“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.”
— Kasia Urbaniak
“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.”
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.
