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I have just returned from jogging. It’s shocking to state that statement. I think it could have been ten years since the previous time. Yet It came to my attention that my tests indicate slightly high cholesterol, and doctors suggested to engage in vigorous activity on a consistent basis.

This is the first time in living memory that the reason to exercise has been my health status. When I was younger, I ran because I desired to slim down. I’ve also run to cure my anxiety – I was just running away from the worry, without confronting it. At other times, I exercised because I sought to improve at running. It signified the meaning to me then to build an improved existence.

Running for a different reason at present prompted contemplation about the ways I’ve related with my body during my years and the way it’s evolving as I move from early adulthood to being a middle-aged person. I don’t think I’ve honored my physical form, not fundamentally. I’ve prized it only for its functions and the objectives it served me: seeking approval; avoiding feelings; completing a speedier 5K run. Up to now, I’ve not understood that my body is me, it is my existence, rather than an instrument for achievements.

Much has been discussed for ages about the split of mind and body – a topic it’s reassuring to know, I’ll avoid detailing now. What has struck me most intriguing is Sigmund Freud’s view that mental and physical selves are developmentally integrated from the beginning, because physical development requires psychological development and vice versa. The infant’s physical sensations – like the corporeal experience of hunger – motivate the brain to cultivate the skill to identify hunger as a sensation that can be sated by nourishment; and the emotional comfort and satisfaction consistently provided by meal after meal supports the young mind just as the food fuels them physically. So too mental events – like the urge to rise and reach for something, and the determination to persist through effort – are the reason and method the body develops power. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are intertwined in reciprocal evolution as connected as a spiral.

But I’ve observed, during therapy with my therapist, that my mind and body may exist in a different kind of relationship – one less integrated and somewhat abusive. My mind might utilize my body to hold and manifest things that my psyche considers unwanted or unacceptable. In analysis it emerged how exist particular emotional states that I fear I cannot bear; instead of sensing them in my mind, I subconsciously shift them into my body, becoming trapped as bodily signs.

I often had digestive discomfort – not connected to food intake, but acted as a form of physical reflux of the sharper sentiments I couldn’t digest mentally. This was not a deliberate decision, but after it was introduced to my attention through therapy, and my dread and vulnerability and frustration and alarm were experienced and put into words instead of converted to corporeal symptoms, it vanished. I seldom experience with digestive issues now.

The most severe episode I had this terrible acid reflux, I was unable to sleep for multiple consecutive nights. It seemed I was losing my mental stability. I went my doctor, who arranged all sorts of diagnostic procedures, but there was nothing medically abnormal. It was an alternate medic who suggested that the origin could be psychological. My analyst concurred. I was surprised, but I also felt it was accurate.

If an individual endures a bodily issue, they can be offended at the suggestion that there might be an emotional origin. They might feel like disrespect, the idea that their condition is fabricated. And of course such cases occur – some face their pain dismissed or incorrectly identified. However, sometimes it could be that the physical symptoms exist – no question – and the source is psychological, the subconscious utilizing the physical self to express certain suffering or anger or any feeling the mind cannot tolerate. Sometimes, we might assume our feelings only has value when it is expressed through the body. We continually disrespect our mental states as individuals, as a society and as a culture; why else can we allow the appalling reduction of psychodynamic psychotherapy in public healthcare?

Life lessons have revealed that an improved existence is unattainable if we remain trapped unconsciously in patterns of interaction, internally and in relationships, that are rooted in devaluation, use and dealings. These interactions are often easier to spot “out there” in broader culture. It may be harder to think about their origins, and to recognise these patterns personally and within our closest relationships, in the dynamics of our mental lives.

But it’s worth persevering. After donning my trainers once more following many years, going outside not for a better body, or to eliminate an emotion, or to surpass a 5km time, {it