Katherine was told that meditation and sitting still were the only way to calm a busy mind. For years, it never worked for her and she quietly believed something was wrong with her because of it. Then, during chemotherapy, she found something that finally settled her nervous system, and it wasn't stillness at all.

Katherine Froggatt (00:02.584)

I used to think that nervous system regulation or mindfulness practice meant sitting down, being really still with no thoughts. Meditation, stillness, the quiet, that was supposed to be the way, though I have tried and I really did my best. However, sometimes I struggle.

And here is the thing. Try telling high achievers, high functioning, you know, perfectionist recovering from the burnout, people like me, who really need to sit and wait for things to happen. And to feel like sitting still and allowing time to just pass. Stillness just didn't work for me. I felt it was really difficult.

To calm me down, and it just gave my mind more thoughts the more I try to tell myself, thinking is not good, I'm supposed to stop thinking. So what actually really settled my nervous system back in the day when I was looking through what meditation is like, what mindfulness practice is all about? Well, I chose knitting, looking at a ball of wool and two needles. So today I

I want to talk to you about why an active relaxer like me what sort of practice actually suited me and there might be some of you out there that would relate with what I'm saying today and what I'm about to share with you in this episode. When stillness didn't work and why it matters if you've ever felt like a failure in meditation or any mindfulness practice at all.

Katherine Froggatt (02:01.557)

So by the end of this episode, I want three things to learn for you. One, permission. If stillness has never worked for you and that's not a personal failure, trust me, I've been there. It might just mean that you need a different kind of nervous system regulation or mindfulness practice. Two, understanding understanding why an active relax or active

Tactile practice can actually help settle a really busy, dysregulated nervous system in a way that quiet stillness sometimes cannot achieve. And number three, a chance to start, a starting point. Not knitting specifically, but something you already enjoy that you've probably been dismissing, or it might already be an old hobby that.

you used to love and this might be an opportunity for you to get started again. And it might just mean that maybe, you know, there is an opportunity where you could get started with doing something real for yourself for once that can actually indirectly help your nervous system to regulate.

Katherine Froggatt (03:18.109)

So I want to be share a vulnerable moment with you here. I want to be honest about something because I am a high achiever and I've been nicknamed a chronic perfectionist in my twenties and thirties. I like to be known now, and I call myself proudly as a recovering perfectionist. Which meant that sitting and doing nothing to show for over time.

Never really felt like rest to me. It felt like I'm wasting time. And there is actually, you know, a mindset shift that had to happen in order for me to unlearn that to be true for me. So if you know, or at some point in your life, you've been told by someone who meditates a lot to ask you to sit with thinking nothing, to produce nothing, to simply just be?

And for years it was a huge struggle. And I started to doubt myself, thinking, my gosh, I can't do this. Why am I such a failure? Why is it that everybody can sit for like you know 30 minutes, 45 minutes, or even an hour? Why can't I do this? For years this this mental turmoil within myself actually made me just quietly become more and more

How shall I say, more and more scared and terrified about doing something that wants me to stop thinking. So I just want to name this for you because there is nothing to be ashamed about if this is a struggle, if that sitting still is a struggle, if sitting still and not thinking is a struggle. and and I want to just dispense the shame around it because I know I'm not the only one. So many people that I've talked to.

including my own husband, has all always struggled with with not being able to sit still and think of nothing. Because our mindset and what we've been told about mindfulness practices or meditations is actually a myth. So if you're anything like me and you're adventurous about doing everything and you want to try everything, which I think is a great you know

Katherine Froggatt (05:45.264)

Great strategy is a great aspect or characteristic of you to always be open to trying new things. But then sometimes when it becomes too hard, we tend to just walk away and give up. Now I know if you have been nodding with me that you have tried meditation and walked away thinking you're bad at it, or that something is wrong with you innately because why can't my mind just switch off?

I want you to hear it from me. It is not you. It is what we've been told about sitting still and about meditation. So here's what I want to tell you. Meditation is not about trying to tune out our thoughts and tell our brain to stop thinking. We are always going to have thoughts. Our brain is meant to do that. But the practice itself is about sitting still and

Noticing the thoughts and your your mind going somewhere else, and then coming back into the moment and to your breath. That is the actual practice. And the more we do that, it's like a muscle that we're building over time, it will become easier. But while I'm trying to do that, I've had to have something else. Because from starting to sit down and pausing,

From always never stopping, never giving myself the permission to stop, to suddenly meditating is a huge ask right? So why why did I use my hands? Why did I choose a ball of wool? Well, years ago, what actually drew me into knitting was because about 30 years ago

I was dating this guy in Singapore and I decided the most romantic thing for me to do was to knit him a jumper. And I did. I went for late night classes after work and I decided to learn how to knit. And obviously we broke up and I finished the front and the back of the jumper, but I never did the sleeves so I just gave up on that because

Katherine Froggatt (08:03.479)

Back then it was too painful for me to actually go back into knitting after a break a breakup, so I never quite returned to it. But then suddenly, after my cancer diagnosis, I started looking for something to keep me occupied, to keep my hands occupied, especially when I'm on the chemo chair. So a few people have suggested that maybe I could do colouring in and those adult colouring books. I tried that.

