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I recently came back from jogging. It’s surprising to state those words. I believe it might have been a decade since my last. Yet I recently discovered that I have somewhat raised cholesterol, and the recommendation was to engage in vigorous activity frequently.

For the first time ever in my existence that my motivation to exercise has been my physical health. During earlier years, I exercised because I aimed to lose weight. I’ve also run to alleviate feelings of anxiety – I was merely escaping from those feelings, without confronting it. Sometimes, I jogged because I aimed to improve in running. This was the meaning to me back then to develop an improved existence.

Running for a different reason at present prompted contemplation about the methods I’ve interacted with my physical self over my lifetime and the way it’s evolving as I transition from early adulthood to midlife. It seems unlikely I’ve respected my own body, not deep down. I’ve valued it solely for its capabilities and the aims it fulfilled for me: seeking approval; escaping emotions; completing a speedier five kilometers. Previously, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it is my life, as opposed to an instrument for achievements.

Much has been explored through history about the division of mind and body – which it’s comforting to know, I’ll avoid detailing now. What resonated most intriguing is the Freudian perspective that mind and body are developmentally integrated from birth, because physical development necessitates mental growth and the reverse is true. The infant’s corporeal feelings – like the bodily feeling of hunger – propel consciousness to develop the skill to recognise hunger as an emotion that is alleviated by nourishment; and the emotional comfort and contentment regularly delivered by repeated nourishment nourishes the child’s mind just as the nutrition sustains them physically. Similarly mental events – such as the urge to rise and grab an object, and the determination to try again and again – are the reason and method the body develops power. Starting at birth, mind and body are intertwined in shared growth as connected as a spiral.

However I have noticed, in sessions with my psychoanalyst, that mental and physical aspects can be in an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and more exploitative. My mind might utilize my body to retain and display elements that my consciousness considers undesirable or unbearable. In my sessions we realized that there are certain emotions that I am afraid I cannot bear; instead of experiencing them mentally, I unconsciously shift them into bodily form, where they get stuck as bodily signs.

I used to get digestive discomfort – not connected to food intake, but represented a type of corporeal reaction of the more acidic feelings I failed to handle in my mind. It wasn’t an intentional act, but when it was brought into my consciousness through therapy, and my anxiety and sensitivity and rage and alarm became palpable and articulated in place of transformed into corporeal symptoms, it disappeared. I rarely suffer from stomach problems today.

The toughest period I experienced this intense reflux, I was unable to sleep for multiple consecutive nights. It seemed I was slipping away from my mental stability. I went to the GP, who organised all sorts of scans and tests, but no issues were found medically abnormal. It turned out to be a different physician who suggested that the cause may be mental. My psychoanalyst agreed. I was stunned, but I also felt it to be true.

Whenever someone experiences a corporeal problem, they can be offended at the suggestion that it may have an emotional origin. They can experience this as being disrespected, the idea that their condition is imagined. And of course that does happen – individuals may experience their suffering discounted or incorrectly identified. However, sometimes it could be that the bodily signs are real – certainly – and the source is mental, the unconscious using the physical self to convey emotional hurt or fury or any feeling the mind fails to handle. Sometimes, we might assume our feelings only has value when it is expressed through the body. 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 reduction of mental health treatments in public healthcare?

Life lessons have revealed that a superior lifestyle cannot be created if we remain trapped without realization in modes of connection, inside us and in relationships, that originate in devaluation, exploitation and exchange. Such patterns tend to be simpler to spot “externally” in the general public. It’s likely less comfortable to consider how they got out there, and to see these patterns personally and in intimate connections, in the workings of our mental lives.

Yet it’s worth persevering. After donning my trainers once more post a long hiatus, heading out not for physical improvement, or to eliminate a sensation, or to beat a running record, {it