When I Ignored My Gut — And What It Taught Me

In 2024, nothing was technically wrong in my life.

I had a stable job as an Account Manager for a multinational company in the nautical industry. International clients. Structured days. KPIs achieved. A steady salary. A future that made sense on paper.

And yet I felt empty.

Not sad. Not desperate. Just… numb and blocked.

I was in a relationship that didn’t feel aligned anymore. I was doing a job that paid well but drained me quietly. I was waking up every morning already tired.

The worst part wasn’t that I was unhappy.

The worst part was that I had started to normalize it.

The Month I Removed Myself From My Life

I decided to leave.

Not the job. Not yet.

I left the noise.

I moved to Tertulia, a coliving space in the middle of the Tuscan countryside. I stayed there for an entire month.

I made a radical decision: I wouldn’t see or speak to anyone who knew me well. No friends. No family. No one who could reflect back an old version of me.

I needed to meet myself without influence.

Tertulia became my eremo.

Long walks.

Shared meals.

Silence.

Conversations that went deeper than small talk.

Anja was pivotal during that time. She didn’t give me answers. She gave me space — and the right questions.

Who are you when no one is watching?What makes you feel alive?If money weren’t a factor, what would you choose?

Those questions unsettled me.

Because for the first time in years, I allowed myself to answer honestly.

I realized I had built a life that looked impressive — but didn’t feel like mine.

I didn’t want to climb corporate ladders.I didn’t want to optimize conversion funnels.I didn’t want to spend my life negotiating contracts while pretending that was ambition.

I was good at it.

But being good at something is not the same as being called to it.

What I wanted was simpler. And riskier.

I wanted soil under my nails.I wanted to cook with wild herbs.I wanted to gather people around a table and feed them stories.

I wanted to feel alive.

That’s where The Nomad Lasagna was truly born.

Not as a business model.

Not as an escape plan.

But as a return to myself.

I started designing the website from my laptop in a quiet corner of Tertulia. I structured foraging walks. Imagined wild cooking workshops. I began sharing my passion and knowledge about wild herbs with the colivers. I experimented in the kitchen with them, testing flavors, combinations, and stories.

For the first time in years, I felt creative instead of productive.

And the difference between the two is everything.

The MasterChef Dream

When you feel alive again, you want to go all in.

So I applied to MasterChef 2025.

That was the call..

I was standing in Piazza Duomo in Milan when the production team phoned me.

“We’d like to inform you that you’ve been selected to take part in the Masterclass auditions.”

I remember the exact feeling in my body.

My heart racing.My hands slightly shaking.A smile I couldn’t control.

In those photos, you can see pure joy. Not filtered. Not strategic. Not composed.

Just a girl standing in the middle of a square, laughing into her phone because someone on the other end had just told her that a door was opening.

For months, I trained like an athlete. My kitchen became my battlefield. I tested recipes obsessively.

At first, it was okonomiyaki. I made it so many times that one day I physically felt sick just looking at it.

That’s when I realized I was forcing something that didn’t belong to me.

So I returned to my roots.

I chose "Cappellacci alla Romana" because my nonna taught me how to close cappelletti when I was a little girl. Folding pasta by hand felt like folding memory into the present.

And at that time, living in Rome, it felt like coming full circle.

There was something deeply symbolic about that choice. A dish rooted in tradition. Handmade. Imperfect. Honest.

I practiced endlessly. Adjusted the filling. Perfected the closure of each cappelletto. Timed the cooking down to seconds.

I will share the full recipe in another blog post.

But when my job told me, “If you enter MasterChef, you’ll need to resign,” fear entered the kitchen.

Mortgage. Bills. Responsibility.

I wasn’t fully free when I stepped into that studio. And when you’re not free, it shows. The judges feel it. The cameras feel it. You feel it in your hands.

I got the grey apron.

The dish was appreciated. They gave me another chance.

But during the fish challenge, facing Claudio and the filleting test, something inside me froze.

It wasn’t about technique.It was about hesitation.

And life rarely rewards hesitation.

When I Was Fired

Shortly after, my corporate life ended anyway.

They said, “Company reorganization.”

I had met every KPI. Two new people had just been hired for the exact same role. It wasn’t really objective — but I fought. I negotiated. I didn’t shrink.

And in the end, I walked out with compensation and NASpI.

It felt like the universe correcting my half-hearted courage.

I opened a Partita IVA. I applied for the early NASpI payment. The funds arrived.

Suddenly, I had capital.Not just money — possibility.

That’s when my first retreat, Back to the Roots, was born.

People started writing to me organically on Instagram. No ads. No strategy. Just resonance.

There was movement.

There was authenticity.

There was response.

For the first time in a long time, I felt aligned.

The Second Betrayal

Then another job opportunity came.

Marketing Manager. Good money. Local company. Nautical sector again.

Financially, it felt almost irresponsible to say no.

So I said yes.

And from the very first day, I felt it.

That tightness in my stomach.That subtle, persistent discomfort.

My mother used to call it “gut feeling.” She always said, “It speaks softly. But it’s always right.”

Mine wasn’t even whispering. It was clear:

“Alice, this is not your road.”

I ignored it.

Then September arrived. The Cannes Yachting Festival — contractually mandatory.

The exact same dates as my "Back to The Roots"..

I remember sitting alone one night, staring at my calendar.

Contract vs. Calling.

And I chose the contract.

I told myself it was maturity. Responsibility. Being an adult.

But inside, something cracked.

And today, I can say it clearly:

I regret it.

Not because work is wrong.But because I compromised something sacred to me.

What I Learned

Today, I no longer work as a marketing manager for anyone.

Over the past year, I’ve done the real work — not just professionally, but internally.

I’ve reflected deeply on everything that happened.

On every decision. On every compromise. On every time I ignored myself.

And I understood something clearly:

For me, freedom — the freedom to choose for myself — is not optional. It is essential.

Yes, money is important. Stability is important.

But they are tools. Not meaning.

I’ve learned that every time I ignore my gut, I shrink. Every time I choose alignment, I expand.

Compromise, for me, feels like erosion. A slow wearing down of something alive inside me.

And I no longer want to erode.

The Nomad Lasagna is not just foraging. It is not just cooking. It is not just retreats.

It is my declaration of freedom.

It is my commitment to build something slow, rooted, and real.

I am not building a business.

I am building a life that feels like mine.

And this time, I will listen to my gut feeling ♥️