An update for you, dear reader

This publication is about changing the way we do things.

I do my best to highlight thoughts, patterns and ideas we take for granted and encourage readers to question what seems to be true but often is not. I was only able to change my life once I stopped accepting the premises we are taught in the United States1 about what makes for a good life—individually and communally—and how to create such a life.

At the root of many of the United States’ problems is distorted or disordered thinking. Almost every problem we have goes back to a fundamentally flawed assumption that was presented to us as an absolute truth rather than an opinion driven by ideology. We have been indoctrinated with a way of thinking that leads us to bad conclusions on a million different levels. Many Americans have developed a learned helplessness and believe that things are just the way they have to be and that there are no real alternative ways to live.

When I realized this, I knew that to really change, I needed to be around people who lived and thought differently and operated from different premises. So, I moved to Italy in large part to just try to remember what it was like to be a normal human.2

What that has meant for me in the last few months is not pushing myself when I just don’t have the energy or the capacity to write.

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As my readers know, my mother passed away the day after Christmas. We had a very complicated relationship, but I loved her very much. So, I have been grieving that loss and that complicated relationship. I also have been dealing with some family-related conflict in the wake of her death, which is very hard on me because my family is so important to me.

I’ve been exhausted, sad, and unmotivated.

In addition to that, I am renovating a Trullo here, which is not a typical renovation because it’s an old, very unusual-shaped structure. The renovation is way behind schedule, and I have run into some issues that have consumed most of my time trying to resolve. These are not issues that are unique to Italy. They are issues that arise with renovations, but of course, there’s an added layer because I am in Italy, and I don’t speak the language and lack familiarity with how things are done here.

The old Kirsten would’ve pushed through the grief, fatigue, and extra work of renovating and adapting to a new country and have never missed publishing a post. The new Kirsten is listening to her body and trusting that it’s okay to step back when there just isn’t any energy and that everything will be okay.

I won’t lie: this is hard.

Obviously, I want to be professional, and readers are paying good money to receive a product. This is not a hobby; it’s my job and income. I take that very seriously. But when it comes to pushing my body beyond its limits to do something that it just really doesn’t have the capacity to do, I’ve made a decision to no longer do that.

I’ve unfortunately seen what happens when you ignore the signs from your body and push past your limits. I did this for a very long time when I lived in the United States, and I ended up with an extremely dysregulated nervous system and all sorts of health issues, including chronic fatigue.

I do not want to go back to that.

In the past, I not only would’ve pushed through the grief and the fatigue and essentially denied my basic humanity. I would’ve also stopped doing anything nourishing for myself because I would have felt it was taking time away from work. So, I would have canceled any social outings because, in the US, human connection had come to feel like a luxury rather than a necessity.

This is completely upside down.

Instead, I’ve been living in a more Italian way, which is to treat socializing and connecting with people as the fundamental point of life and part of being human. This means recognizing that I need to socialize with others in order to move through my grief in a healthy way and to feel emotionally regulated.

So it’s not that I am spending all my time socializing, but I am going to dinner or grabbing coffee and connecting with people rather than isolating and working or alternatively isolating and binging Netflix, which Americans believe is rejuvenating when it’s just adding to the problem.

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When I first got here in early January, I saw an osteopath. I don’t know what the exact translation of this is in English. It’s not a chiropractor, but they work on your body. When I saw him last week, he said, “Your energy is completely different than when you got here. When you got here, it was a very bad situation.”

He wasn’t even talking about how tense my body was. He was just referencing how my energy felt. I think my energy has changed because I’m keeping my nervous system regulated so I can process normal stress in a healthy way. I’m walking among the olive trees, spending time with new friends, meditating, staying off of social media and limiting my news intake so that I’m informed but not overloaded.

I’m not rushing or hustling or forcing.

In terms of physical tension, my body feels completely different. When I arrived, I brought with me the terrible neck and shoulder pain that has accompanied me throughout adulthood. Now, that pain is completely gone, even though I haven’t exercised since arriving.

In the United States, if I didn’t intensely exercise at least four times a week, I would be a ball of anxiety, and my entire body would be tense and tight. My neck would ache or have pain. I regularly took ibuprofen just to function. Getting massages in the United States was basically healthcare for me, though of course that’s not covered by insurance. I wouldn’t be able to move my neck if I didn’t get massages almost weekly.

I’ve been in Italy almost two months, and I’m starting to feel quasi-normal. I know I have a long way to go to “normal,” but you can expect me to return to my regular writing schedule here. I have a long list of things I want to write about, and I’m looking forward to connecting with the wonderful community here again.

Thank you for your support during this time — I’ve lost hardly any paying subscribers despite my lower output, and I can’t begin to tell you what that means to me.

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New York Times bestselling author Kirsten Powers offers fresh thinking about how we can make big changes in our lives, communities and country.