Katarina Polonska | High-Performing Relationships, Identifying Blind Spots in Our Lives, & Experiencing Intimacy

“Intimacy to me means, ‘Into me, you see.’ “ ~ Katarina Polonska

Episode Overview:

• 00:00 Introduction to the Episode
• 01:35 Meet Katerina Ska: Life Story and Practical Tips
• 05:25 The Journey of Self-Development
• 10:12 Navigating Romantic Relationships
• 21:33 Understanding Triggers and Blind Spots
• 34:15 Understanding Relationship Dynamics
• 35:51 Kat's Current Work and Focus
• 38:51 Evaluating and Improving Relationships
• 44:28 The Importance of Authenticity in Relationships
• 55:20 Cultural Differences in Relationship Communication
• 58:10 Final Thoughts and How to Connect with Kat

SHOW NOTES & LINKS: 

• Website: https://www.katarinapolonska.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katarina-polonsky
• Katarina’s Masterclass: https://programs.katarinapolonska.com/osilreplay

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Transcript

Katarina Polonska | High-Performing Relationships, Identifying Blind Spots in Our Lives, & Experiencing Intimacy 

David Pasqualone: Hello friends. Welcome to this week's episode of The Remarkable People Podcast. This week we have a coach and a consultant that works with high performing business individuals, but focuses on the romantic relationships because everything in life intertwines now. Whether you are a high performing individual type A personality, or whether you're more on the chill side, the truth we talk about with today's guests are universal.

We talk about a lot of falsities out there that people live by and sabotage their relationship. We talk about how our past is learned behavior and can sabotage our future. And we talk about how practical tips and things to look for and ways to change our behaviors. Can affect your joy and peace and your relationships, and then we funnel it through a biblical worldview.

[00:01:00] So I was super encouraged by today's guest because a lot of people I meet over the last 48 years of my life that talk about relationships, they do it through a personal filter. Or through a filter of experience that necessarily doesn't line up with the Bible. And what we speak about today, as you'll see, I'm pretty sure you can line everything up or discuss.

We discuss with scripture and you can see the truth and common sense and what our guest is saying and how it can benefit your relationship and those you love. So at this time we're going to meet today's guest, Katerina Ska, and she is going to share with us her life story, practical tips of how she adjusted, and you can too, and a bunch of great content. As the episode goes on, it just gets more fire.

So check it out now. 

Welcome to the Remarkable People Podcast!: The Remarkable People Podcast, check it [00:02:00] out,

the Remarkable People Podcast. Listen, do Repeat for Life,

the Remarkable People Podcast. 

David Pasqualone: Hey, Caterina, how are you today? I'm good. I'm good. I'm glad to be here. We are excited to have you here today. I just told our listeners a little bit about you and your story, but for people who've with been with our show for six years, or for those who it's their first episode, the Remarkable People Podcast isn't just about your journey and what you're able to achieve or overcome, but during the show, we're going to reverse engineer your success and break it down to the practical steps so our listeners can too.

Right. [00:03:00] If you are going to guarantee that, if a listeners invest their time in your episode, what's one thing you guarantee you're they're going to get by the end of the episode that they can apply to their life and live better? Motivation to focus on their love life. It's such a neglected area, and yet all the studies show it is the biggest, has the biggest impact on your longevity, on your health, on your happiness, on your wealth, on everything that we care about in life.

Katerina Polonska: It's your romantic relationship. 

All right. So men, women, everybody has a core need to be loved, right? And the romantic relationship is one huge aspect to that. You got the brotherly love, you got , the erotic love, and you got the Godly love.

So we're going to talk about this and a lot more ladies and gentlemen, right after the short break.

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Alright, Caterina, so let's talk about this. We will go through your life chronologically and basically sum up how you got interested in this topic, why it became so important to you, what you learned, and what we can teach.

Sound good? 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. 

David Pasqualone: So where did Katerina start? What was your upbringing like? Good, bad, or ugly? 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah, it was good for the most part, but like with everyone, I would say that had its challenges, right? So I, I'm an immigrant. I came to the UK when I was four years old, and that came with its own problems, right?

Not speaking the [00:06:00] language, being that weird kid in the playground who didn't really know anyone and, and felt like an outsider. That obviously had its impact on me and my brother, but really my childhood was very much. A classical immigrant story of high achieving parents pursuing a better quality of life, moving to the uk, moving to the west, and you know, working, working, working, achieving, achieving, achieving.

And both of my parents had PhDs. They're incredibly smart people, both very driven people, which actually led to the demise of their romantic relationship further down the line, I'll come to that, but really it kind of instilled in me this very go-getting Taipei mentality. Went to a really fantastic girls school in the uk, a very elite girl school, and then went on to university, went to Oxford, all the great academic qualifications, and, and then jumped through every hoop that every good little type A show pony does.

And throughout it all, a couple of things were happening. Number one, I like a lot of high achieving women developed an eating disorder, so that [00:07:00] was kinda my first foray into things aren't really working out that well for me. My father was absent at most of my childhood. He was traveling, he was working, he was making money, like all the classical things that a lot of high achieving fathers do.

And so I, I grew up with this kinda like absent father figure, even though my parents were happily married. And really that led to me developing this eating disorder, which I now understand the connection back then, obviously didn't understand it. I thought I was just trying to be thin like a lot of women.

And that eating disorder as awful as it was, got me on my self-development journey. I was really young, I was 16 and because my parents are Eastern European and didn't really believe in therapy, they didn't believe in traditional help. They were of the mindset of she can fix herself. We'll just invest into her to train to become a coach and a hypnotherapist and all the other things, and she'll, she'll figure it out.

So there I was 17 years old, taking time off school to train, to be a hypnotherapist, to train, to be a, a neurolinguistic practitioner, to be a coach. And it did help the eating disorder. I absolutely did understand a lot [00:08:00] more about my subconscious mind and how it all works. I think I was a little bit too young to really apply it all.

But long story short, that's from the beginning of the journey, and so time goes on. I am at university and everything's, again, kind of working out At this point. I was like doing therapy. I'd started meditating. I was really into the coaching world. I was reading all the personal development. I was like studying Tony Robinson.

My father actually went on to become a coach himself, so he's worked with big names like Joe Dispenza. So again, I was very spoiled for all of these incredible. People around me. And as I'm doing all of this kind of internal work, my parents split up totally unexpected. It was very much kind of out of the blue.

And my father left and that was a big gaping hole in the family. Like no one, and no one expects, we were like the picture perfect nuclear family. So when this happened, I had a full on kind of nervous breakdown. I spent a lot of the time mediating my parents' divorce. So, you know, getting well, I got, I got on very well with both of my [00:09:00] parents and in the end I remember hearing my mother speaking to her lawyer, my father, speaking to his lawyer, and I heard how the lawyers were really pitting them against each other.

