Maria Menounos: The Art of Verbal Self Defense

“I went to the monastery to learn about people... and the place where I found I could do my work the best was a dungeon, where my job was to be a hot bitch! It made no sense!”

— Kasia

In this interview, Kasia discusses how her background as a professional dominatrix prepared her to teach women about fully embodied power, how women are raised to direct our attention inward, and what couples' ongoing arguments are really about.

Read the Transcript:

Maria: Welcome back to Conversations with Maria Menounos. Guys, my guest today is the co-founder and CEO of The Academy, a school that teaches women the tools to expand their power and influence. A former dominatrix and healer, today she's teaching us how to navigate life's most difficult conversations with verbal self-defense. Please welcome Kasia Urbaniak.

Kasia: Thank you for having me.

Maria: I love verbal self-defense. I can't wait for all the tools you're gonna teach us today, but first of all, let's kind of go back to where your journey started, and I think obviously it led you into what you're in now. If I'm correct, I think that some of the principles that probably were applicable to both worlds have helped you. Does that sound crazy?

Kasia: No, it's actually totally accurate.

Maria: Okay.

Kasia: And there's a huge distinction between what I teach now and what I used to do. But the understanding of power dynamics came from my past as a dominatrix.

Maria: That's what was screaming at me as I was doing the research. I'm like, "Gosh, it makes so much sense." So how did you get into that world initially, and then how did you get out of it?

Kasia: Honestly, I started working as a dominatrix in order to be able to pay for college, like many women do. And also at the time, I was really fascinated with Taoism, like the Tao Te Ching, and-

Maria: Can you explain Taoism for people who are listening?

Kasia: It's a Eastern religion, but it's less a religion and more a series of practices and philosophy. So, you know the Tao Te Ching, the I Ching. Actually, most Chinese martial arts and Chinese medicine come from Taoism.

Maria: Oh, wow.

Kasia: So as I was working as a dominatrix, I used some of that money to go to college, and some of that money I used to travel around the world and study. And what I learned in Taoist monasteries about Chinese medicine, reading people's bodies, martial arts, being able to diagnose where the stagnant energy in somebody's body is by looking at them, ended up profoundly influencing how I worked as a dominatrix.

Kasia: Though at the time, especially in the beginning, I wasn't really aware of it. I started becoming a really excellent dominatrix, and it really showed. It really showed how when I was in the room with a client, how I used my attention and ability to see people, things I was learning in the monasteries, to really have an impact on the person I was working with and move them through different states of consciousness, and move them through different emotional states.

Kasia: And I became so good at it that the places I was working started asking me to train other dominatrixes. So I became a really successful dominatrix trainer, and once I started doing that I started seeing a lot of common patterns. In the beginning it didn't really become so clear to me until after a while, but really common patterns in where these women learning to do this would hesitate. Or where they would be unwilling to do something that felt like an invasion of space of the client. Even though they were getting paid-

Maria: To invade their space.

Kasia: Yeah, yeah. It was remarkable. I also started seeing this thing where–I started when I was 19 so I spent all of my twenties with my dominatrix friends and non-dominatrix friends–and I'd see how my non-dominatrix friends, where their concerns were, what they were worried about, how they'd freak out over texts, how they wouldn't check, how they were afraid to enter the space of the man, especially.

Maria: In what way?

Kasia: They would have a lot of superstitions and assumptions about what a text would mean, and what a lack of a text would mean.

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: Or that would have a lot of assumptions that would lead to body shame. A really simple thing is in a dungeon, being young and beautiful wasn't always a guarantee that you would get all the clients. Opposite. Some of the women who were least conventionally beautiful, older or overweight would be killing it. And you'd be like, "What is it that they're doing?"

Maria:  Yeah, what is it? Is it how they carry themselves?

Kasia: No. It's how they put their attention on the client; their willingness to create intimacy through breaking all of the assumptions and the hesitation, and entering that space. And not only that, but watching the impact of what they said and did on the man, and then calibrating and moving them accordingly.

Kasia: So the first, the baby dominatrix would come in and perform power. She would be like, "You've been a bad boy." But all of her attention would be on herself and her performance. She wouldn't even see the places where the men would be showing shame or resistance. And the thing is, the places where the client would have shame or resistance, you could see it in the body. And if you could speak to that, there'd be a chance for them to be released from that shame. And that energy release is so erotic, so exciting and so healing that I became really fascinated with that.

