Cait
Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of The Born to rise podcast. I’m your host, Cait Scudder. And today, I’m not gonna lie. I am a little nervous in this moment, because I am just so freaking excited about our guest today. The amazing Kasia Urbaniak. Kasia, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I am, I’ve been so looking forward to this interview, as I was telling you before we started recording, I have recommended your book to literally every single woman that I know in my life, including all of my clients, and friends. And it’s been such a game changer for so many women. And I am so excited to have you on the show today. So thank you for being here. Thank you for having me, for sure. So for our listeners who don’t know a ton about you, obviously they’ve just heard you are the founder and CEO of the Academy, a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. You are the author of unbound A Woman’s Guide to power. Tell us a little bit more about your trajectory and your journey and how you got into writing about teaching about leading women in what it is to rediscover their own power.

How Kasia got into writing about teaching and leading women in rediscovering their power

Kasia
Well, let’s see. I, like many women who are drawn to this kind of work, spent a lot of my childhood and early life questioning everything and feeling kind of that things don’t feel quite right. I think the fortunate among us can remember a time when we were children. And we looked at the world of adults, and saw the wild mismatch between the words they were saying and the feeling we got about what they were saying. One of the most incredible things about young humans is they tend to have this unconditioned superpower, still untainted. Both men and women I speak to can really relate to this, especially the more sensitive among us who managed to keep that superpower unbroken. The cultural trappings of how we go about navigating our lives as adults oftentimes don’t serve us. And now we see a lot of evidence that they don’t serve in creating a society that’s good for humans or the planet. And it begins with that fundamental lie, that fundamental lie between what we say and what we feel. And it’s so rampant that it’s unnoticeable, in most cases. Now with virtual the virtual world and all our technology, it’s, it’s even more accelerated. So it’s really easy for a person who has complex emotions, hijack altos emotions, hijack on an ideology or a fixed idea and go to war to resolve their own personal emotional conflicts just based on the idea just based in something that started when that person may have been a child and was told to say sorry when they didn’t feel sorrow. So, to be more specific to what we’re speaking about today, there’s a patterning to how this is how this is trained into and trained out of women. And this feeling as a young person that something was off that something was not right. That the way adults, the way people were speaking to me versus how I felt did not match had me very, very interested in anything related to human potential anything related to this skills, I had a dream of becoming a superhuman. So I, I found a few metaphysical schools until I stumbled upon a kind of alchemical Taoism that I thought was just like, fell I fell in love. I fell in love with Taoist alchemy, I fell in love with what I learned about reading the body, how different states energies in you know, express the origins, emotions were were states, they were states, and you could you could see them, you could predict them, you could predict whether somebody was going to, you know, flexing muscle and like punch in the martial sensor in the medical sense, you could predict what somebody’s personality would be like, based on the health conditions you see on their face. And in this in this fascinated realm of study, I was pursuing this to be a Dallas non for 12 years, in the time I did that, I decided to Well, I decided to the way a young woman like me can make a lot of money quickly so that she could afford her studies and have a flexible schedule. At that time in New York City, the best way to do that, that I could find was to be a professional dominatrix. And that was completely. That was pretty foreign to me. But you know, I had this idea, like, oh, maybe, maybe I’ll strip? You know, I don’t know if I can do that. Maybe I’ll do this. Okay, what is this thing? I don’t have sex with them. I dress like in latex and leather, I wear high heels, I mostly say mean things to them, I tie them up and they like it. What is this? This is like my, my first impression situation, right? This isn’t like what it turned out to be.

