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I just got back from jogging. I’m amazed to admit that statement. It seems it might have been a decade since the previous time. However I recently discovered that my levels show elevated cholesterol, and the recommendation was to perform intense workouts regularly.

For the first time ever in my existence that the reason to work out has been my physical health. When I was younger, I jogged because I desired to be thinner. At times I ran to cure nervousness – I was just running away from the worry, without confronting it. On other occasions, I ran because I aimed to get better with jogging. This was what it meant to me at that time to create a better life.

Exercising with new motivation currently sparked reflection about the methods I’ve related with my physique over my lifetime and its transformation as I progress from being a young person to middle age. I believe not I’ve honored my physical form, not deep down. I’ve valued it just for its roles and the purposes it provided: trying to attract others; avoiding feelings; achieving a quicker 5km. Up to now, I hadn’t realized that my body is me, it is my life, as opposed to a tool for outcomes.

Much has been discussed over the centuries about the separation between body and mind – which you will be relieved to know, I won’t summarize in this piece. What has struck me most compelling is Freud’s understanding that consciousness and physique are developmentally integrated right from the start, because physical development necessitates emotional evolution and the reverse is true. The newborn’s physical sensations – for example the physical sensation of hunger – motivate the mind to develop the skill to recognise hunger as a feeling that is alleviated by nourishment; and the mental reassurance and fulfillment repeatedly brought by meal after meal nourishes the young mind similar to the milk fuels them physically. Similarly mental events – for instance the urge to get up and grab an object, and the resolve to attempt repeatedly – are why and how the body develops power. Since infancy, our body and mind are interconnected in shared growth as unified as a double helix.

However I have noticed, in treatment with my analyst, that my mind and body can be in a different kind of relationship – a less unified and somewhat abusive. My consciousness may employ my physical self to retain and express elements that my psyche considers undesirable or intolerable. In analysis it emerged how there are specific feelings that I worry are too much for me; rather than feeling these in my mind, I unintentionally force them to my physical self, becoming trapped as bodily signs.

I often had digestive discomfort – unrelated to my diet, but represented a type of bodily backlash of the harsher emotions I was unable to process psychologically. This was not an intentional act, but once it was raised to awareness by my analyst, and my fear and sensitivity and frustration and terror became palpable and articulated in place of changed into physical sensation, it disappeared. It’s uncommon for me from stomach problems now.

The worst time I had this terrible acid reflux, I failed to rest for several nights in a row. It seemed I was forfeiting my mind. I visited to the GP, who scheduled multiple diagnostic procedures, but no issues were found physically wrong. It was another doctor who suggested that the cause could be mental. My analyst agreed. I was surprised, but I recognized it to be true.

Whenever someone endures a corporeal problem, it can be upsetting upon hearing that it could have an emotional origin. They can experience like disrespect, hearing that their condition is imagined. Certainly it’s a real phenomenon – people can have their symptoms ignored or incorrectly identified. But in some cases it’s possible that the corporeal issues are genuine – certainly – and the cause is emotional, the unconscious employing the physical self to manifest some pain or fury or whichever sentiment the mind is unable to bear. Sometimes, it’s easy to think our experience matters solely when it is expressed as bodily symptoms. We continually disrespect our psychological well-being personally, collectively and within our culture; why else do we accept the terrible killing-off of mental health treatments through health services?

My experiences have taught me that a better life cannot be built if we remain trapped unawares in ways of relating, within ourselves and in relationships, that stem from devaluation, exploitation and exchange. These interactions are frequently more straightforward to spot “out there” in wider society. It’s perhaps less comfortable to reflect on how they got out there, and to recognise these shapes within ourselves and among loved ones, in the workings of our mental lives.

Yet persistence pays off. When I put my running shoes once more following many years, going outside without aiming for physical improvement, or to escape a sensation, or to surpass a running record, {it