Cancer, Creativity, and Finding Herself Again: Nerissa's Story | Healing Heroines

Nerissa Balland was five months pregnant, working full-time, and had a 1-year-old at home when her dermatologist said the word malignant. Her first instinct was to keep going, but of course, cancer didn't care.

What happens when a life-changing diagnosis unravels your life and you don't have the words for any of it?

After two decades chasing corporate titles and pursuing nonprofit work, Nerissa had quietly set aside the one thing that had always made her feel free: art. A diagnosis of metastatic melanoma at 38 forced her to reckon not only with her health, but with the parts of herself she'd abandoned along the way.

Now, she's the author of Canvas of Courage and a therapeutic arts practitioner who reminds people that broken crayons still color.

What You Will Learn

• [00:09:00] Validating herself through every promotion and job change
• [00:12:30] Cancer diagnosis at 38, five months pregnant
• [00:16:30] Making the invisible visible without words
• [00:19:30] Why non-artists have the real advantage
• [00:39:00] Ranch visit that rewired Nerissa's mindset
• [00:43:00] Overthinking her return to art
• [00:47:00] Broken crayons still color
• [00:58:00] Shifting from "why me" to "what now"

Resources Mentioned

• Canvas of Courage by Nerissa Balland
• Byron Katie

Let’s Connect!

Nerissa Balland

Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube

Chandler Stroud

Website | LinkedIn | Instagram

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Transcript

Chandler Stroud: [00:00:00] Hey, guys. It's Chandler, and welcome to The Healing Heroes. I promise you. We're-

Chandler Stroud: I'm Chandler Stroud, an executive, wife, and busy mom of two, who after years of living with anxiety, health struggles, and an unshakable feeling like I should be happier, made a profound discovery that changed everything. Join me on a journey where unexpected paths lead to [00:00:30] healing and more happiness. On this show, we'll explore unconventional ways to unlock more joy in your own life with the help of my very own healers and trusted advisors, The Healing Heroes

Chandler Stroud: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Healing Heroes podcast. I'm your host Chandler, and today we are here with another healing heroine episode. As a reminder, these [00:01:00] interviews are with women who have navigated trauma, tragedy, or hardship, and healed with the help of either our healing heroes or have healed through other approaches, and now use their experience and learnings to help others.

Chandler Stroud: Today's conversation is about something we don't talk about enough: what happens when we don't have the language for what we're going through. My guest today spent two decades in the [00:01:30] corporate and nonprofit world before returning to something she'd quietly set aside, her art. Not as a finished product hanging on a wall, but art as a process, a way of making the invisible visible.

Chandler Stroud: She'll share how a cancer diagnosis at 38, five months pregnant with her second son, became the catalyst that brought her back to herself. Not to who she was before, but to a question she keeps returning to, and [00:02:00] one I think a lot of us are quietly asking, too: "Who am I becoming?" This conversation touches on some difficult chapters: health, motherhood, identity, and loss, and she's generous and willing to get vulnerable enough to share pieces of that with us today.

Chandler Stroud: Before we dive in, let me tell you a bit more about today's guest. Nerissa Baland was five months pregnant when she was diagnosed with [00:02:30] cancer, an experience that unraveled her sense of identity and unexpectedly rebuilt it through art. She holds an MFA from Pratt Institute, along with advanced training in therapeutic arts, NLP, CBT, and REBT.

Chandler Stroud: She spent nearly two decades in marketing and design before her diagnosis redirected the course of her work. In 2020, she interviewed more than 100 young mothers navigating cancer. [00:03:00] Those conversations became the foundation of both her practice and her debut book, Canvas of Courage. Her work is built on a simple but often overlooked truth: healing is not linear, and for many people, it doesn't start with words.

Chandler Stroud: It starts with expression. She now brings this work into hospitals, cancer centers, universities, and wellness organizations, helping people navigate identity, meaning, and what comes next after life-changing [00:03:30] experiences. Nerissa, thank you so much for being here today and being so willing to share your story and your work.

Chandler Stroud: I'm so excited for this conversation. 

Nerissa Balland: Me too. Thank you so much for that glorious introduction. 

Chandler Stroud: Of course, we love introducing our heroines in style, and it's one of the reasons I love our pre-production calls because I can really get a feel for your story and who you are, and I just, it makes me so much [00:04:00] more excited for these conversations to happen.

Chandler Stroud: So again, thank you for taking the time to be here with us. I am really looking forward to diving into this with you. 

Nerissa Balland: Me too. Me too. 

Chandler Stroud: So as is tradition here on the Healing Heroes when we have a heroine on, I always like to start with just a fun warm-up question to get us going. So Nerissa, what is one thing that's bringing you joy this week?

Nerissa Balland: I look for joy in kind of everyday small acts of love, [00:04:30] kindness, something that I've done that's fun. I think really right now for me has been watching the World Cup with my kids. It's exciting. I really enjoy soccer a lot, or football, for any of those listeners that aren't American. Um, but yeah, I think sitting and watching the game this week was...

Nerissa Balland: The other day, the Argentina game was the highlight. It was a pretty wild comeback, which was awesome to watch. 

Chandler Stroud: I'm not even a [00:05:00] soccer/football person really, and I've been tuning in with my husband too, and I will agree. The games are more fun than I thought they would be, so I am also enjoying that alongside you.

Nerissa Balland: Cool. 

Chandler Stroud: Is there a small creative ritual, even something tiny, that's part of your day-to-day right now? 

Nerissa Balland: I have to have things very tidy before I can begin anything. So that's kind of a s- like, a routine for me. So if things aren't in its place, and I say that only because as an [00:05:30] artist, a lot of times people think of artists as, like, these messy, crazy souls, which we can be.

Nerissa Balland: But I like things in order first, so I tend to have to, like, have everything set. And recently I've been... I was out of the country on a trip, and so being back is just kind of reorganizing my studio a little bit so that I, when I organize my environmental space, my head space also feels like it's get- it's organized.

Nerissa Balland: So that's probably my ritual [00:06:00] there. 

Chandler Stroud: Love that. I feel that on a very deep level, by the way. Like, as soon as I get overwhelmed or stressed by anything, I'm like, "Okay, let's clear the clutter- Yes ... it's everywhere." 

Nerissa Balland: Yeah. 

Chandler Stroud: So nice to know that even artists feel that way, too. 

Nerissa Balland: Yes. 

Chandler Stroud: All right. Well, thank you for sharing that, Nerissa.

