Malcolm Stern: 0:47

Hello, so welcome to Slay your Dragons with Compassion podcast. I'm Malcolm Stern and I've been running these now since last November, and I'm having a variety of interesting guests who are exploring what are the obstacles they've had to overcome in order to be who they are. I'm doing this in conjunction with my friends at online events, who I'm very grateful for, and for our wonderful sound engineer, erwin, who's recording all of these, and we're creating a sort of like a library, really, of people's experiences and how they've emerged, evolved and come through. So today I'm very happy to welcome my guest, agata, and she has led a fascinating life because she started off life in Poland under a communist regime, so maybe we'll start there and then we'll take a look at how your life's evolved and what you've become and what you've been overcoming and what you do, so welcome.

Agata Krajewska: 1:46

Thank you, malcolm. Thank you, it's exciting to be here with you. Thank you for having me Right. So yeah, I was born in 1977 in Poland, which means that I was growing up in the later phase of the communism, and then I was 12 when the Berlin wall came down.

Agata Krajewska: 2:19

So it was kind of, you know, being a witness to a historical change and I was growing up in this really weird environment, or leftovers of the weird environment of the Stalin regime and occupation of Poland. Well, of course, it wasn't official, but that's how it kind of worked. And yeah, there was a lot of curiosity about how people lived in communism. You know, it was like there was two realities. One was of what officially was true and then how actually things were. Like you couldn't be true, you had to hide things and everybody was doing things, you know, under underground. And then then we had this, you know, revolution of capitalism that was going to save everybody, capitalism that was going to save everybody. And then I was kind of led into it in my teens, where I'm just going to sail into the sunset because now we have advertising and business and freedom.

Malcolm Stern: 3:22

So at 12 years old, when the Berlin Wall came down, did you feel a sort of like a sense of hope that something amazing was happening, that the world was going to change what happened for you as a 12-year-old?

Agata Krajewska: 3:38

I mean, in actuality, the change that was happening politically in Poland was much more gradual, and Poland is that kind of in-between place. You know, it's a meeting of East and West, so we were always most influenced by the West among the Eastern Bloc. So I feel like the hope was already coming earlier. There was always this looking to the west. You know, um, when I was maybe nine or ten, if somebody was with somebody, traveled abroad and then brought some souvenirs, it was always this sense of, oh, that's what they have in the west. And you know, we had this, the shop, a special shop where you could buy things with dollars that had western things.

Agata Krajewska: 4:36

Um, I don't know if it was. It was a sense of. There was a sense of something, something new was happening. Um, and still, I suppose I was just a young person wanting to, you know, be alive, have some sun. Well, I was growing up in quite a small town, which was a blessing in terms of the community. But becoming a teenager, you know I wanted a wider pond teenager. You know I wanted a wider pond. So I was interested in rave parties by the time I was 14 and I thought we're going to save the world by bringing rave to the west. In fact, that's what I was involved in yes, djs from London when I was 15.

Malcolm Stern: 5:26

That's great, in fact, what you've. You've effectively done your own version of that now, because you've now brought theatre, your own version of theatre, which is the work that you do. So perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that. And, because I'm really interested, it's a theatre of consciousness, so what does that actually mean?

Agata Krajewska: 5:44

Yeah, theatre of awakening.

Malcolm Stern: 5:47

Awakening. Sorry, yes, that's right.

Agata Krajewska: 5:51

So it's using the setup, the medium of theatre, which to me means being witnessed in our expression, using that setup of theatre as a way of awakening to who we are and transformation. And I see the audience or the witnesses as representing awareness and the player actor as representing human experience. So people play out their stories or their inner life and they are received by the audience in a particular way. I kind of guide the audience also how to receive. So that's kind of a nutshell, but it involves a lot of practices and particular themes that I work with.

Malcolm Stern: 6:50

So that's an area that's quite close to my heart as well and particular themes that I work with so that's an area that's quite close to my heart as well is of the audience aren't just a bunch of witnesses of what's going on, they're part of it. I remember going to see theater in the round out, in the wilds and in the woods and feeling like as an audience member. I was part of the theater and that was very exciting. And I think what you're describing also is close to it, because my work is mainly as a psychodramatist a drama in therapy groups, and it sounds like you have something similar there as well. So how does that function? How does that operate?

