Becoming Unbound: A Conversation Between Kasia Urbaniak & Dr. Valerie Rein
This conversation with @drvalerierein, author of #PatriarchyStressDisorder, was such a pleasure. I hope you enjoy it too.
We explore…
What power is and isn’t (it may surprise you)
The universality of #patriarchystressdisorder, how it impacts a woman’s power through The Freeze and ‘Good Girl’ behaviors.
How we can reclaim our power to become #womenunbound and the unique opportunity the pandemic presents for this reclamation.
And much more!
Connect with Dr. Valerie Rein:
Read the Transcript:
Dr. Valerie Rein: I was watching your TEDx talk, and it's interesting timing because right now I'm doing a series here on Instagram Live talking about trauma, how patriarchy stress disorder shows up for women, and particularly unpacking what I call prison guards. These are trauma defenses that fall into different categories, depending on the intensity of that trauma or stress response. Ranging from peace, fight, flight, freeze, and then shutdown and summarization. Today is the day I will be talking about freeze. Of course, that is what you talk about in your TEDx talk. Here's the line that you said that really hit me.
“It's not just about the bad things that happen. It's about the beautiful things that never happen. These are some of the costs of going into freeze.”
Do you want to talk more about that?
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. I also wouldn't feel right beginning to speak with you without acknowledging you and your work. What I feel is one of the boldest and bravest things that you've done, that so many other people venturing into this territory miss, is the universality of this experience for women. You come from a distinguished background, being educated, and can talk about trauma, stress, and the somatic nervous system that I cannot because I don't have that background. What I got so excited about when I realised that you exist in the world is you're speaking so loudly and so articulately with the message that a woman going through this, a woman is not alone. One of the greatest unintentional tricks pulled on women suffering from the impact of patriarchy, which is all women, is that these symptoms, these problems, are individualized, personalized, and reserved for, for example, individual therapy. My psychological problems. I have trouble asking. I don't fend for myself. I freeze easily. I'm weak. I don't believe in myself. I don't stand up for myself. I don't ask for what I need. I hide when I'm hurt. I pretend I'm not mad. I, I, I. My problem. Now I need to go talk about my parents. The thing is that when you get a room with enough women, one grew up wealthy, one grew up poor, one was loved by her father but not by her mother, one was loved by her mother but not by her father. Yet even the ones that appear different – one damsel in distress and one hyper-independent, nothing in common – neither of them know how to ask.
So bold to call your book Patriarchy Stress Disorder and your work, to just call it out. It's not you, it's us. It's not me, it's us. And once the patterns are revealed, then we start being able to look in more effective places.
Why did I freeze? We're bringing up the subject of the freeze. There are so many costs. The bad things that happen. The good things that don't. If it is not acknowledged that there is a patriarchal condition, a context in which women will freeze, then the individual, a woman, will say to herself, ‘I froze and I suffered this consequence. This is what happened to me. This is what didn't happen to me. Now I'm going to 10 minutes later, 10 days later, 10 months later, punish myself for it.’ And again, I’m not qualified to speak about trauma, but it feels like compounding the trauma, through self-attack, ‘Why didn't I? Why am I so weak? What is it about me that? Why can't I stand up for myself?’ It ends up echoing through time, rather than getting undone. The doorway to that is acknowledging its universal context. And this is what you do. So I want to say that first.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Thank you, sister. I appreciated it, and I am happy that the universality is so resonant. Really the most powerful, and my favorite feedback that I've been getting from women around this conversation, around Patriarchy Stress Disorder, has been, ‘Thank you for naming and giving words to what I felt my entire life trying to figure out what's wrong with me.’ I've been on this journey my entire life. My entire journey has been driven by the question, ‘What's wrong with me?’ Two graduate degrees in psychology. Right? That gives you a little bit of an idea of the dedication that I brought to figure this shit out. The surprise discovery that the answer to the question has been nothing. So universality.
Kasia Urbaniak: One of those features, and if we're talking about the freeze, one of the observations that I made time and time again, especially because of the structure of The Academy, the school that I run, for most of its life, up until the pandemic, the nature of it were live classes that were very demonstration and exercise focus. So we could all observe the physical behavioral habit patterns of women over and over again. Something became very apparent quickly before there was even a philosophy around the school, just a desire to understand. We had men volunteer for classes so we could do work with them and comparative work, and you could watch it like in a laboratory. The moment attention was put on a woman – she was questioned, even positively questioned – a little bit heavier than was comfortable energetically, her whole body would turn inward. Whereas if you put a man in that same situation, almost 98% of the time, his attention would turn outward. So what does that mean? A very simple example: an uncomfortable question or a compliment. What do you do for a living? We're play-acting and still, the tendency is for a woman to go inward to find the answer. ‘Do you like having lots and lots of sex?’ Inappropriate question. Inward. ‘What do I say? What do I do?’ The tendency for him is like, ‘Why are you asking?’ Attention out.
This tiny detail, unmissable if you're looking for it but if you're not looking for it, almost impossible to notice, is the entire structure of how a power dynamic basically crushes a woman. What makes her freeze is that self-conscious, self-attacking, self-aware inward energy when she is put on the spot will compound on itself. It's not just a question of catching her off guard and having her freeze. She will stay stuck there. There's a long understandable history as to why we would do this. The entire system of reward and belonging has to do with moments when attention is on ourselves. How we are, how we look, how we sound. And it's not so with men. Little boys, what they're achieving. That outward-inward thing ends up being very important in the context of something like the freeze. Being aware is the first thing, the universality. In the moments of freezing, the moments after freezing, especially the low stakes freezes, being like, ‘Oh, I froze, my attention went inward.’ First loosening the grip of that by completely releasing any self-punishment. ‘Oh, this is part of the fabric of being a woman in the patriarchy today. Being a woman of the pivot, this is the moment I notice it's not my issue.’ That does so much of the work. The second thing is starting to break the freeze by practicing especially in low-stakes situations. You know, a neighbor in the elevator asks an inappropriate question. Practicing in these small ways can be really powerful. The somatic bodily freedom and expansion that happens when you can say, ‘Why do you ask?’ These small moments start to reshape the landscape.
Dr. Valerie Rein: I love that so much and it gives me chills. I have had two strands of recognition listening to you: one has to do with PSD, and one has to do with how therapists are trained and how it all trails down to power. Very interesting.
About PSD – Patriarchy Stress Disorder for those who are not familiar – women have been conditioned, well, women have had to survive, and to survive we need to check ourselves. It’s that inward attention. I'm checking myself. Am I going to say the wrong things? How am I going to come across? Is there going to be an attack? Women are checking. For men, they're not typically in danger. They're not typically in a state of survival so they have the freedom to be outwardly focused. I talk about how this as the greatest privilege that men have.
Kasia Urbaniak: Wow.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Right? It’s that privilege to actually be saved. The culture believes them. They get constant positive reinforcement in a lot of ways in which they show up. They believe it’s very important what they have to say. So there is that. That's how that power dynamic is set up. There's such inherent inequality, not only because women have not had their rights. Like women's bodies have not belonged to us. Nobody has cared about what we've had to say, and more than that, it has been punishable when we’ve spoken up. The resulting differential in how we feel safe or unsafe, male, female, and people across the gender spectrum, that's the basis of inequality there from the biological, physiological standpoint.
Now thinking about how therapists are trained. That actually gave me pause and gave me like – oh, gasp! Therapists are trained to ask questions to be outwardly focused. I used to say, you can't win with a psychoanalyst because they're always gonna put it on you. ‘Oh, what did you ask that? How did your mother mess you up?’ Unfortunately, sadly, there is retraumatization that happens in therapy through this power differential. It kind of compounds when a woman who is already carrying PSD in her system comes to a therapist, who is also unconsciously perpetuating that power, and not giving enough space for her power. I feel the purpose of healing is to help humans reclaim their power. You just helped me realize my core issue with therapy when that power is practiced unconsciously.
Kasia Urbaniak: Right. This reminds me of some of the studies they did on women and confidence. Not the parts where women rated their competence way lower, and men rated their competence way higher than the actual test results. The part where if a woman was asked how well she thought she did, her self-assessment went all the way down. If a man was asked how well he did, his self-assessment went all the way up. Just the question, ‘How well do you think you did?’, would make a woman crumble. Now I'm thinking about the dynamic with a therapist if they're not conscious of perpetuating that power. ‘Why do you think you did that, woman?’ ‘I don't know. It's probably because I'm screwed up.’ ‘Why do you think you did that, man?’ It might have a different impact.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Interesting!
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. This isn't in the book, but I did a pretty exhaustive study of cult leaders at one point in terms of power dynamics because there are aspects of the gaslighting of women that are cult-like. They couple it with the shame. If you have a question, the first thing they do is question you for having that question and couple it with shame. ‘Are you resisting? Do you have an issue with this?’ This is how they completely quash dissent.
Dr. Valerie Rein: I'm getting hot. Yes. This gaslighting coupled with shame is the core of gaslighting. Making you wrong. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, you're wrong. You're making shit up. Your reality is invalidated. How that's used throughout patriarchy and of course, in cults. Wow.
Kasia Urbaniak: It doesn't really take much. One of the most rewarding things about the work I get to do is all of the low-hanging fruit. All of the easy wins. So much of this lives in a very thinly veiled shadow of assumption. Making oneself wrong the moment someone asks a question. ‘Why did you do that?’ ‘I don't know. Maybe because there's something wrong with me.’ There's a whole category of things that live in that thinly veiled shadow that once you see it, it's the low-hanging fruit. The quick wins. A lot of women have difficulty asking for what they need and want. If you have a woman, this is The Asking Practice in my book, as an assignment write down 20-100 things she could ask specific things of specific people. And not ask. If she's just aware and starts using her imagination – desires, needs, people, couples in sentences –what starts to happen is the woman's oftentimes destructive self negotiation actually starts to work in our favor. When she thinks of 100 things that she could ask but isn't, she will automatically start asking without any effort for some of the things off that list. It'll just happen by itself. There's a lot of things like that.
When we look at it consciously – and again this is why I love you and adore you – we need to first make this universal. That's the first key. Once we start looking at this as not our own individual problem, it becomes so much easier to see. ‘Oh, if she's not asking, she's not asking, these are all the things I theoretically could ask for but put no pressure on myself to ask.’ All of a sudden the world starts looking different.
Freezing. The moment we start taking it out of the realm of personality. Personal. ‘I'm not confident. I don't love myself.’ Self-attacking, self-monitoring, self-policing. Once we start looking at that voice as universal, and not making ourselves wrong for it, not attacking ourselves for attacking ourselves, we can speak back to it. We can say, ‘Actually, I am not only competent, but I'm also a badass when it comes to this.’ ‘That's silly. Why would I slap my own hand for putting the toothpaste cap on wrong? I am fabulously messy,’ or whatever the case.
Dr. Valerie Rein: What I really loved, I just wanted to emphasize in what you said. Making these lists of questions. The way we approach working with Patriarchy Stress Disorder and other traumas. Because essentially, trauma is an experience that made you feel either physically or emotionally unsafe and that overwhelmed your resource, and then created trauma adaptations going forward to keep you safe. Some of those adaptations are not speaking up, holding back, having that inward talk, all of those adaptations to keep us safe. So in healing trauma, we help to establish safety by working with the nervous system. Embodied safety. I so love your practice of writing down the questions, because preparation goes a long way in establishing safety.
Kasia Urbaniak: Oh, wow. Yeah. I can see that.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Now in some situations, women can be over-prepared and get stuck in endless preparation without making a move. For example, somebody who's already over-educated, ‘No, I need to read 10 more books before I can give a talk.’ Right? That kind of thing would be an example of a trauma adaptation. I call them prison guards. It's keeping you stuck. But the preparation starts with making the invisible visible. ‘When I freeze, I can't find words. But why is that? Is it because I don't know what to ask? No, bullshit, I do.’ And preparing. So when you come, it’s kind of ingrained. It's already in your body. It's already on the tip of your tongue.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. I discovered the power of that working as a dominatrix. Sessions are generally an hour, like therapy, and they're mostly based on language. A lot of people who don't know what a BDSM session looks like, it's mostly talking. It's mostly the dominatrix talking. What is she going to say? There's a man on his knees. What is she going to say?
Dr. Valerie Rein: Makes you a great public speaker.
Kasia Urbaniak: She's gonna ask questions. ‘You like being on your knees? Don't you? What are you doing here? Was that resistance? Did you look at me? Eyes on the floor. Why did you do that so slowly?’ Constant questioning.
Dr. Valerie Rein: That's fantastic. It trains that ability to really see somebody. And you know what? It's very interesting because when you truly see somebody when that somebody feels truly seen, it actually makes them feel very safe.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Right. And when we feel safe, we can experience pleasure.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah, that's true.
Dr. Valerie Rein: You know, I've been so fascinated with what feels like right to be a dominatrix. I would love to understand that internal experience a little. I have a funny anecdote from my own life trajectory. The roads not taken. When I was setting up my private practice in New York City, I got an email from someone that read along these lines. ‘I've heard that therapists can be very strict, and I've been a really bad boy and I deserve punishment. I was wondering if I could book an appointment with you and compensate you at the rate of $400 an hour.’ And I was like, ‘Shit!’ The roads not taken. I didn't end up taking that that offer but it still gives me like a good good pick me up. If all else fails, there are so many paths to have fun and bring value.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah, it can be an amazing feeling.
We've been exploring the subject of over preparation at The Academy. One of the things that we're finding is that if a woman instead of preparing to do a good job prepares to have a great time in advance. Preparing to have a pleasurable experience and handles doing a good job inside of it, tends to temper the kind of over preparation that creates anxiety. That's been really fun. It just came out of a course that we finished teaching on confidence a week ago. It was a spontaneous discovery because the subject of over over preparation and confidence go together.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Oh, hell yes. I love that. When you're preparing to have a great time. So again, that if you remove that self evaluation, ‘Am I doing a good job? Am I not?’ You know if your having a good time.
Kasia Urbaniak: It also it also flips who's the center of the experience, who the experience is for. Even if I'm giving a speech, if I'm preparing to do a good job, I'm only thinking about their evaluation. If I’m preparing to have a good time, I'm central to the story. If somebody is having a good time, they tend to contribute more than just their work, but their their love, their passion, their joy, their good energy. Their nervous system is at a place where they're less likely to feel attacked and more likely to collaborate and play. We could really use that right now. I think all of us on the planet could use more play. It might sound self serving, but preparing a day, a life, every task as a way to have more enjoyment.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Oh, yes. I love that so much.
I really want to talk more about power and unpacking that. I've been exploring this in a whole new way in my own life and practice, and understanding that I did not use to understand what power was and how it felt. Of course, in the systems of oppression, power is power over somebody. If you have more power, somebody has less power. That's the whole messed up view on that. Maybe that is part of how it can play out but it maybe doesn't have to. I recently had an experience that showed me a whole different dimension of power.
I recently started working with horses. Horses are big animals for over 100,000 pounds and if you try to like force them into something you'll quickly understand that kind of power does not work. What works is the power of connection to yourself, connection to your body, connection to your intention, and connection to the horse. I was in a round pin with a horse at liberty, so there were no lead ropes or anything. The horse is there. I'm there. She has a really big alpha mare and she knows it. I'm tasked with asking her to move around, to start walking and running. My trainer’s like, ‘Go ahead and make an ask. Communicate your intention and energy.’ I start communicating. Nothing. I tap in a little deeper. Nothing, nothing at all. My trainer asks, ‘What are you feeling right now? What are you feeling in your body?’ I'm like, ‘Well, I'm feeling frustrated. I'm feeling ineffective. Nothing is happening.’ And he's like, ‘Gather everything that you're feeling and really go there.’ I gathered everything that I was feeling and that actually required a lot of vulnerability. I dropped into a deeper level of conviction and decided to make an ask from a deeper place and bring out more of my power. And I did. And she started going fast. She was a little pissed because I brought so much energy. She was like, ‘I didn't really want to do it. But okay, I'll play.’
It was eye opening how vulnerable it felt to go into my power. It was vulnerable. That was not something I knew about. I thought being vulnerable is when you cry, or when you allow others to see you in your weak moments or in your anger. But the vulnerability in power…that was completely new to me and completely shifted my relationship and understanding of what that is. So I would love to hear you speak about your experiences with power and if you've come across this power vulnerability dynamic?
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. So there's a lot I want to say. First, just to acknowledge working with horses. I don't think there's been a class at the academy where one student didn't have a breakthrough or a story about understanding true power and communication through an experience with a horse. The human body doesn't lie, but we can be disconnected from it. Animal bodies are not disconnected from it. And the fact that a horse is so huge, right?
Dr. Valerie Rein: They don't bullshit.
Kasia Urbaniak: They don't. And actually, if we closely examine human bodies, in the most subtle form, it's the same thing.
You talked about this feeling of vulnerability when it comes to accessing the kind of power over a horse.
Dr. Valerie Rein: I thought I was going to die. Ironically, well maybe not ironically, we all teach what we're here to learn. I'm my own student who catches up to the content like two years into me teaching it. But ironically, that's what I talk about. Patriarchy and a woman's relationship with her power. It does feel like mortal danger stepping into our power. The trauma all along. For me like experiencing that actually was very eye-opening. Like I'm gonna die, literally, if I go and reveal my true power at this moment.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. And I think that anytime – and I'm sure you've seen this too – we start moving closer to describing the embodied experience, the experience of the body, suddenly language becomes slippery and tricky. So what's vulnerable? Because we have a lot of ideas, and the feeling is the feeling. You can have the feeling without knowing how to describe it. One thing is the almost linguistic assumptions about power and being in control, being in power, have a tensing quality. Like, I am going to use squeeze my fist into my knuckles turn white right. Our ideas about power on a bigger scale, in the political realm, mirror the mental assumption that's absolutely false. The way you can't bullshit a horse, you also can't bullshit reality for very long. Right? So a tyrant, a dictator, uses the white knuckle force to oppress. It's not power, but because of how we think about things, we might say that dude has all the guns, all the money, is shooting people, and owns everything. But we all know the greater the tension, the more fragile and temporary that power is. The people revolt and another one takes its place. The cycle continues.
When we talk about power, I think one of the fundamental misunderstandings we have is basically what power is. I'm not saying that true power is actually a soft, loving power. I mean cold, hard reality. It's not effective. It's not powerful or energy-efficient to oppress a nation as a tyrant. Having power over another human being with force, manipulation, shaming – what that does is the person you have power over, just like the people you have power, are not at liberty to share their deepest resources, their talents, their passion. They're not absolutely on board.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Oppressing women through patriarchy. Oppressing people of color through racism and control.
Kasia Urbaniak: In terms of the cold, hard definition of power, the oppressor is depriving themselves, as well as the rest of society, of the resources that would be available. So it's actually not powerful.
So back to the horse. That feeling of vulnerability, or that feeling of mortal danger. Your territory: trauma, stress, reaction. To be in a powerful communion as a top, as someone in charge, with an animal, requires connection to oneself. It requires a complete circuit of energy. The energy is moving through you into the horse. You into the people you're leading. You into the submissive.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Love this.
“Anything that’s not alive with a current of energy of the life force is not powerful.”
Kasia Urbaniak: You as a parent, as somebody who's in charge. And the reality is that we do occupy poles of power. Sometimes we are students with a teacher, and sometimes we're the teacher with the student. The misunderstanding around power is that anything that's not alive with a current of energy of the life force is not powerful. You have to plug something into a wall to get the electric current. When there's power, there's connection.
Dr. Valerie Rein: If it’s not alive, it’s not powerful. I just want to just make that connection to the freeze – when we disengage, when we're not in our body. Oh, so good.
Kasia Urbaniak: The pantomime of power: artificial structures, the performance of power. That's not alive. All we have to do is have eyes to see how that does not work. It doesn't last. It doesn't work. The feeling of vulnerability, you could say nervous aliveness or newness, of being powerful in a top position.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Realness. I love realness.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. It's not that different from being in the opposite position. When you open yourself up as somebody who's following. One may be more accustomed to one position or the other, but both require connection. Both require that current, and that's the moment where the synergy and the magic happen. Where you're having a psychic experience with a horse, or two people coming together are able to create far more than one plus one because that current is there. Sometimes that means one person's in charge and one person isn't.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Or sometimes it's like a figure eight. Passing it back and forth. There can be a lot of power inequality. I think that this kind of power is not commonly practiced in our society. What power inequality actually looks like. You lead then I lead.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. In some ways, it's maybe getting worse on a bodily level. It's hard. People aren't even making eye contact. You have to bend cues, receive them, really be present with somebody.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Oh gosh, I don't want to end on this note. The reality is that there is so much disconnection and trauma. This is actually one of the symptoms of trauma. Disconnection is one of the telltale signs of trauma: to be disconnected from yourself, parts of yourself, the wholeness, disconnection from the world, from the other. The pandemic has brought up so much intergenerational trauma. It has been so traumatic. I don't think we’re even beginning to understand how it has deeply impacted us on a physiological level and what it means. But again, I don’t want to leave it all want like a depressing note.
Let's talk about how people can come out and play in restoring their power and reconnecting to themselves. How they can play in your community, where they can find you? What breadcrumbs can we leave for people in terms of that rediscovery of themselves in their power?
Kasia Urbaniak: I don't know what to say right now. Riffing off the pandemic, one of the best things that’s happening is that a lot of people are experiencing a path to embodiment and a path to feeling. Coming out of this time period, especially women, are learning to trust what they feel. The extra edge of pain, fear, or attention. In a lot of ways, we have a leg up on the men who are conditioned and trained to not feel in a way that presents an advantage.
I think going forward, between what's happening to the planet, the body of the earth, and what’s happening with technology, there's a counter pull. I think women are the pioneers of the frontier of that counter pull. Being in the body, of feeling, of trusting nature and natural processes, trusting what the feeling sense internally says about any decision, mundane or profound.
There's been this really strong split between self-development and activism. I'm doing something to improve my life, or I'm doing something to improve the world. To improve the world is sacrifice. To improve my life is being selfish. Here, we stand up this wonderful, fruitful crux. You listen to yourself and your body to make mundane, selfish, or selfless decisions. It doesn't matter. The moment we do that, we are remaking culture, we are influencing other women, and we're making decisions that are more in harmony with what is needed all around. It's this wonderful practice of caring for oneself and everything at the same time by listening to the deepest parts of ourselves. One of the most beautiful discoveries is the collapse of ‘selfless’ and ‘selfish’. Those two distinctions don't exist if you're embodied. It only exists if you're disembodied. If you're half out of your body, you can be greedy and never satisfied. But if you're in your body, you get full.
“One of the most beautiful discoveries is the collapse of ‘selfless’ and ‘selfish’. Those two distinctions don’t exist if you’re embodied. It only exists if you’re disembodied. If you’re half out of your body, you can be greedy and never satisfied. But if you’re in your body, you get full.”
On that note, if anybody listening is interested in hearing more about the exercises or games I would suggest to explore living from an embodied way and shamelessly occupying your own power, you can read my book Unbound, or go to our website.
This is going to be a really fascinating few decades for humanity, and women occupy an important part in that. And I feel honored that you invited me to speak with you.
Dr. Valerie Rein: Oh, gosh, I feel the same way. I feel grateful to women in our communities who have been tagging us in each other's posts saying, ‘We want to hear you two in conversation.’ What a gift. I could talk to you for years, and I hope we will.
It’s such a perfect time to have this conversation. I'm sharing a series on my channel right now on trauma, reactions, adaptations, and later today, I'm going to be talking about the freeze. It all comes together so beautifully.
I love what you said about this collapse of the delusion of ‘selfish’ and ‘selfless’. It reminds me of a quote from a French philosopher, whose name escapes me right now, who said, ‘We only need morality because we cannot love’. To me, that is that ultimate bridge. Morality is something external, but when you love from a deeply embodied place, you can do that wrong. That's power.
Thank you so much for this. I look forward to more opportunities to play together.
Kasia Urbaniak: Thank you so much.
Support is Sexy Podcast: How to Get Over "Good Girl" Conditioning and Own Your Power with Kasia Urbaniak
“You have no say in what you want.
You have no say in what you want.
You don’t make your desires. You have no say in what you want.
You do have a say in what you do about it.”
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher
Connect with the host:
Elayne Fluker
Instagram: @elaynefluker
LinkedIn: Elayne Fluker
Support is Sexy
Instagram: @supportissexy
Read the transcript:
Intro: Hi all, welcome to a new episode of Support is Sexy. My name is Sarah Tulloch and I am Elayne’s content coordinator. Today I will be introducing our guest Kasia Urbaniak. Kasia is the co-founder of The Academy, a company that teaches women to increase their power, agency and influence in all areas of their lives. While it looks like she has it all figured out now, Kasia had to fight to get to where she is and who she is today. For the first six years of her life, she grew up on the road surrounded by musicians. But everything changed when she had to go to school for the first time ever. Sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day was a huge shock to her and it kick-started her rebellious personality into high gear. She needed to do things differently. She wanted to live a different life than the one her school was pushing her towards. So Kasia rebelled and she kept rebelling until she found the new and exciting life that she was looking for. Cut to today. Kasia became a professional dominatrix, has practiced Taoist alchemy in one of the oldest female-led monasteries in China, and founded The Academy with her partner, Ruben Flores. In this episode, Kasia tells our host, Elayne Fluker, how she used rebellion to find freedom and The Academy's mission to increase women's power wherever they go. Now here's our host Elaine Fluker and our guest Kasia Urbaniak.
Elayne: So Kasia, thank you so much for joining us for an episode of Support is Sexy. I'm excited to chat with you today.
Kasia: I'm so happy to be here with you. Thank you.
Elayne: Of course. So our first question for you. When did you first fall in love with entrepreneurship?
Kasia: Oh, well, I don't even think I knew I was an entrepreneur or had a business until years in. I was raised by musicians, spent the first six years of my life on tour with them, and always thought of myself as an artist. When school began, it was definitely a series of artistic social experiments. It wasn't until my business partner – and at that time life partner, Ruben Flores – was like, ‘Hey, I think we have a business. I think we need to do some documents.’
But there is a great similarity between the self-employed musician and the entrepreneur. Namely, you're creating things out of thin air, you're responding to people and you're consistently having to check conventional wisdom against your own common sense, experience and intuition. So I am an unexpected entrepreneur.
Elayne: I'm so intrigued by your life on the road for the first six years of your life. How do you think that shaped who you are as a person today and as an entrepreneur? You just shared some of the similarities.
Kasia: It shaped my life in such such such profound ways. You see, on the road, me and my little sister, who's only a year and a half younger, traveled with the band and the roadies, and there was an incredible sense of purpose. My parents are jazz musicians so they gigged a lot and it was mostly throughout Europe. A new city every night or every three nights. Together we all saw ourselves as an essential part of the collective. So it might have been a really silly job, like in every train station I knew where the french fries were so that was my job as a five-year-old.
Elayne: That is a very important job, even today.
Kasia: When they were carrying all the equipment, I would carry the tambourine. There was an organic sense that I was not only part of the whole but useful and important. When normal parents or parents in different circumstances struggle with getting their kids to bed, there was no trouble with getting me and my sister to bed because we were tired and we were getting ready for the next day.
Now here's the pivot. Here's the crazy part that happened. I had to start school. I was sitting in a strict, Catholic school in first grade at a desk facing forward for eight hours a day with other students. The difference between me and them was that I was in absolute shock. It was like a fall from grace. It was I didn't understand why I needed to be there.
Elayne: Did it seem almost like a punishment?
Kasia: It was more than punishment. It was absolute confusion. I didn't understand why I needed to sit. Because of my earlier upbringing, these questions would organically arise in me. Why do I need to sit here? Why do I need to say back what they said to me? Why can't we run around? Why can't we talk to each other? It made school confounding and difficult. I think from that moment, I started looking for a new way to do things. So even at a very young age 10, 12, 14, I became very obsessed with is there another way? I would play this game where I had a sheet of computer paper and on each sheet, I would design a country with its own laws, its own flag, and I would get my classmates to sing the national anthems and later on the currency…we had crazy ideas together. I was obsessed with finding a different way because, in grade one, I was very shockingly introduced something that nobody could explain to me why we were here, why we were doing this, what we were doing.
Elayne: It's interesting because in the first six years of your life you’d done what a lot of adults hadn't even done. A lot of travel and going to different cities, like you said, a new city every day. It's not something that most children experience before the first grade so I can imagine that was an adjustment. You talked about creating your own countries and those things in school. How would you describe your personality overall, would you say that you were very much a leader?
Kasia: Because of the circumstances I was in, I was more rebellious than I was a leader.
Elayne: Did people label you as rebellious or do you think now looking back that you are more of a leader?
Kasia: No, I was clearly antagonistic. I was a rebel. I wasn't just saying, ‘why do we have to do this?’ I was like, ‘I'm not doing this. I don't know if I can actually stomach doing this.’ I was a very difficult student that way. I was obsessive and completely unrealistic. I was very intellectual and heady which also befuddled all my teachers because I was a terrible student. I remember there was one moment when my mother was losing her mind because everybody in class was reading A Midsummer Night's Dream and I was reading Hamlet. I was like, ‘Hamlet is much more interesting.’ I was inappropriate but also kind of shy. People don't expect this about me but I'm pretty introverted. And obsessive about finding another way, not taking things at face value. Wondering if there's another way that human beings live and organize themselves. Being unrealistic and sometimes inappropriate are two qualities that stayed with me from childhood to this day, and I'm very grateful they never got trained out of me.
Elayne: Yeah, I say that about entrepreneurship. At least for me, in my experience, it's believing that the impossible is possible and figuring out the impossible possibilities. It's impossible, but let's see if we can figure that out. How can we make this a reality?
Kasia: Especially things that are needed. A lot of things that are needed and we don't know how to. They're necessary, there's a need for them, and they seem impossible. If there is a need for it, ‘the how’ is usually found one way or another.
Elayne: I always say, ‘Let go of the how.” Look at the need first and the possibilities.
Was there a point in your journey when you realized that conventional nine-to-five was not going to work for you? You told us in the beginning that you and your partner got to a point where you said, ‘Okay, we have a business here.’ But even before that, when did your entrepreneurial journey really start?
Kasia: That's difficult to say. When did my entrepreneurial journey start? Okay, this is gonna sound kind of wild.
Elayne: We expect that. You're a rebel.
Kasia: When I was maybe 16, I read the Dune books, you know, Frank Herbert's sci-fi Dune books. There's a big movie coming out on the first book of the series. It's this intergalactic saga, but in it, there is a secret society of women that are pulling a lot of strings behind the scenes. They're called the Bene Gesserit. The leaders of the Bene Gesserit are called Reverend Mothers. When I was 16 and people were having conversations about what you want to be when you grow up, I was like, ‘I want to be a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother.
Elayne: Of course.
Kasia: I even remember saying things to my guidance counselor like, ‘I want to write essays, but I don't want to be an essayist. And I want them to go out immediately.’ Basically, I was describing blogs before blogs existed. This school that ended up getting started – almost against my will – very very much feels like my dream of being a Reverend Mother in the Bene Gesserit. It definitely feels like a secret society of women becoming powerful. Not so secret society now, but it definitely has that mystical, magical, wonderful feeling of women doing incredible things. I remember in the early days of the school, some of our women were in some pretty high power positions. They would use our tools for asking to make an outrageous ask, and we would see the result in the evening news and be like, ‘Oh, she did it! Now there's this particular program now that wasn't there before.’ Or, ‘There's this big business decision was made to shift everything. She did it!’
Elayne: Tell us about the school so everyone knows what you're referring to. This is your school, The Academy, right?
Kasia: Yeah.
Elayne: Tell everyone about that how that works and how it came to be.
Kasia: The Academy is a school for power. And we're really careful to use the word power, not empowerment. Empowerment is a wonderful word, but we want to be clear that we teach women tools of claiming and gaining power, and it's not a feeling of being powerful. It's not something that you do alone in a room or just in the class, you feel powerful. You can actually show that you have the skills to have your impact show up in the world. You have powerful relationships with people where what you're giving is honored and what you receive is the thing you want.
It started in the wildest, weirdest, most magical, wonderful way. I have 17 years of experience being a professional dominatrix while I was studying to be a Taoist nun. Which meant I was learning martial arts, I was learning medical diagnosis, I was learning how to body read people and on this spiritual path. To fund it, I was a dominatrix. It profoundly impacted how I did these sessions in a dungeon because I was practicing my Taoist skills in body reading, in moving people's energy in this unconventional context.
When I met my business partner, Ruben, he had just spent close to a decade working for Doctors Without Borders as a humanitarian building field hospitals in war zones. Our conversations about what power is in his context, even in a situation where he has to negotiate the ability to build a hospital in a hostile territory and negotiate with people, none of whom speak the same language. How much the body, your energy, your presence, how you use your attention, how that translates into power. These were experiences I'd been having in the monasteries and in the dungeon for years. This conversation started out as: How does one communicate power? Specifically, what are the stumbling blocks that women come across when it comes to making a powerful request or a command? What are the stumbling blocks when wanting to be heard or have your tender needs met?
So we started experimenting in our living room. We started inviting couples and women to come over, and we started these experiments. Interventions in their communications, pointing out things that each one was doing or not seeing that they were doing. I started writing some of the findings on Facebook, and the women who had come to the living room for the experiments and the ones who were following along with my writing started asking for a workshop. Both Ruben and I were like, ‘We want to be artists now. We don't want to teach.’ They were like, ‘Workshop! Workshop!’ We reluctantly did the first one, but there were eight times more people signing up for the first one than there was room for. We were like, “Great. This is gonna be a side gig.’ It turned into the most intense six-year laboratory experience of my life.
One of the things that entrepreneurs and artists have in common, that I see in the school so much, is that you really can't do it alone. We learned so much from our students. We learned so much from what happens in this process. It's never a singular lightbulb idea that you then pay others to execute the vision. There's this dynamic organic process that happens with people that is so much more powerful when it's inclusive. It's collaborative.
There's a synergy that happens. It becomes a living organism, and that living organism has a heartbeat. What's great about a business that feels like a living organism is that it has the ability to provide more and sustain itself, to create momentum. It's not planting one seed that creates a fruit. It's planting one seed that creates a fruit that has more seeds that keep growing and growing and growing. That may be a little esoteric, but the thing is if the artwork or the project or the business has a heartbeat, it has its own needs, it has its own essence, and it also provides a lot more.
Elayne: What would you say that being a dominatrix for 17 years taught you personally about the dynamics of power?
Kasia: It taught me a lot. It taught me a lot about men too. It taught me a lot about how much a power dynamic is built on how you use your attention. In animal hierarchies, the alpha has their attention out on everyone and is giving instruction and the submissives. The followers are paying attention to themselves to check whether they're following orders or not. If they're currently in line or not.
One of the big themes I talk about in my book, Unbound – A Woman’s Guide to Power, and in the school is something we call good girl conditioning. We’re basically taught from a very young age to pay attention to how we are, not what we're doing. To check ourselves, to police ourselves, to self-attack ourselves if we're falling out of line, and that is a very inward submissive state of attention. If a woman in a powerful position is communicating with a man in a power position, the tendency will be that his attention will be out and he'll be giving instructions regardless of the nature of the conversation, and she will have her attention inward checking herself.
“The communication that happens with words is one level of communication. Where the attention is and how it feels is the second level of communication. That second level of communication is so important because if the words tell the other person what to think, the second level of communication tells the other person how to feel about it. ”
The communication that happens with words is one level of communication. Where the attention is and how it feels is the second level of communication. That second level of communication is so important because if the words tell the other person what to think, the second level of communication tells the other person how to feel about it.
Back to your actual question, which is what did I learn in the dungeon? What I learned happened when I started training other women at the dungeon to become dominatrixes. I saw the places where they stumbled. Their attention would be too inward. It would be like, ‘Here I am performing a powerful pose. You’re a bad boy.’ But their attention was actually not sinking deeply, strongly onto the client, the submissive. I noticed there's an absolute reluctance for women to, even with their attention and questions, invade the space of a man. That it feels very taboo. Yet it's very natural for men to do so. It's very natural for mothers, for example, to do that with their children. It's not a foreign state of attention following a new thing. It's about when we use it and how we use it. That's one of the things I learned.
The other thing is a long list of myths about what men think and what men do and what men want.
Elayne: You know you're going to have to share your top 3 myths with us. Teach us your ways, Kasia. But before you do, thank you for sharing this idea of attention. About women focusing so much on their performance and what they're doing as opposed to – let me know if I got this wrong – not even just that they weren't focusing their attention on the client but they also had hang ups about invading that space. I think that speaks to women's conditioning or good girl conditioning, us being conditioned not to invade a man’s space. If you think about even in a corporate setting, not speaking up, someone mansplaining something to us and not feeling empowered to say, ‘I already know what that means.’ As you were explaining it, I was thinking about how many times I've personally been in that situation when I'm unaware of it, but hearing you say it I was like, ‘Wow, that's an example of how a lot of us feel like we need to exist.’
Kasia: Yeah, and I have to add something to that. When you do this thing that I'm saying can feel like we're being invasive. It's also an act of power. It's an act of influence. But it's also an act of love. It's an act of caring. We've done these experiments where we tried to break down Woman in a Meeting syndrome, what is it going to take for a woman to get heard? When a woman kills it in a presentation and has a whole room captivated versus when her words fall flat or she's talked over gets shut down and doesn't know how to recover. This isn't a game of blaming women. This is just the reality of how many of us, not all of us, were raised and the impact of that.
To have your attention and instruction out fully, there's something magical that happens to the body of the other person or people, which is they relax. You can see it visibly, their bodies shifting to a submissive mode where they're able to listen and receive. They're able to hear the instructions, the information. Until they shift into that mode, they're not following. They're still sitting there leading with their own opinions or leading in some form. They don't recognize you as leading at that moment. When a woman can put her attention out onto one person or onto a group in that powerful way and speak, it is an act of love. It is an act of caring, ‘I am holding all of you, it is safe for you to release everything you're thinking about, relax into listening to what I'm saying, and receive, consider and hear the message that I am transmitting with my words, my mind, my emotions, my body, my being, my presence.’ That element of presence, that element of authority, that element that all those pieces people talk about as confidence. People talk about all these other ways, and they miss the most important part, which is how much of your attention is out in order to hold people so they feel safe enough to surrender into listening? Can we trust this alpha leader for one comment, for one minute, or for an hour, for a presentation? Can we trust her to take care of us? If she exhibits that she's paying attention to the whole pack or to that whole being, there's a visible shift that happens in the body, they relax and can listen with all of themselves.
We are rightfully terrified of men. We have traumatic experiences. The thing is you don't need to overcome all of those things in order to do these practices. In order to spend 10 minutes, five minutes, one hour getting your message across, getting what you need, getting what you want, getting your request deeply considered. If you remember to use your attention in a way that's kind of unconventional for most of us in certain settings.
Elayne: Beautiful. These are things that The Academy teaches?
Kasia: Absolutely.
Elayne: How would you say, for those who are listening, that we can step into that power, whether it's for a minute on social media, in a presentation in a board room, or whatever the setting is? How do we step into that power and show that we are focusing our attention on the room or the recipient of whomever our message is meant to reach? Are there some tips or steps or practices that people can do starting today? I think people might be having a harder time with this because we’re not even in a room with a lot of people right now, because we're talking during the time of the pandemic, so people really need to know how to communicate their messages.
Kasia: There are a few levels of answer to this question, as there are a few levels of training in order to be able to hold a room powerfully or get your message heard. The really simple trick, the most superficial one, is to maintain the level of curiosity about where other people are at. Curiosity has this wonderful quality of reaching inward towards others – so it guides your attention inward towards others – but not coming to any conclusion. So while you're speaking, maintaining curiosity is really helpful, paradoxically, in coming across in an authoritative way.
But I would say that the precursor to that is the inside job. The inside job has a lot to do with identifying what you want very specifically, precisely, and honestly. We have a lot of tools and exercises around desire and asking for that purpose. When a woman is very clear on what she wants out of that presentation, what she wants out of that job, what kind of synergy she wants among her team, when she's clear on what she wants, and it's right-sized – meaning it's big enough to get her up in the morning, it's big enough to make any fear or hesitation worthwhile – then most of the job’s already done. Because the rest of it is, ‘I have this incredible gift even if it's a request opportunity to share, look what you could get out of it.’ Once you take care of the inside, you can just focus on leading others to where you want them to be.
That is a question that I could answer with the entire curriculum of the school, The Academy. When you find yourself stuck in a situation where you're inside, inside, inside, and can't get out. Asking someone else a question can oftentimes help break that pattern because they have to pay attention to themselves in order to answer the question, and you have to pay attention to them in order to get the answer. That's also a little trick, but we need more than little tricks.
Elayne: We need the curriculum. We need to sign up for The Academy.
Kasia: This isn't me pitching, but there is a lot of information and exercises in the website itself that women can get for free without paying a dime. Just because right now the world needs powerful women leading the way. I mean, what more evidence do you need? Just look at the countries that are coping best with Covid19.
Elayne: They’re all led by women, absolutely.
Kasia: 50/50 isn't even enough. Men, you're wonderful. Now step aside. Let us take a turn for millennia. We won't even need that much time. We have wonderful things to do.
Elayne: You're right, we could probably do it in half the time. You're so right and you're definitely not pitching. I’m an advocate for what I've seen of The Academy from the outside looking in. I was looking at your website again today before our call and diving into your blog posts. What you talked about with asking, I mean this whole podcast is around the importance of women, especially successful or ambitious women, knowing how to ask for support so I do want to dive into that.
Before we move on, I do want to ask you, based on your experience, what are one or two myths that a lot of women have about men, the dynamics of power and how this misunderstanding might be holding them back?
Kasia: Yeah, one thing is the assumption that men don't want to serve. What I mean by that is what I’ve found, especially in heterosexual relationships, and I know we're talking about business, but it ends up translating. What happens is the man wants to make the woman happy but doesn't know how. The woman, with her conditioning and training, will either say really vague things that are not actually instructions. Like, ‘I want you to respect me more. I want more quality time. I want you to be more affectionate with me.’ Those sound like requests but they're not. How do you know what ‘more affection’ means? How do you know what respect means? How do you know in order to lead someone? The best relationships, whether they're professional, romantic, between two women, or family members, are the ones where people take turns leading and following so they can learn from each other in a conversation. The listener doesn't stay listener the whole time, they switch. The listener and the speaker take turns.
The assumption is that men are kind of a ‘no’ to doing a lot of things for women, but the truth is women withhold a lot and they're not specific with their requests. So say ‘more affection’ could mean two hours of cuddle time, watching Netflix without any other electronics. It could mean something very different. It could mean a particular kind of sex. It could mean taking out the trash. Say in this heterosexual marriage, the man is constantly guessing, he's trying to serve but he doesn't know whether it's a bouquet of flowers or taking out the trash that's going to make her feel loved and respected. He's lost. So that's one thing. If you know how to make an ask that feels good, that lights you up when you ask and is specific enough – has a beginning, middle, and end – so when it's done, you can actually test if that's the thing you wanted. You can go, ‘Oh wow, yet he did that.’ That's one thing. It raises them up. Men love to get it right.
Elayne: Yeah, remember an ex of mine. We're still friends. One of the things he told me is the hardest thing for a man is to feel like he's disappointed his woman again. We're talking about heterosexual relationships in this case, but he was like feeling like you’ve disappointed them or didn't live up to something, that is one of the most difficult things. So as you said, even if it's a lack of clarity around what you really want and you are disappointed, they can sense you’re disappointed. Neither one of you is communicating why. It can be tough.
Kasia: Yes. Also when the asks do come out, they're usually in the form of complaints. ‘Why don't you ever?’ A lot of the requests end up being not inspired or big enough. They're the kind of asks that get you from below zero to zero. Like, fix this thing that's wrong in our dynamic or in our professional relationship, right? It's not the one that's big enough to create inspiration. It's much more exciting to move into something that feels a little bit more outrageous, that's generative, that could create a new vision and new adventure than it is to ask for one that goes from the negatives to a baseline. ‘Okay, now that bad thing no longer exists. It's okay.’ It's like the carrot isn't juicy enough.
I could go on and on and on about the things I learned in a dungeon about men. One of them just had to do with bodies, body image, and body shame. Men love lots of different kinds of bodies.
Elayne: That there's not one particular ideal.
Kasia: No, it's something that we really strongly carry, I think.
Elayne: The dungeon. Is that what you refer to as a particular place, or does that just reference whatever space you’re in as a dominatrix?
Kasia: A professional dominatrix works in a dungeon just like a postal worker works in a post office.
Elayne: Got it. I want to talk about asking and the power of asking. I know this is something that's very much a part of your work. The power of women; knowing how to make an outrageous ask.
So how do you personally define an outrageous ask? And how do we get the courage to make those kind of asks?
Kasia: It's hard to talk about that without talking about the good girl conditioning that makes asking difficult.
Elayne: Okay.
“If a woman listening finds asking difficult or finds a particular kind of asking difficult – whether it’s financial, erotic, tender and vulnerable, or things that sound bossy and controlling – there’s a reason for it.
It’s not your own personal psychological weakness. It’s not a lack of confidence. It’s not a lack of self-love.
It is millennia of training.”
Kasia: If a woman listening finds asking difficult or finds a particular kind of asking difficult – whether it's financial, erotic, tender and vulnerable, or things that sound bossy and controlling – there's a reason for it.
It's not your own personal psychological weakness. It's not a lack of confidence. It's not a lack of self-love.
It is millennia of training.
For so long, the most a woman could hope for, the best and only place where she could channel her dreams and ambitions, was to marry well. In order to be a good candidate for marriage, there are certain qualities and conditionings that we have unconsciously promoted in order to be a great candidate for any marriage. We are still living that paradigm because things only changed and are changing right now. It's only been a few years in terms of human history. A good girl is good natured, cheery and accommodating. She does a ton of invisible labor. She's never too much. She never outshines anyone. She also never falls behind. She responds in a timely fashion. She never keeps anyone waiting. She's always two steps ahead. She definitely, definitely, definitely is low maintenance, super resourceful, can make do with whatever the household has, doesn't ask because she doesn't need, she makes do. She's easy to handle. She's not a burden. She's an asset. And she's really great at maintaining the status quo.
There's nothing bad about being of service. There's nothing bad about any of these qualities. My personal issue with them is when they come up without being chosen. If we are of service, but we are not consciously aware of it, there is no choice. Without awareness, there is no choice. Where there's no choice, there's just servitude.
That's exactly what comes up when women are faced with asking. They're in this double bind. They're afraid of being too much and too little at the same time. Bossy and needy. They're afraid that if they ask they'll be in debt. Afraid that asking makes them look weak. If they ask in a powerful way, they come across again as bossy. There is a feeling that they should be able to do it alone, to be resourceful enough. This also translates into the masculine John Wayne myth that you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, which is physically impossible and a total lie because men have invisible support systems everywhere. One of which is wives, right?
So in the school, and if there are some adventurous listeners listening right now, we do this exercise called The Asking Practice. Which starts like this.
Read the sentence, “I could ask _____ for _____.”
And you fill in the first blank with the name of a person, and the second blank with something you want or you think you want. It is incredible what comes up when a woman does this exercise. These are just imaginary asks, you don't have to ask them in real life. It's so confronting just to write down 50 or 100 imaginary asks. All of this stuff comes up. ‘If I ask for this, I will look like this.’ ‘If I asked for this, I will be in debt and I will have to repay the favor.’ ‘If I even admit that I want this, they might do it and I don't want to give them the satisfaction.’ The entire landscape that holds all of these outdated mental ideas starts getting released. With it a lot of emotion comes.
As that list grows we have them do asks that specifically are needy, specifically are bossy, specifically are financial, erotic, tender. Ones that are practical, ones that would make you seem lazy if you had somebody else do it for you. Remember, this is just an inventory in the imagination.
Right now, I'm teaching a class called ‘Ask Anyone of Anything at Any Time.’ So this is very topical. It's such a huge inner expansion that happens. Working through how all of a sudden you don't remember anybody's name anymore. The imagination dies. You have to bring it back to life.
You asked a specific question about what we call an outrageous ask. An outrageous ask is big enough to change the relationship, to change the status quo. It changes the role of the other person. A lot of women think that men – and again, I don't mean to be specifically talking so much about men, because this curriculum works with power for women with everyone – but in the case of men, a lot of women think that if they ask less of a man they're doing them a favor. Your asks indicate the kind of role you're putting them in. Ask less of them. Many of my students find that they have been putting their significant others in the role of useless worm couch potato. Not making an inspiring, big enough, outrageous ask that would have him show up as a hero or show up as somebody phenomenal in their lives.
Another thing is finding the right size ask. Remember how I mentioned before the ask takes you from a complaint to zero, everything's okay. An outrageous ask goes above that so that the ask creates an inspired opportunity. What's outrageous to one person is not going to be outrageous to another person. This is a body test. Do I want this? Does this feel compelling, exciting, and terrifying? Am I likely going to get a no to this? Which is also another exciting opportunity. So those are some of the qualities of an outrageous ask because they're game changers. They change the status quo. They change the relationship.
“This is a really good time with what’s happening in the world for people to balance and redefine their relationships with everyone in their lives. Asking is a great way to do it.”
This is a really good time with what's happening in the world for people to balance and redefine their relationships with everyone in their lives. Asking is a great way to do it.
Elayne: Do you think when you have women do the exercise of filling in a name and then an ask, even though as you said it's just imaginary or an exercise for the imagination, do you find that most women get more caught up on the person they're asking or what the ask actually is? I ask that because I think sometimes it is the ask itself, sometimes it is worry about the judgment of the person that we might be asking, or sometimes it's both. I just wonder if you've seen women get caught up on one part or the other more?
Kasia: The specific nature of this exercise is to open up the inner landscape. So we encourage women to include as many names as possible, as many requests as possible, and branch out even to your third grade teacher because this is an exercise in the imagination. If they're getting caught up on a particular person or a particular ask, it's because they're not asking broadly enough, in terms of what they could possibly want, or who they're including – who makes the cut, who doesn't make the cut. Usually the first thing is you only get family members, significant others, co-workers. The people who are closest and not going further out. It's actually easiest to practice some of these things with people who are a little bit further out. The idea is to open up the inner landscape. Every woman will see something in this exercise that has her go, ‘Wait a minute, this is an imaginary prison. I could totally ask that. Why? Hmm.’
The other thing in the class is, we give instruction that nobody actually make any of the asks for the first week or two, depending on how long the class is. And the cool part is, in those first two weeks, the things that are written are oftentimes offered by the person that was on the list.
Elayne: They put it out into the universe.
Kasia: Yeah, I mean, you could have a magical approach to this. Like, ‘Wow, that's such a coincidence.’ But really what you do when you do that is you clean up your inner signal.
Elayne: Yep.
Kasia: You regard the other person. It's very easy for, especially the most powerful, independent women who have done it by themselves and do everything, to regard others as how they've shown up in response to that. Useless. Once you put someone on a list and start regarding them as potentially not useless, how the subtlest signals get sent and received start to change. You become more open to receiving that and they can feel that it's safer to offer some of that.
Elayne: They can sense that even if they don't know that you've just done this exercise where you put their name on the list.
Kasia: After doing this exercise with 1000s of women over the years, we have not had a single class where the first two weeks things on the list did not happen by themselves. It always happens.
Elayne: I believe it. I remember a friend of mine, Dawn Shadrick – I took this workshop, called Momentum, in New York a few years ago, changed my life totally – and we were talking about relationships. She told me about creating space in your life when you're looking for a partner. Even from the point of, ‘Do you have room in your closet for this person to be in your space? Where does this person fit into your life?’ In my mind, I was thinking, ‘What do you mean? That doesn't make sense?’ I'm being more practical, like they're not gonna move in right away. But it was this idea of in your mind, in your energy, just like you just said, creating space for this person that you want to come into your life.
Kasia: That is the perfect metaphor.
Elayne: And I am very conscious of that now. My closet has a little bit of room in it. Somebody could squeeze in there.
So I want to ask you, Kasia, before you go. We've talked about asking making an outrageous ask, but what about hearing, ‘no’? How do we handle ‘no’ and how do we not think that ‘no’ says whatever we think it says about us?
Kasia: First thing, how one feels about ‘no’ is dependent upon your previous experiences with it. So getting my students to have positive experiences with the word ‘no’ is challenging, number one.
To backtrack a little bit. Remember that I mentioned that we are raised to police ourselves? We are raised to have our attention inward? Women will often times default to an inward state of attention, which can be beautiful because it means we tend to be more attracted to meditation, yoga, and inward practices. But also the dark side of this is that when we hear ‘no’ we don't hear no to the request, we hear ‘no’ to us. The pain of hearing not just ‘no’ to the request, but, ‘You had no right to ask.’ So what we need to do is uncross those wires, and have a woman have a positive playful relationship with the word, ‘no’.
How do you do that?
Well, the first thing is realizing really basic truth. When somebody says ‘no’, most of the time it's not because they're trying to be a jerk. Most of the time, it's because it's bringing up something that may threaten something they want to protect, something they care about, something that's important to them. It doesn't matter if it's unimportant to you. It's important to them. Their vanity, order and the rules, or something much more tender. So when someone says ‘no’, I'm not saying to go violate without consent and go, ‘Why not? You're stupid.’ Right? I'm saying ‘no’ is actually where a very new conversation begins. Because if they're saying no to protect something they care about, that is an opportunity for an immense amount of intimacy. You wouldn't call it intimacy in a professional situation; in a professional situation you’d call it potential for collaboration, for strengthening the relationship, for understanding what the goals are. When you're faced with ‘no’, the first thing to do is make sure you're keeping your attention on them. When a woman hears ‘no’, her tendency is to attract all of our attention back onto herself, feel the pain, go, ‘ow’. The other person feels energetically dropped. If you stay with them and get curious. Don't use the words, ‘Why not?’, because those words feel very attack-like. But get curious about what this ‘no’ is trying to protect. What does this person care about that this ‘no’ is necessary for?
If you show care and interest in the thing that they're trying to protect, a lot of the time the ‘no’ will vanish on its own. The person themselves will feel safe enough with your request that their ‘no’ becomes a ‘yes’. Other times you have a desire, they have something to protect meaning they have a desire, you can start a new conversation that gets both of you what you want and you're on a whole other level.
“Here’s the thing about getting a ‘yes’. It’s already part of the status quo. It’s already there. The land of ‘yes’ doesn’t have a lot of transformation in it. It’s great to get yeses. It’s even better to get ‘no’. ”
Here's the thing about getting a ‘yes’. It's already part of the status quo. It's already there. The land of ‘yes’ doesn't have a lot of transformation in it. It's great to get yeses. It's even better to get ‘no’.
When you get ‘no’ and can navigate that skillfully, you start creating really powerful relationships with people. Really powerful ideas. Something new can be generated. Getting a ‘no’ is better than a ‘yes’.
My oldest students, when they hear ‘no’, they go, ‘Hell yes. Let's get in there. Let's find out. Let's get to work.’ This requires a little bit of practice and training because the first part is to not contract into the body.
Elayne: And you also said not to ask, ‘Why not?’ So how do we show our curiosity to that person instead? If the question isn't, ‘Why not?’, what could be a follow up question?
Kasia: There are some softer suggestions, but always depends on context. It's hard to come up with universal answers, but I'll offer some that tend to be a little bit more universal in personal settings.
‘How did it make you feel that I asked you that?’
When you ask, ‘How did it make you feel that I asked you that?’, they can start revealing a little bit about whatever it is that came up for them that had them say ‘no.
‘How does this request sit with you?’
‘What is it about this that makes ‘no’ a good answer for you?’
A lot of the work will be done by having your attention out and by asking curious questions about the person in a way that has them feel safe. The more attention you have out, the more you project that you care about the conversation you're having, you care whether this is going to hurt them or not, the more likely they are to open up.
If this is hard to imagine, just imagine this in reverse. Imagine somebody asks you something and you say ‘no’. Saying ‘no’ is hard sometimes. Now imagine how you would like to be approached. What’s behind that ‘no’ might be very difficult to talk about. You’d rather just say ‘no’ and have it done away with. If somebody is going to approach you and say, ‘Hey, I really care about why you said no. I really care about what it is that you said. What does this mean for you? What is this doing? Is there any way that you could reveal a little bit more so I have a better understanding of what your desires needs, plans, goals, agendas, where you sit with this.’ Wouldn’t that feel amazing instead of just saying ‘no’, or giving a false ‘yes’? And then feeling obliged and weird?
Elayne: Yes, I think too. It's so important. I love that you mentioned to not say, ‘why not?’ Because when you put it into reverse, if I say ‘no’ to something, which is already hard enough, and then using ‘why not?’, then it's doubly hard because then you feel like you have to explain yourself. Which is why I think sometimes people even avoid saying anything. If you reach out to someone, and that's my biggest one of my pet peeves, if you reach out to someone I'm always like, ‘If the answer is no, just tell me.’ That's hard enough, but what people might be fearing is you saying, ‘Why not?’ You know what I mean? That's really so they're like, ‘I'm just not going to say anything. I'm just not going to respond.’
Kasia: Absolutely. It’s not just about taking care of people. The goal is to get what you want, right? We know that tyranny and force doesn't work. It works in the short term, but not in the long term. The ideal way to get somebody to ‘yes’ with something you want, is with their actual consent. With all of them
Elayne: And for them to feel good about it.
Kasia: Yes! So that they want to do it, so that they can contribute their genius, their talents, their time, their heart, their work, their faith, their belief. In order to do that, you have to meet them on all those levels. It seems like a lot of work; it's just an investment up front that gets you so much more in the long term.
Elayne: Last question about this. What do we miss out on by not making an ask? What do you see women especially miss out on because they're afraid to ask for support or make whatever the ask is? They're doing everything themselves, especially as we talked about successful, ambitious women, which are women I speak to. I think sometimes we think, ‘I'll just do it myself. I'm the only one that can do it right.’ Or all these other reasons that we don't make the ask, but how do you articulate what we're really missing out on when we don't make those asks?
Kasia: The cost is tremendous. It's huge. As a last question, this could be an entire interview.
One is we think that if we ask and hurt someone, it's worse than the pain they suffer, the pain the world suffers, the pain the other person suffers by not being asked. You do so much damage to relationships by not asking, so much damage to the nature of a workplace by not asking as you carry the charge of that energy anyway.
One thing that also happens is independent women who have to do it all alone are less likely – they're starting angry and resentful, trying to hide it, white knuckling it – to have anything to contribute to other women who are also following their path.
The biggest cost is that an ask is a confession of a desire, and if half of the world's population struggles with confessing their visions, their dreams, their ideals, their desires, what we have is we're missing half of the world's population’s vision for the world, vision for how a workplace should be, vision for how love should look, how family should look, how religion should look, how all of it should look. Everything is born of desire, and asking is how you invite somebody to see it to collaborate with it. Asking is how you confess it how you expose it. You can use asking, you can use the word ‘inviting’, you can be bossy and say ‘commanding’, whatever it is. That information withheld is one of the most precious hidden resources that we're not tapping into.
Women are doing a lot. I want them asking a lot. I want them speaking a lot from their deepest, most outrageous, most radical, most self-expressed, most unreasonable desires. This is the time to be unreasonable. These are crazy times and it's time for women to be unreasonable.
Elayne: Unreasonable gets stuff done.
Kasia: Yes.
“Women are doing a lot. I want them asking a lot. I want them speaking a lot from their deepest, most outrageous, most radical, most self-expressed, most unreasonable desires. This is the time to be unreasonable. These are crazy times and it’s time for women to be unreasonable. ”
Elayne: So in closing, if you think over your life and career and you had the chance to thank only one person whose support was critical to you, personally or professionally, who would that be and what would you say?
Kasia: Oh wow, there's so many candidates to choose from. I would choose my father. My father was born in Poland during World War II and broke out from behind the Iron Curtain to become a jazz musician who played with Miles Davis and lived around the corner from Carnegie Hall. He's the ultimate unrealistic, unrealistic, unrealistic person who made the impossible possible. Having that as an example, more than anything else. He has always questioned the rules. He challenged all the record companies. He got into all sorts of trouble. Watching him as a girl and then as a woman, first horrified and embarrassed, and then seeing the sense in what looked senseless, how he just keeps on and kept on being completely unrealistic, following his dreams and his heart, forcing everyone else to adjust to what was most alive. Not to some arbitrary agenda, but to what really had a pulse.
What was beautiful, and I think in watching him, I learned how to worry less about the rules and breaking them and more to question the existence of why they're there in the first place. Because right now there's a lot of rules, especially implicit rules that need breaking.
We need a lot of bad girls to break a lot of rules.
“We need a lot of bad girls to break a lot of rules. ”
Elayne: That’s right. Beautiful. Now, what are the ways that we can support you and tell everyone? I'm sure people want to know about The Academy. Would tell everyone where they can go to find out more about you?
Kasia: Thank you my website is www.weteachpower.com, and on the site is my newly released TED Talk and ways to buy my book, Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power.
Elayne: Excellent. Kasia, thank you so much. I feel like I have so many more questions and so many things we could dive into. You such a vast experience, and you are definitely a woman after my own heart helping other women, especially those who are in positions of power, progressive, or ambitious, to know how to make an ask. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.
Kasia: Thank you so much for having me. This has been wonderful.
Elayne: Of course. Now before you go, what's a parting piece of advice from you to our listeners about anything?
Kasia: You have no say in what you want. You have no say in what you want. You don't make your desires. You have no say in what you want. You do have a say in what you do about it.
Elayne: Very good. That's a good one to leave us with. Thank you so much.
Unknowing Podcast: Unbound with Kasia Urbaniak
“Ultimately, this is the goal. That vital feeling to be fully awake. This is why we have to shed our good girl bondage and the compression that comes with it. This goes past congruence and the ability to communicate in a clean way. In a contracted state, it is not only difficult to fully access our power, but it’s hard to feel fully alive.”
Cover art by Marfa Madee
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Podbean
Listen on the Unknowing Podcast site
Read the transcript:
Introduction (Brie): It's interesting to me that we're not trained on power and power dynamics. We spend a lot of time talking about power and power dynamics. We certainly experience the effects of power and the consequences of power when not held well. We're not taught the subtleties of power in our own bodies, or how to wield it, how to utilize it toward creative ends, and co-create in power so that we can have power with as opposed to just power over, which is the dominant paradigm. As a woman growing up in a religious paradigm, I can attest to the fact that I, at least in my experience, was trained how to submit to power, how to defer, deflect, be nice, be good, be sweet, be kind, but definitely don't stand in your own power. Don't shake things up. Don't ask questions. Don't live the questions. Certainly don't get curious about what works, what doesn't. And to follow that inner curiosity, instinct, and intuition into a more wild and expansive life force affirming reality.
Most of us women who broke out of those containers had to do it the hard way and the old way, but there is somebody out there who is actively training women on how to break free and become unbound, how to unknow all the very unhelpful training that many of us women received. Her name is Kasia Urbaniak, founder and CEO of The Academy, a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. I met Kasia through a mutual friend, who within a month of meeting me said, “Oh my god, you remind me so much of my friend Kasia, you have to meet each other. It's just weird.”
After meeting each other on Zoom, and having a couple of conversations, Kasia generously invited me to sit in on a couple of her classes at The Academy and I was blown away. Kasia is an incredibly unique and masterful teacher. Over the course of nearly 20 years, she worked as a professional dominatrix, practiced Taoist alchemy in one of the oldest female-led monasteries in China, and obtained dozens of certifications in different disciplines which include medical Qi gong, and systemic constellations. Since founding the Academy in 2013, Kasia has taught over 4000 women the practical tools and embodied knowledge on how to break free from the stories, lies, narratives, and tiny boxes that most of us were trained to be sweetly in. Kasia has also written a book called Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power. We will be discussing some of the topics in her book in this conversation.
When I'm interviewing an artist, I like to remind all of you that just because you don't consider yourself an artist doesn't mean you don't have a lot to learn about the path of creative possibility by listening to a particular artist. I'm going to say the same thing now about Kasia. If you don't identify as a woman, this is not a podcast episode just for women. There’s a lot for us to learn on the path of creative possibility about unknowing, about power, about the unhelpful categories that many of us were trained in, to label things as good and bad, and then miss out on the opportunity to alchemize that energy toward creative ends.
So grab your notebook, you're gonna want to write down some things because there's a lot of embodied wisdom coming your way. With that, let's dive right in to Episode 12 with Kasia Urbaniak.
Brie: Kasia, thank you so much for being on Unknowing today. I usually like to begin by asking my guests about the first map that they were given when growing up to make sense of their reality. This has a way of setting us off in a particular direction and course. So to begin, would you share what map you were given? What lens were you handed to interpret your world?
Kasia: Two things come to mind, but can you tell me a little bit more about what kind of map you're looking for? What do you mean by map?
Brie: I kind of like to leave it open. For some people, it'll be like, “This was my spiritual upbringing.” For some people, it's like, “I had a scientist for a dad and a teacher for a mom and that impacted me in this way.” So whatever first popped into your mind.
Kasia: What comes up for me is a radical violation of a map I had that I didn't know I had. When I was born, my parents who were musicians were touring quite heavily. So even though I was born in New York, my little sister and I were on tour with my parents until about the age of six. This is the map, right? The map that I didn't know was a map. This is what I thought all reality looked like. My mom, my dad, me, my sister, the band, the roadies, the other musicians. Every day, two days, three days, a different European city, trains, hotel rooms, bars, clubs, vans. The main thing was all of us in this small tribe had a common purpose. It was to get to the next gig and make a show. My sister had a place, I had a place, even if I was carrying the tambourine or looking after luggage, or figuring out where the french fries were in this German train station. And it was kind of amazing. Even though you would think that was a chaotic time, it wasn't. Everything made perfect sense. Everyone had a place, we were together all the time, we were doing a thing.
Then all of a sudden, I'm in New York in a Catholic elementary school and I'm sitting in a damn chair all day long. There are these people in the front of the room telling me things. I don't understand why I have to do anything. At that point, my English isn’t that great, but even if my English was flawless, I still wouldn't understand why I have to sit. I was a terrible student, and I was miserable. The fluorescent lights, the sitting. I’d already had a different map for what humans were supposed to do with each other. I didn't understand why I wasn't in the same room as my little sister. I didn't understand where my parents were.
That upset fundamentally shaped me. I think it invigorated this very rebellious stance. Why are we here? What's the point of this? Why am I here? Why am I doing this? Answers like ‘just because you're supposed to’ weren’t enough to satisfy my previous experience in what it was like to do something together.
That map transition, or map violation, was one that defined essentially the rest of my life.
Brie: So wild, because I find that for so many of us it's the ruptures that become the birthplace of something that becomes a core search. It's like that initial rupture of ‘why am I being forced into a system of education or a version of reality that's suddenly very square, very rule-oriented?’ So with that search that began inside of you, walk us through how you wound up deciding to study Taoism at the same time as you became an incredibly successful dominatrix. How did you get from starting to ask ‘why’ to those deep core experiences in your life.
Kasia: I think what you say about rupture is right on. The holy unhappiness I felt through all of my school years, the crushing unhappiness and misery. I watched my parents go through something similar, but I didn't know that at the time. The energy that was required to be touring musicians and Polish immigrants. Their belief in the American Dream was in some ways purer and stronger than most, but there was an almost toxic, ambitious drive towards success in the music industry. The point of why we were doing anything at all was something that I was looking for without even knowing it.
I read a lot as a kid, and was drawn to books even when I was 10. On any alternative spiritual path, especially since I was going to Catholic school. I was sneaking home books on pagan stuff and witchcraft. It’s almost a cliche and a bad joke that it was time to pay for college and I was like, “Why do I have to go to a cheap school?” Making money as a dominatrix was something that was just about as anti-everything I was around that I could think of.
Initially, Taoism drew me because it was so magical. It had a promise of things that were very supernatural and metaphysical. Later on, it matured into a different kind of practice understanding. The miraculous healings, the exorcisms, the witchy-wizardy parts of Taoism were the things that drew me in first.
I don't know if that answered your question.
Brie: It completely did. It makes perfect sense in so many ways. Maybe this beginning, baptismal, experiential first map that you had, in which wildness, creativity, and alternative possibilities were welcome was the true north that you were then trying to find in your explorations. To say, “I don't believe that this is the only way. I don't believe this is the only system. I will not play by these rules. I will be the bad girl and break these rules. And I make a lot of money doing it.” Something in you – that deep, rebellious urge seems to be tied to a deep knowing. I'm fascinated by this. When I first told you about the concept of this show, you were like, “Oh my god, that's so Taoist. I can't believe that the Unknowing is so Taoist.”
Could you connect the dots for those who may not be as familiar? How is that connection there? Why was that something you said to me?
Kasia: Oh, yeah. This also makes me want to add something to the previous question, this is a good link. Even though the rebellious paths that I chose look wild and sometimes strange, the drive behind understanding why actually made me a practically driven person. What works despite what people say? What actually works? Certain roles in society promise something, does it work? If it does works, what does it work to achieve? Do I want that? What's practical? To me, the way to be the most compassionate person involves a hell of a lot of practicality. What actually works? I think one of the fundamental truths is that we want to know, cognitively and mentally, a lot more than we actually need to. At the expense of the wisdom and information that arises for us at the moment, that blossoms for the next few steps. That is a really beautiful way to navigate the world.
So when you're talking about Unknowing, you're talking about, at least for me, breaking the conditioning. Breaking the pointless rules that lead you to places you don't even want to go. This won't make you happy. In just a basic sense, Taoism is practical. It's the foundation of Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and a huge percentage of martial arts. How to heal your body, how to heal other bodies, how to defend yourself.
Working as a dominatrix was an absolutely fascinating interface with human beings and power, and it was also a really practical way to make money. It was a practical way to start exploring all the things I didn't like about the way I was being put into a box as a woman, and test them out. There's this almost social, scientific, experimental part of all of these things that I think have to do. We are human beings on this planet and we don't even really know what that means. We don't really know what it means to be Kasia or Brie, or a person. We don't really know where we are. What do we know? How much do we need to know in order to make the next move and to see the results of that?
The magic of being alive on this planet is that you don't know. But you can, in a unique, isolated moment, see and find out. It's not knowledge to be captured. It's a conversation with the universe where you say something, you do something, and the universe responds. You don't get to know where the rest of the conversation’s going. You just know that you heard back from the world, ‘oh this is the thing.’ The insecurity and fear make us want to turn that response into a fundamental truth. How cool is this, the Tao Te Ching begins with the Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao. It's the fundamental disclaimer of integrity. Like it's saying, the moment we start talking about this, it's never always going to be true.
Brie: It’s such a koan. Your brain just kind of self-combusts. Short circuits.
Kasia: I had personal curiosities and personal interests. I wanted to be an incredibly powerful woman. I wanted to understand the things that were in my way. I wanted to break through the things that were in my way. I felt incredibly trapped and wanted to understand everything. I wanted to know everything, I wanted to study everything, I wanted to strategize over everyone. In that maybe misguided, but really honest desire to be the most powerful woman in the world. I had to be humbled and schooled by the world by facing the results of everything that I tried. Seeing that I didn't need to preemptively understand everything, I only needed to have a basic way of operating. A basic positive regarding curiosity about how to look at the responses that the world hides.
Brie: It's so powerful to me listening to you talk about this shift from this colonial need to subjugate reality with a form of oppressive knowledge that can then create and determine a sense of certainty, versus the kind of radical simplicity, an internal posture of humility that says, “I don't need to know. I just need to be really, really freaking awake and aware so that I can track where this life force is moving and be in conversation with the universe moment by moment.” That's such a different posture. That's a completely, radically other way of talking about knowledge than how society is set up. Which is like, academically, you're considered to be an intelligent, knowledgeable person, if you know all of this information up in your head.
Kasia: Yeah, and here's my favorite part. The idea that colonial subjugation is bad and the radical simplicity of humility on the inside is good isn't even necessary because it's a question of what works. We just know. Anyone with eyes who's curious and really interested in the subject of power and being able to make things happen in the world. If you look at that mindset, of utter control, and if you look at tyranny in an amoral way, it becomes really evident that it doesn't work. The amount of force required when you break people's free will, when you take what is inherently wanting to be birthed inside of them, their energy sources, when you try to crush and oppress people, it takes a tremendous amount of energy and wastes the energy that's inherent in them. So even in this kind of cold-hearted, neutral way, looking at what works and what doesn't work, it's actually the synergy between human beings that creates all of the stuff we want. The way of looking even at how we use our resources and the ways we go to war. We have these metrics that make it look like those things spell success, but those metrics are false. The GDP, how wealthy a person is when they have lots of money. It doesn't take that much to see that it just doesn't work. It’s easy to see the person who has their head full of facts doesn't necessarily make the best decisions.
Brie: I love the practicality of how you're describing this path, this way of life because it just doesn't work. If your head is full of information and it's clouding your ability to be in the moment and connect with life force and yourself, let alone how to influence and dance with others to create beautiful possibilities. It's like, oh yeah, that doesn't work. That doesn't work.
I want to ask you about how you're training people to learn the things that work, especially your work with women. This is really how we met as me witnessing you in your full glory on your throne and teaching and bringing it to your class at The Academy, which is the school that you founded. The first time I witnessed your teaching, it was on Zoom, and I'm sitting there and you're getting going, and you're talking about the importance of connecting with rage. I'm like, yeah, yeah, we should all connect with our anger. Sure, yeah. And you single out a student, you asked her to connect with her rage. She got amped up, but it was still like a polite 5. She was still somewhat apologetic, even in her body posture. She was shrugging her shoulders and giggling a little bit and kind of on the spot, but there was something in her and you felt it. You knew was there from all of your experience, you could feel that life force in her and you were like, “Nah, I'm not gonna let you get off the hook.” So you kept prodding her until she finally got there. I will never forget what I witnessed because when she touched into her rage, she was able to be so clear in her language, but also her whole body posture changed, her shoulders rolled back, her chin lifted up, and suddenly she recovered her sovereignty. It made me weep because it reminded me of that movie, Hook. Where Peter Pan comes back as a full adult and one of the lost boys comes up to him and grabs his face and starts manipulating all the extra skin until he can kind of see his old friend. And he goes, “Oh, there you are, Peter, there you are.” At that moment with that student, it was like, “Ah, there she is, there she is.”
So talk about this process of aligning with that life force and your work with your students and helping them find that themselves.
Emotions into Power – Online Course
Through over 60 videos and practical assignments, learn the crucial skills of emotional alchemy that form the foundation of unshakable influence.
Kasia: Yeah. In founding The Academy and in working with women, to break a lot of the specifically gendered social conditioning, the good girl behavior, all of that, I've gotten to witness such extraordinary beauty and miracles. But what I treasure the most is something that feels repeatedly verifiable to me.
Human beings don't have to be good because we already are good. What works is fundamental goodness. All we have to do is be true. Now, those words can be misconstrued 100,000 different ways. My anti-morality stance is a challenge to the idea that we're inherently sinful beings who need corrective behavior. Let me draw back to that example and then move back to that spot.
