if they don't work out the way that
you dream for, then something even bigger and better is happening.
Like that is the math that we inherit and that
we swim in to mix some weird metaphors here. But
(12:54):
but that's toxic math, right, That's not real math. I
love this discussion, which is strange for me to say
about a discussion about math, but I love this idea
of the math of human suffering. And so hold that thought. Okay,
we've got to take an ad break. We will be
right back. Stay tuned. Fronts Nearest resolutions will just hand
(13:22):
you one. They'll be like, congratulations. If you were twenty
pounds layer people, you'd never be alone. You don't ever
have to suffer from the like the fear of uh
if you finally spend more quality time with your family,
even though all you've been doing with your family in lockdown.
I mean there's just like a whole uh, there's a
whole cluster of like tiny exhausting formulas that tell you
(13:43):
you know better you is around the corner. And I
totally love that you were like, t is not gonna
not gonna solve like you know, job inequality, like like
a lack of lack of like hours that that affords
dignity and rest. I do love figuring out what what
counts as those the feeling which is just so unique
to us as little creatures, like the things that make
(14:05):
us feel like we are unclenching our fists. And for me,
it is not solo kayaking. I tried solo kayaking last week.
I FaceTime someone in the middle of the lake so
low kayaking. I heard you, I heard you say solar clacking,
and I was like, some new weird thing that you've
picked up. So low kayaking all right, I like solar clacking,
(14:27):
but yeah, it was I was like, I'm going to
be one with nature. I'm gonna go out and a kayak.
Turns out, I don't want to be a little nature.
I want to be with a friend doing something else.
To know. I love where you're sort of where I
hear you going with us, and I want to make
sure we have time for a couple of other questions
and we can let you release back into your wild
with friends here. But I hear you going to how
(14:48):
things make you feel and paying exquisite attention to that
as a way of looking for those small moments to
lay down alongside whatever else is going on in the world. Yeah. Yeah,
it doesn't have to be that. I mean, it's sometimes
just socks and someone else brushing your hair if you're
in a hospital. I love knowing that it's not sort
(15:09):
of you know, wizardry. Sometimes it's small, concrete delights that
did make a day. Yeah. This actually sets us up
really nicely for my little riff on on New Year's resolutions.
I really like this idea. Instead of coming up with
resolutions that are concrete, this is actually a great link
(15:29):
back to what you were just saying so beautifully about hope, right.
I have a really hard time with the word hope
because the way that we use it is like hope
in a specific outcome. I hope that my scans are clean.
I hope that I make it home before rush hour.
Like we're hoping for a specific outcome, and things don't
always work like that. That's a shadow agency that we
do not have. I really like hope in how I
(15:53):
stay by myself hope and how I feel hope in
how I take care of myself in whatever ahead. That's
a kind of hope that feels functional to me instead
of transactional. I like a functional hope rather than a
transactional hope. And if we bring this back to New
Year's resolutions. I talk about this a little bit in
one of my books. Martha Beck talks about it in
(16:15):
her book Finding Your North Star. Daniel Apport has spoken
about this before, but as a new year, end of
New Year, or any kind of transition time. But since
we're talking about resolutions, instead of looking at concrete, will
lose ten pounds, will gain fifth like whatever, instead looking
at like, how do I want to feel in this
coming year? M how do I want to feel as
(16:37):
I live through the things that I need to live through,
and you know, I have some thoughts on that, but
I think that this is such a deeply personal thing
for people, and that practice of asking yourself the question,
knowing what I know, knowing what I cannot change, and
what doesn't honestly feel very hopeful to me looking ahead,
(16:57):
how do I want to feel meeting this life in
this new year. I think that that opens up more
possibility for actual resolutions that means something, and you don't
need to be going through crisis to have you know
to to greet the close of the year in that way.
