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I recently came back from a jog. It’s surprising to write this fact. I believe it was likely many years since I last did so. Yet I recently discovered that I have elevated cholesterol, and doctors suggested to perform intense workouts on a consistent basis.

This is the first time in my existence that the reason to work out has been my health status. In my youth, I jogged because I wanted to be thinner. At times I ran to alleviate my anxiety – I was merely escaping from the anxiety, without confronting it. On other occasions, I exercised because I wanted to get better at running. That represented the meaning to me back then to create a superior lifestyle.

Running for a different reason now got me thinking about the approaches I’ve interacted with my physical self during my years and how this is changing as I progress from youth to middle age. I don’t think I’ve honored my body, not deep down. I’ve prized it solely for its roles and the purposes it provided: seeking approval; escaping emotions; running a faster 5K run. Until today, I hadn’t realized that my body is me, it embodies my life, as opposed to an instrument for achievements.

A great deal has been discussed through history about the division involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s comforting to know, I won’t summarize now. What I’ve found most fascinating is the Freudian perspective that consciousness and physique are innately connected right from the start, because bodily growth requires psychological development and vice versa. A baby’s corporeal feelings – such as the physical sensation of hunger – motivate the brain to cultivate the ability to recognise hunger as a feeling that may be satisfied by eating; and the psychological solace and fulfillment consistently provided by feed after feed feeds the infant’s psyche similar to the food sustains them physically. So too mental events – such as the wish to stand up and attain a goal, and the resolve to attempt repeatedly – are the reason and method the body develops power. From our earliest moments, our physical and mental selves are intertwined in reciprocal evolution as connected as DNA strands.

However I have noticed, in sessions with my analyst, that my mind and body might experience an alternate dynamic – a less unified and increasingly manipulative. My consciousness may employ my physical self to hold and display aspects that my psyche deems unwanted or unbearable. During therapy we’ve become aware how there are specific feelings that I fear are too much for me; in place of feeling these mentally, I unconsciously push them to my physical self, where they get stuck as bodily signs.

I used to get this with indigestion – not connected to what I’d eaten, but represented a form of physical reflux of the more acidic feelings I failed to handle mentally. This was not an intentional act, but after it was introduced to awareness through therapy, and my dread and vulnerability and rage and panic became palpable and articulated in place of transformed into bodily feelings, it resolved. I seldom experience from stomach problems today.

The toughest period I had this terrible acid reflux, I was unable to sleep for several nights in a row. I felt I was forfeiting my sanity. I consulted my doctor, who scheduled multiple scans and tests, but there was nothing physically wrong. The situation was an alternate medic who informed me that the origin might be psychological. My psychoanalyst did not disagree. I was surprised, but I also knew it to be true.

When a patient is suffering a corporeal problem, it can be upsetting upon hearing that it may have a psychological cause. They can experience as invalidation, the idea that their condition isn’t real. Certainly such cases occur – people can have their symptoms dismissed or wrongly assessed. Yet occasionally it could be that the physical symptoms exist – no question – and the cause is emotional, the subconscious using the physical self to manifest some pain or fury or whatever emotion the conscious self fails to handle. Sometimes, we may believe our emotions is only valid when it is expressed through the body. We continually disrespect our mental states on a personal level, as a society and as a culture; for what reason do we accept the appalling killing-off of psychological therapies on the NHS?

Personal insights have revealed that an improved existence cannot be created if we remain trapped unawares in modes of connection, within ourselves and with others, that originate in disrespect, exploitation and exchange. These interactions are frequently more straightforward to identify “externally” in wider society. It’s perhaps less comfortable to think about where they come from, and to recognise these forms personally and among loved ones, in the economy of our minds.

However it’s valuable to continue. When I put my running shoes once more following many years, heading out not to get physical improvement, or to eliminate a sensation, or to surpass a 5km time, {it