And I remember thinking like, they're going to kill each other in this process. They're going to liquidate all the money. They're going to absolutely wreck each other emotionally and mentally. This is awful. But they both, you know, they both love me and I'm the kid and maybe I can have a role in it. And again, classically, Taipei overachiever, I started to mediate this divorce, so I kind of was going back and forth, back and forth.

Absolutely exhausting, but successfully mediated a, a pretty peaceful divorce. And then I had my nervous breakdown, all that pressure, right? I was like 23 or 24 at the time. So when that happened, I went off, did a lot of healing retreats, and did the Hoffman process. Really kind of practiced my mindfulness and meditation, did lots of therapy and.

Long story short, got to this point in my late twenties when I was like, I'm good. I've healed my wounds around my father. I've healed my wounds around my mother. I've done all this therapy. I'm this, you know, coach person. I [00:10:00] worked in behavioral science at the time, I. I've got all the assets, I've got all the information that I need to have a really great life and really happy marriage.

And I was at the age where I was like, I'm ready to meet someone. I'm ready to settle down. I'm ready to have a fun, I'm ready to have kids. And so like any millennial, you know, I went on the dating apps and I'd have been dating before, but I found my ex Beyonce ex-fiance because what happened there was that.

Here I am. You know, everything in my life is like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Got the property, got the lovely six figure salary, got the behavioral science job, like, loved my life. Get into this relationship and it's serious. You know, we're engaged and things are, again, picture perfect on the outside. But that's when everything really began to be so clear to me that it didn't matter how much therapy I had done, it didn't matter how much personal I'd done, how many books I'd read, how many podcasts I listened to, how many retreats I'd been on.

The relationship was hard and all of my own internal stuff that I hadn't dealt [00:11:00] with about relationships, about how I relate to other people was bubbling up as it always does. And I recognize that, okay, there's something going on here. I later learned that I had a bit of an anxious attachment style as a lot of high achievers do.

And long story short, I ended up walking away from that engagement after doing a lot of couples counseling and really trying to work through it. Having come to the conclusion that my, like dating radar had been off, I'd been drawn to a person who wasn't actually a good match for me for all the wrong reasons.

I was operating in, you know, what we now know to be a trauma bond. And I recognized that actually again, all of the self-development I'd done. Didn't really reflect in my romantic life. And so when I ended that engagement in my early thirties, you know, I felt the pressure, I felt the panic. It was like my life had imploded.

'cause I wanted kids, I wanted a family. And I was like, how the heck is this going to work? How's this going to work? And how did I even get here? How did I get here? I'm like a fricking vice president of a behavioral science firm. I work in [00:12:00] psychology. I have everything available to me to have the best relationship ever.

How does this happen to me? Am I just broken? And that's when I decided, I'm going to go really deep. I'm going to go really hard. I'm going to figure this out once and for all. And so. I basically kind of locked myself up in my, I was living in a penthouse in London at the time and I just studied and nerded out and invested so much into relationship coaching, into all the different modalities out there available to me.

I was working deeper with a subconscious mind that I'd ever worked before and really taking everything that I knew in practice and in theory, and had, you know, quote unquote applied, but really began to embody it. I took the growth onto a whole nother plane, and over time as I'd shipped away at my core wounds, at my own blocks, at my fear of intimacy, all these things, which I didn't even know I had, as I'd shipped away at all of that, within months I met my husband very serendipitously [00:13:00] and.

Came to the conclusion that I didn't wanna be in corporate anymore. I didn't really wanna be kind of grinding this corporate lifestyle. The money didn't really mean anything to me anymore. And so, yeah, long story short, my husband and I left England. I started building a, it was meant to be a sabbatical.

This is all meant to be a sabbatical. I started building a very loose coaching business just because I, you know, I trained and I did my ICF began coaching friends, peers, other Oxford academics. And before I, I knew it, I recognized, oh. Most people are struggling with their relationships, especially most high performing people, right?

It's like you can be so high performing, but this area of your life, their love life is a bit of a shambles. And so as I began to kind of unpack more of that and I began to see patterns and I started to craft a bit of a methodology to help people based on my own experience and basically what I know to work, lo and behold, my business began to take shape and I never thought I'd be.

Doing 10, 12 hour days doing what I do now, working with [00:14:00] the most interesting, fascinating people over with some of the biggest problems, which I think a lot of people would kind of bulk at. But I love them. I find it so interesting, and, and helping them create the relationship of their dreams. 

Yeah. And when you were transitioning in your own life, we learn things, we have learned behavior, and we absorb things without.

Even realizing what's happening and we form a norm, right? Yes. How much of your parents' relationship transferred into that first engagement? 

Katerina Polonska: Mm, yeah. Great. Great question. What transferred was almost less of the relationship? Because I think my parents' relationship, I'd actually experienced as like fairly, I don't wanna say traumatizing, but my father was away.

I grew up with my father coming home for weekends initially. He was traveling all over the world. He was a management consultant and then he kinda like McKinsey consultant level. And then he [00:15:00] began to come, you know, come back once a month and then it was like once every two months. So I grew up seeing my mother being home alone, basically managing the household.

Being, you know, she had, she had her own income. She was very ambitious. She still is very ambitious, and dad is away and mom is the disciplinarian. And, and that's just how it is. That didn't bleed into my engagement, but my resistance to it did meaning. I did not want my ex-fiance to be traveling too much for work.

I don't, that was a hard, no, I did not want us to be living apart from each other, which was kind of at odds with what he wanted for his career. So there's already tension there. What did lead into my relationship was this kind of, I guess, self gaslighting, right? Where. Anyone externally could have looked at my parents and seen that, you know what, maybe living apart from each other for the sake of your careers for 15 years isn't the healthiest thing.

There's clearly [00:16:00] something up at play here. There's clearly something deeper. My parents didn't really fight. There wasn't a conflict. They just kind of, I remember my mother saying to me like, yeah, I'm grateful for your father. And you know, we're, we're grateful what we have. Clearly there's stuff there, there clearly, there's avoidance there, and that avoidance.

Bled into my engagement, not in the sense that I was avoiding the anxiety and what was, what was feeling off, but in the sense that I tolerated discomfort for way too long. Now I look back and I'm thinking, I wouldn't have stayed in that relationship for longer than I'd even know if I would've even been in that relationship.

My tolerance for BS is so minimal right now, but back then it was very much a case of I'm grateful this is okay. It's normal. I'm going to just kind of power through. And actually, fun fact for you, high performing people, high achievers are statistically that much like that, much more likely to stay longer in an unhealthy, unhappy relationship than people who [00:17:00] aren't as high performing because high performance have a very high pain threshold.

And they're used to grinding. They're used to suffering. They have a lot of wounding around their worthiness, and so when it comes to being in relationships, they're much more likely to fit, like stick it out and suffer hoping that things will change because they believe in themselves. They believe that they can grow.