After about six months of doing this kind of work, I came to realize that like these human bodies, these this human man, that was oftentimes twice my age, who was asking to be in a in a put in a subordinate position to me. And what I was doing in the dungeon, ever, what I was doing in the temple had a lot to do with each other. So from the time I was 20, till the time I was 30, that time was really thick with this crossover between watching the energetic body states of the men that were my clients in a dungeon, and going off to monasteries and temples for hardcore trainings and retreats. And it gave me a very, very specific understanding of what happens in a power dynamic between a man and a woman. Because I have the reference point of the dungeon, I had the world outside. And then I had the training I was getting. And I suddenly started to realize that all of this stuff that I thought might be psychological, emotional, personal, personal patterns of hanging up insecurity, not stepping into your power, a traumatic thing that happened in the past that as valid as they are. One thing that was overlooked that kind of unified everything, which is what my book unbound tries to tries to presents tries to show reveal is that all power dynamics are built of attention, how attention slows, and that you can kind of shortcut the whole process and get rid of a lot of very heavy weighted and kind of unnecessary conversations around personal development by looking at interpersonal dynamics, and being present to what’s happening in the moment when you are present to where the attention is. And it just seemed like suddenly such an obvious thing. That you know, honestly, to say I didn’t start a business to school formed around what I was saying. And I had no interest in teaching interest. Yeah, it was an artist at the time I had, I was represented by an art gallery, I had made a record, I owned an art gallery in a restaurant. I was traveling, I was doing a lot of stuff. And then when I saw what happened when I got a group of women into a room with male volunteers and had them practice these exercises of speaking but shape shifting the balance of their attention, and shifting what they were focusing on when they were interacting. It was so mind blowing, that I became hooked with what I saw happening in this living laboratory that became the academy.

Cait
Yes, so powerful, and I just had chills when you said that all power dynamics are born of attention. And I remember Reading and unbound this section, I think it’s quite early on where you’re talking about the distinction between influence and control and how a lot of the I don’t think you use this language but you know, the like shadow sides of power, or the examples of power we see particularly in the patriarchy and from power, quote unquote, powerful men. It’s like, How can I control you? How can I manipulate you almost and the way that you spoke about influence is something very different. So talk to us a little bit about the distinction between influence and control as it relates to power and paying attention.

The distinction between influence and control as it relates to power and attention

Kasia
We have our wires crossed so profoundly when it comes to the word power, that the word power sounds like a bad word. And that when people think of power very often, unless it’s empowerment, you know, it’s like an inverted, like, I’m alone in a room, I’m not offending you with my power, I’m empowered, right? Like we associate the word power with what happens when what we’re looking at is actually not power. Like we think of power dynamics. When somebody says power dynamic, the first thing you think of, is a broken power dynamic. And so I’ll explain and what it has to do with attention. Because power requires connection. Like you plug into a wall socket, like power requires, you can’t actually have power by yourself, you can have power over your thoughts, you know, there’s a degree to which you can have power with yourself. But ultimately, when we’re talking about power, we’re talking about power with other people, we’re talking about power with resources with we’re talking about power with more than just us. The toxic mimics of power that people associate with power or power abuse, I would love to have that redefined as not power. So you have like an autocrat or a dictator, right? That is oppressing the people of the nation, that this dictator is ruling. That oppression and control not influence requires so much energy, so much force, and so much consistent energy suppression and force, you can look through history, the amount of policing the amount of resources it takes to keep people controlled, it’s quite a lot. And the moment there’s any letting up or that pressure builds, right, it’s a race against time, because the more you oppress, the more the opposition builds that pressure builds, imagine like steam, it’s like almost mechanical, it will explode, there will be a revolution. And it’s very possible that that autocratic dictator just gets replaced, right, it just, it just keeps going like that. So if you think about the moment of that oppression, sum total, what you have is energy loss, power loss, if you’re looking at the system, what you have is power loss, energy loss. It’s not powerful. It’s a temporary shift of energy, that actually creates less than there was before, okay, so with a human being, let me just say, with a human being, if I am performing that toxic mimic of power, that’s not power at all. And I am being controlling and trying to force a person to do things to do this thing, do this thing, do this thing, do this thing. Whatever activity we’re engaged in, what I’m missing out on is their ideas, their duty, their devotion, I basically have a mechanical puppet that can pick up something off the floor that can do very little to get actually, what I’m missing out on, is the synergy that happens when two human beings collaborate. When two human beings get together, they can make a new life when two human beings get together and collaborate, they can create something that is synergetic. It’s greater than the sum total of the contribution of both people, human relations, what creates our social magic, what creates our civilizations, greatest fruits and assets, is that kind of synergy. And what you had with the toxic mimic of power is the opposite of that synergy. You don’t even have like, a good transactional balance, you just have loss. And that’s, that’s one of the things we see on our planet. We’re operating at a loss every year, you know, more and more of a loss as microplastics build in our blood streams and plastic builds in the ocean every year we’re operating at a loss because we have a profound misunderstanding of what power is. And, you know, it’s because of how I kind of muddled or thinking about this is and afraid we already think of our own creative power. We have a godlike power to create. And we as human beings are very reckless with it. We It’s almost it almost feels like like human beings are afraid to be as great as we really are. And so what we get is the shadow side of that. And I would love for us to, like start looking really, really looking at that power and and claiming that we are powerful beings is a really important step in our advancement as humans. And I especially feel that way about women right now, women, particularly, the connection is important, the influence not not control is important. And a redefinition of power to be able to actually synergeticly utilize our power to create the world that we want to live in.

