Back in 2022, while I was planning my year of travel, I came across an odd post in the r/vipassana subreddit. It was a promotion of a street approach workshop in Budapest, Hungary – a couple of self proclaimed pickup artists (or some similarly branding) who were also Dhamma Vipassana practitioners sharing a workshop that involved approaching attractive women on the streets.

I had just finished my first ISTA Level 1 training in Austin, TX after doing Touch & Play in Mexico and had enough of an orientation towards Temple culture to understand the underlying intention of it – as I saw it – to cultivate the connection of humans to the Fire of their Desire and enable pathways towards consensually manifesting those in the physical plane.

What came to me as I sat with that post was the edginess of following the thread of Desire out on the streets as contrasted with a closed Temple container where everyone has agreed to exploring their Desires together by entering the container. But then, by taking birth in this physical plane, by following the thread of our soul's Desire to reincarnate, have we all not agreed to exploring our Desires together in the large closed container of the manifested Universe?

Needless to say, I signed up for the workshop. Looking back upon it, starting every meal with a chanting of Om together, quoting Goenka's "wonderful! wonderful!" with a bunch of Vipassana bros and then heading out onto the streets of Budapest, asking each other who we find attractive and then approaching them to initiate connection while letting go of anxiety and expectations – I don't think I could find a crazier chapter in the story of my life.

During the workshop, at dinner on the third night, I asked Wolf if he was sexually abused as a child. Wolf had never considered that and it was quite charged for him to receive that reflection. It was wild for me to feel his charge because in the moment I shared it, I thought it would be quite obviously true and that he'd be aware of it. Wolf might have been the 3rd person I had shared this sense with and this was before I learnt how to tactfully approach this subject with new humans. There is so much richness in the relational space when this sense arises in me – how much am I projecting out of my own need to be validated? How much is truly present in the other? Can the symptoms that I associate with childhood sexual trauma show up due to other forms of childhood abuse?

Typical safe-playing trauma-aware wisdom on this subject would perhaps encourage either avoiding it altogether or asking open ended questions–which is a form of avoidance of what is true and alive. Any such rules of how to engage around trauma disconnect us from the aliveness of our souls and bodies and most "trauma–informed" wisdom is rooted in the fear of triggering–I don't really resonate with that approach. And yet the encounter with Wolf (amongst others) has brought a more embodied caution and tenderness in how I meet new people–something I might never have embodied had I not made these "mistakes".

A few weeks ago I saw a missed call on WhatsApp from Wolf. Remembering how charged our interaction was, I felt avoidant in attempting to return the call and also did not really feel a Desire to return it. I landed in Amsterdam a week ago and found out that Wolf was here too. I felt quite excited to reconnect. We dropped in at a quaint coffee shop in the business of the Amsterdam tourist neighborhood (Dutch people might be like–so you mean all of Amsterdam?) and he started sharing about his journey since then. We talked at length and openly about childhood sexual abuse in a tourist coffee shop in Amsterdam. Two men talking openly in a public setting about childhood sexual trauma healing. This is the kind of content I wanted to create and the next day I met up with Wolf to record this podcast in Vondelpark.

I've felt scarily alone at points in my journey as a man working through incestual childhood sexual trauma in face of tremendous denial and unconscious gaslighting from my extended family and honest but weak attempts at support (due to just a lack of knowledge on the subject or lack of training on how to hold space, not due to lack of heart) from my friends. I'm following the thread of my Desire to create content that features men talking about childhood sexual abuse in open public spaces. This is the first such piece and I'm grateful for Wolf's openness to join me in this endeavor.

Find the podcast link below. YouTube video uploading soon.

Uncovering Trauma through a journey of Vipassana, Pick Up Artistry and Yoga – Interview with Wolf