Rage can be incredibly destructive, so we don't want it. We have a cultural practice of perversely, almost in a pornographic way, allowing for particular expressions of rage and violence, but strongly regulating where it's allowed. You can make a movie where 10,000 people's heads are chopped off, but watch your goddamn tone if you're in a meeting, right? We have a highly regulated relationship to rage and very little understanding of it. The idea is social control; to hijack the power that rage provides to use it for military purposes. But everywhere else where it occurs naturally, tamp it down. This implies that human beings have evil in them.
This is what happens on a practical level I see happen with the women in my class and rage. I have yet to meet a woman who isn't on some level furious. The most tamped-down rage looks like a lack of life purpose and a lack of energy. Maybe this is a coincidence, but also a high incidence of autoimmune diseases. A lack of clarity, sex drive, purpose, sleepiness, resignation. Now, because I have 1000 tests of encountering a woman in this stage, and testing what happens is their rage underneath. We'll call this phase one rage. When phase one rage becomes phase two rage, it's the kind of rage that we're most afraid of socially. It's a little bit like the way a foot falls asleep, you don't know it's asleep when it's asleep – this is phase one. The moment you start shaking it though, you shake it up a little and it hurts. It feels uncomfortable, you can't use it, and you don't have control over it. So phase two rage socially is that thing that we're freaked out about, especially with women who are holding millennia of rage. In phase two, you hurt people, you don't have control, you're destructive. There's a lot of energy, but it's going all over the place. So tamp it down, back to phase one. Most people are oscillating, moving back and forth between phase one and phase two. It becomes like a pendulum. It becomes cyclical. It's like, “Oh, I shouldn't be mad. Oh, but I am mad.” It’s good to pass through phase two in a safe space, in community, or in private, not with the object of your rage. There's something that happens where all of a sudden the things that you're fighting against, the things that your anger wants to stop, start transitioning into, “I want to break through this because I see a vision for something better.” The amount of energy that's unavailable to a human being because they're in phase one rage, that they start feeling as uncontrollable and cumbersome in phase two becomes passionate, direction, clarity. It's that thing you witnessed when she got to the other side. All of a sudden, she went from wanting to yell to a grounded, embodied voice speaking in an unshakable, undeniable way.
We have this funny habit when it comes to emotions, right? The ones that are perceived as negative, it's like you put a biohazard sign on them. Some of them are too tumultuous to just observe, observe, observe, observe, right? Even that idea is far more evolved and more Eastern. Suppress the bad ones, control them, hold them away from people. Definitely don't get to the other side of them. Don't rage and scream until you find your passion point. Then the positive ones, take them for granted. Something good happens? Oh, I'm fine. I'm good. Let's move on. Let's move on to the next problem. The incredible energy available when a positive emotion surfaces, it's not like, “Hey, I feel fantastic about myself today, I got this beautiful gift, or I did this phenomenal thing.” So the energy that's there is also not directed, amplified, cared for. If we go into the premise that human beings are fundamentally sinful, born with original sin, that the body is bad, that's the things that come through us are bad or good.
“If we are distrustful of what arises within us, we are more likely to be disconnected, disembodied, and also not shepherding and managing the negative and positive emotions properly. ”
Brie: Looking at you Augustine.
Kasia: The need to be regulated, the need to be highly controlled. If we are distrustful of what arises within us, we are more likely to be disconnected, disembodied, and also not shepherding and managing the negative and positive emotions properly. The amount of beauty that's possible if you wield the beauty of your positive emotions and alchemize your negative emotions. That distinction is only necessary because we made it. You don't treat everything exactly the same. You don't treat a child the same way you treat a pet or the same way you treat a friend. Those raw emotions that are negative only have become the monsters they are because they get locked into a closet. They get worse and worse and worse and worse the longer they stay. If you don't believe me, listen to how a woman talks to her partner after 10 years of resentment. It might be quiet, but those poison arrows, those vicious comments can cut an artery. The longer it stays hidden the gnarlier it is. The more it requires the process of moving from phase one, phase two, phase three.
When I say human beings don't need to be good because we are good so all we have to do is be true, is a huge oversimplification of the processes that happened when we come to know ourselves again as good therefore trustworthy.
Kind of a side note, but since the theme of religion is coming up if you look at the seven deadly sins, they are only problems if you're disembodied. Greed, for example. Greed only works if you're not embodied enough to feel what you've received and hit a point of satiety. So the problem with greed isn't greed. The problem with greed is disembodiment. If you were there in your seat to receive what your greed got you, you get full. It’s a natural, metabolic function. It's a spiritual metabolism. You go out, you get praise, you fully receive it, you celebrate, you say, “Yes, I did that fantastically. I am great.” Suddenly, vanity, pride becomes less of a problem. The same thing with gluttony, self-regulating. We're self-regulating beings. When we are in our bodies, we are in harmony with the universe, we participate in nature's self-regulating processes. Rage, which we already talked about. Wrath, a sin. It's only a problem if you're not embodied enough to feel the passion and where it directs and leads. Name any of them. It's the same thing over and over again. If you're there to receive what is already yours, the self-regulating mechanisms of satiety and appropriate hunger kick in, and suddenly even Buddhist ideas of craving and aversion are going out the window because we're self-regulating.
This is the beauty, with all of the dramatic problems in the world, to be able to work with a woman and uncover her fundamental innocence which leads to a tremendous amount of power and influence. Who would have thought that inherent goodness and innocence lead to her being able to get outrageously legendary things in the world? To have a feeling of influence. It's a wonderful thing to be watching over and over and over again, those guilty pleasures, secretly delicious but maybe a little wicked desires that we have. Pursuing them is not only not wicked but requires us to be exactly as we are. It leads to goodness for everyone.
Brie: It's stunningly beautiful to listen to this worldview shift that you've given your life to. Full stop at: can we just accept our inherent worth and goodness? Can we please correct this terrible anthropology that religion and certain platonic philosophies have yielded? I'm stunned by this insight that you've just offered here. You've got the 7 deadly sins, and you're like, “Well, if you’re just in your body, if you trusted this vehicle of incarnation as capable of manifesting something sacred, then those issues are no longer issues.” That alone, I could just stop right there. That's a podcast, let’s just hover on that.
But this idea of following the life force and trusting that goodness. It seems so simple, and yet again and again we default to this smaller, lesser, disembodied life. We stick to familiar patterns. We herd into social constructs. I pulled this from your book, Unbound, which I enjoyed living in for the last week preparing for this podcast. You’re giving examples of successes and breakthroughs your students had, you say, “none of these solutions came out of the grind.” So it wasn't a forced, top-down, here's what we're gonna do. “It came from inspiration, byproducts of the imagination, creativity, experimentation, and ingenuity. They came from following life force. Ultimately, this is the goal,” you say, “that vital feeling to be fully awake. This is why we have to shed our good girl bondage and the compression that comes with it. This goes past congruence and the ability to communicate in a clean way. In a contracted state, it is not only difficult to fully access our power, but it's hard to feel fully alive.”
This reminds me of some of the koans you were saying earlier, because on the surface, you're like, that sounds really obvious. But then to live it, to actually have the courage to break those patterns, is a whole other thing.
I just want to reflect back that I'm in one of those places of profound unknowing, where the following of life force has taken me into doing something that I've wanted to do for a long time. I might be dead broke in a few months, but I have never felt clearer, happier, or more in my body and more here on this planet. Harmonizing with the harmonies of the world. It's like that kind of like bliss, right? I don't say that in a disembodied way. I'm just really having a lot of fun. The funny thing is, for a long time, and you know this because we've been friends for a while now, I've wanted to break through, break out, and do my own thing and start doing my own creative projects and honor these creative expressions in my life. But I just kept shrinking back or holding back because we're taught that a courageous, creative life is not practical. It's not how things are done. The universe came along and kicked my ass and set me on this course.
Sometimes the universe intervenes, right? Sometimes the universe is like, “okay, gonna help you break through this limiting belief that you have about yourself,” but what practice would you offer listeners to help us get in touch with desire? And maybe reconfigure our relationship with desire that has gotten warped through our unhelpful societal training?
Kasia: Yeah. So the first thing is changing how we regard desire, to begin with. We make new year's resolutions, we set goals, even as kids some of us are asked to make Christmas lists, right? There's this kind of illusion that we make our desires. We try and articulate our desires, yeah. But we don't make them. You don't sit down and commit to wanting vanilla gelato. You can't make yourself be attracted to men if you're attracted to women. You can’t make desire.
Brie: We can't manufacture it.
Kasia: No, but we regard it like we do. If we have a ‘bad’ one, or if we have a ‘good’ one, we have certain feelings about ourselves. So the first thing to do is to change our regard about how desire works. I am not making these desires, they're coming through me. I have no say in what I want, it happens to me. Now, I do have plenty of say in what I allow myself to see. Next level. How I articulate the guesses I make about what will satisfy that. When you have an urge for vanilla ice cream, for example, you're referencing something in the past. It may not necessarily be something that's existed before, the actual desire may be calling for something that's not on the menu, not ever been seen on this planet, right? Desire comes up, we have say in whether we acknowledge it, we have say in our skill level and making educated guesses and experiments about what will satisfy it, we have say in whether we do anything about it at all, but we don't have any say in what comes up. Judging ourselves on the basis of our desires is utter nonsense. It makes no sense.
If you have what seems like a very wicked desire, like revenge or destruction, this is a moment where all of the Eastern practices in detachment and observation are so helpful, right? “Oh, I have a wicked desire. This has nothing to do with whether I'm a good person or not. What is this telling me? How do I engage with it?”
This is going to sound nuts, but I do a lot of work with revenge in my classes. The desire for justice, to punish, and to destroy people. When we go into that impulse, oftentimes, when we start alchemizing it, the actual essence of the revenge is so generous. So many women will go, “I want my toxic father to go to therapy. First, I want him to pay, and then I want him to fix, and then I want him to grow.” There is a generosity that can develop there.
Desire. The ones that seem kind of wicked are the quickest ones to be shut down, and they’re also the ones that are most useful to look at. If you don't look at them without judging yourself, that often ends up playing out anyway in less than conscious ways. We end up hurting people, and then it's messy. It's not skillful. The result isn't exactly what we want.
The guilty pleasures, those are all clues. I have a student who was asking me about self-discipline. She runs a business, and she wants to spend less time watching TV shows. I asked her if there's a particular show, and she watches RuPaul’s Drag Race. She wanted to stop the hours of watching RuPaul’s Drag Race a day. We looked into it, and this seems like a small thing but it's a really good direction. She has a business where she guides women through the wedding process of being brides in a holistic and beautiful way. When we leaned into what she likes about it, we had to look into what her desire was saying. She would’ve never looked at binge-watching a TV show as something positive. So we looked into it. She realized that the archetype of the drag queen is so relevant to the woman who's transforming herself as a bride, creating a performance in community, living out loud, and having the kind of celebration wedding experience that absolutely showcases every single woman's unique fabulousness in a theatrical way. All of the sudden, she saw that she was doing research. Being able to accept that had her radically reinvent how she approaches her work, her business, and her success in her business. This is another one of those things where even the small petty things that we beat ourselves up for being wrong about are very likely intelligent signposts. Meet those signposts consciously, in a loving way, and ask ourselves what purpose they’re serving instead of categorizing things – trying to get rid of one category and holding another as good. Utilizing everything. How can you rage? How can you use your laziness? What is it telling you?
Writing down your desire is super important. We have a fun exercise that we call The Bad Girl Protocol where you write down, “If I were a bad girl I would ______.” And ‘bad girl’ – I know it's infantilizing, but it's on purpose. “You're such a good girl. You're such a bad girl.” The way that that evokes those very fundamental, early punishments and rewards. The idea is you let loose your writing this on paper. You can destroy the paper, nobody has to look at it. If vile and really twisted things come up, you never have to look at them again. You can look at them and start getting curious. What is wanted here? What's the desire here? Oftentimes things will pop up that are absolutely totally good and loving. “If I were a bad girl, I’d get nine hours of sleep.” “If I were a bad girl, I would tell my sister to break up with her partner.” You name it.
“One of our favorite sayings in The Academy is imagination over effort. When you’re stuck and doubling down on a technique that hasn’t worked for you in the past, you think, ‘This didn’t work. It’s probably me, I have to try harder.’ Stop, take a step back, and think, ‘is imagination going to be better here than effort?’”
I think the most important thing is understanding that your transmission receiver of desires, not to create tricks of them. You create a lot in your life. You're co-creating your reality with the rest of the universe. It's one of the most beautiful paradoxes and mysteries. We could find 100,000 different angles into getting women to start loving all of themselves and human beings start believing in themselves. There’s talk about the life drive versus the death drive – we're on a suicide mission. There’s so much shame in the toxic narcissism of the archetypal man, and there's so much resentment and self-attack in the patterning for women. We are beautiful. Trying to become good and beautiful actually disgraces are already inherent existing beauty. That's why unknowing – not know how to be good, not knowing how to be successful, not knowing how to be better. It's also one of my gripes with a lot of the self-development stuff that I've seen out there in the last 20-30 years. Become better. Try harder. One of our favorite sayings in The Academy is imagination over effort. When you're stuck and doubling down on a technique that hasn't worked for you in the past, you think, "This didn't work. It's probably me, I have to try harder." Stop, take a step back, and think, “is imagination going to be better here than effort?”
Brie: It's stunning. Those words are such an invitation for a radical social shift. As well, collectively, how we do life, how we have understood reality as needing to be this effort-filled, conquering, subjugation, disembodied bodies disembodying other bodies.
I want to begin to wrap up the conversation by talking about what you've already named embodiment and attention because you say that asking questions is a dom's superpower. I want to ask you about this about imagination and creativity because some of those power dynamics that you were describing in your book and that I've witnessed you teaching in your class – are we not also engaged in a similar relational power dynamic with the universe itself when we place ourselves in a receptive state, but then place the attention outward into possibility, into what is beyond even what we think we can know? Is that how this exchange becomes a dance of creativity? Is that how we move with, as opposed to trying to conquer or be in that grind that you mentioned is a waste of energy and life force?
Kasia: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. For listeners, that may be too subtle and nuanced to grasp what we're talking about, but that's exactly right. As a solo human being the dominant and submissive states of attention apply exactly how you described. It's why we have prayer versus meditation.
Brie: I was just gonna say it reminds me of prayer!
Kasia: Right? All traditions have both contemplative practices. Basically a conversation, you speak and you listen. In meditation, you're listening and waiting for something nonspecific enough to stay open. You don't close down around an answer. But that's exactly right. You have a conversation with reality. You listen and you speak and you don't do both at the same time.
Brie: This attention to the body, and I love one of your phrases, you say, “follow your feeling sense.” This attention to the body, this recognition that we need this relaxing into our inherent goodness and return trust to the power of our volition and desire for participation. Trusting your desires, paying attention to what they are, getting curious about what they are, not labeling and judging ourselves so much.
I'm really glad you brought up the self-help work because in my experience a lot of the contemplative and mystical strands and streams that are bringing people out into these bucolic settings for these amazing retreats to find enlightenment or whatever. A new map. Like, “I got it now. I have the answers.”
How can we reorient our curiosity to continue to learn helpful practices, whether they be spiritual or otherwise, and not make ourselves into projects? How do we relax into allowing it to be something that helps us come back to the fullness of being alive and trusting ourselves?
Kasia: Well, I love making everything a project. So I love myself as a project. I love myself as a creative. I think you might be referring to…
Brie: The self-attack maybe.
Kasia: Yeah. When a student enters the school, sometimes they enter and they’re a little bit like in the doctor's office waiting room, what drew them in was pain. As they're sitting in the waiting room, they're secretly hoping that their pain gets worse, or they're mad that their pain is getting not as bad because they've come to the doctor to heal the pain. Some want to amplify an already-existing skillset. It's just natural that pain is a driver, right? Especially in our world. Very few of us have a great orgasm once and want to investigate it so we can have that all the time by ourselves, with others. We don't do that. Pain is a natural driver.
Here's a concept and an exercise, especially for women. Self-attack belongs to all humans, but I teach women so it's more responsibility for me to talk about women. For generations, women have been policed. Watch yourself, watch yourself, watch yourself. A lot of it is out of love. If it's possible for a woman to be sexually assaulted and then blamed for wearing a short skirt, she better watch herself, right? If your mama cares about you, especially two generations ago, but even today, she's going to tell you to watch what you wear. Then we grow up and the self-policing kicks in now that we're not policed. We're policing ourselves. Watch yourself. Am I too quiet? Am I too loud? Am I giving off the wrong signal?
Here's the beauty of the average woman's incredibly strong and complex self-attack architecture. We are capable of noticing every little detail of the things we do and finding how they can be dangerous or wrong. Doing something that's 97% perfect and harping on the 3%. Giving a speech, flubbing a line. We are capable of finding the smallest detail and finding it wrong and attacking ourselves for it. That also means that that same architecture can be used to find every single detail of how we did well and right. That self-awareness, that painful architecture, can be used in exactly the opposite way. What it takes is giving yourself permission to celebrate yourself. Oh no, vanity! I'm not just talking gratitude lists. I'm talking like, “I am such a badass. I am so amazing.” Tracking your victories. Remembering your victories and wins. The things you do, not just the things that are lucky to come your way. We've learned how to do that and it’s important too, but I'm talking about strengthening the muscles that tend to be weaker. It could be going from getting out of bed two hours after waking up to an hour and 30 minutes after waking up could be a victory. It could be that you run your whole household. It could be that you do invisible labor, you confronted the people in your life that are benefiting from it and got them to shoulder some of the weight. It could be anything but it has to be the thing that lights you and you alone up.
When we celebrate something that works, we're teaching our bodies to go for more of that. When we ignore it, that information isn't transmitted. We learn better from reward than punishment. You can beat yourself up for something until the cows come home, but it's only going to make you bodily, somatically more drawn to that thing. It means that you get a really strong somatic impression when something negative happens, but very little. There's a part of the brain and body that just tracks experience, not positive and negative. A huge leap in success and a huge failure is going to track similarly. What we want to do is start creating strong impressions for the things that we want more of.
There's a song we have in The Academy about self-attack because here's the thing, the moment I start talking about self-attack, it's very likely that you if you've committed to attacking yourself less, you will attack yourself in the next 10 minutes, and then attack yourself for attacking yourself. “I’m so hard on myself.” “I cannot give myself a break.” Then it's the architecture of an anxiety attack, a shame spiral, any kind of pernicious emotion that won't let loose is shaped this way.
I'm angry. Now I'm angry that I'm angry.
I'm scared. Now I'm scared that I'm scared.
I’m attacking myself for attacking myself.
So we have a song.
🎶 Self-attack is so boring. That monologue leaves me snoring. I've heard it all before. I don't need it anymore. I already know where it’s going. 🎶
Brie: Amazing. I want everybody to learn that song. Can you imagine the lives that we would lead if we really practiced that and believed it? To just drop that inner attack and drop that tool of self diminishment?
Kasia: Yeah. In the “in case of an emergency break glass” box, what should be inside is not a fire extinguisher or an ax, but something outrageous, playful and ridiculous. Because at the end of the day, that's the best thing to use in an emergency.
Brie: That sense of humor almost breaks the spell that our judgmental beliefs can hold over ourselves. In your classes, you do such an incredible job of learning how to somatically imprint individually and together. You have your students celebrate the shit out of each other. When somebody says, “Hey, I did this!”, everybody's like, “You're amazing!” At first, it feels like, “Okay, this is just ridiculous and over the top. All I did was remember to eat today.” But what you're saying is that it takes that repatterning, it takes that level of us beginning to understand, as you were saying earlier so profoundly, these emotions are messengers and we keep trying to neuter them. We neuter the negatives and the positives, and we're missing out on harvesting deep, profound wisdom, growth, and life force.
Kasia: Yeah. I have to add this because you just reminded me of one of the sneakiest ways in which our conditioning influences us. What it's okay to celebrate, what it's okay to like, what it's okay to be happy about, what success looks like, right? From the time we're in grade school, we know what's cool to like, what's not okay to like, and what's okay to want, what's not okay to want. In celebrating, there is an authentic, completely uncontrolled, quick flash of what lights you up. I stood up for myself today. I did this today. If we're not careful, we can miss it. We have such a strong patterning about what success looks like, and that celebration is very much warped and mangled by it.
Brie: The invitation to celebrate all those things that light us up is also your sneaky and masterful way of teaching us how to learn to pay attention to life force, watch where it's going, and begin to move in the direction of those desires. Which I think is so crucial for us, especially for this community in this podcast, if we're talking about the creative path of possibility. We’re going to need to examine some of these practical skills that you offer us.
Kasia, I want to close this immense conversation that has so much wisdom that I feel like I could listen back to this conversation like 17 times and still be like, oh my god, and then that. You reference the conversation that's happening under the conversation, like learning how to read life force and attention. So where is unknowing calling to you these days? Like what conversation is unmaking and remaking itself in you right now? Where's your own edge if you're willing to share?
Kasia: At this time, that's a really big, unique thing because a lot of my biggest desires for a long time have been around how I want to engage with the world. The world is radically changing before my eyes, and the places I wanted in it, I don't think they exist anymore. I don't think they're there anymore. To be a certain kind of person, to have a certain kind of reputation, influence, or lifestyle. I'm in the biggest period of Unknowing in my life. I'm going to fly to New York next week, but I don't know where in the world I'm going after that. I don't know if I'm staying for more than a week. I know that I have to keep putting myself in an environment where I'll be able to feel things that will tell me what to do next. I mean, we don't know what's happening, right? I mean, do you?
Brie: I don’t have a friggin clue.
Kasia: It's not static, it's moving quickly. But it's almost illegible.
Brie: This conversation is making me think about dance because in our friendship, but in your work, you are always inviting me to tune into the body in the present as a way to open up what's possible. You can't really do a pirouette if you're not feeling your body. If you're not aware of what's happening and if you're not moving with the music. So what I hear you saying is that you're okay not knowing because there's a sense of, I'm going to keep paying attention. I'm going to keep tuning myself in to that desire and pay attention to what is waking it up, and I trust it.
Kasia: Yeah and also, in any given moment, there's always something you do know. When somebody says I'm confused, I don't know, what they're referring to is wanting to know more than they need to know right now at this moment. You do know something. That open attention to knowing what you know, and allowing yourself to be the witness of all the false knowings to achieve that state of Unknowing is one of the best navigational ways of going about things I know of.
Brie: Thank you so much, for taking the time to offer such practical, embodied, revolutionary, breakthrough, universe-shifting, paradigm-breaking perspectives and insights. You are one of the true masters that I know and I'm just so thankful to have you in my life. But I'm thankful that my listeners could learn from you in this conversation.
Kasia: Thank you so much.
Outro (Brie): We're learning to become free from the stories, the ideas, the beliefs, the patterns that are holding us back. We are learning how to become unbound, and discovering the power of living the question and asking why, and following what works. I really loved that.
Here are a few pieces of true north wisdom I'm taking with me from this conversation.
Early on in the conversation when Kasia said we want to know a lot more than we cognitively even need to. I kind of love that. I feel like maybe a lot of our unhappiness, frustration, and overall malaise are caused by the overwhelming amounts of information that are coming at us. We really don't need all this information so I'm taking that as a cue for myself to limit the amount of input that's coming in. Also to remind myself to rest and relax in the sensations of not knowing. That I can trust it. That the only tools I need are the tools that help me be radically awake and present so that I can tune into my body and feel where the life force is moving to be in a reciprocal conversation with the universe, as she said so beautifully.
Another piece of true north wisdom. I really liked when she was sharing with us about the process that she takes her students through, and I've witnessed it, from phase one to phase two into phase three. I liked how she described that oftentimes many of us stop at phase two. That we feel an uncomfortable emotion and we start to feel the sense of loss of control that that emotion overwhelms us with. But instead of falling through into phase three, which is the breakthrough into raw potential energy that can be utilized or alchemized into a creative end, most of us fall back into suppressing, tamping it down, or pretending it's not there. I certainly don't know anyone who does that. I hear that’s something people do. Other people. Other people do that. If you are somebody who practices meditation or some form of self-regulation, this is why it's useful. It's useful on the path of creative possibility. Because as creatives, as folks who want to critique the bad by manifesting the better, we need to learn how to fall through that phase two, how to not let that overwhelm, stop us from moving through into new territory with that raw energy. Even though it's uncomfortable, even though it doesn't feel good, even though it's hard. So many of us were taught to be afraid of, dismiss, or be ashamed of the raw energies of emotions that we run backward. One of my teachers talks about it in terms of stewing. She says, “Sometimes you just need to stew in something instead of moving away from it. Move into it. Sense it in the body, and then allow the stewing to reveal the potential of where that energy could be employed or utilized.” Or as Kasia said, get curious about the emotions and the feelings that are coming up. Maybe there's something deeper that needs to be explored or uncovered. There's no way to discover what that thing really is about if we're not willing to actually go there, face it, and feel it.
That's it for today's episode.
Now, I'm going to stand in my own power and sovereignty and be unbound and talk to you really quickly about this show. Unknowing is brought to you entirely because of patrons. It's been such a gift to be able to have these conversations and to be able to bring them to you. I am definitely spending a full-time job amount of time on this show. It's my priority to be able to bring you the conversations that I hope will help you on the path of creative possibility as you live your own unknowing journey. So in order to continue to do that, I need your help. We're in this together. So if Unknowing has been meaningful to you, if this conversation impacted you in any way, I'd like to encourage you to consider becoming a patron. You can also give a tax-deductible donation to Unknowing. As we round the bend toward the end of the year, and you consider your year-end giving, I hope that you'll consider the show. To find out how to become a patron or how to donate you can visit Unknowing.org. You can also rate this podcast and share it with a friend.
Finally, as the poet Rilke says, Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. I'm trying right along with you.
Under The Skin with Russell Brand: Attention and Domination
In this school, we are teaching a kind of power that's unshakable.
I see it in what my students are creating.
I see it in how my students are leading.
A student of The Academy is the kind of leader who can get her people fully onboard – body, heart and mind.
Who models the kind of leadership where the person she's instructing is able to actually hear, feel, understand the instruction, and register whether they're capable of fulfilling the task, and whether it feels right with them.
That unshakeable power is only possible when a person masters the use of both dominant and submissive states of attention like their right hand and their left hand, to be able to hold authority and influence in a way that witnesses and includes everyone.
THAT is true power and influence.
I had a blast in this interview with the legendary Russell Brand.
Listen to the teaser on Apple Podcasts.
Listen to the full interview on the Luminary app here.
Under The Skin with Russell Brand: Attention & Domination
Read the transcript:
Russell: Kasia, hello, thank you for coming on Under The Skin. I'm very excited to talk to you.
Kasia: I’m so happy to be here.
Russell: Would you tell us what you do for our uninitiated audience?
Kasia: In a single sentence: I teach power to women.
Russell: How?
Kasia: I give them very practical tools. But in order to set up the frame for this conversation properly, the bigger picture needs to be introduced. Otherwise, it's easy to misunderstand what I do as getting women really riled up, which isn't what I do.
So, there's this thing some people like to refer to as Universal Consciousness, and the way we as human beings have access to a piece of this unfathomable Universal Consciousness is, for practical purposes, best called Attention.
So when people say “Kasia Urbaniak at The Academy specializes in power dynamics”, which are really attention dynamics, it's a more accurate frame for what we do in the school. But what the hell are attention dynamics? It’s easier to start by telling the story of what men and women are faced with, and how they're faced with problems and attention differently.
I began the school with my partner in crime, who is a man. A woman’s school co-founded by a man. How controversial! I was a successful dominatrix for many years and did so in order to further my studies in Taoism. Because my dream was to be a Taoist nun.
Russell: So you were being a dominatrix not for the explicit stated purposes of being a dominatrix, but as a sort of meta dominatrix? I don't know much about that – what little I do know is that while it's obviously erotic, it’s not always physical and sometimes there's no orgasm. So what goes on?
Kasia: I was initially a dominatrix for practical purposes, right? This is something a 19-year-old young woman could do in order to pay for her education, and in my case to pay not just for college, but to pay for the expenses of traveling to monasteries and studying Taoism. But in the dual paths of Taoist pursuit and being a dominatrix, they started cross-informing each other in a really powerful way. So I can't speak for the BDSM community about this taboo form of erotic experience. What happened to me was all my studies of attention started deeply informing what I did in the dungeon and how I did it.
It became very clear to me that the most powerful way to have a man surrender and feel held, for him to submit in a full-bodied, emotional, spiritual, psychological way, I had to put my attention on him in such a profound way that his body could shift into a state that was visible – the way that animals calm down when a trainer comes into the room. It became something far beyond what I expected. And it was because I was sometimes practicing 8-hours of meditation a day, and I was in these places where the incredible nuance of what a human being goes through – every single move, every single micro-expression of grief – could be called to attention in the room of the dungeon. The invisible could be made visible in this false play of: I am now your governess, I am now your tyrannical police officer; You are a baby. You are a criminal… All these things became fodder for a role play where they could move through different states of emotions.
Russell: So your experience, not assumption, is that people who willingly, deliberately, continually, intervene in that context, are trying to reach some kind of state of submission and surrender, and, and for you, that aligned with what you were learning through Taoism?
Kasia: 100%.
Russell: Bloody hell, that's interesting. What does that tell us then about power? What does it tell us about male power? Like I said, I think a lot of prejudice against the kind of people that are attracted to BDSM is about powerful men, powerful politicians, who want to be dominated somehow. What does that mean if underneath there is this desire to submit? What does that tell us about the poses of contemporary male power?
Kasia: Oh, it says a lot. It is my belief that what we call the dominant state of attention – the state of authority, the state of external power – is something that couples with this deep desire for surrender, submission: to be held in the attention of another person. What became interesting to me is that here were these men who wanted that state and couldn't get there early by themselves. Stepping out of the dungeon, I started seeing that men and women alike longed for this state of surrender.
They longed to be held in someone else's attention, to be witnessed there. They longed to be guided to a place where they felt safe enough to release, be vulnerable, and be held and led. Led to an experience. Also, it became apparent to me, especially when it came time for me to train other dominatrixes, baby doms, that this was the thing they struggled with the most. They could do the performance, they could put on the leather and the latex and go, “You've been a bad boy!” but the missing piece for a magical session was they weren’t trained or conditioned or encouraged or practiced in the art of putting their attention so fully on the man and giving instruction from that place of dominant attention. Put attention on the man who’s there, on his knees, asking, practically begging for that surrendered experience. The baby doms’ attention would be on the self.
So what does that feels like, what that look like? The difference is night and day, if you know where to look. The difference is night and day. Attention on Self – it's how a lot of people lead too; a lot of leaders who assume a dominant position aren’t actually exercising the dominant state of attention. A leader does not get his people or her people fully on board unless they put their attention fully on the people whom they're leading.
And there's this signature moment when the body shifts into submission – where somebody’s able to actually hear, feel, understand the instruction, and register whether they're capable of fulfilling the task, whether it feels right with them. And in that context, in that kind of power circuit, what that creates is people who are truly following – who are onboard with heart, body, and mind.
Rather than this tyrannical idea of power, a toxic mimicry, of the dictator who has to exert so much force to get people to comply and obey, but does not have access to the deepest, most beautiful resources in their hearts, in their bodies, in the entirety of themselves. And when we talk about a great leader, what we're really talking about is not the one who has the most toys. We’re talking about the great leader who’s able to get people onboard body, heart, and mind, because their attention and instruction is so fully out that they’re registering the entire existence of the people who are following.
This is all gender neutral, attention is fully gender neutral. We like to say in the school: A dominant state of attention is attention and instruction out; The surrendered state is attention in; Attention on attention itself is meditation, enlightenment. The three states of attention. But the interpersonal states are the two states. And the interesting part in terms of general generalities is how women and men approach attention differently.
Russell: Before we get into that, may I just ask a little more about the crossover between these eroticized games of authority. One unaddressed query is that even if the overt dynamic is one of the dominatrix being in a position of power, economically at least, one of those people is under the pay of the other. And this situation is being kind of sanctioned and commissioned by their sub, to use the vernacular. And I find that sort of thing interesting. I'm always interested in the fusion of eroticism and other aspects of our nature. I suppose there are no distinctions really, that everything’s bleeding into each other. But I'm more interested still in this idea of yours about leaders achieving real authority through attention. In this case, do you mean attention as synonymous with care?
Kasia: It can be care, but love has many faces. Sometimes the best way to care for someone is to be quite ruthless with the truth. To make them a little bit uncomfortable. In a school for women, it's a bit dangerous to say, “Use your empathy and be nice.” “Care about the other person.” Because that cascades into a whole set of behaviors that we call Good Girl Conditioning, where women will withhold the truth because they think it's a morally superior thing to do. Where they will accommodate, they'll watch themselves, they’ll police themselves. So the beautiful thing about this kind of power is that it is more effective. It is more effective. It also happens to be more generative, more loving. It doesn't always look that way. But it is.
Russell: Will you give us some examples of those?
Kasia: But you also you also you also asked an interesting question because what we have in the dungeon, as you pointed out, is economic power going one way, and then the setup, which is power and authority going another way. And this this template of how do you reach despite a positional difference, a status differential: the client, the man is twice the woman's age. Man versus woman. Here you have a setup where the women working are actually working against something. That is exactly the game that many women are playing in their lives when they're having to deal with a boss, a male boss, who has a certain way of being that doesn’t work for everyone in the office. Right? So how do you, in the moment, without the status, without the title, without the money, without all the toys, have a profound and powerful influence on someone?
Establish a position of authority in the present moment where someone can hear you, be influenced by what it is that you have to say, and have your message really, really land. The dungeon ends up being a wonderful training ground. What became very interesting is that the school didn’t begin until I met my business partner, who is a man, who spent a decade in war zones as a humanitarian. And his experience of power and power dynamics on the fringes of war and death – dodging bullets, vaccinating babies – and mine on the fringes of sexuality and spirituality, what we understood about power and influence overlapped. It was incredible where the crossover happened, because in the places where he was working, very often there was no common language. Oftentimes, they were tribes or groups of people that spoke dialect. How do you get a group of people to listen to: “Here I have a piece of paper that says I can build a field hospital here, you must listen to me,” when there's 14 year olds with AK47s who don't give a damn about a piece of paper. And suddenly, it became very, very apparent that there is something about not just presence, but how attention is used to establish authority or establish surrender so that connection and influence can occur. And that was the beginning of a conversation that yielded so many experiments in how women and men engage differently in this game. So you had a question?
Russell: That's right. My question is about the different examples of this power of attention. The application of attention from a leadership position through care, and the more narcissistic application of attention – obviously, there's plenty of examples of that. What's an example of the more benign, even positive, application of attention and leadership of that nature?
Kasia: Well, the funny thing about us humans is that when it works, we don't notice. And when it doesn't, we do. So it's where power dynamics collapse that it's easiest to identify what's not working. The boss that everybody is loyal to out of love, is just described as this person who is a great leader, a wonderful person to work for, a wonderful person to follow, a wonderful person to receive guidance from. There’s a sense of calm and order and everybody in the right place and everybody is doing the thing that they’re best at and contributing. This is where the generative synergy comes in.
And the examples of where that goes wrong, where that collapses, even in interpersonal dynamics, that's where all the questions in the school come from. That's where all the conversations come from: where doesn’t it work. The simplest example of a fluidly switching power dynamic that works flawlessly is the conversation that keeps you up until 4 in the morning. Because what's happening there on a micro level is: “Russell, I'm speaking and I'm watching you, and I'm seeing if the words land. And I'm seeing where you just lifted your chin and almost had had a question where you took a note…”
Russell: So do you think, Kasia, that the fact that there aren't any examples, or at least vivid examples, in public life – the benevolent boss everyone likes, a late night chat with someone that you love – is a demonstration that these principles aren't really being applied?
Kasia: I mean, I could. You know, Oprah in a meeting – everyone loves her, she pays attention to everyone. Everyone has feedback that's honored no matter where they are, whether they're close to her or away from her. Or a woman who asks her husband for something and focuses not on the complaint but the desire, which she wants to generate. And then when resistance comes up, and he says no or balks at it initially, she gets curious about his resistance and goes to find out what it is that her requests threaten, what it is that he wants to protect, what's important to him? And has a conversation about that, then she can get him on board for what it is that she wants from a place of generative synergy, not from a place of yes and no.
Russell: I see. It's not really applicable in the political sphere then. Not that your examples are exhaustive, obviously, but for a very successful media mogul or in interpersonal marital dynamics, it might be applicable, but there's no one in the field of politics or leadership that demonstrates these skills these days. Perhaps, do you think because the systems within which they operate are not conducive to that kind of dynamic? And in fact, that the individuals that operate within those fields are kind of irrelevant given that this systemic thinking is so endemic, so deeply ingrained, that you would need to be Christ to influence this way?
Kasia: I bet you'd be able to come up with some examples of someone who's doing it. But I do think that there is a very, very deeply ingrained way of communicating, especially in the political sphere. I mean, you ask a politician a question and they're trained to deflect. They’re trained to stay “on message”. It's very rare that that a person who's running for office, will look at the question-asker and be like, “what's your thing?” And it's very rare that a person running for office will allow the response to change an idea they have, because they're supposed to stay on message. The politician who is evolving with the people, who is responding to the information as it changes, to a world that's changing is quite rare, but it happens in moments. if we’re talking about situations on the micro level, yes, it happens at moments. But generally, I agree – it's not set up that way. It's not set up to work that way.
Russell: And with your point earlier about universal consciousness and us being expressions of this universal consciousness, do you think that these leadership techniques that you were discussing, somewhat specifically for women, can operate as a conduit for this more benign and nurturing power to come through us and into all of these systems meaningfully? Do you believe it's possible, Kasia?
Kasia: Not only do I believe it’s possible, I think it’s the only way: when people are trained in how to use their attention, and how to influence powerfully and listen powerfully. This world is made up of people having conversations and making agreements. Even our government, our laws, the existence of money…were all made from a series of conversations and agreements. And we’re living in an exciting time because women are now invited into those conversations, whereas for centuries they were not. And the idea of what's possible when people really look at each other and pull authority and influence in a way that includes everyone, we have a kind of power that's rather unshakable.
I mean, I see it in my school. I see it in what my students are capable of creating. To say it's “benign” betrays the fact that it is far more effective. It's pretty fucking badass. I imagine the first woman who went into her boss's office and said, “I'm gonna have a baby, and I would like you to pay me while I have this baby, and I would like you to continue paying me while I'm spending time with my child, and then when I return, I would like to return to my position and continue to be paid.” And how that request must have sounded: insane, outrageous, selfish, unreasonable, unrealistic, yet now we have the words “maternity leave”, and suddenly it's a new normal.
It's something that politicians can ride platforms on. It's something that was born of a desire, that was born of asking for something crazy that actually benefits everyone. Benefits the next generation. Benefits the whole society. And what I want to do is inspire women to have that courage and give them the techniques to be able to make an outrageous request that could benefit all of society. Everything happens on the interpersonal level. We like to think there are people who are working on the big laws, the big systems. But my belief is that enough individuals begin having conversations and interacting in this new way that puts attention and awareness of dynamics at the forefront, then the nature of everything has to change.
Russell: With reforms like the grant of maternity leave or other civil rights successes, obviously, it's comparatively successful, but one concern I have, Kasia, is that these successes are achieved within a paradigm that will always yield necessarily to that kind of pressure or those kind of ‘trends’, to use a bit of a glib word, but ultimately power doesn't really change the ability to control resources or control how people live life. I get concerned by that. I get concerned about the myth of progress, of social progress. Of course, the triumphs to the civil rights movement, the advance of feminism, these are great successes. My question, my concern, then, is that the barometer for the successes is still held by a system of dominance that may only be altering marginally to accommodate this progress.
Kasia: Yeah. So, here's where I want to segue a little bit into the difference between the conditioning of women and men. So this is a small example, but a few years ago there was an internet jobs website for tech jobs. And what the people running the website found was that women were asking for far less money for the same job. So they had this brilliant idea. They would start showing a graph that revealed the average requested salary per job with a thought that this would be giving women a real sense of what they could ask for. This is men and women together. This is the average. This is the extreme high end. This is the low end.
Do you know what happened? Women started asking for even less, men started asking for even more. Now I'm mentioning this shocking, shocking revelation to respond to your point about how you can change systems, but the power really belongs to the transformation of people, of individuals. So, one of the really fun and most exciting things in the creation of the school, was that Ruben and I, a man and a woman, could create this little laboratory where we could intensively investigate and forget everything we knew, right? We could take a very phenomenological approach, and get women in a room talking about what they want, talking about their situations, and seeing what they come up against – in terms of asking for a salary, in terms of asking a husband to pick up his socks – everything from the smallest to the biggest.
It was all these things we’ve been discussing. What happens, what happens? What do women actually come up against? Why is it that that graph on the website didn't inspire them to ask for more? Why is it that they actually saw what the average was and asked for even less? What is it? What is it? What occurs? So in this laboratory, there was also Ruben and I, a man and a woman, comparing our own experiences. And one of the things that we found very quickly was that every human is subjected to self-attack thoughts like: “Oh, I'm such an idiot.” “Oh, I don't deserve this.” “Oh, I did this wrong.” Right? But the nature and the ferocity of the content of that internal monologue is different for women. And one of the things that became very apparent was the extent of women’s self-attack. You know, it's only been quite recent that women have gone from being property to being able to own property.
And if we live in a culture, or have lived in a culture, where a woman who's wearing too short a skirt could be sexually violated and then blamed for it, then a mother's act of love would be to police the hell out of her daughter. “Watch yourself, watch yourself, watch yourself, watch yourself, watch yourself!” Or a father: “Watch yourself!” Don't do too much of this, don't get hurt and then blamed for it. This self policing powerfully informs a woman’s self attack. So if a woman gets into a situation where she is confronted with something difficult or dangerous, or something compromising, and she freezes and doesn't say anything instead of speaking up, afterwards, she tends to self-attack. Why didn’t I stand up for myself? Why didn’t I say something? And there's only so long that the venom can stay inwards. It stays in, stays in, stays in, and then given the smallest opportunity it explodes out.
Now, let’s examine this negative form of self awareness, self consciousness, self attack, self-policing in the context of men and women. As boys and girls grow up, we tend to train them to get a hit of social reward in two very different circumstances. A woman, a girl: when her attention is inward. A boy: when his attention is outward. And this has a powerful impact. So it goes like this: Look how lovely Mary is. Isn't her dress lovely? Isn’t she getting chubby? She gets noticed for her being. Whereas the tendency has been for a very long, long time that when Billy goes noticed when he does something. Look, Billy scored a goal! Look what Billy did. Billy got into a fight. Billy built a fortress. So men have a tendency to have their attention out in this authoritative position and women tend to get stuck in this inward place, where their attention is on themselves.
And this is so so, so so, so, so beautiful, because of the victories that just understanding this conditioning yields. When a woman panics, she goes inward and gets stuck there. And so one of the things we train women to do is to use their attention in both ways: inward and outward, inward and outward. Here’s an example: One of our students’ new boss comes up to her at work and asks: “What kind of lingerie do you like?” Alarm bells. Oh no, what's going on here? My student, instead of freezing, and going, “This is completely inappropriate,” was taught to put her attention out when she panics. And so she did a very simple thing: she looked at him and said, “Why do you ask?” And he said, “You know, I have a new girlfriend, andValentine’s Day is coming up and I have no idea where to shop for lingerie.”
And she goes, “Oh! Your request was totally inappropriate, I thought you about to hit on me. Don't ask questions like that at work again, but here are a few names of lingerie stores that I think your girlfriend might love.” Right? He could have been a predator, but not every man asking inappropriate questions is looking to destroy a woman. And just by being able to break the freeze in the moment and put her attention out, and not go completely into the panic response of “I’m being violated!” , she had the power, the skills, to move her attention in both directions and control the conversation.
This phenomenon of women freezing and not speaking is really really, really really rampant. Women hold back so many things, so many things. And then they're seen as mysterious and “difficult to understand”, and the men who love them and want to serve them or want to contribute are endlessly frustrated because nothing they do works. Men get dumber and dumber. And women get angrier and angrier.
Russell: That's a good technique. I think I could use that technique. I too sometimes freeze in situations where I feel threatened or challenged. I mean, I don't have many social interactions! No one does these days. But when I do have them, I often feel like my attention goes inwards and I feel sort of intimidated. I've got a question that I don't think is complicated, but it might be. Kasia, you said earlier that because of your training in Taoism, this is your general approach, your perspective – that we are an expression of universal consciousness. If this universal consciousness must underscore all reality, if there are cultural trends big enough and broad enough to identify and express men to go outward, women to go inward, at some level, then this must be an expression of a kind of some verifiable reality?
If not, how is it happening and how is it happening so universally? I wonder if there are, in your opinion, biochemical differences that lead to differences in behavior? Beyond culture. Or are you saying that all of these differences are the result of culture? I've often queried whether there was any significance in the reproductive dynamics of the two sexes. That one cellular contribution is an active thing with a tail. And the other is a passive thing inutero, or wherever it is. I'm not a gynecologist. I don't know much about that kind of stuff. Do you think these kind of biochemical realities would have correlatives in the material world that go beyond culture, or do you think that all things are the result of acculturation?
Kasia: One of the greatest difficulties in a commitment to this phenomenological approach – meaning sticking to what I see in the laboratory, sticking to what I see in the students – is being humble enough to only share what I see and what I saw. There are a lot of people who specialize in all kinds of theories as to why things happen. And the truth is, I have absolutely no idea. I have absolutely no idea what the inherent differences, if there are such a thing as inherent differences, are between men and women. What I do know is that women freeze in a very specific way. And what I do know is that when I teach students to use their attention in these particular ways, they get results that are earth shattering. Earth shattering.
They know how to make allies out of the men that they were afraid of. They know how to reach a very authoritative position. They know how to be the only woman in the room and make sure that she's not only heard but has everyone feeding on every single thing she says, as well as have opportunities to feel really safe surrendering, being vulnerable and open. And being able to be vulnerable and open when it is called for. And when something goes wrong, knowing how to switch to make the correction.
I am so profoundly interested only in what works: what works to have women feel free to self express and to make requests in a way that feels great – even if they're outrageous; to lead with their desire not their complaint; to be in a state of rage. But then to be in a state of rage and also be like: Hey, the pivot with rage is not to focus on the thing that I’m fighting against, but to focus on the thing I’m fighting for – that beautiful vision that presents itself when one alchemizes rage into passion. I’m interested in the places where women get stuck in terms of expressing the entire range of human emotion, which is so taboo. In our culture it’s taboo to have any kind of negative emotion, any kind of so-called “neediness” or “bossiness”, everything from sadness to despair to rage to ambivalence. How do you take those taboo emotions and alchemize them so that you can lead with the thing you want to create, not react to the thing you don’t like?
And how do you move outward into the world in a way where you’re presenting that compelling vision rather than the complaint? I think people fail to understand quite how often the most powerful women in the powerful positions in the world – these women who do have great relationships – quite how often they get stuck. If they were in the room, if they witnessed class after class after class as I have, they would see how often it is that these women withhold information, go inward, get stuck, ruminate, self-attack. How even the most powerful woman can get stuck because a barista at a freaking coffee shop gets their name wrong, or gets their order wrong, or asks them if they’re single, and how they tank from sometimes the smallest thing!
Russell: Yeah. I’m not suggesting there’s not such a thing as sexism. I’m not mad, the data is in. But all of these things that you describe, I feel them too. I feel like it doesn't take much – a social occasion, or a negative interaction – for me to tank. I don’t know what that says about me as a man.
Kasia: I know what it says about you and I'm very aware of who I’m speaking with. You're a very unusual human being, and the way that you use your dominant state of attention is absolutely sublime. I’ve seen you on television shows where you just blow the entire framework of the conversation apart. Where you make everyone feel uncomfortable to reveal beautiful truths. And I’m also aware that you are more in touch with what we would call the feminine side, or the surrendered side, than almost anyone I can think of. It’s one of the reasons it is such a privilege to be speaking to you, because you are one of the few people that has the use of both hands: the dominant and the submissive. You know how to use both.
You’re profoundly committed to the surrendered state. You are profoundly committed to using the dominant state of attention to speak truth when it’s going to ruffle feathers. You’re not a Good Girl. You’re not a Good Boy. You're a profoundly balanced human being who sources himself in both the inner and outer worlds. And the reason behind why many men might not have access to what you have access to, is this idea that we’ve been sending men to war for millennia to die for us: This idea of “manning up”, which means shutting down the signals that you receive on the inside. This idea that to be a “real man” means to have no feelings and be able to go out and kill to protect us.
Even with women now in the military, this has not gone away. When you say someone's acting “like a girl”, you're talking about them accessing their inner experience. When you talk about someone “manning up”, you’re talking about somebody overriding their inner experience. You have done the work to deeply access your inner experience, your inner world. And you have the skills and the tools – first as a comedian, as an actor, and now being the person that you are in the world – to use your dominant state of attention, to ask questions, to question the questions, to go deeply into another person’s thought patterns, experiences, and blow them up when you need to. So you are the example of someone who has surpassed the gender patterning. I want what you have for women. For all women.
Russell: Well that was very very charming!
Kasia: It’s true, you know it. And you know you've done the work. And not every man, not every woman, has done the work to balance both sides.
Russell: Thank you for saying that to me. I feel like a lot of men are looking to be awakened, and thought the examples you gave are the opposite in your diagnosis of the construction of male identity. Men being positioned socially to identify in a particular way. To repress certain aspects of themselves, to express certain aspects of themselves, to display certain attributes to women or people that are different from them in other ways than sex. I feel that in a way – and this is weird because it’s almost asking of feminism, as it were, to use a very broad term, and the last thing you want to be asked in feminism is for men's feelings to be taken into consideration because of the history of that movement – but I feel that a lot of men are the victims of the exact same system of dominance anyway. And I'm sure there are examples of men, obviously I know that there are, because again the data is in, you can look at it, of men succeeding in ways that women cannot and haven’t economically, and through privilege and prestige. But what do we do, rather than just redress this? How do we create something that's different? How do you deal with men in a way that is compassionate? Do you think that is what’s required? Is that appropriate?
Kasia: Oh my goodness. When you first began to speak before you said the word ‘but’, I wanted to cry. One of the greatest, greatest tragedies right now – and this is a very very controversial for a feminist to say – is what's happening to men. All the ways that a man has been taught to win yield rotten fruit. We worship a sociopath and feel sorry for the empath. There are books on how to be powerful by learning from psychopaths, by not having feelings. And now, we suddenly have a huge switch. Men are supposed to have feelings but not be so sensitive that they’re wimpy. There’s an exact mirror – meaning the reflection in reverse of what's happening to men and what's happening to women – and it is tragic. It is tragic. What it means to be a man today is that one of the most difficult conversations that we can have.
Now, you know – again, another very controversial thing to say – is #metoo did something. The original intention was to have survivors of abuse say: I experienced it too, so we can see the numbers, then the vigilante execution of the “bad men” we could find. What’s incredibly difficult to talk about, what's incredibly difficult to wrap your brain around, is not just looking at the victim but looking at the perpetrator, and what creates a perpetrator. What's happening? And, looking at these men who are “winning” as men who are also losing something – something very fundamental. This toxic idea of what power is doesn't work. It doesn't work for anyone. And so people ask me to teach men. And I always say the same thing: First of all, it's not my job as a woman to teach men. However, I teach my students to teach their men.
There is no way that the woman's movement can work if it doesn't include men. We have to include everyone, we have to we have to go beyond the story of “this is the person who got hurt, who's getting screwed”. We have to look at the whole system, we have to look at the victim, the perpetrator, the woman, the man, and the system that creates both. And now, I am not equipped to handle all of the world's problems. But when I see the difference between how men and women engage with attention and address both ways, what happens is very powerful women who can lovingly get men on board. Powerful women who can get the things they care about. Right? The world is a ‘No’ to so many things that women care about: the protection of life, of the earth.
At least when it comes to the student body that comes to me, the things they care about, the world is a general ‘No’ to. So one of the first things we handle is, how do you become immune to the impact of the word ‘no’, stand with someone's resistance, get curious about it, and keep going? Not to violate consent, but to get behind that ‘no’. We work on how do we create real, real connection in a space where we do not agree? How do we go beyond the initial knee jerk resistance and create something beyond anything either of us had ever imagined before we entered the conversation? How do we use human synergy and use these differences in order to create something that works for everyone?
Russell: Have you thought about how the techniques that you have developed apply in child rearing? Where it's not such a matter of reconditioning somebody, but actually conditioning them? And I'd like to know specifically, and this is a very specific example: my daughter – she’s three, I’ve got two daughters – likes to go around dressed in this sort of Disney dress, right? She likes it. And she wears a cowboy hat and wellies and stuff like that, she's pretty cool. But one day we were out walking and like every single person we walked past said “That's pretty dress, that's pretty dress.” I could tell she didn't like it. I said to her, what do you think when people say to you? And she goes, “I don't like it.” And I go, “Hmm, what do you think we should say back to people that say that?” And I gave her some ideas. Like, you could say, “your dress is pretty too.” You could say that back to them, if you want. And we did toy with the idea of “Fuck off!” but later, when my wife heard that, she wasn’t down with it. So, what do you think about those kind of things, and what do you think it is that both myself and my daughter felt about that?
Kasia: I think your instincts are absolutely right on. Absolutely right on. First of all, just in terms of being very, very precise in the techniques that I teach, you used your dominant state of attention with your daughter. You looked at her. You saw where she was, you asked her some questions, right? And noticed that this would be the early conditioning of her freeze: she doesn't like it but she doesn't say anything. It's a compliment, but she doesn't like it, and she doesn't say anything. It doesn't matter what you tell her to say, it really doesn't. But if she gets to speak, how to put her attention outward – “you have a pretty dress too,” or “you have nice pants,” or “your pants are green,” – is exactly the thing to teach her that in that moment, so she's not powerless in terms of where the attention goes.
Because when someone feels the capacity to direct where the conversations going, where the attention is going, they no longer freeze. So you're teaching her the tool of self-expression on a basic, bodily level. Basic, bodily level. Because even in animal hierarchies the alpha has their attention out, while all of the other pups have their attention in. And knowing how to do both is how you create a balanced human being, one who is free to not only to express but to connect, but to command. Who can trust themselves to follow, because they know that if they don't like where they're going to be led anymore, they can flip the dynamic and start leading instead: “hey why don't we go this way?” And when the person leading has lost the thread, they can go, “hey what do you think? Where did I lose you?” and then they can lead again. So, that little example that you gave me of you and your daughter is actually brilliant and profound. That is like exemplary child rearing: teaching a girl to be powerful and to get to wear her pretty dress.
Russell: Yeah, it didn't feel right. I feel like, you know, those people weren't consciously doing anything wrong, I understand it was both males and females that were saying it, but what it felt like was we're living in a theme park where everyone's an automaton. Everyone's saying the exact same thing. I pointed out to her that that was interesting. And you wouldn't go with the hard line, “fuck off,” either, but certainly some kind of response would be good.
Kasia: You wouldn't even imagine the amount of liberation a woman feels when she's told to respond to a cat call, given that the cat call was done in, you know, relatively safe circumstances – not in a dark alley but in public. When someone goes, “nice tits,” or like, “nice legs,” or “why don't you smile baby?” or whatever innocuous comment, the feeling of getting cat called can be incredibly oppressive to women. Even when it seems like they're exaggerating, and the immense amount of power they feel when they can look back and go, “yeah nice shirt, there's coffee all over it,” or, “did your mom teach you to talk like that?” or, you know, “you have green shoes.” Even that's enough. Because they no longer feel imprisoned by this sense of “I'm getting attention and I have to take it as it is.” The metaphor of the sexual act abound, the way women are conditioned to approach their own desire and where they can have the kind of erotic experience that they want – this becomes a mirror of that. This sense of: You get attention, you have to take it away, that is, you can’t redirect it, refresh it, or come at it from a different angle. So this seemingly innocuous thing about catcalls can be an incredibly fun playground for experimenting with attention.
Russell: This idea of attention as power, as you just described how in the animal kingdom the alpha figure has their attention outwards and secondary figures have the attention inward…I'm very interested in this, and I'm interested in the origins of this aspect of what you teach and how it relates to Taoism specifically. Does it relate to Daoism? If not what does it relate to?
Kasia: It doesn't relate to Daoism specifically. I think the intense Daoist training just made me aware of attention as a real thing. It made me aware of the more subtle non-language based ways in which human beings interact. We did a lot of studies on what they call ‘women in a meeting syndrome’, you know, when a woman says something, and then someone else, a man, restates it and gets credit for it? You know I'm talking about?
Russell: Yeah, I think I've seen comedy sketches of that.
Kasia: Yeah, so that's a real problem, that's sexism, right? So this isn't a way for me to blame women. But this is a way for me to give women tools for how to handle that situation. So even in a board meeting people are still behaving on an animal level. Animal level. And if a woman who's saying something can put her attention out on the whole room and speak to the whole room in such a way that moves their bodies into a submissive state, she gets heard. But if she pulls back – and right now I'm not even legislating language: “Yes of course, there's…”, “I think that maybe…. that possibly…we should choose” etc. But even without that, if she's speaking in a surrendered state, nobody feels what she said. They heard the words but they didn't feel it. So a man then says it and restates it with that whole attention out until the bodies shift and all the animals in the room go “alpha said it, slam dunk. We heard it, we should do it. Or consider it or fight against it.” It doesn't disappear.
Russell: What do you think that is physically? What's the difference? What do you do to be in the latter state, rather than the former?
Kasia: Well, the problem to solve is a bit older. And actually, I believe it begins in how a woman's erotic desire is handled and how a man's erotic desire is handled. So, when you're a kid you can want a cookie. You don't get that cookie. You can cry. You can throw a tantrum. You don't get the cookie. But the first kind of desire that really means something about you is an erotic one. So a girl starts finding herself wanting someone, wanting someone's love and boys, when they start exhibiting signs of sexual interest, provided that their sexual interest is directed towards women not men (!) – that’s a different kind of desire. . When boys start exhibiting signs of sexual desire and girls start exhibiting signs of sexual desire, the difference between the two is quite remarkable.
With men, with boys, there tends to be like a “nudge, nudge, wink, wink”, “look, look he's trying to like girls!” For girls, it's immediately a double message. Immediately. Immediately. Immediately a yes and a no at the same time. This is dangerous. She's dangerous, it's dangerous for her. Look, she's growing up. And every woman I've spoken to can relate to this feeling, of that moment, not only being dangerous and getting mixed signals, but fearing being a slut and a prude, sometimes both at the same time. And then it's like her tits are too small until they're too big. She's too quiet until she's too loud. There's no middle range. She cares too much about about her studies until she doesn't care enough about her studies. Later on in life, she cares too much about work and not enough about family, she cares too much about family and not enough about work.
And this concern of women of being afraid of being too much, “I'm too much. I'm too much for the world. I want too much. I'm too bossy, I'm too loud, I'm too emotional”. And of simultaneously also not being enough. “I'm not enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not skilled enough, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not skinny enough, I'm not rich enough”. That bind. There's no room in between the two at all to breathe. This is a generalization that does not apply to every single human being, but the tendency is that men worry more about not being enough but not about being too much. Whereas women are in this double bind. And that compression of being afraid of being needy and bossy, at the same time, creates a compressed bodily state, and an energetic state that affects all of a woman’s communications.
So a woman becomes capable of going to speak to a next door neighbor and being furious and polite. At the same time. Being scared of asking for too much, and being scared of not getting what she wants at the same time. “Hi, excuse me.” Eyes of evil. “I would really appreciate it if maybe… I’m hearing the noise next door…” And it doesn't feel good to get a request like that because it's filled with both niceness and rage. It's filled with too much and too little. One of the main trainings we do in school is to break apart this compression. So the students play act being extremely out there, being extremely bossy, “You will turn the music down” to needy, “I would love to get a good night's sleep. And you will be my greatest ally, if you just turned the music down.”
And what ends up happening after they do this ridiculous exercise of going extreme is they're capable of making a request that sounds like, “Hey, do you mind turning your music down?” Clean. Simple. Clean. Simple. So when you ask, how do you get women to be heard, or how is someone able to use their attention with facility, use their authority and their surrender with facility? It takes breaking this Good Girl conditioning, this double bind, this fear of “too much, too little” that starts very, very early on.
Russell: This is very interesting to me. Thank you. I was thinking then about a lot of the work I do around males is to do with fatherless men in a sense; I grew up in a single parent household, just with my mother. And I wonder how much of this same sort of conditioning is how many males are feeling, even though, of course, I can see there are different cultural messages more broadly, as we've discussed at length. Kasia, thank you very much for so passionately explaining to me a variety of behavioral traits and psychological conditions, and how we can alter ourselves – or can reengineer ourselves – using what we have. I really enjoyed meeting you and speaking with you. I hope we get to communicate again.
Kasia: Me too. Thank you.
The Radiance Project: A Woman’s Guide to Power with Kasia Urbaniak
“We’re not waiting for the world to change, for sexism to end, for all of us to be healed.
Right now, she gets to get credit for her ideas.
Right now, she gets to have her requests land.
Right now, she gets verification about whether it landed or not.
Right now, when she freezes, she gets a tool for breaking that freeze.
Right now.”
Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
Read the transcript:
Heidi: Hey friends, I'm Heidi Rose Robbins and this is Episode 208 of The Radiance Project, a podcast of astrology, poetry, inspiration, and very good company. I cannot wait to introduce you to my very good company today. Her name is Kasia Urbaniak and she is the founder and CEO of The Academy. It's a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. Kasia’s perspective on power is totally unique. Over the course of nearly 20 years, she has worked as a professional dominatrix practice Taoist alchemy and one of the oldest female-led monasteries in China and obtained dozens of certifications in different disciplines, including medical Qigong and systemic constellations. Since Kasia founded The Academy in 2013, she's taught over 4000 women practical tools to step into leadership positions in their relationships, families, workplaces, and wider communities. Her new book, Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power was just released this March. And for our astrological purposes, Kasia is a Cancer Rising, Cancer Sun, and Virgo Moon. Kasia, welcome. I'm so happy that you're here.
Kasia: I'm so glad to be here.
Heidi: I was given your book, or I was told to buy your book immediately, by our mutual friend, Alex, and I have to tell you that I read it back to back twice. I sometimes have this feeling right at the end of a book that I say to myself, “I'm gonna go back right away and start at the beginning.” And I was that hungry for it. So I first want to thank you for writing it and tell everyone who's listening to immediately buy your copy. But I thought I would just ask you, as it's a big deal to birth a book, it's only been out for a month now. How are you with the release of this book? How is it been in the last month? I imagine you've been talking to many people.
Kasia: One of the things that I'm really present to the journey of the book is really interesting in terms of time and the world. I've been wanting to write a book for ages. And the founding of the school, The Academy, happened because I was writing an advice column on Facebook. The women asking for advice asked for a workshop and my initial reaction was like, “Hell, no, I'm never being a teacher.” But I do want to write this book. And so I'm going to host some free Q&A sessions in my home. Initially, the idea was one Q&A session, so I could find out what they were most curious about in the writing of this book, it was meant to just get information for a book.
The response was so huge. We ended up hosting four Q&A sessions and couldn't fit on anyone else. There were still people wanting more. So I decided to teach a class and around the time of the beginnings of Me Too the word of the school exploded, and I got a book deal. So in writing the book, I had all this stuff prior to Me Too that I wanted to share. But I also wanted to make sure that the women who were reading this book, Unbound, were given the tools and techniques that are practical in the moment to deal with difficult conversations, violations of boundaries, and things in the context of Me Too would be really useful. Then the world explodes. The pandemic comes and I had a moment last year when I was like, is this still relevant now as we're heading towards reemergence? Now as we're heading towards this time where we're going back to a world we left behind?
What suddenly was a moment of doubt, turned into a moment of the greatest clarity, which is, as women are returning to the workplace, as women are returning to life as normal, this is the best opportunity to renegotiate everything. Child Care, salary work from home, boundaries with partners, all of that stuff. And suddenly I'm sitting there and being like, how did this miracle occur? That this handbook for how to redraw the landscape of your life, have every difficult conversation with power and playfulness, how to be able to basically redesign the architecture of power and of relations in your life is exactly what's needed. So as we draw closer to that moment of actual re-entry, the kinds of questions I'm getting, the kind of interest that I'm getting is exactly geared towards this renegotiation and it just feels like divine perfection that is happening the way it is right now. Even with the pandemic, the book was delayed three times. Its delay was even perfect.
Heidi: Perfect. It was perfect. Yeah, you know, it's funny, Kasia, when I look at your chart, you have Cancer Rising and the Cancer Sun. And in soul-centered astrology, there's this beautiful phrase for Cancer that says, “I build a lighted house, and therein dwell.” And Cancer is the great mama producer that wraps her arms around something and says, “I will nourish this, and I will protect this and I will grow this.” And so often people have schools or companies that they are fiercely protecting and growing. And I thought to myself, I wonder how long this has been in her psyche. And I think I read somewhere that when you were nine years old, you're already saying something about a school, like you had a vision of a school. Is that true?
Kasia: When I was nine, I had an obsession with creating nations. So I was a little kid and I was in school, and I had this giant stack of computer paper and each one had a format. And it was the name of the country, the language they speak the currency, how they parent, and the national anthem, and I’d get the kids in school to start a band to sing the national anthems and design the flags. In one of them, you traded parents, and in one of them, you lived in three houses.
Then in my teenage years, I read Frank Herbert's, Dune, and then all of the books that followed. I got obsessed with the secret society of women that intergalactically control everything called the Bene Gesserit. I have to found the Bene Gesserit! That’s what I have to do!
Heidi: I love that. Yeah. I mean, this idea of the countries, that’s so connected to the Cancerian energy to because Cancer is always saying, like, who is home and what is home and where is home?
I think it's fascinating because your work has so much to do with this idea of attention. And one of the things about your chart is that you have this exquisite sensitivity of the Cancerian energy that can feel every change. And yet you also have this Virgo moon that can articulate with precision, exactly every change that you feel and sense. So it's this incredible marriage of the intellect and the ability to bring it into form with language. And yet, your whole body and being is just absorbing and receiving every moment. I just so appreciated reading how you work, how you're constantly adjusting to the other. The flow is dynamic, and it marries to your chart so gorgeously.
I'm curious, Kasia, one of the reasons that you created the school that you've said is that you wanted to help women move through good girl conditioning. I think you even say that most badass women 1% of the time are going to fall into the good girl conditioning or arr not be able to respond in the moment in a way that they want to respond. But I wonder if you could talk a little bit about good girl conditioning, and then the version of good girl conditioning that's like, I'll have it all but it means I have to do it all. I would love you to just riff on good girl conditioning because I can certainly use it.
Kasia: First to contextualize good girl conditioning so that the individual woman listening to this who feels like she secretly is a good girl too much of the time, lets people walk over her, doesn't say what she needs, doesn't say what she wants, doesn't advocate for herself, freezes, self portrays, auto responds in nurturing and caring when it's not her place to or when she doesn't get anything out of it.
So first the exoneration, we have to keep in perspective what we're talking about in terms of women's rights. It’s incomplete in terms of the span of human history, it started five seconds ago. In 1974, a woman still couldn't get a credit card in Connecticut without her husband's signature. So let's be real here. How do people learn? We are not born as individual complete human beings. We learn so much from the social fabric of our times. And no matter how you change laws and legislation, our social being learns constantly, especially when we're children, but throughout our entire lives from a whole mass of unspoken education.
“Contextualizing good girl conditioning is really important first to know, it’s not you. It’s not your individual thing. It’s collective. And it’s not a flaw. It’s a script made to be rewritten for these times.”
Let's go back. Good girl conditioning would have been very helpful if the only way a woman could make her dreams come true, realize her ambitions, have control over her life – which still exists in many countries – but up until very recently, the way she had access to anything was to marry well. Right? In an environment where the only real self-expression of ambition and desire you can have is to marry someone with the means, and maybe the temperament to allow you a little space to do so, then becoming marriageable becomes one of the most powerful tools a mother, a grandmother, or anybody can argue with. Many of our grandmothers are still alive on this planet. Right? And this is the thing: we know the patriarchy comes from men, but it also comes from women. It also comes from how we educate each other. And a lot of the time it's not explicit, it doesn't need to be. Most “good girls” don't have to be told that it is your place to serve others first. They don't need to be told to over apologize. “You’re too emotional ask but ask nicely.” Sometimes it's explicit, “your skirt is too short.” But for every time it's explicit, there's all this time that it's not. So contextualizing good girl conditioning is really important first to know, it's not you. It's not your individual thing. It's collective. And it's not a flaw. It's a script made to be rewritten for these times. And putting into context that these times are just starting to happen. So being a woman of the pivot, the reliever of the tapestry is an opportunity that's only present now. So what geniuses we all are to be born at this time.
It's really important to say this because there are a lot of feelings of self-attack and attack of others that can come with the phrase, “I just want to fucking get rid of my good girl.” When a mother, grandmother, or a man, if anybody polices you, tells you how to behave, not like this, like this, watches out for you. Oftentimes, it's a legacy of love. It needs to be overturned, it needs to be changed, but if someone in your family knows that if you were to short a skirt, and something happens to you and you're going to be blamed for it, then the way that she can protect you is to tell you your skirts too short. What happens as we get older is the policing turns into self-policing. Now we're constantly on guard and vigilant. “Is it too short? Is it too long? Am I too mousy? Am I too bold? Am I asking for too much? Am I too pathetic and needy and weak?” So in the context of that, what are the qualities that make a woman marriageable in 1878? Intensely resourceful, low maintenance, doesn't need much, definitely doesn’t address her desires. When it comes to needs to get something done for the family, she can advocate to a degree but her job is to be resourceful – like in the sound of music, make kids clothes from curtains. And when those kids’ clothes are outgrown, I don't know make it into a soup. That's like the superpower of the marriageable woman from 100 years ago.
So where does that leave a woman today who is both part of a family in a position to receive, in a position to lead, and also in a position to provide? Well, what happens is the intense hesitation around asking, requiring, or creating an environment where other people don't just meet our needs, but show up and respond to our desires, our visions, our dreams. The woman who goes, “I’m no good girl, I'm a badass. I get everything I want.” But is she doing it all by herself? Is she the independent woman who doesn't ask but goes and makes it happen? And how many of those women who don't want to seem like damsels in distress and don't want to seem too bossy, in response to this compression, end up being intensely isolated, overworked, exhausted, frustrated, trying to hold it together, trying to hold it down? Also, being so competent, suddenly finding yourself that you're surrounded by people who need you and not people who feed you, resource you. That imbalance leads to a lot of evidence that no good deed goes unpunished.
I see this a lot with heterosexual marriages where this competent independent woman – because of her conditioning and it's faultless – never allows her partner to rise to the occasion by not asking for 100% of what she wants. He becomes more and more useless, she becomes more and more angry and distant. He gets more and more evidence that he can't make her happy. So why bother even trying, she'll never be satisfied. And then sometimes he goes and finds somebody else that he can feel useful with. It's one of our current patterns, a modern narrative.
Heidi: The exercises in your book are so profoundly useful. You said you approached all of this with a great spirit of curiosity, like how will this turn out? And how will this turn out? And I'll give this a try. You have centralized these exercises, and they just have power. One of them that really struck me was the exercise about asking. I had never, ever done an exercise like this. Maybe you can tell us about it. Because I wrote for pages and pages, and I was like, Oh my God! It was a revelation. So tell us about the asking exercise.
Kasia: So a couple of things, there's a flood of things that are coming into my mind simultaneously right now.
One of them is, I started the school with a man, Ruben Flores, who worked for Doctors Without Borders and had a lot of experience in war zones, where people didn't speak the same language and needed to negotiate. Really difficult, you know, flying bullets, really scary. And I have a background in both studying Taoism, and in wanting to be a Taoist nun, and as a dominatrix. And in the overlap between all of those three things was the kind of power that lives underneath the spoken word. Power Dynamics, which is a whole conversation about attention.
But in the context of the asking practice, in our first class ever, I came to him and was like, I have a genius idea. I know the first exercise we're gonna do, it's gonna blow them up, they're gonna freak out, they're gonna lose their minds, they're gonna have amnesia, they're not going to know what's going on. They're going to write a sentence that says, “I could ask ____ for ____”, and they're gonna fill it with a man's name and a request. And he was like, “Oh my lord, we are screwed. We are so screwed.” Then we went into the first day of class. And I could see his jaw dropping towards the floor because they’re all sitting there, notebooks, “I could ask ___ for ___”, and I'm like, “Any man.” “I don't have any men. I don't know any men.” “Not just the ones that you're bonded with by blood, like anybody, guy working at a cafe, like anybody.” Amnesia. Panic. “I don't want anything. I don't need anything. I'm not gonna ask for anything.” All of that stuff comes up all of the architecture of the superstitions, the fear, the red flags. I say, “Hey, this is an imagination exercise, you don't have to ask anything. We're writing on a piece of paper.” And all of the emotional alchemy that happens in that moment, when you're confronted with the idea of, “Hey, maybe I can sit on a throne for a moment, and imagine myself as being able to receive everything I want.”
Now women tend to, because of their conditioning, have a different response to each other's needs and desires. It's not that it’s better, it's just different. You can make a very non-request-oriented statement like, “I'm cold,” and a woman will be more likely to ask you if you need a sweater or should she close the window. Whereas a man's conditioning requires that sometimes you need to be more explicit, “Could you turn off the AC?”
So we're doing this imagination exercise, and I'm just asking them to spend a moment imagining that every single man out there who needs an explicit request is waiting to serve the Queen. And that thought is confronting enough that writing the requests of the specific people without sharing any information with any of them, has a tendency to orient two things. One: this sounds quite magical, but it's also pretty logical. If you're ready to receive a hug, so you're stressed out and all you want is to be hugged, and you're angry that you're not getting that hug. You're all over you're frustrated, right? If you go, “Oh, I could receive a hug,” all of a sudden you become immensely more huggable. So one of the things that feels like magic in the classes after the asking practice: they will find that they didn't make the requests, but they got the offers without ever having making made the requests.
Heidi: Oh my gosh.
Kasia: The second thing is it tunes their consciousness into a state of awareness of where and when that might be available. So asking becomes easier. And then there's the third category where they look at something they're sure they're gonna get a no, but they sit with it long enough to say that it's worth saying that it's wanted. And not only do they get a yes, but they also get a thank you. Because in the span of that particular class, we also do an exercise where they have to ask all of these men to think of them at a particular time. “Can you just think of me wish me luck, I'm taking a test,” or whatever they want to say. Some of them start with two people and some of them get to the place where they have asked 100 people. And here we have a moment in the class where, whether it's 20, or 100, women at the same time, are aware that over 1000, or 2000, men are thinking of us in this moment. Even that level of receiving has such a powerful impact. And it shows the invisible taboo of women wanting, desiring, having an appetite, having a money appetite, a sexual appetite, wanting things! How taboo that actually is and how scary asking can be. But what happens is because it's so scary and so taboo, the woman who does it, it's like low hanging fruit, she's winning all the points in the video game. She's getting gratitude. And the role of the “useless man who's become a worm” suddenly is elevated to provider, a knight in shining armor, a good support, or a good friend. All of the hidden love that people have towards us, a desire to serve, male or female, regardless of gender, suddenly has an avenue of expression. And we start being available to the proof that we are loved and not alone. Part of good girl conditioning and part of the patriarchy is isolation for all men and women. Isolation, isolation, isolation. The absurdity of the way that we live. I remember having this revelation in my apartment building. I was sitting there and looking for a stapler and I have four. But I was also thinking before I found the first of the four, which is absurd in and of itself, that I live in an apartment building with 120 apartments, and probably each one of them has a stapler. How crazy that is! We're all a nation of one, or a nation of two. I’m my own travel agent. I'm my own cook. The isolation is so absurd and wasteful and painful.
