[00:00:00] Kate: Welcome to another episode of plenty. I am so excited to have a new friend, a new connection on for a timely and important conversation. So today we have Narkis Alon, who is the author of this incredible book, present woman, she’s a social entrepreneur, a content creator, and a best selling author, and she leads workshops in Israel and all around the world on female leadership and.

Pleasure and the mind body connection in business organizations and academic institutions. So Narkees has articulated the connection between women’s bodies, women’s pleasure and leadership and the solutions that we so desperately need in the world in a way that I had never heard it articulated in quite that way.

Her, her memoir present woman unabashedly Tells the tale of her own sexual healing and sexual awakening and unraveling her own traumas and going from a woman who literally endured pain in sexual, in, in, in sex to going to a woman who is empowered in her body is A mom of two young kids and is leading the world through a revolution of healing and a revolution of women’s leadership.

In this episode, we talk about this particular moment we are in, in history after the terrorist attacks on October 7th in Israel. And we talk about why. Women in particular are essential in this moment in history and why women’s pleasure and women’s connection to their bodies is particularly essential to the healing that we so desperately need in the world.

Narkees talks about her own ancestral lineage, the way that that lives in her Cells in her nervous system, how she’s doing her best to pass along liberation to her own children. And as a collective, how we can be part of the solution in this moment, how can we can tune into what role we have to play in this collective moment of history that is so intense and having leaving people so overwhelmed and horrified, and she talks about how we can really.

Become activated and present and be a constructive part of the solution. So listen in to this episode with Narkees Alon.

Please note that the opinions and perspectives of guests on the plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrup. Or anyone who works within the Kate Northrup brand. Hey, welcome to Plenty. 

[00:03:35] Narkis: Hi. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. 

[00:03:39] Kate: Yeah. So as I said in the intro, you and I met in Homestead which is just outside of Miami at this really beautiful Sukkot celebration, which was the first one that I had ever been to.

And, and you were visiting from Israel. At the time. And then the next day the, the world shifted your world, certainly shifted the world in Israel shifted. And there was a series of brutal attacks and it was just such an intense time because that was a gathering with a lot of folks from Israel here in Miami, and also a lot of folks who had just been visiting.

And it was. It’s a Jewish celebration. So I just want to say like, hi and welcome. Thank you for being here and thank you for being willing to speak right now in this particular moment in history. That’s so intense. And I just want to start off by saying, how are you? 

[00:04:40] Narkis: Yeah. So I think what happened makes me even more called to speak especially because so I don’t know if there’s someone that is listening that is not aware of that, but basically on October 7th.

There was a terrorist attack of Hamas on not only on soldiers, but also on innocent citizens, just like in the morning in their houses. Children, babies, elderly people, men and women were just slaughtered. Like, we have like 1, 400 people that got murdered that day, including people that went to a party, could literally be like Burning Man or something, that kind of a party.

And also over 200 people that got kidnapped and unfortunately still are hostages in Gaza until this day. And so first of all, to start personal, like I was in this Jewish gathering, I, I didn’t do a lot of Jewish gatherings in my life. Many times people that are Israeli, we don’t feel the need to like go to, you know, Jewish events abroad.

It’s not, it’s not like something a lot of us do because we were so surrounded by this tradition in our country. And I know I went there and I gave a workshop. And then in the night, like I was giving my workshop related to what we’re going to talk about today, like pleasure, female leadership, connection to body, everything was so sweet, so beautiful.

And then I think it was around 2 AM in Miami time. And I didn’t look at the news, but I saw all my WhatsApp groups, like. Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay? Like everyone’s asking everyone if they’re okay. And I’m very used to it and practice living in Israel that it means like something like that happened.

But I never imagined. Like I imagine, I don’t know, rockets stuff like it’s crazy to say, but rockets could be something that we’re used to. But suddenly I’m like, what’s happened? And I’m looking at the news and I see that some villages in Israel are controlled by Hamas. And I am, my children are in Israel, my husband is in Israel, but mainly like, obviously what made me completely broken is that my children are there, I don’t know if you remember, but we had that evening a lot of conversations about me being far from my children, that I’m not used to like, separating from them, they were with me in the U.

1. for the first two weeks and then they left. And then like this happened and at that moment, we didn’t know, like there were a lot of terrorists still in Israel. We didn’t know where they’re heading. So that was very, like that was very, very, very devastating, very traumatizing event for Israel still. But the reason that I feel very called to talk, although our episode is not going to be about Israel and this war that is happening, but like the reason I do think it’s important to mention it is because Ever since it started, so we’re now in a war, okay?