Kasia: And then every time I'd go and take another course or study at a monastery, have another period of time of learning some new tools, I'd go back and I'd see this practice is a practice of power and attention where it's possible to take another human being. It almost feels to me like it's almost inconsequential that it was in this context, but the dungeon became this blank space free of identity, free of truth even, factual truth. I could start playing with power and experimenting with this really primal form of communication which is not related to language.

Kasia: You have to understand, I had a fake name. They had a fake name. The stories that would be made up would be totally made up. The role plays would be made up. And yet, this experience of intimacy, power, understanding, opening and healing in an erotic context was profound.

Maria: It elicited a response, whether it was fake or not, right?

Kasia: Yeah, if you use "fake" in terms of whether it's factually true or not, then yes, fake or not. But what was true was the way that they were impacted by the kind of attention that they were getting, and the kind of confrontation that they were getting with how they were being, and the approval that came with it. And it sounds ironic, a dominatrix approves. But she does by eliciting it, witnessing it, and playing with it, engaging with it.

Kasia: So it was really unexpected, because I went to the monastery to learn about people. And I felt like I went there to learn how to heal and transform people, and the place where I found I could do my work the best was a dungeon. My job was to be a hot bitch. It made no sense. But I started understanding that there's this thing like submissive men are not, I started seeing in the world that people need this. People need this way of women being connected to a feeling and having the courage to really go there, to see somebody, to call it out and to enjoy it and to play with it.

Kasia: To speak to it, and not assume all of these things about what a man is and his fragile ego and what he wants. Just blow those assumptions away, and witness in real time, moment by moment what the impact of a phrase is, and get curious about where they actually are. As opposed to, again, all these assumptions about what we have to be in order to be approved of, how we have to behave.

Kasia: Attention on self, right? And it speaks to a larger thing that I started to notice, where this is a generality but it's powerful enough that it has an impact. Girls are raised to be rewarded with attention on them. What I mean is when a little girl is growing up, there's a tendency to go, "Oh look how pretty Mary is. Look how lovely her manner is. Look how lovely her dress is." Right? So we get that hit of approval when our attention is on ourselves.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: A  boy growing up, say Billy, getting older, the tendency isn't to go, "Look how lovely Billy is." The tendency is to go, "Look what Billy did."

Maria: Yes! Oh my god, you're so right. "He's so good at soccer, oh my god! He is such a genius at math!" And we're just pretty.

Kasia: But here's the important part, here's the setup for my explanation of power dynamics. So if you repeatedly reward a boy, at the moment his attention is out on something else. He understands that he gets belonging and approval in society for doing shit.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: And for girls, as we're raised, if our signal of approval and belonging is every time our attention's on ourselves, we get the message that our way to succeed is by being something, not doing something. So our attention's on ourselves. So you hear it in elections, right? You remember a recent election where people were saying, "He's an ass but he can get shit done"?

Maria: Yep.

Kasia: And, "She's such a bitch." Full stop. Not that she can get shit done.

Maria: No, no no no, and worse, "Her suit's awful. Her makeup is terrible, her hair, her this, her that."

Kasia: "Listen to her voice."

Maria: Yeah!

Kasia: Okay, so here's the thing. In the animal kingdom and everywhere else, how do you recognize an alpha? In dog training, for example. How do you recognize the leader of the pack?

Maria: They show themselves to be the leader of the pack.

Kasia: Their attention is on the whole pack. So to be in a dominant state of attention, your attention needs to be out. And to be in a submissive state of attention or a surrendered state of attention, your attention's in. You're feeling your feelings, you're going inward, right? So there's a default mechanism where women, especially in high-stakes situations, have a tendency to go inward. And there's a tendency for men in a high-stakes situation to dominate and go outward. And this become super relevant when we start talking about sexual harassment or high-stakes negotiations, or even erotic negotiation. This whole recent explosion and exposure of what women go through.

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: Being sexually harassed, or just being communicated to badly by awkward men, right?

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: What happens? What's the first thing that happens? Their attention goes in.

Maria: "What did I do wrong?"

Kasia: Yes! "What do I do now?"

Maria: "What am I not doing right?"

Kasia: "Did I wear something wrong, did I give the wrong message?"

Maria: Or, "I'm not enough at work," or whatever it is, yeah.

Kasia: So a guy puts his attention out, says something maybe inappropriate and confronting. And the woman puts her attention in and gets stuck there. And what happens when she gets stuck there is that she goes into the freeze. Biologically, she freezes. She's stuck in an inward state, she's been taught the default state of inward attention. She's stuck there. The moment she's stuck there, the moment she's in a freeze, she loses access to language and agency.

