In this interview, host Alexandra Niel welcomes guest Jadwiga Kataldo, a Polish‑born healer now living in the mountains of North Carolina. Jadwiga introduces her upcoming program “Becoming Water,” which shifts healing focus from the nervous system to the body’s fluids, circulation, and the natural flow of water, emphasizing femininity, nourishment, and play. She shares her personal journey of transformation, detailing the painful end of a nine‑year marriage, the subsequent divorce, and the spiritual awakening that followed. Through moments of pressure and vulnerability, she learned to trust the universe, drawing on three years of deep involvement in Native American ceremonial practices that use sweat, fasting, and communion with the earth, fire, air, and water to foster inner growth. Jadwiga discusses the importance of making conscious choices in the present, embracing vulnerability, and recognizing oneself as part of a larger natural network—talking to trees, rivers, and stars as supportive allies. The conversation repeatedly contrasts patriarchal notions of “growth” with a feminine approach of “unfolding,” making space, and community connection. The interview concludes with a call for listeners, the “heroines,” to engage with nature, honor their vulnerability, and embody the fluid, supportive energy of water in their own healing journeys.
Chapters
Hello, heroines! This is Alex, happy to be back with you. I hope you're having a wonderful day, and today I have yet another wonderful, wonderful woman with a big heart, with a big soul, and I want you to help me welcome Jadwiga Kataldo. Hello, Jadwiga, how are you?
I am wonderful. Hello, Alex, good to see you and good to see You're doing such a wonderful work with the 4Women. 4Women has big, big, big heart for you.
Thank you. Thank you. So, Jadwiga, why don't we just get started? Why don't you tell us where you're from and what you do?
Where I am from, I want to say I am from Venus, but originally I am from Poland. And now I am living in North Carolina, in the mountains of North Carolina, rural, beautiful, beautiful landscapes, a river right just out of my window. And yes, today it's raining, but yesterday I was just sitting on the river observing two little creatures playing there. So yes, I am right in nature and it feels very still being satisfying. What I do— everything in my life is right now going through another transition. I am, I am developing new program and I am calling it Becoming Water. It is about— for the last many, many years, I hear such an emphasis on the nervous system. It seems like we are healing nervous system through variety of methods. And what I am seeing at this point is that the fluids, the heart, the circulation, it's what brings the life. To us, to every cell in our body, through the breathing communication with nature. So it's basically, let's change the focus a little bit. Let's go into the flow. Let's go into being nurtured, nourished, and play and have fun and move. That kind of attitude, not just the healing nervous system, but finding that from bottom up support.
And I like the idea of water because water implies flow, right? Implies femininity. It implies flow. It's movement. So it's all of that encapsulated.
It's all of it. And also, you know, when I put the hand in the water and I am totally accepted, it's like water surrounds me and accepts me. And in a sense, you know, creates the waves and creates canyons. I mean, the force of water and gentleness of water at the same time and changing states from ice to vapor. It seems to be Soothing my soul in a sense. And yes, it's about the flow.
So tell us a little bit about your journey because you and I have known each other for maybe 3, 4 years now. And I've seen you go through, like you were talking about, you're in a moment of transformation, but I've seen you go through transformation a couple of times. So talk to us about your journey.
Doesn't everyone? You know, in my age, I am looking back in my life and there is so many twists and turns. And at the time of when those twists and turns are coming on, I feel pressure and tension and constriction in my body, in myself. And then it's like rebirth and the expansion and unfolding and the new leaf opening. So it's, for me, it's— I don't like the word growth, okay? It's a journey. The growth for me, it's like too much focus on it. It's, you know, GDP and how far are we growing. And for me, it is about making space within myself It's in a sense, it is about, you know, the life made us shrink, make us contract, and we need to just open up, see our wounds with compassion, with curiosity. What is it? And what is it that you need? You know, that's for me the part of feminine focus of just being there with, with just, oh, tell me more.
