Canvas of Courage: How One Mom Transformed Cancer Into Creative Healing
- DJ Valerie B LOVE 🩷
- 4 hours ago
- 17 min read
When creativity becomes your medicine and community becomes your cure.
Nerissa Balland got the call no one wants to get — cancer — while five months pregnant with her second son. Instead of letting it break her, she picked up a paintbrush. Eight years later, she's cancer-free, wrote a book interviewing 100+ young moms facing the same battle, and has a message for anyone going through hard times: "You will never be the same person you were before. And that's okay."
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✨ Key Takeaways
1. You will never be the same person you were before. It's impossible. And that's okay
Nerissa's core message. Change isn't loss — it's transformation.
2. Young moms are underserved
Only 5% of cancer support goes to mothers under 40. That's why Nerissa wrote her book.
3. Creativity is medicine
Not art therapy (that's clinical). Therapeutic arts is about the process — painting, journaling, whatever helps you breathe.
4. Grief and gratitude can live together
You don't have to "stay positive." Both feelings are real and valid.
5. Healing isn't linear
"You can go A to R and back to B." Bad days don't mean you're failing.
6. Failure = feedback
Nerissa learned this from her NLP coach. Every setback is just data, not a verdict.
7. "Facing" not "battling"
Nerissa rejected war language for her book title. It didn't feel true to how she experienced cancer.
Episode Overview
This one hit different. Nerissa and I go deep — from the moment she heard "you have cancer" while pregnant, to the breakthrough session with her coach where she finally found three things cancer gave her (yes, gave her).
She talks about writing Canvas of Courage during the pandemic, interviewing over 100 young moms with cancer, and how she protects her energy as an empath who absorbs other people's pain. She shares her daily practices — sound healing, silence, art — and why she chose the word "facing" instead of "battling" for her book.
If you've ever felt like life broke you into someone unrecognizable, this episode is for you.
About Nerissa Balland
Nerissa is a two-time cancer survivor, mom of two boys, artist, and author. She was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in 2016 while five months pregnant — and eight years later, she's cancer-free and on a mission to help other young moms feel less alone.
She painted her way through treatment. She interviewed 100+ women for her book. She trained in NLP, therapeutic arts, and a bunch of other modalities because she wanted to understand why creativity heals — not just that it does.
MSN named her one of their Top 10 Inspirational Artists. But honestly? She'd rather you just read her book and know you're not alone.
Connect With Nerissa:
Website: nerissaballand.com
Instagram: @nerissaballandart
⏱️ Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Intro
03:02 - Nerissa's backstory — From corporate marketing to visual artist and cancer survivor
08:34 - The spark — How the 2020 pandemic led to 100+ interviews with young mothers facing cancer
19:02 - Empath practices — Sound healing, silence, and protecting your energy
22:59- Art therapy vs therapeutic arts — What's the difference and why it matters
35:28 - Identity transformation — "You will never be the same person. And that's okay."
41:31 - Staying present — Practical advice for navigating health anxiety and PTSD
43:53 - Failure equals feedback — Reframing rejection and setbacks
1:00:38 - Motherhood as a mirror — How children reveal what needs healing in us
1:25:02 - The Breakthrough — The session with Ruvain & "3 things cancer gave me"
🙋♀️ Common Questions About Healing Cancer Through Art
Can I grieve and heal at the same time?
Yes. Nerissa says grief and gratitude can sit right next to each other. You don't have to "move on" to move forward.
Art therapy vs therapeutic arts — what's the difference?
Art therapy is clinical — a licensed therapist uses art to diagnose and treat. Therapeutic arts is about the process of creating, not the result. It's stress relief, not a diagnosis.
How do I stay present when I'm scared about the future?
Nerissa's honest answer: practice. Some days you'll be great at it, some days you won't. That's normal. The goal isn't perfection.
Why are young moms with cancer so overlooked?
Most cancer support is designed for older patients. Only 5% of resources go to moms under 40. Nerissa wrote her book because she kept meeting women who felt invisible.
Does creativity actually help healing?