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: So have you ever been in a situation where you're frozen, and you're thinking about the thing you want to say but you can't get it out?

Maria: I don't even think I cry. I would just cry when this stuff would happen, and then later I'm like, "Why didn't I say this?"

Co-host: Yeah.

Maria: Or, "Why didn't I do that?"

Co-host: That's exactly it.

Maria: And by the way, it's not me to do or say any of those things, and so then I would be like, "Well that's not me, so," and then I'd just be defeated.

Kasia: Yeah, yeah. And then when the moment passes, the self-attack is incredible. In that moment where you're in the freeze, compliance is the easiest thing to do.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: Right? Like, "Why didn't you leave the room? Why didn't you fight back?" Is always the thing that people ask victims of sexual abuse.

Maria: Yes.

Kasia: "Why didn't you stop him?"

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: Okay. So she's frozen. Her biochemistry has changed. Her amygdala has been totally hijacked. She's been taught her whole life to be rewarded from inward attention, so that's gonna be the default state. So in verbal self-defense, the first thing I teach is how does a woman go from that frozen state into a dominant state of attention, where she can regain access to language and agency, where she can break the freeze. How does she do that? So I experimented tirelessly in classes, and it ended up becoming so simple it's almost dumb.

Maria: No way.

Kasia: The first thing she has to do is put her attention fully out on the man and ask him a question. Why a question? The moment a person's asked a question, even if it's for a moment-

Maria: They're on the defense.

Kasia: They put their attention in.

Maria: Oh, so now you're forcing him to look within. 'Cause he has to look for the answer.

Kasia: So now his chemistry is changing just for a second.

Maria: Wow.

Kasia: So he enters the submissive state of attention, or the attention just retreats enough so that she can feel herself again and change her chemistry, regain access to-

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: A powerful question would be, "do you realize that a statement like that might make a woman feel uncomfortable?"

Maria: Good Lord.

Kasia: That's a good one, right? But even if you ask a stupid one.

Maria: Where did you get that shirt?

Kasia: Even if you ask a dumb one. It's enough to give you access to language. You're ten times more likely to walk out of the room. You're ten times more likely to stand up for yourself. Because it changes your chemistry. In terms of the primal language of animal hierarchies of power dynamics, brain chemistry, you are now in the driver's seat, even for a second. Even for a moment. It's enough to give you [a chance] to catch up. And so this is one little simple tool, but it shows the architecture of power dynamics.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: And the entire thing that I spent not knowing, I was learning in the dungeon. And [it was] facilitated by this intense study of Taoism and Taoist practices that involve knowing how to put your attention really deeply in, so that you can feel your organs, and then put your attention deeply out and be able to see what's happening in the body and the consciousness of another.

Kasia: That is ultimate space invasion, in some way. Violation of privacy, like really seeing somebody. And also, it's the greatest gift you can give a person. 'Cause one of the tragedies right now that I feel, especially with men, is a lot of them are finding out that they've been doing things wrong and hurting women.

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: That they didn't know what they were doing.

Maria: That's an interesting take.

Kasia: It's not all of them, but there's a lot of men. We're like, "They should know better." Well there's a lot of men who don't have the skills, they don't know. And you know what? They weren't getting real-time feedback.

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: And you can't blame the woman, you can blame the fucking freeze.

Maria: When the whole Me Too thing happened, I felt a little guilty that I had played into some of this. When you giggle and you let them do things and you don't stand up for yourself, you're almost teaching them that that's okay, right?

Kasia: Yeah, yeah.

Maria: Not that I'm gonna take a lot of guilt on-

Kasia: No.

Maria: But I know there's an element, because I've been saying the same kind of thing too, is we've allowed them and that has been the norm.

Kasia: Yeah, and I really, really, really want to make this clear. That when you take a look at how power dynamics work and how women are raised, and you take a look at what happens biochemically to a woman when she's in that state. This isn't an exoneration, this isn't innocence, this is just an explanation of how things work.

Maria: Yeah. Exactly.

Kasia: You giggle. Your state is internal. You have too much energy, it comes out as a giggle. He's not getting the information he needs, you're not getting what women call your voice and standing in your power.

Kasia: And I get really pissed when people say that. "Find your voice, stand in your power." Give me an instruction manual.

Maria: Yeah. I need a friggin' tool, people.

