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Kat Vee

@creating_safe_spaces

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🪷Helping women rebuild themselves through life’s biggest transformations ✨
🪷Breast Cancer Survivor
🪷Public Servant
🪷Tea Herbalist

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Frequenteas are infused with more than just flavor. We incorporate sound frequencies and pulsated electro magnetic frequencies (PEMF) that are scientifically linked to relaxation and well-being, creating a multi-sensory experience in every sip. by @creating_safe_spaces

Have you ever felt as if a relationship that has survived decades suddenly feels disposable because someone didn’t respond quickly enough.

To me, unconditional love doesn’t mean having no boundaries. It doesn’t mean tolerating disrespect, neglect, or repeatedly being hurt.

But it does mean leaving some room for humanity and time to allow processing.

For imperfection.
For hard seasons.
For misunderstanding.
For a conversation before a goodbye.

Especially with people we have loved for decades.

Maybe mature love sounds less like, “You disappointed me, so I’m done,” and more like, “That hurt me. Can we talk about what happened?”

Because I don’t want relationships where anyone has to perform perfectly to remain loved.

I want friendships where we can disappoint each other, communicate, repair when possible…….and still choose ourselves when a pattern truly becomes unhealthy.

Where is the line for you between unconditional love and healthy boundaries? ❤️ by @creating_safe_spaces

Interesting reel of last year! Squishes, Yuki, healing, conventional medicine, what a whirlwind 2025…. #2025challenge by @creating_safe_spaces

She had cancer. And she didn’t know it.

I watch these old videos and my heart breaks for her.

She was dancing.
Smiling.
Making plans.
Living.

And somewhere inside her body, cancer was growing.

Sometimes I want to reach through the screen and hold her because I know what comes next.

The diagnosis.
The surgeries.
The chemo chair.
Losing my hair.
The fear.
Looking in the mirror and barely recognizing myself.

But cancer didn’t just change my body.

It forced me to meet myself.

The pain I hadn’t processed.
The things I tolerated.
The emotions I swallowed.
The ways I made myself smaller to keep everyone else comfortable.

No, those things didn’t cause my cancer.

But surviving cancer made me realize I couldn’t keep abandoning myself.

For months, I thought healing meant getting the old me back.

Now I know:

I don’t want my old life back.

I want the life I’m creating now.

Last night, I danced again.

And this time, I knew exactly what a privilege it was to feel music moving through a body I once feared might not make it here.

I danced for the woman who didn’t know.

I danced for the woman in the chemo chair who was terrified she’d never feel free again.

And I danced for the woman I am now.

Still grieving.
Still healing.
Still becoming.

Cancer changed me.

Healing isn’t taking me back to who I was.

It’s bringing me home to who I am.

And damn…….,,it feels good to dance again. 🩷

If you’ve ever looked back at an old version of yourself and thought, she had no idea what was coming……I think you’ll understand.

I love you all!

#lifeaftercance #breastcancersurvivors #cancersurvivor #survivorship #cancerjourney by @creating_safe_spaces

My heart is so full. 🥹❤️

Thank y’all for every birthday message, call, text, hug, prayer, and all the love you’ve poured into me. I don’t think I can fully explain how much it means this year.

This year, I get to celebrate LIFE.

I get to dance. I get to laugh. I get to be surrounded by people I love. I get to make memories. I get to wake up and experience another trip around the sun.

So thank you for helping me celebrate not just another birthday, but another year of being HERE. Another year of healing. Another year of becoming. Another year of loving this beautiful, messy life a little more deeply.

Cancer changed the way I understand birthdays.

Getting older doesn’t scare me the way it once did.

Growing older is a privilege.

And this year, I’m celebrating every single second of it.

Thank y’all for loving me, supporting me, praying for me, witnessing me, and reminding me that I have never walked this journey alone.

Here’s to LIFE.

Thank you Silke Douglass for making this beautiful art for me! by @creating_safe_spaces

This birthday feels different. 🥹✨

This time last year, I was sitting in a chair receiving chemo.

I was scared. Isolated. Unable to really be around people because my immune system was so vulnerable. I was living with this deep fear I rarely said out loud:

Is the treatment working?
Can I actually make it through all of this?

My body hurt. I had neuropathy so bad that I couldn’t fully feel my feet. Pins and needles. Pain. Discomfort. Exhaustion. And the strange reality of watching life continue around me while so much of mine revolved around simply surviving the next infusion.

Fast-forward one year.

A few nights ago, I was standing at the 9:30 Club with my twin sister and a sweet friend.