Agata Krajewska: 7:29

You mean, how is it set up?

Malcolm Stern: 7:34

Yeah, how is it set up?

Agata Krajewska: 7:34

So the's it set up, so the audience will come. What are they coming to? Um, so, generally, uh, there'll be two forms. One is closed groups, uh, so then the audience is uh always the same group, uh, and then people have time to solo and they solo in response to all kinds of stimulations, and we often have a group on a particular theme, so it could be, for example, just menopausal women or people with particular kind of experiences, and then you get a kind of social patchwork of different points of view on that experience through these individuals, and I just set up a space for people to improvise in a really safe way. So I do a lot of embodiment work and meditation and inquiry until they're ready you know, they're almost in a kind of shamanic state by then to actually just allow something to unfold, and then once in a while, I open it to the community and then people come to an event that is usually based on some kind of autobiographical stories and people are witnessed in their life stories, very much like what you're doing in your podcast.

Malcolm Stern: 9:01

Yes.

Agata Krajewska: 9:02

Yeah, it's about, and it's very much. The theme is about, you know, overcoming a difficulty to develop a gift. So this is what our performance are about usually.

Malcolm Stern: 9:15

That's interesting because that feels very parallel to what we're doing, because it's like what I'm basically what I've written about in the podcast called Slay your Dragons after my book Slay your Dragons with Compassion and what I've written about is how adversity is actually a key to becoming. We don't seek it, but it actually has its way with us. So you've presumably had some adversities in your life that have led you in this direction, and perhaps you'd be open to sharing some of those with us.

Agata Krajewska: 9:46

Absolutely, Absolutely. I feel strangely. It's a strange thing to say maybe, but I feel honoured by all the difficulties that I've encountered.

Malcolm Stern: 9:57

I totally get that yes.

Agata Krajewska: 10:00

And in a way, this is what enables me to sit with people and I feel, really, what's the word, what's the word? You know, I feel I never feel overly disturbed by whatever story I receive. I mean, in some sense, I feel, and I will get to the adversity, but just to say, to kind of start, at the end, you know, I feel that there is some kind of deeper place of compassion that takes me over when I'm listening to people's stories and I have this sense of, you know, whatever benevolent power we relate to, that that power doesn't see anything as wrong, you know, and kind of loves us in our deepest pain. And I often feel that when I'm witnessing people, but it, yeah, it required me personally relating to a lot of pain and I, you know, the first thing is that I actually remember incarnating. I actually remember incarnating. I actually remember and I have kind of retrieved it in various rebirthing settings and so on, perinatal work. I remember that sense of coming to earth, with a sense of wow, this is, you know, this is going to be amazing all this love to give, and literally remember a sense of somehow having an experience of already in the body.

Agata Krajewska: 11:45

Was it in the womb? I don't know, was it the birth? And having this daunting realization of what have I done and really wanting out, decide, you know, wanting no, you know I don't want to do this. Actually, this human thing, this is going to be horrendous. And and that was the beginning, you know, my birth was was very, very difficult. I nearly withdrew, as I remembered, you know I nearly died, and then my mother was under general anesthetic and then I was taken out with the c-section into a very cold room, you know, and not taken into the breast. And we know how important these moments are, yes, and that you know that was an imprint of coming into a very cold, unloving world, uh, and not being welcomed, and one of the things that I love to offer to people is that the deepest welcome that I can that I can give them, you know yes, that's lovely.

Malcolm Stern: 12:55

I hear lots of similarities with the work that you do in the work that I do. So that of almost like bringing something through.

Malcolm Stern: 13:02

When you're in the role of facilitation, something comes through you and it's no longer this little sort of agonized mass of flesh and bones that goes through its day with all the stuff, but somehow we become bigger and something is able to happen as a result of it.

