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I recently came back from jogging. It’s surprising to state that statement. I believe it might have been a decade since I last did so. Yet It came to my attention that I have somewhat raised cholesterol, and doctors suggested to do sweaty exercise regularly.

For the first time ever in my existence that my motivation to exercise has been my bodily well-being. In my youth, I jogged because I wanted to lose weight. At times I ran to manage nervousness – I was merely escaping from those feelings, without confronting it. At other times, I jogged because I wanted to enhance at running. This was what it meant to me at that time to build a superior lifestyle.

Exercising with new motivation now sparked reflection about the approaches I’ve related with my physical self over my lifetime and how this is changing as I transition from youth to middle age. It seems unlikely I’ve valued my own body, not fundamentally. I’ve prized it only for its functions and the purposes it fulfilled for me: aiming to appeal; avoiding feelings; achieving a quicker five kilometers. Previously, I hadn’t realized that I am my body, it is my life, instead of an instrument for achievements.

A great deal has been explored for ages about the split involving physical and mental aspects – a topic it’s comforting to know, I’ll avoid detailing in this piece. What resonated most fascinating is Sigmund Freud’s view that mind and body are naturally unified right from the start, because physical maturation requires psychological development and the reverse is true. The newborn’s bodily experiences – such as the physical sensation of hunger – propel the brain to cultivate the skill to recognise hunger as a sensation that can be sated by a feed; and the mental reassurance and satisfaction regularly delivered by feed after feed supports the infant’s psyche similar to the milk nourishes them corporally. So too emotional occurrences – such as the wish to rise and grab an object, and the determination to attempt repeatedly – are the cause and means the body develops power. Since infancy, our physical and mental selves are intertwined in mutual development as integrated as a double helix.

But I’ve observed, during therapy with my psychoanalyst, that mental and physical aspects can be in an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and increasingly manipulative. My mind may employ my physique to hold and express aspects that my mind deems unwanted or unbearable. In my sessions we realized how exist specific feelings that I am afraid are too much for me; in place of sensing them psychologically, I unconsciously shift them to my physical self, where they get stuck as bodily signs.

I used to get this with indigestion – not connected to my diet, but was a kind of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I couldn’t digest in my mind. It wasn’t a conscious choice, but after it was introduced into my consciousness through therapy, and my anxiety and insecurity and rage and alarm became palpable and articulated instead of converted to corporeal symptoms, it disappeared. It’s uncommon for me from stomach problems currently.

The worst time I endured this intense reflux, I failed to rest for multiple consecutive nights. I believed I was slipping away from my mental stability. I consulted to the GP, who organised all sorts of diagnostic procedures, but no issues were found physically wrong. It was a different physician who suggested that the root could be psychological. My analyst concurred. I was surprised, but I also felt it was accurate.

When a patient endures a physical symptom, they can be offended at the suggestion that there might be a mental root. They might feel this as being disrespected, being told that their illness is imagined. Naturally it’s a real phenomenon – individuals may experience their pain dismissed or incorrectly identified. Yet occasionally it’s possible that the physical symptoms are genuine – no question – and the origin is mental, the inner mind employing the physical self to convey some pain or rage or whichever sentiment the conscious self is unable to bear. At times, it’s easy to think our feelings only has value only through expression as bodily symptoms. We often undervalue our minds personally, in social contexts and as a culture; why else would we tolerate the appalling reduction of mental health treatments through health services?

Life lessons have shown me that a better life is unattainable while caught unconsciously in ways of relating, internally and in relationships, that stem from disrespect, exploitation and exchange. These dynamics are frequently more straightforward to spot “in the world” in the general public. It may be more challenging to think about where they come from, and to recognise these forms within ourselves and among loved ones, in the economy of our psyches.

However persistence pays off. Upon wearing my trainers again post a long hiatus, heading out not to get bodily change, or to eliminate a feeling, or to beat a running record, {it