Chandler Stroud: I really appreciate it. And now I would love to just dive in and ask you, to the extent you're comfortable sharing with our listeners, I'd love to hear your story in your own [00:06:30] words, where you come from, what your inner world was like growing up, and how art in particular found its way into your life. 

Nerissa Balland: So I've always had art in, in my life, from a young child.

Nerissa Balland: And I recall even being very young, kindergarten age through elementary school, taking art even outside of school because it was only offered, you know, here and there as an extracurricular activity, and I wanted more of it, and I was fortunate [00:07:00] enough to have a mother who, you know, enrolled me in classes outside of school.

Nerissa Balland: And I gravitated towards art. I gravitated towards art more than any other subject. In hindsight, looking back as an adult, it's because it's, interestingly enough, and this will kind of circle back to this later, but it was really the only thing I felt good enough at when I was younger. I felt I wasn't, like, an amazing student in elementary school.

Nerissa Balland: I became a good student in college when [00:07:30] things changed, but ... In high school, so that I could get into a good college. But before all of that, I didn't feel like I excelled anywhere, and I always felt a little bit behind in most subjects, but art was a place that felt safe and exploratory and expressive, and I seemed to do well in that.

Nerissa Balland: So- Mm ... I always found myself doing something with art, and I ended up going on and studying art in college, and then as a [00:08:00] graduate degree. And really, the graduate degree was because I didn't know what to do after college with an art degree, so I kept studying more and more, and I went off to New York City.

Nerissa Balland: And there I continued the arts and actually fell in love with graphic design. I had gone on and I had studied at the Denmark School of Design in Copenhagen through Pratt Institute, where I got my MFA, and found, like, "Okay, I think I [00:08:30] can get a job and health insurance and do really well in this area, and maybe I won't pursue the fine arts as much," is really what I was initially pursuing.

Nerissa Balland: So I went on and got a job and found myself very quickly trying to climb corporate ladders and training for different clients and roles, and it was very exciting. I felt a little swept away by feeling very adult in my early 20s to work [00:09:00] at corporations and big-name clients and things of that nature. But I wasn't really happy, and I didn't know it so much.

Nerissa Balland: I felt that the happiness came with every promotion or every new client or moving from one ad agency to another. But, uh, I still always felt a little bit unfulfilled, and I didn't know why. I didn't really have words for that. But I kept trying to climb a corporate ladder. I kept trying to validate myself through [00:09:30] external achievements.

Nerissa Balland: Um, and I felt that every move that I made, which I made many... In fact, my family would joke and say, "You change jobs like people change underwear. Like-" "... why, why can't you stay anywhere longer than two years?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm making more money. I have a better client. I, you know, I like this team better."

Nerissa Balland: And they just couldn't really understand it. I came from a background, people pretty much stayed. Like, they had their careers, and they stayed with it, or they had their [00:10:00] businesses and they were entrepreneurs, and they stayed with that forever. There wasn't a lot of movement. For me, I needed that movement.

Nerissa Balland: I didn't understand all of the little moves that I was making at the time until I got much older. Because my 20-something me is not my 30-something me, nor my 40-something me, and soon to enter my 50s will be somebody different. 

Chandler Stroud: But- I mean, thank God, right? 

Nerissa Balland: Yes, yes, exactly. So I, I studied the arts. I was in the arts, but [00:10:30] I actually, the interesting thing is when I was younger, I felt so happy immersed in the world of creativity before I began to judge myself or put myself into society and where I fit in.

Nerissa Balland: Because later in life, I never ended up pursuing the arts for my main career in my early 20s and 30s because I didn't feel good enough, and I thought I wouldn't make it or I wouldn't be successful enough. So I went, you know, more corporate, and [00:11:00] I could keep a paycheck and move up a ladder, and I thought that that would fix everything, and it really didn't.

Nerissa Balland: I felt almost like in advertising I was selling my soul in a sense that, you know, I turned around and took a look and said, "What is my legacy? Like, what am I doing? I'm helping putting people in credit card debt or selling soda to overweight children. Like, this, this is where my campaigns are going." And something didn't feel right about that.

Nerissa Balland: But I began. I moved [00:11:30] on to work in nonprofit area, and that was interesting because now I felt like, oh, I was working as a national marketing director for the National Parkinson Foundation. Um, and that gave me a little bit more like, okay, I'm doing something good for the world. I'm giving back here. I'm using talents and promoting things that are building awareness about a disease.

Nerissa Balland: But I still was really unhappy. Mm-hmm. I never talked about how unhappy I was because that felt [00:12:00] ungrateful- Mm-hmm ... uh, for the opportunities and, and where I was in my life, and I certainly wasn't leading a bad life. I just felt like everything I was doing, I should feel happier or I should feel more fulfillment, and why don't I?

Nerissa Balland: Or why am I always envious that, of everyone else and where they're going and, like, I, I always felt behind. So needless to say, when I turned 38, still working full-time and had a toddler at home, things changed for me. I was diagnosed [00:12:30] with metastatic melanoma, and I was five months pregnant, and cancer for me became a catalyst, not so much about surviving the cancer itself.

Nerissa Balland: It really opened a door for me to recognize there was so much about me that I had been avoiding, and I pushed everything away, and this became, like, a very crystal clear space for me to say [00:13:00] time is limited, and it's precious. You don't know how much you have. What do you wanna do with what you have left?

Nerissa Balland: And that was a very eye-opening experience for me, and heart-opening, and mind-opening experience. And it didn't happen all at once. It happened in many layers for me. Now, there wasn't, like, a defining moment. I, I had an, a number of a light bulb moments along the way, but there was a moment when I said, "I wanna live, but I don't wanna live like [00:13:30] this.

Nerissa Balland: So- Mm ... what do I need to do to make the change?" And I think there was a level of accountability that I was willing to accept, uh, but I just didn't know how to do it by myself. So I began trying different things and modalities to work with to help me get there. But when I say I didn't do it alone, I mean, I would love to preface, I had a partner who-- my husband, who was amazing advocate for me, and I had a lot of support that [00:14:00] way, where he took burden of the disease itself and, and treatments and, uh, tests and all sorts of things that he kind of took on that research and ability so I didn't have to.

Nerissa Balland: So he was able to really help me and advocate in the medical space while I really worked on the emotional part And that was the area that I needed to work on, that I wasn't ready to work on. But I don't know that anyone's ever [00:14:30] really ready to work on themselves emotionally. You just have to get to a point to make the decision and then stay consistent with it.