Malcolm Stern: 13:19

And, as you said, I think this is really important we can't really do the work unless we've been through the work ourselves, and I remember being told early on that you can only be as good a therapist as the work you've prepared to do on yourself. And so when I lost my daughter to suicide in 2014, my work deepened. I didn't go, oh good, I've had some difficult experience, now I'll take it into my work and it'll deepen. But it's almost like I grew something else in me, and so, clearly, something of things have happened for you that have grown your work. And right at the off, right at the off, you've got your birth, which is traumatic, started. Right at the off, you'd right at the off, you've got your, your birth, which is traumatic, and instead of coming into this, this, this realm of love and and beauty, it was like, oh, there's suffering here, so tell us more about that.

Agata Krajewska: 14:10

Yes, yeah, yeah, and I mean that's the you know and this is, this is what we're swimming in, this possibility of, of love and the suffering that is ever, ever deepening really, and we know it on the personal and collective level. Yeah, I mean, I could you know there is a, there is a list of events. Um, I think I would need to kind of maybe just go sort of broad strokes around my growing up experience. There was a lot of. I have a lot of medical trauma, so then again I had meningitis when I nearly died and then grew up in a domestic violence situation, and then the first really strong experience well, they were all strong, but I feel a very formative experience was an operation on my spine at 14, where I lost my mobility and had to lie down in a cast for a year and then had to relearn to walk and experienced a kind of physical pain that I hope nobody has to experience. You know, I was constantly on morphine and still could not, you know, could not really bear it, and that was at 14.

Malcolm Stern: 15:39

You know, which is that kind of threshold, and to be confronted with so much uh, constriction and suffering that early, you know, was not an easy thing, definitely um you know, you've told it in a very sort of level way and I noticed the shock arising in me a whole year in a cast, in terrible pain, with morphine, which would be messing with your brain as well, with your experiences, and you spent a whole year. How were you in that year? Were you rebellious, were you angry, were you upset, were you frightened?

Agata Krajewska: 16:20

Well, I wasn't on morphine for the whole year. That would be quite intense. It was more in the beginning stages. I mean I was in pain, you know, psychologically. I mean I was already unhappy because I didn't feel supported by my family of origins and that was kind of going on next door. I mean mainly I was kind of gritting my teeth, waiting for it to be over and just hoping to longing for freedom. I mean I felt very, very trapped because I was. I mean I was, after being transferred from the hospital, I was at my home in that cast, um and um, I was a quite a rebellious teenager.

Agata Krajewska: 17:22

So I was already smoking cigarettes before the operation. So I did have a little stash of cigarettes under the bed and I remember smoking at night and interestingly, I mean this is this is a sort of fun fact to share really, after being immobilized I then was allowed to walk and I was still in the cast and I was attending parties in that cast. I remember going to a punk concert and going into a pogo dance and kind of getting quite a lot of space around me after people bumped into my cast. And also I had a boyfriend who I loved very much and was together with for almost a year, was together with for almost a year and actually I lost my virginity in that cast with him under a tree very happily. So there you go. Everything is kind of woven with pain and pleasure.

Malcolm Stern: 18:35

Yes, and how did people respond to you? So here's a 14 14 year old girl in the cast. You know, and and um, is that? There's a saying that difference, different, is dead. When you're growing up and as a school, were you, did you find yourself mocked or did you find yourself undermined?

Agata Krajewska: 18:54

yeah, it was pretty awful. I mean, I was 15 by the time I was out, you know, in the world, in the cast, and I was just changing schools, because in Poland you start a secondary school at 15. So that's awful. Entering a new school, I looked like a rugby player because the cast was underneath my clothes and I had no breasts. Yeah, I was pretty. You know, I was pretty shut down, I mean, I was basically playing it tough.

Agata Krajewska: 19:26

What it created in me was, I suppose, some kind of psychological cast to begin with, you know, a very harsh exterior and a kind of I'm going to make it through anyway, whatever. So I didn't feel directly mocked, but I definitely got some strange looks. And when the cast was off, I was very much into using my budding sexuality and my feminine form to assert my power and to be seen. Um, and I was, you know, I was in love with dancing, so I then got into rave movement and the recreational drug use that comes with it, you know, to drown my pain. But also it was a response to that sense of being trapped for so long and just longing to express and move and be free and appreciating that I can.

