Her Rules Radio: How Women Get Power

Kasia's definition of true power and why she doesn't teach women to reach for compromise. 

“ If you are powerful in your relationships with others, you get what you need, you create what you want, and you get to use and collaborate with the skills, fears, concerns, desires of others in that process. That is power. That is synergy. It creates more than was possible before, and does not waste the other person’s resources, desires, love, concerns through violence, or suppression.”

— Kasia

Read the Transcript:

Alexandra: Kasia, thank you so much for being on Her Rules Radio. I know you're a very busy woman as the founder and CEO of The Academy, so let's just dive in. What do you teach women in a nutshell?

Kasia: If what I teach women could fit in a nutshell, I'd have a very interesting business. No, seriously. There are, I believe, a lot of assumptions we call facts, that go untested, and go unchecked. We live by them as though they're real. The first thing that I teach women is how to test the assumptions, see the assumptions, test the assumptions that have them behave the ways they do, in ways that don't get them what they want. In a more formal and simple way, I'd say I teach women to communicate powerfully, to get what they want, and to influence others. Not in a way that involves force, but in a way that involves influence and transformation. So that they not only get what they want, but every single time that they do, they create a new ally.

Alexandra: That's key. That's so beautiful. Asking for what you want in a way where everyone wins.

Kasia: Yeah, and I don't want anybody to misunderstand that to feel like, "Oh, this is the game of negotiation and compromise." Because I don't believe in that. I don't believe in the kind of compromise where I get half of what I want, you get half of what you want. I believe that when somebody wants something, their desire, their inner signal is speaking some kind of truth. And, there's a lot of choice in how that can be articulated. I don't mean in terms of how that can be asked for, but how the need can get satisfied. It's through a real connection with somebody, and the courage to be intimate, even with a stranger. The courage to really see the other person, that can create an option that truly meets the need of both, that's better and higher than either were standing for before they had the exchange.

Alexandra: Now, you didn't go to college for this. You've actually traveled the world on a kind of self-led, self-study adventure. How did you learn to do all this? Because you've had quite a path to get here.

Kasia: Yeah. I spent about 20 years working with a professional dominatrix. But, for most of the time, that was what I did in order to be able to fund my self-led adventure. In that journey I studied with a lot of really, really incredible masters. A lot of it was around the path of Taoism, and energetics, martial arts and healing. Learning how to read another person's body. At some point in what I was interested in learning, and what I was doing in order to be able to continue my studies, it started to merge. The dungeon, where I was a dominatrix, became a laboratory for a lot of the things that I was learning. I got to start testing, and playing with the things I was learning about human beings, the things I was learning about consciousness, and energetics, and influence, and healing, and martial arts. Energetic fighting, conflict resolution, through these sessions in dungeons with men.

Alexandra: That might perk a lot of ears up, women that are listening to this right now. They might immediately be afraid that whatever they're going to learn from you, like, "I don't want to be a dominatrix." Or they're thinking, "Oh, that sounds amazing." But, let's connect the fear with the reality a little bit, because I've been lucky enough to take a few of your workshops in person in New York City. I keep coming back, because they're such incredible experiences. I recognize the fear in myself, and the fear of other women. They are nervous showing up to these courses. There's something bringing them to you in your courses, and the fear... there's so many different fears.

Alexandra: I can speak personally just to one of them is, what am I doing? What am I acknowledging about myself, that I want to have more power with men? Just taking the name of one of your classes. What are some of the fears that you notice, that women are coming to you to try to overcome?

Kasia: I want to say that there are two things that are super, super triggering and misunderstood. First is, our general cultural idea of power. Power itself, power. Not empowerment, 'cause empowerment for me is this slightly softer, less offensive version of what we're actually talking about, that manages to bypass what we misunderstand about power itself. When you say empowerment, you can ... It might conjure up images of a woman, or a person in a room reciting affirmations, feeling great about themselves. I believe that power actually exists in relationship to the other. I use the word "power" intentionally, knowing that our idea of power is actually the abuse of power, or a misunderstanding of what power is. Let's just take the example of a tyrannical dictator. One might say that the tyrannical dictator has power over a nation. In reality, a tyrannical dictator of a nation, has to use so much force and energy to keep the people in submission. It's only a matter of time before there's a revolt. The word power implies energy. How can that understanding of power, when it wastes so much power and energy, be called "powerful?" That's how we relate to power. Let's crush resistance, let's silence people. If you look at it in terms of energy, it's not powerful. It actually wastes power.

Kasia: However, the leader who can use the desire, skills, and talents of his or her people, is creating synergy, which creates more power. The guilt associated with wanting to have power, the fear of wanting power, meaning "I'm a bad person," comes from how we see power play out into this world. I don't want to soften, or lie about what it is that I do. And, I like the opportunity to clean up what power actually is, and reclaim the word power.

Kasia: If you are powerful in your relationships with others, you get what you need, you create what you want, and you get to use and collaborate with the skills, fears, concerns, desires of others in that process. That is power. That is synergy. It creates more than was possible before, and does not waste the other person's resources, desires, love, concerns through violence, or suppression. That's the first thing.

Kasia: Given the historical position of women, also, there's fears about power that go beyond that. "What will this make me, what will this mean about me, what will I have to take responsibility for, will I have to do more work than I already am?"

Kasia:  The second one has to do with sex, because the dominatrix is the archetype of the woman who is powerful. She doesn't have sex, but she uses sex. It's my personal belief that for a human being to be powerful, they need to integrate their sexuality. What I see in the world is women–again, who culturally and historically are not only shamed for their sex, but their sexuality is dangerous–are shutting down parts of their body. That translates into their physical presence, and compromises how powerful they're actually able to be. I believe that power, and being powerful, and having a powerful presence, and communicating powerfully is a whole body affair. If we're shut down from the neck down, and just talking powerfully, it doesn't actually inspire others to follow or trust that the leader has the authority, or can stand in the space of that authority to hold the group through a process, an experience, a new law, an activity.

Kasia: Whether it's a leader in terms of a two person dynamic, or a leader in terms of one woman and a group, it's the same thing. I think that they hear dominatrix, and they get scared of the sex part, and the power part primarily. Also, just frankly speaking, anytime there's anything that could threaten the status quo, we want it and we don't. We want it, and we don't.

Alexandra: It's the devil we know.

Kasia: Yeah, yeah. 'Cause guess what? You don't get to be a victim anymore. Guess what? It's a whole new landscape. Uncertainty can be terrifying, no matter how much we hate what's happening. I see this right now, especially with this #MeToo stuff... it's incredible what's happening with women's voices being unleashed. But also–this is understandably the case–very often when people first stand up against something they hate, they really, really tend to resemble the thing they're trying to fight against. They end up using the same tactics, and tools, and being the same thing. We  don't need a world of collusion when it comes to women becoming perpetrators too.

Alexandra: Yeah, I see that so much in the political landscape. But it's been going on for years, it's just more amplified now. And, this idea of integrating our powerful domme nature, or acknowledging or accepting these different aspects of ourselves to be powerful. That's something that you're kind of speaking towards. I wondered if you had read the Brit Marling piece in The Atlantic, 'cause I really wanted to talk about something she said that so reminded me of you and this topic. Brit Marling is an actor, and she's a screenwriter. She created a great series on Netflix called "The OA," which I just loved. She started out as an actress in Hollywood, but quickly realized that she was getting, showing up for auditions as, "Blonde Number Three," or, "Sexy Nurse." She was totally turned off by it. She started screenwriting.

Alexandra: Years and years later, she gets into the Sundance Institute, she starts becoming the hot young thing. She gets a meeting with Harvey Weinstein, and she like many other women who have shared their stories about interactions with him, was met in the lobby by a young female assistant. The assistant said, "Harvey's too busy, going to take you upstairs to his room for the meeting." She said she knew in that moment that something was wrong. I wanted to read you a quote from her article, because it's so brilliant, and so speaks to what I teach, what you teach in some ways. She said, "I went up to the room, and he started coming on to me. He started offering a massage, or saying, 'Let's take a bath together,' and started pressuring me."

Alexandra: She wrote, "I was able to leave Harvey's hotel room that day because I had entered as an actor, but also as a writer/creator. Of those dual personas in me: actor and writer, it was the writer who stood up and walked out. Because, the writer knew that even if this very powerful man never gave her a job in any of his films. Even if he blacklisted her from all of his other mothers, and from other people's movies, she could make her own work on her own terms. And thus, keep a roof over her head."