Nerissa Balland: So I ended up with a cancer diagnosis. I am now eight years NED, which is no evidence detected. I'm still scanned annually and run blood work, but I'm doing really well. I always like to caveat that, 'cause when people hear you have cancer, immediately they wanna kinda know where you're at. Hmm. Um, so there's so many layers and there are so many parts of my [00:15:00] story, I, I get a little flustered on, like, where do I begin or what would somebody want to know, or that would help them.

Nerissa Balland: And I think that the main thing for me is that I was in a space where I've been a creative person, and I found a way during a diagnosis when I didn't see anyone that, like, looked like me, meaning pregnant and in their 30s in a waiting room. I started to try to find people that were like me, and what were [00:15:30] they experiencing, because I wasn't the quintessential stereotype picture of an oncology patient, at least where I am in Miami, in Florida.

Nerissa Balland: That's not what I was seeing in the waiting rooms. And at such a different part of life, right? Mm-hmm. So any of our listeners that are mothers or becoming mothers or new mothers, there's already stresses of, of that as a whole, and what does that mean, and motherhood and identity. Now, when you throw cancer on [00:16:00] top of that, and being a caregiver while needing to be the caregiver for your children at that time, there's a lot of layers and there's a lot of feelings, and there's a lot of unresolved things that we don't have language for yet.

Nerissa Balland: Mm-hmm. I happened to find that creativity was a great avenue, not in the way of being an artist, but it was a great way to have expression, to start to make the invisible visible when you don't have language [00:16:30] for what you're going through. And that's very common. You don't have to have cancer for that.

Nerissa Balland: This, this type of work that I do sits in a space for if you have adversity of any kind, at any magnitude or level, doesn't have to be a health-related experience, can be a divorce, it could be PTSD, trauma, grief, the loss of someone. Creative expression allows us to have a space that feels safe [00:17:00] in our own time, in our own way, to start to find the awareness and the noticing of what it is we don't have words for, and put those words to it.

Nerissa Balland: So what I do is I usually start with the creative aspect, and this is what I found while I was interviewing the over 100 women for the book The ones, not necessarily the most healthiest or with the best prognosis, we all had a very common thread that we were using creativity [00:17:30] as a way to heal in addition to medicine, modern medicine for the physical.

Nerissa Balland: This would be more for our spiritual and our emotional health. Um, and we were finding these different ways, not visual arts per se, some people through movement and dance, some people through photography, some people through the visual arts and creating or painting or drawing, some through journaling.

Nerissa Balland: Although journaling I hes- I'm he- a little more hesitant about because journaling requires language and [00:18:00] words, and a lot of the other- Mm ... creativity modalities and, and areas that I look at don't require language. And that's where you're finding the language. And then through that creative processing, what would happen is once you have the awareness, now what do you do with it, right?

Nerissa Balland: So they'd sit with it, just like me, and then there were other tools and other modalities that began to help once the awareness was there and the language was [00:18:30] starting to reveal itself, where you could understand what was going on in their own terms. And the same happened for me. So this kind of universal thread led me to writing a book about it, in addition to kind of exploring and taking my art that was always very personal or something that was kind of Product transactional through galleries and so forth, to turning it really into from that passion, sounds a little cliche, but that passion into a [00:19:00] purpose.

Nerissa Balland: And the purpose for me began healing and finding ways to help people receive language for areas they didn't have it in, or to begin to just start to notice certain things about themselves. Just to give you an example, when I have a workshop or I'm working with people, and any time it is creative related, you always ha- there was, no matter what, even though every advertisement says you don't need to be an artist, [00:19:30] no artistic experience required.

Nerissa Balland: Actually, no artistic experience is even better because as an artist- Mm ... it was actually harder for me to go down a therapy route because I am trained, I am learned, meaning I know what to look for, I know what techniques to use, I know what materials should be used, I know when they're crappy and I show up at somebody's workshop and I'm like, "Ah, I don't wanna use these.

Nerissa Balland: These aren't going to- ... you know, last." It's terri- it's like really, it's like debilitating for me. So I had [00:20:00] to, I had to unlearn a lot so that I could get to a point where the process, which was the meat of everything, was really the gem in, in working with it, to allow myself to go through it. Otherwise, I was looking at it from somebody that was like a trained professional, and this was entirely the antithesis of that.

Nerissa Balland: So it took me as an artist time to break away from that so that I could unlearn, so I could enter with new eyes. So I love it when people aren't [00:20:30] artists because I'm like, "Great. You're already there. We don't have to backtrack. We don't have to re-teach you how to look at something right now." But they'll always say that.

Nerissa Balland: People will always say, "I am not very good at this." And I'm like, "Great. I don't, I don't want you to be good at it." Like, we're not here to hang something at Art Basel. We're here to- We're here to notice. So like when you have that pencil in your hand, you know, are you holding it very tight? Is it making like an indentation on your finger?

Nerissa Balland: Why? [00:21:00] Why are you holding it so tight? I don't know. It's just a notice. Why are you not holding it so tight? That's another notice, right? Do you make a lot of marks on the paper in one area versus another? And not to diagnose anything, just to make noticing. Just notice what's happening, what are you doing, and why are you doing it.

Nerissa Balland: And those small little steps grow with you as you begin to understand yourself and start to notice things that you're doing and pay attention a little bit more. [00:21:30] Just like when people grind their teeth and they might not be aware of it till the dentist says, "Hey, your teeth look like they're wearing down a little bit.

Nerissa Balland: Are you grinding them at night?" And you might say, "No, I don't grind my teeth at night." Meanwhile, they're all shaved down and you are. You know? And I say that only 'cause that was kind of like, for me, I'm like, "I don't grind my teeth at night." And then I realize when I go- as soon as I lay down at night, I, like, clench my jaw.

Nerissa Balland: It's, like, totally tight, and I have to go through this thing of, like, release it. Why are we [00:22:00] clenching? I don't know why. I'm going to bed all stressed and tight. Like, this should be great. I'm going to sleep right now. But again, just a notice. I'm diverging there a bit, but All of these practices are things that I may talk about later are really just about observation.

Nerissa Balland: And then once you get to that observation, then it's your accountability to try some other tools in your toolbox that will help you begin to make sense of what you're aware of. 

Chandler Stroud: Outside the beautiful book you read, I think that [00:22:30] part especially is gonna be so helpful for listeners in how you think about supporting people through your art and that process.

Chandler Stroud: But before we get there, I do just wanna pause quickly and say thank you so much for sharing your story. I was definitely fighting back tears at parts of it, especially just listening to you speak about your experience so beautifully and so honestly. Like, that really came through for me, how honestly you not [00:23:00] only lived it, but then can speak about it in terms of how you were feeling in your internal world at the time.

