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I recently came back from a jog. It’s shocking to state this fact. I think it might have been a decade since my last. But It came to my attention that my tests indicate elevated cholesterol, and doctors suggested to do sweaty exercise on a consistent basis.

This is the first time in my existence that my motivation to work out has been my physical health. When I was younger, I jogged because I wanted to lose weight. At times I ran to alleviate feelings of anxiety – I was just running away from those feelings, not addressing it. At other times, I exercised because I sought to improve with jogging. That represented the definition to me then to develop a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent currently sparked reflection about the ways I’ve connected with my body throughout my life and its transformation as I transition from early adulthood to midlife. I don’t think I’ve honored my body, not fundamentally. I’ve prized it solely for its roles and the purposes it served me: seeking approval; avoiding feelings; running a faster 5km. Up to now, I hadn’t realized that my body is me, it is my existence, rather than an instrument for achievements.

A lot has been discussed over the centuries about the split of mind and body – a topic it’s reassuring to know, I won’t summarize here. What I’ve found most compelling is Freud’s understanding that consciousness and physique are developmentally integrated right from the start, because bodily growth necessitates emotional evolution and the reverse is true. A baby’s corporeal feelings – like the bodily feeling of hunger – drive the mind to build the ability to identify hunger as an emotion that may be satisfied by nourishment; and the mental reassurance and fulfillment repeatedly brought by meal after meal supports the young mind just as the nutrition sustains them physically. Likewise psychological experiences – such as the wish to rise and grab an object, and the resolve to attempt repeatedly – are the reason and method muscles grow stronger. Starting at birth, our physical and mental selves are interconnected in shared growth as unified as a double helix.

But I’ve observed, during therapy with my psychoanalyst, that my consciousness and physique may exist in a different kind of relationship – a less unified and somewhat abusive. My consciousness can use my body to retain and manifest elements that my consciousness deems unwanted or intolerable. During therapy we realized that there are certain emotions that I am afraid I can’t handle; in place of sensing them mentally, I subconsciously force them to my physical self, where they get stuck as physical symptoms.

I often had digestive discomfort – unrelated to my diet, but represented a kind of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process mentally. This wasn’t a deliberate decision, but after it was introduced to awareness in sessions, and my dread and insecurity and anger and alarm were experienced and articulated rather than converted to physical sensation, it vanished. I seldom experience from indigestion today.

The toughest period I had this severe heartburn, I didn’t sleep for multiple consecutive nights. It seemed I was slipping away from my mind. I visited to the GP, who scheduled various scans and tests, but everything was corporally problematic. It turned out to be an alternate medic who suggested that the root could be emotional. My psychoanalyst concurred. I was surprised, but I also knew it was correct.

Whenever someone is suffering a physical symptom, they might feel insulted if told that there might be a psychological cause. They can experience this as being disrespected, the idea that their condition is imagined. Certainly that does happen – individuals may experience their symptoms discounted or incorrectly identified. However, sometimes it’s possible that the corporeal issues exist – no question – and the cause is psychological, the unconscious using the physique to manifest some pain or anger or any feeling awareness is unable to bear. Occasionally, we may believe our emotions only has value when it is expressed in physical form. We continually disrespect our psychological well-being on a personal level, as a society and within our culture; how else can we allow the appalling elimination of psychological therapies in public healthcare?

Personal insights have shown me that a superior lifestyle cannot be created while caught unconsciously in patterns of interaction, within ourselves and in relationships, that originate in devaluation, exploitation and transaction. These dynamics tend to be simpler to spot “in the world” in broader culture. It’s perhaps more challenging to think about how they got out there, and to see these forms inside us and in intimate connections, in the dynamics of our psyches.

Yet it’s valuable to continue. When I put my trainers once more post a long hiatus, going outside not for physical improvement, or to escape a feeling, or to beat a 5km time, {it