Name one Good Girl who has changed the world. You can’t. Because she can’t. It is the Good Girl’s job to maintain the status quo. But when we're living in a time when so much of the status quo no longer works for us as individuals or as communities, creating change means breaking free of the Good Girl Conditioning that keeps women trapped and unable to access their power and agency.

The natural cycles of expansion and contraction are going on around us all the time. Take breathing: as we inhale, we expand; as we exhale, we contract. Our own cycles of growth and renewal follow the same rhythms, but we often try to fight periods of contraction. Through learning to work with and honor the emotions of both states, we can live in full alignment with ourselves and others.

Culturally, we are taught to suppress our emotions and distance ourselves from them. But emotions are the gateway to increasing our vitality and locating our deepest desires. And when we know how to celebrate even the most taboo emotions and transform them into something useful, that is the foundation of true, unshakeable power and influence.

Power wielded in the name of a deeply rooted desire is the truest form of power there is, but getting to the heart of what you want can be quite confronting and difficult. Here’s how to coax out your true desires and use them in service of authentic power.

Throughout centuries, women have been trained to give up their power. With a simple communicational hack, they can reclaim their power when facing gender inequality, no matter the stakes. But the question is, why do women freeze in the first place? In this provocative and insightful talk, Kasia Urbaniak explores the effects of cultural conditioning and the difference between power and gender dynamics, while teaching us to change the way we have conversations as a society, so both women and men can reach their full potential as human beings.

A truly powerful woman does not “empower” herself. Power is not a feeling or a mood.
A powerful woman’s power comes from all of the relationships and allies she has at her disposal, and her ability to ask them to collaborate on fulfilling her vision.

When it comes to equality, we have a difficult but incredibly rewarding challenge ahead of us.

Equality is one of these beautiful deep spiritual truths upon which so many of our traditions are built. And yet, like so many ideals, the question becomes: how do we put this truth into practice?

Now, we can demand equality. Many of us are fighting that battle right now. But that's an outside job. There is also an inside job aspect of equality that's more difficult to talk about.