Over the last fifteen years of working as a life and leadership coach for women, I’ve noticed that I tend to attract certain kinds of clients.

If I had to generalize, I’d say about 75% of the people I work with are smart, conscientious women who, to some extent, identify as people-pleasers — whether subtly or strongly. They feel they put other people’s needs above their own in ways that leave their voices unheard, or that have them making decisions to please others or keep the peace rather than to honor themselves.

Why do I attract these people? I’m in my own lifelong recovery from people-pleasing, rooted in things that happened in my childhood. I know a lot about how to change those patterns. Maybe people sense that about me — and that’s why they show up.

With the people-pleasers I work with, the topic of anger almost always comes up.

Until you can figure out how to express your anger and work with its energy to your advantage — rather than suppressing it entirely, drowning in its corrosive energy, or not even feeling like you know how to be angry — it’s hard to set boundaries. 

Your anger is a good clue about where a boundary needs to be placed. Whether we’re talking about work or an unhealthy relationship, there is likely some kind of limit to be explored and stated. And if you don’t work with your anger to set those limits, there will likely be health consequences you might not link back to the anger.

So with all of that said, I want to invite you to listen to this podcast I recorded earlier this year while I was in Buenos Aires, with two wonderful hosts from Canada, Christopher and Heather of Year of the Bitch. We talked about the importance of embracing our anger in order to feel whole—while also not letting it destroy us.

This conversation went deep. Here’s a taste of what we got into:

Your anger is not the enemy. Suppressed rage doesn’t disappear — it turns inward, becoming chronic tension, pain, and self-attack. I share practices I use with clients to actually express anger through the body rather than letting it fester — and how to listen to what that anger is telling you.

The Pussywalking Method — and why it matters right now. With everything being revealed about the exploitation of women’s bodies in our culture in this year of the sickening Epstein files, this felt like exactly the right moment to talk about reclaiming your body for yourself, from the inside out. You’ll learn what pussywalking actually is when you listen and why I think it’s important to talk about reclaiming our sexual energy for our own vitality and confidence. I even talk about a pussywalking workshop I gave to the waitstaff at a Providence restaurant and the work I am doing teaching this methodology to women start-up founders working in AI.

Healing is always ongoing. We talked honestly about my own many paths to healing — tango, the ritual of self-marriage, therapy, coaching, immersing myself in other cultures — and why there is no single right way and the healing journey never ends (and that’s not a bad thing!). I also share something personal from my memoir-in-process Wet about a pivotal moment when I chose tango in Buenos Aires over staying in therapy in the Bay Area, and why that turned out to be right for me.

Listen in and let me know what you think!

Transcript for Virgin Beauty Bitch, Year of the B.I.T.C.H. with Author, and Life + Executive Coach for Women Leaders Sasha Cagen (edited and polished by Claude AI, the real rough words are found when you listen to the podcast, but this transcript will give you the idea!)

CHRISTOPHER: This podcast is built around three simple words: virgin, beauty, bitch — words so normalized that we’ve developed a tolerance around the trauma and damage they can cause. But we also maintain blind spots for the potential these words represent. “Bitch” in particular has been turned into every woman’s curse, when the five letters in that word literally spell out a woman’s path to growth and empowerment — if you choose to see it that way. That’s the purpose of the conversations we’re having in Year of the Bitch. Today we welcome life and executive coach, author, and lover of a juicy life, Sasha Cagen. Welcome back, Sasha.

SASHA: Thank you, Christopher and Heather. Your mission could not be more on point for 2026.

CHRISTOPHER: Thank you. I looked back in the archives to see when we last spoke — it was Episode 215, and we’re on our way to 400 now. That was in 2022. In that conversation, you shared something about “the bitch” — I’ll paraphrase a little: Even though I have a very complicated relationship with the word “bitch,” I’m really interested in the power of our anger and how to use it in the best way. I’m very conscious, because many of my clients are working with me to get over their people-pleasing. A lot of them don’t stand up for themselves. One reason is that they’re afraid of being called a bitch. That fear is the thing blocking them.

After eight years of Heather and I closely listening to women like you speak about that word, a formula finally resolved into a truth: B-I-T-C-H — Betrayal, Identity, Trust, Change, and Healing — our five-step process for women’s growth and self-empowerment. When I first shared these five principles with you, Sasha, what was your immediate reaction?

SASHA: Well, I love how you’re unpacking it and making it a journey to reclaim one’s power and wholeness. I feel very present to how what I said earlier — about women’s anger — speaks to that wholeness. There are so many forces that tell us to be nice and pleasing, that don’t allow us to express who we fully are. I hear that from my women clients all the time — how they don’t feel seen, and how that creates a deep sadness and a sense of being very alone.