Science says yes — it lowers cortisol and calms your nervous system. But Nerissa puts it simpler: "It's medicine."
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📚 Resources & Links Mentioned
Support patient access: GoFundMe
Book: Canvas of Courage on Amazon by Nerissa Balland
Book: The Empath's Survival Guide by Judith Orloff — Recommended by Nerissa's cancer coach Leslie Kelly
Book: The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Book: Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins
Practice: Sound Healing
Modality: NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming)
Modality: Therapeutic Arts / Arts in Health
Mentioned: Byron Katie's "The Work"
Mentioned: Ruvain (Life Coach)
Organization: Sylvester Cancer Comprehensive Center (University of Miami)
Community: The Luckiest Club by Laura McCowen
📜 Full Episode Transcript
Nerissa Balland: Young mothers facing cancer only receive about 5% of cancer support services in the United States. I was diagnosed when I was pregnant with my second son, and I had metastatic cancer. It is possible to have grief and gratitude at the same time. It sounds weird, but they can live together, and they can coexist.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: Hey, Aloha, Love Tribe! Guess what? This is somebody who has been on the Tilt-A-Whirl roller coaster in and out, upside down, world of courage, world of art, world of family, world of healing, and world of recovery. I'm so excited to have Nerissa Balland, the author of Canvas of Courage, on the show. We're gonna talk about your journey. Nerissa was named one of the top 10 inspirational artists by MSN, among a million other things that we're gonna talk about today. So welcome, Nerissa, thanks for being here.
Nerissa Balland: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: Yeah, me too. So let's talk about who you are, how you got to where you are, and then we'll talk about Canvas of Courage. I want to let the audience know what they're gonna get out of listening to this podcast. What will they understand about you and your journey by the end?
Nerissa Balland: Wow, that's a lot to sum up! Depending on the audience, you'll receive different types of tidbits of information and hopefully some gems that can help you wherever you are and whatever you're navigating at this time. Specifically, I would say people undergoing adversity of any type can benefit from what we're going to talk about today. Or anyone that's creative. It doesn't have to be health adversity, even though that's more a part of my story.
I think that as human beings, we're connected in a number of ways. And one of those is: How do we show up to adversity? Whatever that type of challenge could be for someone. So while my story tends to revolve around creativity and cancer, you don't have to have cancer to listen to this podcast and get something out of it. How do we heal through that? We're using creativity, gratitude, and hope. Let's say creativity is medicine in my case—not to replace modern-day medicine if you do have health issues—but facing adversity, what are some tools and things that could help us know that you're not alone?
DJ Valerie B LOVE: Amazing. I'm so excited. Let's hear a little bit of your backstory and how you got here. I want to hear the journey so the audience can get an idea of who you are.
Nerissa Balland: Sure. I am a mother, I'm an artist, I am now an author and a therapeutic arts practitioner, which we'll get into later. My story is maybe not different from someone listening in some cases, and maybe quite different, but we definitely have commonalities as human beings.
My story is this: I am an artist today, but perhaps wouldn't have called myself that even though I've studied art for a long time. I was in the corporate world for 20 years in marketing, doing art direction and creative direction. Then I moved over to being a visual artist, really just pursuing my dreams, passion, and purpose in the visual arts professional world. But it took me some time to get there.
I'm also a two-time cancer survivor. I was diagnosed when I was pregnant with my second son, and I had metastatic cancer. I am currently "no evidence detected" (NED) for eight years. I love to say that right away, because usually when you tell people you've been diagnosed with cancer, it's like, "Wah, wah." They ask, "Where are you at? What are we looking at here?"
In that case, I ended up writing a book. Since we last talked several years ago, I was not in remission; I was going through treatments. Then I had no cancer, and then I came back, and so forth. I'm definitely at a different point in my life right now, and my kids are a little bit older. I wrote a book not just about my story, but about other women's stories too. Part of that was a healing process in itself. It was very eye-opening and allowed me to feel like I wasn't alone in the journey.