We also have like Israeli soldiers in Gaza, obviously also citizens are being killed from both sides. And simultaneously in something that almost feels very planned, there is a lot of attacks on Jewish people around the world, like a lot of anti Semitism also, like. And innocent people, okay, it could be on students and campus stuff, like, and and I feel that a lot of people now, a lot of Jewish people, a lot of Jewish friends that I know abroad are overwhelmed and it makes them want to hide their identity because they’re scared and I get it, but I don’t feel it’s the time to hide our identity and I don’t feel it’s the time to hide.

I feel it’s actually the time to stand with Jewish people, to stand with Israel. And also, if we want, of course, to stand with Palestinians, because Palestinians are also suffering a lot from Hamas, okay, which, from a lot of reasons but we’re not going to talk about it now. So, of course, I also want peace, and I think it’s the only way in the region in the end.

But I don’t think it’s the time to hide and I don’t think it’s the time to like be silent. 

[00:08:38] Kate: I’m so grateful for the courage that it takes because what we know from the study of epigenetics and what we know from the what we know about trauma and how it impacts the body. And we’re going to get into this as we talk about your amazing book, present woman, and your incredible work with women and pleasure and power and leadership.

But what we know is that. The experiences that happen to our ancestors live in our bodies. And we also know that the experiences that are happening to people who we identify with happen, occur in our bodies or our bodies register them. From a collective trauma perspective as having happened to us as well.

And so I’m curious as a mother living in Israel at this particular moment, how are you tending to your own nervous system, knowing that you have come from a lineage of people who have been traumatized and oppressed for thousands of years, and then also in this moment, there’s the collective trauma, and then there’s the personal trauma.

So. What are you engaging in? How are you tending to your own nervous system right now? Yeah. So, 

[00:09:47] Narkis: so I’ll, I’ll share it. Just important for me to bring the context because some of the debate that is happening on social media is like, that not all the people, unfortunately, also in my network were able to like, Go against the terrorist attacks and say that it was wrong.

Although it was like slaughtering of innocent people, right? because some people said like you can’t look at it without the context of the occupation and what the Palestinians people are going through and stuff like that and I don’t think any occupation justifies terror or slaughtering of babies But I will say that we have to understand for when we say that That in the same way and that connects to what you asked me about the lineage For Israelis and for Jewish people, when, when, like, when citizens are being slaughtered, when it’s not only soldiers among, you know, not only a war between the people that are fighting it’s also living inside, within a context, okay?

It’s not like it just happened and then, and then like we look at it as this event, which is devastating of itself, you know? It’s also in the context of, like, Wait, last time that we were slaughtered like that, okay, and literally, like, there is no time in history that so many Jews got murdered since the Holocaust, okay?

So last time it happened, Like, there was a mass you know, operation to kill all the Jews, and they were able to murder millions of Jews. And, and back then, the identity and the feeling was very much like, Oh, we’re haunted. People want to destroy us. We need to hide. We need to like, I don’t know, be peaceful, but it wasn’t, the result wasn’t good.

You know, it wasn’t a good result like so people need to understand that it cannot like there’s also this that is playing a role and it’s it’s not something that that can can be basically cannot have a very strong response. Okay. We have babies that are literally now in Gaza. Okay. So When it, when it comes to me personally, so, and I look at my lineage, I don’t feel my lineage is a lineage of people that saw themselves as victims.

Like my great-great-grandmother. Her book is called, I Never Surrendered in Hebrew, but she wrote it in and she talks about, you know, very hard moments. Also being like in one hand people, like she needed, needed to be very careful because she was a Jew, but she. was building unions for women. Her name was Pua Rakowski.

She built unions for women and she taught women to write and read in Hebrew when it wasn’t allowed yet to do it. And she was involved in, like, she was one of the first feminists, like, ever, alive. And also, like, My other great grandfather was, which was he got alone. He’s one of the people that basically built Israel.

So for me and my lineage, like, I feel that in moments like that, it’s exactly the time to stand up. You know, I, I don’t feel, I don’t feel that like, Oh, now it’s my time to hide, you know? It’s like, so my lineage, like I told you in the beginning of our conversation, before we started recording. Yes, in the beginning there was like a freeze element and a trauma.

I also, I wasn’t, I wasn’t abroad. And then I was abroad with my children and only then we were in Israel. But although I was like not here physically, my dreams were about the situation, like every night I had nightmares and stuff like that. So of course we all went through this trauma and it’s influencing and it’s, it’s inside the psyche.

I think so. So in the beginning there was that, and then after the shock, it was like, okay. One thing was like acting. I know it’s not. Maybe we don’t see acting as, like, a spiritual practice, but I see it as a spiritual practice. Because when there’s a life moment that you can feel very helpless, okay, because we’re talking now about things that are much bigger, for sure, than us, but bigger also than Israel and the Palestinians.

