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I have just returned from a jog. I’m amazed to state this fact. I think it could have been ten years since I last did so. However It came to my attention that I have slightly high cholesterol, and the recommendation was to engage in vigorous activity frequently.

For the first time ever in my existence that my motivation to be active has been my health status. During earlier years, I jogged because I desired to slim down. I’ve also run to alleviate nervousness – It was an avoidance tactic from the anxiety, not addressing it. Sometimes, I ran because I sought to enhance with jogging. That represented what it meant to me then to build a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent currently prompted contemplation about the ways I’ve related with my physique throughout my life and how this is changing as I progress from youth to middle age. I believe not I’ve valued my body, not fundamentally. I’ve appreciated it solely for its functions and the purposes it provided: trying to attract others; avoiding feelings; completing a speedier five kilometers. Until today, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it embodies my life, rather than an instrument for achievements.

A great deal has been written over the centuries about the division involving physical and mental aspects – which you will be relieved to know, I’m not going to precis here. What resonated most fascinating is the Freudian perspective that consciousness and physique are developmentally integrated from the beginning, because bodily growth requires psychological development and the reverse is true. The infant’s bodily experiences – for example the bodily feeling of hunger – propel consciousness to cultivate the capacity to perceive hunger as an emotion that may be satisfied by eating; and the psychological solace and satisfaction consistently provided by repeated nourishment feeds the infant’s psyche in the same way the milk fuels them corporally. So too emotional occurrences – for instance the desire to get up and grab an object, and the determination to try again and again – are the cause and means muscles grow stronger. Since infancy, our physical and mental selves are interlinked in reciprocal evolution as integrated as DNA strands.

But I’ve observed, during therapy with my analyst, that mental and physical aspects can be in an alternate dynamic – a less unified and somewhat abusive. My psyche might utilize my physique to hold and express things that my consciousness views unacceptable or unbearable. In analysis it emerged that exist particular emotional states that I am afraid I can’t handle; instead of experiencing them mentally, I subconsciously shift them to my physical self, where they get stuck as physical symptoms.

I used to get this with indigestion – unrelated to what I’d eaten, but acted as a kind of corporeal reaction of the more acidic feelings I was unable to process psychologically. This wasn’t a deliberate decision, but after it was introduced into my consciousness in sessions, and my anxiety and sensitivity and anger and panic were experienced and put into words instead of converted to physical sensation, it vanished. It’s uncommon for me with digestive issues today.

The worst time I experienced this severe heartburn, I didn’t sleep for several nights in a row. I felt I was slipping away from my sanity. I went a general practitioner, who scheduled multiple diagnostic procedures, but there was nothing physically wrong. It turned out to be a different physician who told me that the origin could be emotional. My analyst did not disagree. I was surprised, but I recognized it was accurate.

Whenever someone experiences a bodily issue, they might feel insulted if told that it may have a psychological cause. They might feel like disrespect, the idea that their illness is fabricated. And of course it’s a real phenomenon – some face their suffering discounted or incorrectly identified. But in some cases it’s possible that the physical symptoms are genuine – without doubt – and the source is mental, the inner mind employing the physique to express some pain or fury or whichever sentiment awareness is unable to bear. At times, it’s easy to think our experience is only valid if manifested through the body. We persistently neglect our minds personally, as a society and as a culture; for what reason do we accept the terrible reduction of psychological therapies in public healthcare?

My experiences have taught me that an improved existence cannot be created if we remain trapped unawares in modes of connection, within ourselves and socially, that originate in devaluation, exploitation and exchange. These interactions are frequently more straightforward to spot “out there” in the general public. It’s perhaps more challenging to consider how they got out there, and to recognise these patterns personally and among loved ones, in the economy of our mental lives.

Yet it’s worth persevering. After donning my running shoes again following many years, venturing out not for a better body, or to get rid of an emotion, or to beat a running record, {it