Cait
Yeah, gosh, so much of what you’re saying, as you’re speaking, I’m thinking of how relevant this is, at every level, the most microcosmic like inside of a singular relationship of men and a woman or whoever it is, and how that abuse of power is just a net loss for absolutely everybody. And how we see that on the macro scale with the environment, as you’re saying, I’m thinking about how it relates so much to the business world and the online industry and brand that like when we mark it from a place that’s trying to exert power over. Everybody loses. And I’m so curious, in your trajectory in teaching at the Academy, and everything, the writing, speaking, everything that you’ve observed, why do you think it is that women in particular, like, we get really uncomfortable with the power the you know, you speak about this godlike ability we have to create as human beings and yet, we don’t often either recognize that or when we do it feels like almost too overwhelming to take on that responsibility or that privilege or that that power? Why why do you think so many people are afraid of that?

Why are people so afraid of taking responsibility of their power

Kasia
I think it’s so logical. It’s, you know, everything from witch burnings to it’s like, the, the collective aggregate of how much how much punishment and fear there is around our place in the world. And I mean, men and women, but like, it makes sense. You know, when people come to me, when women come to me and say, I want to claim my power, the first thing they need to do, the first thing they need to do is know that they have it. The first thing before they like go about proving it, or showing it or be like I’m going to claim it with others. And oftentimes, the first idea about claiming your power looks like it’s so wrong, it’s like I’m gonna make everyone else wrong. So I’m right, I’m going to express my pain to make everybody like hit everyone with a collateral shrapnel of my undigested anger and sadness, you know, like, like, if that is your power, the first thing is to know, you know, this is so, so simple and basic. But in in, in the book, I talk about self celebration, I talk about a woman celebrating her wins, so she can receive the nourishment that’s there. Like the first step to claiming your power is to become aware of it, to become aware of it to find evidence for it, then you can, you can find trusted witnesses who you can share that with, it’s when your mind starts becoming present your awareness, your intention starts being present, to how the creation of your reality works. And the the profound love that people have for you, and the impact you have on others. That’s when that stuff starts to snowball, you don’t, it becomes much more natural to occupy your power to like claim your power. Once you see it, if you don’t see it, and you’re trying to claim it, what you’re going to do is just create the opposite, you’re going to create powerlessness and deprive others of a feeling of their free will and power. And this is this is one of the crazy things is like in this world, you cannot cheat. You cannot give love you do not have you cannot be powerful to the degree you do not allow yourself to see your own power. If there is no cheating, eventually, it catches up even toxic mimics of power, it all catches up, it all catches up. So I think women are afraid of their power, or the most basic reasons are that they’ll afraid that they’re afraid that they won’t be loved. They’re afraid that it’s they’re gonna have to change the kinds of conversations they have with their female friends, they’re gonna have to change the way that you know, and all of those things are true. Those are valid concerns. It’s just worth it to be in touch with reality. And the reality is that women have the power to give life women are incredibly powerful. And all for me comes down to that mismatch of adults talk is talking to children with this huge gap between what we say and how we feel what we say and how we mean. Like if I want to, you know the biggest shortcut to to a woman struggling with your power is to ask her what she wants. Ask her what she actually wants. Then ask her And then ask her again, there’s so much complexity in the analysis of a problem that can be cut through if she just knows what she wants and isn’t ashamed of it, even if it might not seem like the right thing to want. And that’s, that can be, that can be terrifying. But what’s even more, more terrifying if you look at the life that we live, or the life that we don’t fully live, if we don’t just admit that we have power?