But then something within me just jotted this memory of back in the day when I was knitting, I actually felt quite a sense of calm. And I was quite proud because that sense of achievement, being high functioning and high achieving, I needed to see something coming to fruition. And so what it was is really watching my knitting take shape row by row, having some sort of a result at the end of it, making things for my family and seeing these things get finished.

into someone else's hands and the fact that both my kids and my husband were wearing a variety of different things I've created. And that's the piece of the meditation that it never gave me, right? This active achievement, which is something that I'm having this micro moment to focus on row by row, you know, knit purl knit purl having the result at the end.

Meditation didn't give me that satisfaction. and there's nothing wrong with meditation, but I just felt like I needed to ease my body from not being able to sit still to start to sitting still and creating something that is gonna make me feel really proud. And so for a long, long time I thought, okay, maybe meditation is not working and maybe I can create something else instead. So I just quietly worked through row row.

Piece by piece and started creating things that I realized I'm really, really proud of what I've done. And I didn't need anyone's validation. And I realized that it gave me this sense of proof that I can do something else whilst I'm going through treatment, whilst I'm not working, because I was on medical leave. And just the stitching of it all just brought on so much calm within my body.

Katherine Froggatt (10:27.112)

And it literally gave me this sense of joy. So I just wanted to share for you for those of you who are watching on YouTube. That's a beanie that I knitted on cable stitch. That's another beanie I've knitted with a little pom-pom and that I still wear today on my hikes. Another beanie that I knitted for my husband. That's a s a slouchy version. And I've knitted so many scarves, and that's one of my proudest scarves that I've actually

knit it and this is another really big stitch scarf that I decided to knit and it was such an easy project. But throughout my entire cancer active treatments I've basically done all of the different things that whatever whenever I'm walking past a wool store I'll always be looking for like new colored wool different different thickness and at the moment

my project is to finish knitting my cowl in this beautiful purple, which I can't wait to finish so that you know my daughter can have something new to wear. So this was kind of a a new trajectory for me because if I don't try, I never know. And I guess it was something that within my body was called to me doing something different. And

This is the part of the story that actually really surprised me. Being a beginner meant that I also had to ask for help. And within the chemo ward at the hospital, whenever I'm receiving my infusions, I realized that the nurses were also genuinely interested in what I was working on. And we had conversations about knitting. And these conversations started over stitches, patterns, knit row.

And whenever I did screw up on one of my rows I would always raise my hand and go, my gosh, I need you to help me. And more often than not, so many of those nurses are already knitters. So I've had so much support and I started looking forward to my chemotherapy sessions. Sounds really terrible, right? I mean, who looks forward to chemo?

Katherine Froggatt (12:49.228)

I didn't. I knew that subconsciously it was a very daunting thing for me to do because after every session I'm either really nauseous, really fatigued, or really in pain. and it just gave me that new sense of excitement that, hey, you know, I know I'm going to have to have my chemotherapy session today, but I know that I can be working on completion of, say, a particular scarf that I'm working on, or maybe a stitch that I wasn't so

So confident in that I could get a nurse to try and show me. So a couple of nurses that I know, and off the top of my mind, Elizabeth, she's been amazing. And she still works in the hospital today within the chemo ward, helping so many other patients with their chemotherapy infusions. But I remember feeling that sense of calm and ease every single time that I had my infusion sessions. and it was that deep sense of connection.

I can't emphasize this enough that when we're going through active cancer treatments, it is so important for us to connect with people that make me laugh, make me giggle, bring some joy, bring some lightness into my life because there is just so much worry, so much anxiety, and so much of the doom and gloom and their uncertainty towards the future. And for those few minutes that I'm actually talking to the chemo ward nurses, I wasn't just a patient on the chair.

I was actually a person learning something, talking to another person about wool. And that just brings me so much more normality when my whole world is upside down. And that I can actually feel like a person, like a human, and I can also feel like I can achieve something outside of being a patient that has low energy, can't sleep, all of the works of normality which I had lost.

So it became one of my really unexpected gifts. And I I just want to take a moment to frame this really carefully because I'm not here to tell you that knitting cures anything. Of course it doesn't cure cancer. It doesn't, but there is something really magical about the repetitive, rhythmic hand movement recognized as something.

