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I recently came back from jogging. I’m amazed to write those words. I believe it could have been many years since my last. However It came to my attention that I have slightly high cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to perform intense workouts regularly.

This is the first time in my life that my motivation to be active has been my bodily well-being. When I was younger, I ran because I wanted to be thinner. I also jogged to manage my anxiety – I was merely escaping from the anxiety, not addressing it. Sometimes, I exercised because I sought to get better with jogging. It signified the definition to me at that time to develop a better life.

Jogging with altered intent at present sparked reflection about the approaches I’ve interacted with my physique throughout my life and the way it’s evolving as I transition from early adulthood to being a middle-aged person. I don’t think I’ve respected my physical form, not truly. I’ve prized it solely for its capabilities and the aims it served me: seeking approval; escaping emotions; achieving a quicker 5km. Up to now, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it is my existence, as opposed to an instrument for achievements.

A great deal has been explored through history about the division of mind and body – which you will be relieved to know, I’m not going to precis now. What has struck me most compelling is Sigmund Freud’s view that mind and body are innately connected from birth, because physical maturation necessitates emotional evolution and vice versa. A baby’s bodily experiences – like the bodily feeling of hunger – drive consciousness to cultivate the capacity to perceive hunger as a feeling that may be satisfied by a feed; and the emotional comfort and satisfaction consistently provided by meal after meal feeds the young mind just as the food fuels them physically. Similarly emotional occurrences – like the desire to stand up and attain a goal, and the determination to attempt repeatedly – are the cause and means the body develops power. Starting at birth, our body and mind are interlinked in shared growth as integrated as DNA strands.

Yet I have noticed, during therapy with my therapist, that mental and physical aspects might experience an alternate dynamic – a more separated and more exploitative. My consciousness might utilize my physique to store and express aspects that my mind deems unacceptable or intolerable. In my sessions we’ve become aware that there are specific feelings that I worry are too much for me; rather than feeling these psychologically, I unintentionally shift them into my body, becoming trapped as physical symptoms.

I often had this as indigestion – unrelated to my diet, but was a kind of bodily backlash of the more acidic feelings I was unable to process mentally. It wasn’t an intentional act, but after it was introduced to awareness in sessions, and my fear and vulnerability and frustration and panic could be felt and articulated in place of converted to corporeal symptoms, it resolved. I seldom experience from stomach problems currently.

The toughest period I had this terrible acid reflux, I was unable to sleep for many nights straight. I believed I was slipping away from my mental stability. I went a general practitioner, who organised multiple scans and tests, but no issues were found medically abnormal. It turned out to be another doctor who informed me that the origin could be psychological. My analyst agreed. I was stunned, but I also felt it to be true.

When a patient endures a physical symptom, they can be offended at the suggestion that it may have a psychological cause. It can seem like disrespect, hearing that their condition is fabricated. And of course that does happen – some face their suffering ignored or misdiagnosed. But in some cases it’s possible that the corporeal issues are genuine – without doubt – and the origin is emotional, the inner mind employing the physique to express certain suffering or anger or whichever sentiment the conscious self fails to handle. Occasionally, we might assume our feelings is only valid when it is expressed through the body. We continually disrespect our mental states on a personal level, as a society and culturally; how else do we accept the shocking reduction of psychological therapies through health services?

My experiences have taught me that a superior lifestyle cannot be created while caught unconsciously in ways of relating, inside us and with others, that are rooted in devaluation, exploitation and transaction. These dynamics tend to be simpler to spot “externally” in broader culture. It may be more challenging to consider their origins, and to see these patterns personally and in intimate connections, in the economy of our mental lives.

But persistence pays off. Upon wearing my running shoes again post a long hiatus, venturing out without aiming for a better body, or to escape an emotion, or to improve a 5km time, {it