Heidi: Yeah. Kasia, one of the things that deeply moved me around this asking was the letter that you shared that you wrote to Ruben at a certain moment when you were about ready to start The Academy, I've never read anything like it, it made me cry. I cannot believe the power of this ask. And the fact that the answer was yes. I could tell the story, but again, would you tell the story because it's potent. I have to reflect to you that it gave me goosebumps. It was a liberating letter for women. So tell us about it.
Kasia: I think it's such a beautiful, metatextual, spiritual, symbolic experience. And that's how the school got started. Ruben and I were dating at the time, we were living together. He was on hiatus from his mission. Talk about the knight in shining armor. I don't know how many people how many babies were vaccinated, how many people's lives got saved because of the hospitals he built and the work that he did. So he's used to being this hero, right? And here we are in a New York City apartment. He's on hiatus. We're living together. And I am utterly consumed by looking for a path in my life. He's on hiatus, but I'm on a bigger hiatus. His main complaint in our relationship was that we didn't do enough normal things. We didn't go out enough. We didn't have enough friends. We didn't have enough time together. We didn't go to the movies. Everything was high intensity and kind of chaotic. His request, his desire, what he asked me for was not only utterly reasonable, it was totally stabilizing and mature and actually kind of amazing for a man to be like, “You know what, we need to live differently, this lifestyle isn't working.” And I thought about it. And I was like, “Okay, I'm going to take time away from this chaos and make myself feel calmer by going on dates and having movie nights and doing normal things, taking weekends to go on vacation.” And something in me was like, “I already don't have enough of what I need in order to make my dreams come true. Yes, that might be calming, yes, that might be rational, reasonable, adult, even romantic, but it doesn't sit right with me.” And I just sit with myself. I was like, I don't want a good boyfriend. I want a revolutionary who has my back and puts all of my needs first, just me, for at least a period of time. Making my dream come first. It sounded so selfish. And I realized that I had to tell him that we are going to die a slow death if I take even more energy and attention away from my dream and pour it into a nice, good, stable loving relationship. I wasn't going to break up with him over it, but I was going to say, hey, I need someone who's gonna give me everything they’ve got and even more to make my dream come true. And I can't even totally define my dream. So I wrote him this email saying, “I totally get how nuts this is. I need you not to be a good boyfriend, I need you to go way beyond that or we're going to die a slow death.” I even made a list, I was like, “I need you to be on the case of making my dream come true even more than I am, I need you to give me everything you got until I crossed the threshold. And when I crossed the threshold, and I'm in that seat and doing my thing, I have no guarantee that I'm going to be able to do the same for you. This isn't fair, it's not a tit for tat, it's not ‘make my dream come true and I’ll make your dream come true.’ I don't know what's going to happen then. But I really want and need. And this is the only way I see.”
I sent it and it was going to be 24 hours before I came back to the apartment and saw him and I was a wreck. I sent it and I was like, I just exploded a relationship with one of the best men I've ever met in my entire life. The one who's only asking me for more meaningful time together. That’s the kind of request you want to hear from a man, and this is what I'm coming back at him with. What I didn't know is that in our relationship, he was choosing between going back to a war zone and having a better time with me. When I made that request, I essentially asked him to go to war with me. That bigger ask, that 100% of what I needed and wanted. I walked in and he was chopping onions and he looks at me, I look at him and I see his face. He's like, “Yes, let's do this. I'm giving up everything. I'm not going back to the field and this is going to be worth it. This has gotta be worth it. Let's take on the world.”
And that's how the school started.
Heidi: It's just the most amazing story. Thanks for writing that letter. You gotta have women who are paving the way and asking on a more public level, right? But in an intimate relationship, it's almost more terrifying. Can I really ask this of an already good and decent and wonderful man?
Kasia: I don’t know exactly what you're referring to when you say women are asking publicly but if you're talking about asking publicly in terms of better behavior and women's rights. For reconciliation, admission of guilt when it comes to violations of sexual harassment or misbehavior, there's the degree to which we're still not asking for enough. We're making the kind of ask that's just like, let's make this thing as it is better. And the bigger ask, the bigger vision, could be closer to matriarchy. I don't know. Don’t just behave better. Step aside. I'm taking the steering wheel.
Heidi: Well, actually, that's a sort of perfect moment to ask you. I'm sure that a lot of people have a lot of curiosity about your work as a dominatrix. But I have some curiosity about your spiritual teacher. I have a curiosity of both, of course, and they intersect in this amazing way.
I know you’re a quester, I know that you went on great spiritual searches, but it sounds like you found a teacher in this monastery in China. That was your teacher and I'm wondering if you might share a little bit about how you knew she was your teacher. And any experiences with her that inform this moment?
Kasia: Well, actually, I hate to disappoint, but she was one of many teachers, and it was a teacher, a man, who led me to her. And then it was another teacher that was not a Taoist that helped me contextualize a lot of what I learned.
What was really remarkable about this Taoist Abbot, this Taoist nun, was the piece about what the animal of the body requires. Meaning, how do you get a woman's presence to feel powerful? How do you give her access to more grounded calm energy, especially grace under pressure? What are the missing pieces? And one of the biggest pieces for me and this is, this was a huge, wow, unexpected revelation: this celibate nun owned her sexual power.
Now, “this celibate nun owned her sexual power,” is a sentence one can misunderstand on many levels. So here's the clarification. What I saw first was a woman who, and and those women in her training had the same quality, was that when you looked at her when you were in her presence, you felt like what you were looking at was a top 8% of an iceberg. Not the icy quality, the solid quality of being rooted 90% underground. You could not feel like you would tip her over; the magnitude of her presence was immense.
There's this incredible story that everybody would tell about her. Decades ago, when the communist military forces came to tear down the monastery, she just stood at the edge of this plateau as the troops were coming in and she stared at them. They got so frightened that they turned around and went away.
What is it that she's doing? Is it a metaphysical energetic thing? And there was like a much simpler answer. That, in contrast to so many women that I knew – I was one of them – that we’re accustomed to this high chest breathing, high center of gravity. In working to lower my center of gravity, I had to contend with the release and the reckoning of all of the sexual trauma that a woman experiences. And I don't even mean that the overt abuse. I mean, unwanted sex. I mean, the fear around it that's culturally ingrained. So even dropping my breath, and getting rooted meant an ownership of my sexual power. And it dawned on me, so delightfully, that here was this woman who owned her sexual power, and there was nothing sexually performative about her. She wasn't needing to show that she had “owned her sexual power” by behaving any particular kind of way. It was entirely bodily. It was entirely there, not in her performance but in her being. That fuel, that lifeforce that comes from the creative sexual centers was perfectly connected with all of the rest of her and so well integrated. That filament nun could stand there and rock the world with the strength of her root.
That was in 2007, maybe, and it took this path of power in a profoundly new and fruitful direction. How I was in the dungeon, how I trained other dominatrixes, how I engaged with people. Making the rooted nature of the animal of my body, my nervous system, a priority by taking control of pacing in conversation by studying the power dynamics. When do I freeze? What happens? Where does my energy go? I had to study for seven years before I could even visit her. The profound training, attention, and sensitivity to what's happening in the moment made it really clear that there was this architecture that anyone could tap into.
Heidi: You tell the story in your book about the moment you had, it wasn't with her, but with another teacher. And then you go back to the dungeon and you have this revelation about attention. Was that after you had studied with her or was that was before?
Kasia: Before.
Heidi: Could you tell us a little bit in whatever story you like about how you discovered how these two worlds were of a piece and how they dance together and what united them? It's such a beautiful, unusual meeting of these two worlds.
Kasia: A simple, practical example of something I got from the meeting of these two words worlds had to do with training dominatrices. I started working as a dominatrix because I needed a job that paid well enough for my studies, both spiritual and university. But I didn't feel comfortable faking it. It wasn't innate and natural to me. I would say that I was kind of born more people pleaser and a caretaker than I was an authoritarian with rigid roles and demands. So I was faking it and I tried to understand what it would mean not as much as possible. I found that in order to take control of a man twice my age a lot. Totally different status and experience. What was required was that my authority, my energy, my attention, landed in his body. And I know that sentence sounds esoteric, but I mean, quite literally, that my attention landed in his body. I wasn't, Hi Mr. So-and-so and you've been a bad boy. In my own world, I needed to profoundly affect this human being. And one of the ways that I could do that most successfully was by asking questions and tracking the responses. I could put my attention on him well enough. So I could say something catch-all, like, “You've come here to be punished, haven't you?” And then see that his chin went down a little bit. “Alright, you seem ashamed, you're ashamed, aren't you?” Right. And then moving, moving, moving, tracking, moving, tracking, that would encourage my attention to land so strongly, and energy on him, that his body would shift. I started to recognize that moment of the shift, the moment when he went from his dominant outward performative space into his inward obedience following space. Into surrender. And I could see that this was not a subtle thing. It was a shift in a body.
When I started training dominatrixes, I noticed that every single one of them struggled with this, even the ones who believed or felt that they were innately dominant, sexually, innately. And the interesting thing about working as a dominatrix in this professional setting is that there's no sex allowed. You are spending an entire hour creating an experience that's supposed to be captivating, powerful, and erotic, without touching anybody, aside from the people who have you know, bondage fetishes, or want this particular kind of physical experience. But mostly, it's psychological, energetic, and verbal. That component cannot be understated. All of the dominatrixes struggled with this. They couldn't get the other person to shift into that state. Because the fear of men is so conditioned and ingrained that there's a retracted quality of their attention. It only goes so far, sometimes it meets the face, but it doesn't go all the way. Hold them strongly enough. Especially, big, burly men. They need that pressure to be strong enough for them to feel safe to surrender. So a lot of the tools I started using to train them to be better dominatrixes, I later ended up using in The Academy.
One of the amazing things that happened, I think it was like 2014 or so, there was a whole slew of women starting to talk about women in a meeting syndrome. Women in a meeting syndrome being the thing where a woman says something, she doesn't get credit for it, then a man restates it. We started getting intensely curious and experimenting with why this might be happening. And through no fault of anybody’s, we started observing that in a group when somebody's speaking, in order for everyone to receive the message they start behaving like a pack. In order to receive the message, they have to feel like they're in the submissive, surrendering state. They have to shift. Once they shift, they’re listening to a voice that they will register as authority.
What a woman will do, because of her conditioning, because of a lifetime of being cut out, she will tend to mumble the idea into her cup. Even if you correct the language the energy has to go with it. If you say, “I think that,” you're moving the attention to yourself. We want to take the attention and grab every body in the room and have them shift into a surrendered state. So what happens is, even if she doesn't use that language, her energy won't wrap itself around the whole room (except for when it does and it works). That idea will be lingering in the room, the energy of that idea will be lingering in the room and it'll start to irritate the space. She said it but she didn't land the goal. She didn't get everyone to shift. And that irrepressible urge to get rid of that irritant in the space, the thing that's incomplete, the thing that's hanging in the air, will summon another man to restate it in a way that has everybody's body shift because he's been trained to dominate since he was in diapers. Everyone shifts and hears it, and then they remember and feel, “Oh, he's the one who said it. He's the one who noted it as a good idea out of all the ideas here.” And then it lands for everybody. Except for the women in the room who are familiar with this phenomenon and are like, wait a minute, he just restated what she said. A lot of people won't even notice.
“We’re not waiting for the world to change, for sexism to end, for all of us to be healed.
Right now, she gets to get credit for her ideas.
Right now, she gets to have her requests land.
Right now, she gets verification about whether it landed or not.
Right now, when she freezes, she gets a tool for breaking that freeze.
Right now.”
This is where it's such a win. For a woman to understand this, she doesn't have to undo her entire psychological background. All she has to do is practice with attention. It seemed like I accidentally stumbled upon a secret that solves so many problems and doesn't require a lifetime of undoing damage done, or going back into time and reckoning with things in the past. We're not waiting for the world to change, for sexism to end, for all of us to be healed. Right now, she gets to get credit for her ideas. Right now, she gets to have her requests land. Right now, she gets verification about whether it landed or not. Right now, when she freezes, she gets a tool for breaking that freeze. Right now.
Heidi: And that's such a huge gift that you give in the book right away is the tool for breaking the freeze. It's got this incredible simplicity to it. And yet, it's full. How do you break the freeze when a man is coming at you and saying something inappropriate or dominating?
Kasia: What we're talking a lot about is the dominant state of attention when you want to own a room, and the submissive state of attention, the surrendered state so you can receive. So the example of being ready to receive a hug is the submissive state of attention that allows people to approach you and give you what you want. So both are really important. Women will put their attention out and be vigilant, but not necessarily dominate, and women will put their attention in, but not necessarily tap into the desire of what they want.
What happens when a woman freezes? And all of us freeze and what's crazy-making is oftentimes we don't know when we're gonna freeze. It could be something little or something big. We can kill it on a large scale, go home, have somebody in the elevator ask us if we have kids, and be frozen, right? It can be anything. The thing is that when there's tension, stress, or a panic, a woman will tend to default to an inward state. Somebody puts somebody asks her an inappropriate question, she'll go inward and think, “what did I do to give this person the wrong idea? What do I say? What's the answer? Why am I in this situation?” Very inward. What we have is a dynamic where somebody’s attention is outward on you, and you have your attention on you and you're pinned with that. Double attention pinned.
The easiest way to break the freeze is to direct your and the other person's attention outward. We have this incredible tool in language, called a question. Asking a question that will direct their attention to them. In a pinch, you can say, “Where'd you get that tie?” But somebody asks you, “Do you like threesomes?” And you could say, “What is it that has you asking that question? Are you taking a poll? Do you realize how inappropriate that question is?”
Sounds so simple. And simple it is. Ask a question. If you can question their question, great. If you can question their existence in asking that question even better. But break the freeze by putting your attention out. Don't go in, don't self examine, at that moment when you feel pinned, put your attention out.
“The reason breaking the freeze is simple but not easy is that in the attempt of this, we start realizing how ingrained the default state of attention being inward actually is.
”
The reason it's simple, but not easy is that it's in the attempt of this, we start realizing how ingrained the default state of attention being inward actually is. I saw this when teaching a roomful of 600 women. I tell the women, “I'm gonna ask you an inappropriate question.” And the questions really vary in severity. Sometimes it's just, “How are you? What do you do for a living?” Sometimes it's, “What kind of sex do you like? Do you want to go out on a date? Did you only get your job because you're attractive?” It’s all over the place. I come up to them, and I ask them a question, landing my attention on them. The first woman always answers the question. Second woman may catch herself. Third woman freezes, but they will say, “Oh, I froze.” The breakthrough moment is woman four or five comes back with a hard-hitting, “Who do you think you are?” Everybody roars and laughs. As I ask more and more women, they collectively start to feel it. They start calibrating. When it's an intensely invasive question, they'll give a sharp back-off kind of question. “Who do you think you are? Do you realize how sensitive that is?” For the softer meandering ones or for the ambiguous ones, they answer back with the right kind of pressure. You know, her boss at a bar says, “Shall we continue this meeting up in my hotel room?” And she goes back asking, “What is it that we can do in your hotel room that we can't do right here?” The calibration starts to happen.
And then when you start feeling that you can have control over where the attention is, the agency and being, the leading the following, a lot of the fear, a need for safety in high stakes conversations for us go away. Because you can trust yourself to move in and out of that state as you see fit and to use the tools to move back and forth.
Heidi: And actually, to enjoy it. Sometimes if you’re lashing out or if it's defensive, there's still something left over inside that feels like, “Oh, I didn't enjoy that.” But you can choose a question that keeps feeling at ease in your body. I would assume as you get better and better at this.
I'm gonna shift gears here for a moment because part of this podcast is poetry. And I would love to share a poem with you that I wrote five years ago. I don't often share my own poetry, but I'm going to share this one. I think when I wrote it, I didn't know a woman that was fully living it. And after reading your book, I'm like, “Huh, I think Kasia’s doing some of this.” But this poem it's not just one woman, it’s all women. I want to read it to you and I invite you to have a moment to breathe and take it in.
She Skirts the Rules
She will never walk the straight and narrow.
Her hips are wide with care and her stride leans into new electric, undiscovered.
She won't stop for fear or ignorance barring her path.
She is water flowing around every river rock.
She is fire burning, what outlives its time.
She knows what is under her skirt, but never flaunts her power, just moves with a grace that doesn't need words.
The wake she leaves behind says all she needs to say.
She loves what is hers to love with ferocity and tenderness.
Her touch soothes and ignites.
Her love demands that you stay awake.
She celebrates silence, works from a still point.
Wholeness pours forth from quiet eyes.
She skirts every rule.
Milks every no into not so absolute.
Welcomes rough seas and finds her song in the darkest hour.
She is resolute and reaching, sports a crown or an apron, wears whatever disguise she must to offer her soul self.
Nothing will impede the ocean of her bounty.
Nothing can contain her.
There are no rules to hold her magnificence.
So love her irreverence, improvisation, improbable victories.
Love her brashness, her bold, her rougher edges.
Open your arms in gratitude for all she risks to crack us open.
That we may each ever more deeply, freely be.
Kasia: That's beautiful.
Heidi: Thank you. As I'm reading it, I can feel all the ways through the book that you are embodying a lot of this. One of the sentences that I was just registering now is this idea of milking every no into not so absolute.
Kasia: Yeah. I thought about this exactly when you said it in the poem. One of the mottos of the school, or the phrases that our students say over and over again, is “Use everything.” Negative emotion, anger to passion, sadness to tenderness, outside obstacles, see the opportunity, renegotiate boundaries. The construction noise that starts at six o'clock in the morning, use that. Is that an opportunity to go practice your skills of influence? Is that an opportunity to start getting up earlier in the morning? Is that an opportunity to learn about local politics and advocate? Is that an opportunity to learn about a quiet place, maybe you want a quiet place in your house and soundproofing? Low stakes example. But there are many high-stakes examples of using everything, and I thought about astrology for a second. I don't know that much about it, but word on the street is that Aquarians are about to have a rough year because Saturn is doing its thing. What’s cool about astrology is that the idea behind it seems to be very much use everything. If Saturn is going to be messing with you for a year – and you can correct me if I get any of this stuff wrong – if the hard, discipline, boundary-filled energy of Saturn is present, then it's a phenomenal year to get your medical tests, to do a detox, to start cleaning your house, to start being really clear in your communications. That is such a profoundly loving, alchemical, powerful approach to life. Welcome this energy. How do I use the patriarchy to my advantage? How do I engage in a world that's falling apart? Do I become a healer? Life has so many profound gifts to offer us if we can see, not through positive thinking and glossing over things, where the real opportunity is. And that the life experience can be profoundly rewarding. And not one where we feel like we're a ship battered by the waves, but surfers.
“Life has so many profound gifts to offer us if we can see where the real opportunity is. ”
Heidi: Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, for sure. And just to say, Saturn, I think is one of the greatest planets because it is a doorway of opportunity. Because you are tested, because there is pressure, because you have to grow up in some way, because you have to mature in some way, because you have to show up for yourself in some way. And that's a blessing as much as people want to complain about it and go, “Oh, that's so hard. I'm being squashed. This is ending in my life.”
Kasia: We have an epidemic of untested men running the planet. You have someone like our former president who needed somebody to put him in his place. Who never got tested. I'm speaking about people I don't know personally. But I can see that true confidence comes from knowing what in yourself you can rely on and testing comes from that. It's a contact with reality. Where I think the earth ship of planet Earth has gone awry is untested men being in the driver's seat.
Heidi: Yeah, that's well said. Absolutely. And you know, it's interesting, Kasia, the Saturn energy even in your case. At the end of last year, you had Saturn opposite your rising sign and your sun sign. It was this incredible preparation for what you're doing now.
Kasia: Wait so last year was supposed to be bad for me?
Heidi: Not bad, it was you better show up and do what you said you're gonna do.
Kasia: What about this year? Is it better?
Heidi: Yeah, this year you have the progressed moon in Aries which is a whole new chapter of your life. It's like, go go go. Come forth with a lot of commitment and bold ideas. That particular thing only happens once every 27 years, and you are in it. And it's at the top of your chart. It's your book, it's how you're going to be heard and received, and it's a very exciting time. So yes, it's a kickass year.
I have one more question for you and then I'm gonna let you go. The podcast is called The Radiance Project. And so I always ask my guests at the end, if they might share one radiant moment. That might be a moment when the light broke through the clouds. That might be a moment when you're like, oh, wow, something is moving through me that you know, but just a moment of light that you that is coming to you right off the top?
Kasia: What kind of radiance is it? Are you talking about a revelation, an insight, a breakthrough?
Heidi: Your Virgo Moon is taking over.
Kasia: I'm on the spot and I'm speechless. I'm gonna ask a question.
Heidi: We actually had a moment. I would just say to you exactly what it means for you. For me, when I think of radiance I think of the heart as a sun. This feeling when you're standing in this sun.
Kasia: I got one. I received furniture that I needed to put together but the instruction booklet was missing and it wasn't available online. I couldn't find it anywhere. It was an incredibly frustrating series of days. I was like, and now this, and now this. Now I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this. I sat there upset about everything that wasn't working in my life and I was looking at this pile of pieces. And all of a sudden, looking at that pile of pieces, I realized that the pile of pieces was telling me how it needed to be put together. It revealed and held in its design all of the things I needed to know. I didn't know the whole thing. I didn't know how it was exactly how supposed to look. But as I started picking up the pieces, I was like, “Oh, this piece wants to go here. And this piece wants to go here. And this piece wants to go here.” This was like 20 years ago. And this sentence rang through, which was everything's an open book test. Everything reveals the answers you need to know in front of you, you just need to look at it. From assembling furniture, I can see the person in front of me, the task in front of me, the formula, the rulebook, the instruction manual, the tips, the hacks, the guides, they're really not necessary if I'm looking at the moment as the Braille, the language. It contains within it all of the answers. And it actually really informed the way that we went about creating the curriculum for The Academy. We looked at women, listened to what they wanted, what they were suffering from, watched them, tried things. “Oh, this is how this wants to work. This is how this comes together.” That was my moment of radiance.
Heidi: It's brilliant. And it really is how you have grown the school. This perfect, very practical moment. But I love that. Okay, that's perfect.
Do you want to tell our listeners about where to find you or invite us into anything that's happening because you're teaching a lot right now?
Kasia: Our website is my name, but my name can be hard to spell. So you can also get there by going to weteachpower.com.
We're offering eight classes this semester:
Empathy
Power with Men
Power with the Erotic
Unshakeable Power of Desire
Unshakeable Confidence – Breaking the Spell of Self-Doubt
The Obligation Detox
Power Dynamics
So we have a lot of curriculum coming up for the rest of this semester and then more to come in the fall. The book is called Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power. We're doing a lot of fun things so come check us out.
Heidi: Please order the book, Unbound – A Woman’s Guide to Power, immediately. It really is a life-changer. Men and women alike. Kasia, thank you so much for spending this hour with us. I know how busy you are and I'm really grateful for this time with you.
Kasia: Thank you. It's such a pleasure.
Esther Perel Discussion Group | Good Girl Conditioning and Becoming Unbound
Watch the full interview on YouTube here.
Read the transcript:
Leah: Welcome guys. I'm here with Kasia Urbaniak. I know this is a much-awaited conversation.
“The whole book Unbound is about breaking out of the good girl conditioning in the body, in the mind, and the emotional field without waiting for the world to change.”
Kasia, I can't remember where I first came across your work. It was in November of this past year. Maybe it was a suggested YouTube video after I watched something else, but I learned about you and was just so drawn to your work and your message. You just this week came out with a new book.
Kasia: That's right.
Leah: Unbound. I bought a couple of copies for friends for their birthdays coming up. I’m an audiobook person so I got my version on audiobook, but I got hardcover copies for friends. I'm always curious, like with the book-writing process, I feel like it's a journey in itself. And I'm curious what came up for you in writing this book.
Kasia: I almost feel like it's a magical, paradoxical, karmic land situation where starting the school and writing the book were similar in the sense that everything I was trying to do I ended up being confronted by.
Leah: Oh of course.
Kasia: So the book writing process. You could say it took two years, you could say it took five years. You mentioned the thing about Esther (Perel’s) take on eroticism as being linked to vitality. One of the things that helped me was returning to that even in the vocal booth of recording the audiobook. Every step of the way; the work of The Academy on asking, on legitimacy, on not worrying about asking for the 35th correction, the arguments about the photographer and how it should look. All of it, I'd have to go back to the book I was writing and be like, “Oh, this is how I do it.”
Leah: Yeah, it's funny. I just bought my first home. And I feel like this home has been a really great teacher and mirror to me as well. Just all of the decisions that come up, negotiating credits with the sellers, and even the design process. The drain of making decisions and this balance between being okay with stuff and creating this beautiful space for yourself. I feel like my home has been one of my biggest teachers for myself this year.
Kasia: Right. I’m not surprised.
Leah: Amazing. Okay, so you talked a little bit about what came up for you in the book writing process. And I'm curious specifically, what good girl conditioning came up for you? And maybe for anyone who's unfamiliar with that term, since it's such a foundation and cornerstone of your book if you can explain it in your own words.
Kasia: Yeah, I mean, you know, first of all, I have to acknowledge that this is a discussion group around Esther Perel’s work. One of the things I love about her work is that you can feel, taste, touch, and see. That although she's incredibly intellectual, and incredibly smart, and there's a very strong mind component, you can feel, see, taste, touch, and understand that everything comes out of practice. Practice.
When The Academy got started, I had 1000 ideas about good girl conditioning, about what was going to work, about asking, about negotiation. And I had to throw them all out the window. What ended up winning out were the things that showed up in the room that worked.
Good girl conditioning is a concept that mentally is kind of easy to understand, in the sense that you take a look at the arc of human history and that women have had some kind of rights for maybe 50, maybe 100 years, maybe 20, depending on how you define it, right? And even if you are generous and say, 150 years, that's really an eyeblink. Most people, most women will have grandparents who were raised in a very different world when it comes to gender, if not parents, right?
Leah: Yeah.
Kasia: So if you have an entire cultural history that's bent on a woman being able to thrive and succeed survive in society based on basically one factor, how marriageable she is. How high up the social ladder she can marry, can she find a partner that will do all this stuff? That will make it tougher to express her dreams? What you have is the fabric of social behavior and social conditioning around a woman being marriageable.
What are the qualities in the patriarchy that would make a woman marriageable? Low maintenance, accommodating, harmonizing, putting other people first. Never, never, never, never looking better than everyone else, but also not falling behind. Being incredibly resourceful, not asking for anything, but making the best use of what she has. And suddenly you’re like, “Oh, yeah, that's a really antiquated idea.” But you see our current predicament and women's behavior – and not even women's behavior. Our own unconscious bodily tendencies still move in the space of either wanting to be all those things or an exact rejection of those things. I'm not going to ask for permission, I'm not going to ask for help. I'm not going to receive anything. I do it all myself. Screw that. I'm totally independent. And then being really exhausted, tired alone, isolated, doing the job of 20 people, getting 20% of the credit. Either way good girl conditioning can be addressed in the present moment in our present culture in a way that speaks to an individual woman's experience as related to history. Instead of talking just about, very important, but sexism, right? There's something we can do to break out of this thing that was passed on to us by our foremothers and forefathers. So that's kind of a long definition of good girl conditioning, but it lives in the body and we teach it to each other. The whole book Unbound is about breaking out of the good girl conditioning in the body, in the mind, and the emotional field without waiting for the world to change.
Leah: Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know why I thought of this. Maybe kind of because of how you set the stage. But my grandparents on my mom's side were Holocaust survivors. And so I think my mom really received not just like the good girl conditioning, but the fear and the scarcity that came with that. Yes, women have good girl conditioning, but if you're in a family that has experienced trauma, or racism, or other challenges, then that's layered on top of the good girl conditioning as well.
Kasia: Yeah. You know that there have been these great studies recently about epigenetic trauma, trauma being passed down genetically. People who argue, “Oh, women are free now. There's no reason why we should have any kind of conditioning from the past,” don't understand. Actually Holocaust survivors were the sort of the core of this study, that they found that there was a genetic impact on children of Holocaust survivors that hadn't never had that trauma, but it was genetically affected. Certain gene sequences were turned on or off in accordance with the trauma pattern.
Leah: Yeah, I believe that I feel like the embodied trauma that you're probably not even conscious of. And then there was like, the conscious messages that you got because of the trauma as well.
Kasia: That's true, it becomes a vicious cycle. But here's the core of what's really important for me to say. I have this path. This is this unique conjunction between studying to be a dominatrix and training to be a Taoist nun made me really sensitive in the space of studying power dynamics. Really subtle and sensitive. What I saw was a huge missing piece in how we understand power connection, power dynamics, and this architecture of power, right? The thing that I want to say more than anything else is when it's going perfectly well, when we are in our natural state of sharing attention and sharing power and taking turns being on top and taking turns receiving and being the certain the surrendered submissive state, when it's working and singing and working particularly well, that's when we don't notice it. And when it starts falling apart, it's usually to the detriment, though not always, of whoever has a lower status in society, women's conditioning in particular. But when it fails, it fails both parties, and then we have 1000 explanations for why it's happening, and not the one that has to do with attention. Not the one that has to do with the architecture of how this works.
So another Esther Perel thing that I think is brilliant, is it doesn't matter what your partner says to you, if you're in a romantic relationship, it doesn't matter what your partner says to you. And I hope I hope I'm paraphrasing this correctly. If you don't think that your partner cares and is existing for your best interests and cares about your well-being, anything they say will be interpreted or can be interpreted as an attack. This noticing points to the conversation under the conversation, that's always the most important thing there is. How do you transmit the information, “I care about you, therefore, when I say one of us should take out the trash,” it's not an attack? How do I transmit that? By paying attention to you. Where's the weight of attention. By seamlessly shifting that attention back and forth, when I'm talking about myself, I'm talking about my experience, my attention’s on myself. My attention is on you, and what ends up happening is the energetic construction of victimhood. And vice versa. So anyway, I'm getting into the mechanics of it, but when it's working, it's the best fuck you've ever had. The back and forth, it's the best conversation you've ever had. That's when the power dynamic is fluid, the switching is happening. It's the brainstorming session that's generating phenomenal ideas, where you don't even remember whose ideas were whose anymore. You can't even log the IP rights because you're just so connected and moving in the dance. The point is that despite conditioning our natural state, you see how children shift roles. One minute you're a magician, one minute, you're the enemy, you're the then you go from the villain to the hero, it doesn't matter. All of a sudden I have an invisible shield that protects me from bullets. Reality doesn't get in the way of the energetic need of the dynamic. And it's beautiful to watch. It's just phenomenal. It's where the magic of human synergy comes in.
Leah: I thought of a great improv show or a great jazz improv trio. That magic that happens with that spontaneity.
I don't know why I thought of this when you just shared what you did. But I was a huge Governor Andrew Cuomo fan. I don't know if you're familiar with him at all. You're nodding a little bit. Okay. So during the pandemic, he was in the spotlight for kind of like really taking control in New York City. And I was really turned on by him, and I think a lot of people were. You couldn't listen to an interview, whether it was like Chelsea Handler or Jada Pinkett Smith, talking about like, don't bother me during Andrew Cuomo’s press briefing every day. He had every eligible woman interested in his status, etc. And then I think just this month, really bad allegations have come out around sexual harassment and there's a new one coming out every day. It just struck me. I was so disgusted when I heard this news, because he's someone with obviously a tremendous amount of power, and sex appeal. And yet he's, if the allegations are correct, choosing to prey on people who don't have power. I was just curious to get your perspective, what makes someone who's seen as very sexually attractive, and very “eligible bachelor”, what went wrong in the whole power dynamic that they chose to take advantage of these situations?
Kasia: There are two issues that come up for me immediately, and one of them is the way we pay attention to and how we talk about people who do great things, do terrible things, how we publicly decide and change our minds about what behavior is acceptable, what behavior can be talked about, what behavior can't be talked about. So like, let's leave that aside for a moment.
I can't speak to Cuomo at all right? There is a required level of nuance that we’re culturally not ready to get into. We're not we're very quick to conflate a person's horrible or potential criminally illegal behavior with who they are. You know how in a relationship, they'll say, punish the behavior, not the person? We're nowhere near that. And I understand why. So not Cuomo. But I know that there are many men who have had the experience of being told their entire lives to shut it down, don't have feelings, numb out so that you can sacrifice your lives and go to war. So you can fight for us, kill the bear. And then at the same time, are also being told, you're numb, you're dumb, you're not picking up the signals, you don't know that you violated someone, you can't see the signs. We have a situation where a lot of men are in a position where they have been conditioned not to notice. I'm not talking about the straight-up predators and aggressors. I'm not talking about those who've committed crimes or who have, I'm not even talking about the fact that like our shifting values are a good thing. That we care about these things now. There is something about educating men and not being so quick to murder them.
Now, in terms of power dynamics, the reason I mention this is you asked me about Cuomo is I can't speak to him, but the idea that because he's attractive and sexy, that he would have to use power dynamics in order to get a woman or get something. It has nothing to do with why that happens. It happens because of numbness and sheer stupidity, or it happens. because the pleasure is not in flirting with a woman or getting her it's in pitting her, violating her, making her feel less than, and stupid. One is incredibly nefarious and one is incredibly innocent. And we don't have the social skills to separate or to even talk about those things. So everyone's either exonerated, and it’s “boys will be boys” or everyone goes into the bonfire. We actually need to develop the skills at some point of being able to evaluate these things and think about them.
Leah: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I totally get that. It's a great point too.
I have so many questions for you. Well, this was a nice segue. You had done an interview on the podcast, The Unmistakable Creative, and you had shared men want to know how to feel more, and women want to know how to do more with what they feel. And I'm curious if you can explain that and share where each, meaning men and women, can start.
Kasia: Yeah, that interview was one of my first, it was quite a few years ago, and I would correct it and say men need to feel more. Not want to. Some of them. Some of them do, some of them don't. And women want to know what to do with what they feel has to do with our opposing conditioning. So it's not even so gender binary, it's more what's asked of us and what's expected of us, right? This is like a big picture statement, right? If we step back, we're looking at a civilization based on the Judeo-Christian flow of thought, which can really tend towards ignoring the body, disembodiment, rising above the body. That also means rising above emotions, rising above feelings, this whole trend of hyper-productivity and stoicism. Here are your hacks on how to turn your 8-hour day into a 40-hour day. Produce, produce, produce, produce. This is all to override embodiment. Now, where women sit and where men sit in terms of conditioning is, for better or for worse, we've kept more of our embodiment. We’ve kept more of our embodiment, right? Women are allowed to have feelings, even though they're diminished and made to feel crazy for having them. I don't know if it's biology or what it is, but time and time again there's more space – even if it knocks a woman down the totem pole – for her to have a more embodied experience. We are all moving in a disembodied direction. That override is not good for men or women. It's quite terrible for men and women. Women are sitting on these signals and gaslit into craziness about being able to feel out that it's time to change a schedule or commitment or change a deal or adjust to the seasons, adjust to the moment. All great sex, all great parties are all about being able to feel the rhythm, feel the moment, feel that. This is the movement of the lifeforce. We’re a civilization that's trying to dominate. Nature, women, body. All the life speaking to us, telling us, guiding us.
Now, when it comes to men and women in a heterosexual pairing, what we have is the thing that's hard to say, which is, we think men are idiots. They think we're angry bitches. We're sitting on all of this information. Right? Not understanding why they don't get it. And they're on the other side being like, what's the deal? What's all this about? What's all this chaos? What's all this feeling? What's all this about? Why is this such a big deal? Because we're standing on different levels through our conditioning of how embodied and how we engage with what comes up for us in any given moment. It’s one of the most important things to understand if we're going to survive as a human race and live in harmony with the life force. On the individual level, it's exactly how you get Unbound, feel more life, understand what to do with the signals. Use your empathy as a superpower, not as a curse. Understand where the heat is, where people are coming from, how to move with it, and live your life in accordance with that. There's nothing better, there's nothing better, there's nothing better. There's no amount of success that's joyful when it's bereft of life. There's no formula that leads you to a deader option that can satisfy. There's nothing better than living with the life force and living in accordance with it. My biggest dream and hope for humanity is that as women decondition from the disembodied programming, we become wilder, we lead the way, we lead men, we lead children, and we lead us all through a way of life that is spontaneous, that's alive, that's that in honor of what's alive. The decisions you made when you bought your house, it's the things you were confronted with when you say your house is your teacher. It's how you choose something when logical information doesn't really do the thing to guide you in one direction or another. It's being at the right place at the right time. Knowing what someone needs or what you need in a given moment. It's being in conversation with the universe in a really deep and profound way. I don't think there's anything better.
Leah: Kasia, I'm having the biggest chuckle, because for anyone who's read your book, there's a whole section on the noisy neighbor. And that was what led me to buy a house.
Kasia: That’s amazing!
Leah: I was having the most horrific experience with a noisy neighbor, and an unresponsive management company. And as I was reading your book, I was trying to think back about the energy that I approached my neighbor with. It's hard when you're sleep-deprived, you're pissed off, and you're cranky, to bring the finesse that you suggested to the moment. But the good news is, it was such a painful experience, I was pretty happy in my old place, and I never would have been in an uncomfortable enough position to move out of it. And this is just the most beautiful space and I could be here for 20 years and be happy as a clam. So maybe it's good that I completely fucked up the, “how to approach a noisy neighbor and get what you want.” Because I love the situation I'm in now. So that's a whole other kind of lesson.
Kasia: There's so much I want to say about that. First of all, it's clear that your house was the most alive next choice, it was more alive than winning with your neighbor. Also in that example, I say it's better to tell your neighbor to fuck off and turn that shit down than it is to try to be really nice. And that's where we get into trouble with trying to get it right. Congruence wins. When what you're feeling and how you're speaking and where your attention is are aligned, it always turns out better for everyone. But it's not a prescription for getting it right or wrong. It's like, you got your house.
Leah: 100%.
Kasia: That's the thing. Life moves in mysterious ways. We’re happier when we know how to follow it.
Leah: Agreed, 100%. I was just having such a chuckle with that example. I wanted to ask you, going back to that last quote about men want to feel deeper, and women want to act on how they feel. I'm curious if in your sessions as a dominatrix if there were any moments where men were allowed to feel really deeply through that container that you created. And then as a follow-up, I'm curious what stops women from acting on how they feel? I know, they're two different sides of the coin, but just kind of brought up curiosities about both.
Kasia: First question, every single session I've ever done. Every single session I've done has been about creating a safe space so that my clients can feel more deeply. Using language, story, and direct instructions to lead them into a place where they can feel even more. Literally, some of the basic location tools in the book in terms of how to track in a conversation, how to keep track of what's happening, and have influence, came from sessions. I was like, the stereotypical thing, “On your knees, head down,” right? And then suddenly I noticed there was his sadness there. So I'd say, “You did that quite slowly. You seem quite sad.” Sigh. “You sighed. Is there grief?” Tears. Right? Locating someone step by step. So every single session.
When I started training dominatrixes, it was really interesting because a lot of the women who were being trained were quite young, I was quite young, they were quite young. A lot of them were doing it for money. There was a percentage who were naturals, they loved this kind of thing. They were meant for it, destined for it. I wasn't, I wasn't a natural dominatrix at all. I had trouble ordering water in a restaurant. I didn't want to bother the waiter. When I was training them, I saw the same thing I saw over and over again, which is, there's a huge difference between a performance of power where the attention is all on the self, and a demonstration of power, where the attention’s on the other. And the difference is huge. Because if I go, “I am so powerful, I am mistress of the dark, you are a bad boy.” Versus if I look and just say simply, “You are here.” Much softer statement, totally neutral. “You are here, you heard that I saw you hear that you are here, your head is tilted downward.” That is so much more powerful. So what I saw is the hesitation and shifting the attention outward.
Men tend to feel more comfortable moving, maybe less so now out of fear, but men tend to feel more comfortable moving into a woman's space. Women tend to feel very uncomfortable with moving into a man's physical space. Giving him the wrong idea. It translates in attention. We'll even, not fully, put our attention out on a man. Here's the problem. In the animal kingdom, how you declare yourself as alpha is not by puffing out your chest. If you look at wolf packs, if you look at all of these organizations on the most basic level, the alpha is the one that has their attention out. All of the submissives are the ones that have their attention on themselves to see if they're following, if they're getting it right, getting the instructions.
Women on a basic attention level will tend towards incomplete outward attention. Just enough outward attention to see if they're in trouble, if they're wearing the right dress at the cocktail party, just enough to see if anybody needs anything, just enough to see what's happening, like a vigilance. But not enough to shift to a dominant state. Because in the dominant state, your attention is landed so fully on the other that they feel it. They shift into a self-aware surrendered state. In the dungeon, I saw this over and over and over again. Then when I became a teacher, I saw “women in a meeting” syndrome. A woman is not owning a room because she's been conditioned to not put her attention and wrap it all the way around everybody there. She says a great idea, and somehow nobody really hears it until a guy says it. Yeah, it's sexism, but it's also energetics. He's been taught his entire life to stick his energetic penis out. And she's been watching herself. “Okay, I'm here and I'm in charge,” right? But the attention is not fully out. Just on the primal animal body level, it makes all the difference. Do you trust that you are well held? Everybody knows how to do the dominant state of attention. Everybody knows how to do the surrendered state of attention. Not everybody knows what it is. Not everybody can do it on call. Forgive the stereotype, but watch a mom figure out what's going wrong with her kid. She's got that kid held. Right? Even just a minute. How many of us are driven crazy by moms who in the moment of mothering have their intention inward even though they're speaking about you. It's like a mom that isn't there. You don't feel well held by. Business, sex, friendship, partnership, creative pursuits, or making an ask, understanding attention dynamics makes all the difference. You move from something transactional to something synergetic where both people get more out than they've put in.
Leah: I had a total a-ha moment when you were talking about training young dominatrixes. So I’m a pole dancer; I dance almost every day. At the studio, there are a lot of the up-and-coming newbie instructors, and they're wearing zero clothing and they have these model bodies. And there's the owner of a studio, I think she started like a decade ago, we all call her Dede. Dede will show up, she has a very nondescript body, a body of someone you'd see on the street. She usually wears sweats and a hoodie. And I feel so held in her presence. It’s like she knows exactly why each person is there. This person is there are because they're a mom, and they're trying to reconnect with their sexuality. This person is in her 20s and she’s trying to get guys. This person is a former gymnast and is trying to connect with her sense of athleticism. Right? This person is just looking for a fun way to tune in to music and be playful and silly. She knows everyone's why. There are 15 moving bodies in a room and she has her eye on every single one. There's a new person in the back, and she's telling her how to do the basics. There's an advanced student in the front, and she's giving her advanced modifications. She's cracking jokes. It's really kind of hard to put into words, the feeling of being with her, but it's really like nothing else you've experienced. You can go into a class with a newbie instructor and they have the right music and they have the right moves, and I just find myself looking at the clock and just not being in it. And then I go to one of Dede’s classes and it's euphoric. So when you describe being held, I'm like, yep, that's it.
Kasia: That is a phenomenally perfect, accurate, and beautiful example. So high priestess, Dede, is an excellent dom and knows how to place her attention. We do this exercise at The Academy that takes about five minutes. All the women pair off, and they do this exercise where they practice putting their attention on the other, while the other person practices deeply receiving attention. It's done with very neutral language. What happens is after a few minutes, a flow begins where even the most concrete-minded woman starts becoming so deeply intuitive that this woman that she's never met, who she is describing, she starts to get images and feel psychic about. This is a few minutes, and then they switch. After the exercise, both women feel like they just had a spa day, but also feel like in that five minutes so much deep information was transmitted not through language. If I say you have brown hair, it's such a basic neutral language experience. They practice without Dede’s skill, without Dede’s magical experience, being like Dede and being held by Dede, because we all have that natural capacity. Good girl conditioning is what teaches us how not to use it. Because those newbie instructors are probably doing what so many of us have been conditioned to do. To be self-aware, to be confident. “Being confident.” Not using our attention confidently, not regarding others with confidence. It's a huge difference. I love that example. Such a good one.
Leah: Thanks. Is there anyone in your life where you feel super held with them?
“You don’t have to be incredibly well-loved in order to feel incredibly well-held. But to feel incredibly well-held is an essential ingredient in being well-loved.”
Kasia: Everyone. I am around great people but also I need to be well held every day, many times a day. I put my attention out so much that receiving attention is very important. And it's not because it's spontaneous, it's because I ask. I ask for it. So there are three people watching this right now and they already know, like my friends, my people, they already know that the moment this is over their job is to spend 10 minutes telling me only what was great. Only what they liked. I'll ask my partner, “I need 10 minutes where you hear me vent, and then afterward, tell me how cute I looked,” or, “tell me you want to be with me,” or, “I need 10 minutes to tell you about this idea that I think is genius, I want you to spend five minutes afterward shooting my idea full of holes.” And the timing aspect is super important. “We're stepping out of the real world, and we're creating a magical container where I need you to shoot my idea full of holes, this idea is going to go up against a firing squad, I need you to be the bully, the attacker, I need you to play with me for five minutes after I tell you for 10 minutes.” This is something I do every day, and if I didn't those emotional needs and those relational needs wouldn’t be met. I would bounce around in my head between my thoughts and feelings. You don't have to be incredibly well-loved in order to feel incredibly well-held. But to feel incredibly well-held is an essential ingredient in being well-loved. These are practices and skills that anyone can do.
Leah: I just had a realization. I don't have people who, the way you've designed your life, what you just described, I don't have that. But maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, I've created daily routines where for example, I mentioned the pole example. I have a fitness community that I'm a part of. I noticed that I tend to be drawn to instructors, where they just excel at words of affirmation. “You're amazing. You're doing awesome.” They're super challenging, but also so acknowledging. So like, at noon, I know for an hour I'm going to have Austin cheering me on. I'll have 30 other people who are in this virtual fitness community. He has team challenges where he'll have us go off-camera and cheer one person on as they're doing push-ups. I’ve designed my life where I get these bursts of words of affirmation, or energetically being held.
Kasia: I get passionately angry and fiery in such a delicious way anytime I hear anything in this area of like, “You're not supposed to care what people think.” I get the idea. Give zero fucks. I get the idea. It's just not real. It's not how human beings are designed. And this push towards sociopathy. We worship sociopaths. These incredibly wealthy or powerful people devoid of feelings who don't need compliments. Guess what, it's an illness. It's not healthy. To want affirmation, to want compliments, to want praise. I understand that not depending on what people think and going your own way is super important to fulfilling your destiny and not following the herd and all of that, but every human being needs – because of the nature of the landscape we live in, women especially – need to be seen, praised, adored, worshiped, complimented, affirmed, all of it. And the thing is, it doesn't have to happen by accident. Like you, you can put yourself in environments where it's part of the structure. Or you can literally ask for it. Call it what it is: a word bath of love. You can hear my rage. It's just not fair. We have that temporary hit. We hear, “Give zero fucks. Don't care what people think.” I don't care what people think…lasts about 90 seconds to 90 minutes. And then we're like, “Oh, there's something wrong with me because I care. I care if I hurt people's feelings, I care.” What we need is to move past that and start talking about how to care for ourselves. What place to put all those things in. Otherwise just lying, rewarding people for we're cursing empaths, worshipping sociopaths. We don't need any more disembodiment in this world.
Leah: I'm laughing because I'm kind of sleep deprived this week. I'm the type of person where if I feel deeply during the day, it will keep me up at night. And I watched the Meghan and Harry Oprah interview. I guess it was on Sunday night or Monday. And I felt really saddened by the racism that I experienced through it. I know people perceived it very differently, so I'm owning that what I observed was a lot of racism. I mentioned my family's history, Holocaust survivors, and so I'm very sensitive to that. So I slept horribly that night, and then I put a post in the group about it the following day, and it led people of color in the group to feel unsafe, which made me feel again to feel upset and sad. It can be challenging to feel really deeply. Even if you'd like to be asleep, the emotions that get stirred up prevent you being able to kind relax and rest. Do you experience that?
Kasia: I can say so much about that, and the interview that you're referring to. When we feel deeply and it keeps us up at night, when we feel deeply affected by the news, deeply affected by something that happened. When we feel deeply, that's our being, not only receiving information and processing it but generating energy in order to act in accordance. We are designed to have an experience, and not just think about it and feel it. Up until very recently, every thought led to an activity. You think about human beings all the way back. Human beings didn't just have feelings and think about things. You had them, so you did stuff. You feel deeply and energy is raised for an activity, right? Our bodies were not designed with the internet in mind. Our bodies were not designed with the news media in mind. Where you see things and feel things but feel like you can't do anything in response.
Now you think about that kind of behavior. You feel deeply, you see these people, you relate to your own personal history. Why are you awake at night? Why are you feeling deeply? Because something in you is speaking to do something about it. And you got to post about it, but we are designed to match the intensity with the action. So an action that matches that intensity would have satisfied you and given you a good night's sleep. Now let's put that to one side.
Then there's the activity we do that we call “work.” That's not motivated by deep feeling, but that we have to whip ourselves into shape and generate the motivation to do. The production-oriented machine kind of way of being in the world that we're all expected, to greater or lesser degrees, to do doing something when you don't feel like it. And then not being able to do something when you deeply feel it. Which motivational source is better?
So if you ask me, does that happen to you when you feel deeply and you can't sleep at night? Isn't it hard to feel deeply? No. Yes, but no. Because feeling deeply, and of course, I've had the luxury of spending the last 20 years of my life designing my life this way so that what I do and what I feel deeply match and match intensity. Okay, but that's not entirely true. Sometimes I'm absolutely overwhelmed with feeling and need to take some time to figure out how to take this energy and make art out of pain. Make a message out of the passion, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.
“We pay attention to how women are and to what men do.”
The other thing that I think is interesting about the interview that you're referring to, what stood out to me the most, is this whole thing that I keep saying about how when it comes to women, we pay attention to how they are and we pay attention to what men do, not how they are. Right now Prince Harry is trying to protect his partner. But what is Meghan? Is she a liar? Is she a fraud? That's huge. And we're missing that the main story here is about him. His being, his feelings. We’re ignoring his feelings. He lost his mother to the intensity of the press, to criticism. The entire narrative, in essence, is that he lost his mother and now he doesn't want the same thing to happen to his partner. But the focus is on her not on him. Why men aren't allowed to have a deep feeling and we're criticizing her for who she is, when she's tangential to the story when it's about him. That's where the meat is. That's where the life is. And we're just like, “Who’s she?”
Leah: I just got full-body tingles when you said that. But 100%. Yeah.
Kasia: Can you imagine what that would be like? You’re a kid and your mom dies in a tunnel because the paparazzi’s chasing her. Then you're with a woman and you see the same thing starts happening. That's big.
Leah: Can I just take a breath? Okay, so I'm looking at the clock. Do you have a hard stop right at the hour?
Kasia: No.
Leah: You had a line in your book and it goes, well, it wasn't phrased this way, but the idea that men don’t like dominant women. I feel like it's shared throughout culture and it’s seen as true. I'm curious to hear your perspective on that. Do men dislike dominant women?
Kasia: That sentence can be taken apart and dismantled on at least three different levels.
I'm loving this Facebook comment: “A boy loses his mother, but we talk about her mental health.” That's exactly right. I just had to mention it. This comment says it better than I did.
Men don't like dominant women. Okay. First, define dominant woman. Because if you're in a compressed state, good girl conditioning is manifesting in your being and your attention. You're trying really hard not to be too much, and not too little. Not too quiet, not too loud. Not too sexy, not too uptight. You can see this caginess in the body when you get compressed. So, if a woman tries to be authoritative, dominant, but she's in this state, it's going to feel bad to her and to everyone. Oftentimes, she's pushed into this state, so it's not not her fault, but she's in the state. She sounds bossy, not like the boss, right? It's like the thing we talked about. It's not her fault. If you're describing that as dominant behavior, then men don't like dominant women, but neither do babies, butterflies, cats, dogs, or women. We like ourselves in that state. So that's the first dismantling of that sense. Men don't like dominant women. If it's true dominance, it's different than if it's compressed dominance. If it's compressed dominant through the good girl filter. If it's compressed, surrender and submission. “Yeah, I'm totally fine.” It also feels like shit to us and everyone else, including birds, bees, any creature with a nervous system that can pick up a signal.
Next thing, everybody loves a good Dom. Everybody loves a good Dom. Dede, your example of a good Dom. Everybody loves a good Dom. Men, women, children, birds, bees, everyone.
Now, aside from that, there's an entire category of men who like only dominant women. And they don't all go to dungeons, a lot of them just marry strong women.
So it's bullshit. The main thing is that all human beings, or anything with a nervous system, struggle with incongruence. We are much more vibe-oriented than we know. And it's not that mysterious. It’s a little more complicated over zoom, attention dynamics. I'm looking at you as we're doing this interview, and it definitely gets more complicated in a virtual space. But it's not that complicated, because we all know how to do it. We all know when when it feels good and when it feels right.
Leah: How would you define a good Dom? Meaning, one who's whose energetics are aligned? How would you put that into words?
Kasia: A really simple way of putting it into words is if I'm talking to you about you and what you are to do. Giving you instructions, suggestions, making a request of you, but in a dominant form, my attention is on you. So I'm looking at you now. “Oh, did you understand that?” I'm watching and I'm seeing if the words landed. I'm catching to see if maybe you misunderstood something or something rubbed you the wrong way. That's a good Dom. That's like a Dede being like, “not only do I see that you're here, I see the way in which you are here. I know what you're asking for, I know what your body's asking for.” And with just some clean, fully out attention practice, we all start being better body readers without knowing why, without knowing how, without a book, it’s just organic. I don't know about men, because I don't teach them, but women are phenomenally fast at picking this up.
Leah: Yeah.
“A really easy way to avoid your own energetic sovereignty and authority is to be vague. ”
Kasia: And a good Dom also makes really specific asks, or gives really specific instructions. It's not like “love me more, respect to me more, or work harder.” It's like, “You're gonna call me every Thursday morning for 10 minutes, and ask me how my day was.” It's specific. It's like, “We're going to have dinners on Fridays, it's going to be date night, you're going to surprise me with a new restaurant each time, I'm going to surprise you with an erotic fantasy, each time written on a piece of paper.” Fucking specific. So that you know if it happened or not. A really easy way to avoid your own energetic sovereignty and authority is to be vague. So that you don't see it when people fail you, you don't see it when people renege. It's not obvious, you don't know if they did it or not, it's a way of hiding.
So a good Dom gives really specific instructions, a good Dom pays attention and puts her attention out. But you can also get everything you want by being a phenomenal Sub. By being phenomenally surrendered. Absolutely unconcerned with how people are going to meet your desires and be so in love with what you want, that you just magnetically make everybody want to fulfill every request you haven't even spoken.
Sometimes, especially for women who are growing up in these tumultuous feminist times, can even be more powerful. It’s debatable whether one is more powerful than the other, but living in the absolute beauty and enthusiasm of the things that you want and carrying that signal. I use this example because it's so simple. You could really want a hug because you're stressed out. You could want a big, grounding bear hug because you're stressed. And if you're sitting with the stress of how much you want that hug and how shitty you feel, anybody who could be a hugging candidate is gonna have to climb over all of those signals in order to give you that hug you need. But if you take a moment to be like, “Whoa, it would be so awesome to receive a hug.” All of the sudden, the chances of somebody not even knowing why, they decided to come up to you and give you a big bear hug, increase exponentially, you all of a sudden become huggable. And that energetic language, that language of just attention, I'm paying attention to myself in the thing that I want. It changes my signal. It changes the approach pattern of people. You're fun to make happy, you're fun to please, you're fun to worship, you're fun to adore if you're a really good Sub. If you're really good at being ready to receive all that you want.
Leah: It’s funny because as you're sharing that I was thinking about some of the men that I've been most drawn to. I'm definitely not drawn to stereotypical macho men. But they share a couple of things in common. When we have a conversation, they'll remember everything, and then they'll use little bits to make jokes about in the future. That's kind of like being held in a sense.
Kasia: Absolutely. Not in a sense, in the sense. They're paying attention.
Leah: I'm not drawn to someone unless they have a great sense of humor. One of the things that struck me about your book is you talked about the manifestation of the mastery of power is playfulness. Can you talk a little bit about what you meant by that?
Kasia: Oh, yeah. On a really basic level, when I see students in The Academy, start to roleplay really high stakes, difficult conversations with playfulness, they're ready to graduate. When you understand attention dynamics enough you can afford to have fun. Every interaction isn't make or break, you like getting into trouble because you know you can get yourself out, you're not afraid to take risks because you know how to get yourself out should anything go wrong. There isn't so much weight on a single interaction or a single ask. Nothing is that devastating, everything is negotiable. There's movement, you’re process-oriented versus final result-oriented. Which doesn't mean that it's all about the journey and not about the results, because I want all women to get what the fuck they want. I want them to actually get those things. It's not just like, “have fun doing it.” But when you're having fun doing it, it means that you're willing to experiment. There's no way to have a meaningful collaboration, relationship, negotiation with anyone if you're not experimenting. If you're trying 19 times to get something to land the 20th time, to make it through those 19 times, if you already know it's going to take 20 tries, and you're having fun experimenting, you're an unshakeable, influential human being.
“Women are trained to be absolutely terrified of ‘no.’ There’s this intense thing that happens where energetically when we receive the word no, it’s to our being, not to our request.
So we won’t even ask or venture into territory where we could because it’s not a rejection of the thing we want, it’s a rejection of us.
That has everything to do with attention dynamics. Women’s being is always front and center.
”
Once you get the game, once you get that ‘no’ is not an insult, once you get how erotic conflict can be and what comes after, how not breakable relationships are, then a sense of humor and playfulness is native to that. It just comes with it. We’re trying shit, you know? We're gonna get somewhere phenomenal. Women are trained to be absolutely terrified of no. There's this intense thing that happens where energetically when we receive the word no, it's to our being, not to our request. So we won't even ask or venture into territory where we could because it's not a rejection of the thing we want, it's a rejection of us. That has everything to do with attention dynamics. Women’s being is always front and center.
Leah: When you are describing that playfulness, I immediately thought of Esther. She has she embodies that sense of playfulness. I also thought of – have you ever seen the movie The Thomas Crown Affair?
Kasia: I don't remember that was a while ago, I might have.
Leah: You have to see this.
Kasia: Was that with Catherine Zeta Jones or is that a different one?
Leah: She's been in those types of movies. But there was an original, and then the sequel was with Pierce Brosnan. He loves art, specifically Magritte. He's an art collector, and there was a famous piece that was stolen and he's involved in catching the thief but also possibly being nefarious in other ways without giving away too much. And there's this amazing erotic tension between, oh who was the female lead? Someone throw it in the comments. I'm blanking on her name.
Kasia: Was it like Rene Russo? I'm just like shouting out.
Leah: It was! Rene Russo and Pierce Brosnan. There were incredibly high stakes for one of the biggest paintings in the world. And the two of them together are just so playful, loving the chase. Loving messing with each other. And it reminded me so much of that as well.
Kasia: Yeah, really makes me want to see that scene.
Leah: Amazing soundtrack to that movie as well. Good call on Rene Russo. She's devastating in that.
Okay. We have to touch on this. You've made it very clear that you can't talk about power without touching on sex. And it reminded me of this quote, it's attributed to Oscar Wilde, but some people say it wasn't actually him. “Everything is about sex. Except sex. Sex is about power.” So curious to hear your thoughts, why can't you talk about power without also talking about sex? You had shared in the four-week masterclass you did, about how you learned so much about eroticism from the celibate nuns that you studied in the monastery. I'm curious if you could then share what did the celibate nuns teach you about eroticism?
Kasia: First and foremost, we start by defining power, because right now, this is changing, but in most universities, when you talk like in behavioral economics or macroeconomics, you talk about power as the person who has the most toys. Those are accessories to power, those can be taken away. The kind of power that can move mountains, the kind of power that does not depend on resources. Martin Luther King Jr. power, fucking Gandhi power. The kind of power we're talking about lives in the body. It's animal bodies communicating with one another. It's the difference of whether you're invisible or not. When you decide to be visible, you're visible. You get heard, you get seen, you get followed. We're talking about that kind of power.
Animal bodies communicating with one another. What is one of your greatest energy sources in terms of presence? Your sexual fire. When I went to China and studied with celibate nuns practicing Taoism for decades, one of the things that were astounding about them was almost impossible to put into words. The human female body I was looking at felt like it was the top 10% of an iceberg that went deep into the earth, like 90% of their bodies were in the earth.
There's a famous story about the abbot who ran that convent, when the military came to tear down the monastery complex, she just stood on the edge of this plateau, looked at them, spooked them, and they all turned around and went on their way. That anecdote, I believe, because I was in her presence. Like, whoa, the magnitude of this human energy field is just unthinkably large. Then I realized, not only through the fact that we were doing a lot of alchemical meditations that had to do with the female hormone system, ovaries, reproductive system, I noticed that they breathed really low. What I mean by that is quite literally, like from the womb. This high chest breathing is so common for us. Moves our center of gravity up, makes us easy to tip over in a martial art sense. It also means that the energy we project is not that powerful. What happens to women start practicing some of these lower belly breath practices like I did? The first thing that comes up is all the sexual trauma. Those of us who didn't have, concrete rapes or stories like that. Repeated sexual compromises. All of us had it. Unwanted sex. This is training from celibate nuns. That's why I say you can't separate sex from power when we're talking about this kind of power. Because it's like having one of your fundamental biological batteries cut off by 80%. So when you walk into a room, the sound of your voice, all of the things that people pick up about you, feel you, end up being faint, the pulse is weak. If sex is suppressed, cut off, diminished. They go together.
It's different for men. What is a man using his sexuality? Is he wearing a business suit standing like an erect penis with an arrow pointing to his crotch? Maybe. So integrated in our perception that we don't even think about it?
For women, it's entirely different. She can act sexy. But that means that first there's a disconnect, and then there's a mimicking of what was taken away.
Leah: If you had to try to capture what it was that made the nuns that you just described so magnetic? Besides the groundedness, the deep belly breathing, that unshakable quality, are you able to point to anything?
Kasia: You know how you see in a nature documentary, a panther walking? Or even if you have a house cat, actually, you can see it. There's no part of their body that's deadened or asleep. Their arms and legs are not separate. They're one integrated individual; their whole system is fluid.
You study pole dancing so I'm sure that Dede probably notices moments where somebody's arm isn't in the game.
Leah: It's every single part of the body. She'll give us cues around how to accentuate it. I joke because even the feet – you think pole dancing is swinging around a pole – half of the class is her teaching us how to point and flex our feet at specific moments to draw attention to them.
Kasia: So that integrated body, in their case, felt like an integrated way of being with their environment. The whole world, the impeccable sense of timing of what to say when and at what volume. So clearly not pre-thought. It's like being a great jazz musician but with your entire being. It's an incredible feeling.
“There’s so much information available right now. You can learn so many things. But the things that are of the most value have to do with recollecting and remembering the things we always thought we knew. Unlearning. Unknowing. Getting back to the aliveness.
”
And again, we're coming kind of back to this idea of embodiment, because you and I are in a situation where because of when we were raised and where we're growing up, and how, as women, we're studying how to point and flex our feet with Dede in order to put the attention on the right place, because we forgot what we always knew. There's so much information available right now. You can learn so many things. But the things that are of the most value have to do with recollecting and remembering the things we always thought we knew. Unlearning. Unknowing. Getting back to the aliveness.
Leah: This is unrelated, but someone was making a joke about how Oprah has an avocado farm in her home. I think it was like James Corden, the comedian, he's like, “You know you've really made it when you've gone back to becoming a farmer.” Back to the basics.
Okay, before we close I have a couple of really interesting group member questions that I wanted to share with you. We have a women's group that runs every Saturday. We've been talking about good girl conditioning in anticipation of this conversation. One woman shared, she lives in San Francisco, it was a beautiful sunny day, 75 degrees outside. She was wearing a sun dress and didn't feel like wearing a bra. She was walking down the street and this guy calls out. He says, “Well, someone knew what to wear today. Nice bouncy tits.” A lot of what you do at The Academy is helping women in moments when they would normally freeze, shut down, or stay quiet to have a voice. You have a whole system for this. I'm curious if you can quickly share this system? And then what you might have done in that situation?
Kasia: Absolutely. So the public comments, the walking down the street and having somebody catcall or notice you. How many of the women listening have noticed that sometimes it's really intimate like, “Nice bouncy tits.” Sometimes it's like, “Hey,” or sometimes it's like, “Nice hair,” something that shouldn't actually generate the degree of freakout, feeling of violation, feeling of attack.
“One of the things that tend to make us feel violated is knowing in advance that we can’t protect ourselves from it and there’s nothing we can do about it. And that’s a lie. That’s our conditioning.”
One of the things that tend to make us feel violated is knowing in advance that we can’t protect ourselves from it and there's nothing we can do about it. And that's a lie. That's our conditioning. When somebody puts their attention on us, we will tend to keep it stuck there. That reaffirms a power dynamic of the catcaller being the dom and us being the sub.
Leah: Yeah, 100%.
Kasia: The thing that will feel better is when it's safe, right? I know there are some situations where catcallers are not catcallers, and it's not a safe situation. It's a dark alley. You don't want to try this then. But if you try to flip the power dynamic by putting attention on them for a minute, you do it a few times, you start feeling in control of those interactions. When you start feeling in control of those interactions, they don't phase you as much. Sometimes they can be an opportunity for having fun. The best thing to do is to ask them a question. Why? You could put attention on them by saying, “Yeah, nice shoes, nice comment, nice mouth. Do you talk to your mother with that mouth?” It's the question that you ask them that's going to move their attention on themselves, even for a split second, that's gonna flip the power dynamic. “Are you a fashion critic? Are you a boob expert? Do you enjoy making women feel uncomfortable?” Any one of those. Ask them a question and keep walking. It's gonna feel like you're more in control. Because it's the being pinned, feeling of speechlessness, it's that freeze, that ends up hurting us more than anything else. We mostly don't care what people say, so why is it so disempowering? It's because we get stuck, and then we feel like we can't trust ourselves to defend ourselves. Then we're mad that people like that even exist.
Leah: Yeah. What are your thoughts on that counterargument? “I'd rather not give them any attention? Not give them the time of day? I don't want to like acknowledge their comments.”
Kasia: That's a legitimate argument. Except for, how often does that work? This dynamic is kind of fucked, because very often, not always, sometimes it's an innocent compliment, right? Sometimes it's a nice smile, but if it's nefarious they're going to have liked silenced you and getting your goat. They might repeat. They might try even harder. So yeah, sure. You get to decide, but if you're in a place that's safe to experiment, on a public street, turn it around and ask them a question. See how it feels. You might feel very sassy, very proud of yourself. You might get a laugh. Laugh at yourself.
Leah: Right. Yeah. And again, it goes back to that idea of once I’m able to be in a state of playfulness, I can handle whatever comes at me, right? I'm not taking it so seriously.
Kasia: Yeah. Oftentimes there's a lot of cluelessness on the other side. Sometimes it's difficult for the catcaller to know that they're doing something bad, something wrong. And they're put on the spot and questioned. “Is this a pickup line that works for you?” They have a moment where they're publicly having to question themselves. Maybe that didn't work so well.
Leah: Right. Even just that retort sends a message to yourself that you don't have to take that seriously, which is half the battle.
Kasia: Yes, very well said. Absolutely. Because it's the conversation we have with ourselves that’s actually the most brutal.
Leah: There was another example. This was inside of a dance club, and there was a guy wearing sunglasses who sits down next to where one of our group members was dancing. She was enjoying time with her friends, and he was just staring at her. And she found out later he'd asked if he could take a picture of her. What would be a good thing to say in that situation where you have someone who's looking at you in a way where you're not really able to enjoy yourself because of it.
“I want women to trust their instincts more and more and speak their truth more and more. But saying so isn’t going to make it happen. ”
Kasia: Every single situation is absolutely unique, and every woman and every human being will feel and is capable of feeling, what's up. I’m encouraging women to be able to feel those things and try techniques that bypass the conditioning that prevents us from naturally acting on that. Because what would be quite natural in that situation, for many people, depending on the situation because every situation is unique, is to go, “Hey, what are you staring at? Are you obsessed with me? Are you in love with me? Are you a dangerous person?” It would be so natural. Now again, every situation is unique. Every moment is unique. Every human is unique. We know more than we think we know. There's more communication happening than we realize. If anything I want women to trust their instincts more and more and speak their truth more and more. But saying so isn't going to make it happen. Offering experiments to try.
Leah: 100%. There was a final example. This one is a little bit different in that there was a group member who had been seeing a guy. She found out that basically everything he told her about his life and his job was a lie. I think she was kind of in the freeze about confronting him. What advice would you give to her?
Kasia: Again, every situation is unique and why things happen the way they do. This is why I don't even like really commenting too much on news media stuff like Cuomo. We take the humanity out of something when we generalize. It's an easy cheat to say, “What should she do in this situation?” This is why generalizations are dangerous. Maybe, not her, but someone in her situation, maybe would not have gotten to that level of deceit, maybe, if they had been trained to ask questions, put their attention out and then question any wobbly information. Any weird vibe they got.
Leah: I definitely know that she was enjoying the ride, so to speak. I think he was doing it out of some insecurities. I don't think it was nefarious.
Kasia: Okay. So she now wants to confront him. Is that right?
Leah: I don't think she wants to confront him, but she definitely has not done it. But she’s been talking about it in the group, and how painful it was.
Kasia: Okay, so again, because every situation is unique, and I can only go on what I'm getting from you in words, right? It's going to be important for her to create the easiest possible way for her to do this. Make it as easy for herself as possible. Even if it means writing a checklist of things he said, with a box next to it, going ‘check if true.’ Hand it to him or send it to him and be like, “Please get back to me with this.” What I'm concerned about is when after women are in any way compromised, lied to, or disadvantaged, putting pressure on themselves to be phenomenal at cleaning it up.
Leah: Interesting. Invisible labor, right?
Kasia: Yeah! So maybe for totally insecure, wanting to impress her, reasons he lied, she wants to get the truth, what's the easiest way for her to get there? Least labor-intensive. She doesn't have to show up as amazing. She doesn't have to show up as a ruthless harpy so long as she gets either in the first interaction or the 75th interaction, exactly what it is that she needs in order to trust him and feel safe. This has to be easy for her, it doesn't have to be easy for him.
Leah: That makes sense. And earlier in their relationship, there was some ED during their sexual experiences, where he was talking constantly about how much he desired her, all the things he wanted to do with her physically, and then erectile dysfunction in the moment. It was interesting, too, because it was very hard for her to have a conversation with him about that. And now this is yet another opportunity for her to work on having these conversations.
Kasia: That's also hard. But again, a few degrees out, it's hard to advise. One of the reasons it's important that whatever conversation she has, she doesn't deprive herself of any luxury or opportunity to make it easy, is so that her nervous system is as calm as possible so that she can afford to have a sense of humor. If she's not trusting, if she feels violated, if she feels scared from the nervous system, if the animal of our bodies riled up, she's not going to be able to talk about anything.
Leah: Yeah. I like that you mentioned the animal of our bodies because I feel like we often forget that and discount it in these moments.
Kasia: There's this big conversation, or a current theme, that's kind of new in the last 5 to 10 years. Self-care. We talked about self-care. Bubble baths, sheet masks fine. But fundamentally, self-care is about caring for and protecting your nervous system.
Leah: Yeah.
Kasia: It's about not white knuckling and pushing yourself to trust before you do, be transparent before you feel safe. Be vulnerable. This whole conversation about trust issues, I just have to learn to trust. That's bullshit! You open up and trust when you actually feel like you can trust. You can't make yourself trust someone or respect someone. If you get good at caring for your nervous system, everything else follows. Maybe she can have her friend devise a hilarious erectile dysfunction questionnaire for her and send it to him, whatever it takes to make her feel like she's getting heard, but also that it's easy for her that she's taking care of her nervous system. Even things like in fights, taking breaks. Throughout your day, when you can, squeezing your boobs, doing a little dance. Nervous system, animal body care, will do wonders for your life, sanity, and power.
Leah: I love that definition of self-care. Thank you so much, Kasia, for your time, for your insights today.
Kasia: Thank you!
Leah: Do you want to take a moment to let people know where they can find you, what you're up to, and again about your book that just came out?
Kasia: Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power is available at all the booksellers, all the audibles, and Amazon's and all the others.
Leah: And you narrate the audiobook for any audio.
Kasia: Yes! That was so fun. I had to care for my nervous system in that vocal booth. The book is on our website at weteachpower.com. We are about to post next semester's classes shortly.
Leah: Amazing.
Kasia: We have a book event going on tomorrow. There's a lot of stuff going on, a lot of it can be found on the website. And if anyone's interested, there's a book that is 350 pages packed with information on how to get all you fucking want.
Leah: Amazing. Would you say if there guys tuning in? And I know there are because I've been seeing some of the comments. Is it something men would learn from as well?
Kasia: Yeah, I'm actually very pleasantly surprised by men's response to this work, especially in the last few months. Recently I wrote a post on the Britney Spears documentary. The main tenets of the book, girl conditioning, and all the stuff that's in the book, made their way into the post. And one of the best experiences I've had in a long time is reading so many comments, not from just men, but kind of like gun-toting, Trump-supporting men going, “I am not into feminism, but this is I can get behind.”
Leah: I see some of your team has been linking up the website as well. Lots of great comments, someone asked if there's a replay available. So I'm gonna send Kasia’s team the file and she can do whatever she wants with it. And it's available on-demand in the Esther Perel discussion group as well.
Kasia: Thank you so much. This was really fun.
Leah: This was super fun. Thanks again for joining us. Thank you, Reuben, for all of your help in setting it up. And yeah, hopefully, we'll see a bunch of the folks in your classes and getting the book and giving it as gifts to friends. Thank you so much.
Kasia: Thank you so much. Have a beautiful day.
Throughout centuries, women have been trained to give away their power.
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Watch Kasia’s TED Talk, ‘One Simple Trick to Reclaim Your Power’.