Chandler Stroud: So I really appreciate you letting us in on that. And your message toward the end of just pausing long enough to observe yourself in the wild and to take that time to notice, I think it's such a universal experience, especially for women, to just keep going and holding it all [00:23:30] together and doing that achieving and trying to get the praise and feeling like enough nonstop.

Chandler Stroud: And I think we underestimate what happens in those moments of pause, and I just, I love that you reinforced that so beautifully with that example, so thank you for sharing. Nerissa, as you were talking about your childhood in particular, you mentioned that art was the one thing that you felt like you were good at growing up, and I'm curious, [00:24:00] what was it like to feel that way as a kid?

Nerissa Balland: I don't think that anyone's ever asked me that or have thought about it in that perspective, but if I go back to little Nerissa, my inner me- ... which is always a space I'd probably start crying no matter what, even with all- All of 

Chandler Stroud: us ... 

Nerissa Balland: therapy on my life, um- 

Chandler Stroud: Inner child, all the stuff. I'm with you. I'm with you.

Nerissa Balland: All the things. It felt lonely, if I actually- Hmm ... am, like, really being honest. I [00:24:30] grew up as an only child till I was, like, 15. My mother was remarried and had two children then, but by the time my, my brothers were born, I was 15 and 17, so I was, I was like, I lived a different family unit. I was out of the house at 17 anyway when I went to college.

Nerissa Balland: So I say that only because I really felt like I grew up most of my life as an only child, and then half of it was with a single mom before she was remarried. And [00:25:00] I think I had a hard time a lot adjusting in different communities. Like, I really had this feeling like I wanted to belong everywhere I went, and then there was the feeling like I didn't really, but not because I really didn't fit in.

Nerissa Balland: I wasn't an awkward child. I didn't have, like, you know, major bullying or anything going on in my life where some people, you know, go through that. Or I wasn't, [00:25:30] like, this gothic artist in the corner that was, like, weird, that everyone's like, "The weird artist," that she's like- ... "Who is that girl? But she draws so well."

Nerissa Balland: I wasn't like that, but I still felt like I just never fit in. I always felt like I wasn't good enough at things, and that was the one thing I, I did feel, probably because I could be free in the way I expressed myself. And, and I think when we're kids, there's a lot more leeway in art to [00:26:00] encourage and invite creativity with them before They become aware of what it is they're actually drawing.

Nerissa Balland: So there's stages in our life very normally at certain age groups where you feel more free and independent in their, in your drawing. And then as you make more notices as you're getting older, you begin to compare to other people, or does it look realistic? That's a big thing as kids are getting older.

Nerissa Balland: "But it doesn't look like that. Cow doesn't look like this cow," [00:26:30] right? And I was always given that freedom for a while until I became a little older in my teenage years, where art instruction and things begin to change rap- you know, drastically 'cause you have to really learn techniques and skills and understand art as a subject, not just as someone that wants to walk in and be self-expressive.

Nerissa Balland: So probably, I think it felt lonely, but it also felt great because I could get lost in it at the same time. [00:27:00] And what's interesting, as I'm talking now, I'm kinda making a realization, is as I got older, in every relationship that I had or environment or community I was in, I was always very fearful of being alone.

Nerissa Balland: Un- until I experienced what being alone was and recognized being alone is not lonely. They're very two different things, but I didn't really understand that younger. But I do, I think as an adult, see that now, and I [00:27:30] quite often enjoy, and maybe 'cause I'm a mother and I have two kids that need me a lot, I do really enjoy my alone time quite a bit, and I don't feel lonely in that.

Nerissa Balland: But there was a little bit of a loneliness, I think more because I didn't feel accepted, because I wasn't good enough, and it was just a script. It was just a, a story I told myself. No one actually ever said that to me. No one said, "You're not good enough," or I lived a bull- like I said, like a bullying kind of experience or any of that.

Nerissa Balland: [00:28:00] It was... Everything was created, really my story and my narrative, through me. 

Chandler Stroud: So powerfully said because I think that's, again, a universal truth for all women. Your story is created through you, and we've said on the show before, it's not always what happens to you, it's how you experience and narrate what happens to you, how you perceive it, and I think you just spoke to that so beautifully.

Chandler Stroud: So thank you for sharing that. [00:28:30] You went on to earn your MFA at Pratt, one of the youngest students accepted at that time. What was that experience like for you based on the role that art had played in your life up until that point? 

Nerissa Balland: The being accepted was thrilling and validating, and I felt like I got my external, my external validation that way.

Nerissa Balland: And it felt like there was a temporary, it [00:29:00] was a temporary Band-Aid on something that, uh, kind of some wounds I was carrying, but wasn't fixed. And I say that because I had an amazing time looking back in hindsight in my graduate school years, but my first year was really difficult, and I wanted to leave.

Nerissa Balland: I Felt like I was the youngest. Not only was I the youngest, I felt like I was the youngest, and not in a positive way, more [00:29:30] in a way that I started to recognize I don't have the worldly experience that many of the people who were accepted came in and had. So it put me back in a place again where I had said earlier I felt like I didn't fit in.

Nerissa Balland: I didn't have the life experiences that many of the older people who came in and were, you know, taking their courses and their master's degree for very different reasons. I went [00:30:00] because I didn't know where else to go after college. I didn't come from a family of artists or exceptionally creative people.

Nerissa Balland: I come from a long line of entrepreneurs, lawyers, many lawyers, and people in insurance. Uh, totally different spaces than where I was. So I didn't have a mentorship in that way, aside from go to a good school and get a good education, and then you'll get a good job, which doesn't always pan out that way, right?

Nerissa Balland: [00:30:30] I was doing- Mm-hmm ... what I loved, but I wasn't sure where that was gonna take me. I went, I got my degree, and I would say a pivotal point would be traveling. So when, in, when I was at Pratt, I ended up being accepted into an overseas program, and then that's where I got to study over at the Denmark Design School and the University of Copenhagen, and going overseas for the first time by myself was awesome, and that, I think, was a very special experience that [00:31:00] began to change the way I looked at cultures, the way I looked at the United States, the way I looked at other countries, design, art in general, and like what could I do?

Nerissa Balland: And now at, at that point for me, I actually spent an additional year at graduate school because of that, because I went overseas and then I came back, and I didn't complete my degree right away. I took the remainder of the year. So instead of finishing it, my degree in two years, I finished in three, and I needed that extra time to figure out what [00:31:30] did I wanna do.

