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I have just returned from a run. I’m amazed to state this fact. It seems it was likely many years since the previous time. However It came to my attention that my tests indicate elevated cholesterol, and the recommendation was to engage in vigorous activity frequently.

This is the first time in my life that the driving force to be active has been my bodily well-being. During earlier years, I ran because I desired to lose weight. At times I ran to manage my anxiety – I was merely escaping from the worry, instead of dealing with it. At other times, I jogged because I sought to get better in running. That represented the meaning to me back then to create a superior lifestyle.

Exercising with new motivation now prompted contemplation about the approaches I’ve connected with my body over my lifetime and the way it’s evolving as I progress from being a young person to being a middle-aged person. It seems unlikely I’ve respected my own body, not fundamentally. I’ve appreciated it just for its capabilities and the objectives it provided: trying to attract others; dodging sentiments; running a faster five kilometers. Up to now, I failed to grasp that I am my body, it is my existence, rather than an instrument for achievements.

Much has been written over the centuries about the split between body and mind – which it’s reassuring to know, I’m not going to precis in this piece. What resonated most compelling is the Freudian perspective that consciousness and physique are developmentally integrated right from the start, because bodily growth demands mental growth and conversely. The infant’s physical sensations – such as the physical sensation of hunger – drive consciousness to develop the skill to recognise hunger as a sensation that can be sated by nourishment; and the psychological solace and satisfaction regularly delivered by meal after meal feeds the child’s mind in the same way the food nourishes them bodily. Likewise mental events – for instance the wish to get up and grab an object, and the determination to try again and again – are the reason and method muscles grow stronger. From our earliest moments, our physical and mental selves are intertwined in shared growth as connected as a spiral.

Yet I have noticed, during therapy with my analyst, that my consciousness and physique may exist in an alternate dynamic – a less unified and somewhat abusive. My consciousness can use my body to store and manifest things that my psyche views unwanted or unbearable. In analysis we’ve become aware how there are particular emotional states that I fear I can’t handle; in place of sensing them psychologically, I subconsciously force them into bodily form, where they remain as physical symptoms.

I used to get digestive discomfort – unrelated to my diet, but represented a kind of corporeal reaction of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process mentally. It wasn’t an intentional act, but once it was raised to awareness in sessions, and my anxiety and sensitivity and anger and panic could be felt and expressed verbally rather than transformed into bodily feelings, it vanished. It’s uncommon for me from stomach problems today.

The most severe episode I had this severe heartburn, I was unable to sleep for many nights straight. It seemed I was forfeiting my mental stability. I consulted a general practitioner, who arranged all sorts of scans and tests, but there was nothing physically wrong. It turned out to be another doctor who informed me that the cause might be psychological. My therapist concurred. I was shocked, but I also knew it was accurate.

If an individual endures a corporeal problem, they can be offended if told that there might be an emotional origin. They might feel this as being disrespected, the idea that their symptom is fabricated. And of course it’s a real phenomenon – some face their symptoms dismissed or incorrectly identified. However, sometimes it might be that the physical symptoms are real – without doubt – and the origin is emotional, the inner mind using the physical self to express emotional hurt or anger or whatever emotion awareness fails to handle. Occasionally, we may believe our feelings only has value if manifested as bodily symptoms. We continually disrespect our mental states as individuals, collectively and as a culture; how else would we tolerate the appalling reduction of psychological therapies through health services?

My experiences have revealed that a superior lifestyle cannot be created when we are stuck unconsciously in modes of connection, internally and socially, that are rooted in disregard, manipulation and dealings. These interactions are frequently more straightforward to identify “out there” in wider society. It may be harder to think about their origins, and to identify these forms personally and in intimate connections, in the dynamics of our minds.

But it’s valuable to continue. Upon wearing my jogging shoes again after such a long decade, going outside not for bodily change, or to eliminate a sensation, or to beat a running record, {it