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Heather Dubrow's World: Strong Women and Good Girl Conditioning
“There’s this really sweet moment that happens when your attention is focused on another person, and you’re leading them through an experience where you can actually see them shift from a dominant to a submissive state. You basically see them open up and surrender. It can happen in a business meeting. It can happen in a negotiation. It’s happened with my landlord. It’s not erotic in its context, it has to do with putting your attention on someone until you melt them into receptivity.”
“We are right now at a very specific moment in time. It’s a huge opportunity, a huge calamity. We are living in a world that is more divided than ever. It’s scarier than ever. And what happens when there’s a crisis is people revert to their most known, even if ineffective, behaviors.”
Read the transcript:
Heather: My guest today is a very interesting, very cool, very sharp gal. She's the founder of The Academy, the school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. She's a teacher, a businesswoman, a former dominatrix. I need to hear a lot about all of this. Please welcome Kasia Urbaniak.
Kasia: Thank you for having me.
Heather: Welcome. I love that your name on your zoom account is The Lovely Kasia.
Kasia: That was a dare I gave myself very, very, very early on in my journey.
Heather: Was to what?
Kasia: I was 18 years old and setting up an email account. And I was wondering if I could say in something as at the time formal feeling as an email that I am lovely. And I was ashamed, embarrassed. And I was 18. And it took me, I don't know, six months before I got used to sharing my email address back in the day.
Heather: And now you embrace it.
Kasia: Well, yeah, yeah, that now that seems like nothing.
Heather: Now I feel like I have to up my zoom name. Mine just says Heather Dubrow. That's so boring. Jesus. You know, what's funny about the email names, like when my kids first got their emails they were little. And one was like, you know, something lambi something or you know, they were like silly like little kid names. And then when they finally got to the age, that it was embarrassing, like they finally had to change them to a real email address. It was so funny.
So tell me about yourself. So first of all, I have to hear about how you got into the whole dominatrix business and what that actually means. But you went from dominatrix to helping people empower themselves. How is that transition?
Kasia: One of the reasons I first became a professional dominatrix was in order to make money so that I could further my spiritual education. I wanted to be a Taoist nun. So I was studying in with masters and convents and nunneries all around the world. So this split existence actually did a lot, the tension between the two, of working in a dungeon in New York City and being on mountaintops in Asia did a lot to create the extreme difference between them. Creating an interesting tension when looking at the human experience. So it really informed how I did my work as a dominatrix. What was initially something I was doing for money very quickly became a place where I could use all the new tools I was learning and the new gifts that I was developing in a context that was completely not meant for it. Looking and seeing the body reading skills, how even martial training in terms of being able to understand what's happening energetically to a person who's holding their body a certain way, when I'm bossing them around how they're responding to it moment by moment and knowing how to move a human being through different states of consciousness. Now, this is like the highbrow way of explaining how the extremes of metaphysics and the extremes of sexual fringe activity, develop the philosophical basis.
But the real thing is that as I was growing up, because I started when I was quite young, 20 years ago, I had this secret life where I was pretending to be the boss of men until I really felt like I was the boss of men. While my girlfriends were growing up beside me, with all these kinds of behaviors that became more and more ridiculous and outrageous to me as time went on. And they are very common behaviors, they are behaviors like endless time spent analyzing a text, a whole belief in a superstitious hierarchy of red flags when it comes, especially to men or in romantic contexts, or bosses, or fathers or brothers or friends. This self policing, the never checking in really to see what's going on with especially men, but I just started seeing a pattern that I didn't know was a pattern. And so I sort of became the mischief maker of all my friends, being like, “why don't you just find out?”
The beautiful thing that happened was, when I met my business partner, Ruben Flores.
Heather: A man.
Kasia: Yeah, who's a man. While I was like floating around the fringes of spirituality, and like dark sexual exploration, he was in a war zone because he worked for Doctors Without Borders. And the moment we met, I met the first person who completely understood the language of power dynamics that I had seen, and understood how women learn differently from men to women's disadvantage. And he understood it because one of the reasons he had left the field was he had a moment where he was surrounded by a bunch of men, in the context where we they were talking about maternal care and there wasn't a single woman present.
Heather: That hasn't changed anywhere nearby has it?
Kasia: No, and also also like there's two matters, because you can get women seats at the table. But how do you get them heard? And so in this incredible way, what we ended up forming was this laboratory, where we could actually see what happens to a woman given a certain interaction.
Heather: Before we keep diving in that direction, because I do I listened to your TEDx Talk and I just think it's completely fascinating, and I really love how you break it all down. But I kind of want to go back to the dominatrix thing for a second, not just because I’m looking at you and I'm thinking like, how does one get into this? And, you know, to me a dominatrix was whips and chains and deviant behavior, and things that weren't spoken of. And I think, you know, books and movies like 50 Shades of Grey, or if you watch Billions, and you see, you know, why people need to be dominated and why they like to be dominated and how a different is for different people. But it's kind of fascinating for you to have started that way given what your work is now.
Kasia: Yeah, absolutely.
Heather: So how does one become involved in that?
Kasia: I feel sort of lucky because I was in New York City growing up at a certain time where it's incredibly unfortunate, that essentially a teenager trying to pay for school, trying to pay for university, I'm trying to pay for Spiritual Education, really can't afford to do it. Really, really can't. And this was the way I could afford to do it. What was lucky about it is it suited me so well. I have always been and probably always will be a closet people pleaser. Putting me in a situation where I have to use my psychology, where I have to use my perception, where I have to use my language – because you can't have sex in a dungeon – it's an hour long session where you're not having sex,
Heather: Right? It's all about restraint.
Kasia: Yes, but you're creating a heightened atmosphere of erotic aliveliness, and it's actually harder in many ways to do that without being able to have sexual contact. So I was very fortunate because once I got there, I was just, “I'm just doing this for money. This is like one of the crazy things of life, I'm gonna be a wild person, I'm gonna, you know.” And what I found was that the intensity of attention and actual human intimacy that was possible with no physical contact really, with just language with just attention, with paying attention, with emotion, with moving people through states, the kind of domination I ended up really leaning towards was a lot of, you'd call it roleplay. But when you when I say roleplay you think of like me dressed up as a nurse.
Heather: Right, right, right.
Kasia: I would be your mother one moment, then I would be Wonder Woman, then I would be the spy that betrayed you. But all of that is inside of a context of watching and seeing what is actually happening to the person in the moment.
Heather: So what do you take away from that? What would be the best lessons you learned that you've taken into other relationships?
Kasia: Okay, first…
Heather: I should say to real relationships, because obviously those weren't relationships. That was work.
Kasia: Yeah, although some of them became deeper than friendships, and not romantic relationships, but deeper than friendships like soul connections,
Heather: Because there's so much trust involved.
Kasia: So much trust involved. And also, I stopped seeing such a huge distinction between people who are into BDSM, and people who are not. I started noticing that almost all men and women want to be dominated, or if given the chance would love to be the boss for a second. Like very few women would say no to an experience where they could fully surrender and be dominated properly.
So instant takeaways. I went very quickly from being a dominatrix, to training dominatrixes. And one of the things I noticed is that there was a huge difference between performing power and having power. So if they walked in, and they were like, I'm Mistress Apocalypse, you have been a really bad boy. Does not work.
Heather: No.
Kasia: If their attention is on themselves, you have this image of a dominant as somebody who's narcissistic, but it actually doesn't work. It actually works when they lean in and look at the person and go, your chin looks stubborn today. Are you exceptionally rebellious, or just a little rebellious this evening? Right? So the difference between performing power and having power has everything to do with having your attention on the person you're trying to influence. So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that there's this really sweet moment that happens when your attention is focused on another person, and you're leading them through an experience where you can actually see them shift from a dominant to a submissive state. You basically see them open up and surrender. It can happen in a business meeting. It can happen in a negotiation. It's happened with my fucking landlord. It's not erotic in its context, it has to do with putting your attention on someone until you melt them into receptivity.
And one of the things that we also noticed with Ruben, the first time that woman in a meeting syndrome, we started testing it. And we started noticing that women have a tendency to hold their attention inwards and when they speak, even if you correct all the up speak and you check all the verbal modifiers, that if their attention is holding the room, even the men, their bodies, shift into a submissive state, and when they shifted into a submissive state, that's when it sinks in. And what very often happens is that a woman's attention doesn't go there, because she's been taught that that's dangerous, she's conditioned in a different way, doesn't go there. And so there's this itch in the room, the ball is almost across the goal line. So a guy will come along and basically restate what she says, and slam it. But if you look at it with the sound off, what he's doing is actually shifting everyone into that state. So they're like, “Oh, I heard it now. I heard it now. My body can now trust the alpha in the room.”
And so a lot of the training that we do at The Academy just has to do with sometimes simple tricks and sometimes outrageous experiments to get a woman unbound in this state where she can shamelessly, unequivocably own a room with her attention. And then shift states if she wants to, to receive the tenderness or receive the softness or receive the adoration or kindness that she wishes.
Heather: So at the Academy, you're just training women.
Kasia: Yep.
Heather: I love this. What are the ages? Obviously, having listened to you, from birth, we need to change how we're training girls and women and how we speak to them. But what age women do you see coming through your doors and and what are they like?
Kasia: It's changing a lot now. Typically, it would be like between 24 and 78. But we're starting to get younger women now. And they're a different breed. We're even talking about separating the classes out to give them slightly different training. Women 18 to 24 are operating from a different angle. In the earlier days of the school, the women who were coming were the ones who had succeeded in almost every area of their lives and still were like, “Wait, what the hell? Why am I independent, or with a partner who’s weaker than me, doing all the work, kicking ass, doing everything from self development to caring for everyone, and I'm exhausted and angry and frustrated, and I don't feel turned on.” In the beginning, it was the ones who had done everything right and were like, “Is this what women's freedom looks like? Because it doesn't feel that way. This isn't the legendary life I signed up for. This isn't why I've been working this hard.” These days, it's a lot easier to start talking about, especially post #MeToo, to talk about things like Good Girl Conditioning.
Heather: That is true. It's funny, because I always have felt that I'm a very strong person. But again, when I was listening to you speak, and you were talking about #MeToo movement, I started thinking about my experiences in Hollywood when I was younger and as an actress, I was very submissive at times where I could have gotten into really bad situations and thankfully, didn't. So I want to give people some of your tips and, and tricks about all this. I'd love to start talking about flipping the power dynamic. What does that mean?
Kasia: So there's a couple of things to consider before we even get into that. Which is, I want to say one thing about strong women and Good Girl Conditioning. What we're calling Good Girl Conditioning is a set of behaviors that is almost invisible to us. And it's time to make them more visible. To notice that we're engaging in one of these good girl conditioned behaviors.
Heather: Give me an example.
Kasia: I can give you lots of examples. The first thing is automatic consent. Saying yes to something before you've had a chance to think about it. Another thing is making something really convenient for somebody else, while it's me inconveniencing yourself. Another thing is a holding on to the belief that if you don't do something, something bad will happen without testing it. Or if you do something, something bad will happen without testing it. Another thing is soft expectations, things that people expect you to do that you never verbally agreed to but if you stopped doing you don't know if they would cause a mess or not. Another thing, Invisible Labor, which people are talking a lot about, but they're talking about physical labor that women do without talking about the emotional labor or the mental labor. The figuring out what something means on behalf of other people so that they don't screw up. Another thing is not expressing needs and desires, not actually saying the full thing of what we want.
Heather: Right. Because to your point, we're conditioned not to do that from a very young age.
Kasia: A very young age. As a matter of fact, I say this a lot, but it's true. If you think about a lot of the ways in which we're still taught to behave, the low maintenance thing, like, “I'm fine,” right? It sounds modern, but really, it might as well come from a marriage manual from 1888.
Heather: Yeah, I've never even thought about that before because it's true. Everyone considers low maintenance a prize. I have news for you. It's only men that consider low maintenance women a prize because then they don't have to do anything that we need.
Kasia: Exactly, because up until five minutes ago, I mean, in 1974 a woman couldn't get a credit card in Connecticut without her husband's consent. This is just like five minutes ago. Up until five minutes ago, the best a woman's ambition could be expressed is for her to marry well. So what are the qualities that get you married well? “I'm fine. No trouble. I don't have big needs and wants. I don't ruffle feathers. I'm on time. I reply on a timely basis.”
Heather: Good girl!
Kasia: Exactly. “I make do with what we have. I can make the most of it. I can turn the cherries into pie into jam then after that into syrup and after that, we'll paint the walls red with it.”
Heather: Oh my God, I'm exhausted from that.
Kasia: Yeah, but we gotta stop doing that. And it's like the independent smart women right now who can't see the link between this imaginary marriage manual from 1888 and how we're behaving now. And so breaking those things. And when you asked about flipping power dynamics, freezing is one of those things. So what we're taught – this is a beautiful gift from our ancestors that we just need to thank our ancestors for and stop. Which is a woman who was safer when she was well policed, right? If she had a skirt on that was too short and something happened to her, she would be she would be blamed for it. So a loving mother would be like, “Your skirts too short.” Right? Police, police, police, police. Police the woman to keep her safe. Police the woman to keep her safe. And what we inherited was this incredible self policing capacity. Women police themselves way more than men. I'm not saying that men don't have insecurities or don't don't check themselves, but women self awareness to the vigilant extreme, that self policing, that inward attention ends up becoming destructive.
Heather: Yeah.
Kasia: Incredibly disruptive. The most brilliant prison ever built is one that no longer needs walls, nor prison guards, we do it to ourselves.
Heather: It’s true. And that's why I think women pick ourselves apart so much from our hair to our skin to our body shapes and our outfits. And you know, I was out to dinner the other night with another couple and this gal, she's beautiful and successful and she was dressed great, and she was she kept talking about her outfit, sort of apologizing for it. It was the weirdest thing.
Kasia: That's completely understandable and totally insane.
Heather: I recognized it. But what was crazy, what was really insane about it is that I noticed it, I recognized it. I appreciated that it was insane. But I also on some level totally understood it.
Kasia: Yes, yes. And this is the age we live in. This is the age we live in, where we see more and more of the normal as bizarre and absurd. And this is a prime opportunity to actually shift the way human beings see and live on this planet. And it's a little bit difficult in an interview to talk about these good girl behaviors and have them actually fully felt in the body because that's where they live. Because when you say yes really quickly, or when you respond to crisis, or when you find yourself performing invisible labor, it happens faster than the word or the thought. It’s in the body.
Heather: I think as you get older, it gets easier and better to be less reactive in those moments, but man, I wish I had these lessons in my 20s and 30s.
Kasia: So you talked about the freeze. And the reason I brought up self attack to begin with – actually, it's really shocking – but self attack is actually easy to surrender. It's easy to give it up. It's easy. It actually is. There's a few steps towards giving it up, but the reason that I brought it up in the first place was, in terms of flipping power dynamics, one of the most important moments to know how to flip a power dynamic is when you’ve frozen. Because this self policing creates kind of like a general more inward state. So when a woman's attention is generally inward, like in a self assessment kind of way, and she's only looking out, putting her attention out to look for cues for how she should behave, right? It's still a very inward focused attention. When somebody else comes along and puts her on the hot seat, puts her on the spot, asks her every appropriate question, an uncomfortable question, or makes a comment, that extra load of attention doubles. Right? So she her attention was already kind of inward. Now all of a sudden someone else's excessive pressure, attention going on her, doubles it. And her instinct in that moment is to go even deeper into herself. That's the default habit. And that's a habit to break. Why? Because this is happens every time. Picture room. This has happened more times than I care to count. 600 women. I tell them about the freeze. I tell them about how women freeze and their default state of attentions inward and when they get pressured, they even more inward, and I tell them, “Hey, so I'm going to go around the room and I'm going to start asking all of you really inappropriate questions. You only have one job, don't answer my question. Instead said put your attention on me, flip the power dynamic, ask me a question. Ask me a question like, “What gives you the right to ask me that question?” I even get even give them suggestions. I go up to the first woman, and I go, “Do you like sex?” And she goes, “Depends with who!” And the whole room laughs, right? And she goes, “Oh, yeah, I wasn't supposed to answer like that.” The next one. I tried to go even more inappropriate. She answers the question, catches. It takes five or six women before they break the habit of automatically giving away information that they don't want to give. Right? That's the default state.
Heather: I am totally guilty of doing this.
Kasia: Try it with a man. Try asking him; he will immediately flip the power dynamic.
Heather: Okay, so give me the right answer. So if I said, “Do you like having sex?”
Kasia: “Are you taking a poll? Are you interested in other people's sex lives? Are you researching so that your sex life is better? Do you know how you sound when you ask a question like that of a woman?” But you actually sounded pretty nice. Pretty sweet. So I wouldn't say something really offensive. If you had said it in a different way. I might be like, “Who the hell do you think you are? Do you know what you sound like? Do you talk to your mother that way?” Right. Anything about you will flip the power dynamic ecause now I'm leading right? You said it in kind of a nice way. So like, “Do you want to have a conversation about sex? Do you want to have a conversation about your sex life? Are you are you trying to ask me questions or for advice about your sex life?
Heather: Are you try to make me uncomfortable, what's going on? And one of the examples that I've heard you give before, which I really liked was, if someone asked you to go up to their hotel room, and your example was, “Well, hey, what could we possibly discuss up there that we can't discuss right here?”
Kasia: Yeah, there's also a thing that we called the school, it's a tool called location, that's kind of in the middle. Sometimes you don't know if somebody is trying to be a predator or just clumsy, you know. And so many men are really innocent, just sloppy, like they don't harm but they actually end up really traumatizing women and a lot of that can get cleared up with a location question. The hotel room question was not a location question. Like, location question, “It seems like you are really – fill in the blank. – Is that true? It seems like you are really angry. It seems like you want to get me into bed.” Maybe that's a little bit more dangerous. But the point is, if you ask them to verify or deny, if you pose something, even if they lie, even if they say, “oh, no, no, no, I didn't intend that at all.”
Heather: It diffuses it?
Kasia: Yes, it does. And it gives you something to work off of. Because so much of these hazy border crossings and boundary violations happen in a slew of ambiguous conversations. I mean, this is old news now, but after the Harvey Weinstein scripts were released, we advised them ad nauseum. The way that a series of separate sentences together imply something.
Heather: Right.
Kasia: “You could use a friend like me. You don't want to be mean to your friend, do you? I could do great things for you.” Those are very ambiguous. In a less extreme situation, you could say something like, “It seems like you want to sleep with me, is that true? It seems like you're saying that if I sleep with you, you'll give me a job. Is that true?”
Heather: I'm not sure he would have cared if I'm totally honest.
Kasia: Yeah, but it doesn't matter when you get it on tape.
Heather: Yeah, well, that's for sure. What so but let me ask you this. So I love how you respond to these. I think it's great. But what do you do if you're a person who isn't as direct? You're a very, obviously a very direct, very confident person. I feel like I'm very much the same. And when you give these examples, I think to myself, I could say that. I'm good. I could do that and not offend them and not come off as like super bitch or anything like that. But how do you train women who are just gentler?
Kasia: You know, everyone's going to have a style. So the examples I gave were not only in extreme situations, they were also in my style. But when you flip a power dynamic, and you do it with a question, one of the skills we talk about is calibration. You're calibrating to the situation, but you're also calibrating to your own style. So you know, it can be just as effective to flip a power dynamic with a question that sounds like this. “Hm. What makes you ask that? What makes you curious about that? What do you need to know? What would the answer to that question give you? Is there something that you're needing right now that you're being indirect about?” I mean, any of these questions, you know, they don't have to be, “What gives you the right to ask me that,” right? Any of these will stop. The point is to stop that frozen moment where you have no words. And all of a sudden, your silence reads as consent and things are happening out of your control. And it looks like you're agreeing with them, when you're really not, and every cell in your body is screaming, “Stop this.” Whether it's the raise being given to someone else, whether it's the company starting to manufacture or invest in some heinous segment of society, or whether it's related to the erotic or the sexual, or whether it's related to child care. It's that moment. All the negotiation training, all of the skills in the world, aren't really going to make a difference if when you need the most you find yourself frozen. Which is why we talk about this particular thing of breaking the freeze with a question. Really simply.
Heather: Yeah, it's interesting. It's a lot about trusting your gut. I was listening to something the other day about, you know, how at about age 13-14, is when we start listening to other people and not ourselves. We start listening to what our girlfriends think, or what our mom thinks is our best color, or what kind of makeup looks good. And I started listening to this, and I was going, “Yeah, that's about the age because that's about the age, you're kind of like trying to figure yourself out, you're going from your tweener. You're not a little kid anymore. But you're not a full teenager or young adult yet. And you get very influenced by other people.” Yeah. So I was thinking when do we lose listening to our gut? Because when you're little, you know, “I want ice cream. I want chocolate.” You know exactly what you want. “I want to go in the pool,” or, “What kind of rain boots you like?” “I like that pair of boots.” Right? We know what we like. We trust ourselves, we trust our guts. And I think at some point, we lose that trust. And we start to look to others for all of that information, which is why when you when you talked about that pause with the freeze, that waiting, and how sometimes it's not even saying the right or wrong thing, it's not saying anything at all.
Kasia: I couldn't agree with you more. I would go even further and to say that we don't lose that trust of our gut, of our instinct, of our intuition. It's taken from us.
Heather: Okay, who's taking it?
Kasia: Everybody who's educating us – and any parents out there, I am not pointing the finger at you, because you went through the same thing. The entire system of the incredible cognitive dissonance of what we tell a three year old versus what we tell a 10 year old, how we raise how we introduce humans, baby humans, child humans, into our society, the entire set of conditioning is to turn them into humans that lose connection with the inner voice. And I'll give you really concrete examples so it doesn't sound like I'm posing a hysterical conspiracy theory about the downfall of humanity. Really simple, simple, simple example looks really, really innocent and is completely common. Right? A child misbehaves. A child does something that disrupts the order of the group. So it has to be dealt with in some kind of way. So that child is set aside is pulled aside and is told, “Say sorry. You must be sorry.” It's entirely possible that that kid at that moment does not feel sorrow, right. Sorry means sorrow. That kid might have some unresolved anger, something might have happened. That kid could have a whole world of things going on that are not sorrow. But the kid knows that unless the kid says, “I feel sorrow, I feel sorrow,” lying about their feelings, they won’t be able to rejoin the group, which is the greatest punishment for a human being. Since the dawn of human history, the way that you punish the human is you banished him from the tribe.
Heather: Isolate them.
Kasia: So the first thing we do is we tell kids to lie about their feelings. “You should feel this way. You should say this.” It's one of 10,000 examples. And then there's the ones that are different for men. They're different for girls, different for boys. We're not really encouraged to trust our gut, follow the instinct, follow the cycle of our flowing attention, the rhythms. No.
Heather: So then the question becomes like, how do you break the cycle? Like I know, for myself, I was taught basically, that I needed my mother for many things and that I couldn't do it on my own. Which was not healthy or good. And I don't feel that way anymore. I got out of that. I broke the cycle. I mean, I have other issues, we could go on for hours. But that's not one of them. But I did have an aha moment when I was like, I mean, honestly, I was like, 35, it took me quite some time. But with my kids, I remember when my oldest two, they're twins, when they were very young, like five years old or something, my daughter just could not make a decision. She’d be like, even ice cream, like, “Mom, what flavor do you think?” I'm like, “I don't know.” I was just trying to teach her listen to her gut, to make her own decisions, to be independent, to come up with what she wants, and all of that. So that's my one little way of doing it. But what do you think in a more global way? How do we raise our children and especially our young girls, to listen to their gut and not have this taken from them?
Kasia: All right, so frankly, I'm working on adult women getting to a place where they know what they want. Because there's a big difference between feeling a spark of a flame of a calling, a passionate desire, some inspiring vision from within, then declaring a goal to meet.
Heather: Right.
Kasia: And I'm finding, consistently, that just like your daughter, but in more closeted ways, adult women are oftentimes not leading the lives they want to live because they're setting goals based on “in order to’s”. Right? “If I get to that place, then I'm going to feel like the person I was meant to be.” Instead of starting right here and now. The trick is with all the masculine, stoic, sociopathic production system and economic system, everything's about cutting off from feeling. So a goal is something you can come up with in 10 seconds, but a need, a desire, and a want? Like what color bedspread, what flavor ice cream, what career, what lover, what country – all these decisions could actually be made in a whole bodied way. But it takes longer for the signal of the body to go from something that's nagging, something that's longing, into a feeling, into language, into something spoken, into something asked for, into something that can be like a crystalline vision. This is something we work on a lot of The Academy because this idea that we're supposed to know what we want all the time, like men, like even men, it's not human to do that. Like there an internal growth process that, yeah, it gets faster when you trust it more, but sometimes there's a desire or something that gestating for a while – it’s like the birth process.
Heather: Well, I will say with men, I think because we're taught so differently, that men aren't is conflicted because it's just part of what they do. They pick something, they don't really question it – most of them. I'm being very general. It’s a generalization, but you're taught, you figure got the job by this age, you go do it and off you go. And that's it. I think with women, it's just a constant struggle and the balance and you're meant to do this, you're meant to do that you're meant to get married, just like you were saying before, and you're meant to have children, you're meant to now in these days and times also have a meaningful career. And do it all perfectly and balanced. I mean, it's insane. Okay, so I understand that the people that you're seeing, you're backtracking a bit and trying to almost retrain them, so that they can really learn how to exist in a way and find their joy, basically. So how do we do this? I mean, if you could take all them and start them over again, and like reparent them, like my buddy, Tara Schuster talks about in her book, how would you do that within these boundaries?
Kasia: How would I reparent them?
Heather: Meaning, what skills would you give them from a young age? So they're not coming to at age 28? When I talk to you, you seem so powerful, and I sit here and I go, “Did she learn this? Is this nature nurture? Or did you just come out this way? Is this just you?”
Kasia: Oh, my goodness, I am my own school’s worst student. I need to keep teaching so I don't forget. I used to be afraid to ask a waiter for a glass of water. The reason I was lucky to stumble into being a dominatrix is I had to pretend to be powerful. And because I was such a people pleaser, I want it to be really convincing. I learned this because I sucked at it.
Heather: Okay.
Kasia: And I have the technique for how to ask someone for something down to a science because in order to get those words out of my mouth, I had to be like a scientist and be like, “how does one go about asking for something when you feel like you can't deserve it and you're afraid of hearing no?” Okay! We do this, we do this, we do this, we do this, we do this, we do this. That's what made me such a phenomenal teacher. Because what was natural to some people was so foreign to me that I had to construct a system to be able to do it.
Heather: So let me rephrase that. What do you wish you had learned when you were younger so that you could have been that person from an earlier age?
Kasia: I think I was born that person. I think that the most destructive parts of my conditioning were the things that were done and said, not the absence of encouragement.
Heather: Mm hmm.
Kasia: There were just things I didn't question that people made me question. I was born in 78. So when I was like, eight years old, it was okay for my grandma to be like, “You have to clean up your room or no one will marry you.” I don’t know that grandmas say that anymore. Maybe some of them do.
Heather: I don't know. Interesting things sometimes.
Kasia: When I had a crush on a girl in in high school, one of my parents was like, you’ll grow out of it. But here's the thing. We are right now in a very, very, very specific moment in time. It's, it's a huge opportunity, a huge calamity. We are living in a world that is more divided than ever. It's scarier than ever. And what happens when there's a crisis is people revert to their most known, even if ineffective, behaviors.
Heather: Interesting. Say that again.
Kasia: So in times of crisis, right, when there's a huge unknown, what people try to do, is they go backwards and cling to what they know even if they know it doesn't work, right. So for some people that's going to be fear, conspiracy, violence, anger, divisiveness. And my biggest concern right now is that in the face of crisis, the most loving, enlightened, educated, intelligent, brilliant, hard working women will also revert to what is known, but it won't look bad. It won't look like violence. It won't look like fear. What it's going to look like is what we consider to be the super normal example of female goodness. Meaning women are carrying the pandemic on their own backs. They're not complaining about the pain. They're avoiding more and more difficult conversations more and more often in order to save their strength. They're making things convenient and comfortable for others. Yes they’re angry, but they're not angry like they were a few years ago. They're not talking about injustice like they were a few years ago. They're consenting to things that are not in their pleasure to do. They're all about maintaining harmony. It's all of this is completely understandable but because even among my most diehard students, they're coming back to the school, the ones that were with me seven years ago, they’re coming back to school being like, “I need a refresher because this chaos is turning me into a Stepford wife. I am like the eight armed goddess of achieving everything at once I am the center of stability and everything, and I'm about to lose my shit, because I don't remember the last time I had an orgasm or a long bubble bath, or actually spoke about my own needs and desires.” And what is normal starts to disintegrate, because it is disintegrating everything.
Heather: And by the way, I completely agree that and I see it not only in myself, by the way, but I see it in a lot of my friends as well.
Kasia: And it's not something to call out, because we're all doing it.
Heather: We're all doing it. We’re homeschool teachers and chefs and chauffeurs and party planners and all of it.
Kasia: And making the best of it.
Heather: Smiling.
Kasia: Yeah. So when everything that's normal disintegrates, there's actually a huge opportunity. Because what is the new normal is something we get to decide. And if all of us revert back to the oldest behavior out of just not knowing what the new thing should be, what the new thing could be, without a vision, we're not creating the new normal consciously. The new normal could be worse than the old normal, the new normal could be better, right? Actually the disintegration of a lot of our support systems could inspire a way of being where we're all supporting each other in a much more community-minded way. And we could be using the isolating internet in a way that actually connects us so that we are functionally functioning like communities in a more strong, bonded way. That's just one example. But we get to decide. But if one woman is isolated, and fearing the unknown, and trying to handle everything all at once, that's the last thing on her mind.
Heather: Mm hmm.
Kasia: So you're living together and all of the sudden division starts to appear.
Heather: So okay, I totally agree with that. And I think, just for me personally, I went Stepford wife pretty quickly at the beginning of the lockdown. Because I'm had just lost my staff, and it was me and the four kids, Terry, and all that stuff. And then I kind of found my power again and pivoted pretty well. And I'm lucky because I have this community, this cool podcast community, to meet such interesting people and learn and express and hear about different opinions and views. And even if my audience doesn't take away doesn't agree with every single thing or takes away one pearl, they've gotten something out of it, which is so cool. What do you suggest women do at this point? And in these crazy times? What can they do to get out of that? Where can they go?
Kasia: Well, the first thing is that a lot of this is invisible. So seeing comes first.
Heather: Recognizing where you're at.
Kasia: Also also just like these things feel like rules. So we might as well call them rules. So hidden rules, right?
Heather: Okay.
Kasia: So first is seeing the rules. Second is breaking the rules. And the third is creating new agreements. Now, I would love just to say ever to every single listener that's a woman come to my school, or check out my website, there's tons of free materials there. Because we really want women to have agency in their lives, especially right now. We're doing some free events. But aside from that, just here in this moment now, see it, what to be aware of, if you do a log in a single day, for example, just of your labor, right just give your labor, your mental, emotional, physical labor, really meticulous be scientific. One day, every 15 minutes, you know, logging emotional labor, mental labor. “Who am I thinking about? On whose behalf of my doing this?” Right? Just seeing all of the time. When I had a group of students do this, the first group, the average was 80% of their work was for somebody else. And we're talking about unpaid work. Women with jobs, how is 80% even possible? So turns out, they're thinking about other people at work. They're juggling things. Seeing that all of a sudden explains why there's no room for a passion project or a phenomenal sex life or that novel. That alone. Once you see that, it becomes a lot easier to be like, “Oh, I love that I'm doing this. I love to serve. I don't love that I'm doing this. I'm just enabling somebody else's stupidity. I actually can't stand that I'm doing this. I don't even like doing this. I never want to do this again.” Right? But the decision to start taking things off your plate, or delegating them to others, comes after you really see what you're doing. The totality of it. That's one thing.
Another log one could do is the soft expectations log. What do you think people expect of you? And test it. You can do a soft test of it. A soft test would be take something relatively harmless like doing the dishes and just stop and see what happens.
Heather: By the way, the mothers around the world are all laughing right now. I love that, that's great.
Kasia: There are a lot of there are a lot of things, but the awareness comes first. And the more we tap into our bodies, the easier it is to hear the yes and no of what works. “This feels great. This does not feel great. This feels fantastic.” And this does not make us selfish people because it is a pleasure to give to those who receive well and amplify the gifts given. It feels terrible to give to people who waste what's given. It feels wonderful to receive exactly what it is that one needs and knows how to amplify very well. It feels terrible to receive something that's not quite right, or isn't something we can use well. So you know, exchanges in relationships can really strengthen relationships. And a lot of times when we become clear on our invisible labor and start delegating things for others, we have a chance to create some really powerful roles for people in our lives. That makes them actually feel better about themselves.
Heather: Yeah, and I think that is how you strengthen the relationships.
Kasia: Yeah.
Heather: That's all really amazing. Kasia, I think you're incredible. I think the work you're doing is so interesting. I tell you what I listened to your TEDx talk and listening to you today, I was very inspired. And I really loved learning from you. And you're so young and so wise. And I encourage everyone to go check out your website. Go check out The Academy. Tell everyone how to find your website, where to find you, where to find the Academy, the whole thing.
Kasia: Oh, I have a book coming out I forgot about.
Heather: So exciting! Tell us about the book.
Kasia: The book is called Unbound – A Woman’s Guide to Power. It's possible to preorder it now on Amazon already. It was supposed to come out in a month, but the pub date was moved to Woman's Day. We also have some special offers for anybody who buys the book. The website is weteachpower.com. There's tons and tons of resources. We made a huge effort this year to get as many of these techniques, ideas and curriculums out there. For the for the women who can't afford to take a class, who are down to self study, down to go as far as they can. And lots of video, lots of lots of podcasts. I'm really, really, really, really excited about this book, because this book is like a training manual for battle. It was written before COVID, but it's turning out to be so timely. And the delays that happened because of COVID are putting it in like the perfect moment in time. It's going to fall into women's laps at the perfect moment in time. We've already adjusted to the chaos, but we have to now fight in chaos. And when I use the word fight, and when I use the words love they don't necessarily mean what how they sound. Love is what's needed. And sometimes what's needed is a verbal slap, right? To know what's appropriate, what's required of a moment is actually the best expression of love. And fighting is the same thing. Fighting doesn't mean fighting against someone or something. Fighting means fighting for someone or something. And one of the greatest mistakes we make in relationships – when a couple switches from fighting against each other to fighting for something and explaining their own argument in the context of what they're fighting for – it becomes a passionate, synergetic moment. And it's the same thing with political movements and it's the same thing with all human beings. So fight and love, the essences of the manual for battle known as Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power.
Heather: That is so cool. I'm so happy for you. I'm gonna pick up a copy too. You guys, Kasia Urbaniak. Thank you so much for being here. Everyone, go check out her website, get the book, preorder it now. Thank you guys so much for being here. Totally appreciate your support. And if you have a second go to iTunes and leave us a five star review. Tell us what you love about Heather Dubrow’s World. Have a great weekend and I will see you next week.
Superhumans At Work by Mindvalley: How To Break Free From Good Girl Jail
Read the transcript:
“For so long, the most ambitious woman, the woman who had the biggest dreams, the only way she had fulfilling those dreams was to marry well. What qualities make you marriageable in the past? To be low maintenance. “I’m fine. I’m not mad. I don’t need anything. No, thanks. I got it.” Right? To be low maintenance, that makes a good choice for a wife. A wife who’s resourceful, who’s accommodating, who doesn’t complain, who is harmonious, who does a lot of extra work, picks up the slack, makes do with what she has, she doesn’t ask for too much, her needs and her desires are not outrageous at all. That conditioning of not wanting to be a bother and picking up all the extra work. You know, the most badass powerful executive CEOs I have come to the Academy still feel themselves under the spell of the Good Girl Autoresponder.”
Jason: Hi everybody welcome back to Superhumans at Work. This is your host, Jason Mark Campbell. I'm so excited about this session we're going to have today where we're going to be able to step into a lot of words that could come as taboo used in the workplace. We're going to talk about power, we're going to talk about gender, our roles, how our society is evolving. How is it that men and women are working in the same place? And how are those dynamics evolving? Is it normal that there's a bit of chaos? Is it chaotic? I really want to get into these discussions because in the modern world where we're all working together, we all seem to be playing different roles and I want to see what are the discussions that happen when we start challenging these roles and what potential is unleashed when we really acknowledge our full selves in every role that we can possibly play.
Kasia Urbaniak is going to be here and sharing these insights and she's an incredible woman, the CEO of The Academy, a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence, how to embrace this. She's spoken at numerous corporations, I'm talking about the Museum of Modern Art, the Wharton School of Business, the Yale School of Management, and she's already the subject of so much media attention, she's had interviews in The Guardian, New York Times Forbes, BBC capital, amongst others. And here's one of the fascinating aspects that I love is her background has been as a dominatrix, we're going to talk more about her background, why it's so important to know what has happened here has been applied in business, and you're going to be able to apply this in your career as well. Kasia, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming.
Kasia: Thank you so much for having me.
Jason: Now first off I want to say congratulations. I know you've recently launched your book, Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power, and power itself is a word that seems to come with a lot of baggage. It seems like it's almost taboo. And so I wanted to open up with this question: why does that idea of power seem to unrest a lot of us? It seems like it's an uncontrollable energy. And what have you witnessed about this word and why it's so powerful to embrace?
Kasia: Well the first thing is that I like that the word power ruffles some feathers. Before a student takes a class, sometimes they write an email saying, “Why is power and not empowerment?” And there's this implication around the word empowerment. First of all, women are more likely to feel comfortable with something like “women's empowerment”, men are more likely to go for a book called Power. So it seems like this softer subset, right? There's also this implication that empowerment is inwards so you can actually be alone in a room and do your affirmations and feel great and become powerful in isolation. When power, in and of itself, is relational, like money, right, power is entirely about powerful relationships. It's a communication function. One of the fun things about working with, especially behavioral economics people, is redefining power with them in conversation about how it's not who has the most toys, but who has the most powerful relationships.
Jason: So it's very crazy as you mentioned this. I just had a vision of so many websites and some of the friends I follow that all do these Empowerment Workshops for Women, so you're so right. And then I was thinking, what are some of the things that attracted me, as far as literature or workshops, and the first thing that came to mind is when I was in my early 20s, I read a book like The 48 Laws of Power, and I don't see that literature being picked up as much as women.
And so, what gets left out, like what happens when women do not – and we're going to speak specifically to that since we've already differentiated that there's a natural attraction for men to go and seek that power – what is the problem where we see that women are not as much embracing it, and what happens when they do?
Kasia: Oh well, what happens when they do is their lives get revolutionized. As women claim their power, they're also redefining power. Again, one of the pitfalls of a word like empowerment is that implies that you can do it by yourself. Say, for example, in a woman's group – that's super super super necessary – but that sisters can pump themselves up, but then they go interface with men who have very different conditioning or circumstances in business. And all of the sudden it's like the magic's gone.
When you focus on power and powerful communication and building powerful relationships, the evidence of your power is not your feeling. Power is not a feeling. It's an effect. It's what happens in the impact of the thing. And I think men are trained and conditioned to have more of their attention, for better and for worse, on outward attention states, meaning performance, the results, winning the game, you know, getting the date, whatever it is, for the performance, the provider. Whereas women tend to still be conditioned towards their beingness not their doingness, even though women are doing more than ever and sometimes double triple what men do. So calling attention to that agency, and that doingness and balancing out when we have our dominant outward states of influence fully out, and also our state, fully in where we're deeply connected with the truth of ourselves is super important for both men and women. The challenge and the road and the journey is totally different, because of our very different conditioning.
Jason: Which I want to go right into that conditioning. So women naturally have not been embracing it as much as men, yet we see that there are so many gaps in the workplace when it comes to senior positions, the glass ceiling, and women are just in the process of getting into the workforce and we're seeing that the cards seem to be stacked against them. And so, what is that conditioning and what can we do to break through a mental barrier as a woman and how do we get started doing that?
Kasia: It's a mental, emotional and physical body-based barrier, but before addressing the conditioning, I have to say that there are also other circumstances that make the senior corporate game, a less appealing when for a woman. Between sexual harassment, and having other values and family, there are other legitimate things that go on besides conditioning. But here's something that was really really interesting, I'll get into the conditioning in just one second. In the course of teaching, at some point I added a Power with Money class to the curriculum. And one of the things that inspired me and a lot of the courses are around being able to ask for what you want, ask for what you need, in a powerful and effective way shamelessly and like 100% of what you need in the workplace especially getting, you know the support that you need to do your best job. There was this tech website, and this was a story, a few years back, that noticed that women were applying for jobs and asking right away for lower salaries than men. So these like really really well meaning architects of this tech jobs website were like, “We're gonna solve the problem. We're gonna start putting up a graph for each position, and showing the exact average what's on the excessive side what's on the lesser side, a beautiful graph for each position. So, each person, man or woman, can look at it and get a sense of what the actual average is.” You know what happened? Men started asking for more. Women started asking for even less. And to me, this was such a huge, huge sign, such a huge red flag. Telling them what the averages were did not change their behavior. As a matter of fact, what it did, it made it even worse.
But let's talk about what I call Good Girl Conditioning. If you really think about it, women going from being property to being able to own property is actually relatively recent when it comes to human history. It actually happened kind of an eyeblink ago. In 1974, a woman couldn't even get a credit card in Connecticut without her husband's signature. We're not talking about, you know, millennia here, we're talking about a few minutes ago in the eyeblink of human history. All of a sudden, women can own property. Women can go to work. Women can have careers. It's foolish to think that the conditioning that comes to us from our ancestors, that's in the air, that's ubiquitous everywhere, would change immediately.
The Good Girl Conditioning Qualities. Let me put it this way, for so long, the most ambitious woman, the woman who had the biggest dreams, the only way she had fulfilling those dreams was to marry well. What qualities make you marriageable in the past? To be low maintenance. “I’m fine. I'm not mad. I don't need anything. No, thanks. I got it.” Right? To be low maintenance, that makes a good choice for a wife. A wife who's resourceful, who’s accommodating, who doesn't complain, who is harmonious, who does a lot of extra work, picks up the slack, makes do with what she has, she doesn't ask for too much, her needs and her desires are not outrageous at all. That conditioning of not wanting to be a bother and picking up all the extra work. You know, the most badass, powerful, executive CEOs I have come to the Academy still feel themselves under the spell of the Good Girl Autoresponder, if they're not paying attention. They'll say yes to something they don’t want to say yes to, they’ll make something extremely convenient for somebody else while bending over backwards going out of their way. When I have them log their invisible labor, work they don't get compensated for, reciprocated or paid for, sometimes it’s up to 80% of their daily hours. Mental labor, emotional labor, physical labor. The independent woman, her victory is super bittersweet. So many women who are kicking ass are actually doing three people and not asking for help because it makes them feel bossy or needy, not getting what they need, definitely not asking or receiving 100% of what they would need. They're not asking for the salaries, they’re not asking for the team they need in order to do their best work. And you know, there's a tendency that when a woman applies for a position, she applies for position she's already capable of doing, where a man looks into the position he wants to live into, right?
So there's the secondary thing where, and I believe this is out of love, the daughters are always very well policed, looked after. If a woman wore too short a shirt and something happened, she would be to blame. So you had to watch your daughters. Watch your daughters. And once that atmosphere develops, any woman listening to this can probably relate to the constant self-policing that now needs no police officer, needs no parent, grandparent, needs nobody else to point it out. She's asking yourself, “Am I too much? Am I not enough? Am I too loud? Am I too quiet? Am I too feminine? Am I too masculine? Do I care too much about my career? Not enough about my family? Was this appropriate? Was that?” That attention turned inwards, but not in a generative positive way, that attention turned inwards. The cleverest prison in the world is the prison without any walls. It's the prison you can’t see. So breaking that conditioning is so much fun. It's so much fun, because it creates results so quickly. And it's one of those things that first is the horror of discovering something that was invisible to you that suddenly is visible. And then is the pleasure of overcoming it, and understanding that that barrier is antiquated, no longer serves, girls don't change the world. You know, it just becomes such a joy. There are some really simple techniques in each of these good girl autoresponder examples where I said earlier, are not just a mental barrier or emotional but physical too. It’s such a fast habit to respond to crisis to say, “Yes,” or to say, “No, I'm fine.” It's such a fast habit to when asked uncomfortable, inappropriate questions to give the answer right away instead of questioning the questioner.
“In Power Dynamics, the dominant one is the one who has their attention out and powerfully on the other person. The one who follows has their attention inward.”
Which brings me to this really important subject of how power dynamics work. So, when a woman freezes, this is a really good way to articulate power dynamics. Let's say we have a boy and a girl growing up – this is changing, but it's been in our culture for so long that it's still worth mentioning. So we have Billy and we have Mary. And we reward Billy, and we reward Mary at entirely different moments. We reward Billy when his attention is out. He scored a goal, he built a fortress, he got into a fight, he messed something up, he won a trophy, his attention’s out. He is rewarded when his attention is out. Mary, however, “Look how lovely Mary is. Isn't that a lovely dress? Look at her lovely manners. Is Mary getting chubby?” Her attention’s on her. So, what happens very often, is in power dynamics, the leader, the dominant one, the one of authority – and this was definitely influenced by discoveries as a dominatrix – is the one who has their attention out and powerfully on the other person. And the one who is following has their attention inward. And you can see this really easily in the beautiful dance in some of the most profound conversations that people have. You know, the conversation that keeps you up until eight in the morning. You can't stop talking. What's happening is when you're speaking you're paying attention to the person who's listening, and you're seeing what lands, and you're seeing what doesn't land, and you're rearticulating the things that don't land in order to make them stick. And then all of a sudden, something sparks in the other person, that energy rises and all of a sudden they're telling you their story, and their attention’s on you and they're tracking you, and it switches and there's this play of dominant and submissive states attention that go back and forth. Billy and Mary have been trained that in a moment of crisis their attention immediately shoot to very different places. Now this tendency is so strong that I tested it and I've tested it and I've tested it. Scare a man, his attention goes you. Scare a woman, her attention goes me. This was super relevant, and it still is, why women freeze in situations, for example, like where they have to justify explain themselves when they ask that uncomfortable question or a sexual harassing uncomfortable remark is made. You know my superpower CEO woman might be unstoppable in the office, but on the elevator ride home when her neighbor asks her if she's single she freezes. She answers. She doesn't want to answer. She gets into a conversation she doesn't want to get into. And this may seem petty and small, but actually our life is made up of these interactions that inform us about the kind of people we are. So this habit, this dominant habit, when a woman's attention is on her and her attention is on herself, she will get into a biologically frozen state. The way to flip that power dynamic is so simple. If she turns her attention out and asks the person who asked her a question a question, she's already flipped the script. “Why do you ask?” is sometimes enough. “Are you taking a poll?” if it's totally inappropriate. “What on earth are you doing asking a question like that?” Right? Putting the attention back on them.
“When you focus on power: powerful communication and building powerful relationships, the evidence is not your feelings, it’s an effect.”
And this is also really wonderful in so many ways because sometimes we mishear things or we don't understand where people are coming from. We make the assumption that some inappropriate comment is really full of ill intent, especially in the workplace, now everybody has to be so careful. I had this student who was telling a story about when her boss asked her where she bought her lingerie. Totally inappropriate question for the workplace, right? But this boss of hers she really liked and was a really nice, kind of sometimes awkward guy. Having taken my class. She asked him, “Do you realize that can be a really inappropriate question for the workplace? Do you realize how that might make one of your female employees feel?” And he completely stuttered and broke down and said, “Look, I have been out of the dating game for 20 years and it's Valentine's Day coming up and there's this woman I really like, and I'm sorry I just wanted to know where I can get her a nice gift.” Totally inappropriate but that got cleaned up like this, and it didn't escalate into some weird tension where later she's wondering if she can go on that conference, and wondering if going to the bar where everybody socializing is safe because he's there, is he going to make another comment, is she going to end up in his hotel room, you know all those things disappear. They get clarified.
Jason: Now, you just went through an amazing overview, and I remember seeing – by the way if anybody has not seen the TEDx that Kasia does which goes over these concepts which I think is phenomenal and is one of the reasons I definitely wanted her on the show to share these concepts with you, definitely go check it out. And the one thing I just noticed is you've explained the whole situation of conditioning, what's happening. And at first when you're explaining I was like wow, is this the reality of things? Is there nothing that we can do to change this or accelerate the transformation? And then I noticed how you shifted and said something I was not expecting. You said, “the process of liberating yourself from that invisible prison is absolutely fun.” And now you've actually switched into giving us some prescriptions on what to do, and asking a question when the question has been asked to you is such a powerful reversal of those roles. I was going to ask, it doesn't seem like it would naturally come for most people, like right now we're sitting, or if somebody's listening they're in that car and they're like, “okay, wow that makes sense.” But when that moment arises, there's definitely like that emotional jolt that kind of triggers the lizard brain. And so my question to you would be, as I'm aware that asking the question when the appropriate question comes is one of the best ways to kind of shift the dynamics, what can I do to train myself to be more ready for those moments because I will always default to my natural at those times? Does that make sense?
Kasia: Yeah, well that's why we train. I mean, there's a lot of things we do at The Academy that any listener can do. Here's a really good one. People who are afraid of hearing, “No”. That's a general human experience of not wanting rejection; abandonment being one of the worst punishments. You know, primal, tribal. You get banished, you get rejected, it's worse than death. Death before dishonor, it's what gets people in the military. Again, there is a difference between how women and men respond to no, so I know more about how to train women to respond to no more than I know about men. But one of the things that happens, I think for both, however, very very very acutely for women, is because their attention is on themselves when they're asking, when they hear the no they take the hit as though it's a no to their existence and not to their request.
“‘No’ is a gateway to incredible power and incredible intimacy. Sometimes it’s better to get a NO to your first request than a YES. What you get to do, is to find out what the other person actually cares about.”
So once again, the prescription is actually the same, which is when you're making a request where you might get a no, keep your attention on the other person. You hear the no, you don't break the kind of connection of attention, because the person saying no oftentimes will experience that break in attention and feel like they've done so much damage just by speaking their truth in that moment. And that guilt will very quickly turn to anger. One of the things that we do is when we train a woman to hear no, we actually do, “No, no, request, no,” over and over and over and over again. She hears no, she keeps her attention on the other person then asks another question. Gets curious. Not, “Why not,” because that's trying to crush the resistance because anytime somebody resists something they have an internal reason for it. No is a gateway to incredible power and incredible intimacy. Sometimes it's better to get a no to your first request than a yes. Because what you get to do is you get to find out what the other person actually cares about. Most people don't say no in order to be asses. Most people don't like to say no, and if they're in a position where they're saying no it’s because something got triggered that they need to protect and if they value it enough to say no. And if the person on the other side can stay curious and connect with that thing that they value, the no either disappears or the entire nature of the conversation changes to a far more generative and powerful one. Because now you know something about the other person. Now you're connected with something tender that the no was designed to protect. And if you can get to that place to genuine curiosity when you hear no, it stops being about you. It even stops being about the request and it starts being about what's there on the other side that I can connect you to create an incredibly powerful relationship and generate a new possibility that would not be there if the person said yes.
If we had more time I'd go into a crazy dungeon story about the discovery of how boring it is when somebody always says yes, but resistance is a gift and it's something that we have two fixed ways of dealing with. Somebody meets resistance, internal in terms of like keeping a promise, or being disciplined, or externally meets resistance and another person in the form of no. We have this incredibly ineffective way of dealing with no. It’s is called crush or run. Imagine a little tribe, right, and another tribe is coming across the hill and the men go to crush that tribe, and the women run for the hills. Crush or run. Resistance is such a hotspot of incredible information and a matrix of power that stepping into and navigating through that no to get to what the other person really cares about creates a synergy where oftentimes the new proposition is so much more powerful and the vision is so much more profound than if the initial request was like, “Yeah sure. Let’s do that. Fine.” So my students hunt for no. They're hungry for no. When they hear no, they go, “Game on. We're going to get to something good.”
Jason: It's so incredible because the ways that you've approached this is not instinctual. I've never heard it be explained this way and it's so true because in essence, it's almost like we're in a polite culture and so we're always defaulting to the Yes, and I'm someone who's a very big passionate person about sales. I'm actually working on my own book about selling with love, and this is it. When the no comes it's an opportunity to discover and the way you've laid it out is so magical. And so, as we get more comfortable with that we've talked a lot about a lot of the issues of conditioning around women. I want to also throw one insight for men who are listening to the show right now. Because as we're seeing the dynamics the women, we're seeing some transformation. People like you are teaching the right methodologies for women to come into the workplace to embrace their power. So now, my question would be, what are some of the responsibilities that we can take as men, so that we can make this a more powerful workplace by embracing the differences we have, as well as making sure that we have certain behaviors that we keep in check possibly to ensure that we have the most output, and the best time, as we're going towards working in the workplace making an impact including both genders in the most powerful way?
Kasia: I’m about to say something very controversial.
Jason: There we go. That's why we do this.
Kasia: I'm only speaking for myself, because this is a very controversial thing to say. I was assigned the task of teaching men how to behave themselves regarding sexual harassment in corporations. And I found that what they are trying to do absolutely does not work. Jason I'm going to give you 20 behaviors that you are not to engage in. Remember them all, learn them and make sure you don't do them. If I tell a female student don't do up speak. Don't finish your sentences like the question. Remember to dress not to like this and not to like this. And remember to do this. If we're litigating those small behaviors that's not how human beings learn. Human beings learn socially. So this is the controversial thing. When you teach a woman, when she feels frozen or attacked, or undermined by a man, when you teach a woman to flip the power dynamic get connected to the other person. Ask questions, get information, get curious, develop a powerful ally. Find out if that person really is an enemy, or if they just didn't know. Then what you have is a woman who's growing in her power – side effect, she's teaching, socially, in the moment with social reward in the moment, the best behavior for any man or for any other person to take. I think we have a crisis when it comes to men right now, and I wish there was a teacher who was teaching this kind of thing but in reverse for men. Because what we're really forgetting is that, just like women have been conditioned to be the perfect wife for millennia, men have been conditioned to violently divorce themselves from their emotions in order to be able to go out to war and die for us. The sacrifice of that deep connection to emotion and the taboo of a man being sensitive or deeply connected and how that's not powerful, not strong, and how it shows up is absolutely horrendous. We live in a culture where empaths actually envy sociopaths, and any book out there on empathy is how to deal with the burden of feeling other people's feelings, and any book on psychopaths and sociopaths is like, “what you can learn from them without being one.” And this stuff about stoicism, stuffing down your feelings, and just keep pushing, and let's keep producing. We don't need any more of that in the world and it's not going to create powerful, beautiful, generative, life-giving things. It's just part of part of our suicide mission and death drive.
Okay, simple answer. Men can ask questions. They don't expect to get the answers because the truth is that, you know, especially in heteronormative, heterosexual relationships, women are getting angrier and angrier and more withholding and men are getting more and more uninformed, kind of dumb. How to make a woman happy, how to treat a woman right in the workplace, how to treat a woman right at home. How to do that, no information. Women are freezing, not communicating, getting shut down, getting angry, and men are like, “Where do we go from here?” So I could say, you know, ask them some questions. If all of their needs are being met or if there's something else. You'll probably get a, “No, I'm fine.” Unless it's an Academy student or a woman who's worked. You know done that work on not empowerment, but on power and power dynamics. It's such a crisis in the world right now: the ability to be able to actually see another person. Ask them where they’re at and where they’re coming from instead of making assumptions that what has just happened is a full-on assault. Cancel them. Fire them. Murder them. Right? But actually check in. Even if the person’s misbehaving. Actually, especially if the person’s misbehaving and you’re physically safe. Right, that's a caveat, if you’re physically safe. Find out what's behind there. It's gonna be a lot easier for women to Break the Freeze and start locating where men are at than the other way around. Because women shut down so fast because because of our conditioning. When that happens, but maybe just to be aware that this is happening.
“When a woman feels undermined by a man, you teach a woman to flip the power dynamics. Get connected to the other person. Ask questions. Get information. Get curious. Find out if that person is really an enemy or they just didn’t know.”
Jason: I so appreciate your worldview on how you approach this because it really feels like what you're doing is acknowledging the human as a whole, with our good and bad and not withholding anything back. You really teach the methods of us going through a path of growth and a path of becoming more of ourselves more fully. And I love the fact that you've actually pointed out how we're trying to give prescriptions of micro behaviors when we have to build the bridges between everybody, and I think that's a powerful thing. And nobody being perfect in the process. And I think with a lot more people that go out and teach the methods that you teach and a lot of people becoming more aware of ways to show up in the workplace, both as men and as women, it's a beautiful dynamic and I'm seeing all the progress that we're seeing today. Maybe this would be the best way to close, I’d love to ask, in the more recent years, or even specifically 2020 where we're seeing a lot of this work being done more remotely, are you seeing a very positive and accelerating change in the dynamics and for, especially women, showing up in the workplace, and are you excited about the years to come?
Kasia: Oh, I wish I had a more positive answer for you. I guess the positive, optimistic view is it's getting worse, and so the problems are more acute, and so, the problems to solve are more visible. Because right now, I feel like women are pretty much carrying the pandemic on their backs. Losing jobs and doing everything, the good girl behavior is at an all time high. It's my hope that this becomes part of a much bigger conversation in general in these kind of apocalyptic times where the problems are harder to ignore overall on every level. And that we use that as an opportunity to get aware, enlightened, and connected, not disconnected and hateful.
Jason: It feels like the whole world is going through this kind of Kensho moment which is like we're going to be more aware of the pain which gives us the opportunity to identify possible solutions in a quicker way. Hopefully a lot of people can take the initiative. Everybody if you haven't picked up the book yet, definitely grab Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power. This is Kasia’s book, it's amazing, particularly for the women listening here, you'll want to go ahead and grab this piece of literature and inform yourself. Make sure you have a look at her TEDx talk as well. And definitely look into The Academy. This is the school for the women that teach you the foundations of power and influence and during these times especially as she's just mentioned, things are not necessarily better, boundaries are probably being crossed more than ever as we work from home working even more hours. These are going to be the types of things that gives you the power to say No, to acknowledge and know when it comes at you, to bring back the question whenever you're put into an awkward situation with another question so that you can really speak your truth, and not just be indoctrinating or repeating the conditioning of the good girl behavior. We’re trying to break the mold. We want to bring these ideas forward and we can all take a small responsibility to be able to do our best in the workplace. And for men, ask better questions. Also do your best out there but we don't need to have a prescription list, look at ways that you can connect and bond with your colleagues, and you can ask better questions so that we can show up as a better person as well. Kasia, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing these amazing insights. I had a ton of fun, listening and I hope all the listeners had as much fun as I did. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Next Pivot Point Podcast: A Woman’s Guide to Power
“The most insidious kind of prison bars are the ones you don’t see. The most insidious kinds of prison bars are the ones that are now reinforced by you without your own knowledge. So women don’t need to be policed because a lot of that policing is now self-policing.”
“We don’t want to manual that gives you 101 things not to do. It’s much more powerful to do five things one at a time that automatically break those things. So explore asking, practice hearing no, log your invisible labor, make choices about what you’re going to do, learn the steps of having difficult conversations about the sacrifices you’re not going to make anymore. In a powerful, and here’s a key word – playful – way. ”
Listen on Libsyn, Listen Notes and Apple Podcasts
A Woman's Guide to Power with Kasia Urbaniak
Read the transcript:
Julie: Welcome to the Next Pivot Point Podcast. This season I'm focused on sharing stories and ideas from experts on diversity and inclusion. In this episode I will share some insights and ideas from Kasia Urbaniak, which I knew I was not going to say her name right I'm going to get it right in her bio here in a minute. Together, we will leave you with some actionable tips to think about and discuss with your organization. We share this information because inclusive leadership is a journey and requires bravery and courage and you don't have to do it alone. At Next Pivot Point I believe we are stronger together we are one. So the expert this week, Kasia Urbaniak, I said it correctly. Kasia Urbaniak. We're gonna link to all of our information in the show notes as we always do. But before she jumps on here, and forgives me for mispronouncing her name, I want to tell you a bit about why I'm so excited to have Kasia here with us today. So she is the founder and CEO of The Academy, a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. I love that P word, Power. Conscious perspective on power is unique. She's been decades working as one of the world's most successful dominatrixes while studying power dynamics with teachers all over the world. During that time she practiced Taoist alchemy in one of the oldest female led monasteries in China and obtained dozens of certifications in different disciplines including Medical Qigong and systemic constellations. Whoo hoo, what an interesting, interesting background you're bringing with us, Kasia. Welcome to the show.
Kasia: Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here.
Julie: Yay. Okay, so let's dig in. So much ground to cover. I love this whole conversation, we're gonna have about women and power. This conversation we don't talk about a lot – like you said, “women's empowerment,” we like to say – about power, and how power can be with not always power and or between genders. I can't wait to get to that. Before that, tell us more about your background, what a varied set of experiences you had, and how has that led to your journey of managing the academy?
Kasia: Well, it began with a very simple problem I needed to solve, which is I didn't have money for school. And we live in the kind of world where pursuing something taboo, like working as a dominatrix, for a 19 year old is actually unfortunately, sometimes the most practical way to be able to get an education. It began as something that I did for money. But as I was studying to be a Taoist nun, and was learning a lot about the energetics of the body, body language, the professional dungeon where I worked became a laboratory for understanding power dynamics between men and women in a way that was very precise, body based, visceral. I didn't want to be faking it for money, I wanted to understand what it was that I was doing and the effect that it was having. So all of the other studies that I was engaged in, ended up being tested in that space. So what does it mean to be in this play acting scenario, where I have the time limit, an hour, usually in which I'm supposed to be powerful and have power over someone. But because it's a consensual agreed upon environment, and I'm being paid, how do I make it real? How do I create this real experience, and in that, in that journey, I started, especially being someone who's not a natural dominant, I started seeing all the places in which I was doing things that did not work. I was doing things that dropped the other person disconnected from the other person, this person who's surrendering to my authority. And I'm not leaning into the authority in very, very, very subtle but ways that have a profound influence. So you know that this was sort of in the background for me because this was a secret. This was a secret job. I had only a few people knew and I had it for a very long time. So it was kind of in the background of everything else I was doing. And the women that I was growing up with, you know, from being a teenager to 20s to 30s, I saw these things that I had to overcome in that workspace informed by studying all these incredible arts of body language, reading bodies, energetics, spiritual development. I saw them coming up against problems in their actual lives. Everything from the crazy texting of someone, a boss or a lover, interpreting, interpreting, interpreting, analyzing what their intentions are without making a direct ask, and all of the ways in which even bodily like not taking up space, worrying about things that create static in communication. And so again, this was something that was sort of in the background, I considered it to in a way to be my my secret laboratory. But it grew in more and more importance and significance as I got older. Then there was a really pivotal moment where I considered my real job to be other things and I met my current business partner, a man, who'd been working in war zones for a decade. And the first conversation we had lasted six months. We got into this conversation about power dynamics, because in working in Africa, and Warzones, with people who didn't speak the same language, how do you establish authority to get your hospital bills – he worked for Doctors Without Borders. How do you how do you establish enough authority with human beings who don't recognize this piece of paper? And none of whom speak the same language where there's guns being pointed at you? How do you how do you do all of that? And it became, you know, my experiences in the fringes of spirituality and sexuality, his experiences on the fringes of war and death, in a conversation about power became incredibly connected and related, “oh, wow, these unspoken things that happen.” So we started experimenting. And we brought couples and women just invited people we knew, to talk about their problems, watch how they communicate, look at their bodies, look at how they're responding and affecting to each other in these hidden invisible ways. And this was really a passionate experiment; we didn't have any intention of starting school until those same people started talking to other people. And the overwhelming majority, being women, demanded a workshop. And we were in no way equipped to start a school, nor did we think that we were going in that direction. But the first we opened up for a free Q&A at the house, like in an apartment. And we had a waiting list that made us do five of them. And then we announced the class of winning.
Julie: That’s such a good problem to have.
Kasia: Yeah, and it was sort of like it was sort of the world being like, hey, there's a need here. And you're uniquely shaped to address it in this particular way. Are you are you are you going on this ride or not?
Julie: So the energy, right? You may not have thought that was the path forward, but the energy it produced. I would say, if people are asking the same question like three different times, like there's probably something there, and your case was fivefold. Such an interesting story about power in your own personal, real life learning experience in that environment.
So you have a book coming out about power. So tell our listeners about Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power.
Kasia: So Unbound is part training manual for battle, loving battle, and part Manifesto. It has concrete exercises, and guides the reader through a journey of breaking Good Girl Conditioning. So in retrospect, to those women who asked for a workshop, we didn't have words for it at the time, but it became very clear that they were sick and tired of being good girls. And I don't mean being good women, good human beings. But this conditioning that inspires the set of behavior that doesn't actually have a good result for anyone involved. People aren't called out, women are under-resourced, under-loved, under-nurtured they're doing everything alone, working 10 people's jobs, not getting acknowledged for it, you name it. Sick and tired. And this this idea is now more popular in our culture than it was seven years ago, that good girls got to go. And I see these like moments of euphoria, “I've had it, I'm not going to get good girl anymore. I'm going to be truthful, loving, fierce. I'm going to be one with my desires. I'm done.” The issue is that that euphoria lasts for two hours to two weeks before this, you know, these micro habits, this insidious conditioning starts creeping into actually takes behavioral, action, exercises, awareness of things that aren't talked about in our culture. How we accidentally compromise ourselves in our position. We were all operating from a place of you know, this was way before Me Too. So, you know, women's power in the world was less of an open conversation. And so the premise was, we're not going to wait for the world to be diversely inclusive, and we're not going to wait for sexism to be over, we're going to give women tools now to deal with the world as it is. So that they can have not just share of the pie, but be creating it and be acknowledged for the world they want to live in. The world they want to create. Small personal world, big world at large. And it's the reason now the reason I get up in the morning, every day and go, “this is gonna be a good day, no matter how hard or crazy it is, or how, you know, who knows what's gonna happen, but at least I know why I'm here.”
Julie: How do you help you understand your sources of power? It gives you, like you said, women's empowerment, because I even use that #cringing, and social meeting about women's empowerment. But we don't talk about women having power, how do you teach people to cultivate their power?
Kasia: Because being a, at least in my estimation, being a powerful woman having personal sovereignty, making choices based on what feels right, what sources, self and other, being powerful is actually the natural state. So it has a lot to do with removing the things that get in the way. And the most insidious kind of prison bars are the ones you don't see. The most insidious kinds of prison bars are the ones that are now reinforced by you without your own knowledge. So women don't need to be policed because a lot of that policing is now self policing, internalized. You can even create an internal mental chatter. So you know, there are things to call attention to that are pretty concrete.
Julie: Yeah.
Kasia: Right. In the academy, we have our students log, very meticulously, the invisible labor, they do mental, emotional, physical, and then go do I like doing this? What benefits? Am I doing other people's work for them without being acknowledged? Do I want to be acknowledged, do I want to be paid? Am I happy with this invisible labor as a gift to the universe? And I can pour my heart into it and know that I'm doing it? Is it something that would actually be beneficial for someone else to pick up and do? With awareness comes everything.
Another thing is the unnecessary sacrifices, the, “we don't really need this”, when really it could be something that sources. Or, “this is frivolous or selfish.” Actually, maybe, this elaborate morning time bath ritual is exactly the thing that's going to make me a kick ass leader all day.
Another and the probably one of the biggest things has to do with asking. Women really tend to at least from my experience, not ask for what they need, what they want, what would make them operate better. Sometimes the most outrageous ask is one that generates not only a huge shift in relationships, a huge shift in environment, but asking more of the people around you makes changes their role makes them feel like they are more exalted more power, like they can contribute more meaningful, more useful. And this idea that by not asking, we're actually doing someone a favor, turns out to be experientially, in my experience, absolutely untrue. We don't ask enough of our partners. We don't ask enough of our workplaces. We don't ask enough. And the issue with the asking thing is that oftentimes the extent to which we are afraid to ask afraid to hear no, afraid to be bossy or needy, the extent to which we inhibit speaking our desires, our vision, in the form of a request, a command and an invitation. The percentage of those that are that are stifled in us by us unconsciously is overwhelmingly huge and underestimated. We don't even know the things we're not asking for. Sometimes you ask for for a lot more and the dinner date, the work project, actually reaches its peak vision it's been more inspiring for everyone to work on more inspiring for everyone to participate in. And so it has so much to do with not just pointing out the habits, the qualities of Good Girl Conditioning, being accommodating, being moderate in appetite, both sexual and and foodwise, being low maintenance, which isn't there's no woman on the planet that's low maintenance. There's no human that's low maintenance. “Oh, no, I'm fine. I'm good. I don't need that.” Being incredibly resourceful making do with what you have, responding in a timely fashion, meeting other people's meeting unspoken obligations, all that stuff that would make a woman 100 years ago a wonderful candidate for marriage. She's no trouble, she creates a lot of harmony, does a lot of work behind the scenes. She's a great woman behind the scenes. All that stuff actually ends up resulting in really concrete behavior patterns.
Julie: I love that.
Kasia: How many women will want something, be offered it, and automatically say no, before they even have time to think about it?
Julie: “I'm okay.” From a young age. Yes, yes. Take care of others. These messages we teach girls are so many adjectives that are flawed that we use to describe girls, not boys. I want to go back to a word you shared earlier Kasia. The word insidious. And part of this is so serendipitous, because I just led a racial conversation with a group of white people. And they were talking about systems and inequality, redlining, all sorts of stuff that affects the And someone used the word insidious. Why is it so insidious? And my question to them is, “what does insidious mean to you?” Because I hadn't thought about that word in this context. And when you said it, I was like, “You gotta be kidding me. I just heard that word twice in one day, there's got to be something going on.” Well, instantly, when you talked about how it's hard to see, I thought of the feminist work that I read early in my Women's Studies curriculum back at Ohio State. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, right. So when you're in the cage, you can't really see, you take a step back to see that you're in a cage. But a lot of times we're seeing through these bars. So the insidious bars affecting women, you know, I know you and I both focus a lot on gender. And why is it hard to see these things? Like what are the things that are hard to see? And why is it hard to see them?
Kasia: There are stages in waking up. There are stages, this applies to race, it applies to gender, it applies to economic injustice, it even applies to our own emotions. You can identify three stages. For example, think about anger for a second. I've become an expert in spotting repressed and hidden anger in a woman who's smiling shiny eyed and insists that anger is not really her thing. She's more sad sometimes or frustrated, and you know, has shiny eyes and goes, “No, it's all good. It's great.” The stages or the stage, you don't know it exists. It's like a limb that's fallen asleep. And that stage is the one where the hidden unspoken thing, culturally or personally, is having an effect but nobody knows it's having an effect. We don't have words for it yet. Getting words for it is really, really, really important. You get words for something like anger, or a particular kind of injustice, the second stage enters. The painful pins and needles phase of your life waking up, it's when rage is at its worst. And we normally stop there. “We go, Oh, I'm angry. It's destructive and reckless.” And when this emerging awareness begins to arise, whether it's related to gender, race, or personal emotion, to stop at that phase, where it's like, “this is destructive, chaotic, messy, this is going to destroy all my relationships, I want to shut that back down.” It's like the Pandora's Box story. People forget that Pandora's box, the reason it's a problem is that right before hope comes out, the door gets shut. The third phase of an emerging awareness is one where the pins and needles have gone. You understand not just what you were fighting against with your anger, what the problem is, but you see the vision you're fighting for, not the thing you're fighting against. In that third stage, you can walk. You're not going to fall over if you walk on your numb leg because now it's awake, there's full circulation. And we very often in this culture get so freaked out by discomfort, the pins and needles, people shut down. Black Lives Matter talking about race – shutting down, shut that down. It hurts. “I'm not a bad person because I'm white.” All these things like this chaotic middle phase is so critical, important to be able to being able to make it through to the third phase is critical. So there are still so many things when it comes to gender. We've made so much progress over the years as women, right? And yet, we are still at a point where there are so many things that are still in that first phase. They're hidden. They're hidden. And so bringing those into awareness creates a temporary chaos. And this was witnessed in some of the more, I would say disruptive, aspects of the Me Too movement. But it's natural and now it's like let's get to the third phase with some of these issues.
Some of these things, when it comes to women, are insidious in the sense that you may not notice how many times you apologize or I walk into a room like you're apologizing or bracket what you're saying, or allow someone to make an assumption and not correct it or ask you an uncomfortable question and answer even though you don't have to, they have no right to ask. And you don't want to but find yourself explaining yourself, justifying yourself now, because there are 10,000 little behaviors of Good Girl Conditioning, to try to modify every single one of them ends up creating a really self conscious, destructive, vigilant self awareness. We don't want that. We don't want to manual that gives you 101 things not to do. It's much more powerful to do five things one at a time that automatically break those things. So explore asking, practice hearing no, log your invisible labor, make choices about what you're going to do, learn the steps of having difficult conversations about the sacrifices you're not going to make anymore. In a powerful, and here's a key word – playful – way.
Julie: Have fun. This doesn't have to be so serious.
Kasia: Oh, being a “Bad Girl” is tremendous fun.
Julie: Oh, yeah. Sign me up. Now this is interesting, Kasia, because you really have to be strategic. I don't know how many times I do women's workshops. And they're like, “Just give me the things to do. Just tell me the top 10 list.” I’m like, “I can tell you do not use qualifiers in your language.” Yeah, say no more. I just made a list earlier today, grudgingly. But I love how you're you're peeling back the onion and making more strategic choices, right? And thinking about those invisible factors and your invisible labor and your sources of power. And asking for it. And this chaos that happens temporarily is part of the journey. We didn't get here overnight. We're not going to undo this overnight. It's going to take time. And you got to think bigger, and bolder than just little baby steps. So I love all these tips.
I'm curious, what do you think men have in this conversation about women? I talk a lot about men as allies. I'm curious,how can men help with this Good Girl Conditioning and truly share power with women?
Kasia: You know, the truth is, and this is maybe a controversial controversial opinion. But, the people who are in a position to give power up, as though it's a limited resource, right, which is a lie to begin with. But let's just look at the psychological construct. The issue is they can't fully know what our experience is. And it's very easy to say, “Well, they should share power. They should know better.” The issue is most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time they don't. Human beings do what works. Good Girl Conditioning exists because it worked for a really long time, for millennia. It's just not working now. That's why we need to update it. So the person who's suffering, or the group that's suffering, it's a controversial thing to say that it's kind of on you to inform others. Not because, “Oh, great. We have more work to do now.” But because we're the ones carrying the information about what's not working for us.
