Kitchen Table Sauce
Staying Open: grief, creative receptivity, and the thousand tiny leaps back to yourself
Pull up a chair — creativity, grief, and becoming more alive are on the table. I sit down with Julie Lane—an artist, artist-in-residence, and creator of embodied portraiture—for a conversation about how to become more open, receptive, and available to your own creativity, especially when life has cracked you open. If you’ve felt creatively blocked, disconnected from your intuition, or afraid that opening yourself to expression will also open the door to everything you have been trying not to feel this episode will give you another way in. We get into what it actually means to live as an artist, even if you don’t paint, write, perform, or consider yourself creative, and how expression begins with learning to notice and trust the small urges that make you feel more alive. Julie shares how losing her father returned her to her artistry because grief cracked her open so completely that she could no longer pretend. Together, we talk about creativity as a form of listening, grief as a form of aliveness, and the thousands of tiny, deeply unsexy choices it takes to build a life that actually feels like your own. Themes from the table: ️ How to become more receptive to creativity and intuition ️ Recognizing your urges as information ️ Why living as an artist matters more than making art ️ Expanding your definition of creative expression ️ How grief can return you to the truth of who you are ️ Following the next tiny opening without knowing the outcome ️ Separating creativity from productivity and monetization ️ Holding the weight of grief alongside the weight of hope ️ Building the safety to express yourself even when you are unsure ️ Letting yourself feel fully without turning every wound into a lesson This is a conversation about allowing life to move you, staying open after the rupture, and creating without requiring your grief to be finished first (because it never will be) Connect with Julie: • Instagram @mapstoherself • Join Julie's Waitlist! Connect with Giana: Instagram @giana.cerasia Free monthly women’s circle ️ Ravish Apprenticeship Waitlist 2027 ☎️ Want to send a voice note to the podcast and have Giana answer in an episode? DM HERE If this episode stirred something, rate, review, and share! This podcast is ad free, so ratings and reviews are our currency!
