**Tune in to Your Inner Navigation System for a Happy, Healthy, and Empowered Life**
with TEDx Speaker Wilrieke Sophia
Many of us have been taught to ignore our boundaries and desires, which can create significant problems. When we don’t understand what *we* truly want, we often default to following what others want, or what we think society expects of us. This can lead to unfulfilling choices, particularly in the realm of intimacy, where we may unknowingly cross our own boundaries or even cause ourselves harm.
There’s a lot to gain by reconnecting with what we truly desire, especially in intimate situations.
Think about how you feel when you meet someone you’re really attracted to—can you confidently set the pace of the interaction? Are you able to express clearly how you want to be touched, or are you unsure of your own desires? Do you feel empowered in these moments, or do you struggle to say no once you’ve said yes to something?
Perhaps you often attract partners who leave you feeling empty or disconnected, or find yourself falling into "all-or-nothing" patterns, where it feels difficult to set boundaries after the initial connection.
**Your Inner Navigation System**
We all have an internal compass—our Inner Navigation System—that can guide us in making choices that are aligned with our true desires. When we tune in to this system, we can navigate life in a more nourishing and fulfilling way.
Here are just a few of the benefits of strengthening your connection to your Inner Navigation System:
- Making decisions without relying on others
- Comfortably saying “no” to what doesn’t serve you
- Fully embracing a “YES” when something excites you
- Understanding when compromise is possible and where your firm boundaries lie
- Feeling empowered and confident in intimate situations
- Expanding your options for connection beyond just sex/no sex
- Increasing your self-confidence across all areas of life
**Learning to Connect with Your Inner Compass**
By letting go of societal conditioning and rewiring our nervous system, we can change how we interact with others. When we slow down, listen, and tune in to our Inner Navigation System, we can build a deeper awareness of what we want—and once we establish that connection, it’s something we can return to again and again.
And this isn’t just about the bedroom!
Strengthening your connection with your inner compass will help you confidently make decisions in all areas of life, whether it's managing your business, parenting, setting boundaries with friends, dealing with online negativity, or navigating social situations.
**Navigating Intimacy**
This two-day workshop is a playful space where you will learn to connect with your Inner Navigation System. You’ll explore your unique way of sensing your boundaries and desires, and practice navigating intimate situations with confidence.
**In this workshop, you’ll explore:**
- The difference between a true “yes” and a conditioned “yes”
- The power of saying “no” in a way that guides, rather than ends, an interaction
- How to recognize the subtle ways you might unconsciously manipulate others to meet hidden desires
- How to touch and be touched for *your* pleasure
- Developing the skill of asking for exactly what you want
- A conscious space to practice and refine these skills
The workshop includes a combination of practical exercises, reflection, sharing, and guided practice. You’ll work alone, in pairs, and in various group settings, giving you plenty of opportunities to explore and strengthen your connection to your Inner Navigation System.
FOR WHO IS THIS WEEKEND?
This weekend is for everyone curious about pleasure. The workshop is suitable for pragmatists (it’s very much science-based with little woo). It’s a workshop suitable for those new in the scene, but also for anyone who wants to learn more about their yes/no.
All our workshops are queer-centered and straight-friendly. That means, to us, that our workshops embrace diversity beyond the traditional cisgender, straight, slender, abled, neurotypical, or young body.
This event welcomes folks from all walks of life. We are LGBTQIIA+ informed (Wilrieke and most of her team identify as such), slut-friendly, trauma-informed, and non-monogamy informed. White folks are overrepresented in our team and life experiences are coloured through that lens. We do come from different social backgrounds and have different life experiences when it comes to health, wealth, neurodiversity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
We welcome folks with disabilities. We can adapt exercises so that they fit you. Where we can we will support you. If you have a person/animal that supports you in daily activities that you need to bring for your care, they can of course come with you without buying a ticket. Please reach out if you have special needs, and we will discuss how we can support you. In case we cannot comfort your needs, we will honestly let you know.
You can come alone (many people do), with your partner/s or friend/s. If you come with a partner/partners you are welcome to stay together for the whole workshop, or play with others too.
The weekend consists of exercises that you can do on your own, in two’s, or in larger groups. There will be sharings in smaller groups and in the whole group.
As in all of our workshops, you are encouraged to sit out of anything. Witnessing is valid participation.
This is a WHITE event, meaning that the event doesn’t focus on sensual or sexual interactions. Touch, in a platonic/friendly/comforting flavor, is invited to some of the exercises. Nudity is optional in one exercise without touch (with an option for a comforting platonic touch in the end phase).
Also: this workshop may be experienced as therapeutic, but it is not therapy. Participation is not recommended for people with severe unprocessed trauma or diagnoses.
SOME PRACTICAL INFORMATION
In the week before the event, you will receive an email with detailed information for this day including the address and what to bring. Make sure you sign up with the email address that you use. Check your spam filter if you did not receive an email seven days before the event (if you have unsubscribed from our newsletter, these emails cannot reach you!).
On this page you find elaborate information about play parties, and many frequently asked questions >>> www.exploringdeeper.com/FAQ
This is a page that speaks more explicitly about rules of conduct during our workshops >>>
https://www.exploringdeeper.com/conduct/
Timings:
Saturday: 10.00h – 18.00h (doors open at 9.30h)
Sunday: 10.00h – 18.00h (doors open at 9.30h)
We will provide snacks, you will provide your own meals and lodging.
ACCESSIBILITY
This workshop space is called De Ruimte - we are in the room UPSTAIRS. Accessibility of this specific venue: there are steep stairs to access the building. There is no elevator. One inside, there are bathrooms on the workshop floor. the bathrooms are not specifically all-access. There are mattresses and you can lie down as much as you can. There is a separate room where bags etc can be stored, which can also be used as an outbreak room with minimalized stimuli.
There is a small fridge. There are no cooking/heating facilities. There are (shared) showers.
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If you are curious about our Guidelines for Team Members, feel free to check the full document out here:
http://exploringdeeper.com/ethics
For all events, Exploring Deeper's Terms and Conditions apply:
http://www.exploringdeeper.com/terms-and-conditions/.
To stay updated about workshops, and events and to read Wilrieke's blog (with hundreds of articles and videos about topics like non-monogamy, sexuality, and dealing with insecurities), check www.exploringdeeper.com and sign up for our newsletter!
ABOUT WILRIEKE SOPHIA
Wilrieke Sophia (they/them) is a sex & intimacy educator, (TEDx) speaker, advisor & coach for creative makers and scientists, author, and founder of Exploring Deeper and Cuddle Workshops International.
The main focus of their work is empowerment through self-knowledge and understanding, radical self-inclusion, the embodied experiencing of boundaries and desires, and an extensive practice of consent – all based on a foundation of trauma awareness and neuroscience, embedded in experiential spaces based on interpersonal connective practices. They collaborate with artists and scientists, and are a supervisor and mentor.
With their project Red Flags in Workshops, Wilrieke creates zines and other free materials on e.g. accountability, abuse, and power dynamics in the intimacy and wellness communities.
More about Wilrieke:
www.wilriekesophia.com
www.exploringdeeper.com
www.redflagsinworkshops.com
www.cuddleworkshops.org
IG: @wilriekesophia
FB: Exploring Deeper with Wilrieke Sophia
YT: www.youtube.com/exploringdeeper
Saturday 27 September 2025 at 10:00 until Sunday 28 September 2025 at 18:00
Weesperzijde, 1091 Amsterdam, Nederland