Kasia: Yeah. Yeah, it's not fair. 'Cause then we're sitting there going like, "I'm so powerless and I sold myself out" and the defeated feeling and self-attack just continues and makes things worse. So I'm really interested in people learning how to consciously enter these dominant and submissive states and see how the argument a couple's been having for 20 years is actually a power dynamics issue. It's about where you put your attention. Or the fear of conflict, or a high-stakes negotiation. What happens when a woman is confronted? One of the greatest joys of my life is, here I was studying all these things that looked really separate from each other, and they came together in this moment in time where I get to do something to give women the voices they always had that they didn't know they had.

Maria: Yeah. That's amazing. And on that note, this is one of my favorite interviews ever. We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna get more amazing information from Kasia. We'll be right back.

[Short break]

Maria: Guys, we are back with our guest, co-founder and CEO of The Academy, teaching women the foundations of power and influence. Kasia Urbaniak, you have a partner that's a male, that's part of this business with you.

Kasia: Yeah.

Maria: Which is kind of ironic.

Kasia: Yeah.

Maria: Tell me a little bit about that.

Kasia: I met Ruben Flores who worked for Doctors Without Borders. He spent years in Africa in really high-conflict zones, and some really dangerous situations. And he was talking about how difficult it was sometimes to navigate a border checkpoint where nobody speaks the same language and there's basically kids with guns on drugs.

Kasia: And he's like, "We have to build a hospital here. You guys want to kill you guys." You know? And the moment we started talking, we started realizing that he couldn't rely on language either, or authority. There's just a piece of paper saying, "I have permission." Nobody gave a damn.

Kasia: And when we started talking, I realized that his understanding of power dynamics and mine were remarkably similar, especially when we're talking about power dynamics and primal communication. And here he was on the fringes of war and death and that kind of horror, and there I was on the fringes of sexuality. And that we came away with the same kind of information.

Kasia: The moment we started talking, we basically couldn't stop, and we talked for six months. And by the end of the end of that six-month conversation, we had a really well- articulated understanding of what we wanted to experiment with. And he started inviting people to our apartment so that we could experiment with them. We could experiment with conversations and how these things worked.

Kasia: And the people who were invited ended up wanting to come back, which is how some of the first workshops started.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: We didn't intend to start a school, it happened by itself. And the first time we announced an actual class, we had an eight-month waiting list.

Maria: Wow. So let's talk a little bit, before the break, you said-

Maria: And by the way, for anyone who's wondering, there's so many things I want to talk about with Kasia but we just don't have enough time. Dominatrixes do not have sex with their clients, just in case, 'cause that was a burning question that I asked during the break.

Kasia: But you know what, I just want to add to that. In a lot of ways, filling up an hour and creating an erotic scenario and not being able to have sexual contact with the client, not being able to have sex with them, is incredibly difficult.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: If you're in the weeds and you get stuck and you don't know what to say, and you feel self-conscious and your attention's on yourself and you're not in the flow and you're not seeing them, a minute can last a lifetime.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: It really demands a lot.

Maria: Wow.

Kasia: And I think that challenge was something that really spurred on my imagination. And this is funny to admit, but I'm sort of an inherent people-pleaser. So I really wanted to do a good job. It was important to me to do a good job. How do I do a good job if the only tools I really have are how I'm being with this person, what I'm saying to them? It was the best. It was the best challenge.

Maria: So before the break, you were talking about the arguments between couples are really just a power dynamic. Can you go into that a little more for anybody listening who's got an issue at home where they're arguing with their husband?

Kasia: There's a couple parts to this. So first, I mentioned that there's a tendency for women to use the submissive state of attention, and there's a tendency, especially where there's pressure, for men to use a dominant state of attention.

Kasia: So women get together, and their tendency–please forgive the stereotypes, generalizations can be helpful, they can be harmful–but two women get together to talk. She talks about her experience. Submissive state of attention. She talks about her experience. Then the other one talks about her experience. Two men getting together using the dominant state of attention will get into a fight. So he can't talk about him, he can't talk about him or they'll get into conflict, so what do they talk about?

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: Something else. Sports. They never talk about their feelings with their guys, generally.

Maria: They don't talk about their own experience that way, right?

Kasia: Yeah. So in terms of dominant and submissive, what happens with couples very often is if two couples are both tending towards a submissive state of attention, she'll talk about what's wrong for her. He'll talk about what's wrong for him. She'll talk about how she's suffering, he'll talk about how he can't handle it. Right?