Malcolm Stern: 20:36

Yes, you started off with quite a lot of adversity in your life, and then you managed to move from Poland to the West. How old were you when that happened?

Agata Krajewska: 20:48

I was 20. And that was yeah, that was a kind of an adventure, something that happened, you know, pretty much by fate, some strange fate. I mean, you know, in those years, in my teenage years, when I was experimenting with drugs, I got more and more unhappy. I want to share a little story here that I think is significant. I want to share a little story here that I think is significant Because that operation, coupled with lack of support in my family of origin and the fear I experienced from the domestic violence, meant that I was desperate to find something and in those teenage years I was looking for that something through consciousness-altering experiences and love and sex and basically, by the age of was it 18, 19, I felt like there was nothing left for me.

Agata Krajewska: 22:10

The post-communist Poland was all centered around money and I considered myself an artistic soul and there was nowhere for me to go. It's like career in banking was the peak of achievement and I certainly didn't get happy through having boyfriends and, you know, dancing on ecstasy. And one night, um, at I think I was about 19 uh, I actually was facing into taking my own life and I remember that night, uh, where I, you know, I was sleepless from the from the amphetamines I was taking, and I went to the bathroom in my parents house, yeah, literally, you know, with a razor in my hand, kind of feeling this is the end of the road, there's nothing in this world. There, you know, I've seen, I've sought and there's nothing left. And I was looking in the mirror, uh, into my own eyes, and, um, in that moment I had the awakening to my true self.

Agata Krajewska: 23:30

As I was looking into my eyes and seeing this, you know, terribly tired and terribly unhappy, completely helpless person, I saw consciousness, you know, streaming through my eyes and I heard a voice basically saying I'm here and I was always here and I was never hurt. And that was it. And in that moment I stopped taking drugs from one day to the next and I decided I was going to go to England. And it was like it was. It was a threshold moment and also a moment of realizing that, you know, we are more than all of our experience and I feel that's that that being, you know, that spirit, god, whatever you want to call it, has been what's been my support ever since, because my adversity didn't quite end at 19.

Malcolm Stern: 24:31

it's funny, you know, because I've heard this a lot of times with people where I've because I run groups, so I'm hearing people's stories all the time and also with the podcasts. But at the very point where you've gone to the edge of possibilities and you can't bear it anymore, something happens and and um, and you get guys. Now you can't plan it because it doesn't work that way. But actually you were in effect rescued by consciousness and so something changed, and it sounds like it changed forever as well.

Agata Krajewska: 25:07

Yeah.

Malcolm Stern: 25:07

So then your life took a different slant and you came to England. And what did you do in England? What made your life there?

Agata Krajewska: 25:16

well, you know what the amazing thing is? Um, so I came to England following an address on a piece of paper. Then a person I hardly knew gave to me. It was literally that kind of you know, mythical, magical intervention. I I was basically saying, oh, I want to learn english because, coming from poland, speaking english was everything. It was your ticket to, to the future yeah so that's all I knew learn english.

Agata Krajewska: 25:48

Uh and um, this person gave me the address. They said oh yeah, this is a school in England, you go there. So I've written to the school. Now, interestingly, the school was not just any school. The school was Emerson College in Forest Row, which is a center for, you know, anthroposophy and creativity. It's an adult education place that is very, very wholesome and you know anthroposophy and creativity. It's an adult education place that is very, very wholesome and you know, philosophical and spiritual. So, of all places, I ended up there, initially working in the garden, and then managed to enrol as a student and ended up living in Forest Row. I didn't go to England, thinking I'm going forever.

Malcolm Stern: 26:34

I came for two months and just never came back yes, and I mean Forest Row is beautiful and Emerson College is beautiful. I've run lots of groups there in many years ago, but there is something very lovely about it. So you found yourself in from having been in an abusive home environment.

Agata Krajewska: 26:51

Were you also abused, or was it was it just your mother, or uh yeah, luckily I wasn't physically abused, but I witnessed it and there was just a lot of unsafety and unrest, you know, as well as holding from extended family and my mother. So it wasn't all.

