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I have just returned from jogging. I’m amazed to write those words. I believe it could have been a decade since my last. Yet I recently discovered that I have slightly high cholesterol, and doctors suggested to engage in vigorous activity frequently.

For the first time ever in living memory that the driving force to be active has been my bodily well-being. When I was younger, I jogged because I aimed to slim down. At times I ran to manage my anxiety – It was an avoidance tactic from the anxiety, without confronting it. On other occasions, I ran because I wanted to improve at running. It signified the definition to me back then to develop a better life.

Jogging with altered intent at present prompted contemplation about the methods I’ve interacted with my physique throughout my life and the way it’s evolving as I progress from youth to being a middle-aged person. I believe not I’ve valued my body, not fundamentally. I’ve valued it just for its functions and the objectives it served me: aiming to appeal; escaping emotions; achieving a quicker 5K run. Until today, I’ve not understood that I am my body, it is my life, as opposed to an instrument for achievements.

A lot has been written over the centuries about the split between body and mind – a topic it’s comforting to know, I won’t summarize now. What resonated most compelling is Freud’s understanding that mental and physical selves are developmentally integrated from birth, because bodily growth requires emotional evolution and the reverse is true. The newborn’s physical sensations – such as the physical sensation of hunger – drive the mind to build the skill to perceive hunger as a sensation that may be satisfied by nourishment; and the mental reassurance and fulfillment regularly delivered by repeated nourishment supports the young mind similar to the nutrition nourishes them physically. Similarly mental events – for instance the desire to stand up and reach for something, and the persistence to attempt repeatedly – are the reason and method physical strength increases. Since infancy, our body and mind are interlinked in shared growth as connected as a spiral.

Yet I have noticed, in treatment with my psychoanalyst, that my mind and body can be in a distinct connection – one less integrated and somewhat abusive. My consciousness may employ my physique to store and express things that my consciousness views undesirable or unbearable. In analysis it emerged how there are particular emotional states that I fear I can’t handle; rather than experiencing them in my mind, I subconsciously push them into my body, where they get stuck as physical symptoms.

I used to get digestive discomfort – which had nothing to do with my diet, but was a form of physical reflux of the more acidic feelings I was unable to process in my mind. It wasn’t a conscious choice, but after it was introduced to my attention in sessions, and my fear and vulnerability and anger and alarm could be felt and articulated in place of transformed into bodily feelings, it resolved. I rarely suffer with digestive issues now.

The toughest period I had this severe heartburn, I didn’t sleep for multiple consecutive nights. It seemed I was forfeiting my mind. I visited my doctor, who organised various diagnostic procedures, but everything was corporally problematic. It turned out to be another doctor who informed me that the cause might be psychological. My psychoanalyst agreed. I was surprised, but I also knew it to be true.

If an individual endures a bodily issue, they can be offended if told that it may have a mental root. They might feel like disrespect, hearing that their symptom isn’t real. Certainly that does happen – individuals may experience their pain ignored or incorrectly identified. But in some cases it could be that the corporeal issues are genuine – no question – and the origin is emotional, the unconscious employing the physique to express some pain or fury or any feeling awareness cannot tolerate. At times, we may believe our experience only has value if manifested in physical form. We persistently neglect our minds on a personal level, in social contexts and within our culture; why else would we tolerate the terrible killing-off of psychological therapies in public healthcare?

My experiences have revealed that a better life cannot be created if we remain trapped without realization in patterns of interaction, within ourselves and socially, that stem from devaluation, exploitation and transaction. These interactions tend to be simpler to recognize “in the world” in wider society. It may be less comfortable to think about their origins, and to see these patterns inside us and in intimate connections, in the dynamics of our mental lives.

But it’s worth persevering. After donning my trainers once more after such a long decade, heading out not to get bodily change, or to escape an emotion, or to surpass a running record, {it