The music was loud. We were dancing. People were everywhere.

And suddenly, I started crying.

Not from sadness.

From joy.

Because I could feel my feet on that dance floor.

Because I could be in a room full of people again.

Because instead of sitting in an infusion chair wondering what my future held, I was dancing in it.

I am alive. I am here. And I have so much to celebrate.

Cancer changed what birthdays mean to me.

Another year isn’t something I take for granted anymore. Neither is an ordinary night of music, laughter, friendship, hugs, cuddles and dancing until my body reminds me I’ve had enough.

So I’m starting my birthday week exactly how I want to enter this next chapter:

Music. Dancing. Friends. Cuddles. Love. Joy. LIFE.

Last year, I was fighting to get through treatment.

This year, I get to celebrate being here.

And maybe that’s the greatest birthday gift of all.

I made it to another birthday.
Now let me dance. 💛💃🏽🎂 by @creating_safe_spaces

Update: It’s a cyst.

I don’t think I realized how tightly I’d been holding my breath until I heard those words.

I am so, so grateful.

But I also want to be honest about what this scare brought up in me.

Feeling a new mass completely freaked me out. Because the last time I felt something unfamiliar in my body, it turned out I had cancer.

And that changes you.

I’m realizing that one of the things cancer took from me was the simple trust I used to have in my own body.

I don’t know this body yet.

After surgery, chemo, radiation, medically induced menopause and everything that has changed, sometimes I genuinely don’t know what I’m feeling. Is this scar tissue? A cyst? A normal change? Something I should worry about?

Before cancer, maybe I would have noticed something and simply made an appointment.

After cancer, my mind can go from “What is that?” to the worst-case scenario in seconds.

That is survivorship too.

Battling cancer takes you through so many highs and lows, and I’m learning that healing isn’t just about my body. It’s about teaching my mind that every unfamiliar sensation doesn’t mean I’m back where I started.

Today, I’m choosing relief.
I’m choosing gratitude.
I’m choosing to exhale.

I may never have the innocence I had before cancer, but maybe I can slowly build a new kind of trust……..one rooted in listening to my body, getting things checked when something feels different, and then allowing myself to live in the space between the scans and the fears.

We don’t always understand why we’re asked to walk through certain things.

Sometimes all we can do is trust the process, have faith, stay grateful, and keep moving forward.

So today, that’s my little reminder to anyone who needs it:

Trust universal love.
Be grateful for the good news.
Exhale when you can.
And keep going.

Today, I am deeply grateful that this time, the answer was: it’s just a cyst. We will monitor and make sure it’s not growing. I am so relieved.

Thank you all for the love and support. Thank you for the kind messages, texts, calls, love, sweets, and support.

I love you all! by @creating_safe_spaces

I’m scared today. And I think it’s okay to say that out loud.

I felt something new………a lump, maybe fatty tissue, maybe absolutely nothing to worry about. I’m seeing my oncologist next week to have it checked.

But this is one of the things cancer takes from you that people don’t always see: the ability to assume something is nothing.

Before cancer, I might have noticed a change in my body and moved on with my day.

After cancer?

My mind immediately knows every worst-case scenario. I start Googling. Doom scrolling. Touching the spot again. Wondering if something is wrong. Trying desperately not to let my thoughts travel somewhere they have no evidence to go.

Because once you’ve heard the words “you have cancer,” it’s hard to completely trust the ordinary again.

A lump isn’t just a lump.
An ache isn’t always just an ache.
A strange sensation can suddenly feel terrifying.

So today I’m practicing something I’m still learning in survivorship: staying with what I actually know instead of living inside what I fear.

What I know is that I found something.
I’m getting it checked.
I have a medical team.
And right now, I am here.

Cancer sucks. And sometimes survivorship means carrying fear alongside gratitude, hope, joy and a life you fought incredibly hard to keep living.

If you pray, please say a little prayer for me……..that this is nothing concerning, and maybe just as importantly, that I can quiet my mind while I wait.

One day at a time. One breath at a time.

And no Googling tonight….. trying my best not to at least. by @creating_safe_spaces

I used to think healing meant getting better.

Finishing chemo.
Finishing radiation.
Hearing the words NED.
Getting my hair back.
Getting my strength back.
Getting my life back.

But cancer taught me something deeper…….

Healing is when your soul slowly learns that it is safe to be here again.

Because after cancer, your body may be out of treatment while some part of you is still waiting for the next bad phone call. The next scan. The next loss. The next moment when everything changes.