Like, there’s, like, a war here that has geopolitical meanings, like, you know, really big countries that… But I feel, and also people that are survivors of the Holocaust talked about it, even then they would write their poems, you know, and they would like, they would do their thing. I feel like, like acting for me was the biggest thing because then I was like not thinking about myself or my, Oh, how will I protect my children?

I thought about like serving in a bigger way. And then another thing is like, yeah, I practice a lot of meditation. I listen to audiobooks that are supportive of that. I move my body. I, I, I like touch my body in a way that feels good. You know, like it’s also important to prioritize pleasure, which we’ll get to.

And, and I guess that, yeah, it’s, it’s, it sounds very basic, but it’s, it makes the it emptied the mind a bit from the news and then the news come and the news are very hard these days. Very, very hard every day. There are very bad news and it doesn’t feel it’s going to change in the next few weeks. But it makes you more.

more balanced, you know, and, and instead of like being all the time, like, Oh, I’m just going to be passive in front of the television and the news and wait for someone to tell me how horrible the situation is, which, and how scared should I be now to leave the house, you know, and I’m trying to remember what I told you is reminds me of COVID the situation where we live now is so extreme that it really like the only thing that I ever experienced that extreme was When there was like complete lockdown and I don’t know, I don’t know if you remember that they told us like you cannot leave your house and if you leave your house you need to wear a mask you can’t touch anything and if you’ll see your grandmother maybe you’ll make her die like all these things that and and I remember that looking back at it.

I think they overreacted, you know? Like, I don’t think it was the right guidance to, like, not visit my sick grandmother, okay? Like, I, I… So I’m trying to also remember it now. When, when we’re getting all these, like, Oh, maybe there are terrorists and, like, anti Semitism, they want to kill all the Jews and stuff like that.

It makes you, like, not want to leave your house or… I’m like, okay, yes, of course, we should be careful. But the truth is, of life… You never really have control and stuff. If the angel of death wants you to die, you can also die in, like, a peaceful country that doesn’t have any violence in, you know, if there is such a country.

And, and yeah, we cannot live in fear on a daily basis. It just doesn’t help anyone. And it definitely doesn’t help Israel. Like, it doesn’t make me an active citizen that can support now my people, and et cetera. 

[00:16:29] Kate: There are so many things you said there, and I want to highlight. That you said you are prioritizing pleasure, which might seem to somebody listening, like at a time like this, how could she be prioritizing pleasure?

So we’re going to, and why we’re going to talk about that. And you talked about touching your body in a way that feels good. So one thing I want to highlight about that is that when we. Touch our bodies in a way that feels good and seek pleasure in other ways. It activates the signal in our bodies that we are safe and it helps us to expand beyond the fear because pleasure is a nervous system safety.

Activator. Now, many times we actually can’t access pleasure until we feel safe. So we’re going to talk about that in a minute, but you have done a lot of years of study and practice to be able to access your pleasure pathways because you already feel safe in your body. So I want to commend you for that and we’re, we’re going to get into it in well, let’s get into the book and then I want to, and then I want to talk about this moment, especially for women and the, and, and like what we need to be focusing on, especially for our listeners who are from around the world, who are seeing this conflict, who are possibly confused, overwhelmed, enraged.

Horrified, whatever you might be feeling or feeling activated like I want to be part of the solution and I do not know how to do that and I think you’re going to have some important information for them. So stay tuned for that. I want to ask you about is Narcos you articulated. The connection between women and pleasure and leadership in a way that I have never heard anybody articulate in quite this way.

And I was so moved by it. I wish I could find the exact passage, but I am not going to be able to, but I just want to say, I’m going to ask you the question. What do you see? Why is pleasure related to leadership for women? 

[00:18:39] Narkis: First of all, I think we need to, we cannot really talk about the female experience, the woman, a woman’s experience being in the world without talking about how society made us feel about our body.

Okay. So in many ways, we’re receiving messages from a very early age that our body and our physical needs are not important. And like the most basic. experience you have as a human being is your body, right? That’s like, what makes us a human being, a human being that is alive. And You know, like, I remember from a very young age, the first time I received a message that like, I, I heard a guy from school, he was like, I was 14 years old, he was 15, I was spending a time, like, with a girlfriend, she spoke with him, she put him on speaker, she didn’t…

tell him I’m listening to the call. And he was suggesting like, why don’t you date with Narkees? She was like, suggesting me. Okay. And then he was like, Oh, but Narkees doesn’t look good. And I remember that was like, it was a very strong moment because it was the first time I received the message that like, if I want to receive love, I need to look in a certain way.

