Grounded in evidence, Being More enables food system transformation
Exclusively designed for OmniAction, Being More uniquely combines 15 resilience and empathy-building techniques to help food system teams master sustainability.
We deliver the programme in courses including
- One and two-day retreats
- Five to 10-day retreats
- Weekly online sessions to continue nurturing new mind sets following, or leading up to, in-person events
Immersive retreats of up to 10 days can be delivered at global retreat locations to suit your team’s needs. Among the global farm retreats we have access to is a social enterprise near Windhoek in Namibia. Teaching agroecology and organic agriculture, this farm applies traditional local techniques including those of the Nama and Indigenous communities.
We tailor courses to support organisations focussing on some, or all, of OmniAction’s key sustainability categories. This might mean an emphasis on one or all of our approaches to Nutrition, Social Impact, and Environmental Impact.
- For developing a programme bespoke to your team’s challenges, please contact lise@omniaction.org.
Being More dismantles inertia and destructive action, which are often attributed to feeling overwhelmed or impotent in the face of complexity and opacity across agrifood supply chains. It combines the OmniAction community’s deep first-hand knowledge of the food system with personal wellness techniques. Using visualisation and real-life access, we place decision makers emotionally and intellectually inside relevant points of production. Once here, we nurture the capacity to safely and courageously navigate the intricacies of sustainable action.
As members of the Conscious Food Systems Alliance, convened by the UN Development Programme, we have been inspired by allies, whose work demonstrates the potential for organisational impact when a team’s inner capacities are nurtured.
We are committed to confidentiality, including the use of legally-binding non-disclosure agreements.
Food system leaders to benefit include Health, Education, Food Security, Agriculture and True Cost Accounting policy specialists, along with agriculture and food industry leaders, and academics.
Outcomes include
- Transforming individual perspectives, fostering a profound connection to self, others, and the world. This promotes neuroplasticity, regulates emotion, and inspires a sense of interconnectedness.
- Food system decision-makers – together with their teams – will be primed to steward transformation toward sustainable and regenerative practices.
- Improved emotional regulation and mental well-being. This means reduced stress, anxiety, and depression, leading to healthier lifestyles and better quality of life.
- Over the course of one year the prefrontal cortex will be restructured, enabling more effective decision making, particularly for those currently relying on decisions driven from the limbic system.
Clinical direction
Being More is led by Dr Deschu Sahayam, a medical doctor and Oxford-trained holistic wellness specialist. Dr Sahayam describes the brain as a prediction machine, creating our future by pulling on the experiences of the past, adapting and aligning to our environment.
Our programme changes the experience of environment. It brings about new neural pathways that lie outside habitual thinking patterns. And it induces physical wellness to align with new themes of thought.
In other words, we stimulate more flexible thinking by changing the lens through which we create our world.
A guided approach to
- Self-compassion
- Mindful consumption
- Role play and non-violent dialogue
- Self-reflection
- Creativity
Techniques adapted exclusively for OmniAction
- Visualisation that helps decision makers forge novel neural connections and weaken the fear-driven pathways of the limbic system.
- Strategic gratitude that reshapes thought patterns, belief systems, and worldviews.
- Fundamental breathwork techniques guiding the mind and body into the Parasympathetic Nervous System, facilitating equilibrium and adaptability to external circumstances.
- Creative pursuits tapping into the Prefrontal Cortex pathways, promoting neuroplasticity, and enabling heightened cognitive functions.
- Structured self-reflection questions empowering decision makers to understand the lens through which they make choices that create their world, thereby rewriting their relationship with the past, self, others, and the present.
- Mindful eating that transforms the relationship with food, encouraging a deeper connection to the act of eating and its effects on the body. Self-reflective inquiries regarding food’s origins, energetic imprints, and contributions to wellness, encourage great awareness.
We offer regular and annual organisational evaluation, demonstrating the impact of Being More across metrics including
- Cognitive Patterns: Analysing thought patterns, beliefs, values, and perceptions related to self, life, and physical health.
- Interpersonal Bonds: Examining pre-existing relationships with others and nature, with a focus on potential shifts.
- Self-Relation: Concentrating on dominant emotions, their triggers, and life principles, vision, and values.
- Behaviour: Exploring the desire for change, perceived obstacles, and necessary factors for personal growth.
- Social and Environmental Connectivity: Delving into notions of interconnectedness and relationships with life-sustaining elements.
- Nourishment Paradigms: This focuses on dialogue encompassing dietary preferences, historical experiences, and awareness of food origins. We evaluate the enhanced understanding of power dynamics between food, mindset and ecosystems.
Being More was inspired by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterras who said, in his February 2023 briefing to the General Assembly, “We need to change the mind set of decision making… We have an obligation to act – in deep and systemic ways.”
Our approach is committed to the following parameters, which are promoted by the UN-convened Conscious Food Systems Alliance
- Context-Specific: Situation and place are fundamental to our bespoke organisational approach.
- Respect and Equity: Nurturing compassion for self, others, and nature. Safe environments enable empathy through role-playing and open dialogues, fostering inclusive connections.
- Power Dynamics: Empowering self-discovery through reflective practices and affirmations reshapes thought patterns. Storytelling cultivates empathy while recognising personal values and goals aids in envisioning individual paths.
- Cultural Relevance: We tailor our programmes to meet specific cultural needs, delivering relevant experiential training.
- Working with a Variety of Consciousness Practices: Mindfulness and visualisation practices stimulate neuroplasticity, fostering introspection. Heart coherence promotes emotional connection, bridging intellectual gaps, while structured gratitude reshapes thought patterns.
- Evidence-Based Approaches: Transformative education melds Vedic wisdom, scientific understanding, and quantum physics insights. This is evidenced in our rigorous Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning framework.
- Plurality of Knowledge: Our comprehensive method merges contemplative practices, compassion-based techniques, transformative education, and nature’s connection, offering a multifaceted approach to personal growth and effective communication.