Now, people ask me all the time, “When are you going to teach men?” And oftentimes those are people who haven't been at the academy for long enough or at all, because the truth is, I train women to train men on these tools, right? When a woman gets into the habit of asking for her highest vision, even in the smallest scenario, her highest vision of dinner, her highest vision of what a meeting could be. Big things – her highest vision of where to live, how to live, how much money to make, how she wants to be treated. Small things, big things, how she wants the family to run, all of those things. When she gets into the habit of asking for the most the highest vision, there's going to be knee jerk reactions, there's going to be some pushback. Navigating those is not only where the training happens, it’s where the intimacy and collaboration happens when somebody is resisting you initially. If you can get with the fact that people don't say no, or resist things, generally just to be jerks, they do it because they're trying to protect something. And helping them become aware of what it is they're trying to protect and even validating it – even if it's something like vanity, they're afraid of being humiliated, they want to maintain the status quo because it makes them feel safe – if you can if you can sit with their no or their resistance long enough to find out what it is that they're trying to protect, the second conversation after resistance or after no, is 1000 times better than the first conversation where you make an outrageous ask. It's where all of the inventiveness, the collaboration, the genius, the stronger relationship, again, whether it's professional, romantic or familial. That's where those things are born. It's after the fire. It's after that second stage.
Julie: The chaos.
Kasia: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And being afraid, because Good Girl Conditioning tells us not to be messy, not to be emotional, not to be reckless, not to be too much. Don't be too much. The thing is too much is oftentimes not enough. Right?
Julie: Right.
Kasia: You go all the way through and something totally new and the landscape changes. It doesn't become about what I want versus what you want. It becomes what's the thing that is even better than what both of us want.
Julie: It gets bigger together. And that's talking about ally ship with men. And you're right. I mean, the onus is on women, we're the ones being affected by it, to educate men. And it's exhausting. I know.
Kasia: Another way of looking at this that actually is more empowering – ha, empowering – motivating, inspiring. Is that okay, this is a blanket statement, right? It's just a generalization. But in general, especially in heteronormative, heterosexual relationships. What happens is over time, women get angrier and angrier and men get dumber and dumber. And the men that I come across around the school and in my life, what I see over and over and over again, is they want to get it right.
Julie: Yeah, they want to be a good guy.
Kasia: They want to be they want to be better than a good guy. They want to be the knight in shining armor.
Julie: Also not helpful.
Kasia: No, yes, it is. Yes, it is. No, I have no problem with men who want to do everything wonderfully exaltedly well. The issue is that men will habitually shut down when they're in no win situations. And Good Girl Conditioning is the recipe for that. “Don't give them a job big enough. Awesome enough. Don't ask enough.” After a while. They're like, “I can't win. I'm damned if I do. I'm damned if I don't. I'm supposed to guess. I can't read minds. I don't understand. My my masculine conditioning has made me into a monster now?”
Julie: Toxic masculinity.
Kasia: Yes! And the thing is that it's difficult to really accept that as people do what works and behavior that was exalted is now becoming seen as toxic. The behavioral adjustment that needs to happen on the side of men. There is some more information, support, and guidance they need and so many are dying for it.
Julie: They don’t want to be in this man box either. The Good Guy Conditioning and the Good Girl Conditioning isn't good for either gender. It would be so much better outside of these boxes.
Kasia: I would be talking about Good Girl Conditioning and Big Man Conditioning. If I were a hermaphrodite. I don't know enough about the men's experience from the inside. At the the academy we make sure that everything that we teach is based on something that you can experience in the body. Like it's a real felt experience on a conceptual theory. Oh, look what happens here and this moment to the body. So I don't have a man's body. I don't know what it's like to walk through the world, especially as a heterosexual white man.
Julie: It would be an interesting exercise for a day, wouldn't it?
Kasia: It would be amazing.
Julie: It would be amazing. Maybe just for a day.
Kasia: We to do an exercise like that in the school. But I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this podcast.
Julie: Totally fine.
Kasia: Yeah, we do a game that's called if I had a dick.
Julie: Nice. Yeah. What would that be like? I think we can just imagine how that activity plays out. This has been so fun, gosh, to be with you. Obviously, we can talk for hours and we got to do a part two after the book comes out this fall, to talk about all the great things we're continuing to see and speak about. But for now, so long. Let our listeners know, how can they follow you? How can they engage with your work further?
Kasia: I encourage everyone to check out weteachpower.com. On there, we have so many different tools and resources that a woman can use without ever taking a class. Also information about classes and the book and events that we're having are on there as well. And that's really the best place to go for everything. And then when Unbound – A Woman's Guide to Power comes out November 17, I encourage every woman to get herself a copy and take that little manual out into the world and get your desires met, create the world you want, because we need powerful women in this world now.
Julie: Yeah, we do. I love I love using the word power more with women. That's my personal takeaway from this episode and less of the empowerment piece.
Kasia: Right, it just implies that you can get empowered by yourself.
Julie: Exactly. I had it all along. Awesome, Kasia, well thanks for being with us today it's been such a treat to have you.
Kasia: Thank you so much.
Unbinding from the Good Girl Narrative
“If you try really hard to name a stereotypically Good
Girl that’s changed the world, you can’t. Even Mother Teresa was a rule breaker. Good Girl conditioning is expertly designed to maintain the status quo. And we live in a world right now that desperately needs a change of the status quo.”
“Our morality code is ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The poles should not be ‘good’ and ‘bad’ but what’s alive and what’s dead. Rules that no longer make sense, that don’t function, that’s dead. What’s alive? What feels alive? The life force has a distinctly erotic quality. When you’re aware of your own aliveness, it’s a whole body affair that definitely includes your sexuality.”
Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
You can also listen on Deezer, Google Podcats, Breaker, RadioRepublic, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, Overcast, and Castbox.
The Heidi Hauer Podcast
Read the transcript:
Heidi: It's a great pleasure for me to welcome Kasia Urbaniak to my podcast today, Kasia is the founder and CEO of the Academy, a school that teaches women the foundation of power and influence and power is unique. She spent decades working as one of the world's most successful donations as well studying power dynamics, with teachers, all over the world. During that time to practice Taoist alchemy in one of the oldest female administrates in China, and obtained dozens of certifications in different disciplines including medical Qigong and systemic constellations.
Heidi: You teach women how to break free from the good girl coding. So what are the limitations of being good? So what's bad about being good?
Kasia: Well, first let me say there is absolutely nothing, nothing bad about being good. However, after observing thousands of women coming to my classrooms, after my experience on planet Earth, it's very very clear to me that a lot of the good being a good girl is so automatic and unseen invisible to us that it becomes choiceless. We don't have awareness, you don't have choice and when you don't have choice. You know what that feels like. It's a prison. I would prefer that if we are to be good intentional about it, or our heart into it fully. Yeah, and see that this is what we're doing, we're, we're pouring our energy and attention in order to flower something for something good to blossom. So, one of the shocks that a typical student at the academy receives when they first arrive, is a catalogue of their own incredibly extensive, good girl behavior that they were only peripherally aware of the extent of it. Right. So, when we talk about control condition. We're talking about the problematic kind that we do without being aware. So the good girl conditioning has us be modest. So we don't we don't celebrate our achievements we don't speak of them, terrible for a job right point where sometimes we don't need to accommodate. You are always responding in a timely fashion. Oftentimes performing loads of invisible labor. Oftentimes, walking into a room dressed as an apology not just apologizing constantly for things that don't deserve apology. And these things slip out so quickly and to color. Our actions profoundly so one of the invisible. Right. We call it invisible labor, but there's a term out there, emotional labor, people talk about how much emotional labor women do. But what's most significant about it is it's not just emotional it's physical and it's mental work. And it's largely invisible so when we have the students do rigorous catalog, just spending one day. How much time do they spend, thinking about how to prevent someone to me from making the mistake they typically make. How much time did they spend trying to figure someone else out, namely for their behalf. How much time did I spend, you know, arranging child care, responding to the need of a friend who maybe doesn't even need didn't ask for help, maybe doesn't even need help. How much did I do to make everything good without even being aware of it and I'm telling you when they after the end of this inventory so some women come up with a percentage as high as 80% of their day.
Heidi: Incredible.
Kasia: Responding constantly you know with their nervous systems active work, what do I do here am I doing this right. Can I help here is that not fully conscious, and then it becomes quite easy to understand why someone are so exhausted overworked frustrated. Feel unseen feel invisible unacknowledged and don't have time for their passion projects don't have time for the things that light them up, don't have time for. Alan, and this is just one tiny aspect of it, because it comes out to me in communication. So, again, nothing wrong with being good. Nothing wrong with even being good girl. The, the other part to it, is that if you try really hard to name a good girl that's changed the world. You can't. Even Mother Teresa was a rule breaker. You can't because a good girl that girl conditioning is designed to maintain the status quo. And she maintains the status quo at home, at work, she maintains the status quo. And we live in a world right now that needs a change of the status quo. One of the first games we play is what would you do if you were a bad girl. And as silly a game as that may sound what starts to open up is the breaking of unspoken or implied rules or real rules that actually no longer apply have no benefit.
Heidi: And it's probably social conditioning, I guess. I mean there is of course the family as the original unit where you learn all those rules but I guess it's a broader thing that also. Yeah, going on for many many centuries and thousands of years, but probably there is maybe something of that is even built in, I mean I thought the other day that we, our strength, our superpowers have to transform and lift up, emotions, but I think the thing is if we're not aware of that and we don't do it intentionally as he said at the beginning, we are everyone's emotional dustbin basically instead of really saying this is a skill and I'm applying it to and with whom I choose to share.
Kasia: The idea of women being equal and free is actually very very new in terms of human history. And for millennia, the best we could ever hope for was to marry well. And that's how she could channel all her ambitions all her hopes for the future. And so the qualities of a good girl happen to be the ones that make a woman marriageable. Low maintenance, resourceful, can make do with what she has doesn't want anything for herself. Smile. A beat right, whatever, full range of emotions. Doesn't want money doesn't want sex, just wants what's best for everyone else. And the idea that in this brief time where we're talking, relative to history that we could just suddenly snap out of it, not see that, but that's sort of the direction we've been going in, is unrealistic. So it takes a conscious awareness about these qualities are in order to be able to choose. I want, I'll keep this. I don't need to do this anymore. This is not me feel right this this is I can still do and I can do it with my full heart and soul. And the other thing you know is I don't know nature versus nurture and the scientific differences between men and women past you know basic genitalia. And the thing is the theories, they change quite often, the more we bring in, so I can only go by the patterns I see in the repeat patterns I see in women I come in contact with and one of the greatest discoveries was that so many of these things are not individual psychological issues that you can work through in therapy that you can work through on your own, to be recognized as more universal universal so the first thing I say it's not you, it's not your fault. There's nothing wrong with you, we're just we're changing the programming and we are getting our hands on the code, and we are we are playing with it consciously, exploring.
Heidi: I guess all of the listeners have experienced the final stage, free, and I'm currently training at the neurosciences Academy where it's fascinating to see how much scientific proof there is according my connection is actually true and it is something that we've known for many many thousands of years. But we now have a scientific backing. And in your programs like for example the online course themselves and social that you can buy online, you speak, how to learn to first of all to recognize is neuromuscular lockdown that we experienced when we are in the state of the freeze. And then secondly also how to get out of that. Is there a simple trick to share with the listeners
Kasia: Yeah yeah well the first thing definitely has to do with recognizing what it is and recognizing how it feels for you. Because if you really start becoming aware of the moments you freeze, meaning that moment, not when you choose not to speak. But the moment where you're pressing yourself to speak where you want to say something where you feel a burning desire to say something. To scream to shout to enter your suggestion or to say no or whatever the context is, and suddenly thousand thoughts in your head. No words coming out. So, non scientific description of the observation of me, and so many women, what happened. Right.
Heidi: Yeah.we've all been there. I mean, everyone knows the
Kasia: The wilder part if you start looking at it, to start realizing, if you are like most women that it actually happens often to most women, many times a day. It's not just the high stakes situation. It's not just the, oh my goodness I'm going to lose my job or, you know, a waiter asking for a phone number it's, it can be the smallest thing someone in an elevator saying you make a great mother when you have no kids. It can be anything. To have that this based experience of not knowing when you can trust yourself to speak. And when you can trust yourself to speak can actually function as a form of gaslighting like not knowing when the ground is going to come out from under your feet. Being able to know that you can trust yourself to speak. That alone is a powerful tool. So what tends to happen is the deepest conceptual idea framework of the school has to do with attention. Being the building block of a power dynamic. Someone will put attention on a woman. A woman will put attention on herself. She's, she's now doubling down with attention. And the longer this last every single second she's driven deeper and deeper into herself. This has to do with how our inner conditioning or default state has to go inward, or defaults, they have to go inward. This exacerbates the freebies set in place, his or her butt oftentimes hits, because men are trained to use the opposite form of attention very dominant outward, or inward, feel the need to explain or justify ourselves but can't even make the words were frozen, and the simple but not easy trick is to learn to flip the power dynamic by changing where the attention is more simply by putting attention on the person in front of you. By asking a question. The question about the question or a question about person's right to ask a question, but why question. Because the moment you put your attention, out of someone and ask them a question. They are also forced even for a split split second, to go in order to answer. And in doing so, the balance of attention shifts now heard on the person, and his or her the other person's attentions on themselves. This split moment, even if it's just a moment is enough for a woman to recover her agency or access to language and in some cases some dangerous situations, asking a dumb question like, Where did you get your tie is enough. Obviously the answer doesn't matter, it's enough for her to stand up and run out of the room. That flip of attention, she recovers her access to her body her mind and her decision making faculties.
Heidi: Fascinating. Brilliant. So let's drill deep and go deep into influence and power dynamics for a moment, how would you define power?
Kasia: In the school we define power as a person who has powerful relationships. And a powerful relationship is defined that what you do is well received, wanted and well used. And what you receive is what you wanted. What you can use well and make more of we want synergetic relationships. Right. So when a woman is the center of her community. When she, you know, either organically or through training at the academy starts building powerful relationships this way and is the hub of this network of powerful relationships. The collaborations, the support she can get is unparalleled, whether it's literally the fulfillment of her wishes dreams and desires and having this incredible support system to protect her and to work with her, or whether she is acting in the, in the other energy the dominant energy and she's leading others. If power ends up being the thing that not only gets her what she wants and gets her impact and her voice into the world and gets her tender needs met. It also is essentially collaborative, because the people who are on board on board Heart, Body and Mind, they're not there because they're forced. Right. Yeah, we have that kind of toxic power. It shouldn't even be called power because a tyrannical power is very wasteful energy.
Heidi: Yeah.
Kasia: Every dictator that takes over a nation needs an incredible amount of force through the military through all kinds of little bush doesn't really been the Heart, Body and Mind of people. And eventually, there's a rebellion and we all know how that goes that stories itself. So that's on the macro level but micro level it's the same damn thing.
Heidi: An influence is also linked to negotiation, people who are good at negotiating. They love the game and they love all the stuff actually the conversation when there is no in the room, and I've. It was really a lightbulb moment for me because I think, as most women you think no it's a no and stop sign and that's the end of it, but having this massive or amazing. Okay. And no, this means we have got to change the scope or the content of the conversation but you want to continue, that's fascinating for me. Do you personally deal with a no? How do you navigate through a world where you have to find your way through it and sometimes that probably means taking not take no for an answer?
Kasia: I couldn't agree with you more and I'm so glad you bring this up because right now we live in a world where the world structure itself is a no is a no, to what most women want to what most people actually deeply want, especially when women tend to fear no more than men. There are reasons for this. There is we do a “no vaccine”, in this school. It's a series of it is to get in well. Now, first things first, we live in an age where we're talking about consent. So it's also very very important to understand that No means no. Right. No means no. But when, when we train ourselves to not just get excited about no but to hunt the No. To find no, for it for a very very very good reason. Our entire being body and approach to what real deep connected creation, whether it's in a professional relationship or a romantic one or familial one, a new kind of game begins. Some of my older students when they hear no they like to brag that they say, the moment they hear no and they go Game on. They don’t crush the other person's No, yeah, we are not. We are not consent violators. People often people rarely say no to be jerks. People rarely, some do right but it's actually more that someone says no because they're trying to hurt your feelings. Oftentimes what's happening is they're saying no, because there's something even more important in them that they're trying to protect, preserve that feels threatened by, by this new situation. So, if you can hear no and understand that that is a gateway to either intimacy, or a secret passion, or a desire that's there. When you can connect with that desire with that. With that, even if it's another person's vanity or their belief that the company rules are very important their need for some of them, or something much more tender something much more burning. If you can get behind the no, and show that you actually are interested in knowing that thing that is being threatened by the no, the no tends to dissolve or change nature. And even if the no stands, you're actually now having a much more either real deep connected intimate conversation or in the context of business in the context of professional life, you're having a conversation, based on vision or based on what, how can we now get creative and have it so that we can create something even better, that honors the thing that you believe in, and that fulfills the thing that I want to create. And that space that third space that third off, are all like so often, so much better than getting yes to your initial request, especially if it's a wobbly Yes, a false Yes. You get to a no, you get to work and that's where the magic happens. So, no is a wonderful, wonderful wonderful thing to begin looking at and exploring. In terms of advice, one stepping stone to being able to to work in that context, is that there's another phenomenon that happens when that when people, but especially women hear no. Their attention is out on the other person while they're making a request or making a suggestion or asking for something. And, one must understand that the animal of someone else's body when they're receiving that kind of attention, they feel it. The moment they say no. The attention retract point quite violently snaps back into the body of the person saying no, is that they just got dropped. And when they get dropped, they already feel judged for having said no. Therefore, reassert their more defensive position. Now, so if you hear a no and you can keep your attention on the other person, even for a few extra seconds. And of course, the question to ask depends on the context but ask as a soft curious question. Like, how did it make you feel that I asked you that in an intimate was, you know, find out what's so important to the other person, they feel help, they feel safe and believe me, even the most bullying barking dogs feel safe, and it's that attention that that curiosity that holding someone else in there, that allows them to settle down and start revealing.
Heidi: I love that. What are the phases that we can play together, I mean that's to really understand this is a no to a certain path but what's behind it.
Kasia: It also tends to sound like something that will end up being a compromise, like, I want this, you want that. Let's do halfway let's democratize dissatisfaction. Let's all be a little unhappier together so we can play along. Hell no. Yeah, now get what you want or something better, and do it with them. You get them on board that's influence that's power. You don’t crash hidden tender sides of them in order to get what you want because what you have is not an ally you have a yes to one request, not a loyalty.
Heidi: Fantastic. Yeah and I guess the requirement for that is to be open minded and curious and, and also comfortable yourself that that can be an option that you probably haven't figured out your head yet, and that there is something else. So that. Yeah, sounds far more exciting. The founder of Sophie order in the west that beginning of the last entry The following is that “I can see as clear as daylight hours coming, when women will manatee higher evolution.” I have to admit at times it really feels like a new female leadership is matching the concept of women which previous of mine, Jana Riga, and she, She calls the new women are the evolved women, authentic fearless, courageous woman who exercises compassion and kindness, a woman who is in power, because she has met a staff in the shadows. She's a communicator, that chooses what to focus on very much what he touched on before she doesn't necessarily, but she's not leading radical upset. She's always working for the greater good. Is there a part of the statement that resonates with you, and why or what is your vision for a woman in power, or in whole women or new woman, women in leadership.
Kasia: So much of it resonates with that I would like to focus on the parts I disagree with.
Heidi: Good. Go ahead.
Kasia: With the principle of them more how this is a description of a woman in a particular state. What's missing for me in this is what gets her there. What's the core of this, this is a description of a series of behaviors and advocates, but in a woman in that state what is she fueled by what is she driven by what makes it possible for her to occupy the space. But I've observed in working with women that if they allow themselves to be incredibly selfish. If they allow themselves to dig deep into what they really deeply truly want and organize their entire personal universe, extending as far out as possible. In accordance with that deeply felt desire and all those things you just mentioned, happen. Now, I understand selfishness is terrible quality but I think in language, whoever problem, selfish and selfless our words. And when, when a student allows themselves to be selfish enough, and they get filled up selfish in a way that feels good, they naturally their cup runs over. On the opposite, when a woman is really striving for the greater good, in the sense of being selfless, selfless, selfless, what you have is the archetype of the starving, angry, activist, that’s fighting against injustice was reading the internal spiritual scarcity they feel inside everyone on activists we love our actions, tell her this put yourself first, even though the world's on fire because you are a part of the world. So, what I don't want is this description to start sounding like the new Good girl formula. Right? all the qualities you mentioned are qualities that are naturally coming up in women who feel that passion and go out into the world, taking care of themselves and others as they go. And you know, right now, even just seeing, you know, maybe it's a coincidence but just seeing how the nations that are led by women how they're handling the pandemic. It's like, smooth, no major problems, and, and the mentioning of the shadow in that description is also really important to be able to love your hatred love your sadness love your depression love your disappointment of your fear yet the injustice and know how to turn those emotions from their reckless destructive form into passionate purpose and into of into all of those things. It's a skill that we, as a society, sorely lack.
Heidi: Yeah. So let's talk about sex, I think, female empowerment often covers self confidence in the affairs. We've now learned self care at home. And all those sort of things, but I would, I would think it's also important to extend that a little bit further, and in my view of entity reclaiming your own power, really extend us into the bedroom, and saying yes to live in all its dimensions for me means of saying yes to your own sexual desires how you claim and create and experience your sex life. Do you find or people, women, are blocking themselves? What are the reasons for that?
Kasia: Oh well. Absolutely yes but to to say that we are blocking ourselves this incriminating right. I don't think a lot of this is fun. I believe that when we follow what's alive, that our morality code right now is good and bad that the polls should be not good and bad but what's alive and what's dead rules that no longer makes sense that don't don't function that's that. What's alive, what feels alive. And the lifeforce has a distinctly erotic quality. When you're aware of your own aliveness sexuality. We've done this very funny thing where there's a woman. For sexuality. So a woman and her sexuality because those two things have been separated. Could you describe a man who's using his sexual power at work. Oh, he's standing up straight and erect like a penis and there's a tie pointing to his crotch. Maybe that's what more sexy power looks like. What I'm trying to say is that when been separated and not integrated, then the sexuality becomes a separate topic, instead of melody and eroticism of everyday life of every decision, and that that eroticism for a woman. Maybe for everyone but that eroticism for a woman has the power to alchemize her negative emotions, positive one has the power to give her a broader voice but we're afraid that if we use our sex, right, that comes from the language construct that is still separate from us. Cheating we're doing something wrong when there really is no way to separate our sexuality from ourselves. We are erotic human creatures. So that's number one. Number one is taking back this disconnect. Number two is breaking the Sleeping Beauty myth, right, that you know, there's still pervasive that you can be in a coma. And then, renew reach socially sanctioned heterosexual men can come and wake you up out of your coma, with a kiss, which implies our sexuality comes from outside. But it doesn't, it's, it exists within you, it comes from inside. So, it's not a primary recommendation is just personal just in you and you're like wow, I am an erotic being the experience of levels of running. That can be incredibly healing and empowering the rest of it, the rest of the journey as communicating about sex with others, communicating your desires, can be able to read instructions fearlessly while handling your lover, beginning a new kind of experimentation to play entering, creating playful spaces where spam, take place, and nobody gets it wrong. Nobody's a failure because this performance based model of sex is not working for anyone. ‘Did I do good?’ When you say yes to life, you say yes, we know how to say no right or we're learning to say yes. A lot of women will say no very quickly to something that they might actually want because they're afraid subconsciously or consciously that once they get there they'll be powerless to change course if the interaction doesn't go according to the way their body is speaking, and our bodies speak to us I mean, they, they are wonderful. They will change in a heartbeat from this to that, from touching me softer to harder to like this to like that. So, the journey of a woman reclaiming her voice. Her ability to be powerful and influence and also her ability to surrender and receive, and to be able to switch from one to the other, to be able to give instruction in the state where she's ready to receive being worshiped or whatever it is that her heart desires, no matter how inappropriate or outrageous or selfish or greedy it may seem there, they're intricately related. When a woman finds herself. Really masterful in creating a playful erotic experiences for herself that are exactly to her liking that end exactly when they when she wants them to end that that begin that create no debt no expectation no idea or create ironclad commitment whatever she wants.
Kasia: You know they'll do things like, oh, I'll go out on a date with you. And I'm very sexually attracted to you and I have no clue as to whether we have sex tonight or not. But if we do end up feeling like sleeping together. Afterwards, I expect you to stay in the bed with me for at least two hours. And after you go, I expect you to call me in the morning, if you can agree to that, then there's hope for us having played tonight, and even having said this. Let's see how it goes right so setting up a container where they're gonna go in there and feel safe immediate, they know they're gonna go in there and have exactly what they need to have the experience they want. And that's powerful, it's very important because it ends up translating to other aspects, and vice versa.
Heidi: The creative life force is the same with our sexual actual energy.
Kasia: And maybe one of the most critical. Even if you choose to be celibate right like your sexuality, your sexual integration and your sexual self action and your erotic lifeforce is its radiance vitality long life, positive feelings positive chemicals, you know, all of that stuff.
Heidi: Moving on from this fascinating topic to another fascinating topic which is one of my favorite books is Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch, and there it's mentioned that the human race is still in infant stage and I think that's really true, but we're still realigning to be in our bodies we're learning to eat what is good for us we're learning not to kill each other. We're so much more capable and our bodies are so precious our minds of the powerful and I'm always in all by how amazing it is to be a human being, and how wonderful it is yeah how we can connect to the power beyond ourselves and creating a life that is fulfilling that is on purpose is the most exciting journey of all, I find. You do have a very exciting journey yourself truly remarkable extremely unique. Was there a decisive moment in your life where you felt that calling or where you knew now it's time to teach and step out into the world and follow your calling? And where do you find the courage to do that?
Kasia: Oh, this this answer is a little bit complicated because I prayed for purpose from the time I was 12 years old, desperately. And maybe it was because both of my parents are quite successful jazz musicians and they, they, they were like music was a religion to them, and everything. Be like music, and to find the thing you love and follow it and ignore everything else and break all the rules and improvise and not have a plan and and, which was great. But I wanted a calling so bad. I wanted to have a purpose so badly. And it led me to do all these things that felt like they weren't it. They were good. All right. And I remember having so many moments of despair. Praying saying, Give me your reason to be here. And it was so funny because I never wanted to be a teacher.
Heidi: Irony of life.
Kasia: I met my business partner who was my boyfriend at the time, and he started conducting experiments because he had a lot of experience in war zones and he had experience on the fringes of sexuality and fringes of spirituality. We realized that you understood a lot about power and power dynamics that didn't have to do with language at all. In all of those rounds in a warzone nobody speaks the same language. I mean at least. So, we started conducting experiments on our friends, women that we knew more and more people came in any workshop, we didn't really want to do it. We did one. There was a waiting list. So we did some more waiting lists for eight months, we're like, oh, maybe we'll try this on. And then I had this realization is there's a pattern to self development workshops and how teachers do things right there's like the weekend for them, but 8am to 5pm feel deal, right? Friday night, Saturday, Sunday many American workshop leaders structure their, their work. What if anything I don't want? What if I start my classes that knew what if I were ballgowns evening were in strange costumes? What if in my first class I have a bunch of men dress up as priests, and we confess our sexual secrets to them? What if one day, we have a man who is works for the police department who was a police officer who wants some punishment so we can all slap him so we have slap a cop? Right. I mean, now what the school does not look that way anymore but we had candelabras, we had music, and it was so much more an artistic performance or mental theater. And inside that space we started seeing all these patterns we started seeing what will make a woman go for what she wants. Let's have her bag let's have her screen let's have her beat up a mannequin. Let's have a wrestle let's have her, you know, let's see what would not not 20 years of therapy, but this one asked let's see what we can do to get her to feel fully equipped. And we would use anything try anything and it sort of dawned on me later. Oh wow. I don't know what other people are calling this, you know, teachers, school, maybe we should name the damn thing. Maybe we should figure out how this works as a business. But, oh, I guess I'm a teacher, I guess I have a school.
Heidi: But I love that you started it from a completely different angle. It was curiosity.
Kasia: I was obnoxious. I said, my website was password protected. I will not use newsletters. I do not i'm not going to do anything until I feel like doing it. I was obnoxious, it's so essential now I see is that I would feel insecure after my classes I would feel very shaken by all the experience. So I'd have five to 10. Students who had been in the school longer or friends, surrounded me for an hour after each session just giving me compliments, while someone stroked my hair. So, the self care program that included others for me to teach with. I mean, by conventional standards. Totally obnoxious. And so, so there isn't a single component of all of those things that actually took something to be like, I'm gonna be obnoxious. I don't make my own food. I'm driven to the class like everything has to be prepared for me. I am told I am amazing, even when I’m not.
Heidi: I love that. It feels like you did what was meant, or what felt right for you in that moment and not letting yourself be labeled in a certain way that you didn't feel was right, or doing things that are the conventional way of doing it you, and by doing that that you found so much wisdon. It’s a beautiful thing that you're not teaching come from the time of being very experimental about things.
Kasia: It also points to something came to my mind infancy. I feel like humanity's It was really funny place where I remember the years, decade ago, so it was horrible tsunami in Sri Lanka, or somewhere. And I just remember, even this typical and tsunamis and natural disasters, but I remember being really struck by how all the animals need to leave. And I started feeling like humanity is in this really funny place where we've been dancing what loss. And so it sounds very abstract, but I had two moments where I felt like I knew what I wanted to do. One was when I read the science fiction book Dune. There was a secret society of intergalactic. I want to help me recover the arts, being an animal connected to earth that word intuition, and the, what is the ingredients in getting closer to that place where you can be led and trust your intuition, even when it's impractical and illogical or obnoxious and outrageous, one of the essential elements has to do the proving of everything that arises within you. You cannot be selective. If it's in you, it's, you've got to decide is a human being. Fundamentally bad and therefore needs socialization. In order to not cause habit. Are we all fundamentally good, and when something bad seeming comes up in us. It just needs tending to in the right way. Are we fundamentally good in a world that loves us, or are we fundamentally bad in a world in nature that's against us. And if you really take a look at most spiritual traditions, most, you know, the whole basis of philosophy. It kind of implies that our bodies are bad people, and that we have to work really hard to overcome the sin of being here that we are wrong. And then we need to do a lot of work to make up for it definitely can't be our true selves, ever, because that's dangerous. See, that way appears to you, you suppress anger in human beings right it's not nice to be angry. Does violence in the world and no, it gets more hidden in social interactions, but then gets outsourced via the very nice huge way. Same with sexuality repressed sexuality pornography and unhealthy destructive forms of sexuality. So, it appears that this idea that we're fundamentally wrong, and that we need to fix and change everything before we are safe for the world, because we will break the world, does not work does not work is also one of the reasons that we spend so much time in the academy talking about self attack and how to be playful about the moments where we find ourselves attacking ourselves and how to choose self celebration instead. Even if you make a mistake, you're like, nobody is gonna make that mistake that way, I didn't love my side.
Heidi: How do you feel healthy and happy I mean, I guess one of main secrets is what you just read in terms of really loving yourself or honoring everything that comes up, but do you have traits or is there a morning routine that you do every day or sort of a special diet that you follow?
Kasia: I have a suspicion that perhaps, making a guess, that you like me, are a hybrid of being an intuitive eater, and an information seeker. So that I will never let a new theory about what's good for me, dominate my understanding of myself, but I'll try things and see how they feel. And I think that when it comes to being an intuitive eater, an intuitive liver, an intuitive and intuitive speaker, everything in the world that currently exists a pattern formula, a recipe. A program is just a suggestion for you to body check with your internal compass. So you play with it for a moment. See how it feels. Essentially, it would be really really great human beings can move from the stage of infancy to a stage of I mean we really don't know how to do the basic things most of us don't know how to eat, walk, have sex, have conversations. And here we're talking about flying to Mars when we really really haven't really gotten a handle on conversation, who mutually exclusive reality. How do you bridge the gap to paradox, a paradox. That's a sign of spiritual maturity to be able to do them. Most can't do either this or that, causing conflict, right. So, I would say, also, the body, the body is very very very important to the body also tells you very quickly. What makes you feel expensive, and what makes you feel like interacting, sometimes as soon as the answer. Somehow, sometimes not getting sleep for a few nights because you're partying, or excited or having a ball is going to be better for your for your physical health. With joy, you know, will do more for you than being incredibly, incredibly strict and make sure not to get any allergens that your blood tested for it, get different ways of sleeping, I mean I'm obsessed with my aura ring right now which tracks my, I could go on and on and on, because I think self care is clean you mentioned earlier, I wanted to laugh self care, bubble baths, and pedicures, the face mats, you know, it's, it is actually important because you're telling your body yeah body's getting a message you matter. Right. Let’s not stop there. And I think, I think one of the things about my experience as a dominatrix is a willingness to put people to work serving me and understanding that some of them will enjoy it very very well.
Heidi: That's a very important skill to have. And the vision that we've made up for ourselves. We have to have it all we want to have it all and ideally we do it all by ourselves. I mean, it's such an unrealistic expectation.
Kasia: It’s the john wayne myth, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. The self made man. We have these terms the self made man is a lie, self made man does not exist. He has a wife. He has the boy’s club, he has tons of invisible support and gets to go up at the end of the day we believe in the myth of the on tour the filmmaker, does all by him back it's not true. It takes not dozens but hundreds if not thousands, of support structures. People effort energy attention encouragement, analysis, boy. And here we are women. You know, our chance to be independent and victorious, and again in order to do it all in order to have it all we're doing it all.
Kasia: Experienced female administration in China has that influence your relationship to food or the way you nourish yourself so everything that we've been talking about now. How much of that is influenced by your by your spiritual experience?
Heidi: Well, there were two big blessings that I got from that education. One is that some of the deeper meditations, teach you how to become aware of your organs and organ function. So you can tap into your body and check up on your own heart check up on your liver check up on your intestines and to be able to extend your awareness to such a subtle level where you can feel and sense what's going on inside the huge gift because it becomes much more easy to trust a bizarre craving of walnuts all of sudden. It’s like, oh that makes sense. The other thing doesn't have anything to do with eating anymore or living at all. It has to do with the school which is the ability to pay attention on a micro level to what another human being is doing or it's happening to them, whether it's in medical, you know, Chinese medical analysis, or in martial arts being able to anticipate when they're going to like throw a punch made it so that my level of attention, and what I was picking up from the students in front of me so much information I wouldn't have seen if I didn't have that training which made it much easier to recognize certain patterns energetic and behavioral that were holding women back that were in common. And I'm so so so grateful to the years I spent studying that even though I did not become a nun, fours days from being ordained, did not become a nun, and ended up having an entirely different application. And, one of which is understanding, being able to like, feel, and trust what it is that I needed in that moment.
Heidi: You mentioned before that you desparately wanted a calling and it seems that you are very much on purpose, on mission now with the work that you do. What’s next, or what’s the next big wish that you have? Or is everyday special and everyday is a gift?
Kasia: I never expected this. The thing that lights me up, the most is when I'm in a classroom, and I see a woman shed 20 years of superstitious belief and go for what she wants. And there is nothing, no rush, no elation, that could possibly compare to that feeling of, oh this prison door is unlocked, I can just open it and walk out. And so, you know now is a very exciting time in my career that I didn't even expect to be a career where I have a book coming out in August and then the students are starting to form their own groups, there's starting to form these little pods all over the globe. So there's this global network of this army of love, that's starting to spread. And it's so exciting to see how they take these practices and make them their own and move and stay connected to this big web and it's one of my most you know, exciting visions, fantasies for the futures. This is this continues to spread. And that we all as, as women, rise up this way.
Heidi: It’s called Unbound, A Woman's Guide to Power. Is there something you can already share with us?
Kasia: This book is the heart of the Academy curriculum. We have the crazy, radical idea that instead of just putting out a book. Anyone who orders the book before August 10th, can have a free seat in a class on breaking good girl conditioning.
Heidi: Wow!
Kasia: So that they automatically don’t just have the book, they have me, they have the community, they have the opportunity to form their own group. They can, if they buy two or three books, right, have three seats in the class. They can start a group with their friends, and be in the class, get guided through it, ask me questions, see how this stuff works, see how it works in community, see how other women go through this process. Hear their victories, hear where they get stuck, because the community aspect is the most important, and I didn't know how to go about this community aspect around a book which is just words written on a page. So, if you’re listening right now, and you’re interested in a free seat in a class, a Bad Girl Intensive, pre-ordering the book will get you a seat in what would otherwise be a quite expensive class. We're planning online but live online so it's not an online that you buy and do yourself. It’s looking at eachother and me on Zoom and going through the material together.
Heidi: If you have one message you could share with all the women in the world, what would you say to them?
Kasia: I would aske them to consider the following phrase: You have no say in what you want. You don’t invent a desire, you don’t invent a need. You don't invent something you want. Something you want, what you want, desire arises within you. You have no say in what you want. You do have a saying whether you acknowledge it, whether you tap into it, what you do with it. You have total agency there, you can suppress it ignore it, pretend you don't even know about it, where you don't even know what's kicking inside of you. But that’s usually your desire wanting to get your attention, and you have no say in it. So, that is absolute permission to accept it fully. You didn't make it like you didn't make your arm.
Heidi: Beautiful. Oh my God. That’s absolutely wonderful. Well, I'll certainly reflect on that. I love it because it's so non-judgemental. And it's so loving and accepting and nurturing and honoring of simply what is.
Kasia: That's right.
Heidi: Well, thank you so much. I guess we could talk for many more hours,
Kasia: I’m really, really, really happy to be on this show with you because I see you as one of the women who are really doing it. During the thing that we need. Becoming an example to follow and asking the right questions of yourself, not just of me. Not all the right interview questions, of the world. Like does it really have to be this way? What does it really mean to be good? What does it mean to be a woman? What would the world look like if it was led by women? Important questions. You know the expression, ‘lose your mind and come to your senses’? I've been thinking about this a lot, because it seems like humanity, collectively, iskind of going insane. And it is my hope that we're doing so in order to, once we cannot believe any information anymore, right, that we come to our senses. And it is it is the role of the embodied woman to know the way how one comes to one's senses. And I believe that that's the work we're doing here. Thank you so much, Heidi.
Heidi: Thank you.
See It To Be It: Stopping The “Good Girl” Conditioning
“You are telling somebody who they are in your life by what you ask of them.”
“This is the incredibly bittersweet victory of the independent woman because she goes after what she wants, but she does it all by herself.”
Listen on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts
See It To Be It: Stopping The “Good Girl” Conditioning
Read the Transcript:
Melinda: Hi everyone, its Melinda Garvey with the CFPB at podcast. This week we have another great interview with an incredible role model. Stay tuned.
Melinda: Hello everyone, welcome to the see it to be a podcast. I'm your host Melinda Garvey, and as always we bring you incredible relatable role models every single week on our podcast and this week is no different. We have a wonderful woman doing really really incredible things in the women's empowerment space and everyone knows those are my favorite. Her name is Kasia Urbaniak, and she is the founder of The Academy, and it's all about women's empowerment, as I mentioned, so we're going to hear from her today so welcome. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Kasia: Thank you for having me.
Melinda: Absolutely. The first thing I'd like to do is just go way back. What was your big dream when you were growing up, what do you think you were going to be and how did you get on your path.
Kasia: Well, my parents are jazz musicians, and they came from Poland, at a time when it was very very difficult to get out of Poland, and they made a huge success, around the world. They were very unrealistic. And one of the things that they gave me is that sense of being unrealistic. So, the answer is I was very very very obsessed with the dune books, when I was quite young, and the dune books have a Secret Society of Women called the Bene Gesserit and the women who lead Bene Gesserit, called Reverend mothers, so what I wanted to do is found the real life. Secret Society been a desert on this earth, and be a Reverend Mother.
Melinda: All right, well, how'd that work out for you you built your own version of that right. That's right, yeah well so tell us your story and how are you finally made it to building your own secret society as it were.
Kasia: My not so secret secret.
Melinda: Not so secret anymore, right.
Kasia: So, in my unrealistic pursuit of something I read in a fictional book, I wanted to find the training that was available in the world that was closest to what I was seeing as these fiction superpowers so I went on a path to studying with some of the greatest spiritual masters and the ones that I was most drawn to were the Taoist ones because they seem to be able to do absolutely magical and remarkable things and in order to be able to pay for this. I worked as a dominatrix, and the incredible thing that happened, that was very unexpected. Was that what I was learning in the monasteries and convents, I ended up applying in the dungeon, and it was not intentional. It was that I was learning to read the body I was learning to diagnose organs I was learning to pick up the subtlest cues before somebody threw a punch for example in the martial training. So when I was working as a dominatrix and I had these submissives, I would start using the skills that I had been learning, and without even being conscious of it. This was all about knowing how to have power in a body based total energetic spiritual psychological way with another human being, to be able to influence them to be able to move them. And I ended up becoming obsessed with mastering this unique form of domination, that I was doing that was much more psychological and emotional than what I saw happening around me and it really influenced how I saw human beings and how I saw relations between men and women, whether they're professional or romantic.
Kasia: Then I met my business partner who worked for Doctors Without Borders and was in high conflict zones for a decade dodging bullets and vaccinating babies and as you know, our stories histories my story when we met we just couldn't stop talking and then we hit this point where we realized that there were so many moments where he had to institute like border checkpoints and situations where nobody speaks the same language but there are 14 year olds where they give 40 sevens and he has to get permission to build a field hospital there, he can't communicate, how does one communicate authority and power, and I started talking about my experiences in the dungeon using the Taoist practices that I've learned how do you communicate authority power status, how do you influence somebody when language isn't enough when there's a lot at stake, and through our conversations, it became really really apparent that these patterns, we saw we started exploring and experimenting with just the women that we knew around us inviting them to our living room and starting say hey try this try this try this what's, you know, getting couples in there and starting to talk about these invisible behavior and thought patterns that were really determining whether a woman would be able to actually land the message of what she wants and achieve what she wants to achieve. And that started becoming the basis of the curriculum of the school and then for, you know, a good six seven years, it was the women who came, who started asking for workshops, and so we sort of reluctantly in the beginning, started teaching, and the school itself became a laboratory to test and experiment what works, what doesn't work, what holds a woman back that's not talked about that's not external right and that's not just outside sexism, whereas the conditioning of a woman. These millennia, think about 2 million years or more millennia, where basically the highest achievement, a woman could make the only place where she could channel her ambition is to marry well, and the set of behaviors that are required the set of conditioning that's required in order to become a great candidate to be a good wife, and it's essentially all good girl conditioning is being accommodating not asking for too much being low maintenance being resourceful be responding to others in a timely fashion being responsive rather than proactive, all of these things, you know not asking all of these things that, you know, end up showing up in today's world.
Kasia: I was just talking about this incredible thing that happened a few years back when the tech jobs website. The creators of it started realizing how different the request of salary was in the same position between men and women. So they decided to publish a graph displaying what the average, ask was for a particular position, and they thought that once that information got out there women would start asking for more the opposite happened, women started asking for even less and men started asking for even more. And when I saw that I was like Yep, I'm on the right path. This is the right thing because if we don't handle the conditioning that we're carrying you talk about the patriarchy. It's not just men. It's how we all teach each other tell mothers teach their daughters, out of love right no ill intentions, you know how to watch yourself.
Kasia: So the school was born as this beautiful laboratory of sometimes incredibly outrageous ridiculous insane experiments and overtime was, you know, honed into a fine tuned curriculum.
Melinda: And when women come to the Academy, you know, and just sort of, you know, focusing particularly on the workplace, you what are some of the biggest challenges they are facing and, what are they hoping to overcome?
Kasia: Very often, they come in with one question, and their one question ends up not being the full story. So what I see them coming up against. They're not asking for the resources they need in order to get the project's done when they do the request doesn't come out right they don't get what they need. They feel disrespected diminished harassed, talked over, it's all the stuff we hear about, you know, he's beating a man taking the credit for the idea, but instead of stopping there that's sort of the beginning point. So I talked about good girl conditioning, the good girl has a big sister, an offshoot. They're the women who are like, I am not a good girl. I will go after what I want. I will go after what I want no matter what it takes, I'm going to have it all. And this is the incredibly bittersweet victory of the independent woman because she goes after what she wants, but she does it all by herself. And she's exhausted and she's pissed off may not be saying it but she's exhausted. She has her shit together but she's exhausted and she's pissed off, she's working on herself, and she's working on it she's working way harder than anybody else, you know, in order to have it all she's doing it all. An independent unit that can run the entire planet all by herself frayed at the edges, none of her tender desires needs met, everybody around her is trained to know that she has their stuff together, so they never think to inquire if she needs anything. She's not worship she's not handled securely. There's no balance to it and she does it all she can be counted on for everything, you know, in case of emergency. Ask Sarah, you know, or whoever the independent woman may be. And so when we start talking about you know how to have a bold conversation that's captivating and compelling, with your boss about a raise or promotion or getting credit, that's incredibly important. We have skills, we have tools and we build skills for that, but also making sure that she's well sourced, making sure that she has everything she needs on every level, so that she can come out shining strong full and radiant. That involves her Mastering the Art of asking everyone in her life for what she needs and women are generally terrified of asking, especially the more tender ones. So there's this myth. I'm calling it a straight up myth, the myth that men go it alone. The John Wayne pull yourself up by your own bootstraps lie. It's a lie. It's a lie.
Melinda: How would they have the old boys network if that was the truth?
Kasia: Yeah, don't forget all the invisible labor that wives do. It's the old boys network it's men get a ton of support in those particular positions and women, we have to create them for ourselves.
Melinda: Well, and do you think okay so let's let's talk about that woman. I will say that I hear about it less now, but you know we all have heard about the queen bee syndrome you know the woman who is not really willing to help others come along and that was you know sort of a buzz for a long time about was holding women back and not coming together and do you think that some of it comes from the fact that they didn't have any help getting where they went and you talk about them being, you know angry and frustrated and what do you think that comes from.
Kasia: I think you're exactly right. I think that there is a degree of I mean you know this is a case by case basis thing every woman is different. Every 5-10 years, you know, microgeneration you see how women made it what they had to put up with what they had to do the things they had to sacrifice the impossible decisions they had to make, there's an incredible amount of aloneness there. And that does not lead a woman who had to fight so hard to get where she is, who's already under sourced and exhausted who's still fighting that kind of internal starvation does not breed generosity, not to other women and not to other men just does not breed generosity.
Kasia: When someone is full, when someone is full of everything that they need and spilling over without radiance generosity is a natural effect it's almost like releasing some of the extra energy, or that some of the extra goodness because you can't contain it all to yourself
Melinda: Right well I think that, of course, you know, now I do think things are changing and I think women are starting to see, there's certainly research out now that proves that when women band together when they support each other that they get farther a lot faster. Of course I've known this for a long time and I'm always talking to women about finding their tribe about building that community of other women to help them and supporting each other and the mindset of abundance that has to go with that because you can't say well, gosh, if I help her, she might get it and I won't. You know I do think that hopefully that mentality is changing, you know, as we see more and more women coming together.
Kasia: Things are changing quite quickly.
Melinda: Yes, indeed. Let's talk about you know what kind of conditioning, did you feel like you had to break to get into the position you talked about studying and what you had to do but, where were you and what kinds of things did you have to work on personally to be able to overcome what was holding you back?
Kasia: I like to joke with my students that joke not a joke that I teach what I need to keep hearing, and if I could believe that there was a time in my life where I had trouble, feeling good about asking a waiter in a restaurant for water like locating my desires asking for what I need, asking for what I want in a way that feels good to me and the other person just seemed like an impossible struggle. So I was definitely on a isolated path trying to create myself by myself in any way I knew how, and it took me a long time to realize the gift I give when I allow someone to serve me, men and women.
Melinda: That's an interesting way of putting it. You know I think just changing that perspective, you know the gift that you're giving you let someone else serve you asking for help, you know, we often talk about that you don't realize when you ask somebody for help how good it makes them feel to be able to give back and to help you.
Kasia: Oh it's beyond help and it's beyond how they get a chance to be generous. Anytime you ask someone invite them command them invite them involve them include them ask, ask for something you're giving them a role. Now, a lot of times what happens I see in marriages between men and women. What happens is, with a woman gets strong, and she does not ask enough of her husband, and when she doesn't ask enough of her husband she's giving him the role of a worm or a leech or a parasite or a couch potato. She does not ask enough of him. You are telling somebody who they are in your life by what you ask of them.
Kasia: I had this great experience with a substitute teacher who would skinny weak looking guy who would come into a class, students on, you know, substitute teacher day would eat them alive, and he had a really smart strategy, you would identify the “bad kid” in the room first thing he could give them the most important job, you would tell him you are the most important person to make him take attendance, and go to the principal's office, and there would be peace in the kingdom for the entire session, it works every single time because you're telling them who you think they are and what they're capable of.
Kasia: So some of my students do something outrageous example, one of my students decided that she wanted to live in a castle, she happened to have a very wealthy, uncle who she was estranged with, who she could ask. Instead she asked her, painter boyfriend who had no money and no ability to buy her a damn castle. She prepared with the academy tools and the school and propose this compelling vision. Initially, she was complaining that every time she went over to his place he wouldn't even like take the dirty clothes off the bed, the behavior change that happened because she presented and asked that was so big so impossible for him to fulfill, explain how she saw this being possible changed his idea of himself in relation to her. So of course you can't buy her a castle, her uncle can she could have worked on that relationship and got herself a castle instead she got herself a love affair of a lifetime. Now, two years later, they're growing together, his career is growing, her career is growing, and it's based on a vision of a possibility that seems so out of reach and obnoxious to ask for. That obnoxious outrageous requests, move them into a whole new place.
Melinda: Fascinating. Well, tell everybody where they can find out more about the academy and if they want to check out what you're doing.
Kasia: Our website is weteachpower.com, is the easiest place to find us. I have a book coming out, August, 11, and a TED talk that should be released soon so that'll be around.
Melinda: Awesome. Yes, and I'm sure they can follow you on social media and social channels, etc.
Kasia: Yeah
Melinda: as we're closing out, you know, we do a little speed round, so people get to know a little bit more about you personally. So what's your morning routine look like.
Kasia: I don't have one. One of the wonderful things about the tools of the school and what we do is we really really really try to get women, no matter how financially compromised or burdened they are with responsibilities to never do what they don't want to do, do what they love do what they're best at, and ask and create a community around them that is also doing the same thing, the things that they love the things that they're best at. My morning routine changes. Right now I'm in Hawaii and I wake up between four and five. And that's been for the last week, but no routine is my routine because one of the practices is to feel your inner barometer and follow your intuition and follow what's right for you. What needs need to be met inside and outside, and that means that no two days are alike.
Melinda: What are you currently reading or listening to?
Kasia: I have an Amazon book buying habit that has me buying maybe 40 books at a time, but I never read them, I read a few pages, and skim through them to see what's interesting, I argue with some of them, and some of them may make me angry. And then I put them aside and buy 40 more.
Melinda: Maybe you need to go to Kindle unlimited.
Kasia: I have that but I have also really liked like having a library and I never allow myself to succumb to the obligation to be a reader, read a lot and finish books, they take what I need.
Melinda: Last question, what's one thing you can't live without?
Kasia: Pen and paper. I would lose my mind if I couldn't write things down. The handwritten part.
Melinda: Is very therapeutic for you.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah. Well whatever noticing whatever feeling, you know I set aside, two to three hours a day just to have feelings. Sometimes things come up that need to be noted.
Melinda: In two to three hours I would hope so. Right. That's great. Well thank you so much really appreciate your time and your sharing, and I'm sure everybody will be interested in checking out the academy and everything that you have to teach. Yeah, good luck on your upcoming book, we will be watching to see what you do next.
Kasia: Thank you.
Wait...WTF is a good girl double bind and how do I break free?
“You have no say in what you want. The desire isn’t created. You don’t make it up. It’s blameless, shameless, innocent, childlike, and authentically you. What you want is not negotiable. It doesn’t mean that everybody has to comply, it just means that you have to accept it. ”
Listen on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts
Wait…WTF Podcast with Julia Wells
Read the transcript:
Julia: Hi guys, all welcome to a super juicy, episode of the podcast I have a guest here that you guys are going to fall in love with be obsessed with maybe be triggered. On this episode you heard a little about her. Her name is Kasia Urbaniak and she makes you remember this in one of her courses. We've been practicing your name so did I nail it?
Kasia: Nailed it!
Julia: We are going to dive into all things good girl conditioning and maybe even a little bad girl and talk about what that looks like. This is conscious work I mean along with so many other things she has a book coming out about it that you guys will obviously be buying at the end of this month. So we'll make sure you have all the links. but will you tell us a little bit about like how you even started to get into the good girl world and doing this work?
Kasia: Well when the school started, it really was based on a commitment to a phenomenological approach. Okay, big word. Simply. What I mean by that is approaching the school, the classroom as a pure laboratory, forgetting everything we know, forgetting everything people say, forgetting everything doing our absolute best to only, only work with what is there, what shows up. So a woman comes to class. She declares that you know she wants something. She really really really really wants. Usually she first declares what she doesn't want. So she's like letting the bitching and complaining happen because it's fruitful and useful and great, you know, rage despair disappointment. Okay, if you want all these things to get stopped Where do you want to have start get to this wonderful place where the room is starting to fill, fill, fill, fill with the things that are wanted. And then we go about discussing how do we create these things in our lives. Because anything really worth creating anything it's an illusion that things are created alone. It really really is, it’s a terrible parable and a myth, the self made man does not exist. He has a wife and the boys club John Wayne myth you literally cannot pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. It's the world's worst yoga pose expression comes from Baron Munchausen where he tried to pull himself out of a swamp by his own pigtail it's not real, it's not real and that Miss really really screws with us. So something wanted beautiful vision, many, many, many visions, what's the next step, inviting others including others, asking. So just watching what happened when. Very often, this was an ask of a man. Women ask each other for things differently than when we have to cross the gender divide. So, this woman would be like ready she'd be she'd feel like good about it, she'd have all these visions excited superpowers, and she'd sit in a room in front of the class in a chair in front of a volunteer guy. It's not the person just role playing, and all of the sudden this badass that we knew in the classroom. Then contortions into strange words strange mitigations apologies language. This compression. And it's so painful to watch. So the investigation began. What is this? And as we investigated it was this thing of appearing to be too much and too little. At the same time, not wanting to be bossy, not wanting to be me, this double bind that many have pointed out, this double bottom that sort of is the is a major feature of the current woman's girl's upbringing, like your kids are too small until they're too big or too aggressive You're too passive you're oftentimes a slut or a prude or both at the same time, it's a no win situation.
Julia: Yep.
Kasia: And, you know, when it comes to because of my previous experience as a dominatrix it became really easy for me to just tag these two different states of being too much into battle as dominant and submissive I tried, from my experience of that was not to call them human young I tried to lead it it was like, you know, reading a menu to a bunch of secrets was like life. So we started talking about, like, a few exaggerated being super dominant. And like bossy, and demanding, and then you really really exaggerated being like, inside your own experience submissive fueling everything in the context of this really some magic would happen. We started investigating what that magic was breaking of that compression that too much too little bind. And all of a sudden came flooding out in the breaking of the conditioning and awareness of the condition. And in that in that awareness suddenly it started to make so much sense. For millennia. A woman ambitious woman woman wanted something of her life wanted something wanted to experience things. Her best chance and this is still true in parts of the world. Her best chance of getting anywhere, anywhere near that her ambition her dreams is to marry well. But what makes a good wife, what makes a good candidate for a wife, someone who's not a burden, but an asset, low maintenance, no human being as low maintenance. We're all high maintenance is resourceful makes do with what she has is modest does not tout her accomplishments, definitely does not have any of her own sexual desire, that's just something that's you know Sleeping Beauty I'm in a coma.
Julia: Until you kiss me and then I wake up perfectly for you.
Kasia: Sexual desire comes from the outside and only sanctioned by the right Prince, right. So, a lot of the good girl qualities are also really phenomenal harmonizing CFO. Being nurturing de escalating conflict, be even being resourceful making do with what you have. these are phenomenal qualities. Yeah. Good luck conditioning is not a problem. The problem is that it's conditioned and invisible to us in 10,000 ways.
Kasia: So, when when a woman apologizes too much and notices that she attacks her software. When a woman doesn't speak up, but instead phrases. She beat herself up for it. When a woman asks for only half of what she actually needs to get a job done. And then makes do with what she has she kicks herself for, not realizing that this landscape of general conditioning is so damn universal that it's possible to create exercises in a school that help everybody who shows up, you know, that universality kind of proves that it's not your personal psychological problem, he handled in journals and in therapy sessions therapy is great but that's not what we're doing here. What we're doing here is the fastest, good girl jailbreak we can possibly imagine.
Kasia: So, what so what what happens right, it requires observing your attention and acquires elevating your own ability to perceive certain things. So, there's nothing wrong with doing all these good things. What's infuriating is when the good girl autoresponder kicks in, says yes rushes to the crisis helps her help hasn't been asked for apologizes shrinks is everywhere all at once. Before we even catch ourselves.
Kasia: One of the most dramatic things I started noticing in classes that, you know, especially before the pandemic even for some people still now. Everyone's so busy, busy, busy and the women are so busy, and so I wanted to find out what basis. Of course, job kids home, we know when we're dating whatever whatever like okay yeah but let's go minute by minute. Where does your intellectual emotional and physical energy go. So we started doing this thing called the invisible labor inventory and some women at the end of one single day were absolutely floored they knew they were doing a lot of uncredited unacknowledged unappreciated undercover help work, but some of them, when going minute by minute 10 minute by 10 minute blocks, they really logged it could do the math and come to a percentage as high as 80%. I mean, 80%.
Julia: Unacknowledged, unaware labor.
Kasia: Right, including like figuring someone out trying to make guesses about how to. And where does that leave time for a passion project where does that leave time for self care, where does that leave time for forging powerful relationships, where does that even leave time for doing late Academy homework. Early. Yeah and then like taking metaphysical labor go like, now I'm no longer in goodwill conditioning because I see it, and some of the things you automatically stopped doing some of the things you delegate away some of the things you do but with your whole heart and free will and choice. And don't even care that you're not getting credit for it, some of them you make visible and take credit for it, some of it you ask for payment because the idea or some kind of reward because the idea, this is this is the other thing that's funny that I that I learned, phenomenologically, in the classroom is when we started teaching, a lot of asking. It's so many women will do something. Using the principle of reciprocity as a substitute for asking. And it never works.
Julia: And then you’re just pissed.
Kasia: Yeah, no it doesn't work because when you do something for someone you're in the role of Dewar and they're in the role of receiver and a flip is required it's they're not going to nobody flips on their own, they're like, oh, that this is the person who I can count on for this. So, good girl conditioning, big topic, big, big. The main thing that in this time in the world that I feel really really passionate about around breaking women out of good girl conditioning so they can choose what kind of good, what kind of bad. What kind of wild. What kind of loving, they want to be or need to be or is right for them. Right now, in the world. If you look at all of the qualities that describe a good girl. She is absolutely 100% designed to maintain the status quo. She keeps things running smoothly, as they are. And in my book there's this opening to that section that goes named one good girl who change the world. You can't, because she can't. It's not what she's designed for. She doesn't ruffle feathers, she doesn't make that change. And, you know, even Mother Teresa was a bad girl, she questioned her faith, she came from a wealthy family she did something really controversial, and she was always questioning. She broke a lot of rules that she was raised with and then inside of her own religion.
Kasia: So, in the in this moment in allowing for women to consciously show up as something other than the conditioning has default to is the story now my life purpose.
Julia: The key, the reason why she's here. So, what I love and just like I feel like brains are exploding right now because it's all so good, they're like oh my god someone sees me and just named all of the things that is the world of being a woman and girl and opening. But what I love is like it all comes back to awareness and this is what every exercise. I find in your Academy and when I watch you like speak and bring things it's like the first step always has to be awareness. Always.
Kasia: Yeah.
Julia: And so then you play with it and you're like, what I love about what you do is that it's so like what you said it's practical application in the moment, because nothing changed when we're all like listening to the podcast so what's something like what if we can break it down right now for somebody. Is there a way that we can give them that experience to see like to feel that smush that you call of like, and we kind of went there like you were talking with around like too much, not enough, but you have an example of someone like right now in pandemic time of like what the free how the freeze is happening with, like, you need to be busy, but not too busy right now, or you need to go out but also stay home and how it's paralyzing us from really doing what we could be doing with this time and with this energy.
Kasia: Okay so that feels like five different questions.
Julia: Probably.
Kasia: Help me out and pick one to start with.
Julia: Okay, so what's your favorite example right now, of how this smush is holding women back from being an agent of change in the pandemic?
Kasia: The one that's sticking in my mind is actually not from the pandemic. And it's, it's first in line so I can't see who else is in line. But this has to do with an asset class. Actually it was a money class, it was our power with money class. And there was a student who wanted her ex husband to pay his half of her kids doctor's bills. And the kid needed extra medical help. And it turned out to be like a few thousand dollars. And it didn't feel right. It didn't feel quite right, because it felt like, even if she did, she would still be really angry with felt really incomplete. Right. So, this speaks to good girl conditioning but this also speaks to expectations we have others and patterns that we fall into facets we see of each other, and how to create radical change really quickly in another person because people say you can't change someone else and that's absolutely not true, because there are many many faceted diamonds and we get stuck facing the same facet and miraculous appearing change happens when you can spend that diamond and really two different facets members and so that's what happened in the sense. She started with, you know, half of the doctor's bills and I was like, okay, something's up here. So, it turns out that last year you pay half the doctor's bills either. So I was like okay so now you're talking about twice the amount of money. So that's it, that's the thing that was missing. That's the thing that was missing. Yeah, but still something. Still something was up. I had to ask her if you forgot everything you knew about this man, and you wanted him to show up as amazing and you were willing to move through that rage of how he's not amazing forget it just for now and come up with an ask that would just make him show up as amazing. What would the ask be? Buy me a house. House me and your children. Boom.
Julia: Now we’re talking.
Kasia: The lights went on in the room. And it felt good to her such, a bad girl ask, “buy me a house”. She did. He went from being the worm who wasn't paying half the doctor's bills to the hero who could provide for his ex-wife and his children. Within two weeks, and she not only said, “I want a house,” but, “I want you to do all the work and finding it”.
Kasia: And she said with tears in her eyes, “I suddenly saw the man I married 20 years ago. And the vision I had on that wedding day for what I'd like to be like together.” So bad girl ask not so bad.
Julia: Yeah, so like I think everyone listening, probably has some variation where it's like you can see where you're asking for a crumb or part of what you want, you're like no way and how can I ever for what I really really want. And I think what really stood out in what you just shared is like that you have to push her I would assume it's not our comfort and our normal things like, I'm going to see him as amazing and I'm going to forget everything I know and all evidence of how this show.
Kasia: Yes, I mean, the funny thing is, it takes some work to, to imagine these things. But the ask that is in correspondence with 100% of what we actually really really want and then takes it takes some time to get to what you really really really want. We live in such a fast society where you're just supposed to know, you know you like, if somebody asked you what do you want to buy them know you look like an idiot like you're supposed to have goals, you're supposed to know like your action plan like what you want. And really it's a really tender conversation between yourself and yourself to like get to that place it takes it takes no matter what size it is when you're speaking from that place of 100%, of what I want. The chances of getting a yes are so much higher and this is the surprising thing to students but the chances of getting a yes are so much higher. And if you get a no. And we teach how to, how to work with a no. If you get a no, the entirety of the requests is known. You are fully grounded in what it is that you want. Even if you get a no it changes again. It really really does. It also signals to the other person who you see them as being capable of being or becoming. Because it's not a favor to ask. Very little especially of our partners we ask very little, we are giving them the role of a worm, or lazy.
Julia: We set them up to fail.
Kasia: Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is when you ask for that, you know, we. Another good girl things you negotiate against yourself before you even get, you know, you have no say in what you want you don't invent your desires, you don't create them, they come up on their own. You have no say in it so if you have no say in what you want, and then you're you're you're you're dealing with that. If you start negotiating internal against yourself and ask for less. You're not only not doing anyone a favor. You're doing a person who listens to you and goes through the trouble of actually doing it, a huge disservice. Because when they deliver that 99% when they deliver that 40% that you ask, or whatever it is. What they don't get to see, they don't get to see you light up. And you can go, “Oh my god. Thank you, you’re amazing.” All you fucking want. On an animal level human beings know when they hit the spot and when they haven't happened over time, is if a person is doing a 99% favor or 40% favor and not getting that I hit the spot part, they start feeling useless like a failure and they don't like trying anymore. And that's somehow, sometimes when we get locked into relationships where the other person's always unknown, because they have a lot of experience with going through the trouble of doing it, and then not doing the thing.
Julia: Because you set them up for a small percentage of your desire instead of being someone that knows how to ask for the whole fucking thing.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah, yeah and and here here, like, you know, in the academy headquarters we have this giant sign that says can you use this against yourself. We run all the exercises through it, it's almost impossible to come up with something that a woman can’t use against herself. all of you out there right now going I've ruined everything cause I never ask for 100% and I don't even know what I want.
Julia: She just read your mind, and now we're going to talk about.
Kasia: Oh well yeah that's that's the other thing, you know, one of the things that solidifies with both conditions hardcore into our systems is not like you could talk about the patriarchy was not necessarily men.
Julia: Mm hmm.
Kasia: You know from out of love, out of love, our mothers our ancestors is taught us to police ourselves by policing this out of love. And now we still live in a time where most places if you wear a skirt that's too short, you get raped. It's your fault, and women. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you gonna be stoned to that I mean, we're looking I mean, so of course the instruction. I love my daughter, you know, the instruction is watch yourself. Watch yourself. Watch yourself police yourself. And this habit of some tag is much stronger in women than it isn't men. I've seen it over and over men attack themselves, but like, how many men are worried about being too much. They're usually worried about being not enough. Women are worried about being too much, and not enough at the same time and the self policing that comes the self policing like I was that stupid did I do this, did I do that, that self attack. We have this illusion that, you know, the carrot and the stick, that the carrot on the stick is the way to create change. It's the carrot that works not the stick. When a woman beats herself up for doing something, she'll only do it more cuz that's what she's paying attention to. she can have 97% victory and 3% wobble. Only think about the wobble, and always be is the fucking 30%. I mean, woman. A woman gets an opportunity to make a speech, right, she spends time thinking about what she wants to say she memorizes what she wants to say the morning of she dresses she takes showers picks the outfit she gets her PowerPoint together, she shows up at the place she says delivering the speech. Everything is great she flubs one line she keeps going and she gets accolades she goes backstage and goes that one line!
Julia: It will haunt her for life.
Kasia: within the three months of awesomeness that preceded it right. And now, now I have to say another thing. The most frequent response to hearing about self attack is self attacking for self attacking, I was just gonna
Julia: People listening are like but I don't get it but I do get it but now I'm just beating myself.
Kasia: Yeah, So you know the wonderful thing about the mechanism the psychological mechanism that makes self attack possible. Is this incredible architecture of awareness, with every detail. And if you already have. Do this and this education the brain synapses you already have this architecture of noticing every single detail to pick the one that's off and feel terrible about it. You also have the architecture to pick 1000 different details to celebrate that how that weirdness exists so we can think we can take that self attack mechanism and use that same same habitual machinery for self celebration. And it actually ends up being a superpower, in a way that it does is kind of an edge over men who can have like a big boast the brag, that's kind of broad, but not 1000 rich nuanced ones.
Julia: Because women have that muscle and it's usually turned against ourselves but we can turn it into a good fitness superpower.
Kasia: Yeah.
Julia: So fucking good. So guys there's hope. If you're like, holy shit. This has been my whole life, one obviously, sign up for all of the programs and courses in The Academy, read the book do the things. But what's like, how do we start to like look at the bad girl side of thinga.
Kasia: It was very very controversial exercise, outside of a classroom, this requires extra responsibility. Okay. But since you asked, we have a really fun exercise called Bad Girl protocol. And it's really simple. But one must exercise, exquisite care in doing this exercise. So, basically,you write the sentence. If I were a bad girl. I would, and we say bad girl it's a little bit condescending you know Bad Girl, but it's because that bad girl, those two words, tend to have the right trigger.
Julia: Yeah as an activation.
Kasia: Bad girl. bad girl. If I were a bad girl, I would, and fill in the blank, and repeat over and over again, over and over again until you run out of steam. It's really fun to do in a group or with a friend, because it extends your imagination.
Julia: Yes.
Kasia: Do not do any of these things. I guess the bad girl playing Call it really vicious because the viciousness we express in towards ourselves as good girls ends up being viciousness that goes outward when we play with being a backroom. So, the really really important part is that the more free This exercise is, the more dark, evil, greedy, selfish, lazy, all of the things we would never want to be, never even think about doing violent terrible terrible terrible things in this huge archive, what ends up appearing is some things that may be ruthlessly loving, or actually not bad at all, or creative, because all of the things that anytime we have a motive to quiet silence suppress the sides of ourselves. It's not just the bad things that get hidden in that closet. And it's time to take those things out. Allow them to err see the light of day, and allow some of them to mature, allow some of them to evolve, anger, rage, the desire for revenge, often falls within it the greatest passion, love desire for something to change. Belief, clarity, direction, depressive sides, sadness, all leads to some of our most tender vulnerable desires. So, the bad girl in every class. The Bad Girl burgle there's things on it of course like I would go to my boss and pee on his desk, dig a little to get to the desire.
Julia: Again you guys don't do the things, just let yourself think the things.
Kasia: But other ones are like if I were a bad girl, I would wake up whatever time I wanted or I would get exercise every day.
Julia: I want my kids to get their own breakfast so that I can work out.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in that, you know, once all bets are off the prohibition is lifted. Some of the most beautiful creative things start to appear because our imagination is liberated. Scientific studies have shown that self attack is the number one killer of creativity. So if we're talking about our own behavior and we take all of that. Just go. Yes, we're going to be terrible. Let's do a religious free for all the imagination starts to wake up. And all of a sudden it's not a question anymore of is this good is this bad, it's more like is this alive, alive or dead. Is this alive in life in gendering, or is it both these are these rules dead have no meaning. This conformity and it becomes really organic and natural to start behaving like your own wild crazy genius brilliant life loving erotic fully self expressed self. When you witness that in the area that says do not enter, there are treasures to be mined.
Julia: Yeah. And one of the things I think that stood out in taking the class and doing that exercise with you now a few times. is like you kind of know that when you let people go into that, like swing into the dark side, it's only going to end up like allowing and opening up those floodgates for women to have more power, more money, more influence in the world and do really good shit. But you have to be that person that lets them go there so that they can swing both ways and I just like, I think it's so delicious and so many of us think we can just get to the good side and do more good in the world, if we just focus on that only and don't let ourselves look at the shadowy shit and you're like oh no you have to play in that playground, like throw some sand in somebody's eye. Smash their sandcastle. That's the only way you're getting to the other place and it's just such a cool exercise to watch. Yesterday someone on a dating app asked me and they were like if you could commit one crime, what would it be? And I totally went into the good girl listening to this. I'm like, Well, I would like Robin Hood it and I'd still like I skim a billion off all the top white men billionaires in the world and then redistribute it. And now I'm like, oh my God, what a good girl thing to say. And now I kinda want to go back and be like, so I was doing this exercise. Can I share with you my bad girl exercise? But seriously, that that permission is so huge so for anyone that's listening, you can totally do the exercise with caution. Writing down if I were a bad girl, I would, and then rip up your list. You don't have to act on any of it but see what new desires, it sounds like start to like be available to you because of that freedom
Kasia: and also you mentioned the swing, because just even voicing some, some of the dark things, and meeting it with approval. Right. Pleasure. When you do swing you do feel a whole lot more generous. A whole lot more loving. And also there's a, you know, I really detest how in language, we've identified these two terms selfless and selfish. And it's really hard for me to locate an action that doesn't it's not the action itself it's like the motive can have components of both, or it's not as the language around selfish and selfless is incredibly deceptive. Because if I have, especially if I'm working in a smaller group and I have a woman who is really really really really afraid of being selfish, and we're working over a period of time, I know your assignment is to be outrageously selfish and she does only selfish things like selfish selfish selfish. Oh what a terrible thing to be getting filled up right she starts getting really really really full of everything she needs everything she wants, and the tendency, and especially if she's supervised but the tendency when you get selfish enough suddenly your cup runs over. Yeah. Suddenly you're generous, you're not like feeling scarce and what and what you have to offer what spills over is of a really rich and abundant quality. Conversely, go into selflessness long enough and your needs start showing up you can't be endlessly selfless. Like that division to me doesn't really work like it. We are a whole organisms like whole organisms, we need the right amount of water.
Julia: Like literally need
Kasia: Literally need them. praise love support, encouragement sunlight air right in order to blossom and produce fruit that is intensely generous because it has 1000 seeds in it. It's a natural thing we see you know we have a scholarship for activists at the school and activists are really fun to work with because they're doing so much good in the world but oftentimes that selfish piece is so important for them, because if you have an activist, that is dry on the inside starving. And when they're screaming and fighting for their cause they might be some of them in advertently spreading the scarcity that they're trying to overcome. So, you know, it's the good girl little girl, this is selfish. This is selfless. And we much prefer the language around well this is alive like this feels alive to me this feels like the thing that makes my entire body feels expansive not contracting. And in that sense, being embodied and having a really good body barometer is something we all can tap into and it takes some practice and I know many are practicing this letting your body telling you things. What makes you feel alive. What makes you feel expansive, regardless of what you know. We were born into a world that already has an idea about what a successful career looks like what a success relationship looks like what a successful family looks like we make that up, we come in with that menu, you know, people's ideas, what's your unique idea of what a phenomenal. It might be so off the menu that it's as unique as you are.
Julia: Surprise, it probably is. So for everyone listening, it's like, I think this opens up such a permission slip for them to start thinking about gauging that like what's alive for me right now, instead of like, Do I want this Do I not want that, it's such a heady practice to think of it that way versus like, could you visualize like the worst case scenario and the best case and does that even bring you to life right now. Or do you need something else is there, like, what is that I don't know if this is such like an individual thing but I'm curious, it sounds like you can see when you're leading a class that like light up moment when somebody came alive. Is there like any commonalities or…I'm just thinking how we can stretch people listening to be like, oh shit yeah, I have some space to go on finding my aliveness again.
Kasia: Okay, well, what you're referring to in class is another thing that was, you know, in a phenomenological experiment kind of shocking to see. So I'll give you two examples and then something that someone listening can actually try to engage with. So, two different scenarios. The first one is the right sized ask, right, which is something we talked about earlier. It wasn't just me, that knew that the house was a big. Watching the bodies in the room. Once that spot was hit. Everyone's body shifted. Even the woman in the corner, who was checking out wasn't even fully aware what was going on, everyone shifted. Everyone shifted. Everyone knew. We used to do this really fun exercise that we had to take it out of the curriculum because it was too traumatizing. I would call on a student to, like, when I felt like I was starting to move out of my body, and he needed grounding I would pick a student and surprise them with the assignment of slapping the teacher. And so I'd have the student next to me be like, here’s your reward, you get to slap me, but I want you to think of a number between one and 10 of how hard you feel I need to be slapped, and I want everyone in the room to also think of a number between one and 10 that you know and we would calibrate we do a light one at one harder one slightly harder one to three right and they would see my body react, it would feel something every single time. Every single time. When the room was asked on a scale of one to 10. What was your guest before this happens. Everyone says, I knew the same exact number, or like one number off. Never, never, never wasn't like 286, it's like 777-778-7776 right. So, how do we all know that.
