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I recently came back from jogging. I’m amazed to admit this fact. It seems it might have been a decade since the previous time. Yet It came to my attention that my levels show somewhat raised cholesterol, and the recommendation was to do sweaty exercise frequently.

For the first time ever in living memory that the driving force to be active has been my health status. During earlier years, I exercised because I wanted to slim down. I also jogged to alleviate my anxiety – I was merely escaping from those feelings, instead of dealing with it. On other occasions, I jogged because I aimed to improve with jogging. It signified the meaning to me at that time to develop a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent now prompted contemplation about the approaches I’ve connected with my physical self throughout my life and its transformation as I move from being a young person to midlife. It seems unlikely I’ve valued my own body, not deep down. I’ve prized it just for its capabilities and the purposes it served me: trying to attract others; escaping emotions; running a faster 5km. Until today, I’ve not understood that my body is me, it is my existence, rather than an instrument for achievements.

A lot has been written for ages about the split between body and mind – a topic you will be relieved to know, I’m not going to precis in this piece. What I’ve found most intriguing is the Freudian perspective that mind and body are developmentally integrated right from the start, because physical development requires emotional evolution and conversely. A baby’s physical sensations – for example the physical sensation of hunger – motivate the brain to cultivate the capacity to perceive hunger as an emotion that may be satisfied by nourishment; and the emotional comfort and satisfaction regularly delivered by meal after meal nourishes the young mind just as the food sustains them corporally. Likewise psychological experiences – for instance the urge to get up and reach for something, and the resolve to try again and again – are the cause and means muscles grow stronger. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are intertwined in reciprocal evolution as integrated as a spiral.

However I have noticed, in sessions with my analyst, that my mind and body can be in a distinct connection – a more separated and more exploitative. My psyche may employ my physical self to hold and manifest aspects that my mind deems unacceptable or intolerable. In analysis we’ve become aware that exist specific feelings that I fear I cannot bear; instead of sensing them psychologically, I unintentionally force them into my body, becoming trapped as bodily signs.

I used to get this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with my diet, but represented a kind of physical reflux of the sharper sentiments I failed to handle in my mind. This wasn’t a conscious choice, but when it was brought to awareness in sessions, and my fear and sensitivity and frustration and alarm were experienced and expressed verbally rather than changed into physical sensation, it vanished. I seldom experience from indigestion now.

The worst time I endured this intense reflux, I failed to rest for several nights in a row. I believed I was losing my mind. I went my doctor, who organised all sorts of examinations and assessments, but everything was physically wrong. It was a different physician who told me that the root may be mental. My therapist did not disagree. I was surprised, but I recognized it was correct.

If an individual endures a physical symptom, they might feel insulted if told that it may have a psychological cause. They might feel this as being disrespected, being told that their symptom is fabricated. Certainly such cases occur – people can have their symptoms ignored or incorrectly identified. Yet occasionally it might be that the physical symptoms exist – without doubt – and the origin is emotional, the unconscious employing the physical self to manifest emotional hurt or rage or any feeling the conscious self is unable to bear. At times, we may believe our emotions matters solely when it is expressed in physical form. We persistently neglect our mental states personally, in social contexts and culturally; how else can we allow the appalling elimination of mental health treatments through health services?

My experiences have taught me that an improved existence cannot be built when we are stuck without realization in patterns of interaction, internally and with others, that originate in devaluation, manipulation and transaction. These interactions are frequently more straightforward to identify “externally” in the general public. It’s likely harder to consider where they come from, and to see these patterns within ourselves and among loved ones, in the workings of our mental lives.

Yet it’s valuable to continue. Upon wearing my running shoes back on following many years, heading out not for a better body, or to get rid of an emotion, or to improve a running record, {it