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I have just returned from a jog. It’s shocking to admit this fact. It seems it might have been a decade since the previous time. Yet I recently discovered that my levels show elevated cholesterol, and doctors suggested to engage in vigorous activity regularly.

For the first time ever in my existence that the driving force to be active has been my bodily well-being. When I was younger, I ran because I desired to slim down. I’ve also run to manage nervousness – I was merely escaping from the anxiety, without confronting it. On other occasions, I ran because I aimed to improve in running. It signified what it meant to me then to create an improved existence.

Exercising with new motivation at present got me thinking about the approaches I’ve connected with my physique over my lifetime and the way it’s evolving as I move from youth to midlife. I believe not I’ve respected my own body, not fundamentally. I’ve prized it only for its roles and the objectives it served me: seeking approval; escaping emotions; achieving a quicker five kilometers. Previously, I hadn’t realized that my body represents me, it is my existence, as opposed to a tool for outcomes.

A great deal has been explored through history about the division of mind and body – which it’s comforting to know, I’m not going to precis here. What has struck me most fascinating is the Freudian perspective that mental and physical selves are innately connected from the beginning, because physical development demands psychological development and conversely. The newborn’s physical sensations – for example the physical sensation of hunger – drive consciousness to build the skill to perceive hunger as a sensation that can be sated by a feed; and the emotional comfort and contentment repeatedly brought by meal after meal supports the infant’s psyche in the same way the nutrition sustains them physically. Likewise mental events – like the desire to stand up and reach for something, and the resolve to try again and again – are why and how muscles grow stronger. Starting at birth, mind and body are interconnected in mutual development as connected as DNA strands.

However It’s become clear, in treatment with my therapist, that my mind and body can be in a different kind of relationship – one less integrated and increasingly manipulative. My mind may employ my physical self to store and display aspects that my mind views undesirable or intolerable. In analysis it emerged how exist specific feelings that I fear are too much for me; instead of experiencing them psychologically, I subconsciously shift them into my body, where they remain as physical symptoms.

I used to get this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with my diet, but represented a type of corporeal reaction of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process in my mind. This was not an intentional act, but when it was brought into my consciousness by my analyst, and my fear and sensitivity and rage and alarm were experienced and articulated rather than changed into bodily feelings, it vanished. I rarely suffer from stomach problems currently.

The worst time I had this terrible acid reflux, I failed to rest for multiple consecutive nights. I felt I was slipping away from my mental stability. I visited a general practitioner, who scheduled multiple diagnostic procedures, but no issues were found medically abnormal. It turned out to be another doctor who told me that the origin may be psychological. My therapist did not disagree. I was stunned, but I also felt it was accurate.

If an individual endures a bodily issue, they can be offended if told that there might be an emotional origin. They can experience as invalidation, being told that their condition is imagined. Certainly that does happen – some face their symptoms dismissed or misdiagnosed. But in some cases it could be that the corporeal issues exist – no question – and the source is mental, the unconscious using the body to express emotional hurt or anger or any feeling awareness cannot tolerate. At times, we may believe our emotions is only valid only through expression as bodily symptoms. We often undervalue our psychological well-being personally, in social contexts and within our culture; how else can we allow the shocking killing-off of mental health treatments through health services?

Life lessons have revealed that a better life cannot be created if we remain trapped unawares in patterns of interaction, within ourselves and with others, that originate in devaluation, exploitation and exchange. These interactions are often easier to identify “in the world” in the general public. It may be more challenging to reflect on how they got out there, and to see these forms within ourselves and among loved ones, in the dynamics of our minds.

But it’s valuable to continue. When I put my running shoes back on post a long hiatus, going outside not for a better body, or to eliminate a feeling, or to surpass a running record, {it