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I just got back from a run. It’s surprising to state that statement. I think it might have been a decade since my last. Yet I found out recently that I have slightly high cholesterol, and doctors suggested to perform intense workouts frequently.

For the first time ever in my existence that the reason to exercise has been my physical health. When I was younger, I jogged because I desired to lose weight. I also jogged to alleviate my anxiety – I was merely escaping from those feelings, instead of dealing with it. At other times, I ran because I wanted to improve with jogging. That represented the definition to me back then to develop a better life.

Exercising with new motivation now sparked reflection about the methods I’ve related with my body during my years and how this is changing as I transition from early adulthood to being a middle-aged person. It seems unlikely I’ve respected my own body, not fundamentally. I’ve appreciated it only for its functions and the aims it provided: seeking approval; avoiding feelings; completing a speedier 5km. Up to now, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it is my existence, rather than something that produces results.

A great deal has been explored for ages about the split of mind and body – which it’s comforting to know, I won’t summarize here. What has struck me most fascinating is Freud’s understanding that mental and physical selves are innately connected right from the start, because physical development necessitates mental growth and conversely. The infant’s bodily experiences – for example the bodily feeling of hunger – motivate the brain to cultivate the skill to recognise hunger as an emotion that is alleviated by nourishment; and the emotional comfort and fulfillment repeatedly brought by meal after meal feeds the young mind just as the food fuels them physically. So too mental events – for instance the urge to get up and grab an object, and the persistence to persist through effort – are the cause and means the body develops power. From our earliest moments, our physical and mental selves are interlinked in reciprocal evolution as integrated as DNA strands.

Yet I have noticed, in sessions with my psychoanalyst, that my mind and body may exist in a different kind of relationship – a more separated and more exploitative. My consciousness might utilize my body to store and manifest elements that my consciousness views undesirable or intolerable. During therapy it emerged that exist particular emotional states that I fear I cannot bear; in place of experiencing them mentally, I unintentionally force them into bodily form, where they get stuck as corporeal issues.

I used to get this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with food intake, but represented a kind of bodily backlash of the harsher emotions I couldn’t digest mentally. This was not an intentional act, but after it was introduced to awareness by my analyst, and my dread and insecurity and rage and terror could be felt and articulated in place of converted to physical sensation, it resolved. I seldom experience from indigestion today.

The worst time I had this severe heartburn, I didn’t sleep for multiple consecutive nights. I believed I was losing my sanity. I visited my doctor, who scheduled multiple diagnostic procedures, but everything was corporally problematic. It turned out to be an alternate medic who informed me that the cause could be mental. My psychoanalyst concurred. I was shocked, but I also knew it to be true.

Whenever someone endures a bodily issue, they might feel insulted at the suggestion that it could have a psychological cause. It can seem this as being disrespected, the idea that their condition isn’t real. And of course such cases occur – individuals may experience their suffering discounted or misdiagnosed. But in some cases it might be that the bodily signs are genuine – no question – and the origin is emotional, the inner mind using the body to express certain suffering or fury or whatever emotion awareness cannot tolerate. At times, we might assume our experience is only valid only through expression in physical form. We often undervalue our psychological well-being as individuals, collectively and as a culture; for what reason do we accept the appalling reduction of psychodynamic psychotherapy in public healthcare?

My experiences have revealed that a superior lifestyle is unattainable if we remain trapped unawares in patterns of interaction, inside us and in relationships, that stem from disrespect, manipulation and exchange. These interactions are frequently more straightforward to recognize “externally” in broader culture. It’s likely more challenging to think about their origins, and to see these patterns personally and within our closest relationships, in the workings of our psyches.

Yet persistence pays off. When I put my jogging shoes back on following many years, heading out not to get bodily change, or to get rid of an emotion, or to surpass a running record, {it