Cait
Yes. Oh, my gosh, so much, so much. Yes, there’s so many things in there that I want to unpack in so many different directions that we could go but you talk about the importance of self celebration, I absolutely like loved that section circle that started dog eared it in your book, when you’re talking about self celebration being how we like digest our wins and get the nourishment from that. And it’s a practice because I think it didn’t actually occur to me until we’re speaking now, you know, you’re talking about power having so much to do with attention before. And you know, that DOM energetic being so much about holding somebody in like fixed and unwavering attention and creating that space to just be completely seen and how for so many of us, holding ourselves in that same attention really seeing ourselves and what we’re what we have and what we’ve done and how proud we should be of ourselves, or what we contain, it’s almost uncomfortable. I’m curious if like mirror work, or any practices like that are things that you have people do inside of the Academy, I know when I’ve, you know, recommended that to clients before, there’s something deeply uncomfortable about seeing ourselves and like physically actually looking at ourselves. But I think at a deeper level, that that edge of self celebration, that edge of actually acknowledging and bringing attention back to what we possess. And yet it sounds like that’s such an important piece to really being able to you can’t step in to power that you don’t see in the first place.

The work that Kasia walks her clients through in The Academy

Kasia
Yeah, yeah. And the self celebration piece, it’s so basic, and it’s so beginner beginning, you know, at the academy, it’s like the very, very beginning. But here’s the first thing that happens is that, you know, a woman is in a small group, or in a class, and she’s asked to celebrate herself was one of the various exercises that we use to do that. And we have a few that aren’t in the book. But I mean, it’s very, very, very, very simple. We give them a form in which to do it. So there’s less self consciousness. And the first shocking thing is that a woman celebrating herself in a group notices that it doesn’t piss the other women off. It actually takes them higher. And that breaks so many damn taboos. Right. Right, they’re doing. And that’s the thing. That’s the thing is like, it’s you know, we can talk about how hard it is to celebrate yourself. We talk about how hard it is to receive compliments and praise, we talk about how hard it is to own own that we’re amazing living miracles walking, but we can talk we can talk about how hard it is. And the contraction, the body literally feels like the trauma responses, and we can talk about all that stuff. And once you break the superstitious belief that something terrible is going to happen to you. If people hear you talking well about yourself. Once you have the physical experience of being in the group and saying I’m an amazing teacher and really feeling it and feeling the feel good in it without any weirdness and then feel that everyone is suddenly higher and they can they have permission to celebrate themselves and we’re all celebrating each other. You can’t unsee that you can’t and feel that. And it does so much of the work, you know does so much of the work to prove that the taboos and superstitions that are out there aren’t real. Like when another one with with good girl conditioning. Another one with like, with women that’s so common is that belief that a lot of these things are personal. Like I didn’t speak up for myself because I’m weak. I’m a coward. I froze because I uniquely don’t believe in myself and have a low self esteem. Or I froze because I’m not good at this kind of thing. It like one of the other things that happens in a group is you suddenly see that the woman who is running three companies and has eight children and the like semi famous movie actress who has like a legendary life and the like the woman who’s a pastor at a church and as a congregation, like all of them are going, Oh, I also feel this. I also go through this. I also then self attack like like, like a nut job for the next like one person can step over me and I don’t speak back. And that’s one aggression. Then I can like perpetuate that in a trauma pattern for the next five years. Like why didn’t I say Do something, why don’t I say something and attack myself? Right? Suddenly, it’s not my problem. It’s our situation. And when we see our situation, we can actually join together and use tool. I mean, the entire Academy is founded on the things that individual women revealed. And she demonstrated with their behavior patterns of their bodies, that everyone in the room went, same, same, same, same. So it’s not just me, it’s not just me, it’s a thing. It’s like a real thing. And if it’s a real thing, then one, we don’t go isolate and shame over it, too, we can celebrate the commonality of seeing something out there that can be changed. And three, we can have a lot of fun changing it together. And, like between self celebration and the patterning, like when you see it’s not my thing, but our situation. And that we can join together and have fun. Breaking all of those superstitions and seeing they’re not real, we always were and has been women of power. And that, you know, it’s kind of like the Wizard of Oz story. No, you go through all this stuff to realize at the end that I don’t know if anybody here has seen was the Wizard of Oz. But basically, you know, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy they all want something one once a heart one wants a brain one once courage one wants to go home. And at the end, it turns out, they could have done it from the beginning. Right? Right. They always had it totally. And when she asks Glinda the Good Witch, why didn’t you tell me I could click my heels three times to go home. She’s She says, If I heard you wouldn’t have believed me, right? And what we’re talking about here is like we are already powerful. What is it gonna take for us to understand, break those taboos and superstitions that invisibly hold us back? And this is the thing that’s, you know, crazy making? Is that like, why is it? It should? It seems like it should be as simple as I will speak up for myself next time. Except you don’t. And if you don’t, you go and punish yourself for it, it doesn’t help. Maybe next time, I’ll try harder. Maybe next time, I will, no, it’s not going to work, it’s not going to work until you undo the belief that sits there. That’s what like, I won’t be loved women, when other women will try to tear me down, you know, like this will happen. And this will happen. And and we change the thing that makes us you know, self fulfilling prophecies, the evidence seeking machines that we are.