They believe that the other person can grow, and so they have this kind of resilience and tenacity, which is fan fantastic in your professional life, but not necessarily what you want when you're dating. 

No, I, I sadly saw that in my own relationship, and we probably have listeners all over the world who are like connecting right now.

Yeah. A lot of people have solution mindsets, especially men a little bit more than I, I don't believe, like just men are just women can be problem solvers, but you know what I mean. Men typically are born and wired to solve problems. So if you have a high performing human. And they're trying to save their marriage.

They're going to work hard [00:18:00] 'cause they wanna solve that problem. And it's not like a business. Business is easy. Relationships are hard in at the home, right? 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. 

Yeah. So, okay, so now you are working every career career's going well. You meet a new husband or you get a husband, you get married.

Bring us from there. How's your relationship? 'cause every relationship has adjustments and growth. Mm-hmm. What are you learning hands on? That's no more theory. Yeah, but actually practical in your life. 

Katerina Polonska: Oh, it's funny. I think one of the biggest things that we struggle with is the volume of knowledge that I have and not letting that impact the relationship.

Right? Like I know the best practices, I know what a good conflict looks like. I know the theory of all of these different things. Guess what? I'm still a recovering perfectionist. So when things happen or when we have a conflict, I know I'm not perfect. Absolutely. I know I've got tons of my own flaws and my own [00:19:00] triggers, and I go into my own wounding.

The work I have to do is to not judge myself for that and also not look at what my husband's doing and wanna correct it, which at the beginning I very much would do. I remember we'd get into conflicts. I'm like, Hmm, I see that your core wound are being misunderstood, is flaring up here? Do you want to, and he was like, stop coaching me.

Stop coaching me. I'm your husband. Stop it. So that's definitely one thing that we've had to work through. I think the, I think one of the most challenging things that we've had to navigate, I think, and a lot of couples probably have to overcome this, is meeting later in life, right? On the one hand, statistically, we're that much more likely to stay together, to be happy.

We've both got in disposable income, we can actually go and achieve and create together. But there are. Yeah, there are other tensions that come with that, right? We have less time to maybe do all the fun things that you would do if you were in your twenties. We've got different pressures. We're, I mean, we're literally both [00:20:00] aging, right?

Like aches and pains. Parents are going to be passing, like there are hardships there that we, things can feel heavy and heavier than they would feel maybe if we had. 10 years together in our twenties or five years together in our twenties to really be carefree and frolic and not have to think about more serious things.

So I think that's kinda one thing where we look back on our relationship and you know, we love each other. We have a fantastic relationship, but there's been a lot of grief, there's been a lot of heaviness we've had like fertility challenges, right? There's been a lot of this kind of. Like sadness that we've had to navigate together, which creates a lot of pressure on the relationship.

And pressure's generally not a good thing. I mean, pressure's kind of what brought us together because we were like, well, time is ticking, right? My husband was in his forties. He's like, I don't wanna wait. We we're going to be married by the end of the year if this is going to be a thing. And I remember him saying that to me and me thinking, I just got out my last engagement.

I don't think I'm ready to be married. But at the same time, I was like, no, fair. Fair. He's not wasting my time. I'm not wasting [00:21:00] his time. We're going to do this properly, we're going to be very clear. We're going to be very intentional. So it's kind of bittersweet. Yeah. 

Yeah. And I mean, I think anything in life, there's pros and cons, and sometimes it's not even a pro or a con.

There's just, you know, you know, benefits, like you said, again, marry in your twenties, has benefits. Getting married in your forties has benefits. But at the end of the day, you know, we all wanna follow God's will and find the most peace and joy. Yeah. But everybody's life is going to have struggle and conflict, and that's just part of the nature to make us grow and learn and appreciate more, right?

Mm-hmm. So. Where you're at now, Kat, between your birth and today, is there anything else significant in your life that we missed? I know we're covering, you know, ground here. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah, yeah. But 

is there anything for time's sake that we missed that you want to talk about that's going to tie into what you're doing today and what you want to communicate to our listeners about the intimacy or the romantic side of relationships?

Katerina Polonska: Yeah, yeah. I think the main thing that I want to get across is [00:22:00] we live. I'm sure most of your listeners saw this. We live in a very kind of self-development world, right? Like we're very lucky that we live in a world where you can go online and you can download resources, you can join online programs, you can learn how to meditate, you can learn how to kinda challenge your thoughts.

You can learn how to manifest, like there are so many incredible resources that we have at our fingertips, and you can do all of this alone. Right. You can do all of this from the comfort of your home. You can do all of this. You can listen to podcasts when you're out for a run. I mean, that's what I do.

The benefit of that is that we're in a constant state of evolution. The negative of that is that we can get into this false sense of confidence and security that like, I've got this, I can figure this out. I, I know what I'm doing. The risk with that is that you don't know your own blind spots. I didn't know my own blind spots.

I spent my whole twenties being like, I know this and I know that, and I've done all this therapy, and I've done all this coaching, and [00:23:00] blah, blah, blah. I didn't know my blind spots, and it was only when I was in that romantic relationship where the other person's a mirror to me, to you and your triggers, your upset, the arguments, the conflicts, the parts of you that feel anxious, the parts of you that wanna run away.

It's only when those parts are getting activated and, and flaring up that we really can actually do that deeper inner work. And if you're wandering around and you're single or you are, you know, you have a lot of independence, a lot of space. Heck, if you are really wealthy and you live in a big house and you really bump into your spouse, you can get lulled into this false sense of confidence of like, I'm good, I'm good.

Yeah. I listen to the Mel Robbins podcast and like, I know what I'm doing. No, you don't. You're just, you're just not being triggered because you're not being confronted with your own stuff because you have your own blind spots and nothing's triggering you. I remember a long time ago talking to a, it was a guy [00:24:00] friend who he was so confident in his capabilities, you know, he was like doing breath work, cold plunges meditation therapy.

Like he was doing EDMR. He was like fasting. He was doing mushrooms. Like he was doing the whole shebang of like all the personal development stuff and he was so bullish on how like he's healed. He's confident. He was great, right? But then guess what? His love life sucked. It really sucked. He kept getting in these like terrible relationships and I was sitting there being like, dude, you've not looked at your relationship.

You've not looked at how you are in relation to others. You are great on your own. Everyone's great on their own. You have your coping mechanisms, you do what you need to do, but it's how you own relationship to others. And that's what I missed, right? Because again, I was kinda lulled into the sense of like, I can figure this out.

You can't figure out on your end because you don't own your own blind spots. There's a reason that even now, now I've been doing this for 15 years. I still have my own practitioners that I depend upon. I've got a freaking entourage behind [00:25:00] me of specialists in each different area who I look at them, I'm like, yeah, you are liking your fricking sixties.