Kasia: Neither of them are seeing each other, because both of them are in sub-states. If both of them take dominant states of attention, she's saying, "You always do this." He's saying, "You always do this." In order for some of these impossible conversations, these repeated arguments to get fixed, one of the easiest things to do is to take turns. So she'll talk about her experience while he puts her attention on her.

Maria: In what way?

Kasia: The easiest indicator, and this isn't a law, it's just a general tendency, is you watch when you use "I" statements and "you" statements.

Kasia: Maria, you have beautiful hair. You are looking at me intently. You are nodding right now. You are probably wondering what I'm going to say next. You are the host of a fantastic show.

Kasia: If I continue to do this, you'll feel seen, I'll be dominating you.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: Because the next thing I can say is, "Wouldn't you love right now to hear what I'm gonna say next?" I can lead you through states. You feel seen and you are exposed.

Kasia: Your tendency in response to that will be to tell about your experience. "I love having this show. Thank you for saying something nice."

Maria: Yeah. No one ever says anything nice to me, and now I'm in this state where you're like a god, and I'm kind of like, "Oh."

Co-host: I always say nice things to you!

Kasia: Yeah, but you guys have a status differential, so it doesn't work the same way.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: You can't really top her successfully.

Co-host: No, no. Definitely not.

Kasia: Not to mention, just from the kind of eye contact you have, it's obvious that you are dominant in a lot of your interactions, that you put your attention out. You might have a tendency to over-give, and you might have trouble asking for what you actually need from a vulnerable place.

Kasia: And that's from the way that you're looking at me, it may just be because you're at work right now. But I see how strong and penetrating your eye contact is. You have no trouble invading my space at all. And it feels good, 'cause then I want to talk about myself. It's perfect.

Maria: Yeah. So interesting.

Kasia: So here's the switch. When a woman can do that with a man, when she can put her attention on him. "You seem upset. Are you scared that you'll fail me? Does it upset you?"

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: Because that's a reversal of the normal tendency, the first thing that's gonna come up is resistance from the man. "What are you doing?"

Maria: Because you're putting him in a vulnerable situation where he has to admit that he is scared or feeling inadequate.

Kasia: But if she can put her attention fully on him, not make it about her, put her attention fully on him and lead him through that process. And then, this is the second most important thing I teach in school, how to play with "no." How to play with resistance. How to deal when somebody is either exploding or shutting down. Get curious about what's behind that.

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: Really hold them. And not just holding space as in listen and let them run their mouths, but stay on top.

Maria: Even if you don't like them.

Kasia: Well, it depends, right? We're talking about in a-

Maria: In a couples relationship.

Kasia: Yeah.

Maria: But you said at work, that's why I was like, "Okay, let's switch to work." I didn't know if we were going into that.

Kasia: Well at work, too, if you need to lead somebody, if you need to get your message to land, if you need your voice to get heard, it doesn't matter if you like them or not, you have to approve of them enough to be able to control them or to influence them.

Kasia: You can't reject somebody while having influence over them. It doesn't work. Why would their body and being trust you enough to even let anything in if you're not just basically approving of their existence? It doesn't work. We all have self-protective mechanisms that are older than even the human species, and it's brilliant. And approval is a key element.

Maria: So switching it from you to them in the couples dynamic is the key.

Kasia: Yeah. There are other elements too, but once you've had a fight for that long repeat itself, there's a lot of hidden anger and a lot of things that are not said. So for my students, I have them do exercises where they get to vent their rage and enjoy it. And they get to write down all the things that they're not saying, whether they're gonna say them or not. And then write a long list of things they're not asking for.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: 'Cause a lot of the time we go without, we withhold what we need and what we want.

Maria: Oh, for sure. It's the death of love. I talked about it with an author last week, I'm like, "I muted myself so much just to be able to survive, because I was too big for wherever I was." And so you also hit the over-giving thing, and I know there are a lot of women who are susceptible to that out there. Talk a little bit about that.

Kasia: There's different kinds of over-giving. In a dominant state of attention, when you have your attention out on somebody, you are providing something for them, right? You're giving their attention energy. You're also giving them instruction, so you're leading.

Kasia: There's a couple of things. One of the first things we do in the intro class that I teach about being powerful with men is teaching women how to ask. One of the first things that happens when I give them the first exercise is intense resistance. There's the segment of the room that's going, "I don't need anything." Totally independent woman, victorious, does not need a man, does not need anything from anyone.

