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I just got back from jogging. It’s shocking to write this fact. I believe it was likely a decade since my last. Yet I found out recently that my tests indicate elevated cholesterol, and the recommendation was to engage in vigorous activity regularly.

For the first time ever in my existence that the reason to be active has been my bodily well-being. During earlier years, I exercised because I wanted to lose weight. At times I ran to alleviate my anxiety – I was just running away from the worry, without confronting it. At other times, I ran because I wanted to improve with jogging. This was the meaning to me then to develop an improved existence.

Exercising with new motivation currently sparked reflection about the ways I’ve related with my body throughout my life and the way it’s evolving as I transition from being a young person to being a middle-aged person. It seems unlikely I’ve honored my physical form, not truly. I’ve valued it solely for its capabilities and the objectives it provided: aiming to appeal; escaping emotions; completing a speedier 5K run. Previously, I’ve not understood that my body represents me, it is my life, rather than a tool for outcomes.

Much has been explored through history about the separation involving physical and mental aspects – a topic it’s comforting to know, I’ll avoid detailing in this piece. What resonated most fascinating is Sigmund Freud’s view that mental and physical selves are naturally unified from birth, because bodily growth demands mental growth and conversely. A baby’s corporeal feelings – such as the bodily feeling of hunger – drive consciousness to build the capacity to recognise hunger as a feeling that can be sated by nourishment; and the psychological solace and fulfillment consistently provided by meal after meal nourishes the infant’s psyche similar to the milk nourishes them physically. So too psychological experiences – such as the urge to get up and reach for something, and the determination to attempt repeatedly – are why and how muscles grow stronger. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are interconnected in shared growth as connected as a spiral.

Yet It’s become clear, in treatment with my analyst, that mental and physical aspects might experience a different kind of relationship – one less integrated and more exploitative. My mind may employ my body to retain and express aspects that my consciousness views unwanted or unacceptable. In analysis it emerged that exist specific feelings that I fear I can’t handle; instead of experiencing them in my mind, I unconsciously shift them to my physical self, becoming trapped as bodily signs.

I used to get this as indigestion – which had nothing to do with food intake, but acted as a type of physical reflux of the harsher emotions I failed to handle mentally. It wasn’t a deliberate decision, but after it was introduced to my attention in sessions, and my dread and vulnerability and anger and panic could be felt and articulated instead of changed into physical sensation, it disappeared. It’s uncommon for me with digestive issues currently.

The worst time I experienced this intense reflux, I failed to rest for several nights in a row. It seemed I was slipping away from my mental stability. I went a general practitioner, who scheduled multiple scans and tests, but there was nothing medically abnormal. It was another doctor who informed me that the root may be emotional. My psychoanalyst agreed. I was surprised, but I also felt it to be true.

If an individual is suffering a bodily issue, it can be upsetting upon hearing that there might be a psychological cause. They can experience as invalidation, the idea that their illness isn’t real. Certainly it’s a real phenomenon – individuals may experience their symptoms ignored or incorrectly identified. But in some cases it might be that the physical symptoms are genuine – certainly – and the origin is emotional, the inner mind using the physique to convey some pain or rage or whichever sentiment awareness is unable to bear. Sometimes, we may believe our emotions matters solely only through expression in physical form. We often undervalue our mental states on a personal level, in social contexts and as a culture; for what reason can we allow the shocking killing-off of psychological therapies in public healthcare?

Personal insights have shown me that a superior lifestyle is unattainable when we are stuck unconsciously in ways of relating, within ourselves and socially, that originate in disrespect, exploitation and exchange. Such patterns are frequently more straightforward to spot “out there” in the general public. It may be less comfortable to think about their origins, and to identify these patterns inside us and among loved ones, in the workings of our mental lives.

Yet persistence pays off. Upon wearing my jogging shoes again post a long hiatus, venturing out without aiming for physical improvement, or to get rid of a sensation, or to surpass a 5km time, {it