You know, you've been doing this for two, two x the time I have. You've been through a lot more, you have more wisdom than I do at this point. Well, I would, you know, I would like to believe, and you can help me see my own blind spots. I wanna learn and I wanna learn from how I am in relation to my husband in relation to other people.

So. I think kind of that's the thing that we can often, we can often miss. 

Yeah. And let's, I don't want to jump ahead or jump around. Yeah. But as one of the practical points, how do you recommend, you know, it's different for everybody, but there's fundamental things in all humans. Yeah. So if you were to give our listeners, Hey, this work for me, try this.

1, 2, 3. What are some tips to identify our blind spots? Because before you go on, I think I audibly laughed. I don't know if the mic caught it, but. It's not just, we all know someone who's confident in our or [00:26:00] wrongness, right? Yeah. I But we've been that person. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. You know, we've 

all been there at times. So now some people more than others, the arrogancy flows strong in this one.

Right. But the all of us can have blind spots. All of us can have these moments, and we grow up five years. I'm like, what an idiot I was. And then five years more we're like, what an idiot I was. And it's going to keep happening. 'cause once we get everything right, we'll be with God in eternity. Yeah. So what do you recommend?

How do we identify blind spots in our life? 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah, absolutely. So one really good little practice, and I was literally saying this on my group coaching call earlier today. When you get triggered or when you get upset. Think of that as a golden opportunity to go inward and to begin to identify your own blind spots.

Right. So I had a lady, for example, on my coaching call, she was telling, she was sharing how she had a male friend, [00:27:00] male friend, I had no plans for the day. He was like staying with her or something and she had to go to the, to the garage to sort something out with her car. And he said, oh, can I come with you?

And she was like, sure. So he comes along with her, they go to the garage, she's dealing with like the car repair thing, and he's just sitting there in the back and he's on his phone playing games and she's like, so disrespectful. How dare he? He came all this way, like he's been, he's accompanying me. He seems so disinterested.

Why is he even here? And at the end of the car repairs, as said, driving back, he's like, so did the guy tell you to do X, Y, and Z? And he's the one that giving her advice and she's like, how dare, he didn't even listen. Like he wasn't present. She's really riled up. They can get a good like eight out of 10, right?

And in the end she gets so upset with him and have this big argument and then she kind of tells 'em to go home and I'm there and I'm like, how interesting. 'cause somebody else might have the same situation, the same scenario, guy comes along and he's, you know, in the back and he's on his phone. And that [00:28:00] same per, and that person might have a very different reaction.

That reaction might be like, does he not care? Like. Is he just leaving me to do this on my own? Do I have to do this on my own? And they might have a very different reaction of like abandonment or feeling abandoned. Not disrespected, but feeling abandoned. Right? Someone else might have the exact same situation and they might be sitting there with him at the back thinking, oh, thank goodness he's not talking to me.

He's doing his own thing. I don't have to babysit him. Whew. I get freedom back. You know, I have my time back. I can focus on this. So the point is, we all have different reactions. No trigger is the same for different people, and this means that your trigger, the things that upset you are a great vehicle for you to dig deep and explore.

What is a story in my head? What are the beliefs that I have around the situation? And that's going to point you to your own blind spots, right? So this woman, for example, her story was that she's being disrespected, that this guy's not listening to her, that he's not hearing her, and that she doesn't matter.[00:29:00] 

Is that actually true? Potentially not. The guy could have gone through a health crisis, been looking at his blood tests, reports on his phone. He could be really freaking out. The guy could be dealing with like financial stresses and having to be like figuring something out his phone. The guy could be thinking, I don't understand anything about cars and I don't wanna seem like an idiot, so I'm going to sit at the back and like not get involved.

It's pretty much nothing to do with her, for her own feelings of being disrespected or feeling unseen or feeling unheard or feeling like she doesn't matter. Are her wounds. They're her blind spots. They're her stories. They're the things that she needs to go and clear. 'cause until she's cleared those, she's going to find herself being in other situations, like guess what?

Her romantic relationship feeling, disrespected, unseen, unheard like she doesn't matter. And this will continue in her life until she identifies, you know what? I'm projecting this story onto the situation. The same vein kind of final example I give is I had another couple that I was working with and very similar situation.

Woman's telling me, you know, she's [00:30:00] so tired and frustrated of coming home after work and she's, you know, she's managing the kids and she works at the same time and she comes home, husband's already home from work and there's like toys everywhere. She gets so upset, so mad, and she's like, I tell him all the time, like, please tidy the toys away.

I really don't like clutter. I'm tired. I don't have capacity to do this. I just spend the morning with the kid and I'm going to work. I'm exhausted. Please put the toys away. And I'm like, well, she's really angry and upset about it. So I ask her, well, what? What does it mean for you? And she's like, well, it means that he's not listening to me.

He's disrespecting me. He doesn't hear me saying stuff. Right. Then I look at him and he's looking more and more defeated, and I ask him, well, what's going on for you? And he's like, she doesn't see how I'm helping her in other ways. She doesn't see that I bought her some flowers. She doesn't see that I got dinner ready.

So I feel really, I feel like really unloved. I feel really rejected here. Both of these are projections, right? They're both their individual interpretations of the event. Again, someone else might come in through that door and be like, wow, I can smell dinner [00:31:00] being made. There are flowers on the table. This guy really, really loves me.

Like he's really, really trying. Oh, and there's some toys in the floor. He probably didn't get round to it, or maybe he didn't even notice. Maybe this doesn't even see them, right? It's a very different response. So our triggers are fantastic cues to dig into our blind spots. And that's what we need to be clearing.

Otherwise, we're going to be projecting our stuff onto other people, onto our partners indefinitely, and getting ourselves far more upset and having far more loaded reactions than we need to have if we didn't have those triggers. Does that make sense? 

A hundred percent. And I had just a situation like this this week, and in my mind I was being courteous.

Giving room and respect. 

Katerina Polonska: Mm-hmm. 

But in my girlfriend's mind, I was being distant and mm-hmm. Like not, not connected, disconnected. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 

So for, we started dating, I got divorced about four years ago, and we started [00:32:00] dating shortly after that. Yeah. And for four years, my paradigm and mindset was when she has a friend over, give them space, let them have fun.

Like I was totally trying. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. To 

To give her time to hang out with her friend, not get in the way. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. But 

that was in my brain, this lie, and it dawned on me just this week when she had a friend over. Is that even what she wants? Mm-hmm. Because she had this disappointed look at her face. When I went to the porch, I went to the porch to smoke a cigar on work.

And then I asked her the next day, I'm like, Hey, I was trying to give you room with your friends. Is that what you want? And she's like, no. So after four years, I realized what I was doing outta love and respect was the exact opposite of what she wanted. So, tracking with what you're saying, I, I agree with it.