Julia: Mm hmm.
Kasia: And another another example is a woman doing a roleplay where she's confronting. She's confronting her boyfriend who molested her kid. And we have a very emotional exchange. And I asked her if she's ready to, like, really go all out and give it to them. We have a male volunteer who's ready for this ready to stand in the place, and just take it right, ready, and she gets up on stage and she begins. And so much happens to the beginning of so much happens in her. The but the energy and the attention that lands on him. When I asked the entire room This was a class of about 80. And I asked the entire room. When I asked her on a scale of one to 10. How much did your anger lend. She said, eight. The whole room said two. So, I give you these three examples in order to maybe reinforce or introduce the idea that there is a spot to hit, and that there is a part of your body that will respond when that sparks hit. There is a, an exercise, we use to reinforce a woman's feeling of legitimacy about what she wants. So, you have no say in what you want, but putting it into language, making it specific seeing if it's the right size giving it detail is a journey. And what's incredibly helpful is to use the legitimacy exercise that I'm about to describe sort of like as a chamber of desire creation. Not creation but let's say discovery refinement. So you start with something that you think you want and feel your body get really really into any sensations in the body. And imagine that you've got it imagine that it's a yes. Then, move into the emotional body How does it feel what emotions come up. And then finally, intellectually. What is this thing possible for you when doors open. And we do this cycle three times and as that journey occurs, you start practicing the art of communicating with your physical body, your emotional body your intellectual body, getting them all aligned with where you want, and as you go, each cycle. The desire takes on more detail. It takes on more richness. It takes on it gets more and more grounded in our physical being, so that when we go out into the world, our signal broadcasts that cleanly. Oftentimes, just knowing that, and doing that is enough for someone to feel like the animal self like, Oh, you know sometimes you want to hug, but you're in a state where all of you screaming. Stay the fuck away from me. But if you get right with receiving a hug and you're like yeah that would feel really good right now. You'd be surprised how many people suddenly just want to give you a hug.
Julia: And I think that's like, and tell me what you think is like it almost allows you to the words and how you ask for it matter so much less because it's already in your body, and you're available for it in such a different way that like you could totally have that like fucked up sentence or flub it or whatever. And people are like, I know what you want, I got.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What we're talking about is full whole whole world of communication that's below the level of language, but it's not in the category of like, body language or power poses, it's really like. If the words you speak tell somebody else what to think that how you are about it tells them how to feel about it and if we ask for something we want we're bracing for an attack, some part of them gets the message that if I give this to her, I will be attacking her and it makes them sense but it makes the communication wobbly. We are as humanity I think in the infancy of our development, you know, there's just so much more for us to grow and learn and really see about each other see about the possibilities and the potential and the incredible opportunity that we have as human beings. We're in the beginning and I just don't we don't blow it all up before we get there, but we like you know wreck it before we leave kindergarten.
Julia: Wow, thank God for your sandbox, and your laboratory and the Academy, so people can come play and do all of these things. Because it takes a lot of practice and a lot of safe space, and I know you hold a lot too. so I just want to appreciate you for that let you know how important it is and everyone just like buy everything she offers. But the best way to do is to practice, and that's why I think it's so good like we can talk about it here all day long, but until someone feels those experiences that you've just described, where you light up or you're in a room and you notice that “phenomenon”, and it's like, oh, that's what the fuck she means. And that smush. And that freeze.
Kasia: So I don't normally talk about this but I just inspired me to share something about where, where we're headed and what's happening right now in terms of the Academy, and this is a little bit around the book but not exactly. The practice component in community, seeing other women do exercises and doing exercises in front of other women with other women is such a key ingredient in accessing that place where you're feeling and understanding and knowing from a body based level that I want to reach more women than I can physically teach. So, a lot of stuff has gone into how to authentically transmit this experience. Without getting into bullshit conversations, about scaling a business that therefore changes its fundamental nature.
Julia: Right.
Kasia: Well, what we, what we have. Just for fun. The students are referred to as mistresses and before anyone gets sort of a reliever this mistress not as a dominatrix but if you notice there is no other feminine term for master. So, our mistresses. They all form practice groups, not all but very very many and right now we have practice groups all over the globe. We have them in Africa we have them in Australia. It doesn't cost anything to be part of this group. And so, class, or work on an exercise or bought the book can start a practice Group, a mistress group. And what we're working on right now is offering free resources for women around the globe who are forming these groups, so that they can continue their education and not necessarily be dependent upon the next time, there's a free spot in a class with almost never come there's an eight month waiting lists for almost everything except, except for our good group reform school month long thing which I'll talk about in a second. But the point is, right, we want to we want to, we want to reach million women, we want women to be powerful influential free spoken unbound. And having a great time at taking over the world, perhaps,
Julia: Yes please. A lot of that.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah, I mean even just looking at how you know the female leaders dealt with a pandemic. It's kind of how much more evidence do we need, there's just evidence after evidence like put women in charge of things look pretty nice for everyone.
Julia: Yeah, I guess when we keep shining the spotlight. Cool. So tell us about the book and the things and how people can just like dip their toes in or deep dive into all of this world that we just shared.
Kasia: Okay, so in, in our, in our desire to get as many women having experiences, not just information is the book. It's called unbound, the woman's guide to power is really the best of the curriculum so moving through it during the exercise. During the exercises, is a profound experience doing with a friend. Even better, doing it in a group, even better. In order to inspire women to have more experiences with this rather than just reading the book and sort of glossing over the exercises and like, because there's some really really juicy fun parts of the book just to read without doing anything. But working in community, working with your friends working with others it speeds up the process so much that we have decided that any woman who pre-orders a copy of Unbound: A Woman's Guide to power, any woman who pre-orders, the book before August gets a free seat in our class on breaking, good girl conditioning. All she has to do is email us a receipt of the book purchase. And there's instructions on our website, we can you know give you more instructions on how to do that, but a free seat in a class that is specifically geared towards the fast, effective, good girl jailbreak. So also I have a TED talk that just was released, definitely watch that. and they just did this really cool event called a call to your night with like Oprah, Oprah, Deepak Chopra, Dalai Lama was boasting are really really really really really really, it's like it's your listeners that I want in this tab free to buy you can buy a cup of coffee for your friends if you want. If you want them to have a free seat take cost together. To start a mistress group. And this mistress group thing you know it's like. Again, it's also, you know, my classes are expensive. And, out of which a lot of people, this is a way to continue the education in a way that doesn't really require them. So, I'm committed to both I'm committed as a woman who practice practices what she preaches charging the value that I have for the classes but I'll find a way to make this educational accessible, which is in alignment with my commitment to changing the world. That's a lot. I just said, that's the most I've ever said about this.
Julia: As you should I mean I'm already committed to buying the book for all my private clients and my mastermind people so they'll just get that but everyone else was like to get access to your work for the cost of a fucking book is a no brainer. Buy it for everybody that you know, invite them to show up whether they do or they don't. I mean, we could force them and give them a little bad girl slap to be there.
Kasia: I'm sure it's not necessary. It's also going to be really fun for me because it's online but it's like it's taught by me I will be interacting with people in the room. Well fun to start talking to an audience of people who, who read a book, you know, who like. Anyway, it's I'm really really really looking forward to it.
Julia: Yeah, buy the book, sign up for all the things, get on any waitlist that you can, watch the TED talk you also have a free training on your work, there's just so many resources you guys if you're a verbal self defense dojo where you can learn how to combat the moments where you get stuff, frozen in speech.
Kasia: That's right.
Julia: That's a good, that's a great there's all the things which is part of your, your mission to be accessible and obviously just feed all of us because there's such a need such a hunger for all of this and I know everyone listening is resonating hardcore with everything so thank you for the work. Thank you for sharing all of this, and being just like a way out and a solution to more freedom, power, influence money, pleasure, all the fucking things that we want. And that we. Anything else that you just have to share or say, or leave us with?
Kasia: Yeah. I think just like one powerful sentence to sit there with for a moment, is just the idea that you have no say in what you want. The desire isn’t created. You don't make it up.
Julia: Mic drop!
Kasia: It’s blameless, shameless, innocent, childlike and authentically you. What you want is not negotiable. It doesn't mean that everybody has to comply, it just means that you just have to accept it.
Julia: And if you're like oh shit that is so far from my reality. This is why she has a body for everything by the book see the things go find her watch the TED Talk send her some love. Is there anywhere on social media you like people try and find you?
Kasia: @realkasiaurbaniak on Instagram and weteachpower.com is our website.
Julia: Yeah. Just buy the fucking book. We will put all the links in the show notes, it'll be great if you have questions they can always message me and we'll make sure. Do you have a cap on how many people can buy the book in the in the class right now?
Kasia: No, but if too many people end up doing this we might split it into subgroups.
Julia: All right you guys. Challenge accepted. Let's blow up all her glasses.
Kasia: I think one woman bought 50 books today so we'll see what happens.
Julia: Yeah, that's kind of my plan after this. All right, thank you for being here. Thank you for just sharing all of your wisdom being who you are in the world. I super appreciate you.
Kasia: Thank you I super appreciate you. This has been a wonderful.
Sex with Emily: Sexual Power - From Bedrooms to Boardrooms
“If we’re feeling something, but then putting our attention out and leading people, then it’s not an entirely internal experience. That energy, that instruction has a place to go and we’re constantly informing, re-informing, educating each other about who we are. This is the thing that’s I think missing in our world is that we’re very isolated and we’re not accustomed to telling each other the truth from a bodily felt place.”
Listen on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts
Sex with Emily: Sexual Power - From Bedrooms to Boardrooms
Read the transcript:
Emily: I'm really excited to welcome my guest, Kasia Urbaniak. She's here, she's the founder and CEO of The Academy, a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. And I'm just gonna give you a little brief info here so you know what you're getting into, but I promise you, this is going to be a really powerful interview that's really gonna shift the way that you think about men and women and how we relate in the world. I'm so excited to talk to her. So her perspective on power is really unique, and she's made a living as one of the world's most successful dominatrices while studying power dynamics with teachers all over the world. She practices Taoist alchemy, one of the oldest female-led monasteries. I have so many questions about that. And since founding the academy in 2013, she's taught hundreds of women practical tools to step into leadership positions in their relationships, families, workplaces, and wider communities. She speaks at conferences, and she's speaking to us today. Welcome to the show, Kasia. I'm so glad you're here.
Kasia Urbaniak: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Emily: Well it's interesting. We just met and I've been prepping and reading all of her stuff this week. I'm like, oh my God, this woman has got it. She's got her finger on the pulse of what's happening right now. When we first talked about having you as a guest, it was like, I was reading that you're a dominatrix and you've done all this work. And now it's like, okay, dominatrix, I haven't had someone on the show in a while who teaches that. And then I'm reading about everything else you're doing. I'm like, that's sort of a sidebar that prepared you for the leadership role that you're in today with everything going on in the world right now, with #metoo and with men and women walking around really, really confused about how we relate. So, first maybe you can give me some background here. A little bit of how you got to where you are today.
Kasia Urbaniak: You mean like, how the school got started?
Emily: Yeah, how the school got started. That would be a great start.
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, initially I was working as a dominatrix, and I was also studying Taoist practices, a lot of which have to do with body reading, martial arts, healing. And I found myself being really influenced by those practices in how I approached clients. It made me very, very good at what I did. And so I was asked to train other dominatrices. And once I started training other women to do this very specific thing, I started seeing patterns in where they had difficulty in having actual power and influence over their clients. Rather than just performing, "You've been such a boy." Right.
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: I also watched how, I was doing this quite young. So I watched how my non-dominatrix friends related to men. All of the assumptions, the superstitions, the losses of power. And this sort of progressed for a while, and then, five years ago, I met my business partner, Ruben Flores, who worked for Doctors Without Borders. We had the most fascinating six month conversation. He was coming from Africa in really high conflict areas, and what he was talking about was situations where you're at a border checkpoint and you have a piece of paper that says you have authority, but you also have five groups of people who don't speak the same language. 14 year olds on drugs with machine guns. And you have to build this field hospital. In the middle of all of this.
Kasia Urbaniak: So he started talking about the ways that people can communicate beyond language. This primal communication. How you establish authority and how you surrender it. When it's appropriate. And I could not believe that what he discovered on the fringes of death and war was so close to what I discovered on the fringes of human sexuality. So we started seeing that there are these structures as play. Primarily we refer to them as power dynamics. And these have not only such a huge impact on any conversation despite what's said, despite the language that's spoken, but also they play really differently with men and women. Because men and women are raised to play differently in this particular paradigm.
Emily: Yeah, absolutely.
Kasia Urbaniak: So it was like-
Emily: You're like, click. Like, this would be a great partnership. So you started this underground school in New York five years ago. Which was before #metoo, because now this is like, everyone, I feel like I want to go take your course. I want to think that a lot of people need some kind of version of this to learn how to relate. But when you started this five years ago, it was more like ... tell me about that. The first class.
Kasia Urbaniak: Oh, it was so romantic. We were like, "We have a secret society full of powerful women who we're teaching to be even more powerful." And it was very theatrical and erotic and private. We weren't really thinking about changing the world, we were thinking about getting these women who already had access to power to be able to use their ... let's say their more inherent feminine connection to the sematic, to the visceral, to the feeling. The things that women learn through the patriarchy that can be seen as negative. How to harmonize a group, how to be aware of group dynamics, what people call empathy. How do you get those actual assets at play in a way that doesn't make her a nice girl, a good girl. So it was really, really exciting. It was such an exciting time. We were ... all the subjects, ranging from romantic relationships, to how to convince the CEO or how to, you know, it was remarkable. And we were-
Emily: How to get your raise, or how to get your partner to take you on a date, or how-
Kasia Urbaniak: Right. Or do you get your CEO to get into aerospace. Or how do you get the politics of your environment to change. Big things, it was really exciting because I started seeing a huge impact out in the world through this small group of women. So we really felt like a secret society. And we got to play and do these outrageous things. And then a huge shift happened. So, this is gonna sound weird, but dog training had a huge influence on how I was working as a dominatrix. I started seeing how the structures of attention create hierarchy. And this predisposition women have to put attention inward when there's conflict. And the predisposition men have to put their attention out when there's conflict. So, the election happened. Basically what happened was, during the debates, our students ... debate number one, debate number two, debate number three.
Emily: You're talking about the debate between Trump and Hilary Clinton, right?
Kasia Urbaniak: Exactly, yeah.
Emily: Okay.
Kasia Urbaniak: They were analyzing every single power move made. They were analyzing -- I was blown away how much they got of what we taught. They were like, okay, this is what's happening here, this is what's happening here. And there was this fervor growing, this frustration. Because they saw what was happening. They saw that she didn't stand a fucking chance. I understand the electoral college and the popular vote, but that should have been a landslide. And it wasn't. And they were watching, and explaining to me, you have to do something.
Emily: Give an example, because I feel like what you're saying is that, Hilary didn't, we all know that she's really strong, and smart, in probably many ways. I mean, people hate Hilary Clinton. We don't often talk about politics in this show, because people get, you guys get so mad! So just, don't take this as a Democrat or Republican thing right now, when you're listening. Let's take it as a woman who probably was told to kind of wipe away all of your strength as a woman, and bring in some, but don't be too feminine, right? A million things, and she kind of showed up as, kind of blank. Or kind of erased a lot of the edges. Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: Right. That's one way of putting it.
Emily: And Al Gore did this too, when he ran for president against George Bush. Okay, so I used to work in politics for this. So I just remember, they were like, what happened to Gore? He was this person, but he showed up -- I always feel like he had too much coaching or something, he was just like, I can't be. And they're like, what happened to your personality? Why didn't you show this Al Gore when you were running? And you lost. So, it's kind of like this, she probably had too many people saying don't be Hilary.
Kasia Urbaniak: So in the language of the school I can explain what happened.
Emily: Yeah, tell me, yes. Please. That's what I want you to do.
Kasia Urbaniak: So, again, to all the listeners. I get how controversial this is, because if you love her, if you hate her, you're going to hate me for saying anything. But-
Emily: Take away politics and listen to what we're saying.
Kasia Urbaniak: Look at body. Just look at the body.
Emily: Thank you.
Kasia Urbaniak: This is just about the body. This actually happens to women quite early. Your first longing, your first desire. That's personal to you, right, as you're growing up. Is erotic. If you're a kid and you want a cookie, and you don't get it, you cry your eyes out. When you find somebody attractive and you want them to love you back, and you're not getting it, right. That desire. Is so much more personal. It means so much more about you. It's a high stakes desire, and the tendency in women and men. Boys and girls growing up. Is that once somebody notices that a girl is sexually interested, her entire world gets slammed into two. She's either a slut or a prude, and oftentimes she's both.
Kasia Urbaniak: And the way that this ends up manifesting further along, is, her breasts are too small until they're too big. She's too quiet until she's too loud. She's too studious until she's not studious enough. And it continues until she's too concerned with career and not with family, too concerned with family, not career. And the space in between those two things is almost ... I mean, it's like walking a fucking tightrope your entire life. Whereas, when a boy expresses it, it's just like, oh look. Isn't he cute. Look, he's going after it! He's going after it!
Emily: Right. He's being tough, he's strong.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. It's unidirectional. It's not that split. So there's this idea that all humanity is equal, and that's a really beautiful spiritual principle. But at play, in interaction, what happens usually is there's a top and a bottom. There's a dom, and a sub. And they switch. In the best instances, in a ripe, beautiful conversation, I'm on top when I'm speaking. I'm watching to see if the words land in your body. I'm paying attention to you. You're the sub, so I'm putting my attention on you. Something gets triggered in you, inspired, and you start to speak, now you're the top. And you're watching me to see if I'm getting it. I'm, in my own experience, seeing if it triggers something. So that is the idea fluid switching dynamic. So women have a tendency to be afraid of both looking like they're on top and on the bottom.
Emily: So true.
Kasia Urbaniak: So the language translates into bossy and bitchy if they're on top, because they're on top but they're not comfortable with it. And that transmits.
Emily: And we make ourselves smaller.
Kasia Urbaniak: Or angry, right.
Emily: Yeah.
Kasia Urbaniak: With too much effort. And on the bottom one, it's time for us to receive and surrender. We don't want to feel needy and desperate so that there's discomfort there. So there's a tendency for women to limit that range and be in this smush, in this compression. Not too much this, not too much that. So. So often in those debates, what you saw is Hilary not being too much, not being too little. Not being too dom, not being too sub. Not being too much of a mother, not being too much of a daughter, not being too much a slut -- not being too much of anything. Now here's the problem. As animals, we listen to a signal. So if you turn down the volume on Obama and watch him, and you turn down the volume on Trump, and watch him. And you turn down the volume on Hilary, and watch her. And you imagine you're an alien, you have no idea about politics. You get a signal from Obama. You get a signal from Trump. And you get nothing from Hilary. So no matter what she says-
Emily: Because she's just kind of standing there-
Kasia Urbaniak: No matter, her body could not transmit a signal, so no matter what she says, feels like a lie to a body.
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: No necessarily to a mind, but to a body. There's no signal to back it up. So the students went into an uproar, and we had to do our first big public event the day after the election. We had to start teaching. So our first class was how to have a political conversation using power dynamics. Because this was the fall, and people were like, I'm not going to Thanksgiving dinner.
Emily: Exactly. I can't talk to my family, right.
Kasia Urbaniak: So we started doing that, and that was the first moment where our website was not password protected.
Emily: Okay, because you're like, people need me right now, they need the help. And your password, let me just tell people if you're listening and you're like wait, I gotta check out, I gotta see what Emily's talking about. It is Kasia, K-A-S-I-A Urbaniak, that's U-R-B-A-N-I-A-K.
Kasia Urbaniak: It's easier to go to WeTeachPower.com.
Emily: WeTeachPower.com is so much easier. Okay, great.
Kasia Urbaniak: It'll redirect to that site, so.
Emily: We teach power. We can all spell that. Okay. I've done a lot of research and reading about you. So, the dog training. So explain that a little bit more, about how it was the book about how to teach your dog-
Kasia Urbaniak: The Dog Whisperer?
Emily: Yeah. But it's more like, we want the dogs. Like they can kind of read your ... they want an alpha male, or they want an alpha personality, any dog. Like whenever I had a dog for a little, my friends were like, oh, he needs a man. I was probably just too passive with the dog. It's not even about masculine and feminine, it's more about the energy. Right?
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. What I got from it in the context that I was looking from was that ... so the dog's always looking to see who's on top. And when there's nobody on top, the dog thinks that he's on top. And the dog isn't equipped to be on top, because in an apartment, doesn't know how to hunt food and fight for his pack right, so he's a little nuts and neurotic. So the dog needs to know somebody's on top. How does the dog recognize that? And what was incredible was, it was just a glimpse of an idea, but where I took it changed my relations with human beings and definitely my work. It was very clear that, from a stable place, the alpha needed to put full attention on the animal. In a way that the animal could full feel and surrender into it and relax.
Kasia Urbaniak: And go, oh. The pack leader has got me. I'm safe. The attention is on me. I will follow now. And even in the earliest days of training dominatrices, when they were going into the room with their clients, one thing that was missing is no matter what they were doing or saying or whips they were pulling out. Their attention was on themselves and their performance. They were missing the weight of attention that the client needed, especially an alpha male spending his day being boss. The incredible weight of attention he needed in order to shift his brain chemistry into a submissive state where he could relax and receive, was enormous. And women were afraid to invade the space of a man, even when they were paid for it, and directed to.
Emily: How do you deal with that, and how do you show up as authentic, rather than just reading words or whatever. You have to really be there and listen and being in that power place, which, that's tough. So you're teaching women how to be dominatrices, now teaching women how to be in their bodies and be powerful. Has basically been your journey.
Kasia Urbaniak: And teaching them to switch, because a lot of very powerful women have trouble surrendering. And it's impossible to contribute.
Emily: I'm gonna raise my hand.
Kasia Urbaniak: It's not only impossible to contribute to a woman who can't surrender, it's impossible to know what she needs without her explicitly saying so. So if somebody's in a surrendered state, you look at them, you can kind of feel what they want, what they need. Whether it's a hug, or whether it's a complement, or whether it's a smack. You can feel it. But when a person's in a very dominate state, they're impenetrable. Their attention's going out, so it's like swimming upstream to even feel them.
Emily: So, this is so interesting, because what you're teaching now is all about these power dynamics that have become really confused lately. So, especially with what's happening in the world with #metoo, I mean. There's so many places I want to go right now. So I wanted to start out with your workshop, which is clearly a fairly new one. But you have a Cornering Harvey workshop, which is about Harvey Weinstein. Can you talk about that workshop?
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. So it started as Cornering Harvey because we were using the script that was recorded of him, and teaching women how, all the different ways-
Emily: Like, literally the script.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah.
Emily: Come into the hotel room-
Kasia Urbaniak: We had a guy in a bathrobe, and a potted plant next to him. It was really hilarious.
Emily: Oh my God, amazing! Get the whole set. Okay.
Kasia Urbaniak: So, in a sexual harassment scenario, what's oftentimes happening, is the sexual harasser is putting a woman on the spot. Right. He's being dominate, putting all of his attention on her. And there's this thing that happens, and I'm sure many female listeners, maybe even some male listeners can relate to this. Where when you're put on the spot in a really aggressive way, and you already have a tendency to turn your attention inward, you freeze. And in that freeze, a woman loses access to language. It's her amygdala gets hijacked. Her brain chemistry changes.
Kasia Urbaniak: It's, you know, her amygdala gets high jacked. Her brain chemistry changes. Access to language and agency becomes incredibly difficult, so she's much more likely to comply or her silence reads as consent. And this is a huge problem because in that state when she's in the freeze she's much less likely to leave the room. She might not even think to leave the room.
Emily: Right, 'cause like the fight or flight, it's so basic, right? [crosstalk 00:19:25] We can't ... We lose language.
Kasia Urbaniak: It's so, so basic.
Emily: It just makes so much sense, 'cause that's what makes us different than animals. Okay.
Kasia Urbaniak: So when all of the Me Too stuff started coming out and the Harvey stories and all the other stories. The thing I wanted most was to give as many women possible the simplest tool to break the freeze. Since then it's turned into a verbal self defense course that's online, but the basic principle is that when she's frozen her attention is stuck inward. She's having ten thousand thoughts. She's saying, "I'm gonna say something now. I'm gonna say something now." The moment keeps passing. She's running around inside her own head, wanting to say something, wanting to say something, but she's frozen.
Kasia Urbaniak: So the way to break the freeze. First, put your attention out and follow it with language. Asking a question.
Emily: Okay.
Kasia Urbaniak: So, if they practice. If they practice very specific questions, even in a language-frozen state, putting attention out and asking that prepared question is enough to flip the power dynamic. Why a question? Because the person hearing the question automatically turns their attention inward.
Emily: Mm-hmm. (affirmative)
Kasia Urbaniak: Which means there's less pressure on her. So not only has she broken the freeze, she's slipped the power dynamic, and now the person who's heard the question - whether it's like, "Do you realize that a statement like that might make a woman really uncomfortable." Simple, simple. Not even that confrontational.
Emily: Right, right. You literally just flip it. Okay.
Kasia Urbaniak: Even for a second, if the person goes inward, it's enough to give her access to more language, agency, and from that moment she's ten times more likely to be able to just stand up and leave the room.
Emily: Right. God, powerful.
Kasia Urbaniak: So it was super, super, super exciting to experiment with that over and over and over again and have these workshops and show women who consider themselves to be the shyest field mouses actually not only deliver the first question, but then a second one and a third one and a fourth one that's even harsher.
Kasia Urbaniak: "Do you like making women feel small?" "Is this what you need in order to get it up?" "Do you like ..."
Emily: Wow. Wow.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. And just watching them, watching them just their ...
Emily: Get off on it, really. And the thing is ... What I love about this, 'cause I think about this too in reading. And, obviously, to be honest, but when I was reading all of your stuff and I had been going through it. It's like, I see myself like I am a powerful woman with a business and I'm all these things. But I do, I freeze with language, ironically, 'cause I have a show, but I also feel like in scenarios that are tricky, even if it's a work thing, or negotiating, or with a friend I freeze a lot. And I hadn't ever thought about it that it was this fight or flight, 'cause I get anxious and then I get in my head and then I'm over.
Emily: But just to be able to say, even if it's not a Harvey Weinstein [crosstalk 00:22:00] it's someone saying ... If I'm hiring a new lawyer and he's like, "So, we're gonna take ten percent. Is that okay?" I might be thinking, just to give you a business scenario. [crosstalk 00:22:07]
Kasia Urbaniak: This is a perfect example.
Emily: And I'm thinking, "Oh my god. They want that to work with me. What if I don't ... " And I'm just thinking okay. I'll just say yeah. Even if it's a money thing. I get ... With money, I get shut down. But I'm hearing now all these times that I've done it and there's been a lot of problems because of that, because I don't want to confront. I'm from the midwes - Wherever the ... I'm a woman. I'll just say it's from my upbringing. But also just I feel like my default is just being really nice, I want everyone to like me, I don't want anyone to be ...
Emily: Even on the show. I'm like, I'm not talking pot. I want to help people. Better sex ed is my mission. I want people to be able to ask for what they want in bed, to communicate it, to be in their bodies. I want a lot of things. But, I don't want to ... I also want people to like me. So, or I want ... And so I shut down and I might not say the right things, but to now have this tool - and I have haven't taken one of your courses and I want to hear more about the questions - it's so powerful to think ... Even if it's a reporter. I get interviewed all the time. Ask me a question rather just rambling sometimes as I do. Even asking a clarifying question in the moment when you're not feeling safe and you're feeling like you know. It's just a huge freedom. It's a huge freedom and it gives you that space that you might need and it takes back your power.
Kasia Urbaniak: The reasons why people freeze, you know the default that women have to keep their attention in, what you described, "I wanna be the good girl. ... "
Emily: I wanna be liked.
Kasia Urbaniak: But, that's just what happens when your attention's inward. If you put your attention out and completely saturate the other person with your attention you're not thinking about whether you're good or bad. You're thinking about where they are and how to move them either forward, backward, or out of your fucking way.
Emily: Right, exactly.
Kasia Urbaniak: It just becomes natural.
Emily: Right. Give me some more of the tools. I thought it would be fun too to do a role play.
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, the verbal self defense stuff that's the [crosstalk 00:23:38]
Emily: Yeah, I love you. Verbal self defense ... What a great ... And then you've a course that you teach on this online.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah.
Emily: Okay.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah, yeah, yeah, which also has to do with the string of ambiguous sentences that somebody can sometimes give you to put pressure on you and how to deal with those.
Emily: Like what? Give me example.
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, oftentimes compromising situations aren't created with one statement like, "If you fuck me, I'll give you a role in a movie." Right.
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: It sounds a little bit more like, "I got lots of friends in this town. And, you know, I could be very helpful to you if we're friends and come to my hotel room and be my ... " Like a lot of ambiguity, right.
Emily: Yeah.
Kasia Urbaniak: So the tool that we use for that is called location and it's a really simple sentence. It's just a clarifying sentence.
Emily: Okay.
Kasia Urbaniak: That goes: "It seems that fill in the blank, is that true?" "It seems that you want to get me into bed, is that true?"
Emily: Right, right, right.
Kasia Urbaniak: "It seems that you're promising me a very successful career if I sleep with you, is that true?" "It seems that you're very used to getting your way, is that true?" Whatever it is, it has the same function of putting attention out but before ... It's easier to hit back
Emily: So if I say that to someone, but let's say I'm younger. I'm feeling that and I'm ... It's scary. 'Cause what if he goes, "Fuck you, I can't believe that you'd say that." And then it's anger. Like, I can see the next step.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah, yeah.
Emily: And then what? What's the next step?
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, I mean, that's why we have an entire training course about it.
Emily: Okay, [crosstalk 00:24:50] you can't ... But I couldn't take your course.
Kasia Urbaniak: But, also, this is just one tiny tool and this is like ...
Emily: Right, I know.
Kasia Urbaniak: We've never put forward one tiny piece of one basically tool out of a whole course forward.
Emily: True.
Kasia Urbaniak: And the reason for that was because I felt this emergency happening, you know?
Emily: It is an emergency, so ... 'Cause here's the thing, 'cause let me just answer my own question here. If a guy says that to me, "Well, I can't believe you're saying that," or he gets angry. Clearly that's what he wants and do I want to sleep with someone to get a role in a movie.
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, you'd do another statement, you know.
Emily: Yeah, you just keep going with the questions
Kasia Urbaniak: It seems like you're really angry now, is that true? It seemed like it really angered you to think that you weren't gonna get your way, is that true? And then it could be a penetrating question like in round one which is, "Do you realize how uncomfortable you make women when you act this way? Is that something you want? Is that the impact you wanna have?"
Emily: Right, was that your intention? Is this what you want?
Kasia Urbaniak: And really the only goal of all these in verbal self defense is just to buy enough time to get out of the fucking room.
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: Right.
Emily: God, that's so helpful.
Kasia Urbaniak: Like, it's not a conflict resolution ... It's not the complete thing, you know. In our courses, we teach women to ask anyone for anything ...
Emily: Anything?
Kasia Urbaniak: Anything.
Emily: Literally, like a raise. Change my tire. Could you move? Can I have your parking spot?
Kasia Urbaniak: Buy me a castle. Ask anyone for anything anytime and have it feel good. And then, teaching them how to play with resistance and no. That's the arc of the curriculum. That's the meaty part. If a woman can freely express herself from a place of desire, whether it's financial, professional, if she can, from the deepest part of her, feel completely unafraid to express what it is that's moving her soul and speak it cleanly, clearly, with total body congruence, feeling great about it. And the hundred percent of it, not ninety five percent of it, not diminishing it, not thinking, "This is what I want, this is what I think I can get. What's the spot in between that's gonna be my ask?" No, the whole fucking thing.
Emily: Right. Don't even think about the middle part. Just ask for it.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah.
Emily: People want that clarity.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yes, they do.
Emily: People want to know what you want.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yes, they do.
Emily: Yeah, I mean they really ... I can only see this ... Propelling women to so many more places of authentic power. Internally and externally. Where it matches up.
Kasia Urbaniak: I also have this feeling ... And maybe it's the exposure I've had to men. Maybe it's the men I've known. But, I have this really deep love for the men that I've known, because I feel like what they want, more than anything else, is a chance to win. Heterosexual men want a chance to win with women.
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: And when a woman asks for less than what she wants and he goes through the trouble of delivering it and he can't feel her light up. She goes, "Thank you so much. This is so nice," but he knows somewhere deep down inside he hasn't hit the fucking spot.
Emily: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Literally and figuratively. Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah, yeah. He feels it. And it diminishes his not only sense of self, but his desire to try again. I feel like men are very oftentimes in no win situations.
Emily: They are. Well, so that's what I love about this, too, because with everything with Me Too happening I think it's obviously ... This isn't just a blip on the radar. This truly is a movement. Like, I liken this to Rosa Parks and the bus. I feel like what's happening now is such a change that when I keep getting questions or speaking about it or writing about it or even talking about it on my show I don't think ... Well, what do we do now. I'm like, well it's really not just talking. It's sort of this full body somatic, like an experience of what's happening in the moment with our body and our breath and body language ... It's everything. Body language and words.
Emily: And I'm like, we need to teach men. We don't need to keep men down. And women. 'Cause men are not the culprits here at all. My heart is even wider for men, open for men, because I feel like everyone's just walking around really confused right now. And how do we teach men and women together. And I feel like that's the work that you're doing. That it's sort of like ... It's been horrible what's happened, but now that the lights opened. The light has shown on this and everybody's like, "Now what, now what, now what." And they're craving to know what to do. There isn't ... And I've been kind of sitting here for a few months, my team knows it, when this first happened I was like, "I can't even do shows. I can't sit here and talk about how to get the oral sex you want, or how to get the orgasms, or how to ask for what you want. When there's a crisis going on and I feel like I've been doing this for so long. How can I go help change the world in this way. Like I don't even know."
Emily: I was like, that's all I really need to talk about. And the result, I haven't been talking about it as much, because I feel like anything I say would be ... It helps, but it's smaller, because it's just, I don't know, there has to be a behavioral change. And there has to be people's willingness. And I think right now that there's just a lot of fear and confusion and that every day the stories are coming out that another man's wrong that's keeping men quiet or I think many men.
Emily: I think the men who are asking aren't necessarily the men that we're reading about. Most men, I think, want to please women and they're in a good ... They like women. And they're probably doing things right, but what I'm saying is it's just how do you go to a place where ... In using a language that no one's ever used or thought about before, when it's ... Our base level is masculine energy, feminine energy. How do you unpack all of that? And reading your stuff and seeing your courses I think it's such a great step. It's such a great approach with Me Too.
Kasia Urbaniak: Thanks. They say there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, right.
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: And ideas are great, but ... There's no substitute for a fully felt visceral experience. And one of the reasons that the work that I do is designed the way that it is - and also I think why a lot of corporations are now trying to have me do their sexual harassment training - is because the best ... Human beings are social learners, especially when it comes to social skills, we're social learners. If I give you a list of things that you are to do and not to do that will make you more powerful, right: don't use up speak, don't say um, mind your posture. If I give you a list, you will forget ninety percent of that list within two hours, right.
Emily: Yeah.
Kasia Urbaniak: And that's how we're trying to train people. Don't do this. This is bad. This is good. However, if you train women to speak in the moment they feel something, you have an instantaneous, well-calibrated biofeedback learning loop. A lot of guys don't know the impact they're having on women. They're socially awkward and devastating them or they're monsters or not monsters, but they don't know. And hearing about it in some vague terms twenty years later does not educate them. But if they feel it, they do something and they get instant feedback in the moment. Do you realize that that kind of statement may make a woman feel uncomfortable?
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: They learn then. They're like, "Oh, this is what that felt like." Even if they get defensive.
Emily: If it's okay, because they might. No one's ever called them out on it, but this is the work that women can do in the moment. And men. Speak up.
Kasia Urbaniak: And doing so, they're training themselves to be fully self-expressed and training men to see impact. And this goes beyond gender because the same power dynamics happen in any status differential. Whether it's financial or racial. It happens all the time. So, when you have people educated in training each other, then sometimes ideas are enough for people to create their own fully-felt, visceral experiences. What I want is for women and people to learn how to speak and see each other in a way where they're constantly training each other, therefore creating culture and recreating culture, with every human conversation and interaction. And that way we become an organically organized society that uses empathy as an incredible skill not ...
Kasia Urbaniak: You know that empath complaint. "I feel too much, I'm overwhelmed."
Emily: I know. It makes me think we have to all feel more.
Kasia Urbaniak: If we use power dynamics. If we're feeling something, but then putting our attention out and leading people, then it's not an entirely internal experience. That energy, that instruction has a place to go and we're constantly informing, re-informing, educating each other about who we are. This is the thing that's I think missing in our world is that we're very isolated and we're not accustomed to telling each other the truth [crosstalk 00:32:42] from a bodily felt place.
Emily: The truth in the moment. Exactly. Right. So, it's also ... 'Cause here's the thing, so let's say the workplace. Okay, so back up, the thing I've been thinking is it was the patriarchy that built the system we're in now, right. So even in the ... When you're saying these things in the workplace, I've always heard, "Leave emotions out of it. It's a business. Don't bring your emotions in." But, we talk about everything here. I know that I've only had to work for myself, because I feel like I don't know how I could work in other areas. But for a lot of people they think, "How could you do that in a workplace?" Or, "Our family, we don't discuss emotions." But it's kind of like we've sort of ripped apart this whole very base way of communicating of being empathic and sharing feelings and real time feedback to people.
Emily: Or even parents. Where we think we can never speak up and we hold on and it becomes resentment and it builds up. So how do you even change the way ... That's where I get overwhelmed, but it's in the moment, is what you're saying, of practicing and learning just basic skills so in the moment when things are uncomfortable to speak up, to not wait anymore, and not to sit with something that's uncomfortable.
Emily: But, do you still believe that there are rules around that. Like, well, you shouldn't do it at church.
Kasia Urbaniak: But look, look, twenty years ago, you know the author of Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow? Daniel Kahneman I think is his name.
Emily: Familiar.
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, twenty years ago, he introduced the idea that emotions play an impact in negotiations. And everybody went, "No way! Emotions have nothing to do with it." And, "No, they don't." And it took twenty years and people are like, "Oh, yeah. Emotions." Now it's the entire somatic experience. The entire ... It's not ... If words communicate information, then how you are being about it tells the other how to interpret it.
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: So I can ask you for something three different ways and it can be the same exact words. "Can I have some ice cream?" Right.
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: "Can I have some ice cream?" "Go get me some ice cream." Right. I can even use the same exact sentence, but how ... We have such an over reliance on the words spoken and the intellectual information that we forget that we're constantly informing each other on a sub language level how the other is supposed to feel about it. And that is, I think, beyond body language.
Emily: How do women safely then use their sexuality? Do you think that some of this stuff is gonna be obsolete? Like aren't there ways to be sexual ... Then how do we use this in sexuality, let's say, or even in the bedroom if you're just a couple who wants to have healthier sex and healthier communication around sex. 'Cause what I find from women a lot and ... Including myself. I was one of these girls that was very passive. I didn't have a lot of sex education and I was very much like, when I started having sex in my late teens up to early twenties I was like the man's gonna show up and he's gonna know what to because I don't know my body, I don't know what feels good. It was very deferential and that if I did speak up, I was probably afraid of being a slut and I wanted to be the good girl and not have too many partners.
Emily: And then you cut to like even people who are in committed relationships. How do you still have that dynamic of getting people to open up and to feel comfortable for what they want sexually and in a relationship using what we know. Using this language. Using somatics.
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, I think there are two parts to this and the first part is more hidden and insidious. The first part I had to begin addressing more sexuality in my classes, even though my classes are not about sexuality or BDSM. This first part was so important to address because I found that without it women could not find quote unquote their voices or stand in their power.
Emily: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kasia Urbaniak: So, I like to tell the story of Sleeping Beauty. Not the original, the one we grew up with.
Emily: Right, exactly.
Kasia Urbaniak: And it paints this picture of a woman who's in a coma, basically, who has no desire, has no feeling, is not even conscious, and it isn't until the right, white, heterosexual, wealthy, well-statused, chosen prince comes along and kisses the life into her and kisses the sex into her. And so, unconsciously, a lot of time there's this pattern of belief that a woman's sexuality comes from the outside. It's awakened from the outside. And it's not true. [crosstalk 00:37:50] We give life.
Emily: Exactly. It's, "Someday my prince will come, and so will I."
Kasia Urbaniak: We give life. We have more orgasmic potential than men do. We are voracious and alive. And alive, and having a woman begin to see herself as her own pleasure center ...
Emily: And she's generating the energy too. She's bringing the energy.
Kasia Urbaniak: She is the reason sex happens.
Emily: Everything. Women, we are the reason that sex happens. We bring it to the table. I want women to understand this, stand in the power of it.
Kasia Urbaniak: Then it starts becoming a lot easier to see how men are actually responding to women. We're talking in the heterosexual paradigm right now, right?
Emily: Mm-hmm. (affirmative)
Kasia Urbaniak: But in the animal kingdom, it's almost all, across the board, the same. A woman experiences her own, a female animal experiences her own erotic energy, then the men come. Then the males of the species come. They're responding. This really turns the patriarchal lie on its head that we're responding to men. They are responding to us.
Emily: Exactly.
Kasia Urbaniak: Constantly. They are constant. Having that perceptual shift does so much for my students in terms of understanding how to, quote unquote, "use their sexuality." The fucked up part is that nobody ever accuses a man of using sexuality.
Emily: No.
Kasia Urbaniak: What does a man look like when he's being sexy? He's standing up straight like a cock with a tie on.
Emily: Exactly.
Kasia Urbaniak: Right?
Emily: Exactly.
Kasia Urbaniak: And nobody goes like, "Oh my God, he's being so sexual."
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: Right?
Emily: No he's just-
Kasia Urbaniak: A woman with integrated sexuality is turned on. She's turned on by success. She's turned on by flowers. She's turned on.
Emily: She's just turned on.
Kasia Urbaniak: And we're not supposed to think that way, but as our own erotic pleasure centers, the center of the universe, to which others respond to, that shift is really, really important and powerful.
Kasia Urbaniak: The second part has to do with asking and has to do with knowing how to ask from a dominant place and a submissive place, wherever it's appropriate. Telling people what you want in sex can be incredibly hot or an incredible buzz kill. Learning how to ask in a congruent, full-body felt way is a really powerful tool in the bedroom.
Emily: 'Cause you're in your body. We talk a lot about just breathing before sex and in the moment when we're in our heads, 'cause that's one of the big complaints with people. I've done this too in the past. I try not to do this anymore. We're in our heads, and we're thinking, "Is this going to be accepted? Do I want this? Did I leave the oven," you know. "Did I leave the door open? What's gonna happen?" We're truly not into our bodies. We're not breathing into it from a place of even knowing what we want.
Kasia Urbaniak: If a student told me that, I'd say, "In that moment, stop, get a note pad, write ten requests on a piece of paper, and hand it to your lover." Just get the intellect.
Emily: Just get it out. Just ask for it. So asking for it would even be, if it feels shaky at first, just ask. Don't overthink it. There's a lot of overthinking, over analyzing.
Kasia Urbaniak: Right. But you can't tell somebody to not overthink something, because the first thing they're gonna do is-
Emily: Overthink why you said that.
Kasia Urbaniak: ... overthink it and then punish themselves for thinking.
Emily: For overthinking our entire lives, right.
Kasia Urbaniak: There's different ways of bypassing it depending on what level of communication you're at. Sometimes it's something as simple as setting up oral sex in such a way where the giver and the receiver are holding hands, and when the receiver likes it more, he or she squeezes harder.
Emily: It doesn't have to be all words.
Kasia Urbaniak: No, but it needs to be communication. It needs to be explicitly stated.
Emily: Right, so true.
Kasia Urbaniak: The container is sacred, you know?
Emily: You have to sort of bring sexuality into your classes more so. You have to.
Kasia Urbaniak: The curriculum is the curriculum, but the content or the substance of it is what women want. If they want better sex, that class is about better sex.
Emily: Exactly.
Kasia Urbaniak: If they want world domination, then that's the subject of the class.
Emily: And I'm gonna say that a lot of it does start with sexuality, that when a woman is feeling, if she's in her body, not just showing up, but having ticked off all this. She's a great mom or she's a great wife or she's an Olympic skier. None of that really matters in the sense of if she's still not ... but she's going home and having bad sex, or she's a runner and thinks, like I feel it all starts with-
Kasia Urbaniak: Bad sex is a disaster.
Emily: Sex is disaster for so many. They're like, "Well, I'm too busy to even think about my own sex. So I feel like once women anchor into that, the power, and what we're talking about which might seem so esoteric, saying, "We're the center of the universe, and we bring energy." But we do. I've talked a lot about energy dynamics.
Kasia Urbaniak: Wait, can I give you a really simple example?
Emily: Yes.
Kasia Urbaniak: This is really simple. When I went to study with the Taoist nuns, they're celibate. But their sexuality, all of their reproductive system energetically is integrated. They're constantly doing practices to alchemize sexual energy and to include it. These women are terrifying in how powerful they are, because when you look at one of these well-practiced Taoist nuns, you get the sensation that her body is the tip of the iceberg, and the other 95% of her is deep in the earth, and she's unshakeable and unmovable.
Kasia Urbaniak: There's this great story about the head abbot, the female abbot, when the communists came to demolish the monastery, all she did is she stood on the mountaintop and looked at them. They all ran away.
Emily: I can imagine that. And these are the women that taught you, so you studied with these, you studied Taoism.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. This is an example of a woman whose sexuality is integrated, and yet she's celibate. And she is the epitome of-
Emily: No masturbation either, huh? Maybe? It's healthy for women to orgasm.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yes, it is, but now you're talking about a whole set of esoteric practices that have that function, but don't necessarily look like what we think they would look like. If you open certain gates through breath and movement and, you know.
Emily: I know. Try, orgasm is not just one going over the ledge and having an orgasm, I get it. It's the full body. I think it's a great place for women to start, too, by realizing that when you're just in your body without the goal of anything of what it looks like, but just you're in your power and your sexuality, then everything else sort of can come, will fall into place.
Kasia Urbaniak: That's also the thing is that men have a tendency to breathe lower than women in our culture, because every women who's cut off from the waist down or suppressed sexually, her voice is higher, her center of gravity is higher. She's literally easier to knock over. She broadcasts as an animal that's compromised, a weaker animal, not because she's smaller, but because only half of her ... she's easier to tackle. A man has a tendency to be ... I'm not saying men don't experience sexual shame, but a man has a tendency to have his cock and his balls better integrated into his body, breathe lower, have a lower center of gravity, and be harder to knock over, and therefore transmits more powerfully. Excluding that from say, how does a woman negotiate or raise more powerfully, is pointless. It has to be in there somewhere.
Emily: Do you talk about breath work in your courses? Do you teach it? 'Cause I know that there was a quote, "I don't care if you love yourself, I don't even fucking care about that, but here's what I ask for." Do you start with the words and the rest comes?
Kasia Urbaniak: Nope.
Emily: So how does it-
Kasia Urbaniak: I only teach with attention. When you put your attention in fully, you naturally relax and start breathing lower. When you put your attention out, you enter a flow state, and the other person's the only person that exists. The only other thing that exists is the instructions you're giving them to move them, and to see the impact of your movements on them. When the attention is complete, the attention out is complete, the flow state relaxes your body, has you do all of the right power poses without any instruction, all of the breathing, all of the facial expressions, it all comes together, because naturally in a hierarchy as an animal if you had your attention out and you'd be the alpha, you'd be behaving that way anyway.
Kasia Urbaniak: And, conversely, you put all of your attention in, you begin to glow in a different way. You're the person to be contributed to, the person to be led, the person to be cared for. You attract attention as you put attention on yourself. Also, your body does that matching thing where you're softer, your breath is softer, and you don't have to receive instructions on how to be more vulnerable, or quote unquote, "feminine," because it all happens with attention.
Emily: Why do you believe that so many woman walk around disconnected? That's a huge theme on the show that we are so disconnected from our bodies, from our breath. We don't think about it. I hear from women every single day, whether it's people on the street, friends, emails to the show, "I don't want sex. I've low desire." All these things, and I have to encourage them to masturbate, encourage them to get into practices where they're, "I haven't even thought about it." I know it hasn't always been this way, but we've asked to step into male roles. What do you think it is now?
Kasia Urbaniak: I think it's the same thing it's always been really. First question I ask in a lot of my classes, even if there's 200 people present, is I ask everyone to close their eyes and raise your hand if you've had unwanted sex, which transmits to the body like rape or like trauma. All the hands go up. Then I ask who's been raped, who's been abused. It's just like we've been fucked with so hard so many ways, and without the tools that I'm trying to bring into the world so that happens less, that there's a lot to overcome. This is also why I teach these tools, because in the moment it doesn't matter if you have trauma, if you can put your attention out and give a few simple instructions or if you can put your attention in, it's just such a good cultural bypass.
Emily: Right, it's a practice.
Kasia Urbaniak: Eventually, we'll all have the traumas we want healed, healed, but until then, I don't want to wait until everybody feels psychologically whole and past their trauma before they start-
Emily: We can't wait.
Kasia Urbaniak: No.
Emily: That's why you call it a process, too. That's why it's a practice. Like everything, you get to a place and you're done. You're done with therapy or yoga or meditation. For me, it's a lifelong practice.
Kasia Urbaniak: The things that I teach are not a lifelong practice. This is the thing. This is the differentiation. You go to therapy for a reason. You come to the Academy so that you don't have to wait 10 years before you can kick ass at a negotiation or have your lover give you the sex you want. The world can't wait for that.
Emily: Right, and it starts in the Academy. Where people, someone can sign up for the Academy, your courses, you're probably totally sold out right now, but they could take it in person or online.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah.
Emily: If they can't take your course though, there's a lot on your website.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah, and also, we're planning to have some summer games, Bad Girl Olympics, so anybody who wants to can sign up for free to be part of this grand mission. Every week, getting missions to do.
Emily: Everywhere in the world they can ... love it.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah.
Emily: So they can go to your website, which is?
Kasia Urbaniak: Weteachpower.com.
Emily: Weteachpower.com and sign up and check out more about what Kasia has to say. Thank you for being here.
Emily: Kasia, will you stay and answer some emails for me?
Kasia Urbaniak: Sure.
Emily: Okay, I love to answer your questions. It's why I exist on the planet. If you want one after the show, you can text askemily, all one word, to 797979, fill out the form, or go to my website, sexwithemily.com. Click on the Ask Emily tab. Always include your name, your age, where you live, and how you listen to this show.
Emily: Okay, this is from Bethany, 24, Indiana, "Emily, I'm married to the most amazing man on the face of the planet. Growing up, my parents were ultra religious and conservative. They didn't have the sex talk with us about premarital sex as if it was the worst thing you could ever do, and just had a really unhealthy view on sex by surrounding it with guilt. Well, my husband and I, of course, had sex before we were married, but as soon as we got married, my parents talked about how important it was and that we should be doing it all the time. My brain doesn't flip that easy. I grew up feeling that sex was terrible, that I should feel guilty about having sexual thoughts, and sometimes even feel guilty after having sex with my husband. I adore my husband, and we have a great sex life. Any advice how to leave that out of the bedroom and just enjoy my sexuality? Thanks for the help."
Emily: I love this question, and I love that you're here, Kasia, because I think that a lot of us suffer from guilt, trauma, a lot of it around religion or what our parents told us, the messaging from early childhood. How in the moment do we wire our brains to kind of show up? How can Bethany show up and be present without hearing these messages in her brain with her husband and have healthy sex? Her parents, we're always hearing the voices.
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, her and her husband can play a really fun game together. They could do a very sexy written exercise, where they both write down everything they're ashamed of about sex. They use the form, I am ashamed that I licked your balls. I am ashamed that I want sex sometimes when I don't think you want it. I am ashamed that we're disappointing God. Then they read it to each other one sentence at a time, and the response from the other person is, "Oh, that's hot," whether they feel it or not.
Emily: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: Just to get the idea that shame is hot.
Emily: I love that, I love that. I'm always saying, "Write down a fuck-a-list of what you want to try," and that's a great reverse to kind of untangle all these things-
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, this is the thing.
Emily: ... and that you rewire it, like "Oh, that's hot."
Kasia Urbaniak: Shame is so sexy. It's the way to liberate to shame. The way to liberate shame is to connect it to the erotic. I don't know, 80% of the hottest things I've found in the dungeon as a dominatrix were things that the client was ashamed of, and going, "Oh, you like that, you like that perverted thing, don't you? That's so hot." In that space of approval, so much energy and erotic power was liberated that suddenly it became hotter and hotter, and they would want other things.
Emily: For you or for them?
Kasia Urbaniak: The whole room.
Emily: The whole room was, right, you can't separate it, 'cause you were really engaged. I can see it. That is a very powerful exercise. I love that idea.
Kasia Urbaniak: It also creates a lot of intimacy between them.
Emily: It does.
Kasia Urbaniak: Intimacy is hot.
Emily: Intimacy, I think that people are very confused sometimes by what intimacy means, and that words can be intimacy, touch can be intimacy. They're worried that, it's not just about the sex. Couples will email and they're like, "Well, we just don't even have sex anymore." When you're vulnerable and really open and you say the things that you think you could never ever say to anybody-
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah.
Emily: ... and you take away the power that they hold over you, which is so many things, you just realize that you are released. When someone stands there and you realize they're not going to leave you and they love you even more for it, it is some of the hottest sex, and it has connections. Even with friends, I know my friends that I've had for years and that's why we are best friends, but it kept getting deeper when I say things to them, like "This is what I'm thinking."
Emily: My best friend was here this weekend. We've been friends for 30 years, and she was visiting me and I realized there were some things that I was afraid to say to her, not afraid, but in the moment I was like, "Okay, usually I'd be afraid that you're going to get angry 'cause you do that anger thing, but I am not afraid. I know you're not going anywhere. We've been friends for 30 years. I'm going to tell you this." It was like I didn't think we could even get closer, but it is a girlfriend. She was like, "Oh my god, first of all, you're never that direct." I'm like, "I'm not afraid of your fear and your anger," and we talked about it all weekend, 'cause she broke through her bullshit anger that she has about things. It was amazing, especially when you feel safe. Now I'm not going to do it every day with someone I just met, but when you're in a relationship or with somebody and you say it, and you realize they're not going to leave you, it's everything.
Kasia Urbaniak: It's freedom.
Emily: It is freedom. It's great advice. Thank you, Kasia. This has been a great show. I appreciate it.
Girlskill: Sex Dungeons, Taoist Nuns and The Bittersweet Victory of the Independent Woman
“We should be running towards heartbreak–it is the place were ecstasy lives. I’m not talking about self-destruction, I’m talking about doing something you give a fuck about.”
“The word femininity is so loaded. It is like ‘I Love You.’ It never means the same thing twice.”
Listen on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts
Girlskill: Sex Dungeons, Taoist Nuns and The Bittersweet Victory of the Independent Woman
Read the Transcript:
Anna: All right girlfriends, welcome to another episode of Girlskill podcast. Thank you for being here. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm very excited that you're joining us especially this amazing episode that just totally blew my mind. Before I tell you about my guest today, and we are talking about sex dungeons, power dynamics, and Taoist nuns with Kasia Urbaniak, let me tell you that something exciting is happening at Girlskill.
Anna: I'm offering coaching packages for women who are ready to take their femininity and their feminine embodiment to the next level. How this works is I work with women one on one. I offer them coaching sessions, not sections, coaching sessions, one on one. Besides, I give them access to the program that I've created and just a lot of support and a lot of guidance and mentoring on the journey of transformation.
Anna: If you've been a listener on this podcast for a while and you know the message of femininity that I'm talking about, and you are interested in working with me, feel free to reach out. I also recommend that first, you go and sign up for a webinar that I've put together, a video exclusive training called the live Female Success that basically explains my whole philosophy on female success, on the modern female epidemic and my approach to transforming your life and actually living your version of success as a woman because it is very different to the version of successes of men that has been sold to us and is being sold to us continuously.
Anna: If you resonate with the message and with what I'm writing, with everything, I highly encourage you that you first actually watch the webinar if you haven't and at the end of the webinar, I give you the next steps on how to get in touch with me, how we can schedule a call and where we can talk about working together. Make sure to go to Girlskill.com/webinar to check out all the details of that and I can't wait to get with you on a call because this is just so important for any woman who just wants to.
Anna: For women especially who are in transition and are feeling like something is missing. This is for you. All right, let's go into today's episode with Kasia Urbaniak. My god like this woman is literally either like a channel or an angel or like freaking out of this world. First of all, we talked about dominatrix. She has gone to the highest of the highest realms of being a dominator in the sex dungeons of New York and while at the same time, she was studying Taoist in some of the monasteries in China.
Anna: This is very controversial, contradictory so it's such an interesting conversation actually and so during her journey so we talked about all of this. I asked her a lot of questions about dominatrix because I personally am interested in. I'm sure you are interested in and how does this work, all worked. What did she learn from it and also, we talked a little bit about her journey in the monastery and what I was interested in and like why.
Anna: Why would you work in dominatrix and she explains why, and so we'll hear what she learned from this but most importantly, what Kasia is doing today. She's the founder and CEO of The Academy, a school that teaches women about power and power dynamics. She has already helped hundreds of women step into leadership positions in their personal and professional lives. Her teachings, as I mentioned before, come of 10 years of working as a dominatrix as well as pursuing Taoist alchemy in one of the oldest female led monasteries in China.
Anna: She has certifications in disciplines like Medical Qigong, systematic constellations and so on and so on so we're ready to talk about. It's such a fascinating conversation. We talked about the power dynamics and how power indeed is yours and as a woman and I love this interview because Kasia is very clear that no one is making you feel powerless. It is up to you to take the power and be an equal in any negotiation whether you're doing with a man, whether you're doing it with a woman.
Anna: She also teaches women how to respond to men, how to respond to sexual. For example, advances and so on and so on which is so helpful and I love her approach because it's coming from a powerful position even when she's dealing with difficult situation like sexual harassment and so on and so on. She's talking about a win-win situation.
Anna: One of my favorite subjects and the questions I asked Kasia is we talked about the bittersweet victory of the independent woman, something that you will hear me say and talk about in the webinar in different terms but I asked her what she means by that and our messages are so aligned because she talks about how we all wanted "independence" and then, here's our bittersweet victory and how we all have to deal with this as women.
Anna: This is exactly what my webinar is about. This is exactly what my coaching is about so I am sure that you'll really, really enjoy this interview and I hope that you share it with everyone you know because Kasia's work is simply incredible. All right, I will let you listen to it. We'll shut up and I'll see you at the end.
Anna: Today on Girlskill podcast, I'm super excited to welcome Kasia Urbaniak. She's currently in Paris but normally based in New York so Kasia, welcome to Girlskill. I'm super excited to have you today.
Kasia: Thank you for having me.
Anna: Yeah, so we're going to get into some juicy subjects in a couple of minutes but before that, let's as usual, start with our blitz questions. That's how I call it. Kasia, tell me, what is your superpower?
Kasia: I have so many.
Anna: Okay, name a couple then.
Kasia: I see people's fears and desires very easily, everybody's very well. I also have the superpower of living in a stream of constant coincidence and bringing to me the people that I most need and want and my third superpower would be asking people to do things for me in a way that when they fulfill my request, it makes them happy.
Anna: That's definitely a superpower so many women need today. Maybe we can learn from you a little bit. Maybe you can give us some tips. I love that. Okay, awesome. Let's move on. Kasia, who is your girl crush?
Kasia: I might not have one right now.
Anna: That's fine. Okay, let me rephrase then the question. Name one person dead or alive that you'd love to have dinner with.
Kasia: I would love to have dinner with Jodorowsky, Alejandro. I would love to try to have dinner with him. He's a filmmaker and a tarot card reader and a magician and he tried to make one of the Dune movies, the Frank Herbert's book Dune, the science fiction novel.
Anna: I know you're a big fan of it. Yes, I have-
Kasia: Yeah, so one of his failed attempts became a fantastic documentary. Yeah, I'd love to meet him.
Anna: Awesome. What is your biggest fear?
Kasia: Running out of time, dying before I finish.
Anna: As in finish your mission?
Kasia: Yeah.
Anna: Okay. We're going to talk about this in a couple of minutes. What is your astrological sign and how are you using it in your daily life?
Kasia: There's the standard astrology in which I am a cancer, and I also really like human design astrology, which does not have the same common names. I would be a generator, hermetic, martyr.
Anna: My goodness. I know about human design but I didn't know that human design has its own astrology.
Kasia: It is astrology. It's just a different approach to it.
Anna: Yeah, yeah, because it's based on like natal mapping and all of that but I didn't know it actually, not qualifies you but also gives you some more characteristics than Generator, Manifestor and all of that.
Kasia: Yeah. No, it's rich. It's very, very complex and very, very immense.
Anna: Okay, awesome. All right, and last question. Kasia, for you, on a scale of one to 10, how excited are you about life right now and why?
Kasia: Ten because I'm living the life of my dreams and it's a constant stream of magic and basically, I'm so fucking grateful that I get to have this human experience, even the details of it are less important than the privilege of having eyes and skin and getting to be human, have feelings.
Anna: Love it. Now, please introduce yourself Kasia and I'd love to hear more about living the life of your dreams and the magic of your human experience.
Kasia: I'm Kasia Urbaniak and I run a school for women called The Academy and I teach women about power, power dynamics and how to have what they want and love what they have and how to work through some of the conditioning that most women on this earth are subject to from the moment they're born, how to overcome it and how to live from a place that's spontaneous, fully self-expressed, really bold, natural and powerful.
Anna: My goodness. Love it. This should be the tagline of this podcast indeed because I explore femininity in womanhood and I love how you describe it. Awesome, so Kasia, let me ask you because this is the question asked when we were on the show. What is femininity for you?
Kasia: The word femininity is so loaded and it's like saying, "I love you." It never means the same thing to the same person twice but it can tell you something just about being born a biological woman is that I am very aware of the privilege of being the holder of the role of giving birth and continuing life even though I myself will likely not have children, how my entire being and position in the world is set because of this, looking at femininity from a different angle.
Kasia: I'm not sure what to make of it. There are characteristics inscribed to the feminine that are emotional or essential. I'd like those qualities to be deemed more universal and not inherently in the category of the feminine because I think what this world needs, men and women and all of us is a lot more intimacy, human contact, embodiment, connection with the body, central awareness, awareness of our surroundings, awareness of how all things are interconnected.
Kasia: An ability to feel what's alive and recognize what's dead, what no longer serves, the ability to see what needs to be watered with our attention in order to grow. Basically, orienting all of humanity towards a worship of life and being really cautious and aware of where our death drive comes in so the death drive is inscribed to the masculine and this central worship of life is inscribed to the feminine and I think it would be really lovely if we were all more oriented towards life.\
Kasia: Not giving that characteristic and also shoving it under the drawer with all of the things we hate about what we think female behavior is.
Anna: Love it. Beautiful, very wise words, Kasia and as you're speaking, I'm like, are you channeling some universal truth or wisdom here because I don't get to hear that often and I have different kinds of guests and it's clear that you have been on a journey and are still on the journey which is magical so-
Kasia: Yes, I have.
Anna: We're going to talk about it in a second but let me ask you another question, ask women on the show is do you consider yourself successful and why?
Kasia: My goodness, yes, I am outrageously successful. I have developed a discipline, two disciplines that I think make life worth living and make me successful every day and the first discipline is the relentless willingness to pour my heart into whatever I do so fully that it's susceptible to breaking. I put myself in a position of heartbreak as often as I can. If my heart can't be broken by what it is that I'm attempting to do, it's not worth doing.
Kasia: The second thing is I don't have a routine and this sounds like anti-discipline but it's not because the discipline of making choices moment by moment in accordance with what feels absolutely precisely right is one of the most difficult and rewarding things a human being can do. Both of those things together daily make me successful and outrageously successful whether I'm successful at hosting, the absolutely perfect dinner party or dressing in a way that makes me feel great or giving a lecture to 500 people.
Kasia: On the external level, I'm outrageously successful because my life purpose, my job and who I am are all exactly the same thing so there is no failure for me. There's only success.
Anna: It is all in alignment with the truth.
Kasia: I can't fail being me and if being me is my job and speaking my truth is my job and doing my favorite thing in the world which is seeing others and speaking to them about them and moving through life with them. If these things are so fundamental to my nature, if being me is my job, I cannot fail it.
Anna: Yeah, absolutely. I want to clarify the first thing that you mentioned. If it's not heartbreaking or you're not ready for a heartbreak, you said it's not worth it. What do you mean by that?
Kasia: Let me clarify. If it's not heartbreaking, it's not worth it. If I'm not putting my heart at risk, if I'm not putting myself in a position where my heart can't break, if I already know my heart is unbreakable, it means I'm doing something I don't care enough about. I haven't put my heart into it deeply enough.
Anna: When you say heartbreak, what do you mean by that because I think it could mean different things to different people?
Kasia: Ask any person whose experiencing heartbreak. They know when they're feeling it. You're completely fucked. You feel like everything is shattering. It's a beautiful state.
Anna: Yeah, but so many of us are afraid of it or running away from it.
Kasia: We should be running towards it. It's the only place where rupture lives. It's the only place where ecstasy lives. I'm not talking about self-destruction. I'm talking about doing shit you give a fuck about that you're willing to feel frightened, feel disappointed, feel devastated when it doesn't work out. If you're willing to put your heart into something that deeply, it's actually paradoxically one of the only ways to not have heartbreak happen because you're so satisfied in the doing that the outcome doesn't matter anymore.
Anna: How do you personally move through that? I understand it completely-
Kasia: I just follow the things I love and I don't do anything else. There's so many things that people do that I'm supposed to do that I just don't do. I don't do. It's almost impossible for me to do something I don't want to do. It's almost impossible for me to do something I don't care about. I try and it doesn't work. I can't do it so in the pursuit of the things that I most care about and love, as unrealistic, naïve or delusional they may sound, as long as I'm alive and inspired, I know I'm going in the right direction. I know that like the … Everything makes itself available to me in that statement.
Anna: Can you give us an example of a situation that you have poured your heart into and then let's say there was a devastation or a state that you're talking about, how you pushed through it or like what were the realizations there or what have you come to in the end?
Kasia: It's a constant arc. It's not like a story where I want something. I go for it. I don't get it and then my heart is broken. It's like when I'm in a classroom with a student and I'm going through it with them and I'm there with them and I feel them and we're moving through a really difficult space and I am absolutely feeling everything they're feeling but I know that we have to move forward.
Kasia: It's like that. It's like even just like loving this world and being very, very aware of how fucked it is right now and wanting so much for something better is both pouring my heart into my life and totally fucking heartbreaking. It's just both at the same time. It's incredible. It's like we are sitting at this huge beautiful banquet table and everyone is starving.
Kasia: There's so much beauty and so much life everywhere and the deprivation and starvation is so intense, it's heartbreaking.
Anna: We're all waiting for that beautiful delicious dinner.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anna: We're looking for that meal-
Kasia: Except it's right fucking here.
Anna: Yeah, yeah. We just need to know how to get to it and so hopefully, with this conversation, Kasia, me and all of the listeners will get one step closer to it so let's switch gears a little bit and I want to talk about dominatrix. I know you've probably talked about it so much and you might have [inaudible 00:22:18] being yourself here a little bit, but you are the first guest-
Kasia: Actually, I haven't.
Anna: Really? Okay.
Kasia: Yeah, there's very little talk … There's a mention of my experiences in the dungeon but-
Anna: You mostly talk about the power in your work currently. Okay, cool. Awesome, so let's talk about this so I'll share with you my experience. Obviously, the whole dominatrix was introduced to my world like to millions of women and I think you know what I'm talking about is through the Fifty Shades of Grey which is like such a cheesy way of portraying the whole thing, a person I think and then through this, through these books, I have found the Story of O.
Anna: I don't know if you're familiar with that and this has completely blown my mind and I understood the Fifty Shades of Grey is nothing compared to that, and so I'm … I don't know if I'm familiar with it I guess. Through just from that book like that, for me, was the true sub-dom and whatever happens in the dungeon and Fifty Shades of Grey is nothing. I'm curious about your experience.
Anna: I know that you got into dominatrix for the money and to make a living out of it, and so I'm curious about yeah, the story of how you got to it and really, how was the experience? What did you learn and if you can share some stories with us, I think that would be amazing. I'm assuming you were … A lot of men were coming to you to fulfill their pleasures, fantasies, their deepest darkest desires and you were there with a whip I suppose and fulfilling those desires for money. I don't know if I'm right or not but I'm very curious to hear what you have to say.
Kasia: First, I don't think at the time, I was aware of how insane it is that we ask in America of 18 year olds to come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a college education. Looking back, I think it's insane but yeah, I started for that reason and I didn't quite find what I was expecting.
Anna: You mean in college or in dominatrix? You started because you wanted to pay for your education.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. My education had lots of interruptions and one of the things I was doing was I was studying Taoism and I was pursuing it very, very seriously. Taoism as in the Chinese spiritual practice that gave birth to Chinese medicine, Chines martial arts, the Tao Te Ching so in studying to be a Taoist, it also meant learning how to diagnose people, heal people, how to fight, how to meditate and it's a very beautiful tradition that has a lot to offer and as I was studying … One of the great things about making money is you can afford to fly places and study with really great teachers.
Kasia: I was going through this period of time where I was working in the dungeon, going to college and also flying around the world to study with Taoist masters and-
Anna: It sounds like a great story.
Kasia: The cross pollination of those things was really profound. The first thing was I had this moment where it was pretty early on and I was in the dungeon and I was doing a session and I had this naked man in front of me and I suddenly realized that he didn't know my real name and I didn't know his real name. His name was probably fake too and we were these two bodies in a room where everything spoken was imagined, essentially a lie.
Kasia: Everything is invented. I am his governess. I am his teacher. I am his master. I am his mother. I am his nurse. Whatever it is, it's made up and I had this sudden feeling that this was one of the most extraordinary laboratories for human identity because our identities and our stories were not present in the room. This was after I had been on a long retreat in China and I still had that very hyper extenuated momentum that did the perception.
Kasia: When you're practicing and studying to be able to read people's bodies and see where their energy is stagnant or flowing, where their illnesses are, if their liver is depleted or whatever. It's so much attention. You're putting so much attention on a person that I felt like in that moment, I was seeing him in hyper real colors and it was so extraordinary to be witnessing a human being that's completely naked of identity, of name, of role and we're making it up.
Kasia: We're making it up as we go along. We're making it up and I'm leading it and I found myself doing this particular session in such an extraordinary way where every sentence that I landed in his body had such a profound effect, I could see it. I was like one phrase after another. The first thing was he was very agreeable and I was looking for a place where he was rebelling so I called his chin rebellious. It was absurd and ridiculous.
Kasia: I saw something and I called it out. It was like, was that rebellious or was that shame? You like to do a good job, don't you? You like being really good. You like being really good, don't you? It started moving towards like the mother space of him obeying his mother and then the next thing you know, we're in this very different space where we're like two kids on a playground and we're play fighting and I'm the girl who kicks his ass.
Kasia: It was one of those sessions where it was like 17 sessions in one. So many things happened and the inspiration was entirely based on watching what was happening to his psychology, to his emotional body, to his physical body, to his erotic body, what was happening moment by moment by moment. Most of our interaction was in the realm of speech and it was so fucking hot and it was so crazy because I felt like both of our bodies dissolved.
Kasia: We were just energy. It was so clear to me after that session that something had happened in that room that would continue to stay with me for the rest of my life. I walked out of that session so blown open and seeing so clearly how much effort it takes to perform being a human being that's unnecessary and how essential, how easy it is to see what we all essentially need and want and how we're moving and how so much of our social conditioning is an absolute fucking betrayal of that.
Kasia: There is this beautiful period of maybe about 10 years where the practices that I was studying in this laboratory of the dungeon were informing each other. I started to see really clearly that one informed the other. One strengthened the other and it's totally crazy and weird like I was on the road to being a Taoist nun. I stopped four days before getting ordained as a Taoist nun.
Kasia: At the same time that I was becoming a very successful dominatrix so polar opposite but they so beautifully strengthened and complemented one another.
Anna: That's incredible. What you're describing to me almost seems like it's like therapy on steroids. You know why?
Kasia: Therapy approaches people like they have a problem and they're sick and one of the things that's beautiful about the dungeon is you approach everybody's fetish or shameful sexuality or desire or problem, not as something to be healed but something to be celebrated and moved into a new place. One of the things that I really insist upon now as a teacher is that people don't think of this school as a place to come get healed because that already makes the assumption that they're broken and people are not broken.
Kasia: People are not broken. There's nothing wrong with most of the people that I come across. There's nothing wrong there. The self-esteem of human beings in general is unnecessarily and ridiculously low and the habit of self-attack and self-judgment and self-criticism instead of self-celebration is such a huge problem and makes this world so much less fun and beautiful than it could be.
Anna: Where do you think that comes from because it's in all of us?
Kasia: It's a Judeo-Christian bias. It's morality. Morality is actually a problem like we think we get the right to say what's good and bad and once you decide something's bad, it seems like you have control over it and power over it but you don't. The moment you disconnect from something to humanize something, you have no say in it anymore. Saying violence is bad did not decrease war.
Kasia: Saying that extramarital sex is bad or sex for pleasure is bad has us lived in a world of porn. Saying greed is bad has us live in a world that has one of the most greedy and unbalanced economic systems in all of history. It's much wiser to look at things and say, how can I use this better? How can I take this and make this useful? How can I make this beautiful? How can I alchemize this? What purpose could this serve that's better than the one that it has now?
Kasia: I think all vices are virtues misplaced and all virtues are potentially vices. There's no good … We don't have a lot of facility with using qualities well when it comes to good and bad so we think we can decide that something that's true about us, inside of us is bad and that if we decide that it's bad and disconnect from it as much as possible, then we'll be good and we'll belong, and it doesn't work.
Kasia: It just makes us amputate ourselves. It doesn't work. It doesn't make for a whole powerful radiant loving human beings and makes for a crippled repressed angry and accidentally or intentionally dangerous and violent human beings.
Anna: Yeah, absolutely. When we look at thousands and thousands of years of history, it's mostly how humans try to make sense of the world, try to create communities, establish some rules. There's this thing of like we can't deal with chaos or something that we have this, I guess, inherent need to control and it's just thousands of thousands of years of putting all these rules and conditions and whatever is happening to us today is to be solved of all of that and we're all like walking around not really broken.
Anna: This is the human experience but we're like, you're right. There's so much self-judgment and self-criticism and then all of that is just played out in the world whether in politics, whether in feminism, whether in patriarchy, whether in human interactions.
Kasia: Absolutely, you totally get it. Absolutely.