Malcolm Stern: 27:11

I don't want to paint it all black, but it was a significant part of it and it was a fairly unawakened environment and it's really interesting that you've you've talked about theater, of awakening, and actually what you found yourself in was an environment and I know Emerson College well in an environment that's absolutely as conscious as any I know in the UK. There's something very lovely about it and so something was helping you, it feels, to find your way.

Agata Krajewska: 27:41

Yes, I believe, so I believe, and you really, yeah, you really spotted that contrast. I felt like the first 20 years of my life were a lot of darkness, you know, with rays of light here and there, and then some kind of a hand kind of transported me into this healing environment that Emerson and Forestrow is, you know, and anthroposophy is so, so soft and so holding, you know, you've got all the wool and all the wood around you and I felt like that was the healing time for me. You know, I lived there for seven years and done a lot of training there, not just in in emerson at the time, and at emerson um and you know, had my own, yeah, serious tribulations, because, of course, if you come from from trauma, you're going to take your trauma with you exactly yeah what took you towards theater.

Malcolm Stern: 28:42

So theater is obviously the thing that's actually really been profound for you and is a place where it's almost like we sometimes, if we we're really on the, our radars peeled to find the environment which, um, the the um psychotherapist james hillman talks about each of each of us have within us a diamond d-a-e-m-o-n, and that diamond will drive us nuts till we do what it is we were meant to do with this one wild and precious life, and what I'm hearing is that something drew you towards clearly a place where you can actually be fully who you are, and that's yes yes, malcolm, I really wonder about that.

Agata Krajewska: 29:19

You know, there is this the whole kind of nature versus nurture and, and I feel like there is something I came in with around the theatre. For example, when I was a child, at six or seven, I said to my mum, she told me that I wanted to be a director, even though we never ever came across anything to do with directing, I don't know even where. You know it was something she found. And then I found, and then I found, and, and from the age of like 12, 13, I was organizing groups for younger children and organizing adventures for them and and workshops, almost, you know, um, it's, it's something that was already there. So, yeah, when I was at Emerson, just through connections, I came across um Rose Theatre. Um, I don't know if you heard of it. I mean there is, you know there was. There was a school of storytelling, there was quite a lot going on there. So I ended up after a year at Emerson, I ended up going to a speech and drama school in East Grinstead. So it was a kind of natural progression.

Malcolm Stern: 30:39

Yes.

Agata Krajewska: 30:40

And. But after two years of doing the speech and drama I kind of got bored because it was quite prescribed and quite on the speech side of things and a bit stinary, you know know, which I can appreciate but also found limiting. So again there was this kind of moment of chance where I just spoke to somebody who was part of the Rose Theatre and I said, hey, I'm in this speech and drama school but I'm not really thriving there. Can I just come and join you and like, in that moment they were missing the one person and I just jumped right into a you know already arranged European tour and spend a year touring with Rose Theatre Company as a, as an actress and member of the team, kind of doing anything that was needed, and at the same time it was the same time actually, so I was about 22, 23 then actually the director of that play, who you might know, do you know? Duncan McIntosh.

Malcolm Stern: 31:50

I do yes.

Agata Krajewska: 31:51

Yeah Well, he is very much into spiritual awakening. I do. Yes, when the Power of Now was published, and you know there was a whole movement of this direct awakening path. So these things came into my life at the same time. And again, there was an awakening moment in Fyndhorn where we performed as the Rose Theatre and at the same time they had a visiting spiritual teacher and he was doing a satsang. He spoke to me and he kind of said to me like hello, are you here? What would happen if you were fully here? And I had another awakening experience. So somehow these things came into my life at the same time and it's in my collaboration with Duncan at the time as well, who was doing that kind of awakening through witnessing.

Malcolm Stern: 32:59

it all came together and I can't now separate them yes, and now you feel like you've found your lifetime path. It's a bit like finding a lifetime partner, isn't it that you found the path that fits? I knew the first time I walked into a therapy group, that was my path. I thought this is crazy. I don't even know what this is even, but something in me knew, and I'm hearing that something in you has always moved towards that theatrical experience, that possibility of creating transformation through theatre. And so, right now, where's your cutting edge with that?

