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I just got back from jogging. It’s surprising to write those words. It seems it was likely many years since I last did so. Yet It came to my attention that I have slightly high cholesterol, and the recommendation was to engage in vigorous activity frequently.

For the first time ever in my existence that my motivation to be active has been my bodily well-being. In my youth, I ran because I aimed to lose weight. I’ve also run to manage my anxiety – I was merely escaping from the anxiety, instead of dealing with it. Sometimes, I ran because I sought to improve in running. This was the meaning to me then to create a superior lifestyle.

Running for a different reason currently got me thinking about the approaches I’ve interacted with my body throughout my life and the way it’s evolving as I move from being a young person to midlife. It seems unlikely I’ve honored my physical form, not truly. I’ve appreciated it solely for its roles and the purposes it served me: aiming to appeal; dodging sentiments; achieving a quicker 5K run. Previously, I hadn’t realized that I am my body, it is my life, rather than a tool for outcomes.

A lot has been discussed for ages about the separation involving physical and mental aspects – which you will be relieved to know, I’ll avoid detailing here. What has struck me most compelling is the Freudian perspective that mind and body are innately connected from the beginning, because physical maturation necessitates mental growth and vice versa. A baby’s bodily experiences – such as the corporeal experience of hunger – drive consciousness to build the capacity to perceive hunger as an emotion that may be satisfied by a feed; and the emotional comfort and fulfillment regularly delivered by feed after feed nourishes the infant’s psyche in the same way the milk fuels them corporally. Likewise psychological experiences – such as the urge to get up and attain a goal, and the persistence to attempt repeatedly – are the reason and method physical strength increases. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are interconnected in mutual development as unified as a spiral.

Yet I have noticed, in sessions with my therapist, that my mind and body may exist in an alternate dynamic – a less unified and more exploitative. My mind can use my body to hold and display aspects that my consciousness deems undesirable or intolerable. In analysis we’ve become aware how there are particular emotional states that I worry I cannot bear; in place of feeling these mentally, I unintentionally shift them to my physical self, becoming trapped as corporeal issues.

I previously experienced digestive discomfort – unrelated to food intake, but acted as a type of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I couldn’t digest mentally. It wasn’t a deliberate decision, but after it was introduced to my attention through therapy, and my dread and insecurity and frustration and terror could be felt and put into words instead of converted to bodily feelings, it disappeared. I rarely suffer from indigestion currently.

The toughest period I experienced this intense reflux, I was unable to sleep for several nights in a row. I felt I was slipping away from my mental stability. I visited to the GP, who scheduled multiple diagnostic procedures, but everything was corporally problematic. It was another doctor who told me that the root could be psychological. My psychoanalyst concurred. I was surprised, but I recognized it was accurate.

Whenever someone experiences a physical symptom, it can be upsetting if told that it may have a mental root. It can seem like disrespect, hearing that their symptom is fabricated. Certainly that does happen – people can have their pain discounted or incorrectly identified. But in some cases it could be that the corporeal issues are real – no question – and the origin is mental, the subconscious using the physique to convey certain suffering or rage or whatever emotion the conscious self is unable to bear. Sometimes, we might assume our emotions matters solely only through expression as bodily symptoms. We often undervalue our mental states as individuals, collectively and within our culture; why else do we accept the shocking elimination of psychological therapies on the NHS?

Personal insights have taught me that a better life cannot be created when we are stuck without realization in patterns of interaction, internally and in relationships, that are rooted in devaluation, exploitation and dealings. These dynamics are often easier to spot “in the world” in wider society. It may be less comfortable to think about where they come from, and to recognise these patterns personally and in intimate connections, in the workings of our mental lives.

Yet it’s valuable to continue. After donning my jogging shoes once more post a long hiatus, going outside not to get a better body, or to get rid of an emotion, or to beat a running record, {it