I can see that, and I can see the, the feminine part of it is so important for you in, in the work that you do. So tell us Tell us a bit more about that.
My gosh, it's feminine work, but it's also very, very complex. Let me tell you a story of my— how my first marriage ended, because that was for me a pivotal moment. I was married at that time for 9 years and unhappy. Unhappy, very unhappy. And I've been crying in the bathroom. And then I was washing my face and looked up, and the one in the mirror said to me, why are you doing it to yourself?
Great question.
It's like, it was at that point It was shocking. It was like, what? I didn't say it. I didn't think it, you know. And in a sense, that was my first time really twist from being agnostic to the discovering that there is something else. And then I went through the period of total asynchronicities everywhere. Of course, I didn't move out the very next day. It took me another half a year to kind of get enough courage to move out, to end the marriage, basically, to go on my own in a country which I was at that point 2 years with the job, which at that point really didn't support me very well. So, so there was a lot of tension and pressure on doing it. But yet that, what are you doing to yourself, was there. And after me moving on my own, the synchronicity started. And in a sense, I felt the guidance. I felt where to go next, what to do next. People were showing up. Who knows from where, which were in a sense helping me to take a next step and so on.
You know, it sounds like when you asked yourself that question and you made the decision, it's like you unblocked yourself and you gave yourself the chance to receive.
It was not that I asked that question of myself. And I think that this is quite important Because it was my soul, in a sense, my higher self, in a sense, asking me that question because at the moment I was a victim, you know, smooshed into the marriage, that part in me when I felt capable of. Now, that's not totally true either because those edges are fluid. It's not that we one thing or another. It's one day is great, the other day we— it's not so much. So, but that opened me to trust in the universe. And that's also too much to say trust in the universe. It's a big word and a big trust. And it also wanes, you know, sometimes it's bigger, sometimes it's, it's lower. But yes, it is that how different our life would be if we really could trust that we are being seen, that we are being guided, that we are in the right place at the right time, that everything unfolds to show us the Father's next step to take. I think we would live without that pressure and tension to control, to accomplish, but just be, just live fully.
So as someone who's been through that, right, who's been on that journey and who continues to be on that journey, how— what's How do you begin that? How do you begin to trust? How do you open yourself up and become willing to hear when you're not used to doing that?
A little bit at a time. I really don't think we just can day one, one drop. And I feel that the events of our life, the pressures, at every turn makes us realize that yes, there is life after death, after this job, after this husband, after, you know, there is life and we are expanding. So it's, I feel like it's a learned process. Oh, somehow it reminds me of You know, Native American way, which I, for 3 years, I was deeply steeped in the Native American way. And what I want to say, that was the White Fools group, but we were doing ceremonies. We were living life in ceremony. And Native ceremonies are taxing sometimes, you know, doing sweat with the heat, with the, and praying in that pressure or dancing for 3 days without water and food. It, in a sense, we were creating ceremonial pressure to emerge with new understanding. With talking to trees and talking to the earth for 3 days and, you know, sending prayers for 3 days. It's something grows, something changes, that space within ourselves is made. We realize our own spirituality, our own connection to the earth, to the heavens, to the fire, water, air, and earth. So it feels like every experience teaches us something. About ourself and relationship to self, to you, to you, to all my relations. Yeah, that openness.
And I think that that only happens when you are put under those moments of pressure, right?
Yes, which is ending of marriage or being a widow or starting new all those, or even questioning, am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right path? All of it are the pressure for us to grow. It's an easy word, but to unfold, to make a space.
Oh, I like the unfolding. I like both what you said, making space and unfolding. I think that is like the imagery that that conveys. Is so much more expansive to me than growth.
Growth, in a sense, followed the direction of the patriarchal culture, where feminine is looking inside, it's looking into community. Communicating, being present, doing without doing, you know, being natural, connected, relating in a moment.