I just I think it's a really kind and humane
and supportive way to look at resolutions that doesn't tell
(17:18):
you that you're failing somehow and you have to do
things different. It's it's really more of like, can you
get deeper into listening to yourself and start ordering your
days and your moments in the small ways that you
have power control to help yourself feel the way that
you want to feel, which is very different than looking
for our specific outcome that we don't have a lot
(17:38):
of control over. That's right, The hyper instrumentalism of our culture. Yeah. Yeah,
so we are winding up our time together. I want
to let you get back into the math of your life.
But I have two questions for you, and I would
love to hear your responses for these. So what do
you wish your doctors or your providers would have told
(18:00):
you about grief anytime during this whole saga of the
last several years for you. I don't think they ever
used the word grief. I'm at one time of the
p A said the sooner I get used to die
in the better, which honestly was probably one of the
worst things that anyone was ever said to me. But
I don't think anyone ever said, uh, grief or even
(18:21):
that there would be a process that I'd be going through,
because it was I was in that sort of short
scan loop where everything just it was sort of like
living in the eternal present. I think that's something I
learned by getting to know palliative care doctors and understanding
that the word palliative gave us like a bigger language
for learning to work within the limits of our bodies
(18:42):
and our hopes, and so I yeah, I think I
would have loved it if they just said, well, there's
gonna be versions of someone you might not be able
to be anymore. And um, let's figure out what a
what a beautiful version of your life looks like now,
Just anything to mark the transit, and I think would
have been a gift to me. Yeah, just to name it.
(19:03):
Going back to what we had talked about earlier about acknowledgment,
and the opposite of acknowledgment is invisibility. Yes, So being
able to name what is actually happening in the room, well, yes,
and I hope that too. And last question, You are
an educator, you are a teacher, you are a writer,
all of these things. What do you want other educators
(19:25):
to know about grief, either in this moment or in general?
What do you want other educators to know? I'm thankful
that this version I so I teach at Divinity School.
So I mean half the students go on to academic curse,
but the others are the pastors or chaplains that sit
with those who are really suffering. And so in that version,
especially watching what they've done in the pandemic, they really
(19:47):
did teach me about them. The courage of presence, how
scared we are when our words fail, how much we
we wish we could always be that person who says
and saysn't does the right things. But that the the
gift of of of so often like ministry or caring
professions of any kind, is the is that what's truly
in the courage of showing up and being willing to
(20:08):
feel a little embarrassed, of not always knowing and figuring
out together half the stories they tell me are doing
something unbelievably dumb, and then and then the joy of
becoming better. And uh, I think learning to love the
intense awkwardness of other people's bodies is such an education,
but holy crap, we only learn it by when when
we show up. I love that, And that's a beautiful
(20:31):
end note for our time here together. Embracing the awkward, right,
which is exactly what we do here. We only get
that life that we want where we feel seen and
heard and companion. And also I feel like we have
some skill in seeing and hearing comparing other people if
we embrace being awkward. So thanks for being awkward with
me all the time. Friends, Oh my dear, thank you
(20:53):
for having me. It is so fun to be off
script with you. The best stuff happens off script all right, everybody,
Thank you so much. Kate. Let everybody know where they
can find you. Whatever else you want people to know.
Oh sure, I have a podcast called Everything Happens, which
is very medium sad and where we're podcasts around Panda,
(21:16):
and they can find me online at Kate see Bowler
and where I I sometimes bless the crap out of people,
but mostly just news on on on the cultural scripts
of life today. So I'd love to see people there. Yeah,
make sure you follow her on Instagram, everybody. We will
have all of the ways that you can find Kate
and the titles of all of her books in the
show notes. Stay tuned after the break for things you
(21:38):
can do to start practicing this whole showing up for
pain thing we always talk about. Don't miss that part. Friends,
You're right back. Check out Refuge and Grief on Instagram
or here after Pod on TikTok to see video clips
from the show and leave your thoughts in the comments
(21:59):
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(22:20):
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(22:41):
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(23:44):
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Learning how to talk about all that without cliches or
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(24:27):
is written and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer
is Amy Brown, co produced by Elizzbeth Fasio, with logistical
and social media support from Micah, edited by Houston Tilly,
Music provided by Wave Crush, and today's background noises are
provided by Luna barking at a dog walking by and
(24:48):
me fidgeting in my chair because I can't keep still
This is here after, and I'm your host, Megan Divine,
author of the best selling book It's Okay that You're
Not Okay. This week on the show, part two of
my Stellar Conversation with historian, author and deeply human person
Dr Kate Bowler. In this special two part mini series,
we faced the New year together with real, actual hope,
(00:23):
not like everything happens for a reason, false hope, trash.
