The Art of Navigating Cancer
A Creative Space to Rest, Reflect, and Reclaim Your Joy and Personal Power.
This unique blend of relaxation, conversation & creative expression offers immediate relief from the constant stress of cancer so that you can start living more fully again
“This simple act of creative autonomy restored a sense of personal power I desperately needed.” -K.V.
You’re in the Right Place
If you think to yourself...
“I feel stressed and scared all the time”
I need to find a way to feel better and to calm my thoughts and fears"
“I feel so lonely."
I want to be around people who get it. No explaining. No pretending. No forced positivity. Someone who I can talk to.
“I’m tired of being ‘the patient.’”
I want to be seen as a whole person not just a diagnosis, to find a new identity.
“I need a break from the daily appointments & clinical side of cancer.”
I’m tired of the scans, treatments, appointments, and hospitals. I need a break from it all, a place to relax, have some fun, and feel like myself again.
“I want more fun and joy in my life, I need a new hobby that is easy and does not add to my list of to do's"
Something I can turn to during waiting rooms, treatments, or whenever I need a break from cancer.
If this sounds like you... then you are in the right place!
Welcome to The Art of Navigating Cancer
This is acreative space where you can relax and to put your burdens down. Blending creative expression, relaxation and conversation is the most immediate way to interrupt the anxiety of cancer, and reclaim your joy and personal power. This is not about perfection it is about expression and relaxation.
How this approach is different?
Cancer causes our minds to work overtime, to worry, to analyze, to anticipate the worst. We are either perpetually sharing the cancer worries, doom scrolling zoning out and trying to forget what is on our mind.
Sometimes talking helps. Sometimes distraction helps. But there are moments when words simply aren't enough, you can't always “think” your way out of anxiety, and distracting yourself only offers temporary relief.
We need a way to release and express the deeper pain, fears, and thoughts that live beneath the surface... and that is where
The Art of Navigating Cancer comes in.
Blending relaxation with creative expression offers a different way.
Instead of staying caught in the mental cycle of thinking and worrying, relaxation combined with creativity invites you into a different state — one of flow, curiosity, and being present. Your attention moves from what might happen... to what you a
Maybe it is what has been on your heart and you need to journal it. Maybe it is what you have been thinking and you need to relate it through a guided meditation or maybe you just need to let it out and express with colors and marks . Exp ress the line your hand wants to make, the way your breath slows as you work and what you are feeling and connecting to.
After working with hundreds of students, clients, and people navigating cancer, I've seen this happen again and again:
When you become absorbed in relaxing and creating, you shift out of the anxiety spiral you enter into a "creativity spiral — a state where each small act of noticing and expressing opens the door to peace instead of worry.
You don't have to to be good at art because art is good for you. No trying to it "right" go for it make "ugly art" it feels so good!
The real shift is from managing your thoughts to listening to a more quiet place.
That's what makes The Art of Navigating Cancer so unique. Blending relaxation, creative expression, and conversation draws your attention away from cancer. It quiets the worry and creates more room for peace, creativity, and joy — not by pushing the fear away, but by giving your mind a new place to be.
Come relax and have fun!
Why...
The Art of Navigating Cancer?
My Personal Journey
For over thirty years, I worked as a professional artist, exhibiting in galleries and teaching hundreds of students. I measured my worth by what I produced. I had become a Human Doer rather than a Human Being.
Then my cancer diagnosis stopped everything.
I realized that my "old approach" of working harder, staying busy, and trying to control the outcome was not going to work in this chapter of my life. I understood that :
Healing does not mean going back to the way things were.
Instead of asking, How do I get my old life back? I began asking, Who am I becoming? How can I learn to live fully in the life I have right now?
These questions changed everything. I began to understand what creativity and living fully meant. Being creative isn't just about what happens on the canvas. It's a way to reconnect with myself and others, find peace and joy within uncertainty, and rediscover the art of living.
My cancer experience inspired me to become a certified life coach and to explore how the powerful tools of coaching combined with creativity can support our well-being. Since then I have created facilitate a program at UT Southwestern, where I work directly with people navigating cancer.
In addition to my hospital work, I have launched The Art of Navigating Cancer, and online program for people navigating cancer and their caregivers.This program the culmination of my personal experience, professional coaching, research, and more than three decades as an artist and educator.