But anger is such a fascinating topic, and I continue to be fascinated with it. There’s a vitality when we express our anger — our realness — that has to be part of our healing journey. Your last “H,” healing, may be the most important piece. I work in the realm of the individual and the collective, and those of us in my camp are working to heal ourselves both personally and in relationship with others. I love that healing is where it lands.

HEATHER: What comes to mind when you say that is the first letter — Betrayal. A lot of women identify with the betrayal of not having the agency to go to anger, to feel it and express it without real social or relational consequences. Within the context of betrayal, how do you think women have been instructed to avoid anger? And how have you helped your clients move through that?

SASHA: I’ll speak about myself first, and then my clients. Anger has been a huge journey for me personally. About fifteen years ago, I received feedback that I needed to learn how to express my anger. I found that very strange, because my mother had taught me: calm yourself down, think through what you have to say, then return to the person — and things will go better that way. There’s real wisdom in that, but it’s not the whole story. We get to be whole, and wholeness includes anger.

I saw something on social media — and I’m not usually a fan of Instagram wisdom, because I actually see a lot of clients get confused by the personal growth content they consume there — but one line rang true: fascism will continue to exist if we don’t get to express our anger. I think that’s simply true. Injustice — whether personal or societal — will continue unless we allow ourselves to be authentic. There’s a live wire of energy that runs through us in anger.

I have a personal story about this in my memoir, Wet. When I was traveling in Brazil, I saw a woman go off on a man in a bar — screaming at him with what looked like the rage at betrayal. I was completely riveted by her. In Brazil and Argentina, where I’ve spent a lot of time, that kind of expressiveness is more common than in the US or Canada, where we’re taught to be more composed, more pleasing. I admire that vitality.

To be honest and whole, we have to learn to express our anger. That doesn’t mean staying in it — anger is not something you want to stew in forever. It needs to be moved through. With clients, I literally suggest ways to express it: angry journaling, writing “F-U” across a page many times, shadow boxing, or expressing it with a trusted person present. If anger is simply ignored, it sours. It turns into self-attack, chronic tension in the body, and pain. There’s decades of work — starting with John Sarno — showing that unexpressed rage manifests as physical symptoms. We need to express our anger.

HEATHER: I really appreciate that you said “put together” — because I think that’s such a deep, seated belief women carry, that not expressing your anger means you’re more put together. That probably comes from women being seen as too emotional, too easily swayed by their feelings. It ties into our menstruation, our cycles, all the different ways women have been framed across eras. So to say that every emotion is an expression of your wholeness — not something to get stuck in, but to find a way through — is so important. It helps us understand injustice, understand what isn’t working, and understand our authentic selves a little better.

SASHA: Yes. And the distinction that you don’t stay stuck forever is key. A lot of the strategies I share with clients are about how to express emotions, even privately through journaling, and then move through them. For me personally, one of the benefits of making personal growth a real focus of my life is that I move through things faster. I carve out time and space to be in my rage. I also attend Buddhist meditation centers, where they teach that anger only hurts you — and I understand that teaching. But I think it skips over something. Part of acceptance is expression. We get to be angry.

Men are often valorized for their anger. Women politicians, by contrast, are frequently seen as inauthentic precisely because they’re not allowed to be their full selves. When we get to be ourselves, people connect with us more.

CHRISTOPHER: We want women to be the manicured garden, while the male garden can be wild and overgrown. We’ve conditioned women — because of this word we revere, “feminine” — to stay trimmed and hedged. And in some cultures, wildness is revered as feminine. In ours, it’s suppressed and cut down. To step outside that narrow definition gets you a bad reputation.

SASHA: Even something as simple as nail polish — I had a client recently talking about the cost of attending many weddings when she herself isn’t getting married. She said, “You know how it is as a woman — you have to pay for your nails.” And I thought: I don’t pay for doing my nails. All these expectations — which have actually grown in the last thirty years around how women are supposed to maintain themselves to be attractive — they’re a choice, not an obligation. We’re sleepwalking through them. With the rise of pornography and the cultural backlash we’re living through, there are so many standards women are being held to. You really don’t have to.

CHRISTOPHER: And it won’t stop until we question it.

SASHA: Exactly. It stops when we question it.

HEATHER: That’s such a good thread to pull when we think about the “I” — Identity. There’s been a great deal of instruction around a manicured identity for women: this is the box feminine lives in, and this is how the patriarchy enjoys the feminine. So many women and gender-diverse people have taken that box and thrown it in the trash — tuning out the noise and tuning into their own internal rhythm.

I love the work you’ve done around confidence and “pussywalking.” For listeners who haven’t heard you before, can you talk about what that is? Because I think there’s something in it for every person, especially women, when it comes to understanding your authentic self.

SASHA: I love this question, and I really want to talk about pussywalking right now given what we’re seeing in the world — the sexual exploitation of women, children, men, and boys. A lot of people’s sexuality is being exploited, and my work is about opening the door to help everyone — regardless of gender — tap into their own inner power and feel more vital and confident.