It's a rerelease of one of your favorite episodes from
season one, complete with a listener Q and a all
of that coming up right after this first break. Before
(00:43):
we get started, one quick note, Well, I hope you
find a lot of useful information in our time together.
This show is not a substitute for skilled support with
a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision related
to your work. All right, everybody, welcome back. Glad you're
here with Kate Bower and I talking about New Year's
(01:03):
even the change of the Gregorian calendar and resolutions is
what we're going to talk about next. So this next
listener question is related to something I want to spend
a good chunk of time on the New year, and
specifically the end of the New year is about setting resolutions,
usually resolutions to become better and better versions of yourself, which, honestly,
(01:24):
when you think about it, is kind of rude, this
idea that you need to take some inventory, figure out
where you're screwing things up, and commit to doing them better.
So I could rent on this for a while, but
I want to read you something from Kate's book No
Cure for Being Human from the introduction, as I think,
Kate talks about this really well here. American culture has
(01:46):
popular theories about how to build a perfect life. You
can have it all if you just learned how to
conquer your limits. There is infinity lurking somewhere at the
bottom of your inbox or in the stack of self
help books on the bedside table. It taunts you as
you grip the steering wheel and traffic attempting your new
breathing practice, or in the pre dawn minutes when you
could be working out. I've seen these guides to endless
(02:08):
progress for sale in airport kiosks. Some are written by
spiritual guides, promising to reveal God's single plan and purpose
for my life. Trust God in the path will reveal itself.
Other books call for wild action their oceans to plumb
and mountains to climb, and planes to exit midair carpet dum,
try the four hour work week to escape the daily grind,
(02:28):
or check out the latest research on eliminating distraction. There
are bucketless galore with glossy photographs of thrills and architectural wonders,
calendars with rituals to eradicate inefficiencies, and writing journals juiced
with visionary wisdom from gurus and titans of industry. There
are formulas for a meaningful life, how to live one
(02:48):
and how to end one. But the truth is, somewhere
inside me, there is no formula. We live, and we
are loved, and we are gone. And you can hear
it in my voice, everybody. That's a rough passage. It's
(03:09):
a beautiful passage, and I think it's really appropriate as
we walk into the changing of the calendar, the changing
of the year, and talking about this relentless annual need
to write down the ways that we're failing. Let's talk
(03:30):
about that nice emotional intro for you handing that right off, well,
and thank you for like loving me, and that that
is just that means that means so much to me
because when we think about what we could do, like
what how we could stretch and flex and try like
(03:51):
we're also just like overwhelmed with with a feeling of
finitude with our limits, with our resources, which are are
feeling that we're always is hoping for something and it's
almost like we can feel the leash kind of pulled
back on us over and over and over again. And
it's like a category in my head I sort of
think about, is we're given a story about unlimited agency,
(04:11):
just everything is going to be bigger, better, best life
now and nearest resolutions are like that in a nutshell
is you're always going to be better, And then you
know we and we know intuitively we don't want the opposite.
We don't want nothing can never be better. Despair. We're
very concerned. Americans are what's very concerned. The immediately slide
to despair, But the feeling in the middle is like
(04:32):
how can we come up with some version of like
limited agency, The feeling like it is okay to be
inside of numbered days, inside of our fragile bodies, that
a friend can read a passage from you and know
that like that hope is really hard if it's found
at all, so I feel such a struggle every time
we get to the new year, because I love the
(04:54):
feeling of trying, like that open lane, feeling like when
in your sales kind of go, go go. And then
I'm also just aware that this has been a season
and a long stretch of a lot of accumulating losses,
and so each little hope feels a little extra tender
right now. And that's a beautiful lead into our next question,
(05:16):
which is really a question about the impossibility of hope. Yeah,
so this question is from a healthcare worker. They just
noted that they were a healthcare worker. They didn't say
what industry or which kind of healthcare worker. Here's our question.
