From Loneliness to Oneliness
How do we want to love, work, and live in a time of shared loneliness amidst hyper-individualism, AI, socio-political division, ecological collapse, and a crisis of meaning and spirituality?
Speaking · Workshops · Moderation
Looking deeply into loneliness raises questions like these:
Why does the world feel lonelier than ever, in an age of unprecedented connection? What does AI do to our capacity for genuine intimacy and what does our growing attachment to it reveal about us? Where does male loneliness originate, and how do we move beyond hegemonic, patriarchal masculinity in our systems, workplaces, and lives? What is the difference between community and the performance of community, and what does genuine belonging actually require? Where is the link between political loneliness, extremism, and the rise of anti-democratic movements? How do we design gatherings that don't just fill but turn people toward each other? What does loneliness have to do with ecological grief, the longing for ritual, and the search for something sacred? How do we talk about the taboo of loneliness at work, and what would organizations built on relationality look like?
Keynotes & Conversations
I speak on loneliness as a structural, ecological, and spiritual condition — and on Oneliness as a different premise for how we organize our lives, relationships, and institutions. Every keynote is developed to your specific context and audience.
Workshops
Facilitated sessions designed to your context, your people, and the question that actually matters to your world. Each workshop moves between the intellectual and the embodied — inquiry, conversation, movement, and play. Most run 90 minutes to half a day.
Topics include: How to Make True Friends (for men, mixed groups) · How to Be Alone · Loneliness at Work · Community as a Verb · Designing for Oneliness (for facilitators and experience designers) · From Loneliness to Oneliness (workshop version of the keynote)
Moderation & Hosting
Book me as a host or moderator for your event, gathering, or panel. I bring curiosity, warmth, and intellectual rigor, and a way of holding a room that keeps people genuinely present in it.
What I do is not simply stand on a stage and deliver information. It is to create the conditions for a shared experience — for what lies beneath the surface to become speakable, around topics that are taboo, silenced, or misunderstood. I sense into what is shifting before it has a name. I bridge across philosophy, social science, systems thinking, and lived practice.
I bring the care of a community organizer, the eye of a cultural reader, and the creativity of someone who genuinely loves what happens when a room comes alive. Through language and inquiry, but also through the senses, play, and the body.
Selected Talks & Conversations
L'Oréal Professional · Pullman Hotels & Resorts · Phoenix Group · P150 · Nebenan Stiftung · TEDxPotsdam · The Conference Malmö 2024 · World Beautiful Business Forum 2026 · Unfinished Festival 2024 · Future Days 2025 · The Merode Brussels · Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2026 · Accor Asia Leadership Conference 2026
Featured in Fast Company, Inspirators, Better Help Podcast, The Irish Times, Beauty at Work Podcast.
What People Are Saying
-
“We loved that your presence and contributions were so wholesome, from your talk and conversation to the letters exhinition and loneliness confessions booth.”
— Capucine Gros, Artistic Director, Unfinished Festival (2024)
-
“A powerful and thought-provoking session. It was a meaningful reminder of the deeper responsibility we carry in hospitality, creating spaces where people feel seen, connected, and less alone.”
— Sunardi Song, General Manager, Pullmann Hotels Kuching, Indonesia
-
“Monika is an outstanding facilitator — authentic, empathetic, and deeply engaging. She reads the room beautifully and creates a space for genuine connection.”
— Julien Gryp, Head of Programming, TheMerode Brussels