Living the Questions (Without Fixing Yourself) with Suleika Jaouad
From Everything Happens with Kate Bowler by Everything Happens Studios
March 24, 2026 · 38 min · Season 16 · Episode 7
About this episode
Kate Bowler and Suleika Jaouad discuss living with unresolved questions and the pressures of self-improvement amidst chronic illness and uncertainty.
There’s a particular kind of pressure that creeps in when we start measuring our lives—where we thought we’d be by now, who we imagined we’d become, how things were supposed to feel. The instinct is to fix it. Optimize it. Get moving. But what if the invitation is something else? Kate Bowler sits down with writer and speaker Suleika Jaouad (Between Two Kingdoms, The Book of Alchemy) for a conversation about living inside unresolved questions—especially the ones that ache. Together, they talk about ambition and exhaustion, chronic illness and uncertainty, and the quiet shifts that happen when nothing seems to change. They explore the tension between momentum and meaning, the limits of self-improvement, and what it looks like to keep going without pretending everything is fixable. SHOW NOTES Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals (Substack) Between Two Kingdoms — Suleika Jaouad The Book of Alchemy — Suleika Jaouad Tour dates & tickets: katebowler.com/joyfulanyway Watch the live conversation on YouTube Join Kate Bowler on Substack for the season of Lent: katebowler.substack.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
People in this episode
Host: Kate Bowler
Guest: Suleika Jaouad
Topics covered
- chronic illness
- uncertainty
- self-improvement
- ambition
- exhaustion
Keywords
- pressure
- meaning
- momentum
- fixing
- life measurement
Mentioned in this episode
Products: Between Two Kingdoms, The Book of Alchemy
Books & works: Living the Questions (Without Fixing Yourself, Between Two Kingdoms, The Book of Alchemy, Substack
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