Can you too talk about the weight of yet another
year of COVID ahead of us with no end in sight,
(05:38):
The grief of giving so much as providers, with little
progress towards any resolution of the virus, the loss of
continued moral support or even respect towards healthcare workers from
the general public. How do we realistically face what we
know is coming and still find hope in a new
year ahead? Will next year be better? Will it bring
(05:58):
more grief and end steath? How do I find motivation
to create goals for myself in a new year when
this is what I live. I mean spoken like someone
who knows the cost of trying and then seeing everything
treadmill style slide back right to to a standstill. It's
(06:21):
also such a special quality of the the people that
I've met in healthcare who they have a wonderful bravery
about them where they it's like a bright clarity like
other people can afford to become delusional about what everything costs,
like all the tiny little and it'll be this like
(06:43):
this pace in the er, and it will be this
amount of turnover rooms and it will be this this
holding this person's hand like it. It's just it's one
thing to say let's talk about optimism, and it's a
very different thing to say, let's talk about optimism with
someone who genuinely understands the cost and its hit feels
like they have hit every branch on the way down.
I was in the hospital for something recently and I
(07:04):
would just always pass over then silence, but I am.
I had this wonderful nurse who I just I got
to know overnight, because that's you know, when you live
in the yard for a little bit, you really get
to know your people and uh, and she had just
lost her husband. Um, she's been her thirties and she said, Uh,
I don't know how to describe what it's like for
me to be here, because being here, in a way,
(07:27):
everything makes sense, Like I I like the the logic
of suffering is everywhere, and I feel it, and I
feel myself of service, like it was such a gorgeous,
such a gorgeous, brave, cool, terrible thing to say, And no,
and yet I know she needs to go home and
make dinner and take care of kids and move the
weight of her life forward in in light of what
(07:49):
she knows. And that's what that question reminds me of.
Is like for the person who was born the greatest cost,
how much will a little more hope cost me? Unfortunately,
I think hope is very expensive. And I would only
make one distinction. I would just say it is okay
(08:10):
to let go of the exhausting optimism that our culture
feeds us. It is really okay to let go, like
there's there's no version of crowding onto the happy side
of the spectrum, that is that is anything more than
a burden to someone like that who knows. And yet
we are creatures of hope, and that we need little, beautiful,
glittering truths in our lives that can pull us forward
(08:32):
into a future we can barely look at directly. So
part of it for me is just defining what hope
means to me. Hope is, if it's not blind optimism,
what lovely truths are enough to feel like they can
carry me into a new year. I love that it
brings me back to what we were talking about earlier
(08:53):
with the math of suffering, right, And now you know,
we're doing a lot of emotional cost benefit analysis here, yes, right,
Like what is what is optimism cost me? What is
hope cost me? And I also really like how beautifully
you framed the dissonance between our cultural belief in optimism
(09:15):
and possibility and the right mindset, and how not just
hollow but utterly completely freaking useless that mindset is when
you know the kinds of things that this person, this
listener knows, when you know what you know. Kate about
how little control we have over good things happening or
(09:39):
even bad things happening, but like the amount of control
or the amount of effect that optimism has for us,
And you've mentioned this actually a few minutes ago. We
don't just have that binary of two options. If you're
not being optimistic, you're being pessimistic, and therefore you're doing
it wrong. Okay. I think that's sort of our default
when we hear somebody struggling, especially with something like what
(10:00):
this listener described, which I know is the experience for
a lot of health care workers right now. The temptation
to be like, find some beauty in there, find some optimism,
find what moves you forward, all of these things, and
and it sort of skips over the fact that there
is an emptiness below being empty. Yeah, and that is
where a lot of people live, right. Yeah. It must
(10:22):
be strange when the suffering makes sense, Like you're you're
it's like a certain kind of wisdom, right and you're
you're in your job and you're like, wow, all this
