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I just got back from a run. It’s surprising to admit this fact. I think it could have been ten years since my last. However It came to my attention that I have elevated cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to do sweaty exercise on a consistent basis.

For the first time ever in my existence that my motivation to exercise has been my bodily well-being. In my youth, I ran because I aimed to lose weight. I also jogged to alleviate nervousness – I was just running away from the worry, not addressing it. Sometimes, I ran because I wanted to get better at running. That represented the meaning to me back then to develop an improved existence.

Running for a different reason currently sparked reflection about the approaches I’ve interacted with my physical self throughout my life and the way it’s evolving as I transition from early adulthood to being a middle-aged person. It seems unlikely I’ve honored my physical form, not fundamentally. I’ve prized it just for its roles and the aims it fulfilled for me: seeking approval; avoiding feelings; completing a speedier five kilometers. Up to now, I’ve not understood that my body represents me, it is my life, rather than a tool for outcomes.

A lot has been written for ages about the split of mind and body – a topic you will be relieved to know, I’m not going to precis now. What resonated most fascinating is Freud’s understanding that mental and physical selves are developmentally integrated from the beginning, because bodily growth necessitates psychological development and conversely. The infant’s physical sensations – like the physical sensation of hunger – drive the mind to develop the ability to identify hunger as a feeling that may be satisfied by a feed; and the psychological solace and fulfillment regularly delivered by meal after meal feeds the child’s mind just as the milk fuels them bodily. Likewise mental events – such as the desire to rise and reach for something, and the determination to attempt repeatedly – are why and how physical strength increases. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are interlinked in shared growth as connected as a spiral.

Yet It’s become clear, during therapy with my therapist, that my consciousness and physique might experience an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and increasingly manipulative. My mind can use my body to hold and manifest aspects that my psyche considers unwanted or intolerable. In my sessions it emerged that exist particular emotional states that I am afraid I cannot bear; in place of feeling these in my mind, I unintentionally force them into bodily form, where they get stuck as corporeal issues.

I often had this as indigestion – not connected to what I’d eaten, but represented a form of bodily backlash of the harsher emotions I was unable to process psychologically. This was not a deliberate decision, but when it was brought to awareness through therapy, and my fear and sensitivity and rage and panic were experienced and put into words in place of changed into corporeal symptoms, it vanished. I rarely suffer from indigestion currently.

The worst time I endured this severe heartburn, I failed to rest for multiple consecutive nights. I felt I was forfeiting my mind. I consulted my doctor, who organised multiple scans and tests, but there was nothing corporally problematic. It was a different physician who suggested that the root could be psychological. My analyst concurred. I was surprised, but I also felt it to be true.

Whenever someone endures a physical symptom, they might feel insulted if told that there might be an emotional origin. They can experience as invalidation, hearing that their symptom is imagined. And of course that does happen – some face their symptoms ignored or incorrectly identified. But in some cases it might be that the corporeal issues are real – no question – and the origin is mental, the subconscious employing the physical self to express emotional hurt or rage or whatever emotion the mind cannot tolerate. Occasionally, we might assume our experience matters solely if manifested in physical form. We often undervalue our mental states as individuals, as a society and as a culture; how else do we accept the appalling killing-off of psychodynamic psychotherapy in public healthcare?

My experiences have revealed that a superior lifestyle cannot be built while caught unconsciously in patterns of interaction, inside us and with others, that stem from disregard, manipulation and exchange. Such patterns are often easier to spot “out there” in broader culture. It’s perhaps more challenging to consider where they come from, and to identify these forms personally and among loved ones, in the economy of our psyches.

Yet it’s valuable to continue. When I put my running shoes once more after such a long decade, heading out not to get physical improvement, or to get rid of a sensation, or to beat a personal best, {it