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I just got back from jogging. It’s surprising to admit those words. It seems it could have been ten years since I last did so. However I found out recently that my tests indicate somewhat raised cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to do sweaty exercise frequently.

This is the first time in living memory that my motivation to exercise has been my bodily well-being. In my youth, I exercised because I aimed to lose weight. At times I ran to manage nervousness – I was just running away from the anxiety, instead of dealing with it. At other times, I jogged because I sought to get better with jogging. It signified the definition to me at that time to build a superior lifestyle.

Exercising with new motivation at present prompted contemplation about the methods I’ve interacted with my physique throughout my life and the way it’s evolving as I move from early adulthood to midlife. It seems unlikely I’ve valued my physical form, not fundamentally. I’ve valued it only for its functions and the objectives it fulfilled for me: aiming to appeal; dodging sentiments; completing a speedier 5K run. Previously, I’ve not understood that my body is me, it embodies my life, rather than something that produces results.

A great deal has been written through history about the separation of mind and body – which it’s reassuring to know, I won’t summarize in this piece. What I’ve found most intriguing is the Freudian perspective that mind and body are naturally unified from the beginning, because physical development requires psychological development and conversely. The infant’s bodily experiences – for example the bodily feeling of hunger – drive consciousness to develop the capacity to identify hunger as a sensation that can be sated by a feed; and the psychological solace and contentment consistently provided by repeated nourishment supports the child’s mind similar to the nutrition fuels them corporally. So too emotional occurrences – for instance the desire to get up and attain a goal, and the persistence to attempt repeatedly – are the reason and method muscles grow stronger. Starting at birth, mind and body are intertwined in reciprocal evolution as integrated as a double helix.

But I have noticed, in sessions with my psychoanalyst, that mental and physical aspects may exist in a different kind of relationship – a more separated and somewhat abusive. My mind can use my physique to retain and display aspects that my consciousness considers unwanted or unbearable. In analysis it emerged that there are specific feelings that I fear I cannot bear; in place of experiencing them psychologically, I unintentionally push them into my body, where they remain as corporeal issues.

I previously experienced digestive discomfort – which had nothing to do with my diet, but acted as a kind of bodily backlash of the harsher emotions I failed to handle mentally. This wasn’t an intentional act, but after it was introduced to my attention by my analyst, and my dread and sensitivity and rage and panic could be felt and expressed verbally rather than changed into bodily feelings, it disappeared. It’s uncommon for me with digestive issues currently.

The toughest period I had this terrible acid reflux, I didn’t sleep for many nights straight. It seemed I was slipping away from my mental stability. I visited a general practitioner, who arranged multiple scans and tests, but there was nothing physically wrong. The situation was an alternate medic who informed me that the root might be mental. My analyst did not disagree. I was stunned, but I recognized it was accurate.

Whenever someone endures a bodily issue, they might feel insulted at the suggestion that it may have a mental root. They might feel as invalidation, being told that their symptom isn’t real. Certainly such cases occur – individuals may experience their pain ignored or incorrectly identified. However, sometimes it’s possible that the corporeal issues are real – without doubt – and the origin is emotional, the subconscious employing the body to express emotional hurt or anger or any feeling awareness fails to handle. Sometimes, it’s easy to think our feelings is only valid if manifested in physical form. We often undervalue our psychological well-being as individuals, in social contexts and as a culture; how else can we allow the terrible elimination of mental health treatments through health services?

My experiences have shown me that a better life cannot be created while caught unconsciously in patterns of interaction, internally and socially, that stem from devaluation, use and transaction. These dynamics tend to be simpler to identify “out there” in wider society. It’s perhaps less comfortable to reflect on how they got out there, and to see these shapes inside us and among loved ones, in the economy of our minds.

However it’s worth persevering. Upon wearing my trainers once more post a long hiatus, venturing out not for physical improvement, or to escape a sensation, or to improve a running record, {it