And currently I don’t look that way. Okay. And I, I referred it to weight because all of my friends were skinnier than I was. And then I just start decided to like, stop eating basically. Okay. So I developed eating disorders. And if you think about it in eating disorders is like very, very, very common. Okay.

And there’s different levels to it, right? I wasn’t like the worst, the worst case, like I wasn’t like completely sick and stuff, but. A lot of people, men and women, but mostly women, you know, think a lot about their weight, how they look, in a way that we also see from research makes them feel bad, like influences their, their like well being, influences their confidence.

And if you think about it, the moment we basically decide how much to eat, okay, not according. to our physical needs is a moment of disconnection. Okay. You’re signaling, you’re sending your body, you’re sending your mind the message of like, your needs are not important. Okay. And then in my first intimate experience with a man I remember like I was completely inexperienced and he was touching my body and all I could think about was how do I not ruin this moment?

How do I make him happy? How do I make him think I’m great? Okay. And you think about like, It didn’t even cross my mind. Like, do I want him to touch me? Does it feel good? What does it mean? Something that feels good to my body. Like it was literally not a relevant question. The same way that like, are you hungry?

Was not a relevant question. And I can give like so many examples where like we are taught as women to do these things and to be disconnected from our needs. And we need to understand that like once we send that message to ourselves, that like Our physical needs, the most basic version of our needs are not important.

Obviously it prevails to other things that are not important. Why would my like real opinions be important? Right. Opinions. I’m not talking about opinions that are like, cause I was there always very dominant and loud as a person. So you could look at me for the side of like, Oh, this is an empowered woman.

But the truth is I was always. Trying to please and receive the validation mainly of the men in front of me in the boardroom because validation was the currency, okay? The currency wasn’t like fulfilling my needs fulfilling what I think was the right thing to do Okay, and why would my ideas be important to implement if my basic needs are important or not important?

So my ideas were my real ideas the things I really wanted to do were always staying as a hobby. Okay. It was always about doing what other people consider to be important. Now, the right thing to do, the good thing to do. So I’m like a good, successful girl. So I’m receiving validation. And if you look at it, like the reason it’s so tragic and it connects to what you wanted to ask me in the end of this conversation about the role of women these days, Like, the world desperately needs women led solutions in everything, right?

And how can we expect women to actually initiate new things that are outside of the status quo if we’re playing with this thing that we were taught that, like, our basic needs are not important, our ideas are not important. And our opinions are not important and we just need to like completely, you know, focus and validation.

So it’s what I’m, what I saw also working with thousands of women and women leaders and also going through my own personal process when I had to like refine my pleasure and stop basically suffering from sex because I was completely suffering is if we change the way we see the role of our body. We can change the way we see all of our roles in society.

Okay. If we can change this relationship, if we can decide that we deserve to attend our needs or physical needs, and we are deserving pleasure, it makes all of our like system behave differently in the world and in life. Okay. And every life situation. Yes. 

[00:23:57] Kate: Hmm. And that I want you to know, Narkees, I have been in the world of women’s empowerment for 40 years.

I was raised in this world and there is something about how you just, you have a way of saying things very clearly and unapologetically, which I really appreciate about you. And that to, to say like, okay, if we need women led solutions, which is so obvious that we do, but women are not valuing their own experience and their own lived experience in their bodies.

We’re not going to get those women led solutions. So we have to go further upstream. And you know what’s 

[00:24:44] Narkis: the good news about it? That it depends on us. That a lot of the feminist movement, and it’s great. A lot of it is about, and was about, like, fighting men and other decision makers to, like, give us the rights we deserve.

And that’s great. And we need it. We need it, especially in the last few years that we went backwards, which is horrible. But. I also know that it’s the time for the world to hear our yes, okay, what we, what do we want, and how can we lead the world to a place where women already lead, where women already experience pleasure.

And that side depends on us. I mean, in countries, because some countries it’s not possible, right? We’re now talking in Afghanistan, women now cannot go public gardens. Okay. That’s like, it’s so, but women in Western countries. That are allowed to basically do everything. It is, it’s basically like, it’s our, it needs to be mandatory that we fully use our rights.

And we don’t fully use our rights. You know what I mean? Like a lot of us are still playing to the game and to all these biases and to our fears. But we need to understand that it’s like, it’s bigger than us. Like we need, you know, I talked about my great great grandmother. I want to talk, I think about her a lot because Reading her book and reading her life.

It was life of a war and she had children and so I’m thinking a lot of her these days when I’m dealing like when I feel because of this war, you know that she saw the poor Akofsky. So she realized that Israel if Israel will be built as a country. It’s the only hope for women because women were so oppressed, Jewish women were so oppressed.