Alexandra: It was this embodying a powerful aspect of herself that got her out of that situation. You're teaching a special class called "Cornering Harvey," here in New York City on December 1st. I wanted to talk about how you're using this current situation in Hollywood, and all of this incredible work and teaching you've been doing with women in the past. What is this new class you're teaching?

Kasia: Oh, first I could say so much about what she wrote. I wish I had read the article. I mean, that's just incredible, incredible. Because there are a lot of women who would be in that situation who don't have any interest in screenwriting, right? Who, maybe don't have any interest in being creators on that level, and are purely actresses who wouldn't have had that as something to lean on.

Kasia: The weird timing of things. I was in the middle of teaching a three month program, and just a few days before the weekend where we deal with verbal self defense, sexual harassment, what to do when you're put on the spot, and training in real time. How to bypass that moment of speechlessness, where the entire body shuts down, the head is going crazy, there's a thousand things you think you could say, but none of them are coming out of your mouth. We were heading towards that weekend when the scandal broke.

Kasia: In that weekend, we had as we always do, volunteer men come and play certain roles. For this one we got a hotel bathrobe, a potted plant, and a man to play Harvey. We dissected the transcript, the things that Harvey has said, in terms of dominant states of attention, and submissive states of attention. Which, is what I teach. It was so big and charged, there was so much energy in the room, that we immediately knew that we had to create a bigger event where we could take some of these tools, and just give them away to the world at large.

Kasia: What happened repeatedly, and I'm already feeling like some of your female listeners can relate to this, is this moment of shutdown. We get into a situation, we even do this exercise where women are asked uncomfortable questions in the room, and their job is to question the questioner. You would not believe how hard it is for a woman, even in a fictitious scenario, to hear an uncomfortable, inappropriate question and not answer it. "Why don't you have kids by now?" She wants to answer it. "Do you really think you're qualified for this job?" She wants to answer it. "Do you get enough sex?: She wants to answer it.

Alexandra: So, these are fake questions basically being posed to her.

Kasia: Yes.

Alexandra: And, her only job is to try to come up with a response?

Kasia: No, her job is to question the questioner.

Alexandra: Oh.

Kasia: Answer with a question back. For example, "aren't you nosy?" Even a question like, "how old are you?" She wants to answer. "Do you like making women feel uncomfortable?" "Are you afraid that you're too young for me?" Answering a question with a question, right? Because the moment you ask somebody a question, you make them aware of themselves so they are in a submissive state of attention. Meaning, they're self-conscious, self-aware. This can be a very positive thing. But if you're on the spot and you're being made uncomfortable, this is a terrible thing. The idea is to put attention on them. The idea is to ask them a question about why they're asking, or put the attention on them.

Kasia: This changes your biochemistry. This state of shutdown, this state of not knowing what to say, or answering the question straight. Feeling like you have to play the game on their terms, is something that can be biochemically documented. We live in a culture where, as girls are being raised, and as boys are being raised, the way that they are reward is significantly different. A woman, a girl tends to be rewarded for her being, attention on her. "Look how lovely Mary is. Look how lovely her demeanor is. Look how pretty her dress is." A boy tends to be rewarded for his agency. "Look what Billy did." It translates even into the area of politics, where later on people are like, "She's such a bitch. He's an asshole, but he gets shit done." Right? The attentions on a man's agency, and the attentions on a woman's being-ness.

Kasia: This has a tendency to make it difficult for women to get out of this state, where the attention's on them: if they're accused, if they're dismissed, if they're harassed. Their attention's on themselves, and in that biochemical state it's actually really hard to access language and action. Something as simple as being able to question the questioner, put attention on them, can shift a woman's biochemistry so that she has access to action, and language, and can get herself out of that hotel room.

Kasia: The event that we're having, the verbal self defense training camp known as Cornering Harvey, is focused on the few tools that I can give women to make that switch. Even if they're in an interview, and the potential employer asks an inappropriate question like, "Do you plan on having kids?" Which, is against the law, right? Before she answers she has this skill to ask the question, a questioner, or put attention on him so that she feels like she's taken her power back, and she's not experiencing neuromuscular lock. She's not in that state of physically shut down silence.

Kasia: This one key point is so pivotal and powerful, that once she puts her attention out, she's herself again. She can lead the situation. She can say something like, "I was under the impression this meeting was about business, but I see that you're interested in a romantic interlude. How on earth are we going to resolve our difference of interests here? Are you telling me that if I sleep with you, you'll give me this part? Am I paying for this part with my sex?"

Kasia: Now, there are some situations in which a woman would be unsafe to do that. But, right now most women don't even have a choice, because of how we're acculturated, because of where we are. We don't even have a range of play. The speaking part is so important to me, so important to me. Getting out of that neuromuscular lock, shutdown space where the woman is calculating in her head, and thinking of a million things to say, but can't actually get them out of her system 'cause her attention is still on herself, and she's anticipating danger and threats. If she can put her attention out, then at least we have better options, or we have more options.

Alexandra: This immediately brings to mind past trauma.

Kasia: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Alexandra: I used to joke about this, and now I don't joke about it anymore because I just see it as true. That, if you are a woman raised on the planet, you have some kind of trauma. Either it's happened to you personally, or it's happened to someone you know, or you're just picking up the vibe of what's happening to womankind, and it's coming through you as well. I wonder how you help people with trauma, or address people who are finding them reliving experiences, or maybe there's women who want to come to Cornering Harvey who have actually been through a situation like this in Hollywood. I know so many women in the tech, startup world who have also had to deal with this kind of sexual predator. How do you help them with that?

Kasia: Okay, so first to your point about women being traumatized, in my classes I like to create a really safe space. So far in all of my teaching experiences, I haven't had a room in which I didn't recognize all of the women having impactful experiences. All of them. Even something as simple as having unwanted sex with a loved partner, can create the biological experience of physical trauma. This is very difficult to talk about, not only because of the shame and the difficulties it brings up for women, but what it brings up for men.

Kasia: Men are also raised in this culture in a particular way. A lot of the things that traumatized women are not malicious. They're clumsy, awkward, stupid, they're under educated, they don't understand. When well intentioned, or decent guys have to hear about all of the horrible things they did to destroy women's lives... it's really difficult.

Kasia: I am a stand for women, I'm also a stand for men. There are people who specialize in trauma who understand it far, far, far better than I do. But, I know from what I do, that even if this experience of shutdown that is so common to women is directly related to trauma. That, practicing, even in the smallest, low stake scenarios, of being put on the spot. Even with something as stupid as a question like, "How old are you?" Or, "What do you do for a living?" That you don't want to answer. That you know that if a woman shuts down in that moment and answers it, and feels uncomfortable. Then she'll beat herself up for the next few weeks, for having agreed to something, and gone with something she didn't want to, which just makes the problem worse.

Kasia: I know that if a woman has the opportunity to speak back to that, and feel herself in a low-stakes version of that situation, and manages to change her chemistry, manages to put her attention out, manages to change her role, then, without the trauma being just directly, that alone is enough to have her start moving forward, feeling incredibly powerful. Being able to do things that she wasn't able to do before.

Alexandra: So, having been in a couple of your weekend-long workshops, and I've personally experienced the insights, but also the felt shift in power. It's an opportunity to actually feel the difference in yourself, what it is to be powerful. Which, is very different from saying, "Step into your power, girlfriend." That's just to say, I cannot recommend your classes more than I already do. Believe me, I have sent the link for this class to so many women I know in New York City. I just want to end by reminding everyone to go check it out. We're going to list the link in the show notes here on my site at HerRulesRadio.com, so that if there are tickets left, you should definitely go if this peaks your interest at all. Kasia, we're definitely going to have you back on the show, 'cause we have so much more to talk about. Your other programs, The Foundations of Power, and Power With Men 101, which I personally loved so much.

Alexandra: By the way, I took Power With Men 101, and I have an amazing relationship with my husband, and I love my son. It's not just for your current situation. It might be about the past, or the future that you want to step into. Just putting that out there to my listeners. Kasia, as one of our guests I love to ask my experts, what is a rule that you would rewrite that women are currently suffering under? Or, what's a rule you would get rid of, or create. Tell us, oh wise mother.