I think it's great. Yeah. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. I love that. I love that. It's exactly that, right? The thing we have to learn in relationships is that there is no objective reality. I. [00:33:00] My reality is going to be very different to your reality. And that's not a bad thing. That's just how the brain works. There are so many billion bits of data surrounding us at any given point that our brain cannot take it all in on a conscious level.

We literally go insane. There's just too much. So we have our own unique filters based on our childhood conditioning that decide what bits of data we're taking in, right? And so if you're walking around with beliefs from your childhood that you are going to be disrespected or abandoned or whatever it might be, because that was your experience as a child, and it kept happening and happening and happening.

And so filters developed. And then guess what? You get older. And because you're seeing world through these filters, you're taking in selective information to consolidate that view. And it starts to compound because you get more and more evidence that it's happening over and over and over again. And so in the end, you're walking around seeing the world this way, but it's not necessarily that way.

Wow. Somebody else from a very different worldview. 

So you just took this to an entirely new level For me. I, I saw the [00:34:00] problem and got it corrected. But you just went to the root cause. Yes. Yeah, as a child, it was like, we don't want you around. We have a better life without you. So that's what I've carried in.

Katerina Polonska: Ah, yeah. So you don't wanna be a burden, right? Like you don't wanna be in the way, you don't wanna be a burden. And so your worldview is like, well, I'm just going to put myself over here, give you space 'cause I don't wanna be a burden. 'cause that might be a wound of yours. And so you give her more space, her wound might be abandonment.

'cause guess what? We often tend to be attracted to our opposites. So she might have a wound around being left alone and being abandoned and being rejected. So she's walking around being like, everyone abandons me. Everyone rejects me. Everyone leaves me alone. I don't wanna be left alone. I wanna be connected.

Right? And so you two kind of come together and clash. You are giving her space in a loving way. She wants connection in a loving way, and then there's this kind of pushable dynamic of misunderstanding. 

Yeah. And that's interesting because I can say, honestly, we didn't have, so she's such a wonderful woman.

She's never like, to me, I want her to say, Hey, dummy. Don't do this. Right. I'm a guy. It's hard for me to connect dots sometimes. Yeah. [00:35:00] But she's been so patient and loving. I didn't recognize it. But if that kept going, whether it's a week, a year, or 10 years, at some point, that would blow up and be an argument.

So that's interesting that what you said is, again, our core beliefs affect our per paradigm today. And then how we're perceiving that we need to communicate with the other person and. And just work through it. So we're both living truth and and fulfilling each other. Not 

Katerina Polonska: absolutely. You know, 

the what, the road, I had good intentions, but the road to hell is pretty 

Katerina Polonska: good intentions.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. 

So, all right. All right, well let's get this back. So hopefully, ladies and gentlemen, you're getting also connections in your life. With what Kat's saying, and we're going to, at the end of the show, give you her name and Informa, not name, but her website information, how you can continue the conversation and connect with her.

But at this point, Kat, where are you today? What are you doing? And let's get dig into those romantic relationships and [00:36:00] that aspect. 

Katerina Polonska: Absolutely. So I kind of do three things these days. Number one, my bread and butter. What I really spend most of my time doing is actually working with people who are in a relationship, whether they're married or dating, and helping them kind of, I don't wanna say fix it, but.

Get really clear on whether they're in the right relationship, whether they need to stay or go. 'cause that's a really big question that I, I come across a lot. And if they're feeling stuck or they're feeling trapped or they're feeling unfulfilled in their relationship, I help them get clarity on, is this actually something that you are projecting, something that you are bringing to the dynamic?

Or is it actually the relationship itself is, it's not the right relationship for you. And very often these are people who are in their forties and fifties and sixties. They maybe got married in their twenties, and now they're kind of like, well, maybe I've outgrown my partner, or maybe my career's changed me.

And actually we've just gone separate ways. It could be that they just, [00:37:00] maybe they have just started dating and they're like, I don't wanna make mistakes again because I've been burned in love, and so I wanna be really, really clear that I'm with the right person and investing to the right person. But this kind of sense of uncertainty, I help them get that certainty.

The second thing that I do. As people who are single because maybe they were in that relationship they left. I help them find healthy love that they can be sure about. So help them find that right person. Very similar process, but different outcome, right? Or kind of the same outcome, I guess, but you'll finding the person.

And then the third thing I do, which is kind of the cool unsuspecting thing, I do this work in corporate environments as well, not about romantic love. About helping executives and CEOs and leadership teams get out of their own way so that they could, so that they can become truly high performing. What I heard a lot of is that as I was working with different CEOs and and csuite execs on their romantic lives, I.

I help them see just how much they're contributing to their own pain, [00:38:00] and I help them get rid of that, and I help them feel more peaceful, more calm, more confident. They would tell me, I wish you could get my co-founder to do this. I wish you could get my leadership to do this. It feels like I'm herding cats.

It feels like I'm babysitting the whole time because everyone's got their own dysfunction and you know, this person's over there having a panic attack. That person's over there like not wanting to deal with conflict. And so I come to companies and I, I do this at a corporate level as well, which is super fun.

And it still ends up often talking about the romantic side of things because it's all interconnected. So, 

yeah, I've never consult. I do a lot of marketing and sales coaching and consulting. Yeah. I've never once talked to an executive at any company where their personal life obviously didn't come up.

Yeah. And that's probably the majority of the norm, like Right. Their distractions at home are bleeding Absolutely. In their professional life. 

Katerina Polonska: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's human. 

That's absolutely, yeah. 

Katerina Polonska: So let 

me ask you a question then on I gotta put my glasses on. We talked about, you know, high performing people and identifying blind spots in our own life and, [00:39:00] you know, we look for those triggers and fixing it, but for people evaluating.

I do premise, I, I'm going to premise this. I take everything from a biblical worldview. Yeah. You may not, our listeners may not, but I believe once you're married, that's about a God, not even each other. And you stay married for life unless there's adultery and even then you try to fix it. Yeah. So that's the premise.

I don't want to be breaking marriages on the show. I don't want anything to do with that. Mm-hmm. But for people who are single and they're biblically able to continue on and look for a spouse to share life with. If they're in a relationship now that they're not sure with, do you have kind of like a checklist or a Yeah.

You know, what should we do to make sure I even commit to this relationship before I move into another horrible situation again? 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah, and I love that you say that, right? Because I've been through infidelity myself. I've been cheated on obviously my, my parents went through infidelity. I don't believe infidelity has to lead to the demise of a relationship.

I also subscribed to the belief that if you've been together for a couple of [00:40:00] years. The odds are that you are actually perfectly compatible and you can be together for life. The problem is our own stuff comes up and confuses us and prevents us from seeing the relationship clearly. It's almost like you are driving around with a dirty windshield and the windscreen wipers are broken, right?