Typically speaking, young mothers facing cancer only receive about 5% of cancer support services in the United States. We roughly have over 200,000 women a year that are considered "young"—I'm defining that as someone under 40. There are women out there that have cancer and who are mothers at 65, 70, 85, but they are in different phases of their life. I specifically wanted to focus on women raising young children. They weren't the picture of what you would expect when you walk into an oncology office looking for someone that looks like you, because there aren't many of us in there constantly. But it is, unfortunately, a growing trend that we're seeing among younger women being diagnosed with cancer today.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: What prompted you to say, "It's time for me to write this, put all this in a book, and get other people's stories?" It's one thing from a healing perspective to write, create art, or do a song to get it out—which is cathartic—but then to also allow the journey and expression of all these other women? I think of Chicken Soup for the Soul or the Every Woman's Wisdom project I worked on years ago. Storytelling is so fascinating because you get this kaleidoscope of perspectives. It helps you not feel alone. It gives us a lot more compassion and empathy for the human experience. So, where were you when you finally got the light bulb moment of, "It's happening, I'm doing this"?
Nerissa Balland: It was March of 2020. We were just coming into the pandemic. Unknowingly how long that would last or the severity of it, I was trying to find some support for myself, which I failed at locally. Even support groups tended to be people who were considerably older. When I was first diagnosed, I was 38. By the time I'm looking for resources, I'm 40. So I started to look online on Facebook and found a couple of groups there.
I would read about other people's stories—some suffering greatly, some thriving, and everything in between. Having been in marketing for 20 years, I feel it's about storytelling. Stories are innate; it's part of our DNA as human beings to connect. Even when you seem silent, your mind is running with a story.
I felt like I had a story and I wanted to tell it. To be honest, at first I thought, "Who cares? I'm not anybody that anybody knows." But while it's one story, I felt it was missing something. My story is important to share, but I think it does better in community. My whole point was looking for people that look like me: young with cancer, pregnant with cancer, babies with cancer.
One thing I noticed about women in these online groups is that they positioned themselves constantly as a number, a stage, or a treatment. We were going away from the story. "I'm a Stage 3B," "I'm Stage 4," "I'm 2A." It bothered me because that's how people were introducing themselves—very clinically. I wanted to get to know these people as people, not their diagnosis.
So I started to put out on the Facebook groups: "Hey, this is who I am. I'm interested in hearing your story for a book." I started setting up interviews via Zoom. I had a little over a hundred interviews in that year. It was very emotionally draining. I don't think I realized what I was getting into. It opened my eyes to a lot of different scenarios.
I spent a year with the interviews, then I left it alone for a year because I was drained. Come 2021, I had to put it aside. I had a hard time separating myself from these people. I would worry: "Are they going to make it?" It wasn't healthy. I was really embodying everybody's story for myself.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: I so relate to this. You're obviously an empath and you absorb things—I do too, hardcore. I'm really learning energy hygiene to honor my boundaries and not get too overstimulated by the trauma in the world. I hibernate quite a bit just because it keeps me more grounded. What are some practices you did? For anyone listening who might be an empath and a creative, did you have any tools to help you step back?
Nerissa Balland: Yes, I do a lot of practices because you're spot on—I am an empath. I was reading The Empath's Survival Guide—recommended by my cancer coach, Leslie Kelly. Once I realized, "Okay, this is me, I'm not crazy," I needed tools.
I practice what I preach. Sound healing was great. I took a master sound healing class and loved it; it’s very therapeutic for me. Obviously, I have my own art. I also practiced more silence in my life. I used to like a lot of noise and distractions, thinking I wasn't alone when I had music.
I also got really into Therapeutic Arts. I knew a lot about Art Therapy, but not Therapeutic Arts, and they're very different.
Art Therapy tends to be with a board-certified, licensed therapist working on mental health to understand a diagnosis. It's clinical. Therapeutic Arts (or being a Therapeutic Art Practitioner) focuses on the journey, not the end product. It uses creativity to reduce stress and anxiety in the somatic nervous system specifically. It is not about dissociating; it is about being in whatever you're in but guiding that through artistic tools.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: That makes sense. Are you working with clients now? I know you've been teaching and doing different things with your art and healing.