Kasia: Well, first thing I just want to say to what you just said about the felt sense, this is one of the things that makes me so excited to be on your show. Because, one of the things that we both do in our stand for, is not this blurry, kind of funny idea of intuition, or instincts. But, the felt sense, like what your body is telling you, and that the human organism is so divinely constructed, that those messages are pretty much all you need to make all of the decisions in your entire life. It's all there, it's all in you. No other formula of tips, and tricks. No one specific diet, no one negotiation strategy, no one idea about how to date, or how to have sex, or how to be in the workplace will ever be as finely tuned to the living moment, as what your body tells you.

Kasia: You and I are pioneers on the same front. In that spirit, the rule that I would make, even though I don't really make rules, is I would just say stop believing language so strongly. It's not about what people say, it's about who they're being when they're saying it. There's always something that's more important than the words people choose to communicate. I think that  we get stuck. We really get stuck with what people say, and forget the felt sense, forget how we can feel another, and look at who they're being by what they're saying. What they're actually needing, asking for, screaming out for. Yeah, I'd say never trust words 100%. Trust something deeper than that.

Alexandra: Beautiful. Another call to trust your body's ladies. Thank you Kasia Urbaniak for being here on the show, thank you so much for the work you do. Man, if my knee surgery does not keep me home, I'm going to be there in the front row for this Cornering Harvey Workshop.

Kasia: Thank you so much.

Girl Boner Radio with August McLaughlin: What Does Standing in Your Power Actually Mean?

Kasia and August McLaughlin discuss the inextricable link between sexuality and power. Hear Kasia's take on the ways that the myth of Sleeping Beauty affects our erotic lives. Be sure to listen all the way to the end to discover why Kasia insists that "you are always right."

(Kasia comes on at 2:58)

Listen on Spotify and Google Podcasts

Girl Boner Radio with August McLaughlin: What Does Standing in Your Power Actually Mean?

Read the Transcript:

August: Now I am so pleased to welcome Kasia Urbaniak to the show. Kasia is the founder and CEO of the Academy, a school that teachers women the foundations of power and influence. She made her living as one of the world's most successful dominatrixes while studying power dynamic with teachers all over the world. During all of this, she practiced Taoist alchemy in one of the oldest female led monasteries in China and obtained dozens of certifications in different disciplines. Since founding the Academy in 2013, Kasia has taught hundreds of women practical tools to step into leadership positions in their relationships, families, work places, and wider communities.

I'm so thrilled to bring some of her brilliance to you all today. Thank you for joining me today, Kasia. How are you doing?

Kasia: It's my pleasure to be here.

August: I'm curious about your personal background. What did you learn about sex and sexuality when you were growing up?

Kasia: You mean before I started working?

August: Yeah.

Kasia: I probably learned what a lot of people learned. A very disorganized, irresponsible, hodge-podge of misinformation and experimental childlike social testing.

August: Very well described, yes. And relatable. Absolutely, absolutely. Do you remember the first positive thing you learned about sex?

Kasia: I can't say this is positive or negative, but I ... the first moment I heard about virginity, I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible. I didn't' even know what that meant, but I was like, I got to get rid of this thing.

August: Do you remember the context of that, how you learned?

Kasia: I don't. But there was something that I didn't like about how girls that were virgins, the conversations that I was hearing, there was something about it I really didn't like. I was too young to understand what it was.

August: But instinctively you understood that there was something off, and it's so interesting the term "virginity." There's no scientific definition. It's sort of this social construct.

Kasia: Yeah.

August: And some people describe it in different ways. There are so many people who defined sex as a specific type of intercourse, so they think, oh I haven't had sex because I've had oral. It's interesting. And we don't really hear as much in the context of masculinity, or if you're a guy, unless you're a virgin when you're 40, then it's a big deal.

So what led you to become so passionate about this topic of sexuality and connecting with that part of ourselves?

Kasia: For me, the connection really is in its connection to power and self expression. So my interest in sex is secondary. My interest in power, power dynamics and communication is primary. But in working with women I saw very clearly that you absolutely can't omit sexuality in a conversation about power. It doesn't work. And a woman claiming her power without claiming her sex is doing a headcase. She's not doing the full body thing.

Kasia: This is best articulated for me in the story of Sleeping Beauty. Because it's something that I can viscerally feel and relate to. So in the ... not the original, but in the story of Sleeping Beauty that we grew up with, what you have is a woman who's in a fucking coma. She's in an erotic coma. She does not feel anything. And it isn't until the rightfully ordained heterosexual man in a high position of power with money comes to bless her with a kiss, that the spark of her fire, her passion and her Eros awakens. So there's this idea that for us, our sexuality lives outside of us. It lives outside of us in the idea that the Other is what stokes the flame. The Other is the catalyst. And also in the sense that female sexuality is very outside-in. Clothes, billboards, advertising, all of it, and it's in one sense so obvious and in another so subtle, that when a woman feels erotic longing it's difficult for her to conceive of it without having an object.

Kasia: If it doesn't have an object she's just horny, it's weird. If it has an object she's infatuated or she's in love. And it belongs to the Other. The Other stokes it. The Other's behavior determines it. How the Other performs determines how the experience goes. And so what I noticed is that with that dislocation, almost all of the women coming to my classes had some form of that, and had some form of ... if they had a compelling encounter with a man, all of their attention, all of their energy, all of their analysis, all of their concern, went out to him. Even if it was an entire world of assumption and imagination and calculation and strategy. It was the fastest way to mainline the concept of giving your power away.

Kasia: And it happened fastest when we were talking about sex. So how am I supposed to teach a woman to primally, in a full bodied way, communicate? As a communications and power dynamics expert, for her to be able to have her message, her words land, be heard, be felt in the body of the other, and influence, if she's given all her power away? If she can't feel her body half the time? If she's waiting for somebody to come and stoke and be the catalyst to her longing. It doesn't work. So that's where, for me, sexuality becomes a necessary conversation when we talk about women using their voices.

Kasia: They have to know it's theirs, and they have to know what they like, and they have to know what to say.

August: And that they have a voice. I had chills listening to you because I can think of so many examples that I've seen in the world, in my own life, that idea. That it is something external. And with somebody else. Something that we give, or something that we might share-

Kasia: Or that we might exchange for something.

August: Yes, a currency. So how do those conversations start? Do you... what's the first step once somebody comes to you? Obviously something compelled somebody to reach out to you, what's a typical reason that they're coming to your class?

Kasia: I think this is part of the fun part. A large percentage of women who come to my classes don't know why, they just know they have to come.

August: Really? So they just feel it. Kind of like how you were saying you felt that virginity, you wanted to get rid of it. Like you felt a thing. That's so interesting.

Kasia: The reasons that follow are across the board right? One woman will say, I want to find my voice. And I go, "fuck you, what does that mean?" I want to stand in my power. Okay, explain what that means.

August: And can they answer?

Kasia: First a bunch of clumsy examples and steps towards something that maybe has some feeling. If I wanted to just be very categorical about it, it's like women who at work have reached a glass ceiling, and they don't understand why they don't have the authority that they'd like in the position that they have, and they're doing too much to maintain that position. And they're not communicating in a way that gets them what they want. Whereas the men in their same position aren't having that problem, and they're like, what's going on?

Kasia: And then there are the women who have that problem with romantic relationships, especially in heterosexual relationships with men. They are finding themselves either being the caretaker and turning the men into a worm who's useless and gets the benefit of all of that, leaves, and finds somebody else who is contributing less. Or they just struggle to communicate their needs.

Kasia: There's the typical dichotomy of... I encourage them to, in their imagination, write down things that they could ask and they're always that feeling, the feeling that comes is they're afraid of either coming across as bitchy and bossy, or needy. And dispelling a lot of the fears around those things, just becomes really important. I mean, a woman who is sexually satisfied and freely self expressed in her speech is fucking unstoppable. With those two ingredients, basically, she can take over the world.

August: That's gorgeous. That's gorgeous. The transformation must be really fulfilling for you to see. Is it a different process for each person? Do you take people through a series of specific steps or is it very individualized?

Kasia: This is a conversation about class design, right, because there's different classes with different arcs. And the arcs are built around the kinds of patterns that women tend to have. That are in the class, in real time, tweaked, if that particular group consciousness is going in a different direction or new shit is showing up.

August: So what would be some of the patterns that you've noticed in women? Some of these arcs you see?