Anna: Yeah, so I have a couple of questions, Kasia, about the dominatrix. You talked so beautifully about everything right and your experience and everything but I'm still curious about so let me ask you this first of all is how did you make the decision to get into it because there are many options to make money so for example, you could go and be a waitress, a bartender or do whatever else.
Kasia: It doesn't make nearly as much money. I could've been a hooker but I didn't have the guts.
Anna: Yeah, were you ashamed at any point? Was there anything as in like guilt or some sort of because I don't know if I could like I'm thinking, would I be able to do this? I'm like, shit, I don't think I would so I'm curious about what gave you the courage or the bravery to just go for it and then get involved with this whole industry?
Kasia: There were two things. I was fucking terrified. I was really scared. My first session was a disaster. After my first session, I was so bad at it. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I went and I got a video of a dominatrix. I wrote down every fucking word she said for an hour. I memorized every single line before I went back in the next day and I was like a geek.
Kasia: I have really, really, really prepared. I really tried to figure it out and I drew inspiration from all places. I'm going to get really good at this. I have to figure this out. I have to figure this out. One of my biggest inspirations was Cesar Millan like the dog whisperer. I had some of my biggest breakthroughs reading his book. He's talking about training dogs and I learned so much about training men while he talks about training dogs.
Kasia: Another thing that I don't really talk about very often is I had a father figure who was a famous writer. He was my mother's lover and he took his life when I was a teenager and he was a huge inspiration to me and he was a very controversial writer who was, as I later found out after his death, very much in the BDSM scene and this into the state of masochistic activities in New York City. I had this like thing in the back of my mind that if I got into this world, I would learn more about this father figure of mine as an adult and I did.
Kasia: I met people who knew him and told me stories and it was incredible because I felt like a detective. Here was this incredibly powerful figure in my life, a beautiful influence who believed that I was a child prodigy writer and himself was so provocative and controversial, so fascinating and then suddenly, he kills himself and he's gone. Then, there's this period of time. He was also like pretty well-known for being a master of disguise so he loved to wear disguises and completely transform how he looked and walked through the streets of New York City.
Kasia: He was pretty well-known when I was young. After he killed himself, I would look around and I was absolutely convinced that he didn't actually kill himself. He was playing a trick on us all. He was playing the biggest fuck you trick he could think of and that-
Anna: My mother passed away when I was really young, I was eight. You were a teenager back then but I don't know if we have this thing about our big people who influenced us deeply in our life but I think for a couple of years, I actually thought it didn't happen, that she would just go off and I would look for her in the streets and I actually believed that this whole thing is set up.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anna: It's such a bizarre experience.
Kasia: I didn't know anybody else had that. I totally had that.
Anna: Yeah, yeah, it's weird.
Kasia: It was interesting because when I was making my way through that very strange New York underworld, he was a master of disguise. Everybody was wearing disguises. It really felt like a detective novel in which I was searching for a father while dominating men. It was really … I think that might've been one of the things to answer your question, that gave me more courage to-
Anna: To pursue.
Kasia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, just to be fair like at the time like to make that much money, my choices were to be a dominatrix or a hooker and like-
Anna: How much money are we talking about?
Kasia: I got really good at making money as a dominatrix so I probably made maybe like a hundred times more than the average dominatrix but like at that time, you have to remember, it was like 20 years ago. The starting rate was about $100 an hour so that's the starting rate so that's like … Then, if you're an independent dominatrix in those times, you could charge $800 an hour. I went way beyond that but you can't do that bartending.
Anna: Yeah, absolutely. Is it really in like the Eyes Wide Shut. The movie where Tom Cruise walks around with like the mask and all of that and what happens in the session so if you could, a little bit, give us a glimpse of that world because I'm really curious about and men pays so much money and we're talking about thousands and thousands of dollars per hour to experience it.
Anna: It's a little bit bizarre like why do you think they do that? Why can't they do this let's say in their bedrooms or whatever because this is like a heightened version of BDSM I suppose. I'm so curious about this. As you said, it's psychological. It's something so bizarre to me and then mysterious and exciting at the same time.
Kasia: What's your question?
Anna: I'm like, said all your 10 questions so how does, if you could describe to us, how does a session look like?
Kasia: Okay, so imagine I'm doing a session with you. I can hear in your voice that you breath high so the first thing that I would do is I'd put my hand on your head and pull your hair back and look into your eyes, place my hand on your chest, press downwards to see if I could get your breath deeper into your belly and I would look and see if you're looking at me with the eyes of a child or the eyes of a rebel, the eyes of a competitor, the eyes of somebody who so badly wants to be ravished and start creating a scene.
Kasia: Now, there is this beautiful experience before a scene even begins which is the interview and that's where I get to test the possibilities of where I can go in the scene, what characters we can play, what physical experiences their body needs like a lot of women, they need pressure. They need like imagine a whole body hug delivered by three people. That's not true of all like the effect that being pierced or poked or cut or spanked or slapped, or sat on, or pressed or bound.
Kasia: All of those have different impacts. They create different psychological states. They create different physical experiences. We carry so much undigested energy in our bodies and so much pressure, so okay. Let's imagine a session for somebody, let's say a man. It might be that his sexuality is longing to be expressed through something that fascinated him when he was a teenager or a young boy. We talked a little bit about that, I asked him some provocative questions and we start to build a scene.
Kasia: The incredible range of what's possible in a scene and even the unpredictability in where it ends up is so vast that it becomes difficult to even answer a question like that like am I going to dress in like a priest? Am I going to be a superhero? Am I going to inspect him? Am I going to make him work for something prove himself? Is he going to win or is he going to fail? Does he need to fail? Does he need to breakdown into tears as a failure and have that experience and be nurtured through it or be punished for it and feel like he has to strengthen himself up again?
Kasia: The similarities and differences in dominating men and women are also really interesting. I think all human beings really in this culture and in this time and in this age long deeply, deeply to be seen. Not for what they do but for who they are to be seen and to have their imagination activated and to feel erotically alive and be in a place of both mystery suspense but also feel like they're in absolutely fucking great hands, that they can go to an edge but know that they will land safely to feel an edge of danger but knowing that they will not be crashed.
Kasia: This is the cocoon in which all of the magic happens. They have to feel my authority is absolute and they are absolutely at the end of the day no matter what we do safe, so that we can explore all of the theatrics, all of the emotions, all of the erotic possibilities. What's really interesting about this on a really, really basic level, and I said this before and it's like I could have been a hooker or a dominatrix.
Kasia: What's really interesting is that in an hour long session you're not allowed to have sex, you're not allowed to have sexual contact. Try spending an hour, putting attention on someone, getting them really excited but not kissing them, not fucking them. An hour is actually a lot of time to feel with erotic energy without … Most people don't even have that experience with foreplay.
Anna: Yeah. The other day was in the bedroom of my husband and we're also conditioned for the goal to have in the bedroom a goal, a sex is a goal and I'm like, "Can we do this for an hour without a goal?" He just looked at me like he didn't understand what the fuck I just told him. He's like, "What do you mean?" I'm like, "I don't know, I just want to be with you here now with your skin on the bed where we caress each other. We don't even touch each other.
Anna: I'm like, don't start with the center as in my vagina. That is the last thing you want to touch. I'm doing embodiment work by the way. I'm training in Feminine Embodiment Coach and it's-
Kasia: Very cool.
Anna: Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing what I'm discovering and he just looks at me. He's like, "What?" which is so funny. He asked-
Kasia: Yeah. Wait. Wait. You just said something so, so, so, so important, so important because the gift you're giving to him is tremendous. First, through you for you and then to him, it's this sensual aliveness. Not sexual, sensual aliveness that awakens the most blessed part of the animal in us that has this have instincts and intuition that are healthy for the planet.
Kasia: This is one of the most important things that you just accidently opened up right now just by talking about being in bed with him but no, it's so, so important. What I see when I look at the world is the animal of people's bodies is asleep and dead. We can't tell when we're being lied to. We can't tell which politician is full of shit. We can't tell if a mansion is going to make us happy or a beach hut is going to make us happy. We make decisions that are disembodied.
Kasia: This whole space in which there is sensuality but no sex is one way for human beings to start bringing their animal bodies to life so that they don't need a diet in order to know what food do they need to eat to be their ideal weight and healthy, so that they don't need a religion to know God, so they don't need an ideology to know who to vote for, so they don't need a decorator or a travel agent or fucking psychologist. They don't need any of it because they know how to move through life.
Kasia: Our bodies when we're connected mind, heart and body, when we're connected fully through, we always know everything we need to know in the moment. I remember when a big tsunami hit I think it was Sri Lanka, maybe I'm fucking it up right now but it was in 2002. I just remember just one of these facts that we hear about often but this time it really struck me that all of the animals knew to go to higher ground way before the tsunami hit.
Kasia: What makes us human animals so fucking stupid that we don't have that faculty anymore, and it's the reason we have a floating island of plastic in the ocean. Our bodies are dead so we can't see these basic things like we suck at being human beings. It may sound so crazy, here is this woman teaching female empowerment who used to be a dominatrix whose mission is to teach human beings how to be animals again so that the whole Earth gets healed. It seems nonsensical but it also body-wise it's the only fucking thing that makes sense to me.
Kasia: When you're lying in bed with your husband and going I want to feel your skin. First, you're giving yourself the greater experience of having a human body of being alive, training your own heart, mind and body to be connected, to be alive and awake. Bringing your partner into that state, educating him to have the same faculties that the brilliance of nature has. I am absolutely a child of the two paths that I followed.
Kasia: Taoism is a path where the tao means the way, it means nature, it means following the life force. They talk about the three bodies, the physical body, the emotional body and the mental body. Of course, as a Taoist I brought that into the fucking dungeon and dominated and explored in that same way and found that because I was in a space of prolonged sensuality without sex, sometimes I would do 10 hours of sessions in a row.
Kasia: The amount of erotic energy, the amount of wild imagination and a heart-opening catharsis and emotions and ideas like I was in a space where I was constantly practicing the three bodies, without a fucking orgasm, without touching a dick, without any of that. This huge, huge gift I got of this sustained laboratory that I got to explore being a human animal over and over and over again, and feeling like this is the fucking solution, this is what people are missing.
Kasia: People are eating their own food, people are being lied to. They're doing jobs they don't care about. They're picking partners for the wrong reasons. They've lost some fundamental body-based wisdom that it's time for us to regain and sensuality is one of the ways. One of the reasons I deal so much in the school with women's power and power dynamics is women for whatever reason maybe we can think millennia of subjugation.
Kasia: For whatever reason women tends to have more access to their emotional and physical body. They tend to feel more, they tend to. We can have 1,000 theories about why is it biochemistry, is it because we tend to be self-aware and self-conscious, is it because we give birth, whatever. I don't give a shit what the reason is, the tendency is there. If my feeling is if we get women living and being incredibly powerful from a place where they're that connected, then we stand a much greater chance of awakening the wisdom of the animal body in all human beings.
Kasia: We're living in modern society without going back to some primitive fantasy but in modern society is alive and awake, people making decisions based on the reality that we feel through our bodies moment by moment by moment. A well-attuned, intuitive, instinctive human being, that's what we fucking need. Okay. Then there's this millennia of conditioning that turns out it's actually not that hard to break. Once a woman breaks her good girl bullshit and start seeing how privileged other people are to be maybe even dominated by her especially when she's connected to her erotic wisdom, to her body wisdom.
Kasia: We have a world led by badass bitches who are teaching people to feel. A world where empathy is not a weakness. A world where what is needed next is fully felt and honored and followed, and I think it's one of the best ways to organize society.
Anna: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like we're doing the same work but on a different dimension because this whole feminine embodiment coaching that I'm doing and the training that I'm going through now has opened me up in so many different ways. Actually, the Girlskill brand, I'm not sure if you manage to look at the website but it's all connected to wolves, to the Women Who Run with the Wolves.
Anna: When I read the book by Clarissa Pinkola Estés it was the inspiration for me to start this whole thing because I instinctively understood that we are so disconnected and my work with women is let's get back and connect to those instincts. Kasia, you don't know this but I'm pregnant with … I'm four months pregnant now.
Kasia: Wow.
Anna: Yeah. It was crazy because as soon as I stepped into this embodiment work, I think a month or two later I got pregnant, and all of the women in our group with my coach are like, "This is freaking amazing." It is indeed because I am even deeper connected now with my body and you can't imagine how everyday I'm looking at my breasts who are just growing by themselves, filling up with whatever milk hormones. I'm looking at my belly and I'm glad my hips widening up and I've never been connected to my … I'm like, "My God, I am an animal."
Anna: I feel like there's so few people who … Even women who get pregnant but are not doing this work and dropping from the head, all we need to do as women is get from the fucking head, into the heart, into the womb, that's the work. It's incredible what's happening to me and how much more in tune I am with my body. Everything you're telling me right now is so in tuned with what I'm doing with my work and why we're here with you today. Because I'm like, "Gees, why are we so focused on the external?" I don't even want to go there.
Anna: What I love about your work is that … Let's perhaps switch to power and the work you're doing with women because you mentioned something, when a woman is in her power and you're teaching women to actually work with their bodies and I don't know how and why but inherently I have that and I've developed that perhaps through my childhood. As I told you I lost my mother and I had a very tough journey.
Anna: What I love about your work … You have a workshop called Cornering Harvey, right? You're working with these women in very high positions and CEOs and that is my quest actually, my mission is to redefine female success. Deep down inside of me know that there is a way to lead in a more feminine way, in instinctual, and what you said teaching people how to feel. There are badass bitches out there like you and me, we're teaching people specially women how to feel more and how to lean in a feminine way.
Anna: I love your work. You're accessing these women and you're teaching them all of this but without telling them that men are to blame or the patriarchy to blame. I'm so fucking tired of this word notion whatever. You say you start your workshops with actually honoring the patriarchy. I love how you also celebrate men in mass community, I know this whole thing plays. When I was listening to you interviews I'm like, "Fucking yes, this is all we need. I don't want a futurist female, I wanted both. I want a human experience."
Anna: It's not about us versus them, wanting has become us, theirs versus them. I love the approach that you're doing because you're starting with Cornering Harvey, right? You're giving them what they want I suppose but then you're giving them what they need actually in your workshops.
Kasia: I don't see a contradiction because I do think patriarchy is a problem but patriarchy as defined by psycho-emotional virus that both men and women carry like the patriarchy is not carried by men. It's carried by women as much as by men if not more. We can use different words. We can call it different things. The masculine on the planet is super wounded right now and maybe in charge and then may have lots of positions and power.
Kasia: I think it's a mistake to overlook that when there's a shift in power, when there's a shift in energy, when there's a shift in how things are, all of the different participants and all of the different whether it's men, women, everyone's affected. You can't really make long lasting profound change unless you consider everyone. Getting revenge on men is like fighting for crumbs, it's too small a vision. It's too petty. We can do much, much better than that.
Kasia: Including everyone making them allies and transforming how human beings relate to one another, that's a vision we're worth waking up for in the morning.
Anna: Yeah, absolutely.
Kasia: We don't call it Cornering Harvey anymore but A Verbal Self-Defense curriculum is really important because women withholds so much. Women sensor the fuck out of themselves. Women due to maybe a millennia of trauma, social conditioning, whatever. The point is like one of the first things to do is to teach women verbal self-defense, so they feel more access to radical self-expression, to honesty, to leadership.
Kasia: The self-inhibition of speech is so intense but sometimes it's even invisible, sometimes it's not invisible like a woman knows she's not saying what's her on mind, other times she doesn't even know she's not … I mean the right to fucking speak. Yeah. We had to think into account, women are not free on this planet like it's just a few privileged countries and it just started 50 years ago and less, in some countries, 100 years ago.
Kasia: This whole thing is new, we were property, we didn't get to vote, we didn't to have jobs and all of the planet we still are property. It's hard for us to realize and to have respect for the fact that all the shitty is really fucking new, we're just starting. It matters that part of the population that gets pregnant and gives birth is essentially in slave conditions and considered property in a huge, huge percentage of the planet.
Kasia: Then the percentage of planet where we are free we're still psychologically chained because this transitions only started to happen five minutes ago if you think of all human history. You and I are here on this planet in this time and we're going to do our part to make it more fucking juicy and fun and hot and embodied and powerful and explore and make mistakes around words like femininity or misunderstanding, understanding gender.
Kasia: One way we look at it and then five years later we look at it a totally different way, what was sexual harassment? What's sexual harassment today? What's flirting 20 years ago?
Anna: I know, right?
Kasia: Yeah. There is a space for both being fucking fierce and bold in the changes we want to see, and also keeping in perspectives that we're just getting started, this is all new, we're like infants, we're trying to figure out what being a man means, being a woman means, being transgendered means, also like what the fuck are romantic relationships for, marriages for. These are new questions that we didn't have to ask ourselves and we have the privilege.
Kasia: We have the privilege, you and I have the privilege of being fucking confused about it, exploring it and then having lots of smart answers and leading people like, "Hey guys, I found this out, check this out. Hey guys, I think [crosstalk 01:03:01] like feminine embodiment coaching works." I'm like, "Power dynamics, check this out. I learned this in the dungeon. This is how I get to have a magical life. This is how I get really powerful and get what I want." "Hey, try this."
Kasia: I feel like I'm the first generation in my family ancestry that gets to have what I want, I get to have what I want. I don't think my mother or her mother or her mother's mother had any of the privileges I have, and I intend to make full outrageously indulgent use of them. I intend to take advantage of every single privilege I have that they did not in their fucking name. Every time I party in my life I'm like, this is for my female ancestor. You didn't get to do this? I do, I get to have a harem of beautiful men.
Kasia: I get to have world travel and write books and I get to speak outrageously and offended people. I get to have unconventional sexual relationships. I get to wear crazy clothes. I'm not getting burned to the stake. I'm not getting stoned to death. I'm not being forced to be married or anything I don't want to do. I can take for breakfast. I don't have to brush my teeth. I basically can do whatever the fact I want and I don't know any previous generation that got to do that.
Anna: Absolutely. I always say whenever I go on podcast or work with women I'm like, "This is such a fucking incredible time for women." Never have we had so much opportunity, "freedom" or possibility to do whatever the fuck we want. You're right, we've just described it. I've shifted that perspective and I live in the mentality and the space of possibility and I so much appreciate it. I would love for more and more women to see that instead of as you mentioned before the revenge to everything, how everything is so fucked up and blah, blah, blah, whatever.
Anna: Kasia, I have this question for you which I find is very important. It relates to everything we're talking about. You talked about the bittersweet victory of the independent woman. What is that victory and why is it bittersweet?
Kasia: We're talking about in the span of human history moving from let's just say a move where women all had to be submissive and now can have dominant positions, positions of authority. A lot of women, what they're doing is they're taking on having positions of authority and leadership and still accommodating and doing a lot of the … This is not super accurate. I want to say they're both dominant and submissive at the same time but I actually mean is they're doing a lot of the things that men previously always did and only men did but without the support that men had.
Kasia: Up until really recently, the best thing you could hope for in your life was to marry well if you are a woman. Men did all this shit with wives and support systems that women don't have, and women are still being wives, women are still being the support system. Even when they're not, a lot of the psychological habits and the socialized habits are still there. Women don't ask for what they need, they ask for less than they need, they don't ask for what they want.
Kasia: I've seen so many women even in the workplace try to do so much with so little and patting themselves on the back for it. I think women are incredibly isolated. One of the impacts of this thing we call patriarchy is that women aren't good with each other and they're not being supported by men. They're not being supported by the men they compete with at work. They're giving a lot to their male partners when they had her sexual. They're not being supported by women.
Kasia: They're isolated, they've worked their asses off. They are resistant to receiving help. They feel less than and weak when they are adored, cherished, worshiped, nourished, nurtured, helped, anything that makes them feel less than. This is like, "Yay, I'm the boss, I'm independent, I can do everything myself. I'm totally self-sufficient and I'm fucking exhausted. I don't know how to ask for help in a way that makes me feel stronger rather than weaker. I don't have a support system, I am the support system of everyone I know.
Kasia: I even am the support system of all my friends. I give everyone advice. I make sure that everyone in the community is safe and healthy and at work and I'm killing it. I don't need money from a man. I don't need anything from, anyone." We get fibromyalgia or autoimmune disorders or-
Anna: Right, or infertility issues, or a bunch of other things.
Kasia: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, "Yay, I'm independent, isn't it bittersweet?" Human beings do things. Anything worth doing is really worth doing with others. Nobody really does anything great alone and there's just this huge … Especially in America, there's like pull yourself up by your own bootstraps mythology. It's total bullshit because every guy who's self-made was actually supported by so many people in ways that are just culturally invisible, even in the way he gets pat on the back when he's a boy.
Kasia: Even the way he gets told, "Look what you did, you did such a good job," rather than hearing what girls hear, "Look how pretty you are. Look how lovely you are." The difference between being rewarded for what you do versus how you are is huge. Yeah, that's my rant on … My rant-
Anna: No, I love it. In fact, I talk about the modern … I called it the modern female epidemic which you just described. I just actually recorded a one hour my life's work in a webinar that's called The Lie of Female Success & How It's Keeping You Stuck, Unfulfilled & Drained, and that is exactly the name or a paraphrase of The Bittersweet Victor of the Independent Woman.
Anna: I feel like this is such an important message in so many of us who just are not aware of it. I became aware of it on my quest to femininity. Today, I ask my husband and all the men around and all the women around to do things for me. Like what you said in the beginning, your superpower is to ask for help from other people that fucking feels good and I feel great about it.
Anna: I'm still working actually on it because I feel like I have this again the bittersweet victor of independent woman is in me. I feel bad sometimes for even asking my husband to carry something that's heavy and I'm pregnant, and then I have to work through this, but it's a muscle, but it's crazy. Yes. It's like a [crosstalk 01:10:31].
Kasia: If you were my student I'd tell you to do what I tell all my pregnant students to do, which be what it's like to totally, totally, totally, totally take advantage of your pregnancy, how much you can get away with. Really, just for the next four months or five months, see what you can get out of being pregnant.
Anna: I've been doing this and it's been fucking incredible because I'm telling everyone, "I'm sorry, could you help me? I'm pregnant," like physically, emotionally-
Kasia: Yeah. Why are you saying it like a victim? Even though what you just said it right now you should be like, "I'm pregnant. I'm making humans, give me that seat. What else do you want from me? I need people."
Anna: Yeah. This is an exercise because it's new for me as well. I've gone through a terrible first trimester where I just went down the rabbit hole, and then now he comes from work when I was doing nothing, "doing … It's like, "What did you do today?" I say, "I was making a baby today." Now he looks at me, he's like, "Okay," but he understands. Anyways, this has been a great conversation, Kasia. I think you should come back to the podcast then we can just talk for hours and hours, but unfortunately we have to wrap up.
Anna: I just got one last question for you before we go into now some of the people you follow and books you can recommend. I love this concept when you talk about power, you're actually redefining what we mean by power. In fact, not actually redefining, you're actually defining it for all of us because I don't think we understand what it means. Right now today, we think that power is all … Men have the power and we don't have the power.
Anna: I love how you say that the sub-dom and your experience in the dominatrix has taught you or the revelation was it's human, yeah, so we can play with it. It doesn't matter what gender you are. It is just power the more we have and how we use it. Now, you're teaching women to use it obviously, but talk to us a little bit about the true definition of power and how can we use it every day in our interactions.
Kasia: Okay. I wouldn't say true definition of power but I would say a very useful definition of power. I use this definition of power, it tends to be very satisfying. A powerful person is one that has powerful relationships, and a powerful relationship is one where what you give to the other person. You love to give, they love to receive and they use very well. What they love to give to you, you receive and love to receive and use well.
Kasia: This may seem super simplistic but if you think about it they really take a look at your community and the people in your life whether they're your professional people, your family people, your lovers, your friends. The greatest power comes from being in this position and having created these relationships where you are essentially the center of a very powerful network where resources are shared, whether they're emotional or financial or intellectual, extremely well.
Kasia: Behavioral economist's definition of power is the person or a group of people who has the most power has the most amount of resources. This really, really just shrinks down resources into gas, land, water.
Anna: Material resources.
Kasia: Yeah. I'm talking about material resources too, money. I'm talking about emotional resources. I'm talking about in those relationships that are powerful, there's a very generative and synergetic flow of creative ideas, of solutions, imaginations used to build things. I think one of the worst crimes of the patriarchy is how isolated human beings are. Our idea of community is totally destroyed. This definition of power means you have created and are in a very powerful community of people who are all in powerful relationship to you.
Anna: Love it. Love it. It's transcending beyond us versus them, you versus me, man versus woman. How can we create a win-win situation for everyone where we are all powerful? Gaining energy from all of the resources that we share and resources are not scarce, we create the resources. It is the abundance that we live in.
Kasia: Right. Yeah, I agree.
Anna: Yeah, and you are teaching women that. Tell us, Kasia, for everybody listening and … Are you doing workshops only in New York or traveling around the country or what's your activity now?
Kasia: We meanly do them in New York, the schools in New York. I do travel around the world doing workshops but right now we're expending our online school a lot. We have our Verbal Self-Defense Dojo program which is the first step in breaking the moment where women freeze in argument or fight or negotiation. We're about to launch a whole series of other ones, and I travel a lot.
Anna: Love it. Where can women go and take the workshops or follow you online or get to know more? I feel like your work is incredible, all women just need to get that.
Kasia: Thank you. Thank you. The easiest thing to do is just to go to the website. We teach power.com and see what's listed there, especially while I'm on my summer travels.
Anna: Yeah, love it, love it. I love that you're branching online as well because there's so much more possibility, opportunity to just reach [crosstalk 01:16:44].
Kasia: We're having so much fun with our online programs right now because the … Especially the first one, the training program, you basically get to scream at a screen where a sleazy man is saying shitty things to you. You're getting strategies and tools on what to say back and how and the effect that it has which is super fan, because that's the shit women hear all the time and it's also some things that we hope to never ever, ever, ever hear.
Anna: Yeah. Just one last thing before we go. I was thinking about the work that you're doing and the women who come to you and I was just thinking like, what is different about me that I don't … Because you teach, ask with a questions, answer with another question, put attention on him. Since I was a little girl and I guess it was just inherent at me because I was always rebellious.
Anna: I never allowed anyone to cross my boundaries. I think the biggest test for me was within evil stepmother that I was in a mission to completely subjugates, do me or dominate and I never allowed it. Therefore, we got into fights and to me leaving the house, her being suicidal, whatever. Then it continued through life where … I'm sure I could benefit from the training, absolutely, and I would love to come to your workshop.
Anna: Somehow I have this boundary in the defense that you don't fuck with me but at the same time I tried to come from a place of love and empathy and even towards men who are trying to come and, I don't know, kick me up or whatever.
Kasia: Maybe you had a weak father.
Anna: I don't know, my father was very conservative. I don't know, I'm just thinking what makes … I guess it's a personality thing. I had to mature very quickly because my mother passed away when I was basically left alone since I was eight. I had to figure out my way up in the world. Yeah. Yeah.
Anna: Perhaps it's that but I was just thinking like I'm a woman but then why don't I have that and why … I know why. I do appreciate the masculine because on the other podcast I was interviewing men about women in relationships and I understood what you talked about the wounded masculine and how they are human and they're just so confused now and what the fuck do I do with this feminist men, how do I support women.
Anna: Actually, there are not many resources for men now and I just forced this documentary. I don't know Kasia if you watched them, The Red Pill, about the men's rights movement?
Kasia: No.
Anna: It's just fascinating and then talks about all the men in shoes and how they do it. Anyways, so it's been great conversation. Let's finish up Kasia with some of the people. Who are the people that you follow today perhaps online or anywhere else for inspiration that you love to recommend?
Kasia: That's just so difficult, this is a question that stumps me all the time.
Anna: Really? Why?
Kasia: Because the answer is I don't.
Anna: No one. Okay.
Kasia: For the last five years and since I started the school, I stopped reading, I stopped watching TV, I stopped all media input, I stopped reading articles, I stopped doing research. Basically I stopped all incoming information that was not the classroom. I spent most of my time in the classroom watching human beings, watching women, watching their habits, watching their body language, learning the patterns, learning how to break the patterns, learning what works.
Kasia: I went on a really severe, not just media but information fast. I wanted to find something that was devoid of anything that I had been … As to create as pure, a phenomenological space as possible, as clean a laboratory as possible. There are no books that created what happened in the classroom and then the laboratory of the school. Roman Polanski's movie Venus in Fur is fascinating but it's not … Actually, I would recommend that people watch that and I would recommend that people read Cesar Millan's book the Dog Whisperer, the first one.
Kasia: Aside from that, I don't know what much else to say except I'm currently writing a book and I hope when it comes out everybody reads it.
Anna: I hope so too. Perhaps what I've been doing is exactly the same. I'm creating my own laboratory because I stopped watching news, I'm drained by social media, I can't fucking stand it, I'm not reading blogs, I'm not reading anything. I think I'm doing the same thing as in like asking myself the questions, talking to women, working with women, being on interviews like asking you the questions that create neural pathways and I'm just discovering it all for myself.
Kasia: Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah.
Anna: Even the training that I recorded and working one on one with women, because I know if I'm going to go and start, my God, research competitors, and I'm like, "I don't want to do all of that because I'm just get influenced. I'm going to start feeling incompetent that I don't know anything and it's like comparing myself like, "You know what, I'm done with that." I'm just doing my thing, that's it.
Kasia: Yeah. Also the wonderful thing about life is that all mysteries reveal themselves in good time when we put our attention on what it is that we want to know. We have all of the answers, and the ability to sit in uncertainty and in ambiguity and feel and allow the treats to reveal itself like you have all the fucking answers.
Anna: My body has the answers too.
Kasia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do believe it's important to seek wise teachers and to respect the sages and to learn from tradition. I spend most of my life learning in very specific ways, and this especially since the founding of the schools has been really important for me to go very deeply internal and stay very present and stay very, very neutral, and as free of influence as possible and as deeply influenced by what I see in front of me moment by moment as possible. Staying almost like innocent of my past training.
Anna: Love it. Kasia, I feel like you're like my older sister in a way on this journey because I know you've experienced … I guess, I don't want to compare experiences but it really feels like I can learn so much from you and I really feel like we've connected on some deeper level I suppose. I want to thank you so much for coming for the work you're doing.
Anna: Once your book is out, I'd love to spread the message and support. I hope we meet in person one day one of your workshops or who knows, wherever else in the world. If you're in Australia for the next two years, I'd love to meet up.
Kasia: Wonderful.
Anna: Thanks so much for coming.
Kasia: Thank you so much. It's so lovely meeting you and so lovely talking with you. Thank you.
Hello Freedom: Verbal Self Defense DOJO
“I find that a lot of the women are coming my way because they’re kind of sick of this female empowerment idea where a group of women comes together to love themselves and fluff themselves up in isolation and then go out to meet the real world and find themselves finding comfort to retreat, place to land, but without relationally knowing how to do something different, how to give the gift of self-awareness to another man. There’s also a lot of anger there. I think we’re angrier than ever. We’re breaking through a lot of nice girl, good girl behavior.”
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Hello Freedom: Verbal Self Defense DOJO
Read the Transcript:
Terri Cole: This is Hello Freedom and I'm your host Terri Cole. For almost two decades, I've been a licensed psychotherapist and transformation coach. On this show, I'll bring you simple strategies based on practical psychology, inspiring expert interviews, and my own insights and observations from my time on the frontline of the fascinating worlds of entertainment, empowerment, and mental health. Now let's get going with today's episode. Well, hello and welcome to Hello Freedom. I am your host Terri Cole. I have a really special and exciting episode today. I'm so into it and I'm so glad that you are here hanging out with me.
Terri Cole: I have a really special guest today. I've been really interested in boundaries. Of course, you guys know if you've been following me for a minute, you know I've been talking about boundaries for the past couple of months. I'm leading into ... I just recently the Boundary Challenge and then I had the Boundary Masterclass and moving into my course that's starting right now, Boundary Bootcamp. In my research to see what are other people talking about with boundaries and power, I came upon this woman named Kasia Urbaniak. She's the founder and CEO of The Academy, a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence.
Terri Cole: I was like yes. Her perspective on power is really unique because she made her living as one of the world's most successful dominatrices while studying power dynamics with teachers all over the world. It's like she was so lit up by these concepts, she just went all over the world. During that time, she practiced Daoist Alchemy in one of the oldest female-led monasteries in China and obtained dozens of certifications in different disciplines, including Medical Qigong and Systemic Constellations.
Terri Cole: Since founding The Academy, so this is a place where you can actually come and learn for women, she founded it in 2013, so she's taught hundreds of women practical tools to step into leadership positions in their relationships, families, workplaces and wider communities. I was interested in how the Me Too, this emergence, this powerful emergence after the Harvey Weinstein debacle came out that obviously had been going on for decades. This is when her stuff really blew up in a more public way. We started talking about that and she actually had a course at The Academy called Cornering Harvey. Her whole theory is basically when women learn to communicate powerfully, they get what they want.
Terri Cole: The interview is really interesting. She's giving you tips on what to do if you are in a situation, a conversation and you're feeling small, kind of unsafe due to a sexually suggestive comment, right? How to not just dismiss that because you're really dismissing yourself when you don't handle it. She gives so many interesting amazing tips in the interview, and she also has a verbal self-defense camp for women. The training of course is not just verbal. It's physical as well. Basically she really helps us understand why we go blank or shut down and basically hope for the best in that moment, right, where it's almost like we have this freeze.
Terri Cole: She teaches you how to get unfrozen so that you can actually move forward and do something that would be productive. I really, really hope that you enjoy this incredibly enlightening interview with Kasia as much as I enjoyed interviewing her. Welcome to Hello Freedom.
Kasia Urbaniak: It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Terri Cole: You are so welcome. Kasia, you do a lot of different things. I'm super interested in your work. I feel like what you're doing now around boundaries and you've been doing it for a long time even before this, but I feel like the Me Too thing almost put your work in the limelight in a way that perhaps it wasn't before or differently. I don't know. Was there an impact on your work?
Kasia Urbaniak: Oh, there's a definite impact. There's a definite impact because it ended up being a small percentage of the curriculum needed. It was required that it be highlighted and spoken about and put forth in the most practical applicable way possible, so that people listening to a podcast or an interview or even just getting a mention of something in an article who walk away with something tangible and usable right away because there's a great deal of urgency at this moment for people to be able to do something differently.
Terri Cole: Yes. That is a true story. The foundations of power and influence. This is basically the foundation of your work with women. Can I just ask you how you got interested in doing this work personally?
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, it's kind of a funny story. I spent most of my adult life, maybe 17-18 years, being a very unusual and successful dominatrix. At the time, I was doing that to fund my studies to become a Taoist nun.
Terri Cole: Oh my god. Wait. Your day job was being a dominatrix? Right on. Okay.
Kasia Urbaniak: I mean functionally like my four days a month job was being a dominatrix for a lot of the time and then traveling around the world and seeing who I could study with that would teach me things that I didn't know were possible. One of the cool things that happened in that long time period of going back and forth was that everything I learned in the monastery about martial arts and Medical Qigong and healing and body reading inadvertently became something I was practicing and using as a dominatrix.
Kasia Urbaniak: That seems like a funny translation, but it actually isn't at all because it's a very specific way of being able to see deeply into people and to see when they're being moved and when they're not, where they're stagnant and stuck and where there's movement, which is the basis of all Chinese healing. I found that I could do a lot by triggering different states of mind and consciousness and I could do a lot by noting where someone was stuck. If it was an organ of the body, it always corresponded to an emotion and a story, so I could use that in the role plays.
Kasia Urbaniak: I found that growing up it was a really interesting thing to start when I was 19 and to have a group friends that wasn't having this experience, watch them interact with the men of the world, and me having these really intense, profound, transformative experiences in a dungeon informed by a monastery. The growing difference between their interpretation of what men do, what men mean by what they do and what they can do about it and my experience I never in a million years thought I'd be teaching. I just felt lucky like I had a hidden secret until I met Ruben Flores, who's my business partner in crime, who is a humanitarian who work for Doctors Without Borders for many years.
Kasia Urbaniak: The most unusual thing happened. The first thing we met, we started talking about power dynamics. I spoke about them as I understood them from a place of the extremes of sexuality and human influence. He spoke about them in terms of negotiating borders and dealing with really high stress situations in war and high conflict zones. It was through that six month conversation we discovered so many universalities that when I started sharing what I was finding about this, it was the people reading what I was writing that started asking for workshops. In the beginning, I was a little bit reluctant.
Kasia Urbaniak: But once I started and it was just Me Too, it was when Trump got elected, that was the first big redefinition of the school and expansion and then Me Too, just forget about it. It's just like everybody wanted a tool for what to do when somebody confronts you in a way that makes you lose your voice. You can tell women to speak up and speak out and more women are speaking up and speaking out, but speaking up and speaking out in real time when your body freezes actually requires something.
Terri Cole: Yes.
Kasia Urbaniak: Because with Me Too, there's a lot of men in the world who went, "Okay, but nobody told me. Maybe I should have known. Well, that's not what I meant." Right? We're not talking about extreme predators now, but we're talking about huge communication gap.
Terri Cole: Yup. What I think is really amazing about this whole process is that the need, right? What do they say? A necessity is the mother of invention. It's like the need just got so jacked up and our ability to ignore what's been happening, our ability to make it okay because it was so extreme when Me Too first came out. Of course, I used to be a talent agent for many years before I became a psychotherapist. I mean any women ... Alex Jamieson says something similar like, "We've all been traumatized by something that has to do with being a woman and having someone feel like it's okay to proposition you in a business situation to talk about your ass."
Terri Cole: I remember I was renting ... Well, renting. It was like an illegal sublet that I was in. They sold the building, so the guy wanted to take care of me, yeah, with no strings attached, not. Anyway, I go into his office. As I'm leaving, he gives me this amazing apartment, rent stabilized, and he smacks me on the ass on my way out. I was like, "Well, it was his apartment. I could probably punch him in the face, but I'm probably not going to." I mean that was a different scenario because actually I just felt like he was an idiot, but my point about where you are is that this dialogue and this conversation and what I'm teaching in my courses and I'm what talking about in the tribe that I have, it's now.
Terri Cole: It's not tomorrow and it's not for someone else because we're all having these experiences. I'm really interested in you sharing when a woman finds herself in a situation where someone is inappropriately bringing sexuality or focusing on the way they look as opposed to their skillset or what's on their resume or whatever it is, what do you suggest in real time that they do? What is it that we say and how do you handle the fight/flight freeze reaction in the body? How do you teach people sort of out of that experience?
Kasia Urbaniak: Okay. I have a definite answer to that question, but I also want to back track just a little bit because one of the things that became really obvious in teaching verbal self-defense, which is what we call exactly this, was that when we're teaching business negotiation in the school, when we're teaching opening the relationship conversation, when we're teaching how to have a Velvet fucking Divorce, when we're teaching how to deal with power dynamics in families, in all these different situations, the one weak link, the one place that no matter what I teach, no matter what they get, no matter how much they do, the one thing, the one weak link is if they freeze and they don't know how to get out of the freeze, then everything they've learned is useless.
Kasia Urbaniak: You can have that conversation in your head about all of the things that you're going to say next time you see a person and you can sit there and have strategies, write emails. You can never anticipate what they're actually going to say. If you freeze, you're fucked.
Terri Cole: Yup.
Kasia Urbaniak: Because, you know, dynamics are living things. The second thing I want to say about the freeze itself is very few men or people in high status positions, because this works between men and men, this works between all people, it's there's a particular type that happens to women more often, but any status differential can make a person freeze. Most men or people in high status positions do not know how to recognize when another person's frozen. The problem with this is that human beings are social creatures and they don't learn through a set of rules. Like right now there's a lot of and has been anti-sexual harassment trainings for corporations.
Kasia Urbaniak: They're all like videos and "this is what you shouldn't do." Most people don't know what they're doing unless they get immediate feedback. We learn socially. The freeze stops people from learning socially, the way they learn best, what behavior is effective. If somebody freezes and the person who's not frozen continues, what they see is that their behavior is effective.
Terri Cole: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: This implies blame in some ways on the woman and they don't mean that.
Terri Cole: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: This is a very neutral problem. If people in high status positions and men are to be reeducated, they have to be reeducated in real time. They have to know the effects of their actions, the impacts of their actions in real time. They have to know what doesn't work. They have to know what works. They have to be able to feel what's happening on the other side. In the freeze, it's absolutely impossible. It's such a common experience. It's worth mentioning how universal it is. When I teach a class, in the beginning, the first thing is like have you ever had that moment where you feel frozen and stuck in your place and you have a million words running around in your head, but you can't seem to get out a single one?
Kasia Urbaniak: Then you're saying to yourself, "I'm going to say something. I'm going to speak up in five seconds, four, three two. Okay, wait. Okay. No." You miss the moment. Sometimes it's not an egregious sexual violation. Sometimes it's a moment where you can advocate for yourself in a way that gives you a raise or in a way that your idea gets in the room and heard. That moment's missed, that moment's missed forever. Maybe it doesn't seem like such a big deal, except women, we tend to have these. In the beginning of the class, they can note one or two that happened.
Kasia Urbaniak: After the classes, they go through their days, they're like, "Holy fuck. This happens to me 20 times a day."
Terri Cole: Yeah, totally. The awareness.
Kasia Urbaniak: "20 times a day I don't say it, and then I beat myself up for not saying it." But when you recognize what happens in the body, neurologically what happens in the body, it's so clear that in that moment the priority is to get out of the freeze. It doesn't even matter what you say, how you come across because you need access to your language, to your agency. The basis of what I teach is based on power dynamics. In my world view, power dynamics are based on attention. Women have a tendency to be taught to put their attention inward on themselves. Not just how they look and how they are, how they sound, how they seem.
Kasia Urbaniak: There's a tendency to reward girls for how they seem, how they are, how they speak, and there's a tendency to reward boys for what they do, right?
Terri Cole: Yup.
Kasia Urbaniak: Their attention's out. The moment they get the reward, their attention's out. The moment we get a reward, our attention's in. The main thing to do when you freeze is to move from the state in which your attention is inward to the state where your attention is outward and use language. Now the most effective language to use is a question and the most effective question to use is a question about the communication that was spoken. In all truth, if you're frozen, you can say something like, "Where did you get that tie," and that might not be an effective offensive tactic in terms of conversation or negotiation, but it will break the freeze.
Kasia Urbaniak: It will. You'll be able to say something afterwards. In some of the trainings we do, we have some stock answers. Did you know that a question might make a woman feel uncomfortable? What exactly do you mean by that, as usually is the case.
Terri Cole: What's interesting about what you're saying with the question is that and if you're feeling a lot of women feel this fear of asserting themselves, that doing it in the form of a question actually is really brilliant because A, it's true. You are asking them if they knew that this might feel offensive to a woman, but it's easier than ... It's not effective, of course, to go on the attack to be super agro about it, but just asking. There's one thing that I teach people to say is, "Why would you ask that?"
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. The other thing that a question does because the shifting status in the power dynamic occurs when there's a tension, when you ask somebody a question, you don't just put them on the spot. You draw their own attention inward. Your attention's on them and their attention's on them. The release of pressure from that is what breaks the freeze. Make them think for a second. They go into themselves. They energetically retreat. You have space. You could breath for a second. You can even run for the fucking door, but you won't be able to run for the door if you're frozen and stuck inside yourself.
Terri Cole: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: It has multiple purposes. There are more provocative pointed clever ones. There's softer ones. Some questions are just so outrageous, some approaches are so outrageous that they deserve a more confronting question back. There's also safety considerations.
Terri Cole: Yes, indeed, but let's just say the safety ... You felt like there was enough safety to do it. What would be a more aggressive response back to someone?
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, give me a suggestion. Ask me an uncomfortable question or say something provocative to me.
Terri Cole: Okay. It's a job interview.
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, a job interview doesn't really allow me to be that provocative.
Terri Cole: That's a good point. Okay. Okay.
Kasia Urbaniak: I can try.
Terri Cole: Well, in job interviews though, I have lot of therapy clients who've come in and have like someone ask them questions that they're not allowed to ask. You know?
Terri Cole: Like are you married? Do you plan on having children?
Kasia Urbaniak: Are you proposing? Do you find that your more successful employees are married, divorced, or single?
Terri Cole: Oh, so good. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great come back because it's direct, but also diffusing.
Kasia Urbaniak: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Terri Cole: You're actually asking a real question as if what he was saying ... It's funny. I always say to clients like, "Well, take someone at face value," right? Like if someone says to me, "I'll take them literally," so it's almost like instead of being offended by coming back with the question, you're making them think, putting it back on them, like you said, bringing their attention inward, but requiring something from them.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are very soft answers to that. Do you know if discussing my marital status is legal in this interview?
Terri Cole: I loved your innocent face on that. Those of you who are watching this on YouTube, did you get that? Look it up. I'm not sure. See? You started The Academy. This is ...
Kasia Urbaniak: Do you want to try a more provocative one?
Terri Cole: Yeah. Let's. Okay. Let's say we're out socially and what would be really inappropriate that would ... Just someone approaching you for your number, but you're like having lunch at Panera or somewhere. Someone coming right up at your table and saying, "Hey, can I get your phone number? I'd like to take you out."
Kasia Urbaniak: What are you going to do with it? What do you have in mind? What kind of date would you see taking me on? Would it be worth my time?
Terri Cole: Well, I wouldn't ...
Kasia Urbaniak: What makes you think I'm interested?
Terri Cole: That's the question.
Kasia Urbaniak: Do you like approaching women you don't know? Is this a strategy that works for you? I don't know how many success you've had. What makes you so bold? I would love to know how to be that bold. We collected a lot of these questions and some of them are so egregious like did ... There was just some really great ones. I mean some obvious ones like, are you into threesomes, and then some that are like, do you think being Black helped you get into Harvard? Do you think being beautiful made you successful at business?
Terri Cole: Wait, hold on. You froze for a minute. What do you say if someone says, "Are you into threesomes?"
Kasia Urbaniak: Well, the first when you don't know what to say just to get out of the freeze is, "Why would you like to know?" Following it up with, "Are you accustomed to asking questions like that? Do you realize a question like that would make a woman feel uncomfortable? Is it your intention to make me feel uncomfortable? Does it excite you to make me feel very uncomfortable? Is that the kind of man you are? Are you the kind of man that goes around asking women he does not know if they're into threesomes? Does that work for you?"
Terri Cole: Yeah, good. So good. Everyone of them. If you only could get one of those out, like you said, you break the freeze. Just knowing there's one step I can take when I feel this way and having a few questions and of course, you have an online course though, correct?
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. The Verbal Self-Defense Dojo. We have all these creepy guys come up and say awful things and strategies to practice. A lot of people who play karaoke style, they sit around one computer yelling at the screen, "Look. I got one. I got one."
Terri Cole: Oh god. I love it. You actually hire actors or you're like, "Hi. Do you want to be the inappropriate guy in the subway today?"
Kasia Urbaniak: No. Most of them are images of incredibly sleazy men.
Terri Cole: Okay. Good. Hire someone for that. Are you finding that women ... I mean clearly you are, but is there a different quality of what we're seeking in wanting to be empowered in this way, in this moment in history and in time?
Kasia Urbaniak: Yes, I do. It's an edgy thing. I find that a lot of the women are coming my way because they're kind of sick of this female empowerment idea where a group of women comes together to love themselves and fluff themselves up in isolation and then go out to meet the real world and find themselves finding comfort to retreat, place to land, but without relationally knowing how to do something different, how to give the gift of self-awareness to another man. There's also a lot of anger there. I think we're angrier than ever. We're breaking through a lot of nice girl, good girl behavior.
Kasia Urbaniak: It's a little bit like anytime you're doing something for the first time, anytime you're doing something new and you're carrying a lot of either desire or anger or accumulated energy, it's going to be messy. It's going to be messy. I try to give women the kinds of tools that are as damage-proof as possible. Effective, practical, but ones that won't create unnecessary detonations. I like it. Personally I like it that we're sick of being good girls. I like this bad ass quality of warrior woman. One that is not fighting against everyone, but fighting for a different kind of world.
Terri Cole: Yes, exactly. That really is an important distinction and discernment to make, but the disease to please that we've been saddled with, some people saddled more depending on culture, family of origin, community, tribe, whatever it maybe, is something that we have to change our own minds about what it means to be female and how power is not unfeminine, right? Unfeminine, feminine. This is about being a human and being able to stand in your power. I find with the work that I do, which is Boundary Bootcamp and Real Love Revolution are my two big things, but so much of it is all about self-knowledge, self-love, and speaking authentically, learning how to draw boundaries with ease and grace.
Terri Cole: Speaking what's on your mind and having the language for that. What I'm finding is that women are really attached to the fear that becoming a boundary ninja or a boundary master as I say will be experienced negatively within their circle. I'm like, "Yeah. I mean maybe, but this is life." Every relationship is a dance as Dr. Harriet Lerner would say. You change your steps. The other person's going to be like, "What are you doing? Hey. I do this. You do this. Why aren't you fucking doing that," but eventually the new normal, the new dance, the new movement can become normalized. Like that homeostasis can come back.
Terri Cole: In the moment that we're in now, we've got to be okay in the apple cart being tossed over. It's an opportunity I think to change what we're doing that doesn't work. I was taught that men are people to manage. No. I mean I didn't marry someone I needed to manage. Thank God, but saying like these are things that as women, it's all about are you okay? Don't let them know what's really going on. At least in my growing up experience, it was very much like, "Don't tell dad that mom is over here in the trenches with us in the real deal." I have three older sisters and I remember thinking I never wanted to get married, and I didn't get married until I was 35 and I had like 25 years of therapy.
Terri Cole: I was thinking, "That just looks like yuck. That just doesn't ... Why?" That's like being like I can't wait to have a meh life?
Kasia Urbaniak: Right. Right. Right.
Terri Cole: Can't wait to sign on for that forever. No, thanks. The changes, I see that that's something that people come in with before the Me Too thing exploded. That it's so common. I've been a psychotherapist in New York, in LA and wherever for the past 20 years and I have seen it changing. But I got so excited when I was diving into your work because I love how succinct you are with what you're saying and with what you're teaching. The broad strokes don't work. It's like being in a relationship and saying to your husband or your boyfriend, "You need to be more sensitive."
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah, that doesn't mean anything. That actually doesn't mean anything.
Terri Cole: I don't know what you're saying and I don't know what that means. Then having the courage to want to get your needs met to the degree that you're willing to be vulnerable and that you're willing to say what that is without shame, maybe with a little of trepidation and fear and that's fine because the more you do it, the easier it gets, but this whole thing that men can read your mind and that we should be flattered by someone's attention to our body and to "our beauty" or whatever it is, it's an old paradigm. It's an old story of our value being about the way that we look. I feel like that's changing, but I really do appreciate you're very specific, which I like because it doesn't help us.
Terri Cole: We know we need boundaries. We know if we're in that situation, we need to say something, but we don't know what to say.
Kasia Urbaniak: It drives me crazy when people say, "Find your voice, stand in your power," because again there's no instruction manual that comes with that. It's a few words that make us feel bad for not knowing how to do it, but knowing when it's there and not knowing how it happened.
Terri Cole: Totally. Thanks for letting me know I'm failing at life. Way to go. Awesomeness. Tell us a little bit about your Self-Defense Dojo.
Kasia Urbaniak: Before I get to that, I really wanted to talk to you about what you just said about the people pleasing, the pleasing disease, right? That's what you called it?
Terri Cole: Mm-hmm. (affirmative)
Kasia Urbaniak: One of the things that I found is changing women's minds about what no means, saying no and hearing no. Hearing no comes up when ... In the courses, they are encouraged to ask for more. They're afraid of hearing no, so they pretend that they want less than they do. They mediate requests before they come out of their mouths to the point where if they want Japanese but they think the other person wants Italian, they go for something in between as their highest request.
Terri Cole: Yes.
Kasia Urbaniak: Getting a no, receiving somebody else's resistance, we train to understand that that is a huge gift. Because the moment somebody says no, what they're actually doing is showing a spot that's covered over in order to protect something they care about. My students when they hear somebody say no, they go, "Game on. Fuck yes."
Terri Cole: Right.
Kasia Urbaniak: Not because they think they're going to win and crush that, no, but they're going to find out something really important about what the other person cares about. When they start getting more accustomed to hearing no and then working through that, finding out the reason and allying with it and how much can get generated from that, they're much less afraid to say no themselves because they know that they're saying no because there's something they value that they can protect and feel much more legitimate about speaking. I mean sometimes just no is warranted, but to continue the dynamic and the dialogue and those two things allow for a lot of nice girl behavior, a lot of pleasing disease to stop.
Kasia Urbaniak: Because what the two parties are doing is that they're exposing something greater than what's on the table at the moment. Something more precious.
Terri Cole: Yes.
Kasia Urbaniak: That's exciting.
Terri Cole: That's what creates the whole thing with real intimacy. With what I'm teaching in my courses, so much of it is about that when you really get that saying yes when you want to say no is not being nice. It's lying. What you're then doing is robbing the people who love you the most the opportunity to actually know you.
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. Oh, that's so good.
Terri Cole: Right? How can they authentically love you if you really never allow them to authentically know you because you're too busy trying to manipulate what's happening to avoid conflict at all cost, to make sure no one's ever mad, to make sure nothing's uncomfortable. It's okay. The thing is I always say, "At the end of your life, you're not going to say like I wish I lied more. I wish I hid my true self more." It's so painful, this existential loneliness that I see in women who will come into my practice or my courses in their 60s and their 70s. They spent their life with the disease to please, which actually is a phrase that Dr. Harriet Braiker coined like in the I'd say late '90s.
Terri Cole: She's now deceased, RIP, but she had a great book that was called "Curing The People Pleasing Syndrome." So brilliant. Her whole theory is about why we do it then. The fact that it's still so relevant now is like actually kind of a total bummer because you're like, "Okay. That was 20 years ago. Okay." We need the explosive getting Harvey in the corner, Me Too thing to make actual movement. For my students, it's very egodystonic for them to think of themselves as a liar, for them to think of themselves as blocking the intimacy that they really so consciously want. It's really revealing this unconscious material, these downloaded blueprints that have been impacting their ability.
Terri Cole: When we get there and they really get that they're getting in the way of what they want, but you can unlearn it and learn something new and do something different and be brave, because in the end of life, you're not going to regret the risks that you took. It'll be the living small, letting this bullshit emotion like fear run your life when the reality is that just being alive is we will be filled with fear. Make friends. Put your arm around your peer and be like, "Okay. You're never going anywhere. I'm never going anywhere. Give me the keys to my life. You can go, Violet. I'm driving."
Terri Cole: You can't have that feeling and that fear of rejection and all of those things be this main decision-making thing. I find that with so many of the women, who especially come into my Boundary Bootcamp course, fear has been driving them for so long and autoimmune disorders and cancer and weight gain and exhaustion, all of these things, because your true self is like, "I'm dying in here. Somebody come and get me out." You know?
Kasia Urbaniak: Yeah. So beautiful. Brilliant. Thanks.
Terri Cole: It's interesting. So much of what we do is so aligned even though we do it differently. When I turned on, I was like, "I'm listening to every podcast. Who is this person?" I'm so psyched that you were able to come on the show and share so much of your very unique wisdom because your life has been unique. Your path has been unique. What you've been willing to do for knowledge, which is so interesting because so much of the time people are like, "Can't wait to build my platform. Can't wait to get my offering together," and your whole thing was like, "No, no. This is my life. I'm doing this."
Terri Cole: You were committing, but what a gift for us who are not going to go in the female Daoist monastery to become a nun ... Did I mix those up? Did that all happen in one place?
Kasia Urbaniak: That's right. Yeah, absolutely.
Terri Cole: Right? But how beautiful that you are generous enough and feeling called in some way to be of service to share this information for us because where would I ever know it from? I mean maybe other sources, but not your particular brand. I want to say thank you so much for being on the show. I hope that you will come back. You guys who are listening, don't worry. You'll have all the information that you need to get your Verbal Self-Defense Dojo course, so you know what to do when you're in a situation, how to ask a question of an inappropriate question. That's going to be our first line of defense, but I really want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. I so appreciate it.
Kasia Urbaniak: Thank you so much and thank you for the work you do.
The Gender Knot: How women can ask for what they want
“Women need to learn how to direct men, influence men, command men, ask of men, invite men. Women know what women need. A woman knows what she needs and wants in terms of shifting the status quo much better than a man knows, because most of this shit is invisible to men. We know when we shut down and aren’t saying something. We know when we want to break free. They don’t know. That’s part of the problem. So asking them to “figure it out” is just perpetuating the problem.”
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The Gender Knot: How women can ask for what they want
Read the Transcript:
Nas: We're going to be speaking to this wicked guest for our first episode. So Kasia Urbaniak, she teaches women how to be powerful and influential. She runs a school called the Academy, and she used to be a dominatrix and a Taoist nun. So we're going to hear from her about how women can ask for what they want. So we're mega excited about that.
Nas: So she teaches women about power and influence. She runs this school in New York called the Academy. So yeah, so she teaches women how to be more powerful and influential. Now fun fact, or interesting fact of it, she used to be a dominatrix, and she used to be a Taoist nun. I'm like-
Dan: Which order?
Nas: You know, I need to ask her. That is not a bad question.
Dan: That's the most important thing I want to know from her.
Nas: Yeah. Which led to the other? So Kasia was in London over the summer, and she and I met up. Basically, we initially started talking about how men can deal with more empowered women, because I think a lot of women in my generation feel that now is the age where women are becoming more empowered, but a lot of our male peers haven't caught up to that. So it leads to quite a frustrating dynamics. But instead, we pretty much ended up talking about how women can ask for what they want.
Nas: Sometimes the problem is the fact that as women, we're not sort of direct or clear enough with what we want. Which leads to all sorts of confusions. So yeah, we had a chat about that, and that was really good. I feel like especially now, with what's been going on in the news over the past year, but especially the past couple of weeks with all this Supreme Court stuff in your country, there is all this female rage and stuff. I kind of wonder if a lot of guys are thinking, okay, well, what do I do on the receiving end of this? So Kasia is great about talking about these kind of messy dynamics.
Dan: You love messy.
Nas: I love messy dynamics. I think that's when important things happen. But anyway, we're going to hear from Kasia. Then Dan and I are going to be back, and we're going to have a bit of a chat about the stuff that comes up.
Kasia: How can men deal with more empowered women? There are so many things in that question that are worth noting, which is that there is this feeling that all of a sudden men have to deal with something, right? Manage something, handle something, that it's burdensome, that it's difficult and complicated. One of the things I noticed in teaching, way before this #MeToo moment happened, was that–this is a huge generalization, but I've seen it often enough that it's worth talking about–which is that for many, many reasons, women hesitate to ask for what they want. There is this implied feeling about it, like they're sparing men from the trouble. Then there is this kind of generalized reputation of women being mysterious, difficult, and hard to read. That it’s somehow doing men, especially when you're talking about heterosexual romantic relationships, that they're doing men a favor. Which is actually not true at all.
Kasia: One of the beautiful things that we do in the school is even though our classes are for women, we have men volunteer to participate in significant portions of the exercises. Time and time and time again what shows up is this incredible cycle of heterosexual men really wanting to make their woman happy. Not knowing how, consistently finding themselves in no-win situations, giving up, and being put in a position of handling and dealing with the silent backlash, or the mysterious poison arrows, the comments. When you love someone, and they're unhappy, and you can't reach them, you feel useless. All of your gifts, all of your abilities to provide, and give love in meaningful ways are immediately paralyzed.
Kasia: So in a climate where inside of this heterosexual romantic relationship, men-women generalization, inside of this, we have men who don't get to show up as strong and loving, or successful. They don't get any wins. Even if they get it right, often times a women will hold back and not say it. Even if she does ask, she'll ask for 95% or 40% of what she wants, she'll negotiate with herself before she speaks, she'll go into the thing that she thinks he's capable of that won't be too much trouble. The problem with that is if a man goes through all of the trouble of doing the request, fulfilling on it, and it's 95% right, and she's like, “thank you, thank you, thank you,” he knows that he didn't light her up. He knows he didn't hit the spot. So on some level, on a bodily felt primal level, he knows he failed, even though there is evidence to the contrary that's spoken. We know these things, we know when we hit the spot, light someone up, move them to tears, change their lives. Even if it's with the smallest gesture, we know it. We fucking know it.
Kasia: Men have already been dealing with the mysterious woman who pretends to be low maintenance, in the context of these romantic relationships, and finds herself having to look other places to fulfill herself, to develop herself, leaving him behind. So the dealing with has been going on already. Now, there's the second part, which is when you say the more empowered woman, right? That's also a general idea. What's happening is on the one level, women who have had complaints, or serious grievances, that have been largely accepted or invisible, that they didn't even know how to put language to, or didn't have the courage to–whether it's a history of sexual assault or it's like a habitual thing that now has language that didn't before, like mansplaining–all of a sudden, they're starting to speak.
Kasia: So we can call that more empowered, but the truth is, if you've been holding something back for most of your life, because you thought it was okay, and then suddenly you have your sisters, and you have the news, and you have all these people reflecting back to you that it's unacceptable, and it connects with your own feeling of “this is unacceptable,” when you start to speak, it does not sound eloquent, elegant, it's not calibrated, it does not take the listening of the man into consideration. It doesn't have to, because when something has been festering in a closet for ages, when we're trying to reinvent our lives, and we're doing something we've never done before, it comes out fucking clumsy and sloppy, and full of extra rage. You talk to one man about something he did, and every single man that's ever done the exact same thing to you in the past, all of that force is behind it. That opening is, it's an opening, but everything comes out. The goal, the gore, all of it. The love, the hate, it's confused. It needs to be, because if we waited for it to be well organized and understood internally, and we started by ourselves in isolation, talking about how do we now bring men up to speed with a new reality that we're trying to create, and propose something that's visionary and beautiful that they can participate in? We'd never get anywhere, because isolation is one of the main problems to begin with.
Nas: Well this is exciting, because you're talking about mess, kind of. This is just my opinion, but I think messy times are... that's when good shit is going to happen, when everything is a mess.
Kasia: Yeah, when things get shaken up, for sure. But this kind of mess is also specific to skill acquisition. When you first learn how to skateboard, or walk, or when you first learn how to speak the truth, and when people are saying, “speak your truth,” they're actually aiming for something really specific. It takes some skill to be able to know oneself and know how to speak. We take that for granted. It's messy because our world is turning upside down. But it's also messy because women, in the phrase like “women becoming more empowered,” they're experimenting. Experiments are, by nature, supposed to be successful, and supposed to fail.
Kasia: So we start, anytime you're feeling out a new landscape, you're feeling things you don't expect. You're learning things you don't know. That's what's exciting. There is a lot of growth. So we have women becoming more empowered, and we have them–us–trying new things. So back to why we can't prepare ourselves in isolation, and get everything internally organized to have the greatest impact. Isolation is how this problem happens. So one of the things that happened in #MeToo is literally women started saying “me too.” In my classes the first, very often, it becomes necessary for me to ask everyone to close their eyes and raise their hands if they've ever been sexually compromised. When I get really specific about the definition of what sexual compromise is, by the time I'm finished explaining it, and I'm mentioning all the things that can lock trauma into the body, every hand is raised. Every fucking hand is raised. Now, why wasn't this an issue earlier? Because everybody thought that it was their own fault, or it was their own problem, or was their own issue. Even in the workplace, a woman who is going for a salary negotiation and knows she's shortchanged herself, she goes, “oh, I didn't speak at the moment I should have, I missed my chance. Why did I let them walk all over me? I don't value myself, I don't have enough self worth.” I, I, I, and she's in an isolated state where she doesn't know that there is a #metoo there happening as well.
Kasia: It's when people step out of isolation and start talking to each other, and make messes because there is no other way, and find the gold, find what's truly in common, that power starts to become available. So it's important for women to talk to each other about their experiences, and it's important for men to talk to women, and women to talk to men. And there will be a mess. Men, speaking to your original question, are still dealing with women, dealing with. But they're going from a place where you can't deal with what you don't know, you just have to manage your own place in that, to an opportunity where instead of dealing with an empowered woman, or dealing with a woman who is learning what power and empowerment is, you can participate in that. So that's night and day. So the opportunity for men to discover a new kind of place for themselves, and power and freedom, the ability to (if it's just in the context of heterosexual romantic relationships) actually make a woman fucking happy. You know? And be made happy in turn. It's only in that space that it's even remotely available.
Nas: You said something early on that also struck me in terms of when we talk about men having to deal with women. Does that sort of shortchange men, or assume that they're not up to it? Also what you were saying at the start, about men wanting to make women happy, but not entirely being sure.
Kasia: If somebody is trying to deal with something, rather than seizing the opportunity with full vigor and enthusiasm, it's usually a mark of low self esteem. We also live in a culture of self attack. So even though it looks like so many entitled, especially white, privileged males feel like they're owed everything, there is on a deeper level human beings suffering from a lot of self doubt and self hatred, and engaging in behavior that they think is going to declare them a winner and give them a rightful place to belong. It takes something to source oneself with enough faith and belief to look at something messy and go “I'm fucking diving in. This is an opening, this is an opportunity.” So I'm going to tell you a very quick story, right? This is something that I noticed, or I had a ...
Kasia: Very, very early on, I had a boyfriend who was a substitute teacher in a primary school. So he would go to the primary school, and he's a very gentle, loving-looking human being. So the moment he stepped into the room, all of the kids would be like, “sweet, we don't have to do anything today. We're going to fuck with this guy.” He knew he was going to get it, every single time. So what he would do when he walked into the room is he would find the Bad Kid, the kid who carries the role of the one who is the trouble maker. He would give him the most important job.
Kasia: He would usually do something like, this misbehaving 11-year-old kid would be assigned the task of taking attendance, writing it down, bringing it by himself to the principal's office, unattended, and what he told me, that every time he did this, that kid transformed, and the entire room shifted. So bringing it back, we don't actually give men anything meaningful to do. So what are they going to do in a climate where they're the bad guys, there is a level one, especially post #metoo, right? This affects romantic relationships, this affects work relationships. Level one is, “holy shit, these guys are acting horribly.”
Nas: The men are thinking this?
Kasia: Yeah.
Nas: The men are thinking that women think we act horribly?
Kasia: No. Men are saying Harvey Weinstein is horrible. Right? They're going, number one, they're going, “Have I done anything remotely similar to this?” All in private, all in secret, right? Two, “What are the times I saw something and didn't stop it? Didn't protect my sisters, my women, the women in my life?” That silent inventory is happening, but it's happening in isolation. Right? Women are starting to talk to each other. Most men are having this experience largely in isolation. Then there are the ones where they know they've misbehaved, or done things, or are more in the space of fear of getting caught, wondering why they weren't taught differently, getting angry that things that were allowed suddenly aren't allowed, and getting incriminated for things that were socially approved of before. Then there are the men who are on the other end of the spectrum, and they're just trying to save their asses, doing anything they can.
Kasia: All of this is happening on the other side. It's quite dangerous that all of that energy that has the entire variety of love and desire to protect, to guilt, shame, desire to self harm, to revenge, to upset, all of it. All of it is happening covered. If a woman is breaking herself out of the patriarchal jail, she needs to break herself out. Then it would support her own freedom if she went back in to save the men. One way she could do that is making requests of men that are powerful, whether they are personal, or they're political, it doesn't matter. It's when the bad kid has nothing to do, doesn't have a proper role, that he becomes unstoppably destructive.
Nas: This example of this quote/unquote bad kid is really interesting, because I feel it's as though that bad kid is suddenly being seen for their positive attributes. So is that kind of what you're saying, that by making specific requests, we're kind of empowering men as well?
Kasia: So the important distinction I would make is we're not seeing their positive qualities.
Nas: Men's?
Kasia: Yeah. We're asking them to act in certain ways, and seeing if they will. We're offering them a role that's positive. Whether they do it or not reveals a lot about the general superstitions that women carry about men. This is one thing that I can say with the confidence of my bones, that the level of superstition, and I call it superstition, because it's beyond assumption, about what's going on in the world of men is freakishly high.
Nas: The thing I really want to say here though is that I agree with a lot of what you're saying, and not to make excuses for women, but until recently, the penalties for asking have been high, the penalties for just being a woman who is bold, and speaks out, and demands, you know? Like we talk of women being demanding when they ask something. I know that now this is changing, which is why it's so exciting. But I kind of feel like it's not just women have been suppressing themselves and not doing that ask, I feel like there haven't been that many models or examples of it's okay to ask, and you should ask. Like a woman who asks is nagging, she's demanding, you know? We have such negative connotations around that.
Kasia: So one of the most important things that I teach is if you're going to make a request, or make a statement, a command, that's bold, it has to have the full weight of your authority. That takes a little bit of training, that takes a little bit of ability to see outward, to see the impact that you're making. The ones that might sound needy are often discomfort with receiving.
Nas: From the woman?
Kasia: Yeah. Yeah. It's... You can hear so much of it in the voice. It's like the words communicate one thing, but the body and the tone tells the other person how to feel about it. So even if you make a request, like (in a small, high-pitched, whiny voice) “Could we go on just one vacation together? Please?”
Nas: I already feel guilty.
Kasia: Yep. Because in that, I am carrying the signal of you never do this, if you say yes, you will justify my existence, and if you say no, you'll essentially be murdering me, making my request illegitimate. It doesn't sound like a fun vacation, right?
Nas: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kasia: (Harsh and straightforward voice) “You're finally gonna get your shit together, and you're going to take me on a vacation,” is actually a bit better, because it carries more truth. But still, we're just beginning, you know? This is a deer on baby legs. We're just beginning. We're clumsy, and sloppy, and not really seeing the person we're asking of, or talking to, or connecting in a way that's powerfully influential.
Nas: So I totally get what you're saying. I'm going to be a little bit devil's advocate though.
Kasia: Go for it.
Nas: I feel like, and this is... I don't want to be too vague when I say this. So you made the example of a woman requesting from her partner, you know, to go on vacation, but doing it in a way that induces guilt in him. I'm thinking, especially in this post #metoo era, women are carrying a lot of trauma, they've got a lot of rage that's coming out. 'Cause I've seen this a lot where it's “oh, you could have asked that guy more nicely to do this.” It's like, yeah, but if someone is already hurt, and they're traumatized, maybe they're not in a place-
Kasia: They're having the wrong conversation then. They shouldn't be asking for a vacation. They should be saying “I need you to sit here for 20 minutes while I vent and rage about every single fucking thing I hate. Especially about you and our relationship. And after the 20 minutes are over, I'd like us to go to separate rooms and reconnect in an hour, because I'm going to tell you things that I don't even know are true, I don't even know if they're about you. They feel like they're about you. I need to say them to you, and I want you to be my fucking rock. I want you to sit through it. I want you to see what it's like to be a woman these days, right now, carrying everything I carry. I need you to love me through it, I need you to stay with me through it. Will you do it?” Right? That creates a clean container.
Nas: Where the other side knows what to expect?
Kasia: Well, they can also say no.
Nas: Okay.
Kasia: Right? But they also know what their job is, 'cause that doesn't sound like a request, it is a request. “I would like you to sit through listening to all of the trauma I'm feeling right now. I would like you to fix none of it. I would like you to not speak for a full 20 minutes. I would like you to not even take most of this as truth. I need to say it to hear what it sounds like.” That's a really specific request. That's not something we're trained in. We're trained in the other. We're trained in “I want you to respect me.”
Nas: Which is vague.
Kasia: It doesn't mean anything.
Nas: Right.
Kasia: Because a request that's not vague has a beginning, a middle, and an end and a way to measure whether success happened or not. It has a time, and a place, and usually if you're asking for something big, like respect, a whole series of behavior patterns, it's good to break it up into little steps. Let's see ... You're training people.
Nas: But maybe you don't... Because I understand what you mean by making a vague request like that. Maybe you don't even know what you need, you just know the status quo can't continue.
Kasia: So you start there. So if you wanted to say “This can't continue,” it also would be very empowering for you to know what you would like to have start. This isn't negative and positive. This is called giving people a range of options, right? “This can't continue. I don't want this anymore. I don't even know how to explain it. But I know that this other thing is right now impossible, and this other thing is something I really, really want. I want to be unselfconscious around you. I want to be able to dream a future with you, or father... I want to be able to talk about money with you. I want to be able to talk about your drinking with you. I want us to heal together.”
Kasia: Whatever it is, “I want to polka dot dress and a pony,” it doesn't matter. The point is, if you're putting your attention on the obstacle to what you want, without mentioning what you want, you're not making a request that somebody else can step up to nor wants to fulfill on. Again, not positive and negative. This is about what you can pour your heart into, on both sides. You can pour your heart into a request like that, it gives them space and something they can pour their hearts into.
Nas: I'm going to be devil's advocate again. Probably the one thing I'm hearing a lot from women, especially in this post me too age is they want men to listen. Do you think that's too vague of a request?
Kasia: I think it's bullshit.
Nas: Okay.
Kasia: They don't want men to listen, they want more than that. They want men to listen, they want men to understand, and then they want men to speak, not from the place that they were in before they listened. They want to transform men, they want to change men. They want to be met, and heard, and they want men to act differently. They want so much more. Listening is one of those really safe requests. “I just want you to listen to me. I want to feel seen, and heard,” and it's great. It's a great first step. The moment you open your mouth and you feel unheard, you can say, “I don't feel heard. I want something more than this.” I talk a lot about how I train women to train men, and I get like a little bit of pushback. Like, oh, dominatrix, training women to train men. I fucking love it. But what it doesn't take into account is that we're always training people. We're always training ... again, this isn't victim blaming here, but we're always training people.
Nas: How to treat us.
Kasia: Yes. Which doesn't mean that if somebody slaps you in the face, you trained them to do that and you have to go, “oh, how did I do that?” No. But if you don't answer your phone before noon, you're training people not to call you before noon. So it's just... It's a very basic level thing. Now from my experience, there is a lot of men who are sitting on top of a lot of energy and motivation. The moment they're seen as potential allies, heroes, collaborators, and given something specific to do, they spring up and transform. Their best selves show up. This is not all men. We're all undergoing a huge process. But there is a lot of them.
Nas: The dilemma was how can men deal with more empowered women, are you saying it's more a case of women need to learn how to ask their men to do the work?
Kasia: Women need to learn how to direct men, influence men, command men, ask of men, invite men. Women know what women need. A woman knows what she needs and wants in shifting the status quo much better than what a man knows, because most of this shit is invisible to men. We know when we shut down and aren't saying something. We know when we want to break free. They don't know. That's part of the problem. So asking them to figure it out is just perpetuating the problem. But there are things men can do. How can a man deal with an empowered woman? He can ask a lot of questions. He can ask a lot of questions. Really, he can ask a lot of questions of empowered women, he can ask a lot of questions of the men in his life. “Hey, how are you dealing with this #metoo thing? How are you dealing with empowered women?” So you know, the conversation needs to happen in all places.
Nas: So that was Kasia Urbaniak, it's really weird, because after we did that recording, she and I went off to have some food together, and I was basically... It was quite a transformative evening to be honest. It was earlier this summer, and I had been really angry about several different situations in my life, right?