I love that, absolutely love that. And so let me ask you something else, as, um, As we keep chatting, um, when you went through your divorce, and I don't know whether or not you've had other long-term relationships or anything like that, but the question that I have is, what's— what have been some of your biggest lessons or learnings or moments of, oh, Yeah, that makes complete sense. Tell us, take us through those, some of those moments and what have they been?
Yes, there was a relationship with my life where I really give myself into this relationship without reservations. When I let all my masks, all my protection go and went for it. And well, that was a little too much. And very soon I found myself alone after that. And the pain was extreme. The, you know, I really feel like the drowning. And in this place, not immediately, it took some time, I realized that at this point I was closing flow of love, flow of life, flow of that I was so focused on my pain. That I closed off everything else. And the decision, it's like, yes, I love being in a relationship. I do. It's fun. It's good. You know, it's company. It's conversation, challenging more and less. But the realization that I am love, I allow love flow through me. It doesn't have to be that I love you, to circle close, you know, but I carry love, I carry compassion, I carry gratitude. All those things belong to me already. And if I am able to return to those, choose to return to those, then the walking this path becomes easier and easier and easier.
And I love that you use the word choose. Because I think it is— we underestimate how much choice we think we have. You know, we think life happens to us, right? And we feel like sometimes we don't have a choice in how things go. But I think, and I feel, and I've seen it in my own life, I have a lot more choice if I choose to exercise that. If I choose to take my power back versus accepting a situation, for example.
You're opening new kind of choice is a beautiful word. And yet for me, it has to be made in this moment. It's not that I choose tomorrow because tomorrow the life is uncertain. And the choices we make are in face of uncertainties. Enjoy when something goes wrong in our life. That's a place to make a choice. You know, that's where the, for me, the key is to say, hmm, yeah, it's difficult, but who can I call? And talk about that, or what resources do I have? How can I approach that? So, and trusting that for me, it's that self and digging that part of us which is connected, not shrinking again and say, I don't know how to live, but really open up and say, I been taken care of forever. Forever the universe sees me, the trees around see me. That's sometimes the exercise I do, you know, sit by the river and, and really think about that. I am being seen by every— by life around me.
And that takes vulnerability and It's sometimes I feel like, or I wonder if we don't give ourselves the opportunity to feel vulnerable because we're afraid of getting hurt. But at the same time, that vulnerability is exactly what invites in our life the things that we want. Would you agree with that?
I'll— I am scared of vulnerability as well. It brings tears. It chokes my throat. It— and yet it's the step of opening, of taking that step. And then the velvet is smooth, you know, soothing. Nourishing space open in us, and we become bigger than before. So I love the idea of vulnerability, even if it's at times very difficult to go through it.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. It's scary. It is scary.
It's choking. It's constricting. But, but when we— those are another choices we take, which part of our body we talk to each other, you know. Are we talking from a heart? Are we sitting in our belly to really be comfy and supported and connected with Earth? Or are we in the head trying to figure out how the tomorrow will be? You know, those are another choice we need to make and kind of develop the habit of supporting our heart through the legs, through the belly. Yeah.
So I love this discussion. Anything that you think is important for our heroines to hear but that we haven't talked about, any message that you want to put out there for them?
I think I will repeat myself because this is the exercise I've been doing lately and it at this moment really feeds me. It's like going outside anywhere, anywhere, sitting by the tree, sitting on a bench, sitting by the river. And really noticing the, hmm, the tree sees me. I can talk to that tree and the tree will talk to me. I can talk to the stars and stars see me. And under my feet I have an earth. And I am always supported. And being vulnerable about that, you know, it's nobody but nature sees you. But yet I am part of nature's, and nature sees me. They are going back to Native, they say all my relation, our meta-creation. And this is like recognizing all life and my place in all life. That's beautiful. And I love it.
Yeah. That's beautiful. Well, Jadwiga, I just want to say thank you so much for being here and spending time with us.
