Creativity as Medicine: A Cancer Survivor's Path to Healing
How One Mom Transformed Tragedy Into Art with Nerissa Balland
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Aloha!
What if the hardest moment of your life could become the canvas for your greatest transformation?
I’ve learned that healing isn’t about “staying positive” — it’s about letting grief and gratitude sit side by side.
In this heart-to-heart, I sit down with Nerissa Balland — two-time cancer survivor, mom of two boys, artist, author, and NLP practitioner — to explore how creativity became her medicine when she was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma while five months pregnant.
We talk about:
Getting diagnosed with cancer while pregnant — and choosing to pick up a paintbrush
Why she interviewed 100+ young moms with cancer for her book
Art therapy vs therapeutic arts — what’s the difference
Identity transformation — “You will never be the same person. And that’s okay.”
Empath practices for protecting your energy
How motherhood reveals what needs healing in us
It is a conversation about creativity, healing, and finding beauty in the broken places.
Episode Highlights:
Creativity is medicine: Not about the result — about the process of creating that calms your nervous system
Young moms are underserved: Only 5% of cancer support goes to mothers under 40
Grief and gratitude can coexist: You don’t have to “move on” to move forward
Failure = feedback: Every setback is just data, not a verdict
“You will never be the same person you were before. It’s impossible. And that’s okay.” — Nerissa Balland
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