Dan: All involving men.
Nas: Not all involving men, actually, no. They weren't all involving men. But they were also a people dynamic situations and stuff. But situations where I was just like very annoyed, a few different people about a few different things. You know, all this rage was just going around me. Kasia was great in terms of just like dealing with exactly what is going on, like breaking it down. Let's break down what you actually want to say to person A. Just breaking it down, breaking it down. What do you want to say to person B? Just breaking it down.
Nas: It kind of, it was amazing, because after those conversations, like one by one, I talked to like a bunch of people, and I was quite clear about what I was annoyed about, and what I wanted them to do. That thing of having a clear ask is amazing. It's incredible how people react to that, 'cause you're not just getting, you know when she said people ask for respect, or to listen, and that's so vague? I was saying to people, “I'm annoyed at X. I want Y, or I need you to help me to figure out Z.” You know? It's like not only do you feel better, but you feel kind of like you're being more respectful to the other person, they react better, just the whole thing was so transformative.
Dan: Yeah, I mean, people love tasks. Right?
Nas: Yeah. Yeah. It was clear. It wasn't just like, undirected rage. It was just clear. But even what she said, like with one person, I was like, “I don't really know what I want. But you need to help me figure this out.” It was like, amazing, because they just ... This was a woman. She just stepped up and was like, “okay, cool, well here are some suggestions.” I was like, wow. Like basically overnight, like, Kasia and her method, completely changed things.
Dan: Yeah. I mean, the two big things that I really appreciated from that, and which I've ... I wasn't present for the conversation, but I've listened to it probably three times and taken notes, because she was so amazing.
Nas: So good, so good.
Dan: But really, something that really strikes me is how much she talked about isolation. It sounds like that that's kind of the thing that you had, right? You had all of this stuff going on in your head, and the problem is when I'm the only one that I'm talking to about something, it's really hard to figure out what's true and what's false. It's until I say it out loud to another person that I... Or even sometimes just writing it down. But I have to get it like out of me before I can actually figure out what the truth is. Then the other part is that like there is this core piece of humanity that yearns to be helpful. She talked about that, where when women ask men for what they want, but they only ask for 40%, or 60%, or 95%, and then we do our best to deliver, and it's not enough. People want to be helpful. So if we go to them, and we say, I need you to do X to result in me having Y, they go, “sign me up.” People love a task.
Nas: Or they say no.
Dan: Or they say no.
Nas: Like it's clear, right?
Dan: Yeah. Then you cut that person out of your life because they're dead weight.
Nas: But let's tie this to what's going on right now. So I'm thinking like women really pissed off at a lot of dynamics, you know, you being the representative of all straight, white men.
Dan: Yeah.
Nas: Not a big task or anything.
Dan: Nah, it's fine.
Nas: How does that feel though, for you guys? There is all this ... You know, we talked about mess. There is all this women having to get this stuff out. Yeah. How does it feel for you guys? Do you feel like if there was an ask ... I love the bit where she said, you know, you want to sit down, tell someone, “I'm going to tell you for the next hour all the reasons I'm angry at you, I want you to go away to think about it, let's come back.” I thought that was pretty, wow. That makes sense.
Dan: Yeah. I don't know what I would do if my girlfriend did that. That would be really intense. I mean, I would do my best, I think.
Nas: But what about socially? How do you feel about all of this female rage? Are you guys feeling like we don't really know what to do?
Dan: At times, yeah. But you know, I think I've managed to put myself into enough conversations, which I think is something that goes back to that isolation idea. She said a lot of men in this area isolate, they don't know how to talk about it. It's an uncomfortable thing to be around for, right? Especially like she said, I'm the bad guy, you know? My face is the problem in modern society. Really, honestly, going back to really any society, my face has been the problem. But the only thing that's going to solve anything is perspective. The only way to get perspective is to join a conversation about the problem ... Actually, you can join a conversation about anything, and eventually the problem will come up. But it has to be a diverse conversation. First of all, it can't just be me and other white dudes. Second, it has to just be other people. It can't just be me talking to me, because me talking to me gets me to that place where I want to come out successful, which is what she brought up again.
Nas: You see, this is the thing, in a sense, I feel that as women, it's not bad to be warning men that this is going to be messy for a while.
Dan: Right.
Nas: So expect that we're going to be having some conversations, and we're going to be pissed at men, and we're going to be pissed for a while. I don't know, I feel like that prepares the other side for what's to come.
Dan: Setting reasonable expectations, and frankly, I say, you know, you want to under promise and over deliver, right? So saying like this is going to be messy for a long time, and then if it's not, maybe that... Again, I think we need to be specific, right? Like she said, we can't just say it's going to be messy for a while. It has to be-
Nas: Okay, well, to be specific, I'd say women have a lot of things they're angry about that they want men to listen and to understand, and to in some ways, to feel bad about as well. I think, at least the women I know, we feel like, you know, when, I don't know, we're telling men, “oh, these are the ways in which you silence us.” I don't really want a guy to give me an apology right now. I actually want him to go away and to feel it, to feel how that is, because I think that's the only way you really comprehend the enormity of something.
Nas: Yeah, sometimes I'm just like, “okay, we're going to say all this stuff, we're going to tell you how we feel,” and we want you to go away and to feel scared, and to feel bad, and to feel worried, because that's our experience all the time. Maybe once you experience that for a little bit, you will be more empathetic, and you will be more helpful. Or you can only be more helpful once you have had those experiences. This whole thing of loads of men are scared of how to act. I'm like, yeah, in a way, that's kind of good, because women are constantly having to sort of like walk on eggshells to not be in dangerous situations. I think it's important for men to actually feel how difficult and exhausting that is.
Dan: Yeah.
Nas: So yeah, I kind of want guys to feel that.
Dan: It's like men are scared of how to act, and it's like, well, women are scared to live on a ground floor apartment.
Nas: Right. Exactly. So yeah, I just love the clarity of what she was saying. But I will say one thing, though. It is interesting, because I do think, as women, okay, yeah, we do ask badly, that's true. But I think women, we face such penalties for asking as well, and I wonder if this mirrors the fact that so many men have been like you know, emotionally detached, to play it cool, to act as though they don't need anything from anyone. So someone who clearly says, “hey, I need X” is kind of quite threatening in a way.
Dan: Yeah, like I said, if I was sat down and told “I'm going to tell you everything I'm mad at for 20 minutes, and then I want you to go away for an hour-”
Nas: Would you come back?
Dan: I would be so confused, because that's not-
Nas: Isn't that better than someone just raging at you though? Someone is just like, I'm-
Dan: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. If you want to bookend it. That's better than not. But it's so uncommon, do you know what I mean? Just to what you were saying, the way that I was raised, I, obviously, not all men or whatever they say. But the way that I was raised, and I assume most men were raised, people don't talk to me like that.
Nas: Okay.
Dan: Do you know what I mean?
Nas: Right.
Dan: People just don't.
Nas: But if someone is that clear, is it refreshing to you?
Dan: I don't know.
Nas: Yeah, yeah.
Dan: I would like to think so.
Nas: Maybe this needs to be tested out a little bit.
Dan: Because I typically get the thing that she was talking about, which is the “maybe we could do this once in a while?” Which is really frustrating.
Nas: Yeah, yeah, 'cause it's like, oh, guilt inducing, drag.
Dan: It's like, yeah. What I want to say is “if you want something just tell me and I'll fucking do it.”
Nas: Right. Right.
Dan: But then the other part of me is like, “well, don't talk to me like that.” So I don't know what I want. I have a lot to think about right now.
Nas: No, it's funny, because it reminds me of whenever I deal with really passive aggressive guys who don't know how to say yes or no, and their answer to everything is “uh, sure,” or, uh, “yeah, I suppose.” I'm like, is that yes or no?
Dan: Yeah.
Nas: Is it a yes or a no? Let's just be clear of what is going on here.
Dan: Yeah. Coming from a sales world thing that I do, if somebody says maybe to me, my favorite thing to say is “maybe usually means maybe not. What are you trying to say?”
Nas: Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. So my takeaway was to kind of figure out... It's interesting, not just with men, because the exercises I had with her were with men and women. Just kind of like figure out what I'm trying to say to someone, and try and kind of break it down, and ask them to step up. Clearly say, I need you to help me figure this out. I don't know. It's just... it's been so transformative chatting to her.
Dan: I think that people are more the same than they're different, including across gender, sex, what have you. People want to be spoken to the same, you know what I mean? There is going to be slight variance in language, right? Be it actual language or simply types of communication. But people want directness, people want candidness. We're all so afraid of how everyone is going to react to the thing that we say, that we try to sidestep direct contact and make things really safe. What that ends up doing-
Nas: That ends up vague, and then no one knows what they're doing.
Dan: Exactly. Exactly. No one knows what to give you if you don't ask for it.
Nas: Yeah. So ask, and you'll either get it or you won't. That's okay, 'cause then you know what you're doing.
Dan: That's it. That's it. Thanks for listening. Just ask. See you next time.
Dan: You heard from Kasia Urbaniak from this episode of the Gender Knot.
Nas: It was hosted by me, I'm Nastaran Tavakoli-Far], or Nas in short.
Dan: And I'm Daniel Carol, or Dan in short. Our co producers are Sam Baker and Jonathan Blackwell.
Nas: We're going to be back next week with more, speak to you then.
Dan: Bye.
He Said What: Power and Play
“The world that I want to see hasn’t even been imagined yet. I think that one of our students has the potential to imagine that world. Just to repair the harm that’s been done isn’t enough. We want more.”
“One of the most fun things is having a graduate hear a “no” and go, “Oh yeah, game on!””
On Episode 26 of Melissa Diamond’s “He Said What” podcast, The Academy co-founders Kasia Urbaniak and Ruben Flores discuss the ways that women’s power has the potential to reshape the world as we know it.
Listen on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts
He Said What: Power and Play
Read the Transcript:
Melissa: If you guys don't know about The Academy, it is an incredible company that teaches women to increase power, agency, and influence in all areas of their life, and so they provide incredible courses that really teach people how to navigate through different situations in life, and you guys can tell us a little bit more about that. First off, how did you get started with The Academy?
Kasia: I had this whole life trajectory that taught me things many women don't see, don't know, mainly through a very strange combination of working as one of the most successful dominatrices in New York–if not the world–while training to be a Taoist nun.
Melissa: Wow. Those are kind of contradictory.
Kasia: They seem to be, but they ended up meeting in a really interesting place. I saw power dynamics in a very specific light in the dungeon, because every single time I went back to the dungeon to work, I was coming back from weeks or months of intense training with energetics, martial arts, medical, Chinese medicine, being able to see and feel people more deeply, see their intentions, and read bodies, see exchanges between people. When it came to the thing that I was doing just for money for a really long time, a lot of that training started to seep in, and I started understanding that to have powerful influence over another person and to be able to share a space with them where something really transcendent and new, a new kind of way of relating can be created.
Kasia: There was no way for that to not happen. I was this young... I started when I was 19, and I was working with men twice my age who were way more powerful, and I had to play this game of, for money, “I'm going to pretend to be more powerful than you.” How do I make it real? How do I actually erase the status, the money, the fact that I'm being paid, their way of being by default and by training, and my own, to create an experience where they are fully owned and surrendered and submit to me?
Kasia: This led to a series of realizations, especially through the years as I saw the difference between me and my girlfriends, and how they were dealing with men, and the things that they were experiencing. I'm thinking that I have cracked the fucking code and that I know something really specific about women's power, and then I meet Ruben Flores, my co-founder, and his background-
Melissa: Yeah, very, very different backgrounds.
Ruben: I worked as a humanitarian. I worked with Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, other organizations, setting up emergency hospital projects in conflict zones and disasters. For me, the turning point was, working in Chad–and I'll always remember this–there was a big malnutrition crisis, and we're doing a big nutrition assessment to figure out how many malnourished children are in this vast area of essentially desert, and do we need to have an emergency medical intervention here or there? It was the end of a very long deployment. It was incredibly hot. It was a really bad day, and I was going to meet some village elders to figure out, what is this situation? When talking about malnutrition, we're talking about children primarily, so we're going to talk about maternal and child health, and I remember driving into this village, and outside of the village are the fields. The harvest was nonexistent, and you see the women and the children are working in the fields. We get to the town, and there's this big tree, and there's these mats on the floor, and all the men are sitting in the middle drinking tea, and they were filming a documentary at the time, and I was one of the subjects.
Ruben: I saw a photo later of that meeting, and there I am, sitting in the center of all these men, and we're discussing the health of women and children, and the only women you can see are far off in the distance by the well, and I remember my first instinct was, “these people, these men”–my own neocolonialism well at play–and it bothered me, and the more I looked at it, the more it was impossible for me in this picture to not see myself there implied in that, and I said, "I am a part of this, and it doesn't work. Why aren't there women here? Why aren't we asking? Why don't we do a better job?"
Ruben: I took a sabbatical, and I said, "I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to... I need to do something personally about this. I can't just give it lip service. Are we or aren't we people of our word?” That's how I was raised. If something bothers you, go do something to actually change it. Put your money where your mouth is. In all my studies, and I had done academic courses and taking workshops and everything. And I met somebody who said, "You have to meet your evil twin, this woman, Kasia."
Melissa: Hi. Nice to meet you.
Ruben: "You two are going to have a lot to talk about," so we did, and here we are-
Kasia: We sat down and we basically started talking and didn't stop for six months.
Melissa: Wow.
Kasia: For me, what was really fascinating was when Ruben described his stories of working in these conflict zones and how many situations he was in where no people shared a common language-
Melissa: Wow.
Kasia: And there were really high stake situations, negotiating, hospitals at borders, and people with guns, kids with guns on drugs essentially.
Melissa: Holy shit.
Kasia: He has a piece of paper that says, "I'm allowed to do this." Nobody gives a fuck. How does he do this thing called influence in a space where you can't even rely on spoken language? And that was the first thing... that was the first overlap because, as a dominatrix, in a dungeon, most of what I'm saying is not true, and the real communication happens primally. It's beyond the thing that people call body language. It's so much more than that, how power dynamics are established, how they work, and Ruben was an amazing example of somebody who was telling me stories about how he got shit done, being a man, the things that he knew how to do where language was not involved.
Melissa: That's beyond impressive, truthfully. If you don't have communication, you could achieve those things, that's phenomenal.
Ruben: But it's the presence and it's the thing that has someone walk into a room and everybody in that room knows to look at her, knows to look at him.
Kasia: This is exactly what we're talking about when it comes to women's issues because it's even beyond saying the right thing, not being heard, not getting credit, not being taken seriously, not having your authority followed. What's up with that? There's something going on there that's beyond language. That was the jumping off point for a conversation that we were having in his interest to understand gender from a man's perspective, and with what I knew about where women get stopped, blocked, where they go invisible, where they do it to themselves, where they don't do it, when they're shut down, all of those, the mechanics of all of that suddenly started to become really like a visible architecture, where, from there, it was easy for us to start taking... We didn't call them students because, in the beginning, it wasn't a school. We were just curious. We were experimenting, inviting people over, interviewing them, and experimenting with how to move them past where they're stuck, women specifically. We worked with couples, too, but this was really just an experiment.
Melissa: How'd you find the people?
Kasia: Well, in the beginning, he was just calling over friends, and at the same time, I was writing a little bit about my findings, posting a little bit online, and it really even want that much material, but it was enough to spark so much interest that within no time, there were 500 people being like, "Workshop, workshop, workshop, workshop."
Melissa: Oh, my God. Wow. So many people can relate to everything you're saying. There are those gaps, and they need improvement, and they need to learn how they can empower themselves and better themselves. That's phenomenal.
Kasia: The school was started that way, basically.
Melissa: Wow.
Kasia: We didn't even really want to do it.
Ruben: There were just so many-
Kasia: We were like, "We'll just have them over. We'll do a Q&A. We think we'll find that
Melissa: Now it's a full-blown thing.
Kasia: We had an eight-month waiting list from the start. It was out of control. Then when #MeToo happened, when Trump got elected, each time, it was a bigger, bigger explosion, and then there was a media explosion. It's just one thing after another, and the school, right now, we're just like, "Holy fuck." Every week, it's another “holy fuck.”
Melissa: How many students do you have actively attending the school?
Kasia: It depends on how you count it because we have about 500 really hardcore students who've taken years of classes, who've taken every class, and then we also have [people who take] online classes who float in and out, but there's a real tendency for people, once they take a live, in-person class, to start embodying the work and wanting to teach it. It's become very activist lately, like they want to share it with their coworkers and their families.
Melissa: Because everyone can... it's so important. I was doing a little reading up on the courses, and there are so many things that I wish that, in the past, I was able to take those courses and learn so much about not being stuck in these situations as a woman and letting fear of the unknown and fear of what could happen if you open your mouth influence your life. What kind of courses are you the most passionate about? I'm sure all of them, but is their one or two or a few that really stand out?
Kasia: Absolutely not, because, for me, it's so interesting because people think I teach different courses because I teach a course on money, I teach a course on... We teach Foundations of Unshakeable Power, which is the expensive course. There's Power with Men. There's topical courses. To me, the essence is always the same. Liberate the woman's fucking voice. Show her how power dynamics work, because it doesn't matter if it's a romantic relationship or a work situation. There are women who want to advance their careers who come to the school. There are women who want to date better. There are women who want to reinvent their relationships, their marriages. There are women who just want to reinvent their lives. The pivot point is always the same. It's always the same.
Melissa: Wow. That's amazing. I think that, especially what's going on in society today, there are so many more people that are probably coming forward. What, if you can share, are there any students that their stories really captivated you to another level? I can see the passion in both of you guys. It's phenomenal. I'm sure your students have some crazy stories that people can't fathom.
Kasia: Well, one of the best things is how unconventional some of the victories are, married couples engineering these incredibly beautiful, velvet divorces, having really unconventional ideas about how to divide assets and assign people roles. A woman who was doing the job of two people, and through one of the tools around asking, ended up getting her boss not just to... the victory would have been if she got paid double the salary or the second role was replaced, but, instead, an entire new branch of the company was devised for her through a series of asks, essentially, where she could run the show, had a much higher position, made more money than those two salaries combined, and used the demonstration of being able to do those two jobs as evidence. There are women who do everything from find the love of their lives, to have full on harems, to explore one-way polyamory.
Melissa: Very different spectrums.
Kasia: Yeah, and the thing is that I think that thing that Ruben and I are most proud of, and please stop me if I'm speaking for you and womanterrupting and you'll explain it-
Ruben: Don't worry, I'm an expert.
Kasia: Is that the things that they get are so varied and so unique and unconventional that I know 100% that I'm not telling them what's valuable, what's preferable. “This is a good thing to have, it's good to be rich, famous, and have a TV show.” It's not like that.
Melissa: No.
Kasia: Yeah, but they come in like that. They come in with, "I want the love of my life, I want a raise, I want a little more money, I want my family in harmony." They do the work and they see this expansive possibility of play, of power playfully. When that happens, when they feel that confidence and that power, imagination blossoms and suddenly they're living legends. Suddenly their stories are movie worthy, so it's not just like the victory of “I figured out how to get my teenage daughter” or ...“I figured out how my pain in the ass mother to have a better relationship with me.” It's like reinvention from the inside out, like from your most creative, delicious, wanted things. From like the paranoia and the endless, endless string of superstitions that a woman creates for herself and with her friends when she gets an ambiguous text message from a man or from a lover, from a woman or from a man, whatever, depending on your sexual orientation.
Melissa: It's so true.
Kasia: But it's that is an energy investment and basically an entirely superstitious untested, untenable waste of energy and time. The desires when they come in are pretty small in reference to what they end up getting, because they just want to get through that part. Once they learn how to sense and test their way through that scenario they're like, "Fuck this, I'm going for the moon."
Ruben: I agree. I think that is ultimately the thing that I am the proudest of. Enough of the world telling women what they should do, what they should wear, what they should want. We're completely agnostic about [how a woman should be], if a student has a desire to create something in the world that doesn't exist. There's one thing that we're certain of: that they're going to come into contact with conflict, that they're going to get a no from the start, and our job is to give them the tools to deal with that conflict without violence and to be able to live in a world of peace without conformity, without silence. It can be anything from the raise to the annoying conversation with the boyfriend or the husband that happens forever that suddenly she does something totally new and it moves forward or a woman that says, "You know what, my whole teenage life and college life I sleep with a guy and the next day I am just destroyed wondering. Now before I even see him I'm like, "Listen, if we're going to hang out, I need to be texted tomorrow, will you text me tomorrow?" She says, "And I did that and suddenly because of that might, that is a huge victory," and her joy then becomes the reason that it's worth doing this. The world that I think I want to see hasn't even been imagined yet. I think one of our students has the potential and to imagine something that doesn't exist yet that we can all live into. Because none of the things that are being suggested just to repair the harm that's done is not enough, we want more.
Kasia: I just want to highlight one of the things that Ruben side which is navigating resistance. One of the most fun things is having a graduate here and now and go, "Oh, yeah, game on."
Melissa: I love that.
Kasia: And the discovery that when there is resistance on the other side, when you ask someone for something or confess a desire and there's resistance, right behind that resistance there is something they're trying to protect, that they care about. It doesn't matter if it's stupid, it doesn't matter if it's vanity, it doesn't matter if it's pride, but so long as they care about something, they will put up resistance to protect it. Once you teach a student the skills to navigate the resistance, to get at the thing that they really care about, there's a connection and an intimacy that happens that makes what Ruben's alluding to, that third possibility, like to repair the damage is not enough. That's in the macro context, it's in the context of what's going on in the world. “Women have been shamed for their sexuality, let's shame men for their sexuality, game even.” No. There is something even better and what it takes is women who are powerful enough to be able to afford to be playful and imagine something even better. To go from the place where you're fighting against something to the place where you're fighting for something. When you're fighting for something so irresistibly, you could pour your heart into it, you don't care if your heart gets broken, that is something so beautiful. Like just the privilege of having a student body that is so committed to not only dreaming bigger, but having fun doing so, and getting really turned on when somebody goes, "I don't think so." The importance of inoculating women against the shock of hearing no is super, super important because basically what most women care about, the world is a no to.
Melissa: It's true. I work in sales with predominately all men, so everything you're saying resonates with me, it's so true whether it's going to your boss and trying to ask for a raise or hearing men talk about a woman that was promoted internally and they're like, "Oh, she must have slept her way up to the top." That boils my blood, because I see gender as not men are better, they should be paid more, they should have this privilege. Fuck that, it's women's time now. We shouldn't be paralyzed by fear because we're afraid of the what if? The fear of rejection, the fear of the unknown. I can relate to that, I'm sure many, many people can, it's so true and it's not just in a work environment, it's in life really.
Kasia: Yeah.
Melissa: That's amazing, I love this. So the message that you guys had was incredible. What would you say to someone who's listening to this who is afraid to really speak out or speak up about something that happened to them that they weren't okay with? And the fear of speaking out about it is just too overwhelming for them?
Kasia: Well, that depends on the situation, right? It is so specific and unique, if you're talking about something that's sexually inappropriate that was traumatic: the degree of trauma and the amount of time that has passed has an impact on what the woman needs in order to soften, melt, self-express, to create a support system for herself. Also, it depends on whether she's confronting an individual or an organization. If she's just sharing it with her partner or her family in order to be better seen and understood and supported, or whether she's making a move to overthrow a government. Right? It really depends.
Melissa: Yeah, there's a big spectrum.
Kasia: In cases if we are talking about something like harassment, assault, or something sexual: there are two people that have an interaction. One that sustains damage, the other that may have intended to do so, may not have intended to do so, that may have known they did it, may have not known they did it. So here we have a problem, because we have the perpetrator who might not know he's a perpetrator, might very well know he's a perpetrator, might be skillful at being a perpetrator, might be a clumsy motherfucking dude. So we have this whole range of possibility on one side. And then through the culture that we have, we have women that are repeatedly traumatized to the point where one trigger can be enough to have them lose their voice and shut down.
Kasia: So now in this process we have a huge gap. People do not learn well way after the fact in conceptual rules. So if I tell you, "You did something wrong 10 years ago," and then they gave you a whole list of things that you should never do, it's going to be very hard for you to learn it. Especially if you are not consciously aware of doing it in the first place. A lot of this male behavior that we're talking about it's not conscious, especially-
Melissa: Really?
Kasia: Yeah, especially, things like manterrupting that are not sexual, right?
Melissa: Yeah.
Kasia: We have to allow for a degree of believing in stupidity.
Melissa: Yeah, that's right.
Kasia: When women don't even have the tools to express in the bedroom with their lovers when they're not getting off and they're faking orgasms, like men really don't know.
Melissa: They really don't.
Kasia: I know that there are many cases where they should know better, but they really don't know. So what we have is an ingrained social dynamic that makes women… that creates pain, and self-censorship or shut down for women making them furious and in pain. And the same social dynamic that's ingrained is making men more and more uninformed or stupid or lost. Right? So how do you do that? The reason that all of the exercises and tools in The Academy are relational, meaning we practice teaching women in real-time to express themselves in a way that gets their message to land. And not just land like, beat them over the fucking head–only if that's necessary–but to be able to deliver a communication, in real time, that affects the entire being of the other. Using things that are beyond language, like we started talking about primal communication, body to body.
Kasia: Capturing them using the right degree of severity from a light touch to a fucking verbal slap well depending on the situation so that the other person can learn in real time, the impact of their behavior. That is called social learning. Social learning is how we learn more effectively than anything else. We have laws, and some people follow the laws and some people don't, most people know the laws, but whether we follow them or not is not dependent on whether they're written down as laws. What we do and don't do is based on what appears to work. Now if we take this ingrained social dynamic where there is this huge gap between what women experience and what men do, and we bridge that gap, so that in real-time–this is why I'm talking about liberating women's voice, in real-time-
Melissa: Because otherwise they won't know.
Kasia: They won't know, and when you ask me the first question, the amount of time that has passed between the thing that happened and the communication about it also has an impact. Because now we're at a point where a woman, who's talking about something that happened to her two days ago and 10 years ago, is also feeling the pain of every single damn thing that's happened to her in her entire life. So a guy can look at her sideways for seconds, and without her– and this is innocent. I'm not saying anything negative about– unleashes a shit storm...
Melissa: A fucking beast, yeah.
Kasia: (Yells fiercely.) That is important and cathartic for women, but still not the best way for men to learn. There's a lot required here before the right action gets the right smack or the right communication or the right soft touch. That's why Ruben and I don't do anything but work. Because this is what we teach, this is what I do.
Ruben: I remember this one... She forwarded the email chain. This woman, she's a training executive at a large company. She had written something, an email. They had canceled the training, so they were going to do a makeup date. She wrote makeup, as in putting on your makeup, in the email. This guy, who's known in the organization to kind of just be a douchebag, was like, "Ha ha ha. Then you're going to teach us to put on mascara?"
Melissa: Are you kidding?
Ruben: To this large email to a bunch of people. So she went through her process of–because it's not to deny the impact of statements like this–she said, "I'm going to play with this. I'm going to engage this." She wrote him and she said, "Your comment was like this and it had this effect. I want you to know that." And he immediately called her and was like, "I had no idea. I said that. I'm scared by how unaware I was." He sent an email to everybody on that email chain and said, "My comment was not only completely inappropriate, for those of you who are new to this company, it's the exact role model of what we're trying to not do here. I'm trying to show you how to correct this thing." Called her again, apologized, and since then has completely changed his behavior there.
Ruben: You see this email exchange and you're like, “that's amazing.” If he had said, "Oh, it was a stupid joke. Get with it," she would have known how to play with that too, and take it up and change it. But it's not going to stand uncorrected. That's how we create culture.
Melissa: Yeah. Not in a work environment setting, but I remember distinctly when I was a child I was bullied a lot, for a million different things, whether it was religion or not fitting in my own skin, whatever it was. There was one specific person that tormented me. It stayed with me for years. It actually really messed me up. I think I was afraid of guys and I was a late bloomer with guys because I didn't feel comfortable because of this one experience. It wasn't just one. It was a number of them. It stuck with me. I never confronted him.
Melissa: Fast forward. It was probably two years after I graduated college, I ran into him on the street in the city. It was like no time had passed truthfully, and I just felt like that little girl again that was stopped by this fear of speaking out for myself. Except now I'm an aggressive person. I say what the fuck is on my mind. And I stopped him and I confronted him about it. I said, "You were really awful to me. I never did anything about it. I want you to know that you fucked me up." I remember saying that to him, and he looked like he had a deer in headlights. He had no idea that he had done this to me. He said, "Melissa, I had the biggest crush on you when I was younger. I didn't know that I was tormenting ..." He had literally no idea.
Melissa: I remember thinking to myself, how fucked up is that? That he literally had a crush on me and that's what his behavior was. It's so true. Not talking about it and pushing it down and having it resurface in such a way where I'm walking on the street of the city, I'm not seeking out talking to him or whatever it was. I think it's just important now, everything in my life, if there something that happens that I feel uncomfortable or if something isn't right and I see something, I always talk about it then. Because if you push it down, nothing will happen.
Kasia: Yeah. Also, you demonstrated something really, really, really incredible. When a woman speaks, she's also testing. There are vile predators out there and there are clumsy men out there who are well meaning, and everything in between. In that moment, you not only got to speak up for yourself, you not only got to teach him the impact of his behavior, but you also got to see that even though he did what he did, he had a crush on you.
Melissa: Yeah, that was the most confusing part of it.
Kasia: Yeah, but that's also one of the most beautiful parts. What I'm finding is it's so easy to just want to kill all the men right now.
Melissa: Right.
Kasia: Right? Without looking at them. Without testing them. Without checking. What you did is you tested him. You put forward a communication and you tested him. He showed up. He showed up as somebody who expressed a crush in a way that was very damaging. Does that make him a horrible person? Does that make him a wonderful person? It doesn't make him anything, but it tells you what you need to know. This process allows women to discern better, but also to love men more and to create allies. If every woman he ever came in contact with was as brave as you, he would probably have an entirely different set of behaviors. Because what he learned from talking to you was what he did wasn't going to get you to be his girlfriend.
Melissa: So true. In the eighth grade.
Kasia: Yeah. I bet you that that lack of education, that could have patterned his behavior for years.
Melissa: It's so true. Who knows how his actions were after we were in middle school, but there was something so empowering about walking away from that situation and being like, “I told him how I felt.” It was baffling that he had a crush on me, but it was a relief to know that all of those years of being pissed off at something that happened as a kid, I was able to express it in a way that was healthy.
Kasia: Stand up for yourself, yeah.
Melissa: Yeah. It was amazing.
Kasia: So good. So many good things in that one move.
Melissa: Thank you guys. I appreciate that. I want everyone to learn a little bit more about how they can keep up with you guys, where they can go to sign up for courses. I know there's a long wait list, but I'm sure there are plenty of people listening to this that are very excited to learn more and attend these courses. Tell us a little bit about that.
Ruben: Should I do that?
Kasia: Yeah.
Ruben: We run a number of-
Kasia: Wait. First thing is our website is WeTeachPower.com.
Ruben: Our website... She just womanterrupted.
Kasia: I just womanterrupted. That's right.
Melissa: I love that term.
Ruben: I'm the only man who works in our office.
Melissa: No way!
Ruben: The reversal of roles is fascinating.
Kasia: It's so fun to take what Ruben just said and say it better.
Melissa: I love that.
Ruben: It's great. We can have conversations and laugh about it, which is great. Our website is WeTeachPower.com. We do lectures throughout the year in New York. Those are...
Kasia: And around the world now.
Melissa: Yeah, all around the world.
Ruben: We try to make those super accessible. If someone can't afford to pay, they can come for free. We teach a monthlong class called Power with Men 101. We do that several times a year. We teach a semester long class...
Kasia: That's very intensive. It's all the way. We go all the way in that class.
Ruben: It's like 20 weeks of...
Melissa: 20, wow.
Ruben: ...for a group of-
Kasia: That actually usually gets extended.
Ruben: For a group of like 16 women.
Kasia: It's 20 sometimes. Yeah, but we go on a journey.
Ruben: We go on a journey.
Melissa: That's amazing.
Ruben: We teach... We're now starting to do-
Kasia: We're training the next generation of revolutionaries. We need 20 weeks.
Melissa: You literally are starting the best army of people ever.
Kasia: That's what they call themselves.
Melissa: Really?
Kasia: Yeah.
Ruben: Yeah, army. We now teach online courses, as well. We're starting to go into that route. We are obsessive about doing everything we can to get our students results, which is why our classes have remained quite small over time. It might make us bad business people, but that's not why we're doing this.
Melissa: Yeah. It gives people more of the attention than being in a huge classroom of 500 people. You have the personal attention with them.
Ruben: Yeah.
Melissa: That's amazing. Any social media they can find you on other the website?
Ruben: God, we suck at that.
Melissa: It's okay.
Kasia: No, it's ridiculous and funny. We've had waiting lists since the beginning, so we haven't had to, but we really should.
Ruben: I was our first webmaster. I put a password on our website.
Kasia: Our website was password protected for...
Melissa: A password?
Ruben: Yeah.
Kasia: ...two years.
Ruben: It's like, well, we have a really long waitlist.
Melissa: It may be time to hire a social media coordinator.
Ruben: Yeah, the learning curve has been steep on that end.
Kasia: Also, I'm proud that we don't give a shit about that. I'm proud that we’re mostly word of mouth.
Melissa: Yeah, people waitlist. It doesn't fucking matter.
Kasia: Yeah. I'm starting to do bigger and bigger things, like thousand person lectures, but those are just a couple of hours. Give one or two tools that a woman can use.
Melissa: That's amazing.
Ruben: It's been wild.
Kasia: It's been wild.
Kasia: We're having universities study our work, neuroscientists. It's just-
Melissa: You guys are going to be writing books for...
Kasia: I'm already writing books. Yeah, no, for school. Yeah, that's already happening, too.
Melissa: Wow.
Kasia: And the military and ...
Melissa: You say one of your students will change the world, but it sounds like you guys are on your way to already to that to be honest.
Kasia: We need to do it together. There can't be enough of us, you know.
Melissa: Yeah, everyone has to come together. It's not going to be one person. We have to, like you said, the army. That's amazing. Thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast. Seriously ...
Ruben: It's been a pleasure.
Kasia: It's been a pleasure.
Melissa: I’m blown away by both of you. Very, very incredible people.
The Jill Kargman Show - Sirius XM
“When you’re in charge, you’re in charge. You’re in fucking charge, and you’re responsible for the person you’re leading. So you have to be willing to reach out, look at them, instruct them, see how to move them from point A to point B. And women tend to retreat from that. Even when they’re loud. Even when they’re authoritative. It’s really about letting your energy and attention really penetrate the other person.”
In this interview, Kasia and Jill dish on the ways their conservative Manhattan girls' school prepared them to become rebel women, the way Daoism applies to life in the dungeon, and what men have in common with canines (psst... it's not what you think). Later, Academy co-founder Ruben joins Kasia to tell the epic origin story of The Academy.
Read the Transcript:
Jill: Dude, okay so we just established that Kasia and I both went to Spence–the same all girls uniform school where we would roll up our uniforms. We were just talking about kids dressing like sluts.
Kasia: Defiantly!
Jill: I'm obsessed with this story. And then I want to hear about The Academy and everything, but I want to hear it in chronological order.
Kasia: Oh, okay. I think there's a difference between lifestyle dominatrices and the BDSM scene and especially the women who went into that work at the time that I did.
Jill: You were kind of ahead of your time. I feel like it's more common now. Cause the internet normalizes everything, whereas you went into the Village Voice.
Kasia: Yeah, but also ... Yeah, I went to the Village Voice.
Jill: So amazing because I used to read those ads. I used to like comb through all the ads.
Kasia: Girls needed, ask no questions. Show up. Yeah.
Jill: I used to read those like for fun. It's fascinating, so you were like, "Yeah, I think I'd be good at..." See, I think I'd be good at being a dominatrix too.
Kasia: You probably would, I can tell by your eye contact.
Jill: Really?
Kasia: Yeah, you have very dominant eye contact. Very penetrating.
Jill: Oh, I thought that they're like on all fours and you're wiping them and stepping on them and stuff.
Kasia: Well that's one side of it, but I learned really quickly that I wasn't going to be able to stay in that line of work for very long if that's all I was going to be doing, 'cause initially it was for money. At that time there was this huge IT boom and there was these nerdy guys who were into fantasy who suddenly had money.
Jill: Ooh.
Kasia: And so the nature of that work was professionally changed 'cause all of a sudden there were all these nerdy girls who were able to like ...
Jill: Keep up intellectually?
Kasia: Yeah.
Jill: So it was less violent?
Kasia: There was a huge clientele that was less violent, more imaginative, and that's sort of where I stepped in. And at the time I was also obsessed with Taoism and Taoist spirituality, and studying to be a Taoist Nun, so I had this dual life for 12 years.
Jill: Shut the fuck up.
Kasia: Serious. I was in monasteries and convents.
Jill: But does that mean you can't bone?
Kasia: No, Taoism is pretty cool that way. You just have to bone in a particular way.
Jill: Oh okay. Like position?
Kasia: Energetic practices, so you have to be really aware of your breath-
Jill: Oh I thought you were going to say breasts. I'm like, “well that's his job too.”
“So, I became very, very focused on the submissive man’s experience. And understanding what words, what language, what energy did what, moved what, where. So, it was deeply psychological and deeply energetic, and very early on I was so successful that I was asked to train other dominatrixes.”
Kasia: Oh yeah, well that too.
Jill: So you're oscillating between a Taoist Monastery in China?
Kasia: Mm-hmm.
Jill: And then like tying people up and shit.
Kasia: Exactly.
Jill: And do you think that each extreme helped balance the other in a way?
Kasia: Very smart question, because absolutely. They don’t just balance, but inform the other. In my Taoist studies I was studying martial arts: you have to be able to anticipate the intention of somebody energetically when they move, before they move, and fast. And [I studied] medical diagnosis: Chinese medicine, and knowing what's up with somebody's body. So, I became very, very focused on the submissive man's experience. And understanding what words, what language, what energy did what, moved what, where. So, it was deeply psychological and deeply energetic, and very early on I was so successful that I was asked to train other dominatrixes.
Jill: No way.
Kasia: Yeah, I was like a big part of ...
Jill: So you're like a prodigy.
Kasia: Yeah. I was really, really good. And I noticed these patterns, especially these girls who were starting to work and really their need was financial. These patterns that they had that made it hard for them to do what I was doing, and they were all the things that I saw my entire life.
Jill: What kinds of patterns?
Kasia: Difficulty actually penetrating the space of another person, I mean invading their space, looking at them. The difference between a dominatrix standing there and having all of her attention on herself and saying, "You've been really bad."
Jill: Right.
Kasia: And looking at them, really looking at them ...
Jill: Especially with tech nerds who have their face in an iPad all the time.
Kasia: Yeah. One of the biggest breakthroughs I had was when I was reading Cesar Millan's book on dog training. All of that authority is transmitted not through the words you say, but through the energy and how you say it and through the attention. And the self-consciousness that women have, and the energy and the attention staying inward, ended up being a pattern that I saw throughout.
“One of the biggest breakthroughs I had was when I was reading Cesar Millan’s book on dog training. All of that authority is transmitted not through the words you say, but through the energy and how you say it and through your attention. ”
Jill: What do men have in common with dogs? What did you takeaway? What was the overlap?
Kasia: This is becoming less and less true, but they tend to have a greater peace with and understanding of hierarchy.
Jill: Fascinating.
Kasia: Whereas women have a tendency to not want to seem above anyone and not seem below anyone, which compresses them a lot, creates a lot of tension. When you're in charge you're in charge. You're in fucking charge, and you're responsible for the person you're leading, so you have to be willing to reach out, look at them, instruct them, see how to move them from point A to point B in a way that women tend to retreat from. Even when they're loud. Even when they're authoritative. It's really about letting your energy and attention really penetrate the other person.
Jill: Right.
Kasia: And the other thing is that women don't want to be seen as less than.So, following orders becomes difficult because it's compromising, it means something about them. So, a lot of the things we do at The Academy have to do with unpacking that so that they can be really in charge when they want to be in charge, and really effective. And also when they want to surrender and they want to receive and they want to be adored, and loved, and worshiped, they can let that guard down, and know how to elicit the kind of attention they want so that they can feel adored and safe, and worshiped in a way that they like, and have it not mean anything about them. It's so important.
Jill: I feel like you're like a scientist about all this. You know it so well and you're so eloquent about it, but I've never heard it described this way it's so fascinating. So how did you meet Ruben and tell me about The Academy?
Kasia: Oh, well hi Ruben.
Jill: Hi Ruben. Ruben is in the house. Ruben was in Medecins sans Frontieres, is that right?
Kasia: That's right.
Jill: And so, you're dealing with like warlords in third world countries?
Ruben: Yeah working in conflict zones and a lot of times negotiating without a shared common language.
Jill: So you're both dealing with like the physical and the eye contact.
Kasia: Well that's exactly what happened, is like when we met it was pretty much a non-stop six month conversation full of sleep deprivation. Because it was like everything I understood about power, and power dynamics, and being a woman, and learning this on the fringes of sexuality and spirituality came into direct conversation with somebody who had been at war in conflict zones dealing with violence. And both of us understanding that there's a form of primal communication that happens, and trying to break down what that means in terms of gender dynamics. It was like a drug, and out of that drug a school got started.
Ruben: Yeah people literally just started coming to our living room to talk to us, and they were like, "When are you teaching a class?"
Jill: Wait, do you live together?
Ruben: At the time we did.
“Everything I understood about power, and power dynamics, and being a woman, and learning this on the fringes of sexuality and spirituality came into direct conversation with somebody who had been at war in conflict zones dealing with violence. And both of us understanding that there’s a form of primal communication that happens, and trying to break down what that means in terms of gender dynamics. It was like a drug, and out of that drug a school got started.”
Kasia: At the time we did.
Jill: Okay, so you started teaching this class and it's like word of mouth, sold out, written up in New York all the time, people are obsessed with it. And how did you say, "We're going to take this conversation about these fringes in conflict zones ..." You basically both were in your own version of dungeons. How do you then say, "We're going to create this and spread this kind of alternate gospel."
Kasia: It was responsive, it wasn't active.
Ruben: It wasn't a decision.
Kasia: I'd posted online a little bit about it, and people started asking hundreds of questions, so I started a small advice column. Then they were asking for a workshop we said, "Hell no, we're not teaching. We're never teaching. Let's do a Q&A since that'll be useful information if we ever want to write a book." And it was like ...
Jill: I think you have to write a book.
Kasia: We are.
Jill: Okay, you have to. You're going to come back when you're promoting it 'cause I have a thousand questions.
Ruben: And then it was just one thing after the other, and the biggest thing was when Trump gets elected basically our students go, “okay enough, enough of the small in very exclusive word of mouth, the world needs this.”
Jill: Kick the doors open, empower people.
Kasia: It was especially frustrating since they were using the power dynamics techniques watching the debates to exactly analyze that Hillary was losing, and my school knew that was happening, because of the body language, because of the way the sentences were phrased. They were like, "There's no way this is going to hold up." So they were exceptionally angry and pissed when it happened. And felt really like activated.
Jill: That's good. Well then that's a silver lining then.
Kasia: And then MeToo happened and forget about it because we were in the middle of teaching a verbal self defense workshop. We were in the middle of teaching verbal self defense in the context of sexual harassment when the Harvey story breaks.
Jill: Whoa.
Ruben: Literally that's... it broke on like a Thursday and the class, that section was happening on a Friday night.
Kasia: We were having men come in and...
Ruben: And so, we had the men coming in we were going to role play this, it's how we train our students. It's literally like a dojo and so we just bought a bathrobe and there was the transcript, the literal transcript of what he said.
Jill: No way. So, someone played Harvey?
Ruben: So there's a man playing Harvey.
Kasia: A lot of people played Harvey and we were like use The Five Academy Techniques, how are the five different ways you could have dealt with this particular situation? We even had a potted plant.
Jill: Oh for him to jizz in?
Ruben: It was so much fun.
Jill: Didn't he wack it into the... like jizz into the plant?
Kasia: Oh God I don't know.
Ruben: Disgusting. Monster.
Jill: Oh my God that poor plant has like a MeToo post. So, what are other classes you teach? Do they all have titles or some of them are just like a general you go with the flow, it's more like academic? Well I guess it's called The Academy.
Ruben: We teach a series of like single evening classes.
Jill: Like what are some examples?
Ruben: Verbal Self-Defense, just like a basic introduction of power dynamics.
Kasia: How to have a political conversation, which is the one that we were doing a lot of.
Ruben: How to play with hearing no.
Jill: Oh.
Kasia: Power with Money. Power with Men. Foundations of Unshakeable Power, which is our long course.
Ruben: And then we have month long class called Power with Men 101 and Power with Money 101, so both of those are month long classes, and then we have a semester long course called Foundations of Power.
Kasia: You just mansplained.
Ruben: I did, didn't I?
Kasia: Yes you did.
Jill: Do you guys ever get caught up where you have like power dynamics with each other?
Kasia: We're so good at power dynamics and fighting that we demo our fights to everyone.
Jill: To everyone.
Kasia: And we like outline like what just happened. This is where he diminished me, this is where I emasculated him, this is where I went on top, this where I went on bottom, this is where I got diffused. This is where I use the third part of speech in order to deescalate, it's very structured.
Ruben: We are the living laboratory of what we teach for sure.
Jill: That's cool, 'cause then you're constantly evolving and learning yourselves, right? And you have someone who's listening in the way that you do.
Kasia: Exactly.
Jill: So you're like adaptive and ever growing.
Kasia: Yeah.
Jill: That is very Taoist right?
Kasia: Yeah, it is.
Jill: So, how do you use your background in terms of... and I didn't even know there was an all female Chinese monastery so to me I'm having like Kill Bill.
Kasia: Oh my God.
Jill: Acid trip right now.
Kasia: You're not wrong, on a mountain top doing Qigong, looking down at a sea of clouds.
Jill: Damn.
Kasia: Crouching Tiger all the way.
Jill: I love it. Do you still tap into that experience to inform your work at The Academy?
Kasia: I wish I did, I don't do a lot of the Taoist practices I used to do, nor do I work as a dominatrix anymore because this has become so full-time that the living laboratory of the school is almost every waking moment.
Jill: And so, when does the book come out and what kind of things do you explore that people can read about?
Kasia: Well, this is very early on the stage so I don't know when it's going to come out.
Jill: Okay.
Kasia: But it's going to have a handbook for ruthless bad girls.
Jill: Badass. See, I never had a handbook I want it because I know ...
Kasia: We had the Spence handbook.
Jill: Yeah, the Spence handbook with like your curse finger has to be your hem length, right?
Kasia: Yeah.
Jill: I feel like in a weird way growing up in a conservative all-girls school, that might have pulled the elastic one way for you to snap the opposite direction, or no?
Kasia: Oh, well before I went to Spence I went to a Catholic school, so absolutely.
Jill: Okay. I remember we played Sacred Heart and they would walk in and we would go, "Here come the nuns. Nu, nu, nu, nu." But I feel like you can't really think outside the box unless you know what the box is.
Kasia: Yeah, that's true.
Jill: So it must have informed you.
Kasia: That's true, and I have an incredible appreciation for discipline, and order, and rules, especially when they're created by me.
Jill: Yeah exactly. And so, how can people find you guys or take your classes? Or is it still secret word of mouth?
Ruben: No, they can come to our website: weteachpower.com. We have an online class available, the Verbal Self-Defense Dojo.
Jill: Cool.
Ruben: Yep, our emails are on there, our phones are on there.
Kasia: Wait, you have to see this course, it has creepy guys saying creepy lines and you have to talk back to it like a video game.
Jill: No way.
Kasia: Yeah.
Ruben: Kasia walks you through it.
Jill: Wait, so this in the online class?
Kasia: Yeah.
Jill: And it's like video creepy molesters?
Kasia: Yeah.
Jill: Oh my God you gotta get like a Harvey... I'm picturing like a Claymation Harvey.
Kasia: We have everything from like a massage therapist being like, "Are you married?" You know something lightweight but super uncomfortable to like some heavier hits that women are very, very used to freezing around because the main thing is the way a women's nervous system shuts down when she's put on the spot is the culprit of so many things that people aren't talking about. When a woman freezes and her amygdala gets hijacked she has no access to language, very little access to agency, and will tend to agree with anything.
Jill: That's fascinating.
Kasia: So training women to get off the spot and to unfreeze is more important...
Jill: Yeah, but what if you're buck naked on a massage table?
Kasia: Still, you turn the attention out. "Is that an appropriate question to ask right now? Are you asking because you're taking a census? Are you asking because you want to know if I'm available? Are you flirting with me right now?" Anything that will...
Jill: Shut them down.
Kasia: Especially penetrating questions about why they asked.
Jill: Yeah, why do you ask? Cause then they have to answer and then it's awkward. And then awkwardness makes them maybe freeze up.
Kasia: It also exactly flips the power dynamic because the submissive is always the one where the attention is. So, if somebody puts you on the spot you're the submissive. If somebody's putting you on the spot you're the dominant. So, if they're putting you on the spot and you put them on the spot you're flipping the power dynamic.
Jill: Okay, there's an online class that I'm going to sign up for now, obsessed. You guys have to stay in touch and come back when this book is out because I want my radical bad girl handbook.
Ruben: We'd love to.
Jill: Everybody go check out The Academy at weteachpower.com. And we will be back live on Friday, have a wonderful week.
“One of the biggest breakthroughs I had was when I was reading Cesar Millan’s book on Dog Training. All of that authority is transmitted not through the words you say, but through the energy and how you say it and through the attention. ”
#MeToo Dialogues with Tonya Pinkins
“One of the most traumatizing experiences is to feel retraumatized by not being able to speak. It makes a woman totally defenseless, has her avoid situations where she could find herself in that spot, limits her range of play, limits her range of experimentation, and further limits her speaking.”
This interview was part of The #MeToo Dialogues, an online event featuring host — acclaimed actress, author, rape counselor, and educator Tonya Pinkins™ — talking openly and intimately with more than 30 women and men — including Tarana Burke, Eve Ensler, Alicia Garza, Rosanna Arquette, Marisa Tomei, Michael Beckwith, MJ Rodriguez, and more — who share their powerful stories of healing, brave acts of breaking silence, and what’s next for the #MeToo movement. For more information, please visit https://themetoodialogues.com. This recording is a copyright of The Shift Network. All rights reserved.
Verbal Self-Defense in the #MeToo Movement
Read the Transcript:
Tonya: There's so many things I want to talk to you about. You were the first person who, when I mentioned that I freeze, too, that you understood what that was. How did you know about freeze?
Kasia: When the Harvey Weinstein story broke, we were in the middle of teaching a class specifically on space invasion, when a man invades your space, manterrupting, mansplaining. All of the moments where a woman feels very aggressive or put on the spot. What became really evident in the classes and working with students on a case by case basis, working with their bodies, their modes of expression, the ways they respond, it became really, really clear that there were two very different things happening. One was, a woman in a situation she doesn't want to be in, but she chooses not to speak. She chooses, she makes a choice. "Right now I'm not saying anything." She feels like there's a lot at stake, wants a chance to step away from the situation and assess, doesn't know how to play it out, and that choice is not only her choice. It can be very empowering.
There's another thing that I watched happen over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again, which is she'd know what she wants to say, even if it was just, "No, I don't like this. Stop." Her entire body would start shutting down, she'd lose access to language, and she'd freeze. She wouldn't be able to think. There'd be 1,000 thoughts and sentences in her head, circularly, rapid. Wouldn't be able to catch a single one to phrase it.
The choice not to speak and the choiceless silence, that distinction is so critical, and it's been something that I felt really passionate about speaking to people about. When men ask the question, or people ask the question, "Why didn't she speak up earlier?" Yes, there are consequences, but my question is, "Why didn't she speak up in the moment?" As a human woman in this world, I experienced what I call a freeze 100,000 times in my life.
One of the ways that it usually ends playing out is I freeze and then later I beat myself up for freezing. "Why didn't I say something? Why didn't I say something? Why didn't I say something? Why didn't I say something? Why didn't I say something? Why did I miss the moment? I'm going to say something now. Five, four, three, two... Okay, wait. No. Ah!"
As I watched the students, I saw this experience being so common and universal. We would do role plays in front of the classroom. I'd watch their bodies freeze. We're not playing pretend. We're not playing pretend, this isn't a real man in your life. This isn't a real situation. Even then they could get triggered into totally shutting down, losing access to language, losing agency. We began to very, very, very aggressively fine tune the tools we already had to flip the power dynamic, to make them very specific for those moments where a woman can't speak. Can't. Just can't.
Tonya: Yeah, I'm really curious about that, because for me, it's literally like I'm up in the air watching myself talking, and the person who's with me would clearly think that I am present and engaged with them, and I am not there. It's like a Stepford something has taken over.
Kasia: Yeah, and in that moment, it becomes really complicated, because if that moment isn't addressed, what the other person is seeing might legitimately be interpreted as consent. We have this big consent conversation going on. This big consent conversation doesn't address the moments where people shut down and can't speak. The complexity of it grows when you have an entire culture of men or people in positions of power who have been getting feedback that looks like consent. The thing is that humans are social animals. We are social animals. You give us a list of rules to follow, and behaviors to apply to our lives, it takes a tremendous amount of discipline to catch ourselves in the moment doing something that's a violation, especially if we already have the running habit of being a certain way, having a certain attitude, and doing certain things.
The best way for a human being to learn something is feedback in the moment. If you step on something hot and it burns, ouch, you learn that thing is hot. If you overstep a boundary and somebody else goes, "Ouch," you go, "Oh, that hurt that person. Now if I continue, I'm hurting them." If the feedback isn't there, the education is weak. The social education, the way human beings learn best, is absent.
My current mission is getting women to break out of the freeze and speak in the moment, not just speaking later. Speaking any time, about boundary violations and sexual assault is so, so, so, so important. There's also this entire realm of human behavior that is not necessarily such an aggressive, intentional, evil form of perpetrator behavior. There's a whole spectrum that's traumatizing women anyway, and one of the most traumatizing experiences is to feel retraumatized by not being able to speak. It makes a woman totally defenseless, has her avoid situations where she could find herself in that spot, limits her rage of play, limits her range of experimentation, and further limits her speaking.
This one critical moment where a woman's put on the spot... In the school, the primary focus is studying power dynamics, and when a woman's put on the spot, she's in the submissive position. The name of the game in that moment is to get her into a dominant position where she's controlling the narrative and controlling the conversation, even if only for a moment. When a woman's frozen, you could say her attention is stuck inside herself, her instruction is stuck inside herself, her agency is stuck inside herself. She's talking to herself about what she should do.
To move in a power dynamic from a submissive place to a dominant place requires putting your attention on the other person, your instruction on the other person, with enough pressure so they retreat, and even if for a moment, put attention on themselves. With this lessening of pressure, when a person in that position on the spot can put the other person on the spot, even if it's for a moment, by asking a question about where they're coming from, or their shirt, it doesn't even matter. As long as it switches where the attention is. On an animal level, hierarchies are built on networks of attention. How people lead and what people are paying attention to. We're animals, right?
In that moment, when she's able to switch the power dynamic, even for a moment, her freeze is broken. In really simple terms, there are people who work on helping people break out of this freeze by naming things in the room. This is much more powerful. Your attention goes out, you find language to things outside yourself. In a relational dynamic, where this is happening because another person is triggering you, to call attention to them, even in the most delicate and subtle way, so long as it draws their attention to themselves, even for a moment, you regain your ability to think, speak, and act.
Sometimes saying something like, "Why are you asking me that right now?" Is enough to have a woman gain enough agency to leave the room. If you're frozen, leaving the room is oftentimes not even an option.
Tonya: That's true. For me, my predator is not aggressive. I mean, anytime anyone meets me with aggression, I'm going to meet them with aggression. My predator is very gentle, very caring about me... everything they're doing is about my self interest. They want to help me.
Kasia: Right. All of their attention's on you. All of their attention's on you, and how lovely you are, and your needs. It's still all attention on you. It doesn't matter if it's negative or positive.
Kasia: In the language of the school, dominant attention is neutral. It's not even more powerful to be dominant, or better, or worse. It's not more powerful to be submissive, or better, or worse. They can contain anything, but who's leading and who's following is the deciding factor. "Tonya, I see how much you work, and I see all of the things that you need. You are so lovely and so wonderful. You really need to trust me here as I blank, blank, blank, blank, make you do this. Do this to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." It's still a dominant and submissive power dynamic.
Tonya: I want to get this clear for people, because when I was listening to you talk about it, it resonated with me. I know what happens to me sometimes is that I'll find myself blabbering, blabbering, blabbering, blabbering, and the conversation is, why are you talking, why are you talking? You talked about that, that when people put their attention on you, that is a triggering thing and puts you in this submissive place where they can have their way, manipulate you. Can you explain that dynamic more?
Kasia: Well, it goes both ways, right? It's also really beautiful to be in a surrendered and submissive place where you're telling your story, and you're being transparent, and you're exposing yourself, and you're being vulnerable, and you're speaking truth about your experience, your attention's on yourself, and you're feeling yourself moment by moment. It can be an incredibly powerful and beautiful thing. It's when somebody else is leading you in a direction you don't want to go that it becomes necessary to flip the dynamic.
A really simply metaphor here is conversation. You and I are having a conversation. We're looking at each other through a screen, and I'm looking at you, you're looking at me. Generally, in a conversation that works phenomenally, the power dynamic is not only equal, it's fluid. What I mean by that, is when I speak, if I'm good with dominant attention, I am speaking and watching to see if you're following me. I'm watching your body language, I'm seeing if the words are sinking in.
My attention and my instruction are out on you. If you're reciprocating, right? If you're on the other side of the power dynamic, just while I'm speaking, you're surrendered. You're feeling, and listening, and trying to gage inside of you if the words are landing. "Do I understand? What does this mean to me?" Until something interesting gets triggered and you want to say something, so you want to say something, you say something. You ask me a question. You put your attention on me. Now when you're speaking, you're paying attention to me to see if I'm getting it. I'm sitting here as the person in the submissive state of attention. "Do I understand the question? What is this making me think about?" My attention's on myself.
In a beautiful, rich, dynamic, enlightening conversation, someone's always the dom, someone's always the sub, and they're constantly switching in accordance with the need that the conversation presents. In accordance with the dynamic. It's when things get blocked, when a dom stops paying attention to their sub. Somebody speaking, somebody stroking, caressing, somebody proposing something, stops being able to see the signs in the other that the person's uncomfortable, checking out, experiencing resistance. If a dom has their attention on themselves, but their instruction out there, bad dom. The power dynamic starts collapsing.
The other thing is that if you're in a submissive, surrendered state, and you don't like what's going on, but you're not responding, like you don't know what's going on, not giving the information, or not flipping the power dynamic to take the superior position for a moment to lead the situation elsewhere, then we have a collapsed power dynamic. I'm looking at places where power dynamics, at their best, collapse. One place is when the dom doesn't notice what's happening to the sub, and the other place is when the sub can't be legible, can't broadcast the authentic reaction or experience that they're having, nor can they flip the power dynamic so that they're in the lead, and they're taking it where they want to go. One of the culprits is, in women, the freeze.
One of the culprits, in men or let's say, gender neutral, one of the culprits is when somebody in a higher status position, male or female, loses the ability to feel their sub.
Tonya: Empathy, compassion. There's a whole program in Spain called virtual embodiment where they take domestic abusers and allow them to be inside the body of the person, the intimate person in their life, because they say that sometimes these people who are abusive actually just don't see the people that they're abusing to see the fear or terror in them at all. They just don't see it. I mean, that feels incomprehensible to me. How does that even happen? How do you not see that?
Kasia: Yeah, well, you're a live wire, you respond to every movement in a room. It's your nature and your profession, and who you are. It's incomprehensible to you to think of the kind of numbness that has you overstep the moments where other people are literally going, "Ouch." There are lots of people out there like that, and there's even a lot of research about how people who are in positions of power for a while begin to lose their ability to feel others. It begins to deteriorate. They call it the relational circuit and the power circuit. You spend a lot of time in the power circuit, it's a different set of brain chemistry.
The necessity to teach men and people in higher status positions to continue to be able to feel. It's not an act of kindness. It's actually also a move towards more effective leadership. One of the things that's a tragedy is when a leader cannot feel the people that they're responsible for. You call it empathy, but empathy also has a huge opportunity in it. When you can really feel somebody, you understand what resources they have, what inner resources they have that can make their work a much greater contribution. You make somebody do something against their will because you're using your authority. The kind of outcome that happens is very different from when somebody has their heart in it. They're using their imagination fueled by their childhood dreams. It's fueled by their desire to belong and their loyalty.
It's night and day. It's night and day, and we have a world of bad leaders where everybody's protecting their own asses and a really corrupted idea of what power is.
Tonya: Yes. Tell us about your definition of power, and how we, as a society, have corrupted that.
Kasia: In the language of what I've said already, a bad dom looks powerful, but is actually using force. Force is not powerful. Force is never powerful. Why? You look at a dictatorship. Look at a nation that's run by a dictator: in order to get the will of the people to submit and obey, it takes a tremendous police force, it takes tremendous military, it takes tremendous economic pressure to squash the people to obey, and those countries rarely economically flourish. What happens is the application of force and sustained force becomes necessary. The moment there's a little let up of force, there's rebellion.
Power that's not connected is force, and it's incredibly wasteful. When a leader, or a person in charge, or even a person who's taking the dominant position in a dynamic, just for a moment, like in a conversation–whether we're talking really small, minding your conversation, really big, a nation–when the person in charge has their attention and instruction out, when they're following what's happening to the body of the masses or the body of the other, they are able to influence. They are able to move the person in front of them. They are able to see what's there and use it to get from point A to point B.
What happens then is synergy. Synergy creates more energy than the initial investment, right? That is power, literally. You plug into the electric socket, there's power, electrical power. You can't call something power when the setup itself leaks power. It wastes energy. It wastes resources. Our brute force idea of what power is not only gives power a bad name, it gives people who should be in power an internal taboo against wanting power, wanting to assume a position of power.
Tonya: It's interesting you say that, because I feel, as a person, like I have power in the sense that I know my value, I know what I will and won't do, but I certainly don't have the ability to influence other people. That was something you talk about, is how to make alliances.
Kasia: Yeah. The definition of power in the school is you have all of the relationships in your community and your network are powerful relationships, where you give to others what you value and they value receiving it, and other people give to you what they value and you value receiving it. That the exchanges are such that what's being exchanged is valuable. A powerful relationship is not a powerful relationship unless that power dynamic is fluid and switching, and that each person has an opportunity to lead and follow in their own way.
Tonya: How do we get into-
Kasia: Sorry, this is also one of the reasons that I don't call my school female empowerment school. There's something that happens around language when we're talking about power. People want to soften it. People want to say, "Oh, I feel powerful." First of all, it's not true. You are powerful. You influence people, but there's this idea that we can kind of sequester ourselves and work on our ourselves, and become empowered, and own our experience, and full stop, that's it. Now that I feel powerful in my own bedroom, and I go out into the world and feel powerful in the presence of others, that's not enough. It's actually through connection. It's literally like electrical power. If it's not connected, it's dead.
"I'm empowered" is a conversation I'm having with myself about my own self-esteem. It doesn't flow through the community, it doesn't have that same kind of network effect. What we want is power that's connected. In that sense, it doesn't matter at the moment who's in a dominant position, who's in a submissive position, who's receiving, who's giving. That has to be fluid and has to switch, it always done. Even in hierarchies where that boss will always be the boss. That employee will be the employee. There's a way to have those relationships be powerful and connected.
Tonya: Now, you also talked about how women feel like we have to answer questions, and that that's one of the ways that this tension stays on us, because we don't know how to question the questioner. I think that's what you call it.
Kasia: Yeah, so this comes from an older thing. I think that people talk about the objectification of women. There's a long standing habit of calling to attention to how women are versus calling attention to what men do. It's really easy to say something like, "That guy's a jerk, but boy, can he get things done," and to a woman, "Man, she's a bitch, and she's a harpy," or whatever, like full stop. When boys and girls are raised, you can see this, too. "Look how lovely Mary is. Look how pretty her dress is. Look how lovely her demeanor is." Then it's, "Look what Billy did." What this does is it creates a habit where women's default tends to be to put attention on themselves. Something goes wrong, "What did I do wrong?"
Tonya: You say that, we're putting attention on ourselves, and I think of women as being always attention on other people, "What can I do for you?"
Kasia: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's the other side of a collapsed power dynamic. What women tend to do is... attention in and attention out always balances itself some way, it just doesn't always balance itself out in a powerful way. Attention in is, "What am I supposed to do? What did I do wrong? How did I lead this guy on?" Attention on self, right? Attention out happens, women seeing an entire group, seeing a family, and logging and tracking where everyone else is at. Holding space. That's attention out. That's not attention and instruction out. That's not the dominant state of attention. It's holding space. It's something in between. It's like, "Here is my life energy. My attention is my life energy. Here is my life energy. I am giving it to all of you," and it's a beautiful thing to do, but it has to be noted that it's a tremendous act of generosity. Tremendous act of generosity just to give your attention, your fundamental consciousness energy, your fundamental, who you are is your attention.
Our entire economy is run on attention. Think about the language we use: interest, appreciation. All of it actually refers back to attention. Here we are, we put attention on everybody's comfort, everybody's mood, and it's such an incredible skill, but without instruction, it's not the dominant state. It's not hunting for the next move that the person needs in order to get from point A to point B, of following that impulse of what needs to happen next. Using your agency, not just a receiving of the information, but using your agency to lead.
Tonya: I used to believe, as I started these interviews a few months ago, that predation was a function of being animals. As I've been talking to people, I now feel like the kind of predation we're experiencing is more a function of capitalism. It's a function of, "I can pay for this," or, "I can make money off of this." That's really what fuels it. It's a power dynamic that's fueling it. It's not about, "I need to eat that to survive, or to feed my family." It's a corruption that, I don't know, does it exist even in other animal species besides the human animal?
Kasia: We are a unique, godlike, animalistic, paradoxical phenomenon on this planet. I don't know any animals that behave the ways we do, and are as disconnected from the life forces we are. One of the main goals of this school is to have people, in real time, follow what's alive. What's the next thing? What's the next most alive thing? What's the next most alive thing? In conversation. I mean, it's the thing that makes the students who start to really play powerfully in their conversations, in their negotiations, in their relationships, start feeling playful. It becomes very moment by moment, feel what's alive, feel what's alive. The immense imagination that comes from that kind of freedom is essentially playful. It's the play of children, even in the most difficult situations.
The capitalistic structure of power dynamics. I mean, the truth is that right now, even talking about women, in my work, I see that this is actually way beyond gender. There are men competing with men. There are men competing with women. There's race involved. There's so many levels. It's almost like any time there's a status differential, fluid switching between dominant and submissive states of attention has the potential to get hampered. In that moment, improvisation, and the life force, and the playfulness, the power dissipates. When there's no connection, there's no power.
Tonya: Now, a lot of me, I've heard from friends who've got to the times that men's meeting, that they're full of fear. They're like, "Oh my god. I don't know what I did when I was 19. I was a real jerk then. I mean, how am I supposed to remember? You know, I'm sure I did something some time in my life." Dave Chappelle says there's going to be a backlash. Right now they're scared, but there's going to be a backlash. What are women supposed to do? I mean, it's not okay just because they didn't know, so what do we do?
Kasia: Well, there's two things I want to say. One is, I know that America wasn't ready for it, but it would've been really great if we had this brilliant idea to do something like truth and consequences, where any man who comes forward, by coming forward, he gets exonerated. If he comes forward on his own, he has a chance at redemption.
Tonya: I like that. I've been working on a theatrical piece called Truth and Reconciliation Between Women, because I think that women can begin to model what that looks like. They're fictional, historical pieces. I think that the Truth and Reconciliation project they did in South Africa. We need something like that. I was at an organization yesterday with people who were interested in information escrows, which are information banks where people can anonymously report the behavior. One of the things they were saying is their higher ups, they were pretty sure, had done some things and would want to kibosh this idea, because it would be a threat to them. I silenced myself in the meeting, but the thought to me was, "Well, wouldn't it be great if they came forward and said, you know, 'This is what I've done, and I'm sorry, and here's the act I'm taking with my organization to help other people, who may have been victimized by me or others who unconsciously did things that I know I did.'"
Kasia: Yeah. I mean, there's a few things here. One is, if you allow the perpetrator that act of agency, then all the energy stored in that can go for good. The thing that's kind of a pity, is we have currently a very aggressive capitalistic culture that... I mean, I heard Tarana Burke speak recently. One of the things she said is this was not about the perpetrators. This is about the victims getting a chance to speak openly and connect with each other, with their stories of sexual assault and violence. What became really obvious to me was how much money gets made of telling a good story about a-
Tonya: Oh, yes.
Kasia: Here's the thing. I'm trained to look at things systemically. Even as a Daoist, there's yin and there's yang, and there's a drop of the white in the black and a drop of the black in the white. You can't have one part of the system move without moving the other. You also can't have one part of the system be wounded. Now, this is a very controversial thing to say, but I believe it with my whole heart: you can't have one part of a system wounded without seeing that the other part of the system is wounded, too.
The perpetrators, they are the first people that should be called sick, wounded, in need of rehabilitation and healing. It's just we don't live in the kind of culture that's willing to say that the perpetrators need healing, and we don't even have an idea of what that would look like. What does it look like to take a Harvey and have a process of rehabilitation happen? What does that look like? We don't have that. It's so meager and spare, and yet they're the ones causing the problems? If you have women undergoing this huge transformation, what's happening to men? The masculine on this planet is not wounded?
I'm not saying we have to pour all our attention into men right now, but acknowledge that if we're having this thing happening to women, it's affecting the men, too. To not look at that is dangerous, because it only moves one part of the system, and how the other part of the system gets affected becomes very unpredictable, which is why I was like, it would've been great if it was an alternate reality, but it would've been great if part of what's happened allowed men to come forward, and their confession be their exoneration, or their confession be at least some way of having them participate.
In the school, everything I teach women, I teach them to use relationally or with another. Any skill or tool she's using, she's using with another person, and in order to influence another person, first you have to connect them to their own experience. In a lot of ways, I'm really proud that this work that I'm doing, and this work that the students are doing, as they practice, they're healing the person that they're talking to. One of the things that they all... I mean, most of the things they do is they relate to men that they feel like they're in stuck power dynamics. Whether it's bosses, or sons, or husbands, or brothers.
In doing so, in using this work to bring reality, compassion, and fierce authority to these relationships, the men are getting educated. They're getting realtime feedback, and they're getting instruction.
Tonya: Is there any sort of exercise, demonstration that we could role play together right now? I guess I'd be the perpetrator, because you've got the skills. Could we do something? I could be Harvey and you could demonstrate verbal self defense?
Kasia: You know how you said that your particular weak spot is not something aggressive?
Tonya: Right.
Kasia: There's two ways that women get put into compromising situations. One is a direct hit, right? It's like, "Shall we continue this meeting in my hotel room?" That's still a little bit ambiguous, but you get the point, right?
Tonya: Well, let me be that person. "Kasia, it is so nice to meet you today. You know, I'm running a little late. I really want to help you get this business of yours going, can you come up to my room for a minute? I've got to just make this quick call."
Kasia: There's two ways I could do it, right? I could do it by hitting right back, or I could do it by locating the situation. It seems like you don't have quite enough time to give me the attention I need, is that true? It seems like your hotel room might not be the best place to speed through a meeting, is that true?
Tonya: "Kasia, no. No, honey. No, Kasia, baby. I'm so sorry. I didn't even mean to use that kind of language. Kasia, I really want to take the time, and this call came up out of the last minute. My time and attention is for you. I mean, if you want to wait in the lobby, I mean, it just doesn't make sense for you to wait in the lobby. I've got this beautiful room with this absolutely-"
Kasia: The first thing I did is location, and it's very safe. The direct hit back would be, "Do you realize that it may make a woman uncomfortable to invite her directly to your hotel room, even if for a minute? Did you think about that? Did you think maybe I would feel a little bit more comfortable waiting for you in the lobby? Let's have a quick conversation on the way out." Did you, could you, that's a direct question, and then the location tool is easy, because when you can't find something penetrating to ask, you can just say, "It seems like you're in a rush. It seems like you want to get me to your hotel room. It seems like we're crossing a boundary between business and private life." Then, asking for verification, "Is that true?"
Tonya, you know how you said that your weak spot is when people are softer with you? That pattern is several ambiguous statements said at the same time to imply a request, but not directly propose one. Actually, the ambiguous communication is what, if you look at the Harvey transcript, is what he did. He implies, "I have lots of friends." That's one statement. "I help my friends. I'm a powerful man in the industry. Come to my hotel room. I won't do anything." That moment, it's better for location than a direct hit. It's like, "It seems like you really want to get me to your hotel room. Is that true? What did all the other women who came to your hotel room do for you? What did you get out of it?"
"It seems like." These things end up being really simple if you have the first entry question sort of habituated.
Tonya: We have to make that entry question up for ourselves before we go into any potential-
Kasia: No. I have an entire online verbal self defense course that has pictures of creepy guys show up with the lines. You get to scream back at the screen and get coached all the way through on how to practice within a power dynamic.
Tonya: Okay, so as we wrap up, when can our listeners, viewers who will be seeing this in July, when can they come and take a training with you, Kasia?
Kasia: Okay, by then, definitely, I think September will be sold out. I have a class right now for September, late September is getting sold out. I honestly would just say you have to go to the website, because we have a really long waiting list.
Tonya: Okay. Well, I'm going to get on that waiting list.
Kasia: Awesome. See you in class.
Tonya: Thank you so much, Kasia, for taking the time, and for sharing these skills. I encourage people to go to Kasia's website, where you can see some videos, and she gives some free tips for how to handle some of these sticky situations. I think that's part of your cornering Harvey Weinstein. Have a beautiful day. Thank you, Kasia.
Kasia: You, too. Thank you.
Money Speaks Podcast: What's it like to study at The Academy?
“I moved closer to him... I held my attention and it wasn’t until I actually put my hand on his head, so there was physical contact, then all of a sudden I felt more connected to him. And it wasn’t about me any longer. And in that physical touch, I was able to actually, then, get him to literally... I could feel it in his body. His head relaxed and he actually hadn’t been smiling the entire time and he actually smiled and giggled, almost. And just completely relaxed into my hand. And that was amazing. That was something that I’ve never experienced in quite that way. I mean, I’ve been married for 21 years, but it was a very different kind of exchange of power that was eye-opening.”
Valerie is a leadership and women's empowerment coach, who chatted with Money Speaks host Anna Darian about her recent experience attending a Kasia Urbaniak's Power with Men 101 workshop. Learn what a former professional dominatrix has to teach women about power, attention, and why "you can't go faster than you feel."
Discussion of Power with Men 101 starts at around 18:00.