Pussywalking is aimed at women first, though people of all genders can adapt the framework. Let me explain why I use the word “pussy” and what the practice is.

I use it as an act of reclamation. I understand it’s a provoking word in the US. When I share it here in Buenos Aires, where I am right now, people have zero resistance to it whatsoever. In American mainstream media, I just heard a journalist say “the P-word” rather than say it outright — they’re afraid. So here I am using it intentionally, to reclaim women’s bodies from the inside out.

For the last fifteen years, I’ve been studying female sexual energy outside of sex, with the knowledge that the clitoris is not just a small external button but an internal organ with an enormous number of nerve endings that can be awakened for pleasure. Not “When Harry Met Sally” table-faking-an-orgasm pleasure — I’m talking about something subtler: a gentle, purring pleasure energy. I’ve now taught this to hundreds of women over twelve years. I’ve sat on a panel with an OB-GYN who teaches at Harvard Medical School, and she told me I was sharing things she hadn’t learned in medical school.

This practice is for everyone — post-menopausal, perimenopausal, premenopausal. Through breath and visualization, simply bringing awareness to the pelvic zone, the internal clitoris can awaken this energy. My philosophy is: pleasure fuels confidence. When you feel bad, when you’re in pain, you’re less vocal and less likely to stand up for yourself. But when women learn to pussywalk — activating this energy and distributing it through the whole body — it affects how they walk, how people perceive them, and most importantly, how they feel in themselves.

What’s been exciting in my coaching practice lately is that I’m attracting a lot of women leaders — in politics, business, and major conversations around democracy, AI, and the media. Even at very high levels of power, these women often lack confidence. They talk about imposter complex. They talk about not wanting to speak publicly. With them, I literally talk about pussy energy and how to activate it before a talk, a media appearance, or a legal proceeding. I’m loving it.

I also want to connect this to what we’re seeing in the Epstein files — another #MeToo moment, a revelation that people at very high levels of decision-making thought nothing of networking with a convicted child sex trafficker. When women don’t feel like they own that zone of their body — because of shame, or because it feels like it exists for their partner rather than for themselves — it goes dead. My work is about owning your body for yourself, owning your pleasure for yourself, and letting all of that serve you in the world outside the bedroom.

CHRISTOPHER: For us, the word “bitch” is about that same reclaiming of one’s power — disassociating from the narrative that you’re here to please others, with yourself coming last. I believe these two things are synchronous. Claiming the strength of who you are, whether the world calls you a bitch or not — that’s yours. And what you’re pointing to is that focusing on your own power can bring you further into who you are.

SASHA: One hundred percent. I’ll share something fresh from my own life. I recently spent a few weeks with someone whose behavior I didn’t like. In my history — as a life coach, as a really good listener — I tend to absorb people’s problems in a way that can be suffocating for me. While I’ve been in the process of cutting this person out, I’ve been activating my pussy energy and the pleasure in my body. And I feel: I just don’t care. You don’t get my attention. Am I being a bitch because I’m prioritizing my own emotional well-being over his? Maybe. But it’s my priority — and it’s been feeling really good.

HEATHER: That’s such a beautiful way to tie those two things together. When I think about confidence and sexuality — even the word “pussy” itself, which has been used to mean weakness and cowardice — it’s been demonized and undermined the same way “bitch” has, made to serve one gender’s narrative.

And think about how freely male sexuality is explored, expressed, and expected — and the confidence that comes from internalizing that you deserve gratification. How many women don’t feel that same thing, because of culture, religion, or the simple societal message that their bodies exist for someone else? When you talk about a “purring pleasure energy” — something subtle, not a performance — that is such a powerful reframe. One of our biggest untapped sources of confidence and energy.

SASHA: Yes! The pussy may guide you to say yes to someone, but it may also give you the energy to be okay in yourself — to shut out what isn’t serving you and keep your attention on yourself and the people who are good for you.

I’d also be remiss not to mention: the word cocky means confident. That always opens people’s eyes. Cocky implies swagger and strength. We don’t have an equivalent positive word for women — “pussy” is supposed to mean weak. That’s worth sitting with.

HEATHER: And I want to give a shout-out to the book Pussy: A Reclamation — a New York Times bestseller. That book changed my life. Regina, who created the School of Womanly Arts in New York City, explores a lot of this territory. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.

SASHA: She and I share some of the same teachers, and I’ve been to one of her live events. I respect her message — and I have my own pussywalking path.

CHRISTOPHER: So you opened this conversation with the last word in our process: Healing. For us, healing has no beginning and no end. It runs through every one of those steps. You’re always healing. Every experience is an opportunity. How do you present healing in your work?

SASHA: I agree there’s no endpoint. Every experience is — as one of my clients jokes — an “F-G-O,” a f**king growth opportunity. But ultimately, life is a gift, and everything is a chance to learn.

