Meet Katie Joy Duke | Author, Mindset Coach, Mom, Cancer Survivor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Katie Joy Duke and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Katie Joy, do you have some perspective or insight you can share with us on the question of when someone should give up versus when they should keep going?
I can assume this question relates to business and the challenges one faces as an entrepreneur, but I am compelled to answer whether to keep going or to give up as a person who has faced significant personal challenges and why giving up is never an option.

When times are tough and I have no clue how I’m going to make it through, I slow down, quiet the noise of modern living, rest more, and listen to my inner guidance system which never leads me astray. I didn’t always operate this way, but learned from the greatest teacher—my own life.

A little over 7 years ago I was a successful attorney practicing law in Seattle when my first daughter, Poppy, was stillborn. My husband and I were newlyweds, wrapped up in a fairytale romance and the promise of becoming a family. Her death was inconceivable and came as a complete shock.

Losing Poppy catapulted me into a world of grief and questioning everything. Where does a soul go when the body dies? Was I still a mother? How would I make it through such a devastating loss?

I tried going back to work as a Social Security Disability lawyer, but my guard was down, my heart broken, my mind fractured. I couldn’t focus and my anxiety was sky high. A few months after returning from maternity leave, I made the difficult decision to resign from my job. It was an exercise in self-preservation. I knew in my heart that the only way to keep going was to focus on healing and making sense of my loss.

With time away from work, I threw myself into writing, outdoor exercise, yoga and meditation. I used writing to process the myriad emotions I experienced and started a blog on Medium. I developed a following of people who were both invested in seeing me heal and learning how to move forward in the face of grief and loss. Intimate writings which began as a way to save my own soul evolved into the beginning of a memoir which I published last year.

A few months after resigning from my job I met Adam, a life coach. It was 2016 and the coaching industry was becoming more mainstream, but it was completely new to me, and I was intrigued. At the time I was working with an art therapist to help me process and continue healing my wounded heart.

Adam and I talked about using coaching to envision my best future by removing blocks and limiting stories that were keeping me stuck, stagnant, and small. Looking back on that time, I see how my curiosity and courage drove me to look at life through a different lens, to see how I could integrate Poppy’s life and death into my story rather than let it define me. I was deeply committed to holding space for both joy and grief and with Adam by my side, I began a quest of reinvention.

That coaching partnership ignited a new loving relationship with myself and inspired me to become a life coach, too. In 2017, pregnant with my second daughter, I began a year of coaches training. Our rainbow baby was born in October, a few months after I started training and the same month that I got my first paid coaching client.

Beginning my own business was an act of faith, passion, and courage. I was embracing my second chance at motherhood and a new professional venture simultaneously! Thankfully I had the unwavering emotional and financial support of my husband. I couldn’t have done this alone.

Life continued and I attracted more motivated clients into my coaching practice. Working one on one, I found great satisfaction in seeing my clients develop more compassionate and loving relationships with themselves and find more joy in the work and projects they were pursuing.

In tandem with my coaching practice, I continued to write my memoir and when the Pandemic shut down the world, I cleared my calendar of anything that felt like a distraction and committed to finishing a project I knew would change lives.

I spent all of 2021 immersed in finishing my book, Still Breathing: My Journey with Love, Loss, and Reinvention. With six years of healing, processing, and personal evolution, I knew the book was ready to be born—a gift to anyone who had been through pregnancy loss or anyone wanting an intimate understanding of what families go through when a baby dies.

Two weeks after submitting my final manuscript to my copyeditor, I had my first ever mammogram. I was concerned about a rock-hard lump I’d discovered in my left breast earlier that winter. I was 41, and as far as I knew in excellent health.

That mammogram and the slew of ultrasounds, biopsies, MRI’s, and bone scans that came after confirmed I had Stage IV breast cancer. You might think to yourself, could this woman get a break? Well, you wouldn’t be the first.