Nerissa Balland: Currently, between the book and my art, I'm not doing private clients. I did for a while when I was working with NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), which is a fancy term for brain language—how we process what we hear, see, and feel.
I found that I am too much of an empath to do one-on-one work. I realized quickly within a year that it wasn't going to work for me. So, how can I still stay in this space and offer resources? I started doing workshops involved in "Arts in Medicine" (or Arts in Health). I've done volunteer work at Sylvester Cancer Comprehensive Center at the University of Miami.
I've also done professional development series for schools. I would make teachers get in touch with their inner child: "Why are you teaching seven-year-olds? Let's take you back to when you were seven." Those turned out to be quite emotional journeys. Right now, I am really working on the book and working with cancer organizations on how to build community, so it's not just about the book itself.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: I love this. The subtitle of your book is The Art of Healing, Hope, and Gratitude for Young Mothers Facing Cancer. I love that you said "Facing Cancer," not "Battling Cancer." It's like, "I'm facing this thing," instead of this identity.
On my healing journey with alcohol and 12-step programs almost 10 years ago, I didn't like having to raise my hand and identify as a "thing." I felt like I was in a cage. I wanted to program my mind to be the new version of me—love, expansion, a child of God. I felt like I had a King's cloak of shame around me. Finding a group of people who could listen to you from a lens where you feel seen and heard is critical. I found The Luckiest Club by Laura McKowen for alcohol support, and it's super positive. I find the most comfort in mom's groups. It sounds like there's a huge need for younger moms to have that specific support.
Nerissa Balland: Thank you for that. One thing you hit on is that I was very much bothered by the concept of "battling" cancer. It was very aggressive. I felt pressure, like, "Fuck cancer, we're gonna stand up and do this." And while I get the marketing kitschiness, I didn't feel aggressive towards it. I was angry, but between that and toxic positivity, I didn't find it to be real.
I was looking for something authentic. What I found was: When you stop fighting yourself in this process, then you can find yourself.
One common theme in the book is identity and the sense of loss of oneself. I'm here to say: That's okay. You will never be the same person you were before. It's impossible. And that's actually not negative. You can take time to grieve the old you, but there's also a process to embrace what you can be now. Who can you reinvent yourself as?
This happens with addiction, health issues, anything. Identity loss is huge—physically (mastectomy, hysterectomy), emotionally, spiritually, and financially.
I think this is a very important point: It is possible to have grief and gratitude at the same time. They can live together and coexist.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: We are so conditioned in our instant gratification culture not to be uncomfortable. We want to just stick a thing in the microwave and have instant food. Taking time to have a grieving process sucks because you want to be done with it. But it might take a year, a day, or 10 years. It's about being at ease knowing that it can come up at any time.
Nerissa Balland: Exactly. In the world of cancer, a patient receives a clean bill of health, rings a bell, and is said to be "okay." But in that moment, there's always the PTSD that it will come back. It's called "scanxiety." I have scans every 90 days now. There is still always that fear. Everyone I interviewed was terrified at any moment it would return.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: I can imagine that energy leading up to those tests is anxiety-inducing. How do you live your life in a place of presence? Especially being a mother and trying to be present with your children when you're in "octopus mode." What advice would you share to help people ease through the cycles and stay grounded?
Nerissa Balland: Practice. Some days you're gonna be killing it, and on Tuesday you could suck and everything goes out the window. That's okay. Healing isn't linear. You can go from A to R and all the way back to B.
One thing I use a lot—and it's an NLP concept—is: Failure equals feedback.
For example, I recently applied to two artist calls for submissions. I felt good about them. I found out yesterday I got rejected from both. Typical me would have spiraled: "I'm not good enough, why wasn't I selected?" But I just thought, "That sucks. I would have really liked that. Alright, move on." It took me a long time to get there.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: That is the bravest thing, to be an artist and put your work out there. It sounds like you're not taking it personally, like The Four Agreements.