Kasia: In our introductory class, Power with Men 101, there are certain things that always happen. One is the contingency of women who are like, I don't need anything from a man. I am not asking a man for anything. I am independent and it's taken me a lot to get to this place, and I am not diluting it with even writing some silly requests.

Kasia: And this pattern is the bittersweet victory of the independent woman. Because when you look a little deeper, she's doing everything. You know the idea of having it all? Like, can a woman have it all? That idea is bullshit, because what it's pointing to is a woman who's doing it all, not having it all. Having it all and doing it all are not the same thing.

August: So true.

Kasia: So she's independent, feels a sense of victory for overcoming millennia of habitual patterning that would have her not be able to be in a position of authority and victoriously independent. However, what is invisible at that moment is that a lot of the men who have authority and who are, quote-unquote, independent agents, are not actually independent because they have all these invisible support systems around them that women don't have.

Kasia: A lot of the times this particular pattern is one where I invite the woman to be incredibly furious for a little while and enjoy her bitterness and her rage, and do exercises where she turns her inner bad girl bitch into a superhero until that superhero becomes so lovable that she can actually sit with requests that she can make of people in her life. And when she does, surprisingly, she elevates them. When you ask a little more of somebody in a way that feels good, when they step into that position, they go from worm to loyal subject or knight in shining armor–if you want to go through the heterosexual stereotypes. But you share more of your energy and your enterprise and your dreams with someone.

Kasia: So that's one pattern. There's so many. There's so many. There's so many, but a lot of them come down to this thing I talk a lot about, which is, now in this space of women shifting from essentially being trained to be submissive, surrendered, accommodating, harmonizing, good girls, to leadership positions where they have agency, this weird thing has happened where women tend to be afraid of both. Now they're afraid to receive, and be surrendered, and be led. "Oh, no no no no, I'm not below you." And they're also afraid of coming across as too powerful. So it's like this too much, too little split-

August: Too intimidating.

Kasia: Yeah. And so we work a lot with that. A lot with that, a lot with blowing that apart, so that a woman can behave as naturally intensely as she feels or as softly as she feels. And be calibrated to really well.

August: Seems like there are so many layers to this.

Kasia: There are.

August: So many patterns, so many layers. And getting... how important is getting to the root of that? Is it about moving forward and learning about another way, or do people have to kind of look within and go, "where did I get these ideas from?"

Kasia: One of the reasons this is so layered is not because it's complicated, it's because we don't have language for it. Essentially what I teach is how people can speak the truth and now here I have to add a huge, huge, huge stop. Because when people talk about the truth people get away with saying factual truths and calling it truth. I'm talking about full body, primal truth. Full body primal truth. It means the material reality, the feeling, and the ideas, and the words match.

Kasia: So it would be really really simple just to say, "tell the truth, speak your truth, make the requests you want to make." Except that language ends up being as unhelpful as telling a woman to find her voice and stand in her power. It doesn't actually give any instruction into how to not slip into the patterns that we were raised with. And the new ones that now have us feeling compressed and smushed and feeling like, "oh my god, I can't be too much, I can't be too little, I'm too powerful, I'm not powerful enough, I make too much money, I don't make enough money, I'm not pretty enough, I'm way too pretty." All of it, all of it, all of it. Like, compressed into a fucking box until you cannot breathe. Instead of being radically self-expressed in all directions, understanding what it does for a dynamic, right, where there's always a dominant and a submissive. They are always switching in healthy, fluid relationships. Even in the span of a conversation where the sexuality is not even on the table.

Kasia: So how do you play? How do you play with energy, how do you play with attention? How do you play from that space of truth? This is where the magic starts.

August: Sounds like it's ... so it's about alignment?

Kasia: Yeah.

August: And this full body truth, what are some of the signs that you know you are in that full body truth? Because I feel like so many people have read all the self help articles with, just do this, and just do that-

Kasia: You know when you're not in it, right? You know when you're not in it. For example, the sexual harassment pattern. When somebody puts attention on you? Asks you an inappropriate question, and then the female default is to take that attention and drive it even deeper into ourselves? Because we're trained to be submissive, attention in. And what that causes is a freeze. So suddenly we can't even speak. We would normally be able to say something sassy or defensive or something perfectly acceptably logical, but we can't speak. At that moment we're knocked out of alignment.

Kasia: One of the things I teach is how women overcome the freeze. When they're in a submissive position in a dynamic, what they need to do is put their attention out as quickly as possible and ask a question.

August: Literally ask the person a question?

Kasia: Yes. Because what that does is it drives their attention deeper into themselves, so you flip the power dynamic and are now on top, even if it's only for a few seconds it's enough for you to restore your access to language. Because when you're in that freeze state, your amygdala gets hijacked, your brain doesn't function in the same way. And this is, like "how many times have you been asked an inappropriate question or just a question that maybe felt inappropriate but wasn't so bad, like, are you married, how old are you?" And found yourself not wanting to answer but answering anyway?

August: Oh yeah I've done that.

Kasia: Or freezing. So we have this entire section of our curriculum that's the Verbal Self-Defense Dojo that we just turned into an interactive online class. Where creepy dudes say shit to you in many different contexts, and you're given many different ways of flipping the power dynamic and playing back. Some of them brutal, some of them funny, and some of them ... they're categorized into soft, hard, and a location tool which kind of settles and grounds the whole thing.

August: What would be an example of a question that you might ask? I'm sure it's different in every scenario. There's not like one right answer to that, but if somebody were to ask this inappropriate question, what might you say in response?

Kasia: Depends on the inappropriate question, right? Like, let me ask you an inappropriate question.

August: Okay.

Kasia: Or an edgy question. "Do you think being black helped you get into Harvard?" What do you say?

August: Gosh, if I were to ask a question, why is that important to you?

Kasia: That's good. That's very good.

August: So it's anything that makes them think within themselves?

Kasia: You flip the power dynamic because now I have to go in and go, why is it important to me?

Kasia: Well, because I care about racial equality. So what's your answer?

August: That's so interesting, and I love that you have the role playing built into this program, because I feel like we can learn these things but if you're not practicing it, it doesn't become a muscle. Because I had read... are you familiar with the Gift of Fear?

Kasia: No.

August: It's written by Gavin de Becker, who works with the CIA to determine whether something is a threat or somebody is a threat, and does a lot in the space of self-protection and trusting your instincts and all that stuff. And I remember reading the book, and that was life shifting for me when I read it. But it's a very different thing to apply it. And I would go, man, that was a Gift of Fear moment that I totally didn't do later. Until you actually are practicing it.

Kasia: So the inappropriate questions can be anything from a massage therapist while you're naked, asking you, "are you married?" Right? That's an uncomfortable situation. Or oftentimes we have a second category, right? The first is just inappropriate questions or inappropriate propositions, which you play it back with a question. Like, "do you realize that question will generally make a woman feel really uncomfortable?" That's a really good answer back, right? Do you realize how you sound in asking that question and did you mean to sound that way?

August: And really saying it genuinely so that it's not a... one thing I noticed, I was in this really powerful self defense class, I have a lot of role playing different kinds of activities. And I noticed a lot of us would say things like, I don't want to sound mean and all that stuff. Do people ask you about the tone? Like, do you say it ... do you have to really believe and feel what you're saying?

Kasia: No you just have to put your attention out.

August: That's it.

Kasia: Yeah, really. Because the animal of his body will respond in accordance to whether there's any weight behind the words. And attention is everything.

Kasia: There are variables that are nicer sounding, or not nicer sounding. You know you can hit someone hard when you hit them back or you can hit them soft, but it's really the attention. You're giving them the instruction to answer the question no matter how benign or banal it is. You can ask them, where did you get that sweater, and it'll still have the same function even though you're totally changing the conversation. Because you're on top, and the goal is to break the freeze, not to win at that point. I mean, how much unwanted sex and rape happened because a woman was in the freeze and didn't have access to language? So my goal, especially when all of the #MeToo and Harvey stuff started coming out, I was like, "what simple tool can I give as many women as possible that will just break the power of that moment? Like, screw the philosophy and the whole paradigm, like what is the one thing I can give them?"

Kasia: And so the sexual harassment scenarios, they generally arise two ways. One, with a direct inappropriate proposition, right? That puts a woman in a submissive state and changes her brain chemistry, making it hard for her to fight back. So I'm like, all right, here's the tool to break you out of the freeze here. And the second one is when somebody, the perpetrator, makes a series of ambiguous statements linked together that imply a form of behavior you're supposed to do or agree with. And this one is a little bit harder, so we have a different tool for it. Because with a direct hit you can hit back directly.

