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I recently came back from a jog. I’m amazed to write this fact. I think it was likely a decade since my last. However I recently discovered that I have elevated cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to do sweaty exercise regularly.

It’s the initial instance in my existence that the driving force to exercise has been my bodily well-being. During earlier years, I jogged because I desired to slim down. I’ve also run to manage my anxiety – It was an avoidance tactic from those feelings, without confronting it. On other occasions, I exercised because I wanted to get better at running. This was the meaning to me back then to build a superior lifestyle.

Exercising with new motivation currently prompted contemplation about the ways I’ve interacted with my physical self over my lifetime and how this is changing as I progress from early adulthood to being a middle-aged person. I don’t think I’ve honored my physical form, not truly. I’ve prized it just for its functions and the purposes it served me: trying to attract others; escaping emotions; achieving a quicker 5km. Previously, I failed to grasp that my body is me, it embodies my life, as opposed to something that produces results.

A great deal has been discussed for ages about the split involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s comforting to know, I’m not going to precis here. What resonated most compelling is Freud’s understanding that mind and body are developmentally integrated right from the start, because physical development demands psychological development and vice versa. A baby’s corporeal feelings – for example the physical sensation of hunger – propel consciousness to build the skill to perceive hunger as a sensation that is alleviated by eating; and the psychological solace and fulfillment consistently provided by meal after meal nourishes the infant’s psyche in the same way the nutrition nourishes them corporally. Similarly psychological experiences – for instance the desire to stand up and attain a goal, and the persistence to attempt repeatedly – are why and how muscles grow stronger. Starting at birth, our physical and mental selves are interconnected in shared growth as integrated as a double helix.

But I have noticed, in treatment with my therapist, that my mind and body can be in an alternate dynamic – a more separated and more exploitative. My consciousness can use my physique to retain and express things that my mind views undesirable or intolerable. During therapy we realized how exist particular emotional states that I am afraid are too much for me; in place of sensing them in my mind, I unintentionally force them to my physical self, becoming trapped as physical symptoms.

I often had this as indigestion – which had nothing to do with what I’d eaten, but was a form of bodily backlash of the more acidic feelings I couldn’t digest in my mind. It wasn’t an intentional act, but when it was brought to awareness by my analyst, and my dread and vulnerability and rage and terror could be felt and put into words rather than converted to corporeal symptoms, it vanished. I seldom experience with digestive issues now.

The worst time I had this intense reflux, I didn’t sleep for many nights straight. It seemed I was forfeiting my mind. I consulted to the GP, who scheduled all sorts of scans and tests, but no issues were found medically abnormal. It was a different physician who informed me that the cause might be mental. My therapist concurred. I was stunned, but I recognized it to be true.

If an individual endures a corporeal problem, they can be offended if told that there might be a mental root. It can seem this as being disrespected, being told that their condition is fabricated. Naturally such cases occur – individuals may experience their symptoms dismissed or misdiagnosed. However, sometimes it could be that the corporeal issues are real – without doubt – and the origin is psychological, the unconscious using the physical self to convey some pain or rage or any feeling the conscious self is unable to bear. At times, it’s easy to think our emotions only has value if manifested in physical form. We persistently neglect our mental states personally, in social contexts and culturally; why else would we tolerate the shocking killing-off of psychological therapies through health services?

Personal insights have revealed that a superior lifestyle cannot be built while caught unconsciously in ways of relating, inside us and socially, that are rooted in disregard, manipulation and transaction. These dynamics are often easier to identify “externally” in broader culture. It’s likely less comfortable to reflect on where they come from, and to recognise these patterns personally and among loved ones, in the dynamics of our mental lives.

But it’s valuable to continue. When I put my jogging shoes again post a long hiatus, venturing out without aiming for physical improvement, or to eliminate a sensation, or to surpass a running record, {it