Arja Hendrikx
I’ve spent 16+ years exploring intimacy, eros and the power of the energy we’re born from. And I’ve become fascinated by what they can teach us about how we lead, connect and live more consciously.
Now I’m taking that conversation to the main stage.
The conversation we’re not having
We’ll happily talk about
But
Those conversations still tend to happen behind closed doors. If they happen at all.
And after 16+ years inside this work, I’ve come to believe something pretty strongly:
They belong in the room too.
You don’t leave your private self at home
Because you don’t suddenly become a different human when you walk into the meeting room.
Maybe intimacy isn’t separate from how we lead and live.Maybe it’s one of the places we learn how to do both.
Where we are
Seriously, think about it.
You have extraordinary access to the world around you.
But how much access do you have to yourself?
We’ve become incredibly good at knowing more about life.But how deeply are you actually experiencing yours?
I don’t believe the answer is to go backwards.
I believe the next evolution is to bring some of what we’ve forgotten forward with us.
The problem
We know how to build, lead, scale, optimise, perform and achieve.
And somewhere between the next meeting and the next milestone, something quieter can start to disappear.
Desire. Intimacy. Mystery. The feeling of actually being IN your own life.
And here’s the confusing part: nothing is necessarily wrong.“You are not burned out. You are underfed.”
And to be clear: burnout is real, and rest matters. But I keep meeting a particular kind of high performer. They read every kind of tiredness as a need for more rest. They take the holiday, come back, and feel exactly the same.
What they’re missing is more life. More intimacy, more play, more sensation, more meaning.
Those are the people I love speaking to.
Because there comes a point where building a successful life and feeling deeply alive inside of it become two very different things.
And THAT is the gap I want to talk about.
Formats
There’s a moment I love when a room stops being an audience.
You shift to the edge of your chair. The energy in the room changes. Phones go down. You turn to the person beside you because something just landed, and suddenly you’re not just listening anymore.
You’re IN it.
That’s what I care about creating.
Not another hour of information that disappears the moment you leave the room, but an experience that stays with you. A question you’re still thinking about over dinner. A conversation you have differently when you get home. Something you actually want to try in your own life.
Because for me, that’s when speaking becomes more than speaking.
And depending on the room, we can get there in very different ways.
This is where we get the whole room involved.
Yes, I’ll tell stories and share ideas. But I’ll also ask questions, get you out of your head and, where it fits, have hundreds (or thousands) of people experience something together right there in their seats.
You leave with something you want to try in your next meeting, your next difficult conversation or with the person you go home to that night.
You know that moment when everyone is giving a perfectly good answer, but you can FEEL there’s a much more interesting conversation underneath it?
That’s where I want to go.
I’ll say the thing we’re all politely circling around and bring the conversation back to what this actually looks like in real life.
So you walk out with the person next to you saying, “Wow… I actually want to change something about how I’m doing this in my own life.”
Okay, now we really get to play. 😉 This is where you get out of your head and INTO your body.
Because there are things about yourself you will NEVER discover by sitting in another chair thinking about them.
So we get up.
This is where the room becomes the laboratory and YOU become the experiment.
You don’t leave with another idea about embodiment. You leave having experienced yourself differently.
This might be my favourite way to close a room. ❤️
Because after days of speakers, ideas, introductions and information, sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is stop talking.
We change the space. Phones disappear. The room gets quiet. And all participants step out of everything they’ve been processing and into something they can actually FEEL together.
This is where spirit gets to enter the room too. Not as something you need to believe in. As something you get to experience.
So you don’t just leave thinking, “That was a great event.” You leave feeling like you were part of something.
Tell me the date and the room. I’ll tell you quickly if it’s a yes.
About me
3
Businesses built
I’ve learned how to take ideas that aren’t always easy to explain, get people to believe in them, build teams around them and turn them into businesses and communities that people genuinely want to be part of.
I know what it’s like to have people depend on you, make the difficult call, take the financial risk and keep backing something before everyone else can see where it’s going.