August: Sure.

Kasia: But with that, we have this tool called the Location tool, where a woman will just fill in the blanks of this sentence. It's so simple, it's almost dumb. "It seems like" [fill in the blank], "and it also seems like," [fill in the blank], and if there's a third, "it also seems like," [fill in the blank]. "Is that true?" Or, "it seems like" [fill in the blank], "is that true?"

Kasia: So for example, you're at the hotel lobby bar with a colleague because you're at a conference and you're talking about business and he makes a few statements about how good it is that you've gotten to know each other better and the bar is closing, should we continue in my room? You know? And then the woman, she can't hit back, she can't be like, "Do you realize?" It's inappropriate. So she can say, "It seems like you might be done with talking about business. It seems like the hotel room isn't the best place to talk about business. Is that true? It seems like you might be interested in transitioning to a more intimate setting, is that true?" And then suddenly we're not operating in a realm of mystery. I think a lot of men who have hurt women didn't intend to, and were very clumsy. I think it's a time to socially educate both men and women in real time by teaching people to tell the truth in the moment and giving them the tools to do so.

Kasia: So, again, there's a couple of things, but breaking the freeze and teaching women what to do when they get stuck is first aid, it's like a first aid kit.

August: And I feel like the men will learn so much too in these scenarios, because they just haven't been offered an alternative because that's what they've been taught. This is how you approach a woman. You don't say anything too direct, you kind of ease your way in. What about something-

Kasia: We've gotten so many incredible emails, so much mail, from men, and so many men buying this course for their daughters. And then of course all the negative emails from women-

August: The negative emails from women?

Kasia: Yeah.

August: What is a common complaint they have?

Kasia: It's usually around a misunderstanding about how we are linking sex and power. It's automatically like, wait, power, sex, together? No. Sexuality, woman's sexuality does not belong in the workplace. They have ideas about what that means. And a powerful human being for me is a fully integrated one that is capable of feeling their own sexuality, their empathy, their emotions, their intellect. And operating... not necessarily being nice or sexy, but with all of those faculties intact and engaged.

August: And not using it as a weapon, either. I feel like people hear power, and they think, oh well you're telling women that they have to-

Kasia: Yeah that's a complete misunderstanding but I understand their concern.

August: Wow. What about somebody approaches you who is not quite mentally stable?

Kasia: Run.

August: Run. Yeah.

August: Because you can't reason with an unreasonable person.

Kasia: I mean that's a high stakes, high level game to play. So I would, maybe an advanced student could-

August: Could find a way. Buying into their reality was one thing we talked about in that class I took where, if somebody is talking to you about some alien they see, you can play along with it. You can try different things and if you can't get away immediately or, but the goal is of course to get away from somebody who's a threat, yeah.

Kasia: We can't always, because what you're talking about is also mirrored in our society. Even the idea that women are less powerful and their sex is not theirs, that took a lot of brainwashing because we obviously give birth and have more power than anybody else. How did that mind game work out?

August: Yeah the societal brainwashing goes deep, really deep. So I know that sex is not the main focus, it's more of a byproduct, it's part of all of this, as you mentioned. But how does all this affect a woman's sex life?

Kasia: Profoundly. Absolutely. Because one of the first things she does in the earliest levels of the school, is she learns to ask and command. She learns to ask from a submissive place and from a dominant place. She learns to give orders, and she learns to ask from a submissive place. And in being able to say anything, speak anything, ask for anything. It's not just that you can ask for anything in the bedroom. That's one part of it. But once you feel freedom around asking, once you feel freedom around hearing no, and getting intimate with somebody else's resistance, being really interested in what passionate thing they're trying to protect with resistance, when you start playing those territories, intimacy explodes through the roof. Also when you feel comfortable asking for anything, and comfortable with playing with no, imagination also blossoms hugely. Because it goes from this one little thing that I would really like to have adjusted to being able to and co-create and imagine a unique series of sexual experiences that address both partners' deepest wounds and biggest desires and none of that's possible until the ability to communicate is lubricated enough and the dynamic is fluid enough.

Kasia: So I have a lot of students who take the course that's really very communication-based, and after the first weekend their sex lives go through the roof. And they're also energetically congruent so they're easier to locate. When a woman has her attention out constantly, nobody can find her, in an animal sense. People can't feel what it is she needs and wants when her attention is out all the time. She has to be at the center of her fucking universe and then the birds and the bees and the whole universe comes to stroke her, caress her, and give her the gifts she wants.

August: Yeah, which has profound impact on the rest of your life, too, when you can be so authentic and also, as you said, ask for what you want. I know that for me, embracing my sexuality, I felt opened up my whole world in ways that I didn't expect, because sometimes you think you're working on your sex life when in fact my voice, my singing voice, literally became completely different. So much louder. All of these things happened. These completely surprising things. Are a lot of people surprised by-

Kasia: Yeah, the opening of sexuality oftentimes also increases money, clarity and communication. Muscular locks disappear, voices change. I'm totally not surprised that you're saying this. There's just something so primal about not having... missing the experience of being sexually validated by self and other, and being able to sexually communicate freely with a partner. It happens and everything changes. It's like, "oh, I am in touch with the life force. I am life. And I live here. And it's coursing through me." The next step is the ecstasy of emotion. The sensation of something really terrible and the sensation of something really positive. They actually, in the body, feel orgasmically similar.

Kasia: So you can find such a turn-on in being disappointed and feeling sad, or feeling longing and unrequited love. Or the incredible pussy wetting turn on of being furious, the goddess of fucking rage. That rage that makes your nipples hard and your eyes big. And suddenly the taboo about the experiences that we have on the daily basis, the moods that shift and turn become this incredible symphony of body stroking pleasure.

August: I'd never thought about that. It's so true that the experience of rage, for example, frustration, anger-

Kasia: So hot.

August: Yeah. And when you can actually let that energy out in these ways, from an authentic place versus feeling, like, oh I'm not allowed to feel this way or it's bad that I'm feeling-

Kasia: It's the merger of sexuality and negative emotion that turns negative emotion into its positive counterpart. So with my students, if they're really angry their face is very tight. If I can get them to a place where they're feeling arousal around the sensations in their angry bodies, it starts turning into passion. And they move from what they've been fighting against to what they're fighting for. And passion and anger have a very similar vibrational note, but passion is anger with total approval. So people don't get killed right? With passion, there is no collateral damage. With anger, everybody's in pain including the one carrying anger.

Kasia: So sadness has the same thing. Sadness is very, very powerful because it's gift is it draws the energy inward. And creates tremendous amounts of softness if it's approved of. If you feel the sensations of sadness, they are so delicate, romantic, and subtle and refined. And it brings you into the best state for surrendered experience of tension, an inward experience of tension that has you really start to root in what you feel you truly, truly, truly want. So there's this beautiful way in which sadness becomes first romantic and then self knowledge of longing, and all of that requires approval.

August: Yeah. That is so fascinating. So then would it make sense, when you're feeling angry, to masturbate? To connect intentionally with your sexuality?

Kasia: Yes. The first step usually is start where you were. So sometimes I'll have my students beat a bag of beans with a baseball bat and say, no, no no no. And then make really furious faces in the mirror. Then start to dance and only then at the end of that masturbate or self pleasure, so that it's not... it depends on how far they are. How deep it is. So that it's a smooth transition.

August: Kasia, you are speaking to me and you've given me such a gift in that because recently I've had these stressful situations come up and now I'm seeing some really beautiful therapeutic ways to benefit. More than just, I can get through this. But actually-

Kasia: If you have an exciting sexual partner, having angry sex can be really fun.

August: Oh yeah, angry sex. Oh my gosh, yes. Especially for somebody who's quite, you know, quote, good girl. Right? Wow. It sounds like a really intensely emotional process for anyone.

Kasia: That one is, yeah. You know it's a little bit disorienting to talk about the school in any interview, because there's so many different facets of it. Like the Verbal Self-Defense Dojo is not deeply cathartic and emotional. It's the first aid kit so that women can go out and kick ass and not be bludgeoned by accident in conversation and negotiation.

August: Super important.