Katherine Froggatt (15:10.478)

That allows us to still be hyper focused on the one thing. But this thing that I'm creating with two needles and just doing the stitching over and over again allows our brain and our nervous system to just simply be and regulate. So it really sits alongside the things that you're already doing, like walking, maybe cooking, gardening if you love. I remember doing lots of gardening as well.

crazy going to the garden center and bought seedlings every every winter to prepare for spring and I I remember buying lots of seeds as well to germinate myself rather than you know because it became quite expensive for me to buy lots of small seedlings. Colouring in is great. I'm not the biggest fan. I I felt so much more joy creating something that I can I can see and I can feel I can see feel and touch and wear on my body and it just comforts me so much. It's so nurturing. And so

It's not a replacement for anything, any other wraparound support that you might be receiving. but it's just another tool that really helps you with regulation. And that is an important aspect of our healing. Okay. We do need to work towards understanding how our body is functioning on any given day. If if today you woke up and you're feeling really low in energy and you feel like pushing yourself more to go for

A big gardening session is just gonna be too much. What about maybe trying knitting? What about maybe doing a short walk and coming back and sitting down with a cuppa and just doing your knit and purl? And even if it's just five minutes, but it can be really therapeutic. So sometimes, in fact, most of the times, after diagnosis, the mind will always be racing and for a variety of different reasons. There's so much fear and so much uncertainty sitting within our body.

And also the trauma of the diagnosis that had come from nowhere and what we're processing. Sometimes small acts of doing something joyful can actually really help our body and our nervous system just recognize that you are safe. For now, for this very moment, every single knit and purl is going to help you feel like you are grounded and stable. And this rhythm

Katherine Froggatt (17:35.965)

Of it, the repetition of counting stitches, knit, purl knit purl, or a row of knit and a row of purl gave my mind something to do that wasn't spiraling. It really helps me fill the gap, the emptiness, the fear that was driving so much of my day-to-day. And all I wanted was to feel calm, to feel grounded, to feel stable, to feel like I am in control. And it turned out to be exactly what I needed.

And more to be honest. So here is what I really would love to invite you to take from today's episode. Of course, I'm not asking all of you guys to run to the wool shop and buy your needles and buy wool. But that's not the point. The point here is to notice that you may already be drawn to something in your day-to-day that brings you joy, that gives you that sense of normality.

Like cooking, like gardening, maybe painting, maybe some of you guys do like painting, have been really immersed in some level of some sort of creative art. Maybe some of you like going for a pottery class and you had forgotten about this because before your diagnosis you were probably busy serving others and and making sure that the family is all sorted before yourself So whatever that is, how about we can gift ourselves the permission to stop?

And stop dismissing this as just another hobby because you could see this as an opportunity for you to s feel stable, for you to bring on just that little bit of joy. And it might be also then the outcome of this for you to actually stay still, but doing something that gives you that sense of achievement and accomplishment when you see the final product. That

will be an amazing moment for you to do more of. Now if any of these is making sense to you and there might be something that you feel, actually, I used to love drawing, I used to love sketching, or I used to really make a curry paste from scratch, but I've forgotten about it because I've become too busy. Well how about taking this time when you're still going through active treatments to give yourself the permission to just get started? And it does not need to be perfect.

Katherine Froggatt (20:03.525)

If it means getting started so that you can give it a try again and allow yourself to do what brings more joy and stability and a smile on your face, why don't you just give it a shot? Without judgment and just allowing curiosity to come through. If you've been told that calm only looks like one way, which is mindfulness, meditation,

Sitting down journaling or making sure that you sit down for 30 minutes? No. Those are just myths that we've been told. You can sit quiet and you can give yourself the permission to create it look like something with your hands moving to create something. And does not need to be a big session, but giving yourself just the allocated time.

Pick one thing that you used to enjoy that you have forgotten and allow it to come and just give it a shot. Let's not procrastinate. That's my invitation to you. This is a starting point. So before we wrap up, I just want you to take from today that regulation and mindfulness or meditation does not have to just come in one size. For some of us,

Stillness is easier. For some of us, stillness is very challenging. So if we have spent years, you know, equating rest with f falling behind or laziness or not achieving, well, make this and op give this opportunity of now for you to do something different, allow your brain to recalibrate.

And do something that becomes a little bit more of an active relaxation, something tactile, something that you can see as a result at the end of it. And if meditation has never worked for you, well, that's me alongside you as well. And it doesn't mean that you will fail, or it doesn't mean that that you're not good enough or you're incapable, but it just means that you haven't found the version of your wool blanket yet. Okay?

Katherine Froggatt (22:26.423)

Or it just means that you haven't found your version of the wool basket just yet. So the Resilient Remission Assessment is linked in the show notes below. And if you want to understand a little bit more about where you are in your own recovery and how your nervous system is actually functioning at this point, I invite you to take the assessment. Until next episode.

Katherine Froggatt (23:00.162)

I will see you in the next one.