So you know, and so anyway, you know, the academy is largely an experiential school. It’s shifted a little bit since the pandemic and being you know, virtual and online. But it remains an experiment experiential school. Unbound is what I tried to do for women who can’t attend classes. So there’s a roadmap for how to how to start taking that good girl conditioning, that doesn’t serve you doesn’t serve anyone that you didn’t make you inherited as part of a legacy of being a woman reweave it so that it stops with us, it stops with us, it stops with us now, and that we don’t go about mistaking revenge for power or, you know, right now there’s this this, this, this kind of like, this kind of trend of believing that moral outrage is like moral outrage is a very, it’s an incredibly, incredibly energetically attentionally attention wasteful move, and the feeling that you can feel more moral outrage and express your opinion and that’s taking an action. It’s not it’s not actually taking an action. The the being aware of what works, what doesn’t work, what is power? What is not? What is the toxic mimic of power, is something I believe are of the utmost importance, because everyone right now, lots of people feel really power less. We’re feeling like out what how we are and what we do doesn’t matter. Anyway, that’s a very dangerous place to be considering that our actions are having a huge impact all the time on our world and the world of others like it’s it’s it’s happening all we are immensely powerful. It’s just so it can be sometimes terrifying to look at.

Cait
100% Yes, and I’m so glad you said that that feeling of whether it’s you know, the catastrophic global level problems in the world or society at large or whatever is happening, even in a local environment, that feeling of oh, what, you know, even if I do something isn’t really going to change anything I couldn’t.

Kasia
This is a third time you’re bringing it up the microcosmic and the proposers, but like the feeling of like, I don’t even know like why bother even doing anything? It’s not going to work because my uncle just is the way he is, is the same.

Cait
Totally 100%

Kasia
Total resignation of a relationship of anger, victim privilege of all of that. It’s the same. Big or little.

Cait
Yes. And I love in unbound. This is like reminding me of a section. I think it’s more towards the end. But you talk about using language, the precision of language to almost disrupt the pattern. I’m going to try to see if I can remember but it was something about, you know, if somebody says something to you or gives you a backhanded compliment, I think it was I think that was the example that you were using someone gives you a backhanded compliment, pausing them. And I can’t remember the term you use to describe this, but it was like, so I’m hearing that you are, you know, suggesting I’m doing a good job at this but you don’t you don’t agree with or it sounds like you’re also criticizing this thing is did I get that right? Or is that true? And almost like using the precision, I just, I hear you coming back to that again now. And there’s something so potent about naming what is happening. So as you’re describing, like, okay, the example with my uncle rather than I think what you’re giving us is, rather than just saying, Oh, it is what it is, or the world is fucked, and we all know it, really paying attention to what can I actually name here? What is the dynamic that is actually going on? And what do I want to do about it?