They were like, it was extremely religious back then. And they were like forced to like, they could not get a divorce. They couldn’t like do it and they couldn’t work. Like it was a really, really hard situation back then. And she realized that if like the Zionism, like the, this vision will make women have much more rights.

But the problem was that the women didn’t want more rights, like maybe inside of them, they wanted, but they didn’t think about it. So a lot of her role was like to go between their houses and doing these like lectures and convince them to want it and ignite that desire. And in the same way, I feel like someone like you or someone like me, I feel that’s what we’re doing.

You know what I mean? I feel like it’s about igniting in women, like to want the desire to. To have what they deserve, you know? 

[00:27:21] Kate: Well, what you’re describing is internalized patriarchy. And the, the degree to which this is how systems work. Systems, at, at, at some point, and I’m, you know, you can correct me if I’m wrong, if, if you’re, you have a different understanding.

But at some point along the way, society shifts to try to dismantle power structures, and, or, or, or like rob, essentially rob women of their power, which has been happening for thousands of years, in a variety of different cultures, in a variety of different ways. But that’s our history. And The easiest way for that power structure, the way that it continues to be proliferated is through convincing women that They need to stay small that their needs don’t matter, but it’s not even as you’re saying a conscious conversation internally of my needs don’t matter if that’s not even, we’re not even aware of like to even have desire.

So it’s not even like, Oh, I have this desire. Let me tamp that down. It’s like the desire is not even there because for so many generations, it’s been the power has been squashed. Like, The light went out and that makes it very easy to control a population when you teach them to essentially control themselves through putting their own light out.

And so anyway, I just want to say that, and I love that you’re speaking about your great grandmother. Is it? Yeah. Grandmother. Yeah. 

[00:29:01] Narkis: She’s the grandmother of my grandmother. So maybe it’s even great. Great. Great. I don’t know how you say. No, it’s just one. Okay. 

[00:29:09] Kate: Wait, no, the grandmother of your grandmother, 

[00:29:12] Narkis: my grandmother.

So I think 

[00:29:14] Kate: it’s too. Yeah. You’re great. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you’re, yeah. Your grandmother’s mother is your great grandmother, but this is your great grandmother. So what time period, like what were the years she was living roughly? She 

[00:29:25] Narkis: died 70 years ago, almost 

[00:29:27] Kate: 70 years ago. Okay. Okay. So yeah. All right.

So she was So it was obvious. Yeah. She was in 

[00:29:33] Narkis: the twenties. Yeah. She, it was. Yeah, it’s exactly, in a year and a half, it’s 70 years. 

[00:29:42] Kate: Amazing. And when I asked you about how you’re tending to your nervous system, and we spoke about ancestral trauma, and we spoke about collector trauma, one of the things that you said is that in your lineage, your, your, your people, your ancestors have the ones you know about, of course, have not identified as victims.

And I want to speak about the way that we can in this moment. unlock the possibility for our own nervous systems and DNA and ancestral lineage and ancestral memory to be passed down. Because even though our nervous systems are wired for survival, they can also be wired for thriving. Like we can have limiting ancestral patterns that get passed along.

And we can also have expansive ancestral patterns that have been passed along. And what I’m hearing in your story is that you have had some expansive ancestral patterns passed along to you, that you are the living example of you are really that dream of your ancestors. And I’m curious, what are you doing in your life?

Like in your marriage? Now, or what have you done over the last several years that some, some things that you wrote about in your book that ensures that you’re passing along more liberation to your children than was given to you so that they have an ancestral memory of expansion as well. 

[00:31:17] Narkis: Oh, that’s So that could be on anything, right?

So it doesn’t necessarily, doesn’t necessarily have to do with their body and their relationship with their body. First of all, I think a big thing in, in our education was that it’s not, it’s not like every time I think about myself only and about like, how will it affect me and stuff like that. Even when you said thriving, it felt, it felt like, of course everyone wants to be thriving, but it’s, it even.

That felt almost selfish, you know what I mean? Like, I feel it’s a moment in the world that it’s not about individuals thriving, you know, like it was maybe a few months ago But but not now and I feel that’s the that’s the education I received that like you it’s like Creating and serving for something that is greater than yourself.

So then you will get you will get your needs met But if you only think small, so it will be different with my kids they’re very young. I have a one and a half and four and a half. I think, I think the thing that for me is, is very important in is to focus on love like that. That I would love them no matter, no, no matter what, that they don’t, that they actually don’t need to become anything.

They don’t need to be successful or they can just like be who they are and, and, you know, and I’m just there to like not disturb them and love them, you know, and just be present. I feel like. I don’t have a lot of agenda, like, as a parent. You know what I mean? Aside of that, like, I could, you know, talk now about like a lot of values and stuff that I’m, that I’m trying to pass on, but, but the truth is that I feel that That our children are not really ours.