The dirty windshield is all the stuff from your childhood, all the baggage, past relationships, and you can't see it and you dunno how to clear it. You think that it's clean, but it's not. We walk around like glasses that don't fit. So so much of my work is really about helping people, number one, take stock and get really honest and clear on how much of your pain and uncertainty and discomfort and the feelings of being stuck or feeling trapped or feeling anxious, feeling unfulfilled.

How much of that is actually. Because of your own patterns, your own stuff bubbling up and getting in the way, preventing you from seeing the relationship. Clearly, it's often not going to be a hundred percent that, right? But it's not going to be a hundred [00:41:00] percent the relationship either. It's going to be a combination of the two.

And we wanna get clear on like how, what's the ratio, what are we looking at here? Because the number one priority is for you to take ownership of your stuff and clean up your side of the street. So that you can look at your part and look at the relationship with a full, good, clear conscience of knowing.

I have done everything in my power to be my best self, to take ownership of my baggage, to clear out my blocks, to overcome my broken beliefs, and to make sure that I'm fully open, ready, and healthy to have healthy. Intimacy to have healthy love and I'm not getting in my own way. That's number one priority.

And I always say like, imagine if both of you did that. My goodness, we'd have so many fulfilling marriages out there, right? Very often the person's partner doesn't wanna do this work, and that's fine. You know, I don't do a lot of couples counseling because often you have one person dragging the other person in and there's a lot like this is intentional already.

One person, horrible. Done it. You don't need to do the [00:42:00] couple's work, right? This is one of my kinda more controversial beliefs. It takes one person to change the whole dynamic of the relationship. If you and I are in a relationship right now and I'm like coming at you and I'm screaming and I'm, I'm projecting my stuff and I'm getting really upset and I'm feeling really disrespected, you'd be reacting in a very different way to me.

But if I've owned my stuff and if I've taken, if I've cleared it out and I'm actually showing up in a really peaceful, really loving, really openhearted, really kind, really generous, secure way where I don't get rattled, I don't get that upset. I'm not like overly emotional, just in a loving way. You'd be responding to me in a very different way.

You'd view me in a very different light. So again, priority number one is like get your get, get your own stuff out of the way so that you can be the best person with yourself. And then step three is, okay, now that you know that you're doing this, let's take stock of what do you need to be happy long-term in this relationship, most people have no idea what they need.

They know what they want. They want the finances, they want the car, they want the house, the holidays, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's all superficial ego stuff I'm talking about like, what do you really need? [00:43:00] Right. When we talk about like love, what does love look like to you? When you talk about appreciation, what does that look like?

Like let's, let's get really granular on what do you need to be happy? What does freedom look like to you? What kind of commitment are you looking for? Like, what is the unique recipe for how you receive love? Yeah. 

And there's some, there's some universals that everybody needs. Yep. And there's a lot of, absolutely.

Katerina Polonska: Absolutely. But everyone will receive the universals in different ways, right? Yep. Like people like hearing different things, and so getting really clear and vulnerable with what are these different needs of yours, and then learning how to communicate and transmit that to your partner. So your partner has a roadmap to making you happy and vice versa.

That's really important. Again, most of us are kind of fumbling in the dark, making all these assumptions around what they need and what I need. And a lot of 'em are very egoic and superficial. Oh, she wants date nights. Oh, she wants a nice pair of shoes. She doesn't want the shoes, right? She doesn't want the flowers.

They don't mean anything. It's what, it's what lies beneath it. So let's just get clear on what's beneath that and focus on that. So there's kind of very science backed strategies that we can [00:44:00] apply to making your relationship better. But you can't do that until you've cleared out your own stuff, your own BS got clear on what you need, and then you can learn the different strategies.

Most people forget to clear out their own stuff, so they go to couples counseling or they read a book on love languages or whatever it might be, and they come in, you know, all bold with these different strategies, but they're blocked. They're carrying their baggage around. Yeah. So it's kind of pointless, right?

It doesn't work. It doesn't stick. So that's kinda the process. 

I don't know where I heard this before. It's exactly what you're saying. Not many pe Hold on, let me back up. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. 

A lot of people aren't saying what you're saying. Yes. But I think it's true. And somewhere along the line, I heard in the last 10 years exactly what you're saying.

It's like if you had your hands full with whether you like it or didn't like it, your, your hands are just full of groceries. Then somebody wants to give you a grocery bag full of golden diamonds. If your hands are full, you can't accept that [00:45:00] golden diamond. Yeah. So it's like you've gotta clear out your stuff so you can accept the gifts from God.

Katerina Polonska: Mm-hmm. And, 

and, okay, so now I. We talked about personal triggers and blind spots. We talked about evaluating if a relationship is the right relationship or not. But let's say we are with the right person. This is somebody we want to commit to. Yeah. And, and take it to the next level. What tips do you have for that type of relationship?

So you do have the romance and the intimacy isn't just sex like in America, especially all over the world, but. Americans are geared toward intimacy, equal sex. Yeah. That is not what intimacy is. So explain what real intimacy is and then how it does translate into the romantic side. 

Katerina Polonska: Hmm. Yeah. Great question.

Great question. I. So first thing I wanna say is, and I sound like a bit like a tics, I'm repeating myself, but own your blocks. Identify your blind spots. Identify your blockers. Clear those that you wanna be in a healthy, happy relationship and you wanna be the best partner. You have to take ownership over your side of the street.

And I always say to people, [00:46:00] just assume that you are 100% responsible for the relationship and what happens within it. Not saying you are, obviously it takes two to tango, but let's just run with that assumption. 'cause if you take on that mentality. Your life's going to be a lot easier 'cause you're going to be more empowered.

You're going to take more control, you're going to take more action, and you're going to stop blaming and be blaming the other person and whinging and being in a victim mindset. So just to assume that you're a hundred percent responsible, take ownership of your stuff, clear it out. The second thing is. Even as you're clearing it out.

'cause we're not looking for perfection here. We're not looking for two, you know, quote unquote, perfectly healed. People coming together that doesn't really exist, right? Everyone's going to have their own winding, everyone's going to have their own stuff. But real intimacy. So corny, but I love this idea is like into me, see, right?

Like into me, you see Intimacy's about letting another person see you and you seeing them. With your wounds, with your blocks, with your blind spots, with everything. And it's [00:47:00] about this kind of balance of you taking ownership of your side of the street, owning your stuff, and still letting yourself be seen throughout it, right?

And still allowing yourself be vulnerable whilst also taking responsibility of sharing what's true for you, of what you want, of what you need, of what you're scared of. Of what you're hoping for, what you're yearning for, while still taking ownership that, you know what? Even though I yearn from this for you, from from you, I'm going to do my best to give it to myself first.

So it's this kind of like delicate dance of sharing and being open and being transparent and being honest and being responsible. And I always say it drives me nuts. Like I recently went on to TikTok. I just thought I started my account there like a month ago. I literally want to pull my hair out when I read so much shockingly bad dating advice.

