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I just got back from a run. It’s surprising to admit this fact. I think it might have been many years since I last did so. But It came to my attention that I have somewhat raised cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to do sweaty exercise frequently.

It’s the initial instance in my existence that my motivation to exercise has been my physical health. In my youth, I ran because I wanted to lose weight. At times I ran to alleviate my anxiety – I was merely escaping from the anxiety, instead of dealing with it. On other occasions, I ran because I wanted to improve at running. This was the meaning to me then to create a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent now prompted contemplation about the ways I’ve connected with my physical self during my years and how this is changing as I progress from being a young person to middle age. I don’t think I’ve respected my own body, not deep down. I’ve appreciated it only for its roles and the objectives it provided: aiming to appeal; escaping emotions; running a faster 5K run. Up to now, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it embodies my life, rather than something that produces results.

A great deal has been discussed for ages about the division of mind and body – a topic it’s reassuring to know, I’m not going to precis now. What I’ve found most fascinating is the Freudian perspective that mental and physical selves are naturally unified from birth, because physical maturation demands emotional evolution and vice versa. The newborn’s corporeal feelings – for example the bodily feeling of hunger – propel the mind to develop the capacity to perceive hunger as a feeling that can be sated by a feed; and the psychological solace and satisfaction repeatedly brought by meal after meal feeds the young mind similar to the food nourishes them physically. Similarly mental events – for instance the desire to get up and grab an object, and the resolve to attempt repeatedly – are the cause and means muscles grow stronger. Since infancy, mind and body are interlinked in shared growth as integrated as a double helix.

However It’s become clear, in treatment with my analyst, that my consciousness and physique might experience a distinct connection – a less unified and somewhat abusive. My psyche may employ my body to store and display elements that my mind considers undesirable or unacceptable. In analysis we realized that exist specific feelings that I am afraid I cannot bear; instead of sensing them mentally, I unconsciously force them to my physical self, where they remain as corporeal issues.

I often had this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with what I’d eaten, but was a form of corporeal reaction of the more acidic feelings I couldn’t digest mentally. This wasn’t an intentional act, but when it was brought into my consciousness through therapy, and my dread and insecurity and frustration and alarm could be felt and put into words in place of transformed into bodily feelings, it resolved. I rarely suffer with digestive issues currently.

The toughest period I had this terrible acid reflux, I was unable to sleep for multiple consecutive nights. It seemed I was forfeiting my mental stability. I went a general practitioner, who scheduled multiple diagnostic procedures, but no issues were found physically wrong. It was an alternate medic who informed me that the cause might be mental. My analyst agreed. I was surprised, but I also knew it was accurate.

Whenever someone is suffering a bodily issue, it can be upsetting upon hearing that there might be a psychological cause. They can experience as invalidation, the idea that their illness is fabricated. Naturally that does happen – people can have their suffering discounted or wrongly assessed. Yet occasionally it’s possible that the corporeal issues exist – certainly – and the source is emotional, the unconscious employing the body to manifest certain suffering or fury or whichever sentiment the mind is unable to bear. At times, we might assume our experience is only valid only through expression as bodily symptoms. We continually disrespect our mental states personally, collectively and as a culture; how else can we allow the terrible reduction of psychological therapies through health services?

Life lessons have revealed that an improved existence cannot be built while caught unconsciously in modes of connection, inside us and in relationships, that are rooted in disregard, manipulation and transaction. These dynamics are frequently more straightforward to spot “in the world” in wider society. It may be more challenging to think about their origins, and to recognise these shapes inside us and in intimate connections, in the workings of our mental lives.

But it’s valuable to continue. When I put my trainers back on after such a long decade, venturing out not to get physical improvement, or to get rid of an emotion, or to beat a personal best, {it