Cancer was the pause that taught me that I couldn't control everything in my life, but I could learn to navigate it with greater peace, curiosity, and personal agency.
Now I help others do the same.
What to Expect...
Welcome to a creative sanctuary where you can put your burdens down, step into a warm, welcoming space where you can exhale, create, and reset.
Here is what you can expect:
Relax and Release: Enjoy guided relaxation techniques that calm your nervous system and interrupt your stress response, so find more of ease and a sense of peace.
Reflect : Journal to calming music. Reflect and answer simple questions that help you notice what you're feeling, what you need and what you want to let go of.
Create with Freedom: No art skills needed. I'll guide you to let go of perfection and express yourself through marks and color.
You'll have a fun new hobby.
Connect Through Conversation: Share, laugh, or simply listen with people who understand what you're going through; no explaining, pretending, or forced positivity.
Can't Make It Live? No Problem. Access the replays 24/7; from your bed, a waiting room, during treatment, or whenever you need a little space for yourself.
“You don't have to be good at art—because art is good for you.”
JOIN THE PRIORITY LIST TO GET UPDATES
Art Meets Neuroscience
Why Art Is So Good at Interrupting the Anxiety Spiral of Cancer
Cancer can keep your mind and body on high alert—tense about scans, treatment, test results, and what comes next.
That’s where creativity can help.
Making art engages your hands, senses, attention, imagination, and emotions. It gives your busy mind somewhere else to go and helps bring you back into the present moment.
The research backs this up.
In a Drexel University study, 75% of participants experienced a drop in cortisol—the body’s primary stress hormone—after just 45 minutes of making art!
It didn’t matter whether they had experience making art!
A 2025 review of 15 studies involving more than 1,100 people with cancer found that art-based interventions significantly reduced anxiety and depression.
That’s why we combine relaxation + creative expression + meaningful conversation.
Together, they give you permission to paint, draw, reflect, and express what you’re feeling without pressure, perfection, or the need to push your worries aside. Creativity offers another way to process what you’re going through, interrupt the anxiety spiral, and reconnect with a sense of calm and possibility.
This is not your typical art class. We don’t care about making a pretty picture or holding the perfect meditation pose.
It’s about creating space to breathe, release, and reconnect with yourself—no matter what chapter of cancer you’re navigating.
Sources: Kaimal, Ray & Muniz, Drexel University, 2016; Ünal & Erdoğan Yüce, European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 2025.
Neuroplasticity is your brain's ability to build new patterns through repeated experience—these practices can strengthen new and calmer pathways of attention and response to stressful situations.
“Today I had three scans, baked two loaves of bread, and made art that I hung in my house. I don't understand how, despite my cancer... I am fully living!” -B.H.
The Creative Shift: The Four Elements
Relax:
Breathing, relaxation, and guided meditations give your mind and body a moment to release, dream, and feel more grounded and present.
Reflect:
Through compassionate listening, reflecting and journaling to soothing music we pause and reconnect to what we're feeling beneath the surface and to what we need.
Create:
Doodle, paint, and experiment with color. Even messy, “imperfect” art lowers your cortisol levels and gives your mind something new to focus on. I’ll guide you every step of the way.
Connect:
Connect with other people who understand what you are going through. Connect to your life & bring these practices into your everyday life. Choose small routines that bring a little more light and joy into your day.
The Art of Navigating Cancer
A low key 6 week program designed to interrupt your stress and give you easy tools to find more calm and joy.
We move from an “anxiety spiral” into a “creativity spiral.”
The path of worry may still be there, but it doesn't have to be the only path.
We create more room for peace, curiosity, creativity, and joy—even while navigating cancer.
JOIN THE PRIORITY LIST - THE ART OF NAVIGATING CANCERWhat Participants Are Saying …
“When the word ‘cancer’ entered my life, it felt like the world stopped... I felt disconnected from myself and overwhelmed by fear. During our art sessions, I was in charge. I chose the colors; I determined the shapes; I made the decisions. This simple act of creative autonomy restored a sense of personal power I desperately needed... It was where I learned to breathe again. It helped me navigate the darkness and find my way back to the light.”
— K. V.
“Spending time with other survivors, being intentional about setting aside the time to create, has been liberating, therapeutic, and healing.”
— J. H.
“I left the first session with an overpowering sense of belonging.”
— C.T.