Kasia: Right. But then the part that we were just talking about is sort of the inner sanctum of the series of classes where we move each emotion by joining it with sexuality. I'm really, really proud of having created this space where so many different ways of empowering women are applied.

August: Rightfully. It sounds so magical, really. Is this information that came to you quite naturally, were there turning points in your own life that led you to do this work, or is this something that you have just felt like you've had this understanding about and wanted to bring to the world?

Kasia: This is absolutely a process. This was a huge process for me. I was one of the world's most successful dominatrixes and I was making a lot of money for the place I was working for, so they asked me to train the other dominatrixes. That was my first look. My first look was seeing where they struggled. And then also comparing my dominatrix friends to my non-dominatrix friends, and noticing the things that they worried about-

August: Were they different?

Kasia: Completely. So much more superstition and worry about what a text message meant. So much more body shame.

August: In the non-dominatrix?

Kasia: Yep. Because one of the first things that you get, like in a dungeon there's an option for a session that's a body worship session. So the slave just worships and kisses the knees, the thighs, the hands or however far the dominatrix will let him go. But he worships her body. And so when a body worship client would come into the dungeon, the assumption for a new dominatrix would be, I'm cute, I'm cuter than most, I'm younger than most, because the new ones are usually cuter and younger. I got this. And it wasn't true. Because 45-year-old overweight Mistress Greta would have an equally amazing shot at getting the body worship session as anybody else.

Kasia: And then watching? Like I had one session that was... I was with her in a session, and I was watching her. She seemed so much older to me, like grandma, you know. And I was watching the way he worshiped her, and I was like, oh what she's like a fragrant, ripe fruit and I'm this tight green bud. I've so little so offer. I'm like so... I don't have that big sexuality that she does. And after that, I was like, oh wow, men do really get into all different kinds of women for all different... so it's just one little tiny example.

Kasia: But then I was studying to be a Taoist nun and I was studying Taoism and I was studying martial arts, studying Chinese medicine. And I was using the money I was making as a dominatrix to go to mountain tops and work with healers. And this made a lot of my ability to see an unspoken way where people were at at that time, mostly the clients, much more precisely and move them, like move them through different states of consciousness and states of emotion. But really, everything exploded when I met my business partner. So Ruben Flores worked for Doctors Without Borders and spent years in Africa in conflict zones. Here I was, the fringes of human sexuality and power, and he's in the fringes of war and death and power.

August: Wow. Bring it all.

Kasia: And our first conversation was about how any time he was at a border or checkpoint or something like that, he might have had this official looking paper but nobody spoke the same language. They'd be like 14-year-olds on drugs with assault rifles. And the way to communicate and the way to be like, "I am building a hospital here between you who wants to kill that, and you who wants to kill them. I am building a hospital here." And at that time, he started so young. So he's like 23 or whatever, and had to establish his authority as a man without language. And I did it in this very different way as a woman without language in the sense that, as a dominatrix, nothing I'm saying is true. I'm not using my real name. All of this is made up. And the explosion in terms of understanding power struggles, power dynamics, primal communication and how women are effected differently, how they're trained differently. We could not stop talking for six months. At the end of six months we basically had a school.

August: Wow. That's so fascinating. So if people would like to take these classes, learn more about you, what are the best ways to do so?

Kasia: Go to the website, which is www.weteachpower.com.

August: Awesome. Very cool. That's so great. What is one message that you feel that women are most lacking, that you'd like to leave people with? Something-

Kasia: You're always right. What you feel is always right. Even if you're not right what you're right about, you're always right. Every signal coming through you, means something. And it's right. You may not be right about what it means but it's right. I mean I have my students put an alarm on their phones that says, you are always right, and ring every hour.

Kasia: If you feel it, it's there for a reason. You are right. Sit on it like an egg, wait for it to hatch. You'll find out what it means. But do not abandon it, do not question it, and do not make it mean something wrong about you. Self attack is the biggest plague we're suffering right now. It's the way that we take ourselves down and each other down, and one of the first steps is everything that you feel is right. You don't have to understand why it's right, how to apply it, not right away, but it's always right.

August: And listening to that and letting it, you said, sit on it, let it hatch. So there's no forcing it, no hyper analyzing-

Kasia: Just honor it.

August: Just honor it. And in its own time?

Kasia: Yeah.

August: Yeah.

August: Thank you so much for the work that you do and for sharing today. I'm so inspired.

Kasia: Thank you. Thank you so much.

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.

Tuff Love Radio: What about Men?

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In this interview with communication and relationship expert and coach Robert Kandell, Kasia discusses the righteous rage behind the #MeToo movement, and shares why she's determined to focus on the party at the end of the Patriarchy.

“ I would like to give [men] an instruction, an order, a command immediately. Ask questions. Ask the women in your life questions about their experiences. Ask the men in your life questions about their experiences. Right now is a time where a lot of the problems we have are still unnamed and largely invisible. Let’s get our attention and awareness on those places to make the invisible visible. Let’s reveal how this structure actually works so we can take it the fuck down for the benefit of men, for the benefit of women, and for the benefit of anybody with a beating heart and a brain in their heads. Ask questions. Not listen, not speak. Ask questions. We need to all go on a massive investigative mission that’s personal to discover what’s actually happening and to find our part in it.”

— Kasia Urbaniak

Listen on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts

Robert Kandell, the Modern MANtor

Read the Transcript:

Robert: My guest is a very special good friend, client and all-around amazing person, Kasia, who will be talking about many things, talking about one of the best, strongest cures, procedures, methods to equate situations where there’s an imbalance of power between men and women. I’ve had the absolute honor to be a witness to the last part of these last couple of months of her journey and just recently some significant attention from the media in places like New York Times, the New York Magazine and Psychology Today. I’m here to welcome Kasia to the show. How are you?

Kasia: I’m so happy to be here. I’m really good.

Robert: First off, congratulations on what’s happening. How does it feel to be thrust into the limelight in terms of this conversation about the imbalance of power between men and women?

Kasia: I feel two ways about it. It depends on when you catch me.

Robert: How about right now?

Kasia: I feel unaffected by it. There is a lot of work to do. The other times, I get very, very, very excited that there are women whose faces I’ll never see who will be able to read something, get something, try something, practice something, see things slightly differently. That really, really, really excites me.

Robert: There was a lot of mention in both articles about this concept of you being a secret underground school, this concept that you were below the radar, and all of a sudden you’re rising up and you’ve been thrust into the limelight. I thought that was interesting in both articles. Was that your intention to have an underground school?

Kasia: The way that we teach in the school, it has everything to do with embodied truth and embodied communication. Working with students, it’s really, really important when working on that level to work in small groups, to have a safe container, to have women be able to reveal everything and feel safe to play way beyond where they would play if they didn’t have such safety and such privacy. Over the life of the school, in working with them, there are more and more exercises and tools developed that could be used outside of those really intense private, embodied group scenarios. The world started to change. The first thing that happened was when Trump got elected, our student body freaked out. They watched the debates and they watched Hillary do some of the things that we were talking about in class. They were basically telling us that we need to reach more people. That was the first moment where we decided to take the password protection off the website and started doing bigger events and using some of the tools that could apply outside of a small group intensive format to as many people as we could. Then the #MeToo thing, even the police brutality, Black Lives Matter became a thing. Race comes up as an issue in our classes even though it’s classes for women because it deals with power dynamics. We may be teaching women but they’re essentially genderless. Power is power. How people abuse power, how people get stuck at the effect of power applies to everybody, regardless of their sexual orientation, their gender, their race, what color of hat they wear.

Robert: I’ve been reading your articles and working with you. You’ve got a subtle thing that you believe in that I didn’t quite get. Actually, it was a post you just did recently where you said, “The party at the end of the patriarchy.” My impression, and please correct me if I’m wrong, is you don’t want to fight the patriarchy per se. You want to just end the patriarchy. What is the difference between the two?

Kasia: Fighting and ending, the difference is huge. This is a perfect, perfect metaphor. On the level of two human beings, the dyad, in which it’s really easy to see a power dynamic at play, if one person is asking for something that they want of the other but all of the world of their communication, their bodily feeling, their focus, their attention, is on what they don’t want, the other person gets blasted with information about what’s not wanted, not what’s wanted. If I asked you to change the angle of the camera and I asked you with all of the complaint in my body, what happens to you? “Rob, will you please change the angle of your camera?”

Robert: Then I feel like I’m doing something wrong immediately. That’s what I’m thinking about.

