Episode
Shannan Martin on Counterweights: Holding Grief and Joy in the Same Hands
- Published
- Mar 25, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3353
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://jenhatmaker.com/podcast/
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Summary
Description:What do we do when the world feels like too much? When the headlines won’t let up, when grief and uncertainty sit heavy in our bodies, when we’re carrying more than we ever thought we could—how do we keep going without numbing out or falling apart? This week, Jen sits down with beloved writer and friend Shannan Martin to talk about her new book Counterweights, a tender, practical guide for living with hope in a heavy world. At the center of Shannan’s work is a deceptively simple idea: when life gets heavy, we don’t eliminate the weight—we learn to carry something equally weighty in the other hand. Not balance. Not denial. But both/and. Together, Jen and Shannan explore what it means to hold grief and joy at the same time, to resist despair without turning away from reality, and to find steady ground in the middle of it all. They talk about community as survival, faith that evolves and expands, and the small, ordinary moments that become lifelines when everything feels overwhelming. This conversation is a fitting close to our Wilderness & Wonder exploration—because if the wilderness strips us down to what’s real, Shannan helps us ask: what will hold us up now? If you’ve been feeling stretched thin, worn down, or just plain tired of carrying it all alone, this episode is for you. Thought-provoking Quotes: “Now, what are the things that are keeping me going? For me, it’s clawing for those little tiny moments where we can. I need to see myself take care of myself.” – Shannan Martin “We have to carry a lot of really heavy things in one hand. We don't choose these things. We would never have asked for them. And we can't just put them down. We don't have control over them. We can't just set them aside. So how do we carry these heavy things? We fill the other hand…