The power of “location”

Kasia
Yeah, yeah, I mean, the power of I mean, what the the tool that you’re talking about in in our school, it’s called location, I mean, its location. That’s right. It’s like so it’s so incredible, because it’s when you can, when you can get into agreement about what’s going on, or locate where the mismatches in between what two people think is going on. Oftentimes, that takes care of the conflict. Like, oftentimes, that’s just all there all that’s needed. I think. Another thing that’s not really that much in the book, but it’s, like in this, in this in this became very clear to me during the pandemic, something that’s really, really important in the attention game. When we live our lives, virtually. Our idea of timing and speed gets really thrown off. So I’ve had to, and I’m glad I’ve had to, but I’ve had to teach this one thing more than ever before, which is the idea that, you know, in the book, it says never move faster than you can feel. Yeah, the extension of that is, when you’re having an interaction with another human being. They can’t actually make you go faster than you want to. They can’t make you go faster than you can feel. You have choice in that. It’s like eating people can be putting stuff on your plate, people can be feeding you, but you get to decide how quickly you eat. So you can always say, pause, hold on, and this is where location comes in. Are you saying Did I get that right? Rewind? Wait, can you repeat that? Right, and when we when we slow down to the pace in which we can feel and we slow down the other person we are what we’re doing is we’re moving from the speed of the intellect which is faster speed of emotion and the body. And it’s really when all three are on board. That you get real influence and you get real, not just connection but you get real real influence. There’s this illusion with the speed of like a Twitter feed this illusion that like we can skip over you know that you get on Instagram you can you know scroll past 40 things and a really fast stimulants to emotions and to sensations that you feel later and you can’t track anymore. You don’t know if it was because you saw something depressing or horrifying or something that felt fake and a lie. Like you don’t know whether it was something that felt great, but you don’t realize you connected it with something that you’re missing or you want or you have like the the immense power of being able to get into the habit of turning the question and getting a handle on the speed of an interaction. It’s pretty remarkable. And it’s fun to talk about on a podcast because it’s accessible to anyone you don’t need to know any neat tricks or techniques or even concept. Like oh, wait, hold on. I don’t know how I’m feeling right now. This upset me. I don’t know why. Hold on, hold on backup. Are you saying this? Are you feeling this is this way? Okay. Okay. So for the record, you know, I mean, it’s even, you can even think of a remote control in this context. So pressing pause. Yeah, yeah. And and it’s really helpful for empaths? Because empaths often get stuck in an undertow of overwhelming emotion that’s not formulated into language the speed for an empath is even even more more important to regulate and this is you know, this is this is such a clear example in which it’s easy to see how powerful attention can be.

Cait
So I love this so much I like felt the exhale in my body as you started talking about aligning the speed of the body with the speed of the intellect because you’re right our digital world and how we consume things I mean, it’s like 1000 reels per second right but not Yeah, it’s so easy to get lost with what we’re actually feeling so I love that so so much because I want to switch gears here for a second and and hear you know, that you write and everybody all of you guys listening to this Do yourselves a favor. If you have not already by unbound listen to it, it will literally change your life. It’s so freakin good. I would love for you to share with us a little bit about your time in the dungeon and how like if there was an a particular experience that you had that you felt was like a lightning bolt lesson for you about power or some interaction where you could feel and see kind of instantly before your eyes, some of these truths and tenants about power that you’ve come to write about and speak about and teach about now. Has there been a particular I mean, I’m sure there’s been so many. But tell us about a time that you felt a lesson reveal itself to you in the dungeon that was really poignant and stuck for you.