suffering really makes sense. I know how to live here
like this? Yeah, And I also need to have a
feeling of small agency, the dignity of being able to
make choices and then see them come to fruition. That
(10:45):
like that grace of a little bit of like existential
rest that we all need. It's such a unique existential
weight to that, to that kind of to this very
hope expensive profession is to know. Then if we know
that a certain version of optimism can be poison, we
(11:07):
know that, and we also need to note that like
some things are I don't know, I always think of
it kind of like like graces, Like they're just little
the things that are so good they kind of just
create a little boost in us, like the feeling of
being really like the particularity of us seen and loved,
you know, the like long glass of wine for me,
(11:29):
and like a friend where someone where I get to
the end of a thought and then I get to
have another one, like the luxury of that. Like those
little graces feel to me like they they're they're kind
of things that fuel hope in me. They let me
feel like things could change, and we all need deep
down to feel like, even in the midst of so
much stuckness, that things really can change, even just a
(11:51):
little right, that we have some agency and that this
there's a stopping point or a rest stop, maybe not
a stopping point. I also really like that that application
there of these things, these tiny snippets of hope or
beauty or rest or connection, they aren't cures for this
having a really good t date with an awesome friend
(12:12):
who gets you is not going to fix the situation
for healthcare workers. Right, So we're not talking about applied
hope as a solution. We're talking about companions, Like where
where is there another channel? Otherwise we'd have another formula,
because if it was a formula, we would have one.
There isn't yea well we do have we do have math,
(12:34):
like we have we have the toxic math, right, which says,
I think the right thoughts, focus on the positive, dream
your best life, believe it, to live it, all of
these things, and then things will work out for the best,
like and if they don't work out the way that
you dream for, then something even bigger and better is happening.
Like that is the math that we inherit and that
we swim in to mix some weird metaphors here. But
(12:54):
but that's toxic math, right, That's not real math. I
love this discussion, which is strange for me to say
about a discussion about math, but I love this idea
of the math of human suffering. And so hold that thought. Okay,
we've got to take an ad break. We will be
right back. Stay tuned. Fronts Nearest resolutions will just hand
(13:22):
you one. They'll be like, congratulations. If you were twenty
pounds layer people, you'd never be alone. You don't ever
have to suffer from the like the fear of uh
if you finally spend more quality time with your family,
even though all you've been doing with your family in lockdown.
I mean there's just like a whole uh, there's a
whole cluster of like tiny exhausting formulas that tell you
(13:43):
you know better you is around the corner. And I
totally love that you were like, t is not gonna
not gonna solve like you know, job inequality, like like
a lack of lack of like hours that that affords
dignity and rest. I do love figuring out what what
counts as those the feeling which is just so unique
to us as little creatures, like the things that make
(14:05):
us feel like we are unclenching our fists. And for me,
it is not solo kayaking. I tried solo kayaking last week.
I FaceTime someone in the middle of the lake so
low kayaking. I heard you, I heard you say solar clacking,
and I was like, some new weird thing that you've
picked up. So low kayaking all right, I like solar clacking,
(14:27):
but yeah, it was I was like, I'm going to
be one with nature. I'm gonna go out and a kayak.
Turns out, I don't want to be a little nature.
I want to be with a friend doing something else.
To know. I love where you're sort of where I
hear you going with us, and I want to make
sure we have time for a couple of other questions
and we can let you release back into your wild
with friends here. But I hear you going to how
(14:48):
things make you feel and paying exquisite attention to that
as a way of looking for those small moments to
lay down alongside whatever else is going on in the world. Yeah. Yeah,
it doesn't have to be that. I mean, it's sometimes
just socks and someone else brushing your hair if you're
in a hospital. I love knowing that it's not sort
(15:09):
of you know, wizardry. Sometimes it's small, concrete delights that
did make a day. Yeah. This actually sets us up
really nicely for my little riff on on New Year's resolutions.
