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I recently came back from a run. It’s surprising to write that statement. I think it was likely a decade since my last. But I found out recently that I have somewhat raised cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to perform intense workouts on a consistent basis.

It’s the initial instance in my life that my motivation to be active has been my health status. In my youth, I ran because I aimed to slim down. At times I ran to cure my anxiety – I was just running away from the worry, not addressing it. On other occasions, I ran because I aimed to enhance at running. It signified the definition to me at that time to build a better life.

Running for a different reason currently sparked reflection about the methods I’ve connected with my physical self over my lifetime and the way it’s evolving as I progress from youth to being a middle-aged person. I believe not I’ve respected my own body, not deep down. I’ve appreciated it only for its roles and the aims it provided: aiming to appeal; dodging sentiments; achieving a quicker 5K run. Previously, I hadn’t realized that my body is me, it is my existence, instead of something that produces results.

A lot has been written for ages about the separation involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s reassuring to know, I’ll avoid detailing in this piece. What I’ve found most fascinating is Sigmund Freud’s view that mental and physical selves are naturally unified from the beginning, because physical maturation requires psychological development and conversely. A baby’s bodily experiences – like the physical sensation of hunger – propel the brain to cultivate the skill to identify hunger as an emotion that may be satisfied by a feed; and the emotional comfort and contentment repeatedly brought by feed after feed nourishes the infant’s psyche similar to the food fuels them physically. Likewise emotional occurrences – such as the wish to get up and grab an object, and the resolve to persist through effort – are the reason and method the body develops power. Starting at birth, our physical and mental selves are interconnected in reciprocal evolution as integrated as a double helix.

However It’s become clear, in sessions with my therapist, that my mind and body may exist in an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and more exploitative. My mind can use my physical self to hold and display elements that my mind views undesirable or unbearable. In analysis we’ve become aware that exist specific feelings that I worry I can’t handle; in place of experiencing them in my mind, I unconsciously shift them into my body, becoming trapped as corporeal issues.

I often had digestive discomfort – not connected to my diet, but was a form of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process psychologically. This wasn’t a deliberate decision, but when it was brought into my consciousness through therapy, and my dread and sensitivity and anger and panic could be felt and articulated instead of changed into corporeal symptoms, it disappeared. I seldom experience from stomach problems currently.

The worst time I had this severe heartburn, I was unable to sleep for multiple consecutive nights. I believed I was slipping away from my sanity. I visited my doctor, who scheduled various examinations and assessments, but everything was corporally problematic. The situation was an alternate medic who informed me that the origin may be mental. My psychoanalyst did not disagree. I was surprised, but I recognized it was accurate.

When a patient experiences a bodily issue, they can be offended upon hearing that there might be a psychological cause. They can experience as invalidation, the idea that their symptom is fabricated. Certainly it’s a real phenomenon – some face their suffering discounted or wrongly assessed. However, sometimes it might be that the physical symptoms exist – no question – and the source is mental, the inner mind utilizing the physical self to express emotional hurt or rage or any feeling awareness cannot tolerate. At times, we may believe our emotions matters solely only through expression as bodily symptoms. We often undervalue our mental states personally, collectively and as a culture; how else do we accept the appalling reduction of psychological therapies through health services?

My experiences have revealed that a better life cannot be created if we remain trapped without realization in ways of relating, inside us and with others, that are rooted in disregard, exploitation and transaction. These interactions are often easier to recognize “out there” in wider society. It’s perhaps harder to consider where they come from, and to recognise these patterns personally and within our closest relationships, in the workings of our minds.

Yet it’s worth persevering. After donning my jogging shoes again post a long hiatus, heading out without aiming for bodily change, or to eliminate a feeling, or to surpass a 5km time, {it