The two biggest lessons that Kasia has learned so far on her journey

Kasia
There were two actually, there were two really big ones. The first big one was was about resistance. I like many 20 year old women was terrified of hearing now. Terrified. I wouldn’t ask things that would give me a no I’d ask things hard to ask for anything. But I was shy about asking a waiter for a glass of water in a restaurant. I would never ever, ever ask someone something that might be a no. And here I am in the dungeon. And I’m like playing at being this super powerful. My ideas is early on my idea of the dominant woman archetype. That’s and I really liked, I really liked this one room in the dungeon that was so theatrically decorated, was so beautiful, had a throne. Like it had an elevated beautiful throne, like three steps up like velvet drapes, and it was incredible, could have been a movie set. And I loved sitting in that throne and to sit in that throne, it meant that, you know, I’d have to occupy most of the session with giving orders. So before a session, I would start preparing, I’d like to start thinking what can I ask them to do? I can ask them to kneel, I can ask them to stand, I can ask them to sit, I can ask them to do my nails my toenails I can ask them to do and you know, an hour is a really long time to be talking. And, um, you know, I mean, these sessions, I’m not very good at my job yet. And I’m trying to figure out like, what on earth would make this interesting for anyone? Everything I asked they do. That’s why they’re there. Okay, so do this, do this, do this. And I suddenly realized that, like, this is what the toxic mimic of power is. I tell them to do something do this. He’s like, it’s like a pinball machine. This is machined out. And here, I don’t have the experience of somebody saying no to me. There’s no heat, no friction, no them there. It’s just my orders it boring. I feel the pressure to come up with more things to say. And I’m like, Well, what if they what if they rebelled, you know? So I made it that I started, you know, inventing that they rebuilt so I said, bring your head up. And man brings his head up. I’m like, that was really slow. Are you rebelling? Do you have a problem with authority? Put your head down. Oh, see, now you’re doing it now. You’re now you’re just faking it. I was inventing there. No. And very soon, you know, that guy puts his head down. He gets a little smirk because he says like she’s messing with him because he thought that was funny, didn’t you? That was the moment I located him because I just all I did was I named something that was happening. And when he smirked his smile got bigger. You think this is funny? Do you? Look at me looks at me. Chest heaves Oh, so you like being made fun of a little bit, don’t you because I see your chest just relax all of the sudden the session was there I got it. I was like, Oh, now we’re having an interaction. There’s resistance, there’s agreement, there’s disagreement, there was have truly conflict, I summoned and invented, it really changed how I looked at every single human interaction, because then I got it. You know, I had the next session and the next session I had the next human to play with and experiment with, I was like, why is it that we’re so afraid of no and conflict? Why do we react so poorly to it? Why don’t we look at somebody’s resistance as the gift we have been behind it, we’re going to start seeing where they’re actually at what they care about what juicy treasures they have, what ideas they have, and all of a sudden, without them speaking, I was having a conversation, I we were synergistically creating a magical fantasy experience, you know, all of a sudden, I could see how a session went from Queen with servant performing chores, to they would transition into Superwoman, and the evil villain. And like, every, every, every kid’s imaginary game you could possibly imagine except, you know, not for kids. Right? And, and it made me so much braver. So the idea that resistance is, is is good. And this idea that that power is, you know, the game of influence, and the synergy of that interaction was huge. The second biggest thing that happened was, when I became when I became a good enough dominatrix to train the new girls who are, you know, learning to be dominatrixes. And I saw them do something that I did, and I didn’t know I had done it. It was like they come in, we’re working with a submissive, they have an idea about what they’re supposed to do. And they go. I’m Mr. Apocalyptica, you’re so bad. I’m here to control you. You’re very, very bad, right? And, you know, listeners can’t see me right now. But it’s, it’s not that is performative and fake. That’s the problem. The problem is, there’s no attention on the person, there’s just attention on the dominatrix performing her role, and it does you anything to move the other person in the room, it doesn’t actually have influence. It’s just like watching a show. It’s separate. And like women do this quite often. And this is this is what started having me develop the theory that women are default to a submissive state to a self referential state to a self, the their power does not penetrate an entire conference room, a lot of the time does not penetrate the body of a man, oftentimes, it’s because we’re frightened, yes. But like that, all they would need to do is put their attention on the person they’re speaking to, and point something out, and all of a sudden, they shift the balance of attention, all of a sudden, they’re in charge, all of a sudden, the submissives body shifts, you can literally see them become receptive, receiving differential, like on the other side of the power dynamic, and so long as their energy isn’t landing on the other person. And it’s just filling up in and of themselves. They may be having a great time or a terrible time, but they’re not connected, and they’re not having an influence. Yes. And also, in that state, it’s really easy to tip like tip the tip the woman over. All you have to do is call attention to her her attention is already on herself. Like you think you’re a good dominatrix she.

Cait
Right. And she snapped out of it.

Kasia
Yes. How dare you say that? That’s, that’s, that’s not how that’s not. That’s not That’s not the power dynamic game that we’re talking about. That’s Yes, what we’re trying to do that doesn’t work.

