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I just got back from a run. It’s shocking to state that statement. It seems it was likely ten years since the previous time. But I recently discovered that I have somewhat raised cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to perform intense workouts regularly.

For the first time ever in my life that the driving force to be active has been my health status. During earlier years, I ran because I desired to be thinner. At times I ran to manage my anxiety – It was an avoidance tactic from the anxiety, instead of dealing with it. On other occasions, I jogged because I aimed to improve with jogging. That represented what it meant to me back then to develop a superior lifestyle.

Exercising with new motivation at present sparked reflection about the approaches I’ve interacted with my body over my lifetime and its transformation as I transition from youth to middle age. I don’t think I’ve valued my body, not deep down. I’ve valued it solely for its capabilities and the aims it fulfilled for me: seeking approval; escaping emotions; achieving a quicker five kilometers. Up to now, I failed to grasp that I am my body, it is my existence, rather than an instrument for achievements.

A lot has been explored through history about the separation involving physical and mental aspects – which you will be relieved to know, I won’t summarize now. What resonated most intriguing is Sigmund Freud’s view that mind and body are developmentally integrated right from the start, because physical maturation demands psychological development and the reverse is true. A baby’s bodily experiences – like the physical sensation of hunger – motivate consciousness to develop the skill to recognise hunger as a sensation that may be satisfied by nourishment; and the mental reassurance and contentment repeatedly brought by meal after meal supports the young mind similar to the milk sustains them bodily. So too psychological experiences – like the desire to stand up and attain a goal, and the resolve to persist through effort – are why and how muscles grow stronger. Since infancy, our physical and mental selves are interconnected in reciprocal evolution as integrated as a spiral.

But It’s become clear, in treatment with my analyst, that my mind and body may exist in a distinct connection – one less integrated and increasingly manipulative. My psyche can use my body to retain and express elements that my psyche deems undesirable or unbearable. During therapy we realized that there are specific feelings that I worry I cannot bear; in place of feeling these mentally, I unconsciously push them into bodily form, where they get stuck as bodily signs.

I often had digestive discomfort – not connected to food intake, but represented a form of corporeal reaction of the more acidic feelings I was unable to process psychologically. This wasn’t a conscious choice, but once it was raised to my attention by my analyst, and my dread and sensitivity and frustration and terror were experienced and put into words instead of changed into bodily feelings, it vanished. It’s uncommon for me from indigestion currently.

The most severe episode I endured this terrible acid reflux, I failed to rest for multiple consecutive nights. I felt I was slipping away from my sanity. I consulted to the GP, who arranged multiple examinations and assessments, but no issues were found physically wrong. It was an alternate medic who told me that the origin could be psychological. My analyst concurred. I was surprised, but I also knew it to be true.

When a patient experiences a physical symptom, they might feel insulted if told that it may have a mental root. They might feel as invalidation, hearing that their symptom is fabricated. And of course that does happen – some face their pain ignored or misdiagnosed. However, sometimes it might be that the corporeal issues are genuine – certainly – and the source is mental, the unconscious using the body to convey certain suffering or rage or whichever sentiment the mind cannot tolerate. Occasionally, we may believe our feelings is only valid only through expression in physical form. We persistently neglect our psychological well-being personally, in social contexts and culturally; for what reason can we allow the appalling reduction of mental health treatments on the NHS?

Life lessons have taught me that a superior lifestyle cannot be created while caught unconsciously in modes of connection, within ourselves and with others, that are rooted in devaluation, use and exchange. These dynamics are often easier to recognize “externally” in the general public. It’s likely more challenging to consider their origins, and to recognise these forms personally and among loved ones, in the dynamics of our minds.

Yet it’s valuable to continue. When I put my jogging shoes once more after such a long decade, venturing out not to get a better body, or to eliminate a sensation, or to improve a personal best, {it