Wellness: How to navigate through change? How to keep the body and mind aligned throughout the change?

WELLNESS THROUGH CHANGE, BODY, MIND: AN INTERACTIVE MODEL

“Change is inevitable. Carl Yung defined “change” as “a natural transformative process towards achieving psychological wholeness”. Yet, change becomes a holistic transformative process only when we are aware and start observing how it is interacting with our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, body, and mind.

Awareness is a built-in tool for us, which works through our physical body and the mind. The physical body is an intelligent design that interacts with the change through thoughts, behaviors, emotions, through awareness. The body, keeps the record for every emotion, thought and the experience, while mind (the intellect or sense of self) tries to give a meaning to all these, possibly writing its own personal stories. The mind and the body try to communicate with each other. What happens, if they loose the communication? Or if physical body or mind is hijacked by patterns of trauma that do not belong us to start with?

Disconnected from body, the mind may feel overwhelm, frustration, anger, anxiety, sadness, guilt, shame or lack of control, lack of trust, problems with focus and concentration, difficulty to connect with self and others, while body may experience panic attacks, sleep or eating problems, stress, pain or other physical symptoms.

Wellness is the self-awareness that focuses the mind and the body towards the wholeness during change. Our work together is a journey, where we will use an interactive model to acknowledge the body, mind and the change. We will practice “awareness” and walk this journey together with compassion and curiosity.”

Sample Practice of Awareness: 1. Choose a time and calm space to pause and observe “the problem”; 2. Define the problem for you, using your words in your mind; 3. Observe how the problem is interacting with you in general, emotions, thoughts, physical body when you are connecting to the problem in your mind; 4. Accept what you observe, in your mind using your breath. Notice the thoughts, emotions that pops up…Breath, follow the breath to observe how your physical body responding..breath…exhale..you are safe”. Repeat the breath adjusting the depth and the length of the breath as much as needed. Each time take a mental note what you are observing in your mind, body (Please practice this only in a seated position, do not practice while driving).

Copyright, 2025, Esra Nutku-Bilir