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I just got back from a run. I’m amazed to write that statement. I believe it might have been ten years since the previous time. But I found out recently that I have somewhat raised cholesterol, and the recommendation was to engage in vigorous activity regularly.

This is the first time in my life that my motivation to be active has been my health status. In my youth, I exercised because I wanted to slim down. At times I ran to cure feelings of anxiety – I was just running away from the worry, without confronting it. On other occasions, I jogged because I sought to improve in running. It signified the definition to me then to build a superior lifestyle.

Exercising with new motivation currently prompted contemplation about the ways I’ve related with my physical self over my lifetime and the way it’s evolving as I progress from being a young person to midlife. I don’t think I’ve respected my body, not truly. I’ve valued it solely for its functions and the aims it provided: trying to attract others; escaping emotions; running a faster 5km. Until today, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it is my existence, instead of a tool for outcomes.

Much has been explored through history about the division involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s comforting to know, I’m not going to precis now. What resonated most compelling is the Freudian perspective that mind and body are innately connected right from the start, because physical development demands psychological development and vice versa. The infant’s corporeal feelings – for example the corporeal experience of hunger – motivate the brain to build the ability to identify hunger as an emotion that may be satisfied by nourishment; and the psychological solace and fulfillment consistently provided by feed after feed feeds the child’s mind just as the milk nourishes them physically. Similarly emotional occurrences – for instance the desire to rise and grab an object, and the resolve to attempt repeatedly – are why and how physical strength increases. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are interlinked in reciprocal evolution as unified as DNA strands.

Yet It’s become clear, in treatment with my psychoanalyst, that mental and physical aspects may exist in an alternate dynamic – a more separated and more exploitative. My psyche might utilize my body to retain and express things that my psyche views unwanted or unbearable. In my sessions we’ve become aware how exist specific feelings that I fear I can’t handle; instead of experiencing them mentally, I unintentionally force them into bodily form, where they get stuck as bodily signs.

I often had this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with what I’d eaten, but acted as a type of corporeal reaction of the sharper sentiments I couldn’t digest psychologically. This wasn’t a conscious choice, but when it was brought to my attention in sessions, and my anxiety and sensitivity and rage and panic could be felt and articulated in place of transformed into bodily feelings, it resolved. It’s uncommon for me with digestive issues currently.

The most severe episode I had this intense reflux, I was unable to sleep for multiple consecutive nights. I believed I was slipping away from my sanity. I visited to the GP, who organised all sorts of examinations and assessments, but everything was medically abnormal. It turned out to be another doctor who suggested that the origin may be emotional. My therapist concurred. I was stunned, but I recognized it to be true.

If an individual endures a bodily issue, they might feel insulted if told that it could have an emotional origin. They can experience like disrespect, being told that their symptom isn’t real. Certainly that does happen – some face their suffering ignored or misdiagnosed. However, sometimes it could be that the corporeal issues are genuine – without doubt – and the cause is mental, the subconscious utilizing the physical self to convey certain suffering or anger or whichever sentiment the conscious self fails to handle. At times, we may believe our emotions only has value only through expression through the body. We often undervalue our mental states on a personal level, collectively and culturally; how else do we accept the terrible elimination of psychological therapies on the NHS?

Personal insights have shown me that a better life is unattainable if we remain trapped unconsciously in ways of relating, within ourselves and with others, that originate in devaluation, exploitation and transaction. Such patterns are frequently more straightforward to spot “in the world” in broader culture. It’s perhaps harder to consider their origins, and to see these patterns personally and in intimate connections, in the workings of our minds.

However it’s worth persevering. When I put my running shoes once more after such a long decade, going outside not to get a better body, or to escape a feeling, or to beat a 5km time, {it