Episode 3: I Will Not Miss This: Fear, Meaning, and the Burning Desire to Be Here

Katherine Froggatt (00:01.464)

Have you ever been so frightened that your brain stopped making sense of anything except the one thing? Well, that is where I was. In the middle of that worst fear I have ever felt in my life. My body had just been given a diagnosis I was not prepared for, and everything around me felt like the statistics, the staging, the treatment plans, what would

To me, my hair and my body, and my entire sense of self. All blurred completely. And the one thing that came through clearly was this. My children were three and six, and I was not done. I was not done with life. That clarity, that absolute refusal to be done.

I believed it changed the course of my recovery. And today I want to talk to you about why. Not in a spiritual, you know, bypassing sort of way or woo woo way. Not in a toxic positivity way either. I mean, we're not here to try and disregard all of the emotions that we feel. But in a very real, very physical, physiological way, very human way, to be honest. Because what I found in that moment

was not just hope, it was meaning. And what happens to your body when you find it is something that the medical system will never prescribe. But the research is clear.

Katherine Froggatt (01:52.813)

So by the end of this episode, I am going to hand you a technique.

I am not going to give you a prescription or a tool or a technique. I'm going to invite you to ponder over a question. And that one question that has the potential to shift something real about you, who you are, and how you're going to move through this. The question is, what is this asking of me?

Not why this is happening to me, although I know that it's hard for us not to want to ask that question. Like, why me? Why am I the unlucky one? But instead, let's ask, what is this situation asking of me? Now, this shift from someone things are happening to, which was me, to someone being called towards something.

It's not just a mindset reframe. It's it's a little bit more than that. So hear me out. There is research behind it, and I'm going to walk you through what that actually looks like in practice.

Now, when I was diagnosed, I was absolutely terrified. It came out of nowhere. I was absolutely certain that when I found what was feeling like a cyst, because I went to the locum doctor and she told me with such great faith that it was a cyst. But I was still terrified. And of course I was. I have two young children. The diagnosis came out of nowhere. it kind of hit me like a blind bat that I

Katherine Froggatt (03:41.141)

Like a ball that came flying to me, and I completely was caught off guard. I was shocked, and I felt like my body had suddenly become something unfamiliar. Like how I thought I'm normal. I thought I had control of everything. And so I remember the fear being so big that and so physical. I I really felt so much.

heart palpitations and I felt like the elephant was sitting on my chest, that difficulty in breathing, I could hardly think. and a lot of these moments have actually kept me awake many, many nights. But somewhere in that terror, something else came through. And I would have to admit to you guys that it didn't come straight away, it had to take some time, and so

Something along there that was not exactly hope either, but something more primal than that. It was it was almost like a commitment and a decision that I made. An absolute unshakable decision. I knew that I wasn't done. I had so much more living to do. I have children to bring up. I have things that I still are not done and I have not c finished or nor completed.

I mean my kids are three and six at the time and I knew they still needed me. Their mother. I needed to be around, to love them, to nurture them, to hug them, to to see that they are going to be at some point independent before I'm, you know, quite done. They are my dependents. So I wasn't going anywhere. I made a promise to myself that I wasn't going anywhere. And so that became my anchor.

That became what I believed as my truth moving forward. It was something that I knew that had to be my guiding light, not something that I'm hoping for or wishing for. I'm not. It was a commitment that I will do everything in my power to invest in my survival. It was something beyond just a decision. I wanted I want to talk to you about why this matters because.

Katherine Froggatt (06:08.948)

It is not just a story, it's actually physiology.

Katherine Froggatt (06:30.793)

The signs of meaning. Viktor Frankel, who was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived four Nazi concentration camps, he lost almost everyone. He had nothing and was out of and out of that experience, he wrote one of the most important books of the 20th century, Man's Search for Meaning, in which he observed that.

the people that most likely are most likely to survive the real difficult traumas or chaos in life were not always the physically strongest. In fact, they were the ones who had a reason to survive. They had a meaning and a why that was larger than the suffering itself. So this is might sound a little bit contextual or might sound a little bit too deep, but but just just

Just hang out with me here for a bit, right? I mean, it it's a deep-seated meaning, a massive purpose for us to actually want to go through life's suffering. And at that time, 10 years ago, my suffering is absolutely the cancer diagnosis, which was big. It was massive. It was, it was the biggest thing that I've ever had to navigate. So now I just want to be really

Honest here, because I'm not comparing a cancer diagnosis to a concentration camp that Victor Frankel talked about in his book. But what I'm drawing on is the decision and and also the decades of research that followed Frankel's work into what is now called post-traumatic growth and the relationship between meaning, purpose, and the physiology of recovery.