I feel like it’s we, we get, we’re very privileged that we can spend these years with them at a certain point. They won’t be any more with us because they’re going to live their lives. And, and I feel like the best thing we can do is just not disturb them so much. You know? I 

[00:33:31] Kate: do. For you. So much of the story woven throughout present woman is around looking for validation and he, you know, doing healing around that and really focusing on actually learning how to feel pleasure and to feel safe, to feel pleasure and to know that your lived experience actually does matter.

So can you talk a little bit about what some folks might hear as a false, like a possible false binary or false dichotomy. You just said, you know, if we focus on our own thriving, maybe it’s selfish. And this moment that we’re in right now is about looking at how we can be part of a greater collective to serve.

And maybe we get our own needs met through widening the lens and not so focused so much on our own thriving, but seeing the greater picture of the collective. And how is that different or the same than prioritizing our own pleasure as women and saying that like actually getting my physical needs met and, and feeling good is a priority.

So talk 

[00:34:41] Narkis: about those two things. Yeah, I think it’s really important. So I think, you know what, a lot of times people talk to us about like, you can manifest your dreams and like just visualize and you receive it, but I, I actually don’t feel that the challenging thing is to manifest. Desires. I feel like the challenging thing is to know what to want.

Okay. Because a lot of times we want things that are not really, it’s not really what we want, right? It’s what other people want for us or what 

[00:35:08] Kate: we’ve been told to want. The conditioning is so strong, 

[00:35:11] Narkis: so strong that it’s transparent. We almost, we can almost identify and. And I feel that also there’s a difference between like, Oh, I just want to be successful.

Then like, Oh, I am called like, this is my calling. This is what almost like, this is what the world wants me to do. You know, there’s a way if you let’s look at it, it was like feminine and masculine archetypes. Okay. And it’s not about men and women because we have all these qualities both in men and women and in women.

So. There is a quality that I can say, okay, I have an idea, I have a desire, and now I just want to penetrate the world with it, okay? That’s like the masculine approach. And the other side is like, okay, I feel I am like a womb, okay? And I’m open and I’m asking the world what wants to come through me to the world, okay?

So instead of like me penetrating with a desire for my mind, I’m like opening myself. I am a womb and I’m like, what wants to come? So that’s a very different relationship to have with the world. In once in one place, you’re like, I’m coming and I’m conquering and the other place you’re like opening and listening to the world.

Okay. And obviously for making something happen, you need both qualities and there’s not no right or wrong. But why am I saying all this introduction? Because for people and most. and even more for, more so for women, the quality of listening and recognizing your intuition and your compass is life saving.

Okay? The quality of knowing what is yes for you and what is no, and then actually communicating it and following it is exactly what’s Like, makes you either like having an amazing life, right, a fulfilled life, a life of calling and energy and love, to a life of feeling like,

I don’t even know what’s the other word of like, like being used all the time, being tired all the time, being bitter, you know? And the difference, it’s, it lies in our body and our relationship to our body. Like, our body is our compass, women, you know, we have our cycles and we have the, the. The possibility of experiencing pleasure and we have our guts like all these things are there Because they can guide us and tell us you can now walk right now pause don’t do anything now go left, you know and Once we understand that like this relationship with our body can is like such an important Asset that we have so we realize that like the fact that we got used to Thinking about our body in terms of like oh, it should look that way.

No, it should look that way Oh, I just don’t want it to disturb me. This is like the biggest fraud in history, basically Instead of having it, you know what I mean? Like, no, we have here something that can show us the way through life, you know? So instead of that, we’re busy thinking if it should look this way or that way or whatever, you know?

It’s just like, it steals away our power. It steals our pleasure. It steals our ability to be sovereign beings. that can lead in the world, you know? So, so yes, I think it’s especially in these times where everything outside is falling apart and we don’t know like what is true, what is not true. We can feel so much overwhelm, especially these days.

It’s really, really important for women to connect to the most. basic thing, which is our 

[00:39:02] Kate: body. And so what I’m hearing you say is that because the female body and really all bodies and the feminine principle in all human bodies is deeply connected to our intuition and our ability to listen for our yes and our no.

When we can tune that sense through presence in our body, through pleasure, through listening, then we can be. Acting on the true call to collective liberation as opposed to the more limited call for just our own manifestations of our desires, which is like, or someone else’s or someone else’s desire.

[00:39:47] Narkis: Yeah, exactly. Yes. Yeah. It puts us in the, in the best path that each one, each one of us has a different path. You know, each one of us, you’re, you’re supposed to do. One thing you’re supposed to do. That woman’s supposed to stand with Israel. That woman’s supposed to stand with Palestine. That woman’s supposed to not stand and not say anything.