I really like this idea. Instead of coming up with
resolutions that are concrete, this is actually a great link
(15:29):
back to what you were just saying so beautifully about hope, right.
I have a really hard time with the word hope
because the way that we use it is like hope
in a specific outcome. I hope that my scans are clean.
I hope that I make it home before rush hour.
Like we're hoping for a specific outcome, and things don't
always work like that. That's a shadow agency that we
do not have. I really like hope in how I
(15:53):
stay by myself hope and how I feel hope in
how I take care of myself in whatever ahead. That's
a kind of hope that feels functional to me instead
of transactional. I like a functional hope rather than a
transactional hope. And if we bring this back to New
Year's resolutions. I talk about this a little bit in
one of my books. Martha Beck talks about it in
(16:15):
her book Finding Your North Star. Daniel Apport has spoken
about this before, but as a new year, end of
New Year, or any kind of transition time. But since
we're talking about resolutions, instead of looking at concrete, will
lose ten pounds, will gain fifth like whatever, instead looking
at like, how do I want to feel in this
coming year? M how do I want to feel as
(16:37):
I live through the things that I need to live through,
and you know, I have some thoughts on that, but
I think that this is such a deeply personal thing
for people, and that practice of asking yourself the question,
knowing what I know, knowing what I cannot change, and
what doesn't honestly feel very hopeful to me looking ahead,
(16:57):
how do I want to feel meeting this life in
this new year. I think that that opens up more
possibility for actual resolutions that means something, and you don't
need to be going through crisis to have you know
to to greet the close of the year in that way.
I just I think it's a really kind and humane
and supportive way to look at resolutions that doesn't tell
(17:18):
you that you're failing somehow and you have to do
things different. It's it's really more of like, can you
get deeper into listening to yourself and start ordering your
days and your moments in the small ways that you
have power control to help yourself feel the way that
you want to feel, which is very different than looking
for our specific outcome that we don't have a lot
(17:38):
of control over. That's right, The hyper instrumentalism of our culture. Yeah. Yeah,
so we are winding up our time together. I want
to let you get back into the math of your life.
But I have two questions for you, and I would
love to hear your responses for these. So what do
you wish your doctors or your providers would have told
(18:00):
you about grief anytime during this whole saga of the
last several years for you. I don't think they ever
used the word grief. I'm at one time of the
p A said the sooner I get used to die
in the better, which honestly was probably one of the
worst things that anyone was ever said to me. But
I don't think anyone ever said, uh, grief or even
(18:21):
that there would be a process that I'd be going through,
because it was I was in that sort of short
scan loop where everything just it was sort of like
living in the eternal present. I think that's something I
learned by getting to know palliative care doctors and understanding
that the word palliative gave us like a bigger language
for learning to work within the limits of our bodies
(18:42):
and our hopes, and so I yeah, I think I
would have loved it if they just said, well, there's
gonna be versions of someone you might not be able
to be anymore. And um, let's figure out what a
what a beautiful version of your life looks like now,
Just anything to mark the transit, and I think would
have been a gift to me. Yeah, just to name it.
(19:03):
Going back to what we had talked about earlier about acknowledgment,
and the opposite of acknowledgment is invisibility. Yes, So being
able to name what is actually happening in the room, well, yes,
and I hope that too. And last question, You are
an educator, you are a teacher, you are a writer,
all of these things. What do you want other educators
(19:25):
to know about grief, either in this moment or in general?
What do you want other educators to know? I'm thankful
that this version I so I teach at Divinity School.