Nerissa Balland: It took a long time. My cancer coach, Leslie, would tell me to do the work, and I’d say, "I'm faking it. I feel inauthentic being positive because I am glass-half-empty." I realized I had to go through the motions until it actually hit.
I practiced gratitude with very specific steps. I would sit in treatment, pissed off, hungry, and freezing. I would write in my journal: "I am grateful for the stale crackers. I am grateful for the shitty orange juice." Eventually, it changed. "I'm grateful the heat lamp works." I had to keep looking for something.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: It's like trying to find gratitude in a tsunami. "Here's a thimble of water, yay!" But when you start getting that muscle memory trained, you reset your nervous system.
Nerissa Balland: It is a rewiring. If you are critical, part of that practice is saying, "It's okay if today wasn't a great day. I have tomorrow." All we have is now. Just show up first. Show up for yourself, give yourself permission to fail, and celebrate your wins.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: Do you feel like motherhood has shifted the way you think?
Nerissa Balland: I don't know that it shifted that way. With motherhood, I learned unconditional love. There is a level of panic and anxiety when you birth a child, seeing genetics you don't like passed down.
Motherhood is like putting a mirror in front of you. If you don't start working on the things that need help, it's going to come crumbling down. It makes you accountable.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: Every mother goes through mommy guilt. I felt like I traumatized my children because I didn't do my own work before I got pregnant. I wish I had a giant Home Depot toolbox instead of a pocket knife! I asked my coach Ruvain, "Is it true I've damaged my children for life?" You have to dismantle that lie.
Do you have a practice or connection to Source/Love that keeps you grounded?
Nerissa Balland: When I studied NLP, I learned about how I see, hear, and feel the world. I learned that all the poor decisions I was making were auditory. When I listened to myself, "myself" gave me bad instructions. I had to learn to turn that volume down.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: I call that being the "DJ of your mind." Looking at a mixing board and deciding which voice gives you the highest and best result.
Nerissa Balland: It's a process. It takes research and applying it. Just set realistic goals. Awareness is key. Most people are not self-aware.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: We're not taught to be. We're taught to conform to the tribe for survival. I highly recommend the book The Courage to Be Disliked—it's about authentic living.
Nerissa Balland: People identify with their experiences, but they are not their experience. That happens with health issues. When I left my corporate job, I struggled because when people asked, "What do you do?" I felt pathetic. I felt I had to find an identity, so I returned to art.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: We are just Love. All the other stuff is cool costumes. Ram Dass said after his stroke: "I didn't have a stroke. My body had a stroke." It's differentiating the essence from the experience.
Nerissa Balland: Exactly. I didn't want to identify as a cancer patient at first. I felt shame. I wanted to feel normal.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: What is the number one thing you want people to understand right now?
Nerissa Balland: Being in the present tense is your friend.
Here is the light bulb moment I had with Ruvain. He asked me for two beliefs I was walking around with.
"Cancer is a death sentence." He asked, "Has everyone you know with cancer died? Has everyone in the world died from it?" We knocked that out.
"Cancer is bad." I thought I had him there. He asked me to name things that weren't bad about it.
I named three things:
It strengthened my relationship with my husband. We had a level of support I didn't know existed.
I became a more present parent. Cancer allowed me to slow down.
It allowed me to look at myself authentically and stop toxic behaviors. I wouldn't have listened if cancer hadn't said "Stop."
DJ Valerie B LOVE: Wow. Lessons and blessings. Thank goodness for people like Ruvain and you. You are a writer now! Check that box. I'm so glad you're using your voice.
Nerissa Balland: I feel it's my responsibility. I'm lucky I'm here, healthy, and alive, and I have to give that back.
DJ Valerie B LOVE: Thank you so much, Nerissa. You guys can check out nerissaballand.com and get Canvas of Courage on Amazon. Peace and warm Aloha!
The 11x LOVE Method is a holistic life transformation framework created by DJ Valerie B LOVE, integrating spirituality, sobriety, mindset, relationships, and financial sovereignty.