Chandler Stroud: I think it's really cool, honestly, that you knew even back then that you needed that extra time, and so you took it, and- I don't know that we all give ourselves permission to do those things in the moment, so I'm glad you did. Nerissa, as you think about the period in your life that ultimately led to you writing this book, and I wanna go way back to your own diagnosis to start.

Chandler Stroud: [00:32:00] You told us that at 38, five months pregnant with your second son, you were diagnosed with melanoma. Can you walk us through that time in your life and what your day-to-day was like? Not just what you were doing, but how you were navigating that from on the, in your inner world. 

Nerissa Balland: So, well, when I was first diagnosed- I really, and I, I always say I'm, I'm embarrassed to admit, but I [00:32:30] literally, and th- when I say this, it's happening within seconds because it became very real very quickly.

Nerissa Balland: But when I heard that, first I didn't even know when my dermatologist and a good friend of ours as well, that doctor, said malignant. I embarrassingly, I was like, "So is that the good kind or the bad kind?" Like, I, I was like, "Hurry up. I'm working. I got like my... What's going on?" And I very quickly, he's like, "No, that's-- it's cancer."

Nerissa Balland: And so I'm like, "Okay, but s-" [00:33:00] And then in my mind, I'm thinking, "Okay, but skin cancer is something we scrape away. It's not like real cancer. It's not like, you know, women who have breast cancer, uterine cancer, colon cancer, these, these big things." I'm like, "Mine we'll just scrape away and it'll, it'll be gone."

Nerissa Balland: And I was very wrong about that, very much so. But so at first it was a little bit of confusion for me. Like, I heard cancer. I was always terrified of cancer. I led my life [00:33:30] always thinking one day I'll have cancer because my grandmother had breast cancer, and she was diagnosed at 50 years old, and she died at 64.

Nerissa Balland: So she went 14 years on and off with, with cancer, and I had seen her at an early age. When she was 50, I was 6 years old. And so as I became older, my-- the year that she died, I had initially started college at the University of Maryland, and I, I mean, at, at Hofstra in New York, and then I [00:34:00] transferred to the University of Maryland where my family was.

Nerissa Balland: And I began to take care of her a little bit in those summer months before school was starting again for, you know, the fall semester. And I had a lot of time with her during that period. First, I was gonna waitress at a restaurant like most people find jobs or an internship or something. Um, but I know that she really hated caregivers coming in, strangers.

Nerissa Balland: It bothered her a bit to, for them to bathe her or what have you. So she said, [00:34:30] "I know you need to make money in the summer. I'd rather pay you. Could you come?" And I said, "Sure. I'll do that." It was very difficult, and I felt when she died, there was so much there that I didn't understand about cancer and a lot of fear about it.

Nerissa Balland: So, you know, fast-forward many years later, 18 years later, now I'm diagnosed. I had always kind of had this little fear inside of me like, "One day I'm gonna get breast cancer." That was kind of where my mind was. Like, I [00:35:00] had a specific cancer I was gonna get and, like, how it would go down. And that wasn't the case.

Nerissa Balland: It was a, a period of time that I didn't have time for cancer. So I worked full-time. I had a 15-month-old at home, and ha- I was pregnant and had a lot going on, and I, I worked at home only because I was hiding from the Zika outbreak, um, in Miami. This was 2016. There was a lot of aerial [00:35:30] spraying and dangers out there for people, especially pregnant women.

Nerissa Balland: So I ended up taking my job remote, which was a little difficult to do at first, but it worked out. So I was working at home full-time, and, you know, this was before the time when working remote was a little bit more people frowned upon it. It wasn't- Mm-hmm ... you know, it was before 2020. Now everything's- Yeah

Nerissa Balland: kind of like we can do it on the computer, but it wasn't then, so I felt an extra need to be on top, to be [00:36:00] available, to be present, so people felt like I'm working. I'm not, like, sitting home eating bonbons pregnant. So when this came, it was really like, "I don't have time for this. I don't have time to be sick.

Nerissa Balland: Wait, what?" Very quickly, I had to make time for it. Cancer doesn't necessarily come when it's convenient for you. So that timeframe was difficult, and it started a path for me to begin to [00:36:30] realize, you know, when you're faced with mortality, what, what do you hope you leave behind, you know? Or, or how long will I have with my kids?

Nerissa Balland: I think my biggest thing for me was my concern for my children, and they were IVF, and I felt like I was very nervous that they wouldn't know me as a person. So I quickly felt like I had to begin documenting and logging things for them and leaving things behind, notes, cards for [00:37:00] events that I thought maybe I won't make it to.

Nerissa Balland: Sorry, I'll get emotional there. So I didn't know. There was a lot of, like, just unknown and uncertainty and then trying to navigate. It really becan- began for me a process of understanding the seriousness of it when I went through some surgeries, and then I went through immunotherapy after I had my, after I had Teddy.

Nerissa Balland: That's my son who I had. When the cancer had returned, it came [00:37:30] back. So about a year later, it had returned again, and when it returned, I had found out I was pregnant naturally, which was, like blew my mind because I was considered, like not able to have children, but it was unexplained, so I didn't really have a reason.

Nerissa Balland: Mm-hmm. And so when I got pregnant again and it came back, I... Before I was starting chemo and some more surgeries and a termination of that child because I wasn't able to keep it, [00:38:00] I went and visited my uncle, who is really like my older brother. We're only about eight years apart, and I went and visited him in Boulder, Colorado, where he lives, and that was a pinnacle turning point for me Emotionally and just understanding mindset.

Nerissa Balland: He really wanted me to go visit this man, Revain Bacall, on a ranch. Um, apparently he had helped so many people, and he really works [00:38:30] more in men's circles. But he said, "I, I think you should go see him. I think it will be a great experience for you." And I was a little like, "All right, I'm gonna just go sit on the ranch with some animal.

Nerissa Balland: Like, what, what's g- what's gonna happen?" I'm like, I've been in therapy for years, and let me tell you, like two hours, nothing is happening. I'm explaining my whole life for two hours, and I'm walking out the door, and we're making a new session for me to come back. So... And he's like, "Ju- I'm just telling you, just do it."

Nerissa Balland: And I was like, "All right, what do I have to lose?" He's like, "I'm-- this is my [00:39:00] gift to you." I'm like, "Okay." I went. I really tried to prove this, this gentleman wrong every time. I actually really went in with a very negative and cynical mindset to think like you're going in for help, but I'm like, "I'm gonna prove him wrong, like, you can't help anybody in two hours."