There’s no right, like, each one in these moments will feel what is she called to do. But if we want to be guided by, like, something that is true, you know, and we feel it, we know when something is true for us. So yeah, a lot of these answers are inside our body. And unfortunately, in our reality, there’s It’s almost like a dictatorship of our mind over our body, you know, and we don’t listen to it and we don’t respect it and we’re missing a huge world because of that.

[00:40:39] Kate: We are. So in this moment, then for a woman who’s listening, who does feel like the dictatorship of her mind, the dictatorship of her conditioning, the dictatorship of the new cycle. Is winning and she feels like she does not hear her. Yes and her. No. And in fact, possibly it’s never even occurred to her that that matters.

I mean, probably. I don’t know. I don’t know. People find this all sorts of ways. So I don’t know who folks are. Whoever you are. You’re welcome here. Where, where should she start? Where should she start to start to listen? If that pathway has been shut off and if you want to share your own experience at all around that, I’d love to hear.

[00:41:36] Narkis: So first of all, I really invite women to read the book, to read present woman. There is, like, I share there in a very uncensored way, in a very direct way, the journey I went through from a woman that literally, like, suffered during sex, okay, and completely felt disconnected from my body, and my body was completely shut off to a woman that, like, has access to her pleasure, that I have an empowering relationship with my body, and And the journey was not an, a simple journey, like it was meeting a lot of trauma and a lot of places that I felt like that there’s no light in the end of the tunnel.

And there’s something in the way we share our journey that first of all, it, it’s written as a story, it’s a memoir, but it also gives exercises that women can practice. And I know from the, from like people that read it, that it changes, it moves something in your sexuality. A lot of people read it with their partner also, but it moves something in your sexuality by reading it and also comes with a booklet that gives you exercises and questions that you can practice and working with your own story.

So that’s first of all, the invitation. I think that an exercise I would give women to, to start doing additionally is like something very, very, very simple is just like lying in bed with yourself. And starting to, even if you don’t want to touch any sexual organ, nothing, and you just want to play on your hands.

Okay. So just like choosing a place on your body and starting to play with like what feels good. Okay. Okay. And starting to do different, different gestures. Okay. For your body. And really like tuning to, to, it’s, it’s not about. Giving pleasure. It’s more about listening to what makes you feel pleasure. Okay, very, very simple another exercise That is also not sexual and intentionally like I think you can start very very very simple before you go to the sexual things In my book, it’s very sexual.

Okay, but like you want to start easier you can make a list of 10 things that give you pleasure. Okay, for example, having a hot bath, okay? Seeing someone I love laugh, okay? Watching a funny movie with my best friend. So making a list of these pleasurable activities and starting to prioritize it and putting every day at least one activity that is pleasurable.

So in that way, you’re also sending a message to your subconscious mind that Your pleasure is important. So, you know, I read like a lot of women. I read women who run with the wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. It’s a really, really, really important book for every woman that wants to ignite her wild. And one of the things she says there is that sometimes it’s important to do something creative.

That has no practical benefit, just to send yourself a message that your creativity is important. And you know what I did when I read it? It was my birthday, so I invited all of my friends and I created a solo show. Like, I wrote a show and did it. It was so amateur, really. I cannot explain how much, like, how much it wasn’t professional.

But they’re my friends and it’s my birthday, they had to come, you know, like they had no choice. But it was me sending that message. And that’s how I started writing my book. Like because, because I had the message that it’s important, my creativity is important, it’s worth pausing for. So that’s the same idea about pleasure.

That once you send your mind the message that your pleasure is important, it almost like ignites a process of going through this journey of like discovering your pleasure, discovering the needs of your body that could be A long journey, not necessarily will take a month. Maybe it will take a few years.

For me, it took a few years, you know? So like if you start these small steps, so, so then you’re, you’re almost like reprogramming something, you know, in your 

[00:45:39] Kate: system. You are. I mean, that changes, it literally rewires your nervous system and it literally changes your behavior. Yeah. I mean, it just does. Then you don’t even have to focus on habit change at that point.

You have rewired yourself. Now you’re oriented more. You are oriented differently and you’ve opened up to receive a level of life force and intuition and guidance and power that wants to come through your body. Pleasure giving permission to your pleasure, prioritizing your pleasure. Opens up the receptor site makes you available for a greater level of life force and potential that has always been wanting to come in the door, but pleasure is the door that we have to open up first.

And it does on a, on a physiological level. There’s so much that happens biochemically and with the brain and so many different things. Okay, finally, in this moment in history, it is one of the most, as you said, you know, we haven’t seen a moment like this. Certainly for Israel, certainly like we are having, this is a very intense moment.