Agata Krajewska: 33:32

right now, yeah, it's true, malcolm, but it always has been theatre and healing and in fact I had to be taken away from that path of theatre because of my illness. So I have gone on that tour with the Rose and by the time the tour was over was a wreck physically and I had to actually devote myself to my own healing. So I had a break in the work with theater for several years. I was training as a play therapist whilst in fact just healing my inner child. That was what was really going on. And also I was working as a kinesiologist and collaborating with various healers. I mean, I don't know about you, but I you know. It's like, under the guise of training, I was basically healing myself. And then I came go on.

Malcolm Stern: 34:37

No, I think that that's actually you know, that you've hit the nail right on the head there, that the healing happens almost as a byproduct of what we're doing, that actually we fit into the right thing, we meet the right people and then the healing process can take place. So I hear you've dealt with a lot of ill health in you. You know, a year at 14, being immobilized, um, and also meningitis, other things you've mentioned. So you don't have ill health. What's your health like now?

Agata Krajewska: 35:06

well, this has been one of my initiatory paths. My health is still a challenge, basically. Basically, I have lived with chronic health symptoms since about the age of maybe 23.

Malcolm Stern: 35:24

Right.

Agata Krajewska: 35:25

But I feel like this has been such a cauldron for me. So all of these experiences, you know, they've taught me about surrender and the importance of rest and listening to the body, um, so this is now the core of my work is working from the, from the feminine principle, from, from the principle of yin, deeply rooted in in surrender and in slowing down and allowing the life force to come from the darkness, from the rotting. That's sort of in a nutshell, you know, because I'm now 47, so we're talking of, you know, something like 25 years of chronic ill health, whilst I've been still offering my gift. So this is, you know, I'm not afraid to work with vulnerable people because, um being incredibly vulnerable.

Agata Krajewska: 36:22

Yes, yes, yeah, and I feel very strong in that. You know it's like a strength that comes from being broken down, so you don't have that much to lose really yes, it reminds me of bob dylan line when you ain't got nothing, you ain't got nothing to lose.

Malcolm Stern: 36:38

so it's um. So we're coming towards the end of our podcast and I've really enjoyed the, the dialogue with you, and the question I ask people at the end of the of the of the of the dialogues is um, what's the dragon you've had to slay because, I mean, we're not talking about violence towards lovely cuddly animals, and what about what? What's the dragon you've had to slay Because, I mean, we're not talking about violence towards lovely cuddly animals and what is the thing you've had to overcome in order to be who you are?

Agata Krajewska: 37:05

Hmm, Perhaps the dragon would be a message that this is not enough. The drive to, yeah, the drive to be bigger, the drive you know it's a counter-cultural, but yeah, I would say the dragon is a message that this is not it. Because it is it, and I feel so grateful and so happy for everything in my life because it is it, but that insidious message that this is not it, this is not enough, that's the dragon I think when I met you, uh, recently, what I noticed in you was that you are, you are actually very embodied.

Malcolm Stern: 38:04

It does feel like you actually. You are in your body, you're in your experience and and I think that that takes quite a lot of work to get to that place as well, and you've had your body shaken and battered along the way. So you've done a lot, you're doing a lot, and long may it last, and it's really lovely to be with you.

Agata Krajewska: 38:25

Thank you, and you know that's the gift of. It can be a gift of illness to really come into the body, into the body. So I just hope that whatever I shared with you can give heart to people who are in, have, you know, meeting similar, similar circumstances to the ones I've described I think that's absolutely right.

Malcolm Stern: 38:46

I think it will touch people, I think also that moment of getting to the point where you can't bear life anymore and somehow, somehow life turns you around. I know Eckhart Tolle. You mentioned the Power of Now. He was at the point of being suicidal and then suddenly it's like the world changed for him and I think that our trials are actually moulding and shaping us and I can see that you've been shaped a lot in your still reasonably young life. I look at you and go, oh, I remember those days, but thank you so much for sharing so openly and honestly.

Agata Krajewska: 39:21

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me and thank you for your beautiful invitation throughout our dialogue and your listening. It's a pleasure.

Malcolm Stern: 39:31

Thank you, Agata Beautiful.

Agata Krajewska: 39:32

Thank you, take care.