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I recently came back from jogging. It’s shocking to write that statement. It seems it could have been ten years since the previous time. However It came to my attention that I have slightly high cholesterol, and doctors suggested to engage in vigorous activity frequently.

This is the first time in my existence that the driving force to work out has been my bodily well-being. When I was younger, I exercised because I desired to slim down. At times I ran to manage my anxiety – It was an avoidance tactic from the worry, instead of dealing with it. On other occasions, I jogged because I wanted to improve in running. This was the definition to me at that time to create a better life.

Jogging with altered intent at present got me thinking about the methods I’ve related with my physical self during my years and its transformation as I transition from being a young person to middle age. It seems unlikely I’ve valued my body, not fundamentally. I’ve prized it solely for its capabilities and the purposes it served me: seeking approval; dodging sentiments; completing a speedier five kilometers. Up to now, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it embodies my life, instead of something that produces results.

A lot has been explored through history about the split between body and mind – which it’s comforting to know, I’ll avoid detailing now. What has struck me most intriguing is Freud’s understanding that mental and physical selves are naturally unified right from the start, because physical maturation demands emotional evolution and the reverse is true. The newborn’s physical sensations – such as the bodily feeling of hunger – propel the brain to develop the capacity to perceive hunger as a feeling that can be sated by eating; and the emotional comfort and satisfaction regularly delivered by meal after meal supports the infant’s psyche similar to the milk sustains them corporally. So too psychological experiences – like the urge to rise and reach for something, and the persistence to persist through effort – are the reason and method muscles grow stronger. Starting at birth, our body and mind are interconnected in shared growth as connected as DNA strands.

However I have noticed, in treatment with my psychoanalyst, that my mind and body may exist in a different kind of relationship – one less integrated and more exploitative. My consciousness can use my body to store and display things that my mind views unwanted or intolerable. In analysis we’ve become aware how there are certain emotions that I am afraid are too much for me; instead of feeling these psychologically, I unintentionally push them into bodily form, where they remain as bodily signs.

I used to get this with indigestion – unrelated to my diet, but represented a kind of corporeal reaction of the more acidic feelings I failed to handle mentally. This wasn’t a conscious choice, but after it was introduced to awareness in sessions, and my fear and insecurity and rage and panic became palpable and put into words in place of transformed into physical sensation, it disappeared. It’s uncommon for me with digestive issues currently.

The toughest period I endured this terrible acid reflux, I failed to rest for several nights in a row. I felt I was losing my sanity. I went my doctor, who scheduled all sorts of diagnostic procedures, but there was nothing corporally problematic. The situation was a different physician who told me that the origin may be psychological. My psychoanalyst agreed. I was surprised, but I also knew it was accurate.

If an individual experiences a corporeal problem, they can be offended upon hearing that it may have an emotional origin. They can experience as invalidation, hearing that their illness isn’t real. Naturally such cases occur – people can have their suffering discounted or misdiagnosed. But in some cases it could be that the bodily signs exist – no question – and the source is mental, the inner mind employing the physical self to express emotional hurt or fury or whatever emotion awareness is unable to bear. Occasionally, we might assume our feelings is only valid when it is expressed in physical form. We continually disrespect our minds on a personal level, in social contexts and as a culture; for what reason do we accept the appalling reduction of mental health treatments on the NHS?

My experiences have revealed that a better life cannot be created while caught unawares in ways of relating, within ourselves and with others, that are rooted in disregard, use and exchange. Such patterns are often easier to identify “out there” in broader culture. It’s perhaps more challenging to consider their origins, and to see these forms personally and in intimate connections, in the workings of our minds.

However persistence pays off. After donning my trainers once more post a long hiatus, going outside without aiming for bodily change, or to eliminate a feeling, or to surpass a personal best, {it