I know what it feels like to live in that space.

To look okay on the outside while carrying grief, fear, exhaustion and a version of yourself that almost nobody can see.

And maybe that’s why being seen has become so important to me.

Not fixed.
Not rescued.
Not told how strong I am.

Just witnessed.

Someone sitting beside you and saying, in a hundred different ways:

I see what you survived.
I see what it cost you.
And I see who you are becoming.

There is medicine in that.

And lately, I’m realizing there is also medicine in the ordinary moments when my nervous system finally whispers:

You’re here. You’re alive. You can live life.

A walk.
Flowers.
My son’s hand in mine.
The ocean.
A deep conversation.
Laughing until I forget, for a moment, everything my body has been through.

Maybe healing isn’t becoming the woman I was before cancer.

Maybe it’s teaching this new woman that she doesn’t have to spend every beautiful moment preparing for something terrible to happen.

She can be here.

She can love here.

She can be seen here.

She can feel safe enough to live again.

And maybe that is what healing really looks like.

I love you all! by @creating_safe_spaces

One of the harder parts of life after cancer has been learning that surviving something doesn’t mean people suddenly know how to hold you.

Sometimes, they run.

I’ve wondered if people see my cancer story and think I’m fragile. Complicated. Too vulnerable. Too much to take on.

But cancer didn’t make me weak.

It made me incredibly clear.

I don’t need someone to rescue me.

I fought incredibly hard for this life.

But I do want someone who can step up beside me.

Someone who communicates.
Someone whose actions match their words.
Someone who doesn’t disappear when connection starts requiring vulnerability.
Someone who doesn’t leave me wondering where I stand.

And yes…………when someone pulls away or goes silent, it still hurts.

Maybe even differently now.

Because after facing the possibility of losing my life, I don’t understand why we waste so much of it pretending we don’t care, sending mixed signals, or running from people we actually feel something for.

Cancer taught me that time is precious.

Say what you feel.
Love people while they are here.
Show up when you say you will.
And if you don’t want to stay, have the courage to say that too.

I survived cancer.

I can survive someone walking away.

But I’m no longer going to abandon myself trying to convince someone to stay.

Healing has taught me that the right people won’t need me to become smaller, less vulnerable, or less honest to make loving me easier.

They’ll simply meet me there.

I love you all! by @creating_safe_spaces

What if I never get my spark back?

I’ve quietly asked myself this more times than I want to admit.

After cancer.
After chemo.
After surgery.
After losing parts of my body.
After watching my hair fall out.
After being thrown into menopause.
After everything my body, heart, and mind have carried.

There are days I look in the mirror and wonder where she went.

The woman who had more energy.
Who felt beautiful without trying.
Who dreamed bigger.
Who didn’t wake up thinking about cancer.

Sometimes I miss her.

And sometimes I’m scared that no amount of healing will bring her back.

But lately I’ve been wondering……..

What if I’m not supposed to get my old spark back?

What if I’m creating a new one?

Maybe healing isn’t returning to who we were before life broke us open.

Maybe it’s learning to love the person who emerged from it.

A little softer.
A little wiser.
A lot more protective of her peace.
More aware of how precious ordinary days really are.

I’m still finding her.

Some days I feel her shining through. Other days, I’m tired and still figuring it all out.

And maybe that’s okay.

Because I survived something that changed me.

I don’t need to become the woman I was before cancer.

I want to discover the woman I’m becoming after it.

And maybe my spark was never lost.

Maybe it’s just learning how to burn differently.

I love you all! by @creating_safe_spaces

I kept waiting to feel like the woman I was before cancer.

And then I realized…..…she isn’t coming back.

For a while, that broke my heart.

I missed her body.
Her energy.
Her innocence.
The way she moved through life without thinking about scans, bloodwork, recurrence or whether her body might betray her again.

I thought healing meant finding my way back to her.

But maybe healing isn’t about going backward.

Maybe it’s about meeting the woman who survived.

This version of me is softer, but stronger.
She rests without apologizing.
She protects her peace.
She notices sunsets.
She takes the trip.
She says “I love you.”
She stops saving joy for later.

Because she knows something the old me didn’t:

Later is never promised.

I will always love the woman I was before cancer.

But I’m learning to love the woman I had to become to survive it, too.

And maybe that is healing.

If life has changed you in ways you never asked for, I hope you give yourself permission to stop searching for who you used to be.

There may be someone beautiful waiting for you on the other side.

You.

I love you all ! by @creating_safe_spaces