It’s been a little over a year since that first scan and it’s hard to believe how far I’ve come. I am living proof that we humans are capable of anything. You’ve just got to want it, believe in it, and work for it.

Within one month of the diagnosis, I started five months of aggressive chemotherapy to slow and stop the growth of the cancer. In May, I published Still Breathing: My Journey with Love, Loss, and Reinvention and did my best to promote the book while dealing with the debilitating impacts of treatment.

In October 2022 I had a mastectomy of my left breast as well as lymph node surgery in my left armpit. After a few months of healing, I underwent 28 rounds of radiation to my chest, armpit, and sternum where the cancer had metastasized. And I’ve survived it all!

As far as we know and what diagnostic and pathological tests suggest, the cancer is gone. At least that’s what I’m choosing to believe and that’s how I’m moving through the world. The cancer is gone, and I am alive.

Surviving cancer was an act of faith, passion and courage—just like leaving my legal career, starting my own business, having another child, and publishing my memoir Still Breathing. I have a whole lot of life left to live. I am a mother of two—one in spirit and one in the flesh. I am celebrating 8 years of marriage to a man who stands with me through all things. I am a survivor, a warrior, a bright source of courage and light for this world.

Giving up is never an option. Slowing down, yes. Eliminating beliefs, habits and circumstances that hold you back, yes. Refining your values and principles, yes. Choosing love over fear, yes. But giving up? Never.

You matter. Your story matters. And if you’d like to read my book or shoot me an email to talk about coaching, I’m here.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am a writer, a speaker, and a voice. Authenticity is my #1 value and vulnerability is my superpower. As a cancer survivor and bereaved mom, I have been through two harrowing life experiences that many women can relate to but few women want to talk about.

I am an open book (I even wrote one!) and I want to talk about the difficult experiences I’ve made peace with and grown from. For decades pregnancy loss was a taboo that no one addressed. My memoir, Still Breathing, gives a voice to thousands of women who never got to talk about their babies who died. Although breast cancer is much more common (1 in 8 women will be diagnosed), many women suffer in silence and try to do it all alone. They are conditioned to think that they should be able to handle it all. But that’s simply not true.

As a transformational speaker, I offer another paradigm–one where you are encouraged to ask for and receive help, slow down, rest more, and let yourself fall apart. Healing comes when we slow down.

It wasn’t “easy” to get where I am today–I made a lot of sacrifices and had to let go of the way I thought things were going to be. I had to say yes to myself and no to my career. I had to be willing to look deep within myself to discover my passion, my purpose and live into it. As a life coach I get to partner with my clients to help them find their passion and purpose too.

I want the world to know that I am joy, radiance, power, and courage. I am driven by love and compassion. I’m not afraid to go deep and I can hold space with grief and loss. I make mistakes. I fail. I always get back up again–sometimes after a very long nap–and I’d love to support others in doing the same.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Seattle is incredible. If someone were visiting me for a week I’d take them to the Top of the Space Needle on a clear day. We’d go paddle boarding or kayaking on Lake Union then for happy hour and food at Aqua Verde. We’d grab brunch at Portage Bay Cafe. We’d see art at the Frye Museum and Seattle Art Museum (SAM). We’d buy a pack of gum and visit the gum wall at Pike Place Market and try to catch the salmon that the fishmongers throw at the fish stalls. We’d go to a show at The Triple Door or the Showbox and find a speakeasy to get cocktails afterward. We’d take a short drive out of town and go hiking somewhere along the I-90 corridor. The options are endless in such an incredible and diverse city.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to give a shoutout to the Northwest Mother’s Milk Bank for their 10 years of service providing safe, pasteurized breast milk to babies in need. I donated my breast milk to the NWMMB after my daughter Poppy passed away in 2015 and knowing that her milk would nourish a baby in need filled my aching heart. The organization has dispensed over 3 million ounces of human breast milk and is the only nonprofit milk bank in the pacific northwest.

Website: https://www.katiejoyduke.com/

Instagram: @katiejoyduke

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katie.duke.351