So there is a real like if if any one of you are like me, I definitely love evidence based facts and I want to be able to back whatever that I'm going to implement with a lot of data. And so this is it. This is the data I'm sharing with you. And so the research is really clear that when you are living in chronic fear, your nervous system is in a state of sustained activation. You live in fight and flight. And if you are anything like me before,

Katherine Froggatt (08:55.282)

Where I was chronically stressed and really burnt out, my body did not know any other state. So for me, my body knew that as normal. So I was what we call highly activated, highly functioning. And you know, life can still go on for you the way it is, in that highly fight, fly-free state. And I I went on in this state for years. Now, when we are living in that chronic fear over a long period of time, our

Nervous system just stays in high cortisol levels. inflammation happens over the long term and our immune function is compromised. So the body is in survival mode, it never knows what healing mode looks like. So when when we have a clear sense of purpose, something measurably different happens. Studies on

Purpose and longevity, which again, you know, is a topic that we all have heard several people talk about now. It's very trendy, but it's also based on research that's published in journals like Gemma Network, Open and Psychol Psychological S Science and Psychological Science show that people who report a strong sense of meaning have lower rates of all cause mortality, right?

They recover differently from whatever that they're facing in their health, be it physical or mental, their immune systems actually function differently. So their nervous system then slowly regulates and become a little bit more optimal towards the middle, where you are neither in sustained long-term fight flight, which is sympathetic state. We are a little bit more dominant towards rest and digest, which is the parasympathetic nervous state.

So this is the dance which is missing in a lot of us, especially when we have lived in fight and flight for so long. And come a traumatic breast cancer diagnosis, it becomes like this the whole boat is sinking, right? So this is not I'm not preaching about positive thinking, or I'm not telling you that we need to write a hundred affirmations or try and disbelieve whatever that's happening in my body at this point in time.

Katherine Froggatt (11:15.763)

But instead, we're really trying to sink into acknowledging, right? We are being honest about what's going on. And it's about giving our nervous system the opportunity and the biological signal that it is there is a future. There is a future worth moving forward. That it signals the changes in the state of our being in a cellular level, right? Now, this reframe of I am not done yet with.

I want to be around for my children. It's my one guiding light. Okay. It was my strongest reason for living. It was my biggest, most unshakable, burning desire for me to live through and do everything I can in order for me to survive this. And so at some point during my treatments, and I made a shift. I actually made a commitment to myself. I I cannot tell you exactly.

When it happened, but I stopped asking myself, why is this happening to me? Don't get me wrong, guys. I have. I have gone through a why me? I blamed myself so much. So many nights. I have sat quietly while my husband sleeps next to me and I was sobbing in bed. I just thought to myself, why is life punishing me?

Why am I going through this? Why me? What have I done wrong? Am I not perfect enough? What did I not do enough? Am I still not good enough? Because now cancer has hit me. So I stopped asking and stopped blaming myself. And I want to be honest here. I know so many of us may not sit in the notion or the thought that cancer is ever a gift.

We are supposed to go through the periods of anger, the periods of possibly denial, and then the period of fear and disappointment and disillusionment. These are normal emotions that happen, not all of us. We may feel it in different stages of our grief and the the processing of this massive trauma of how it makes you feel with this diagnosis and also all of the treatments.

Katherine Froggatt (13:40.912)

And the surgery and how it's going to potentially impact the quality of life. All of that said, no one will be jumping at their first opportunity that this is a gift. I have to say that I am grateful that this happened in order for me to realign and reassess what I want to live for.

And I'm not asking you to silverline your way through something genuinely this terrible and this hard. And it's frightening. And it does feel that it's unfair. What I'm saying to you is that this question of why this is happening and what am I to learn from this, this question opened a door that fear had closed.

It got me thinking about my life. What I actually wanted to live for, and how I want to live moving forward. And I've got I gotta be brutally honest with you all. I was probably living my life on a dangerous autopilot. I was living through life.

Not connecting with myself, not connecting with my loved ones, and consistently on the hamster wheel on autopilot. It probably also lacked quite a lot, a lot of meaning in my life. I wasn't really deeply happy in the way I felt about myself, about the environment, about the things around me. And so I knew that I needed to add.

some level of meaning and my children gave me the meaning. Both my kids who are now 13 and 16, they have given me the opportunity to realign my life, to become more present, to be the mom that I really truly wanted to be, where I needed to be able to hug them.

