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I recently came back from a run. It’s surprising to state that statement. I believe it could have been ten years since I last did so. But I found out recently that my tests indicate slightly high cholesterol, and the recommendation was to engage in vigorous activity on a consistent basis.

It’s the initial instance in my existence that the reason to exercise has been my physical health. During earlier years, I jogged because I wanted to lose weight. I also jogged to alleviate my anxiety – I was merely escaping from the anxiety, instead of dealing with it. Sometimes, I exercised because I aimed to get better with jogging. It signified what it meant to me back then to build an improved existence.

Running for a different reason at present sparked reflection about the methods I’ve related with my body over my lifetime and its transformation as I move from youth to midlife. I believe not I’ve honored my body, not fundamentally. I’ve appreciated it only for its functions and the objectives it fulfilled for me: aiming to appeal; avoiding feelings; running a faster 5K run. Previously, I’ve not understood that I am my body, it is my life, as opposed to a tool for outcomes.

A great deal has been explored for ages about the division of mind and body – a topic it’s comforting to know, I’ll avoid detailing in this piece. What has struck me most fascinating is the Freudian perspective that mental and physical selves are naturally unified from birth, because physical maturation requires mental growth and vice versa. The infant’s physical sensations – like the physical sensation of hunger – drive the brain to cultivate the ability to perceive hunger as a sensation that is alleviated by eating; and the psychological solace and satisfaction repeatedly brought by feed after feed supports the child’s mind similar to the food sustains them physically. So too mental events – like the wish to stand up and reach for something, and the determination to persist through effort – are the cause and means muscles grow stronger. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are interlinked in mutual development as integrated as a spiral.

But I have noticed, during therapy with my therapist, that my consciousness and physique might experience a different kind of relationship – a more separated and increasingly manipulative. My consciousness might utilize my physique to store and display things that my psyche views unwanted or intolerable. During therapy we realized how there are specific feelings that I worry are too much for me; instead of feeling these psychologically, I unconsciously shift them into my body, where they get stuck as bodily signs.

I used to get digestive discomfort – which had nothing to do with my diet, but represented a form of physical reflux of the sharper sentiments I failed to handle in my mind. This wasn’t a conscious choice, but once it was raised into my consciousness in sessions, and my fear and insecurity and frustration and alarm could be felt and put into words in place of transformed into corporeal symptoms, it vanished. It’s uncommon for me from indigestion today.

The most severe episode I experienced this intense reflux, I didn’t sleep for multiple consecutive nights. I believed I was losing my mental stability. I visited to the GP, who organised multiple diagnostic procedures, but there was nothing physically wrong. The situation was another doctor who told me that the origin may be emotional. My analyst agreed. I was surprised, but I also felt it was accurate.

When a patient experiences a physical symptom, they might feel insulted upon hearing that it could have a psychological cause. They might feel this as being disrespected, hearing that their illness is fabricated. And of course such cases occur – individuals may experience their symptoms ignored or wrongly assessed. But in some cases it could be that the corporeal issues are genuine – no question – and the source is emotional, the unconscious employing the physique to convey some pain or rage or whichever sentiment the conscious self cannot tolerate. At times, we might assume our emotions matters solely if manifested through the body. We often undervalue our minds as individuals, in social contexts and within our culture; why else do we accept the appalling elimination of mental health treatments through health services?

My experiences have shown me that a better life cannot be built while caught unconsciously in patterns of interaction, inside us and socially, that are rooted in disregard, manipulation and exchange. These dynamics tend to be simpler to identify “in the world” in broader culture. It’s perhaps more challenging to consider how they got out there, and to see these patterns inside us and in intimate connections, in the dynamics of our psyches.

However persistence pays off. Upon wearing my jogging shoes once more after such a long decade, heading out not for bodily change, or to get rid of a sensation, or to improve a 5km time, {it