Kasia: And in terms of how times have changed, this is a really beautiful victory to have. We've spent so many years with women being systemically dependent on men, on families, not being able to have jobs, money, property, right? So this is a huge victory. However, it's bullshit.

Maria: It's also made us much more masculine, and we've kind of abandoned our feminine to become more masculine so that we can, you know, survive in this man's world.

Kasia: What ends up happening is this independent woman ends up doing a lot of work that a man in her position wouldn't have to do. She's doing everything, she's killing it, and the moment that she needs something, nobody can see it. Nobody can see her.

Kasia: The system's sort of set up so that when a man is doing his work, everything's arranged so he has all these invisible support systems. She takes great pride in not asking for anything, but if she does ask, she's creating a new support system for herself, which makes her actually more equal to a man in that sense.

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: The hesitation to appear needy or desperate, the fear of that, can be so strong that women end up working themselves to death.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: And being lonely and pretending that they don't need what they actually need, what every human being needs, connection, intimacy, belonging.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: One particular relationship pattern I see is women who are sort of in this independent state when they find a partner. We're talking about heterosexual relationships, generally, in this context. She will provide, give, nurture, do what you call masculine giving and feminine giving, to a man who ends up not having an opportunity to express his love through action.

Maria: Mm-hmm.

Kasia: He ends up becoming smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. And it's not that she's too big and too great, it's that he doesn't have the opportunity to also give. And it ends up becoming a vicious cycle. 'Cause the more she gives, she more she provides in the masculine or feminine, the smaller he gets, the less capable he feels.

Maria: It pushes him into the feminine. Like, Tony Robbins talks about the depolarization of relationships. So if we go super masculine, they end up going feminine, and there's an imbalance.

Kasia: Yeah. I have some issues with dividing it into masculine and feminine, which is why I also find this dominant and submissive polarity much more convenient. Because it gives women the opportunity to lead and still be women and feel like women.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: In whatever way they want, right? Whether they want to be what you call masculine in that sense or feminine in that sense, they can express power and influence.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: And sort of dividing it from whether they're wearing a frilly dress or a suit.

Maria: Totally, yeah. It's a very important distinction.

Kasia: I think just how people say everyone has masculine and feminine sides, the nice thing about talking about dominant and submissive in this way is that it's just about the present moment and how you've using your attention. It takes how you want to express your gender, wherever you are on the spectrum, out of the occasion.

Kasia: And when men want to quote-unquote "explore their feminine," what I see actually happening is they want to experience a surrendered, submissive state. And so when you take the word feminine out of it, they don't have to become New-Agey yoga dudes.

Maria: Right.

Kasia: They can just go inward, and get in touch with their feelings.

Maria: Smart.

Kasia: And their experience, even in a masculine way. The surrendered, submissive state can be incredibly strong and powerful. It's how you know thyself, right? You go inward and you're like, "I know myself to be. I feel, I desire, I want this. This is where my needs aren't met, this is where they are. I have integrity."

Kasia: That's all a surrendered, submissive state of attention. It can be incredibly masculine-looking, or feminine-looking.

Maria: Yeah.

Kasia: It's about getting in touch with what's inside, and-

Maria: I like that distinction.

Kasia: Another thing that we forget, this whole shift in gender is just five minutes long when it comes to human history. For thousands of years, we've been asking men to stuff down their feelings, put their attention out, and go kill and die for us. That's not gonna disappear overnight.

Kasia: So the intense sense of betrayal, fear that men are betraying their role, their society, the moment they go inward, is a real thing. They're not supposed to be in touch with their inner state like this. It's not a fair ask to make.

Kasia: So when a woman can use her dominant state of attention to lead a man inward, she's giving him a gift that repairs millennia of asking men to die for us.

Maria: Kasia, we are out of time. How do people take your class?

Kasia: You go to the website, weteachpower.com. And we're also doing a really fun thing this summer for any good girls that want to break out of their good girl conditioning.

Maria: Yeah, me!

Kasia: So it's like the Olympics, it's the Bad Girl Summer Games, and when you go to the site you can sign up for that.

Maria: Weteachpower.com.

Kasia: That's right.

Maria: All right, so if you guys want to find out more about her teachings, go to weteachpower.com, you can find her on Instagram, @RealKasiaUrbaniak. Man. Being a Greek, I should be able to get this a little better. Twitter, it's @WeTeachPower. Kasia, thank you so much.