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I have just returned from a jog. It’s shocking to write this fact. It seems it could have been many years since I last did so. Yet I recently discovered that my levels show slightly high cholesterol, and doctors suggested to engage in vigorous activity on a consistent basis.

This is the first time in my existence that the reason to work out has been my bodily well-being. During earlier years, I jogged because I wanted to be thinner. I’ve also run to alleviate my anxiety – It was an avoidance tactic from those feelings, not addressing it. At other times, I ran because I sought to enhance in running. This was what it meant to me at that time to create an improved existence.

Exercising with new motivation currently prompted contemplation about the ways I’ve related with my physique throughout my life and the way it’s evolving as I progress from youth to midlife. It seems unlikely I’ve respected my body, not truly. I’ve prized it only for its functions and the objectives it provided: seeking approval; dodging sentiments; completing a speedier 5K run. Previously, I hadn’t realized that my body is me, it is my life, rather than an instrument for achievements.

Much has been explored over the centuries about the division involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s reassuring to know, I’ll avoid detailing now. What has struck me most compelling is the Freudian perspective that consciousness and physique are naturally unified from birth, because bodily growth requires psychological development and conversely. The infant’s physical sensations – for example the corporeal experience of hunger – drive consciousness to develop the capacity to perceive hunger as a feeling that is alleviated by nourishment; and the mental reassurance and contentment repeatedly brought by repeated nourishment feeds the young mind similar to the food nourishes them bodily. Likewise psychological experiences – for instance the urge to rise and attain a goal, and the persistence to persist through effort – are the reason and method muscles grow stronger. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are interlinked in mutual development as connected as a double helix.

However I have noticed, in sessions with my analyst, that mental and physical aspects might experience an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and somewhat abusive. My consciousness can use my body to hold and manifest elements that my mind views undesirable or unacceptable. In my sessions it emerged that exist certain emotions that I worry I can’t handle; in place of feeling these in my mind, I subconsciously force them into bodily form, becoming trapped as physical symptoms.

I often had this as indigestion – which had nothing to do with my diet, but was a form of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process in my mind. This wasn’t an intentional act, but after it was introduced to my attention through therapy, and my fear and sensitivity and rage and terror became palpable and expressed verbally instead of converted to physical sensation, it resolved. I rarely suffer from indigestion today.

The most severe episode I experienced this intense reflux, I was unable to sleep for multiple consecutive nights. I believed I was forfeiting my mental stability. I went to the GP, who arranged all sorts of examinations and assessments, but no issues were found corporally problematic. It was another doctor who informed me that the root might be mental. My psychoanalyst agreed. I was shocked, but I also felt it was correct.

Whenever someone experiences a physical symptom, they might feel insulted at the suggestion that it could have a psychological cause. It can seem like disrespect, hearing that their condition is fabricated. Certainly such cases occur – individuals may experience their suffering discounted or misdiagnosed. However, sometimes it might be that the bodily signs are genuine – certainly – and the source is mental, the subconscious utilizing the physical self to convey emotional hurt or fury or whatever emotion awareness is unable to bear. Occasionally, we may believe our experience only has value only through expression through the body. We continually disrespect our minds as individuals, as a society and as a culture; how else would we tolerate the shocking reduction of psychodynamic psychotherapy through health services?

Personal insights have revealed that a superior lifestyle cannot be created while caught unconsciously in modes of connection, within ourselves and socially, that stem from devaluation, exploitation and transaction. These dynamics tend to be simpler to spot “out there” in wider society. It’s likely harder to think about their origins, and to see these forms within ourselves and in intimate connections, in the dynamics of our mental lives.

Yet it’s worth persevering. When I put my trainers again post a long hiatus, heading out not to get a better body, or to eliminate a feeling, or to improve a personal best, {it