Katherine Froggatt (16:05.041)

The simplest things of laughing with them or sitting around with them for dinner. Don't get me wrong, presence does not happen overnight. We need to work on this muscle. Asking ourselves the poignant questions here is going to give you the opportunity to then pause and reflect. There isn't a right or a wrong answer, but for me, I looked at cancer as well.

With my diagnosis as a call, as an opportunity for me to live differently, a call for me to be more honest, to be more intentional, to lead from my heart rather than always from my head, to be more self compassionate, and to allow things that used to bug me so much more to be able to let it go and have a little bit more.

Compassion for myself and patience as I go through the changes. Because change is hard, everyone. Change is hard, my friend. It is difficult. It is difficult for us to make the changes when we've been this way for I don't know what would be 39 years of my life when I was diagnosed and now 49. This commitment to the things that actually I

And this commitment to the things that actually lift me up allowed me to navigate the difficulties that I faced throughout my surgery, recovering from surgery, going through chemotherapy and radiation, and hormonotherapy as well, putting me in forced menopause. It was hard, my friend, but with this unshakable commitment that I have.

To do everything I can to power through the really horrible shitty times. Every time I look at my kids, I know my why. And I think it was through this cancer diagnosis that I really solidified and embodied this why in every cell of my body. I knew that my children are important to me, but it was not.

Katherine Froggatt (18:31.981)

An embodiment that I felt within my heart. That shift is micro, but it has the most profound impact in my life. So this is not a small thing I'm asking of you guys today, but this changed how I made decisions.

In my recovery, in my business, in my relationship, and how I show up for myself every single day, and the work that I'm committed to doing to helping other women prevent this state that they're in to learn to navigate through whatever emotions that come up. And how we can choose an anchor. And what might be your anchor? So this isn't about

a spiritual revelation and I'm not wanting to sound woo woo and I hope that I haven't sounded woo woo in a way that is so hard for you to comprehend. But I'm I'm I'm asking for you to feel at peace with something that is not at all peaceful, which is terrifying, which is horrible, which is hard to define in in words for some of you. But I'm asking you to try one thing. To sit somewhere quiet today

After this episode, and to put one hand on your heart and ask yourself honestly, what do I want to be alive for?

Katherine Froggatt (20:02.486)

Not what you think you should say or you know, what other people want of you, no. It's what matters to you.

What you have not done yet that you know there is still more living for you. And what do you want to see to fruition? It could be anything, right? Who do you want to become?

Write it down. I invite you to just write it down because these revelations, these moments where you gift yourself the opportunity to just sit and just be and put your hand on your heart because you know you are the wise one. You have a sage in yourself. You do. We all do. We are wise women.

Katherine Froggatt (20:51.844)

However small the list, the list will be your anchor. It's not about perfection, my friends. It is about getting started. The action

Will get you started. It does not need to be a perfect outcome. And if you sit and you find that you haven't got the words, try again tomorrow. When the fear comes, and it will, my friends, you do not need to, you know, use that list to distract yourself. It's not the intention. Fear will come, but use it to remind yourself: this is the way I want to move forward.

And if you can sit in the energy of that burning desire and unshakable commitment of one thing that will be your anchor, and that will be the thing that you will pull up every single time the going gets tough. And sit in the energy of I will be in that legacy, I will become that person, no doubt. And feel into it. Because the feeling and the emotions is gonna start to dumb down the fear.

Fear will slowly become a little bit softer, and your commitment to self and meaning and purpose will become louder. So, this will be the difference between surviving and deciding to live. It's a slight difference, but makes a profound impact. And so I will tell you something I genuinely believe: that the women who recover well are not always the ones who did everything right medically. They are often the ones who found their anchor.

Who gave their nervous system something to move towards, not just something to avoid or run away from or move away from. Your anchor does not have to be your children. It just happens to be mine. And it does not have to be anything dramatic or noble. It just has to be true to you and your heart.

Katherine Froggatt (23:07.424)

If today touched something in you, I want to hear about it. Drop a comment, send me a message, or share this episode with a woman who is in the middle of her own diagnosis and needs to know that the fear does not have to drive. The free resilient remission assessment is linked in my bio. It will show you exactly where you are in your recovery right now and where the real work is for you specifically. Start there.

Katherine Froggatt (23:39.683)

Thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to stay.This is Breastwise Unafraid.