Kasia: You can’t win. If you agree, you’re a loser. If you disagree, you’re a loser. There’s a no-win situation for you at the other side of that communication. In terms of macro forces, in terms of big political struggles, it’s the same thing. When we’re fighting against something, there’s a passion in us for something we want. If we get focused on the obstacle to such a degree that we forget what we’re fighting for, the passion, the love and the commitment has nowhere to go except into destruction. The difference between ending the patriarchy and fighting the patriarchy is huge. If you’re celebrating the party at the end of the patriarchy and you’re looking at what kind of world you want, you’re already in the space of coming up with solutions, with your imagination expanded based on what your heart truly wants. It’s so much easier for two parties to find a common ground and generate solutions that would have been beyond the scope of what would have been possible if they were just talking about what we’re fighting against. We’re making the wrong enemies.

Robert: I’ve had a lot of debates with people around these Women’s Marches. I personally celebrate them. I think they’re a powerful thing because women and men are getting together to celebrate. I also feel the negativity, the fight, the push against it. It’s a complicated thing for me to feel into my thoughts around Women’s Marches that have happened. Do you have any thoughts about the vibe or the feeling of the Women’s March in terms of this conversation?

Kasia: I think that we, as a human civilization, lack an understanding of emotional alchemy. We really do not like negative emotions. They’re very socially unacceptable unless they are in an action movie against a villain. There are some containers where there are certain parameters where certain people get to express certain things. Where I would love for human civilization to go is to understand emotions better and know how to use them better. The rage is important, the negativity, the fury, the hurt, the sadness because it’s energy, it’s fuel. If you don’t remember what you’re using it for, it doesn’t have a chance to alchemize into something greater. There are a lot of different things about marches themselves that are great, that have different elements. In terms of the negativity, if we remember what we’re fighting for and who we’re fighting against, then the beautiful treasure hidden inside anger and rage is passion. You don’t get angry when you’re not passionate. You don’t even get defensive in places where there isn’t something to protect. There’s love inside defensiveness and there’s passion inside anger. What I care about is that human beings begin learning how to embrace anger or defensiveness or sadness and find the treasure inside it, which is the thing they truly want. Nobody wants to march forever and be angry forever. It’s so easy in that volatility and in that explosive quality to obscure that the reason it’s coming up is because we have love inside us. We have something we want inside us. We have passion inside us.

Kasia: If what we’re fighting against is a wall, what we’re fighting for is the reason to get through the wall. Even the post about the party at the end of the patriarchy is just a small suggestion. Have people start imagining the world they want to create, that this anger, that this fury, that this disappointment can turn into energy towards building. I think that’s the key to everything. One of the mottos of our school which we tell our students is, “Use everything.” A vice in its proper place becomes a virtue. There’s a place where laziness becomes efficiency. There’s a place where greed becomes self-protection, saving for the winter. There are all these things that are not so black and white that are so much more elegantly addressed when they’re seen in their totality.

Robert: That really fits in with my practice, my lineage, my concept. You have these human emotions that we deny or not confront, and they go into your shadow. They’re actually running the show. That laziness is running the show. I don’t want to look at my laziness and at the same time, confront that so it can alchemize into empowerment. #MeToo is such a huge thing. I’ve been doing a lot of research and reading and thinking about it. I actually got invited to a men only Facebook group recently and I posted about this interview. The response that I’m seeing inside men’s response to #MeToo, is very negative, scared, defensive and passive-aggressive. There has been a very strong response of men to #MeToo. Just a little snippet from this group was men’s anger about not having the relationship they want, men saying the fact that they’re abused as much as women, that the media think that women own victimhood, a video about the war on men. My point is #MeToo is arising for men and they’re feeling a lot of feelings. I know you work also with women and men. What’s your response to men who are having a fear-based response to #MeToo?

Kasia: ne of the beauties of this time is that all of these things in their actual form are pretty complex and rich and nuanced. To have a real conversation about any of these issues actually requires becoming much more aware and nuanced than most people are used to. One of the questions I get really often is about a potential backlash against #MeToo. One of the things I keep saying is we need to make allies out of men fast. Grab all the men you can, give them something to do. Give them a way to participate. They don’t have to lead the show, but they cannot be excluded. If they’re excluded, they’re sitting on the sidelines with feelings and reactions and nowhere to put it, that’s super dangerous. Right now, one of the focuses of what I’m teaching, and this is just a small snippet of the curriculum but it’s a very important one, is about helping women deal with the moment they freeze. There are moments where women choose to stay silent because they have systemic issues. They might lose a job, money, legal things. They might choose to stay silent. There are also these moments of choiceless silence where a woman totally shuts down and freezes. It becomes incredibly difficult for her to speak even if she wants to. It’s like her nervous system is hijacked.

Kasia: ne of the reasons I’m focusing on teaching women how to break the freeze right now is because I feel like a lot of the things that especially really well-intentioned men might be experiencing is suddenly being at fault for things in the past they had no idea were happening. We say things like, “Men should know better.” That statement is useless because they don’t. A lot of times, they’re not getting the feedback they need. We’re social beings. We learn in a particular way. We get feedback. They’re not getting the feedback that they need. I’m not blaming women and I’m not blaming men. I’m saying this is just one of the things that happens that’s contributing to the difficulty in having a real conversation about what would it take to have that party at the end of the patriarchy. I think there are not just a lot of different ways to address this, we need all kinds of tools. We need all kinds of ideas. The one that I’m focusing on right now is supporting women when they freeze to be able to speak so that the men that they’re in front of, the men that they’re dealing with can have feedback and the chance to clarify their communications. Sometimes just really awkward, clumsy communications for men that are innocent are enough to trigger a woman to a place where she feels violated, victimized and cannot speak for herself.

Robert:  What’s happening is that there’s just a lack of communication and I totally agree with you. An associate of mine, a peer of mine, a big name in the sex and relationship community, a teacher, basically was brought to the mat for something he did in 2010. It was an experience where he basically harassed a woman into a sexual activity. I don’t want to mention his name just because I don’t know the full details of it. An interviewer caught up with him recently and said, “Why did this happen? What happened?” He was really flippant about it. He was very crass about his memory of it seven and a half years ago. In the moment, he had no idea that there was something wrong. It really struck me about this chasm between something that hits person A so negatively and person B has no idea that anything even happened. It happens all the time between men and women because men and women see the world very differently with different levels of sensitivity. The ability to communicate when this happened, person A, “When you did this, this is what I felt,” is so important for the improved relations between all people.

Kasia: here are people who do know better. There are abuses of power. The thing that keeps coming back is, especially for a woman, how can she clarify? How can she cut through the ambiguity? Find out if he knows or not. Is this malicious or is this well-intentioned and super clumsy? All that goes into that. It’s super, super important. It’s what we’re all talking about these days.

Robert: Let’s go into your practice. The thing people are writing about is the art of verbal self-defense. Maybe first if you could just define that, explain what it is, and then we can go into some really cool examples I found in this literature written about you. Would you first define what verbal self-defense is?

Kasia: t’s something we’ve already been talking about which is it can be great to lead, be on top. It can be great to follow, be on bottom and receive and learn. Teacher-student, we see these dynamics everywhere. What happens when you’re put on the spot and you don’t like what you’re getting and you freeze? Verbal self-defense, the focus of that part of the curriculum, is specifically giving a woman tools for when her system shuts down. She has a thousand thoughts racing in her head but can’t get them out. All her attention is inward. How do you give her access to language back? How do you give her voice back? How do you get her attention out to see the other and being able to speak? The Verbal Self-Defense Online Course, the live events, they’re all about training the body over and over and over again to recognize the moment she’s frozen. Use a few simple tools in order to get unfrozen and actually be in that conversation with agency and, even better, play, powerful playfulness.

Robert: I love this example in the New York Magazine. She’s talking about a guy going to a dominatrix. Dominatrix have very strict guidelines about what happens in a session. “A dude walked in and said, “This is nice and all, but when are we going to fuck?” a line Urbaniak and certainly, many a young Hollywood actresses has heard. Kasia’s students are taught to respond with a playful domination. “Is that what turns you on, making demands?” When I read that, I laughed out loud. I’m not a big laugher out louder in general, but I really liked that. It really just struck home of the disruption and the change. I thought that was an amazing example of how you can use words to disrupt a man’s forward, concentrated, narrow-minded focus, “I want to fuck,” and all of a sudden it’s like, “Let’s play.”