And it's not even a generational, and there's like tons of bad relationship advice out there, right About like don't, like, I think the worst one [00:48:00] I heard the other day was don't. As a woman, you don't wanna be too nice to the guy because if you're too nice to the guy, then he's going to think that you are low value and he is going to think that you're really easy and he is not going to wanna pursue you because you're being too nice to him.

And I'm like, under, under what sun? Is this a good idea? So basically the treat and mean, keep him keen idea, which I'm like, oh, so we're playing games now. Are we? We are hiding our true selves. We're playing games. We're role playing. We we're not being honest, we're not being authentic. That's a really healthy foundation for relationship, isn't it?

Fantastic. 

Terrible. I'm so happy you're saying that because Kat, that I agree wholeheartedly, right? I think our society as a whole is so superficial. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. And 

they've lied to themselves so long that when you're the person coming with truth. It's rejected by society as a whole and people are like, no, no, I want the superficial stuff.

'cause that's what everybody sees when the slow and steady core heart relationship and truth. Yeah. [00:49:00] Yeah. And like the Bible all over the Bible. But first John especially, it talks about bringing the truth into the light. Doesn't matter what it is, good, bad, or ugly, you bring the truth into the light. It's healthy and you heal.

Yeah. But these people, like you said, oh no, pretend this or fake that. That's all darkness and lies and deceit. Absolutely. And exactly what you said. Absolutely. You're starting your relationship in the darkness. That's unbiblical. So if you're a Christian listening to Cat. And you're being fake. Why? God knows the truth.

You know the truth? Absolutely. Why are you wasting everybody's time? Lying? Absolutely. And what, and you, this is your profession. How much damage does this cause years later and for generations to come? For sure. 'cause somebody couldn't tell the truth. 

Katerina Polonska: For sure. And the, the funny, the horrifying thing is.

Imagine if I'm walking around and I'm censoring myself to my partner, to someone I'm dating, and I'm like, and I, I used to do this. I'm like, rereading every text and I'm like, checking. I'm like, is this right? [00:50:00] Am I coming on too strong? Am I like being too nice? Am I, you know, holding back, reign it in? I'm like over analyzing and I'm, I'm basically performing right in this very clear, calculated way because I want to get a certain reaction outta them.

Not only am I being manipulative, quite frankly, I'm controlling the situation, quite frankly, I'm being disrespectful to them because I'm actually communicating. They're like, I don't trust you to handle my own truth. So that's not very nice. But I'm also on a subconscious level, communicating to myself internally that I am somehow unworthy of being myself, that I'm somehow not good enough to be authentic and to be myself.

That there's something wrong with me and I'm perpetuating this internal sense of shame. So then I'm actually degrading my self-esteem. I'm lowering my own confidence because I'm trying to be something that I'm not. And I always say, if you look at any healthy, happy, secure couple who have been married, and you ask 'em, how did you two meet?

They're not going to say, oh, you know, we, we didn't text him for three days and then we played [00:51:00] these games and we did this. And it is all, no, it is probably going to be like, yeah, we stumbled upon each other and we. Just kind of gushed over how much we like each other and we were honest and transparent and rest is history.

Right? And if you ask a healthy, happy couple, like how do you navigate your relationship? What's the secret to, and they're like, we're just being honest with each other. Being kind, being generous, benefit with the doubt, owning our stuff. But it's about being transparent. Stop being honest. 

Yeah. I, I know this sounds ridiculous and I don't wanna encourage people to delinquency and, and sin and, and.

Basically breaking the law. But I even think about, you know, historic couples throughout history that were famous for being evil. But man, they were two peas in a pod together, right? They were, whether it was good or bad, they were equally yoked and they were the, the, the, what's that term people ride or die, you know, they went to the end and even though they did everything wrong in their life and it was a terrible life, [00:52:00] they really could find that relationship with each other because they had.

Truth and honesty. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. 

So even though they were out of their mind, like, you know, Bonnie and Clyde, right? They're, they're killing people and robbing banks. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. Don't do that. 

Yeah, don't do that. But what I'm saying is they, they supposedly were in love and did it till they died. But let's use that for good.

Right? Let's be honest and real and transparent and. And have that solid foundation. So what do you recommend for people who are in a relationship to establish you've, they've already maybe gotten these habits, they've already gotten these bad reactionary habits. How do you recommend breaking that?

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. The more, this is where you need a bit of discipline, right? And discipline is one of those traits that is, it's not bulletproof, but the more that you can apply it, the better your life and relationships will be. There's something here about, I'm a big fan of taking [00:53:00] inventory and doing a bit of an audit, right?

As much as people hate the word, can you take stock honestly with yourself of where in your romantic relationship are you holding yourself back? Where are you denying your partner your truth? Is it about something that they're doing? Is it about how you're feeling about something? Is it a fear that you have?

Is it something that you need? And just taking an honest review of, if I was to even be 1% more open and transparent, what would that be? What would I maybe say? And then go and learn some good communication scripts. There are tons out there. I teach 'em to my clients. Learn to just begin to kind of inch forward and step into a little bit of vulnerability and share these things because I'm willing to bet if you share them in a kind and generous way without accusation, without pointing a finger and blaming them, but in a generous way, it's going to be well received.

Right? There might be a little bit of [00:54:00] tension and prickliness as your partner kind of adjusts to this new version of you, but nine times out of 10. Over time, once the dust settles, your truth will be well received. And it really is all about the communication, which is why communication is such a powerful thing to learn, a skill to learn.

But it's, it's almost less about the communication strategy and more about can you communicate this in a generous and kind and loving way. That's really the energy, right? Like my first ever relationship coach, I remember she was teaching me so much from my first engagement about the difference between communicating from my heart and literally putting my energy and attention into my heart as I'm saying something that could be a bit loaded versus saying it from my head.

'cause from my head it can be like kind of combative and very logical and very rational. Saying it from my heart, I'm likely going to slow down. I'm going to be a bit more grounded. I'm going to soften my voice. I'm already going to be in a, in a lens [00:55:00] of kindness, in a lens of love. And from that space, it's much easier for the other person to hear you.

But the key thing is like getting honest with yourself in the first place about where am I holding back my truth? Where am I not being honest? 

Yeah, I think that's excellent. I do have one question for you though. Mm-hmm. So when I grew up. I remember like older couples and they'd, and they'd go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and they would, people would perceive as arguing.

Now, I grew up outside of Boston. Mm-hmm. A lot of it, like my whole neighborhood was Italian, Portuguese, right. Yeah. A little bit of Irish and then people, I was first generation American, my friends were, but everybody else was from Italy. From Portugal. Hmm. From Ireland. Right. But they go, ba, ba b, ba B, B, ba B.

And then at the end they'd laugh and they, they loved each other. Mm. It was true love, but there was that cultural difference. So I'm not saying I disagree with you, but I will say there's different cultures where, you know, they might just be like, what don't you do? Ba blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And at end they're like, it's like [00:56:00] charming almost.