Nerissa Balland: But he proved me very wrong very quickly. And that's really where I began to learn about limiting beliefs, understanding how to decode them and where you have them. And a lot of work [00:39:30] from Byron Katie came out of that, and finding, you know, your absolute truth. And I, I really walked in, I, I love-- I don't wanna spend too much down that road, but, you know, I walked in with the mindset, okay, I'm like, "Cancer is a death sentence.

Nerissa Balland: Tell me it's not." Like, and he very quickly was able to have me say how it wasn't by asking me the right questions. He was able to really help me kind of be able to [00:40:00] articulate two things: that cancer isn't a death sentence, and that cancer isn't bad. Now, that one's a bigger one, and I'm sure people are listening and like, "Huh?

Nerissa Balland: How's cancer not bad?" And I was able to disprove that belief by really saying like, "Okay, cancer isn't bad because it's enhanced my relationship with my husband." I never knew how much he cared and loved me like the way he did as an advocate. I became a better listener. I really began to learn [00:40:30] how to listen to people, not just hear them, but really listen, and to all those spaces in between when people also don't know what they're saying themselves, but hearing them.

Nerissa Balland: And then it also became, you know, a time that allowed me to be a more present parent. Instead of trying to make everything perfect or every playdate and birthday party an event and, like, having everything on the schedule and how we all look when we come out the door, um, I just started to focus on presence [00:41:00] And so those three things really showed me that cancer isn't bad.

Nerissa Balland: And this is where I think having the right people in your life at the right time- Mm ... and then when you're willing to accept it, will help those changes for you. So for me, he was that person, and so that's how I began to start to rewrite my story and find my way. 

Chandler Stroud: It's really powerful to hear that kind of depiction of how mindset [00:41:30] change overhauled the entire way you see yourself and your circumstances.

Nerissa Balland: It's 

Chandler Stroud: really magical. 

Nerissa Balland: It was a huge light bulb moment. That day, he, he said, "Take out your phone." And I was like, "What?" And he goes, "Take out your phone, and I just want... Unfiltered, I wanna take a picture of yourself right now." And I did, and I still have it in my phone. So this is from, like, 2017, and it was just capturing that moment.

Nerissa Balland: And, like, I love that I have a photograph of it 'cause I really [00:42:00] remember that time and space, but having the photograph of it also, 'cause I'm a visual person, makes me return to that. So whenever I'm having that doubt, I can return to that photograph and remember kinda that process of how it started. 

Chandler Stroud: I'm wishing I took a lot of photos now in the last three years of my life, so thank you for that.

Chandler Stroud: I will be going forward because of that story. You said cancer didn't make you an artist, you already were one. It just made you stop avoiding the parts of yourself that you'd abandoned. What did that [00:42:30] return look like, especially in light of your experience on the farm? 

Nerissa Balland: So I say that because I f- I felt for a long time that I, uh, I had abandoned art in the way that I felt a, the definition of an artist should be or live or how I had learned in school.

Nerissa Balland: And then I recognized, like, it wasn't cancer... When I returned to art, it wasn't the cancer that made me return to art. [00:43:00] It opened my eyes in saying, "How do you wanna live more authentically? What do you wanna do with this time that you have?" And I said, I... You know, when I, when I dove into that conversation with myself, I always wanted to return back to my art, and I felt like I just couldn't do it.

Nerissa Balland: And at this point in my career, and, you know, in my lifestyle, I- I'm married, and I'm fortunate to have a husband that could say, "All right. Leave your [00:43:30] job. If you're so miserable, you're so unhappy, take care of yourself right now. Do what you wanna do." And that in itself, you would think right away, people, you would say, "Wow, that's amazing.

Nerissa Balland: Someone gave you that opportunity." Well, I, like, freaked out with that at first because I didn't know how to not work in an environment, and all of my identity was around every job that I had or position or client or scope of work that I had just planned out. And I felt like, oh, I don't wanna be [00:44:00] labeled as a housemo- a housewife, so I'm gonna pour myself into my art.

Nerissa Balland: And again, I was approaching it incorrectly because it wasn't about going out and being a professional artist right away, but I was like, "I need a studio. I need this. How do we set it up?" You know? Meanwhile, I, I had no connections in the art world, and it wasn't my industry, but I wanted to set it up as, like, I need to look and feel like a professional.

Nerissa Balland: 'Cause if I don't have that, I don't know who I am. That was- Feel that ... [00:44:30] that was the scariest place for me to be, and it was really... I was working with a cancer coach. Her name is Leslie Kelly. She's amazing, and, you know, she really helped me come down with having, taking my grandiose ideas and everything that I wanted to do and just scaling it down really small.

Nerissa Balland: Let's start with one step. What, you know, like, y- it's like, you know, I was a person that would take a jog in the neighborhood, and I'm like, "Okay, what Ironman am I [00:45:00] gonna join now?" And- ... you have so much to go through before you're gonna get to the Ironman, you know? But it was very hard. I still struggle with that.

Nerissa Balland: I'm not, not as much, but I'm definitely, I'm definitely in a way better place, but it's also been eight years of doing this work, and I still have to practice and find myself and, and reel, reel myself back in. But healing, even when you say it's a journey, it, it doesn't end. There's not an endpoint, and I think always I was [00:45:30] misunderstood that there is a start and a finish.

Nerissa Balland: Like, I love projects, and that's why I love projects, because projects start and they end. Like, there's not... And then you can take a break, and you can do a new one, and you can change. You can see there's a theme. I really like change a lot in my life, or I'm just a magnet for it. But I started to recognize, like, it's not so, there's no end.

Nerissa Balland: Like, I don't, there's not an end for it, you know? I would feel great when I finally get those moments of clarity, the, and [00:46:00] anyone, like, listening right now that has had that, those feel, like, awesome, and you're on top of the world, and it's like a high when you have it, and then, like, a week later, you could return to the self that you knew before that forgot how to get there again.

Nerissa Balland: And then you can come crashing down and go, "What happened? I was, like, s- on such a high last week. Like, I thought I had it all figured out." I don't have it figured out. And I'm like... And then, and then, uh, but then I pull those tools back in, and it doesn't take me [00:46:30] so long anymore to get back on track. And then I, that was the realization for me, was like, okay, it's like riding a bike when you're learning as a kid.

Nerissa Balland: You'll fall off, but you can get back on again, and guess what? You can keep riding. And it's, it's a lot like a line I've, I've used a lot, which, and it's the common thread when I was creating this book, is that I was re- recognizing that people aren't broken. They're unprocessed. But often, in many of my [00:47:00] workshops, I'll hand out crayons, right?