So I mean half the students go on to academic curse,
but the others are the pastors or chaplains that sit
with those who are really suffering. And so in that version,
especially watching what they've done in the pandemic, they really
(19:47):
did teach me about them. The courage of presence, how
scared we are when our words fail, how much we
we wish we could always be that person who says
and saysn't does the right things. But that the the
gift of of of so often like ministry or caring
professions of any kind, is the is that what's truly
in the courage of showing up and being willing to
(20:08):
feel a little embarrassed, of not always knowing and figuring
out together half the stories they tell me are doing
something unbelievably dumb, and then and then the joy of
becoming better. And uh, I think learning to love the
intense awkwardness of other people's bodies is such an education,
but holy crap, we only learn it by when when
we show up. I love that, And that's a beautiful
(20:31):
end note for our time here together. Embracing the awkward, right,
which is exactly what we do here. We only get
that life that we want where we feel seen and
heard and companion. And also I feel like we have
some skill in seeing and hearing comparing other people if
we embrace being awkward. So thanks for being awkward with
me all the time. Friends, Oh my dear, thank you
(20:53):
for having me. It is so fun to be off
script with you. The best stuff happens off script all right, everybody,
Thank you so much. Kate. Let everybody know where they
can find you. Whatever else you want people to know.
Oh sure, I have a podcast called Everything Happens, which
is very medium sad and where we're podcasts around Panda,
(21:16):
and they can find me online at Kate see Bowler
and where I I sometimes bless the crap out of people,
but mostly just news on on on the cultural scripts
of life today. So I'd love to see people there. Yeah,
make sure you follow her on Instagram, everybody. We will
have all of the ways that you can find Kate
and the titles of all of her books in the
show notes. Stay tuned after the break for things you
(21:38):
can do to start practicing this whole showing up for
pain thing we always talk about. Don't miss that part. Friends,
You're right back. Check out Refuge and Grief on Instagram
or here after Pod on TikTok to see video clips
from the show and leave your thoughts in the comments
(21:59):
on these posts. That's a great way to get in touch,
and be sure to tag us in your conversation. Starting
posts on your own social accounts, use the hashtag here
after Pod on all the platforms. We love to see
where this show takes you using that hashtag, let's just
find what you're talking about, m H. If you want
to tell us how today's show felt for you, or
(22:20):
you have a request or a question for upcoming explorations
of difficult things, give us a call at three to
three six four three three seven six eight and leave
a voicemail. If you missed it, you can find the
number in the show notes or visit Megan Divine dot
c O. If you'd rather send an email, you can
do that too, right from the website. Megan divind dot
(22:41):
c O. We want to hear from you. I want
to hear from you this show, this world needs your voice. Together,
we can make things better even when they can't be
made right. You know how most people are going to
scan through their podcast app looking for a new thing
(23:03):
to listen to. They're going to see the show description
for hereafter and think, I don't want to listen to
difficult things even if cool people are talking about them. Well,
here's where you come in your reviews. Let people know
it really isn't all that bad. In here. We talk
about heavy stuff, yes, but it's in the service of
making things better for everyone. So everyone needs to listen.
(23:23):
In order to get everyone to listen, everybody needs to
know about the show, So share about the show in
your social networks and leave a review right there for
the show, Subscribe to the show, download episodes, and keep
on listening. Want more Hereafter. Grief education doesn't just belong
(23:44):
to end of life issues. As my dad says, daily
life is full of everyday grief that we don't call grief.
Learning how to talk about all that without cliches or
platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements is an important skill for everyone,
especially if you're in any of the helping professions. There's
an awesome six month intensive training starting in December two
(24:07):
and registration is open right now. If you are in
the helping professions and you want to get better at
serving your grieving clients, no matter what caused that grief.
Learn more about that training, plus find professional resources and
my best selling book, It's Okay that You're Not Okay
at Megan Divine dot c O. Hereafter with Mega Divine
(24:27):
is written and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer
is Amy Brown, co produced by Elizzbeth Fasio, with logistical
and social media support from Micah, edited by Houston Tilly,
Music provided by Wave Crush, and today's background noises are
provided by Luna barking at a dog walking by and
(24:48):
me fidgeting in my chair because I can't keep still
Host
Megan Devine
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