I don’t only speak about these ideas.I’ve built my life around them.
Where did I learn all this?
While a lot of people around me were choosing more conventional paths, I was travelling the world, seeking out teachers and being initiated by women who had built their lives around ritual, spiritual practice and a very different relationship with the body.
And then I had to figure out what any of that meant in the REAL world.
I went from solopreneur to entrepreneur. From teaching small groups to thousands of students. From building a business to leading a movement, teams and communities across the world.
And now? I’m helping build an actual village in Bali around a different vision for how we could live.
It’s been a pretty unconventional education in what it means to be human.
And maybe it’ll get you asking a few different questions about the way you’re living yours.
On stage
What producers actually ask
If yours isn’t here, just ask. I’d rather have the awkward question early than a polite booking that was never right for either of us.
Invite me to speak
Most keynotes give people information. They nod, they clap, they head for the coffee, and by Thursday it’s gone. I work with the people actually sitting in the seats: their breath, their attention, the thing they walked in carrying. There are stories and questions, and there’s a live embodiment practice the whole room does together. What I’m after is simple. Phones down. People leaning forward.
Yes. And it’s completely fair to ask that first. I’ve spoken to boardrooms, founder communities, summits and leadership programmes. Nothing is explicit. Nobody is put on the spot or pulled up on stage. Every exercise is an invitation, and anyone can simply sit and watch. If you’d rather keep it individual, with no partner work at all, tell me and I’ll design it that way. You don’t have to share any of my beliefs to get something from it. And if your legal or comms team wants the outline in advance, I’ll send it.
It’s your closing slot, done properly. By the end of day two your audience is full: panels, pitches, networking and a great many slides. A ceremony is 20 to 40 minutes that gives them time to land what they’ve been through and actually meet the people around them before they leave. If the format is new to you, ask, and I’ll walk you through it minute by minute.
Always. I’ll ask about your theme, what your audience is really dealing with this year, who speaks before me, and what you’d love people saying on the way out. Then I build the version for your room. Honestly, my favourite brief is a theme and no title at all.
It’s the root of my work. Tantra taught me to treat my body as information, to stay present when things get uncomfortable, and to take desire seriously. Turns out that’s useful far beyond the bedroom: in business, in leadership, in how I make decisions. Part of it goes back to ancient texts like the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra. I love that it’s old. I’m more interested in what it means for a very modern life. If it serves your room, I’ll name where it comes from. If your event is better served without the word, tell me and I’ll teach the substance.
A short call to agree what you want the room to leave with, a title and abstract for your programme, a speaker bio and press photos, and my tech and stage notes in one document. I confirm my own travel, arrive the day before where the schedule allows, and I’d always rather do a soundcheck than wing it. Want a promo clip or a podcast in the lead up? Ask early. I usually say yes.
Very little, which producers tend to like. A headset or lapel mic, room to walk instead of a lectern, and music playback from the booth for a few short moments if the format allows. Slides are optional, and often better left out. If the room is set cabaret or in the round, tell me and I’ll design for it.
It depends on the format, travel, licensing and where the slot sits in your programme. Send me the brief with your budget range and I’ll be straight with you, quickly. No discovery call that turns into a sales funnel.
A real reply from a real person, usually within a couple of days. If the date and the fit look right, we have a short call and then a simple agreement. If it’s not a fit, I’ll say so clearly, and where I can, I’ll point you to someone better suited. No sequences, no countdown timers, no nine emails about a cart.
For event producers and programme leads
Put me in front of a room of leaders and I won’t hand them another framework. I’ll ask them to put their phones down, feel what’s going on in their own bodies, and have one real conversation with the person beside them.
One question your audience will probably hear from me:“What do you actually want?”
Send me these five lines
That’s all I need to give you a straight yes, a no, or a date that works. No form, no portal.
Not sure of the date yet? Send it anyway. Check my availability.
Maybe it’s time to get in the room. 😉