Nerissa Balland: And everybody has a fresh new one or a couple in their hands, and then I ask them to break it. And then they do. They're con- a little confused, but they break it, and broken crayons still color, I tell them. They're, they're just gonna color a little differently. They might even color better. You might find some gem on the side of one that's, has a sharp edge that you couldn't get a point for before, or a soft [00:47:30] edge on something that kind of allows you to smear it better than if you use the tip of it.

Nerissa Balland: But they're broken, and that's okay because they still function, and sometimes you can find beauty in it when it is broken that you wouldn't have found before. And I think I'm sharing that because that's a little bit of the theme for myself as I can continue to go on and I'm learning and I'm going through this process.

Nerissa Balland: I help other people with the process as well, is that you don't always have to [00:48:00] continuously take your steps forward. Sometimes you'll go backwards, and then you'll come forward again, and you might need that. You know? Think of the salsa. You have four steps forward, four steps back. You know? And you're, you're making that eight count.

Nerissa Balland: But you're still moving. Yeah. 

Chandler Stroud: That was such a unique and beautiful way to talk about healing in a way that I think was really succinct and has been my experience as well, and I love that you talk about it as [00:48:30] the space between. Like, that is healing, right? Having the tools and the approaches and practices that can get you back to a centered, more grounded place faster than you would have otherwise.

Chandler Stroud: And part of that is the awareness, and part of that is the intent. But I think that's a really beautiful way of thinking about it and has been how I've lived my healing journey thus far. So thank you for putting it... [00:49:00] for sharing that. Nerissa, you went on to interview more than 100 young mothers navigating cancer for your book, Canvas of Courage.

Chandler Stroud: What led you to start those conversations? 

Nerissa Balland: I started because- I felt isolated, and healing happens in relationship, not in isolation. And that's a core theme when I was interviewing people. But it started because I couldn't find support. The support groups that were offered at the [00:49:30] hospital were not for people in the chapter of life that I was in with a toddler and a, and a infant at home.

Nerissa Balland: And so I went... I didn't really even think about online until someone once mentioned to me, "Oh, try a Facebook group." So I started searching. I found some Facebook groups. I was much of an observer at first and not really posting, and I began to see some things that, one, were comforting just to know n- in the...

Nerissa Balland: unfortunately to know how many of us were out [00:50:00] there in these groups and that I really wasn't alone. But then I was also saddened by the fact that many of the women, the way we were introducing ourselves were by our prognosis, by our protocols, by our medication, our stages, and the disease, not by people, right?

Nerissa Balland: Not like, "Hey, I'm Nerissa, and I have two boys, Eli and Teddy. Yes, I was diagnosed with this." Instead it's, "I'm Stage [00:50:30] 3B metastatic melanoma," right? "And I have taken eight months of Keytruda. I've taken six weeks of chemo. I've had 13 surgeries." A- and it was like that's not me. That's what's happened to me.

Nerissa Balland: Those are things that have happened, but they're, they don't define who I am as a person as we're getting to know each other in these groups. So I was fascinated by that, and I was disturbed by it. I was also very disturbed a lot because I happen to really have [00:51:00] a negative kind of sensory on the fact when people would be overly positive or overly thriver/survivor type of terminology.

Nerissa Balland: I don't know. For me it didn't... For me that didn't work. I do know it works for some people, but I, I sat there feeling like I don't feel like F cancer or I don't feel strong because I actually feel like, "All right. I'm gonna do the things they tell me to do, [00:51:30] but I don't know if they're gonna work." That's, you know, there are plenty of people.

Nerissa Balland: I was watching, you know, Instagram became a digital graveyard for people that were dying on me that weren't making it, and especially in these groups a lot. So, you know, I was like, "I don't know. How do you feel like you're a fighter when it really isn't anything you're doing except you're showing up?" Mm.

Nerissa Balland: That's good. 

Chandler Stroud: Mm. 

Nerissa Balland: But I didn't feel like I- that it was happening because of me. I also had a really hard [00:52:00] time with the word survivor. I felt like that was held for people in, like, the Holocaust, and I didn't feel right using it, and I didn't feel right about thriver because that felt, I felt like I was not valuing all the crap I was going through 'cause that felt kind of pinky positive to me that I- Yeah

Nerissa Balland: uh, wasn't for me. Um, so I wanted to get to this root. I wanted to get to the stories. I really wanted to, like, know who these people were. I put out there online, "Hey, [00:52:30] I'm interested in writing a book of stories about young mothers facing cancer, and if you're interested and you wanna share your story with me, I would love to hear it, and we'll, we set up a time."

Nerissa Balland: So that happened at the beginning of 2020, and then the pandemic came that Q1, right? So everybody was home. So I had a lot of people signing up for interviews. No shortage of that. And I began doing these Z- Zoom, uh, video recorded calls for about a year, and it [00:53:00] became a lot. It was exci- at first, it was very exciting, and I was, like, thrilled to be getting stories and connecting with women, and it felt awesome.

Nerissa Balland: And then there was a lot of sadness because I really quickly recognized that there were a lot of people that didn't have support Or they were in abusive relationships, or they had a husband that when they were diagnosed with breast cancer and then went in for their surgery, left them. And, you know, it was, like, heartbreaking.

Nerissa Balland: Or how- Wow ... do you deal with [00:53:30] domestic violence at home? Now you have cancer and you've got drains, but yet, you know, your partner doesn't seem to care about that. Or women that had, you know... I would complain, "Oh my God, I have two kids and they're so young," and this, but then I would meet women who had kids who are autistic.

Nerissa Balland: I don't have children with special needs. Mm. So that's a whole other layer on top of that. Mm. And just also, how do you, you know, making them understand, and there were so many things that I was, like, [00:54:00] learning and hadn't thought about because I sat in my own bubble, and it really opened my eyes to many different scenarios, different economic brackets, different types of communities people came from, family environments, et cetera, ages, diagnosis, all of it.

Nerissa Balland: So I had to put it away for a little bit. It was, it was a lot to take in. And then I wanted to share everything with my husband, but he was very much like, "Listen, I'm living this with you, but I, I [00:54:30] cannot listen to... I don't wanna hear about the other stories. It's too much for me." And I had to respect that.

Nerissa Balland: So I would put it away for a while, and it took me six years to get the book out into the world that way. And so when I say six years, it's not that I was heavily writing. It actually really only took me a few months because I put it... I would write things over the years, and then I would walk away from it, which really wasn't my style in the past.