Kasia: hat tool is called turning the spotlight. The essence of it is actually asking a question about the question. It’s the quickest way to flip the power dynamic. You’re on the spot, you’re on the bottom, he’s on the top. You feel the pressure to answer. It even applies to receiving uncomfortable questions like, “Why don’t you have kids yet? Aren’t you too young to have this kind of job?” A simple way to flip the power dynamic and turn the spotlight is to ask a question about the question, “Do you like making women uncomfortable? Isn’t that a personal question for you to be asking right now?” The dungeon question came for me to training dominatrixes. Not only was turning the spotlight away to handle the situation, it was a segue into a whole session. It was a segue into a whole stream of speech, “You like breaking the rules, do you? You like provoking women. You acted like you were here to be a submissive, but really you want to provoke me. Are you asking for punishment so early on in the session? Is that how you like to play? You think that you can provoke me and get me to give you punishment right away before I deemed it ready, before I deemed it time? Or are you just so clueless that you need to come to a woman wearing leather to tell her exactly how to be, exactly what to do, how to behave? Is that so? Are you looking for a governess or a police officer?” It would end up being the thing that could run the whole hour. The fact that he came in and said, “This is nice and all, but when are we going to fuck?”

Robert: I’m thinking personally, the verbal play of it is such a turn on. It’s like, “I’m with a woman who we can joust and debate.” I’m sure there’s a segment of men who would just be like, “Huh?” and then get angry to be challenged. At the same time, I think the play of it is actually really the exciting part, probably even more sometimes exciting than the sex.

Kasia: here’s a second tool for when they get riled up called location where you just fill in the blank of this sentence, “It seems like blank. Is that true? It seems like this has gotten you angry. Is that true?” It’s the same thing. This flipping of the dynamic can even work in something as simple as a catcall. A man yells, “Nice tits.” Even saying something innocuous back like, “Where did you get those shoes?” has a woman break out of their freeze and experience herself having agency. She doesn’t have to come up with something as clever as, “Do you talk like that to your mama?”

Robert: Let’s just stay on that. Catcalling is a strong interest of mine. I don’t understand catcalling. It just seems like the most inefficient communication style ever, “Hey, baby,” as she’s walking past and expect to get some nookie out of that. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Let me ask you a question. Why do you think men catcall? Why do you think they employ this technique to get women’s attention?

Kasia: can only make some guesses based on my own experiences with catcalls. I find that they are of a whole range. Sometimes a guy is with a bunch of guys and he catcalls me, and I almost have a feeling that that catcall wasn’t actually for me. It was for his boys. There’s that one. There are the ones where I actually feel a lot of appreciation, admiration and love for women. I think there are a lot of men who love women and don’t have any way to really express it. I know that a lot of women find, “Show me a smile,” really offensive. I personally love to flash a smile when I’m asked to. If someone tells me I’m beautiful on the street, I thank them. It’s easy for me to thank them because I know that if they come back at me or start following me and start saying things that make me uncomfortable, I’ll know what to do. I and my students can afford to be loving, can afford compassion, can afford play because we feel safe. At least in those areas where our physical safety is not a question at all, it’s socially safe to playback. It becomes really interesting. You can actually have some really interesting conversations that initially began with a pretty retarded, stupid ass catcall.

Robert: I really love that sense of it because I know there are a lot written about vigilance center and safety for women is important and without safety there’s no play. What I just heard in your last statement is that you feel inside of you and you teach your students to feel safe in most situations. I know a lot of women walk around angry, frustrated and scared, which does not allow them to play.

Kasia: afety is not built through rules and laws. Safety is built through experience. What we do in the classes is we train women so they actually have things come at them that are really uncomfortable. We get in men to be menterrupters, mensplainers. We get men to come in and invade a woman’s physical space. She gets to experience herself with guidance, playing back, until she feels that in the moment, if this were to happen to her in her own life, she would know exactly what to do. Some of them get so excited about these tools that they hope it happens. They hope they get resistance. They hope they get some bad behavior because then they’ll get to play. It’s just night and day. There is so much joy and pleasure and fun to be had in having power, in having a voice, in mainly knowing what to do when you freeze so that you can be yourself again. Then you don’t need the whole world to cushion the landscape with safety. We can’t wait for the whole world to change for women to be able to speak their truth. We can’t wait for all of the systems and policies and rules and laws to be put into place to make a woman feel safe. I’m not waiting that long. I don’t want to wait until the world changes for a woman to feel like it’s okay for them to be themselves and speak where they are and even better, be sassy.

Robert: The articles show about your history and how it started and your relationship with Ruben. I want to acknowledge Ruben Flores, your creative partner, an amazing man who’s in your cohort along with it. Every business has its why, like the why, the generation, the core reason you work uphill, you do the interviews, you get your ass out of bed and do the filming, you keep going, and you deal with the complaints and the possible haters. What’s your why? Why do you think you’re driven for The Academy? What keeps motivating you to continue when times get hard?

Kasia: hank you for mentioning Ruben Flores. His why matters here too, but his why can’t be exactly the same as mine because my why literally comes from my body. Even from the time I was a little girl, I had this very, very real feeling of wanting to speak, not being heard, not being able to express myself. First it was entirely personal. I wanted to express myself. I wanted to break free. I wanted to bust out. I wanted to be radically, boldly self-expressed. It wasn’t easy for me. I didn’t speak English very well when I was six. I was born here but I didn’t live here until I was six. First it was just a language barrier. Then it was being in Catholic school. Then it was being a girl with boys and seeing all these differences. Then it was watching my mother, as I grew up watching my friends, watching all the places where I knew how fucking great they were and the places where that would suddenly be gone. It would vanish from a conversation. They would shut down, turn in on themselves. The why for me is so bodily ingrained that I can’t not do this. If I’m not teaching professionally, I’m talking to people and telling them the same thing. If I’m not talking to people and telling them the same thing, I’m by myself exploring what it means to know what the truth is for me, speaking it and getting out there. The world would look very, very different if people knew how to feel totally legitimate in the truth that they feel and are speaking it regularly. A lot of the problems we see on the planet would be solved. It comes from the most microcosmic, my personal voice, to the biggest planetary issue. That’s my why. My why is me. I’m here for this. There’s nothing else I can do. I don’t have a choice.

Robert: The last two questions are going to be similar. If you could make a communication to men in this trying, challenging, evolutionary time, what would be your communication to men? What would you like to tell them?

Kasia: I would like to give them an instruction, an order, a command immediately. Ask questions. Ask the women in your life questions about their experiences. Ask the men in your life questions about their experiences. Right now is a time where a lot of the problems we have are still unnamed and largely invisible. Let’s get our attention and awareness on those places to make the invisible visible. Let’s reveal how this structure actually works so we can take it the fuck down for the benefit of men, for the benefit of women, and for the benefit of anybody with a beating heart and a brain in their heads. Ask questions. Not listen, not speak. Ask questions. We need to all go on a massive investigative mission that’s personal to discover what’s actually happening and to find our part in it.

Robert: If you wanted to make a communication to women, one specific communication, would it be the same? Would it be different? What would you broadcast to women of the world today?

Kasia: Test your assumptions: "I just know that this text message meant this." "I just know that my father has it in for me." "I just know that if I ask, I’ll get a no." Just test your assumptions. Have them, test them. The world is a lot friendlier than people realize. There’s a lot more love available out there than people realize. Oftentimes, it just takes a tiny point of contact for that love to be released and feed all parties present.

Robert: The future is bright for you. How do people work with you? What’s available? How do people find out more about you and the work you and Ruben are doing?

Kasia: A good starting point is to go to the website that’s being updated constantly with resources and some free materials that anybody can use. The website is weteachpower.com. Feel free to email us also with questions. We love to communicate with people, even people who aren’t our students, and continue taking the temperature and discovering what’s happening out there.

Robert: Do you have an upcoming lectures?

Kasia: Cornering Harvey Version Two, Verbal Self-Defense Training Camp. If you are in New York and you want to spend an evening on February 9th training with us and applying some of these techniques and tools, join us. That information is also on the website.

Robert: Thank you so much. It’s an absolute honor to have you on the show. It’s an honor to work with you on doing such important work. I thank you for your why. I thank you for your message and what you’re doing, the impact you’re causing.