Cait
I love that you gave this example and something that you were writing about in this section about like DOM energy and sub energy, I was thinking about how much of this relates to business and influence and leadership in the business space, because when we are speaking and and trying to lead, but we’re focused on almost being self conscious of am I doing a good job? Does my voice sound weird? Oh, my god, does my hair look weird in that video, blah, blah, blah, it’s really freaking hard to be felt by whoever is on the other side. And that’s obviously not in a dungeon, you know, in a one on one dynamic, but it can be felt digitally in a one to many dynamic when we’re speaking, but not actually with attention focus outward on who we’re speaking to, but almost self conscious, and almost trying to like, puff ourselves up in this game, but not actually paying attention. So I love that and I’m curious, you know, you said that this observation came out and observing other dominatrixes who came to train with you. I’m curious in either the academy or the work that you do, what are some of the tools that you give women to move them from that I’m trying to play the DOM but I’m not really inhabiting, you know, my, my attention outwards. What are some of the tools that women can use to come back come out of that self conscious state and into that state of really penetrating attention?

The tools that Kasia gives women to come out of a self-conscious state

Kasia
Well, when really deep, deep series of tools, I’d say more like a process. Because this, this harkens back to what’s in the way of natural dark energy, like what’s in the way. And one of the that is like the cultural repression of rage and anger with women. The good girl politeness the having to keep up the never outshining anyone, but not falling behind all of those things. Like, it’s so crazy making and so infuriating, and there are safe containers in which to express right now, one of the beautiful things about that, you know, I said in the beginning that a lot of the origin of this work comes from my, my, my Dallas studies. So one of the beautiful things about anger is it tends to move up and out. Sadness, on the other hand, moves downward fear moves, and you can feel it like I’m saying it rather quickly, if you slow down a little bit by slow down a little bit. When you’re sad, tears move down, your chest moves down, right? When you’re angry. It’s up and out.

Cait
Yes.

Kasia
If you’re repressing that emotion, you’re repressing that directionality in your energy and attention as well. So anger, letting some anger out in a safe place that isn’t necessarily related to the interaction that you’re having. Like one exercise in the book is things unsaid, just saying the things that you’re not saying as horrible as they may sound. Another one is conversations I’m not having just specific topics you’re omitting with somebody with somebody because you don’t want to piss them off, or you’re afraid. Another one is the bad girl protocol, where you just let yourself be the most inappropriate evil version of yourself play the villain for a minute. All those are just to like, assert, allowing us a little bit more comfort, with and playfulness and observation and catharsis for anger. When I’m working with a woman live, and we’re trying to get her to have the dominant state of attention, it often helps for her to practice the submissive state, the inward state and the outward state and the inward state again, and the outward state. Sometimes we do it linguistically by phrasing and ask, I want to ask you something. So you know, the dominant way, the submissive way, but the emotional clearing is it’s kind of a no brainer. I think that a lot of the techniques and work in the school is around creating that range for a woman so that she can receive without shame deeply, allow space for the things that she wants, which is the submissive state. But healthy submissive state means creating the space to be able to receive and not deflect instantly the things that are little too much, even though they’re wanted. And then the dominant state, and there almost isn’t a single exercise in the book that doesn’t endeavor in one way or another, to they’re all different angles at the same thing. They’re all different angles at a deep state of receiving and willingness to receive and willingness to have your life be greater than you ever imagined. And a willingness to go as far as it takes to get what you want. The outward state and the invalid state.

Cait
Yes. So good, Kasia, this has been so juicy. tell our listeners where they can get more of you follow along deeper with your work dive into some of these exercises and practices that you’ve talked to us about so so richly today. Tell us where we can get more of you.

Kasia
The easiest thing to do is just to go to the website weteachpower.com which will convert to kasiaurbaniak.com which is going to be really hard to spell. We have everything listed there including lots of free resources, articles, classes that are coming up, a student could spend a longtime on that site and study for free.

Cait
Amazing, so good guys, we’re gonna put that in the show notes we teach power.com Kasia, thank you so much for being here with us today sharing your story. and your work it’s so powerful.