For those who do not feel clear how they can be part of creating peace. Especially women, what is the role of women’s leadership right now that you see? Why do you feel called? Like we’ve talked about why you feel called, but what do you feel called to right now? And what are your recommendations for, you know, and you’ve already shared so many of them.

So it might just be like, I already said it

for how we can. Participate in a constructive way in this moment of history, 

[00:47:35] Narkis: I think. I think asking that question is great. I think even what you just did is a tool. Okay. Even for someone to just be like, how could I have a constructive role in this moment of history and then have that question and work with that question.

Okay. Because when we ask life a question. We start we’re starting to receive answers. And when we’re attentive to these answers, it’s it’s kind of like a vision quest, right? We’re like, and then someone says something and then we see something on the street and we read a book and like everything, you know, right?

Like, they say, the teacher comes when the student is ready. So I think even just asking that question is great because unfortunately, a lot of people don’t ask that question. A lot of people are like, oh, what’s the horrible thing they’re going to tell me about now? Oh, when it’s going to when is it going to pass?

Where is it going to be back to normal? Things are not going to be back to normal, okay? And I want you to know that, and I want to also people in the U. S. to know that, that like, the world has changed on October 7th, and you’re also going to feel it, okay? And I’m not saying it to scare anyone or in a bad way, it’s just understanding the size of the events, okay?

It’s, it’s a global event, it’s not only Israelis and Palestinians, like This is like the world is, it’s, it’s like COVID, COVID started in, in China, right? And in the beginning it was like this pandemic in China and we didn’t think about it, but in the end we all felt it. So I feel like we’re, we’re in the beginning of this kind of event and it’s really useful to ask that question.

That is a proactive question. Then like. Just reading the news and being terrified and when it comes to women I think I don’t feel the right thing for me is to say like, oh women should be now this and that But I do know what I do know and it’s connected to the name of my book women need to be present Okay, we need women to be present now and we need women to develop different voices different solutions different connections, it’s it’s very very needed and very urgent now and And the best way to do it is, yes, tapping into our body, tapping into our voice, being brave.

Okay. I think it’s a moment in history to be brave. And I also think people will feel better once they they’re brave, you know, and, and yeah, and then like each one will have her own answer to that question. Right. But we need women to ask that question that you posed. And be that answer. Thank you 

[00:50:07] Kate: for that.

Thank you so much for having this conversation today for the bravery. I think, you know, it may not feel brave to you. I don’t know if you feel brave right now, but I think it’s really brave your book. I think it’s really brave the way that you speak. I think the way you speak in such a direct way about.

Very difficult topics about war, about pleasure, about sexuality, about relationships, about leadership, about the patriarchy. You’re very just like, boom, there it is. And I love that about you. So thank you for bringing that medicine today. Is there any final like You know, you just, you just said that, you know, to live into that question, to ask yourself that question.

And I’m going to, I’m going to ask you finally, as we, as we wrap up and, and before I ask this question, I’m just going to say, folks, go out and get yourself a copy of Present Woman. This is, is there a best place for folks to get this book? Or is it just kind of any, but where Amazon, 

Narkis: Amazon, 

Kate: Amazon. Yeah.Okay. So present a woman.

[00:51:13] Narkis: We’ll send you the link. Yeah. Probably. 

[00:51:16] Kate: Yeah. Link is in the show notes. Absolutely. You’re going to love this book. I love a good memoir. And this one is very unabashed and I love, so my question to you as we wrap up is what is the question you are asking right now about your own leadership, about your own role in this moment about your life?

What are you living into? 

[00:51:43] Narkis: Hmm. Yeah. That’s a good question. I’m asking myself now in the last few days, how can I be more connected internally? Like how can I be more activated from inside and not from outside? Because the reality, everything in the external reality now is screaming at everyone in Israel, right?

So many news, so many things happening, so many, everyone’s affected, everything’s dangerous. And this is a reality. It’s true. I don’t want to ignore it. I don’t want to disconnect from it. I’m doing a lot of activism now in Israel, especially around the hostages, that it breaks my heart that, yeah, there’s like the kids, it just breaks my heart.

But I, I know in the same time that I can be a more effective citizen if I am activated from inside. I know that. And it’s very challenging these days. So I’m all the time asking myself, how can I do it? And I’m listening to books. I can’t read books now. Maybe I will be able in a few days, but I’m still, it’s still challenging.

So I’m listening to books and I’m doing these meditations and stuff like that. And that’s the question that is in. Inside of me now. And I feel that’s where like, I don’t feel innovation can like new solutions can come from outside. It can only come from inside, you know.

[00:53:14] Kate: Thank you. Thank you for this conversation. I appreciate you so much.

[00:53:20] Narkis: I appreciate you as well. Thank you.