Yeah. So, or am I just totally misfired? Like that's, that's something I grew up, I remember watching like. Mary and Gui Mary. And Guido bony, right? Yeah, yeah, 

Katerina Polonska: yeah. In her 

eighties, and she died over a hundred years old. He died first, but she would yell at him all the time to stop eating chocolate and candy bars.

'cause he had diabetes. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. 

But he'd be on the street and he'd be like, Hey guys, come here. And he'd give us cash. He's like, go get me a Snickers and m and ms. And then you buy whatever else you want with the rest. So we go get 'em contraband Snickers bars and give it to him, and then she'd yell at him.

She'd yell at us, but she loved them. Yeah. So how do you process that? Because I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, but are there cultural differences? 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I'm, I'm not from the uk. I mean, I, I was raised there and I've lived in Italy, I've lived in Spain, I've lived in Brazil, I've lived in Dubai, I've lived all over.

Definitely there are cultural differences. I think the language of softness and kindness is a universal language because even if, I mean, my experience was Greek, right? So that's like another whole [00:57:00] culture there. Even if we are thinking about the most kind of emotional, dramatic, I mean you do you right?

If it works for you both and you both understand the subtext and you both understand the energy. Go nuts. Like my husband is not from Canada and I know we had some cultural differences 'cause he's very animated when he speaks and his arms will be flailing. And coming from, from where I'm from, I was like, oh, this is a little bit scary.

Like, he's like coming at me, right? And he's like, no, no, I'm not coming at you. I'm just very excited. So I think absolutely, if there's a common shared language, a common shared culture, go nuts, have fun, work with what you've got, but you both need to be on the same page. And the language you're kind of softening and slowing down and speaking from your heart is just universal.

And there is still a difference between yelling at someone from the head and kind of being like, bam, bam, bam. Like, don't do this. And yelling at someone from the heart. Right. Where there's a, a different tone to It's different energy to it. Yeah. Once more [00:58:00] critical one's, more like, Hey, I love you. Like, please don't eat the Snickers and kill yourself prematurely.

Like, I need you. Right. 

Yeah. 

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. 

All right, awesome. Well, it's been great speak. I know you have another engagement, Kat, so I don't wanna manipulate your time. But between your birth and today, is there anything else we missed or anything you want to finish that we, you know, I might have shifted gears on you and I apologize, or is there any other final thoughts you wanna leave with our audience before we go to where you're headed next and how our audience can connect?

Katerina Polonska: Yeah. Oh, so much, so much. There's a lot to pack in, in, in decades of life. But I think the one more final thing that I'll, I wanna leave the audience with is if you're someone who's been doing a lot of therapy, a lot of counseling, a lot of reading, you know, you're like, oh, I've read all these books and I'm still struggling with my relationship, then know that you are not alone and it's not your fault.

The reason that you are struggling with a lot of these kind of talking, reading, more rational modalities. Because the [00:59:00] bulk of your relational experience lives in your subconscious and your subconscious mind is 95 to 97% of what runs a show, of what creates a reality, where your beliefs, thoughts, traumas, your personality is really lodged and reading, listening to staff, talking to a therapist, you don't really go into the subconscious.

Subconscious will inform what comes up. But you're not changing the subconscious. To change the subconscious, to actually get in there and change the stuff that really makes your relationships. You need deeper, more subconscious mind techniques, right? That's why like hypnotherapy is so powerful. A lot of the work that I do is rooted in subconscious mind.

Talking about it alone won't get you that change. So that's why a lot of people, myself included, can do therapy for 15 years, talk about it, feel like they know all these incredible things, but then still struggle. It's because, well, we haven't gone deep enough. So go deep. Go deep. It doesn't have to be hard.

It's not scary. You can do it quite quickly, but go deep. 

Excellent, [01:00:00] excellent. And I agree. Again, I think it's biblical to get to the root cause. Yes. Rip out the root and then all the symptoms go away. Yeah, don't just treat the symptoms. 

Katerina Polonska: Absolutely. 

All right, Katerina. So now if someone wants to get ahold of you and continue the conversation, what's the best way for people to reach you?

Katerina Polonska: Yeah, absolutely. So I tend to hang out on LinkedIn of all places. That is where I have all my clients, well, not all, but most of my clients. I'm in there in the dm, so find me on LinkedIn. I'm Katina Polanski. I just do a search for me. You can also find me on Instagram and TikTok, Karin Polanski or YouTube.

Lanka or or just find my website www do K-A-T-A-R-I-N-A-P-O-L-O-N-S-K-A katherine lanka.com. So just type in my name and whatever medium you want to reach out to, reach out. I have a free 20 minute masterclass as well that you might enjoy. You can find that on my website and yeah, reach out. I'd love to hear from you.

Awesome. And ladies and gentlemen, as always, we'll put links to Katerina's info in the show notes. So whether you're listening [01:01:00] to your favorite podcast player, whether you're on our website, whether you are on a friend's website, Katerina's website, check out our show notes. You can get all the links right there.

Connect with Katerina and man, I've really enjoyed our time today. A lot of people that I've spoken with throughout 48 years of life. They give relationship advice and I'm like, eh, that's not biblical. Yeah. And what we talked about today, at least within this confine of this conversation, I think it was solid.

I think it's practical. I think it's biblically accurate, and I think it can help a lot of people. So thank you Kat, for being with us today. I. 

Katerina Polonska: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it. 

Yes. And ladies and gentlemen, this is a sensitive topic. So if you go to your spouse or your, your, you know, significant other, or if you forward this to a friend, they may need it, you may need it, but just be delicate in the delivery, right?

Yeah. Because this is a great episode. Please share it, help yourself, help your friends and family. But Kat, how do you recommend they share a link to [01:02:00] a episode on relationships and intimacy without offending someone so they don't listen? I. 

Katerina Polonska: I think the best way of doing it is, you know, share the link and say something along the lines of, Hey, this is an area that I've not really seen talked about much, especially in the context of successful, smart people like yourself and relationships.

And did you know your romantic relationship is going to be the biggest indicator on your longevity, on your happiness overall? I think that kind of the, the interesting counterfactual is like this, this place between successful people. Relationships. Right. As opposed to, oh, just let's talk about how your love life sucks.

Like, don't do that. 

Exactly. Exactly. So give them a 

Katerina Polonska: compliment. Yeah. 

All right. We could go on. I'd enjoy going on. Maybe we have you back for a future episode, but Katrine's going to go. So we're going to wrap this episode up, ladies and gentlemen. Like our slogan says, don't just listen to this great content, but do it.

Repeat the good each day so you can have a great life in this world, but most [01:03:00] importantly, an attorney to come. So, I'm David. This was Katerina. We love you. Thanks for being here, and we'll see you in the next episode. Ciao. 

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