Nerissa Balland: I never... When I have, like, a project or something, I do it and I get it done [00:55:00] quickly. But I was allowing myself, as I was learning how to heal and that things don't have to be rushed and done on a timeline, and this wasn't for a boss or anybody that I needed to get a deadline in for. I said, "If it happens, it happens.

Nerissa Balland: If it doesn't, it doesn't. Um, so we'll see." And then it was in 2025, I went away to Spain for the summer, and I came back, and I wrote the whole thing in a few months and published it. But it's [00:55:30] not that it was in a few months. I had been really been working on it all those years, just thinking of different concepts and ideas, and then I would put it away and come back to it

Chandler Stroud: I mean, in many ways, that is an artistic expression, so you were doing art the whole time. 

Nerissa Balland: Yeah. It just took me a while to think of it like that 'cause, you know, I just ha- I've always had these expectations. Like, okay, if you're gonna be a writer, you're writing thi- like this. If you're going to be- ... an artist in the studio, you're [00:56:00] going to be like this.

Nerissa Balland: You know what I mean? And so again, it's, it's great examples of how I just scripted everything in my mind, but- 

Chandler Stroud: Yeah ... 

Nerissa Balland: it's not necessarily what was happening. 

Chandler Stroud: Hmm. Nerissa, you've asked, "Who am I now?" as part of your own healing. Where do you feel you are with that question today? 

Nerissa Balland: I'm still uncovering myself in a lot of ways, but I think one thing that I love is I love myself, and I [00:56:30] can easily say that without any defense or feeling weird about it, and I love that I'm unresolved, and I think I have so many great things to offer.

Nerissa Balland: I do feel like I'm still evolving, and that's okay, and I, I love that. You know, really I'd say when I turned 40 and I was still, you know, really in, heavily in the midst of going through everything, it was really when I was able to take a deep breath and be like, "I [00:57:00] don't know everything." Like, I thought I knew it all, and I don't know anything like, you know?

Nerissa Balland: And it's funny to admit that, and I'm s- sitting here on this podcast to say that, but it's really true. I felt all the sudden, like, I'm excited to learn. I don't have to prove to anyone that I know everything or feel like I know e- I'm the one in the room that's the subject matter expert on something, and that's okay, and that doesn't take away from my self-worth at all.

Nerissa Balland: In [00:57:30] fact, I think that that makes me a, a stronger, better person because it shows that I'm... want the ability to learn something new and grow. I didn't always have that feeling. I always felt like I had to prove something, that I knew it all, and if I didn't know it, I better quickly go find it out. Uh, but now I have a different pace.

Nerissa Balland: I'm happy with the pace. I'm happy with myself, and I think one important thing that my younger me didn't have that my older me now does is that when faced with [00:58:00] adversity, 'cause I'm no stranger to it, not just through cancer, but you had mentioned other things before, earlier, is I stopped really asking the question is, "Why me?

Nerissa Balland: Why is this happening to me?" Which is very much kind of a victim mentality, and I started saying, "What now?" And just taking the why me and turning into what now, that reframing has given me so much [00:58:30] peace, and that's who I am now is, "What now?" I'm like, "Where do we go now- Mm-hmm ... with the next step for something?"

Nerissa Balland: I'm not worried about, you know, 16 steps in advance. I'm just looking at right now 'cause that's really all we have is the present moment. And presence is something I've always had a hard time with. I did mention to you off air when we were talking once that I was kicked out of three yoga classes for talking to people.

Nerissa Balland: Um, [00:59:00] I, I don't get, get kicked out of yoga anymore, but, um, but I couldn't sit with myself, not 'cause I didn't like myself. I was just going. I just always had to go, go, go, make a joke, be funny, something. Like, I couldn't sit with silence. It had to be filled with words somehow. But now I can 

Chandler Stroud: I talk about my own experience with that a lot on the show, and I think the way that [00:59:30] you are showing up today and what you've leaned into and learned is just a beautiful surrender, this idea of what now.

Chandler Stroud: You know? It's like, "Show me, world. What now? What's next?" And I'm probably in the process of learning that myself right now. Like, you just let down your guard, try not to make everything... You don't need to be an, a subject matter expert, SME, as they used to say- Yes ... in corporate, right? Yep. Don't be the SME.

Chandler Stroud: [01:00:00] Just let it be what it is, and be vulnerable in that, and learn to sit with that uncertainty 'cause, like, that there is, I think, some of the hardest parts of healing. 

Nerissa Balland: Yeah, I would agree. 

Chandler Stroud: Like you said, you know, it's a lifetime journey. It's not something that begins and ends, which I'm learning myself. What do you hope someone going through something unspeakable right now, something they don't have words for yet, takes from your story?

Nerissa Balland: So I would say if [01:00:30] someone doesn't have words yet, the first thing that you would need to do is g- give yourself permission, you know, permission to ask for help or whatever it is that you don't have in the moment. So if you need support, if you need help from a family member, if you need to do something for yourself that you've been putting off, give yourself that [01:01:00] permission.

Nerissa Balland: Um, courage begins with acceptance, not, um, rejection or resistance. So everyone has the ability to be courageous. Everybody has a ability to give themselves permission. Sometimes we don't know that we have to ask ourselves for it. So ask yourself, what do you need? And then give yourself permission to [01:01:30] figure out how you're gonna get there.

Chandler Stroud: Oh, I think that might be one of the best answers I've ever heard on the show. 

Nerissa Balland: Oh, wow. Thanks. 

Chandler Stroud: Truly, I don't think... I think it does start with permission, and I don't think we give, especially as women, I don't think we give ourselves enough of it. So I'm really glad that you brought that to the surface and ended on that note.

Chandler Stroud: Thank you so much, Nerissa, for [01:02:00] being here, for being so honest and vulnerable with your story, and trusting us with the pieces that clearly took so much courage to live, and even more to share with us today. So thank you. 

Nerissa Balland: You're welcome. So happy to be here. 

Chandler Stroud: And I loved speaking with you. I honestly, I mean, throughout the episode, I was thinking we could break this into parts two and three, 'cause there's so much of your story that I would love to dig into.

Chandler Stroud: So [01:02:30] that is an open invitation to come back whenever- I'd love to ... you have time and are ready. We would lo- I would love- Always ready ... to pick this up again. And to our listeners, if this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might find it helpful. You can also visit thehealingheroes.com to learn more about our healing approaches, the show, and even work with me and my heroes.

Chandler Stroud: Thanks for listening, everyone, and until next time, remember, be curious, be [01:03:00] courageous, and be kind to yourself. You've got this. 

Nerissa Balland: We're gonna make 

it