One of the messages I feel I’m on this planet to share — and it’s central to my memoir — is that healing happens in many different ways along many different paths. There was an inflection point in my own story where I could have stayed in California working with a therapist who was helping me process a secret of childhood sexual abuse I hadn’t spoken about to almost anyone. I was about 38. That work was important. But at the same time, I felt called to return to Buenos Aires and reimmerse myself in the culture of tango.

Someone might ask, Why are you doing that? and I might not have had a ready answer — only the feeling that something was calling me forward. I think that’s a completely valid answer. If you feel something is good for you and will help you heal, it likely will.

One thing I loved about that therapist, who in many ways shaped who I am as a coach, was something she said to me: There are many ways to heal. That sentence is so important. 

For me, tango has been an incredible healing path because it’s a relational dance — how to show up with another person, stay connected, and yet remain autonomous and in your own power. I don’t think I would have gotten there through talk therapy alone. I needed to move. I needed glamour. I needed sexiness. A different culture. Community. And kudos to me for listening to myself and doing it, even when it was scary.

Healing can call us forward on adventures. A lot of people say, “Don’t try to leave your problems behind by traveling — you need therapy.” But who are you to say what that person needs? Therapy is great. And so is ritual, dance, movement, travel, marrying yourself. Healing can be fun. I don’t have to sit in the corner in pain to heal.

CHRISTOPHER: That’s exactly why we have these conversations. Inevitably, it comes back to healing — and hearing experiences from women like you that resonate and spur healing in someone else. We’re grateful for the courage it takes to share openly like this.

SASHA: Thank you. And one more thing about healing: it is possible. That’s worth saying plainly. You can change. It’s good to get support. Having spent so much of my life in Argentina, where therapy is completely normalized, I see this clearly: we’re all human, we all need help, and there’s nothing shameful about reaching out. Get support in as many different forms as you can. I don’t think anyone heals alone — we need other people.

HEATHER: That ties back to healing through the somatic — movement, visualization, learning to trust your body, your gut, your instincts. That’s been a huge part of my own healing journey. I had someone say to me once: There are many arts to healing. Dance, talk therapy, ritual, learning to love yourself — so many ways. And hearing it said that way was releasing.

SASHA: Completely. And the ongoing nature of it — that it never ends — is actually wonderful.

CHRISTOPHER: It is. It’s not a bus stop. It’s not a final destination.

SASHA: Though sometimes I wish it were! Some of the trauma — I’d love for it to just go away overnight. But eventually, they move you along.

I do think there are goal posts along the way. Certain things I’ve released that I wasn’t able to before. Even if the journey continues and deepens, looking back at those moments matters. I’m not stuck in the same parts of my healing that I once was.

And I’m living an interesting moment right now. I’m in Buenos Aires, and I feel more confident than I ever have — interacting with people, dancing, being in the culture. People have always thought I was confident, but I didn’t always feel it myself. Now I do. My dancing is the best it’s ever been. I found the most extraordinary tango teacher.

And I can still spiral — I can still feel rejected if nobody asks me to dance at the milonga. That still happens. But overall, the direction is quite good.

CHRISTOPHER: Tell us who you want to work with — your niche, and how to reach you.

SASHA: I work with all kinds of people. If there’s a human connection and I think I can help, I’m in. But right now, what I’m most energized by is working with women leaders — individual contributors, company founders, politicians — who are showing up in important conversations around democracy, AI, media, and the law. Even at very high levels of power, these women often come to me talking about imposter complex and the fear of speaking publicly. And when we bring in the body focus, the pussy energy — something shifts. There’s a multiplier effect.

I love it because there’s an entrepreneur in me too. I’m giving a pussywalking workshop to the waitstaff at a restaurant owner’s locations in Rhode Island, where I’m from. We started with a business coaching conversation and arrived at: this is exactly what her team needs to feel more confident. It’s just fun.

Women business owners and political leaders — that’s a real sweet spot for me right now.

CHRISTOPHER: How do people find you?

SASHA: Go to my website: SashaCagen.com. From there you can reach out in multiple ways. Get on my newsletter — I prefer it to social media because I feel more empowered there than playing to an algorithm. And definitely visit the Pussywalking page on the site, where you can sign up for instructional videos on how to activate your pussy energy.

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CHRISTOPHER: Sasha, it’s been such a pleasure having you back. It feels like no time has passed at all, and yet look at how much has grown between us.

SASHA: Thank you for being so interested and so yourselves. This has felt sensual, sexy, and healing all at once. It’s genuinely wonderful to reconnect.

HEATHER: We want to hear from you, listeners. If you’re feeling it — let us know.

CHRISTOPHER: All this brought to you by the Virgin, the Beauty, and the Bitch — B-I-T-C-H. Find us, like us, share us.