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I just got back from jogging. It’s shocking to admit those words. It seems it might have been ten years since the previous time. But It came to my attention that my tests indicate somewhat raised cholesterol, and doctors suggested to perform intense workouts regularly.

It’s the initial instance in living memory that the reason to be active has been my health status. During earlier years, I jogged because I wanted to be thinner. At times I ran to manage feelings of anxiety – I was just running away from the anxiety, instead of dealing with it. At other times, I jogged because I wanted to enhance at running. That represented the meaning to me back then to create an improved existence.

Running for a different reason at present sparked reflection about the approaches I’ve interacted with my physical self over my lifetime and its transformation as I move from early adulthood to middle age. I don’t think I’ve respected my own body, not deep down. I’ve appreciated it solely for its functions and the objectives it provided: seeking approval; escaping emotions; running a faster 5km. Up to now, I hadn’t realized that my body is me, it embodies my life, rather than an instrument for achievements.

A great deal has been written for ages about the separation of mind and body – which you will be relieved to know, I won’t summarize in this piece. What I’ve found most compelling is Freud’s understanding that mental and physical selves are developmentally integrated from birth, because physical development necessitates psychological development and conversely. A baby’s bodily experiences – for example the bodily feeling of hunger – drive the brain to develop the ability to recognise hunger as a feeling that can be sated by a feed; and the mental reassurance and satisfaction regularly delivered by meal after meal feeds the young mind in the same way the food fuels them corporally. So too emotional occurrences – like the urge to stand up and attain a goal, and the resolve to persist through effort – are the cause and means physical strength increases. From our earliest moments, our physical and mental selves are intertwined in shared growth as integrated as a spiral.

However I have noticed, in sessions with my psychoanalyst, that my mind and body can be in an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and increasingly manipulative. My psyche can use my body to hold and manifest aspects that my mind views unacceptable or unbearable. In my sessions it emerged that there are specific feelings that I worry I can’t handle; rather than sensing them mentally, I unintentionally shift them to my physical self, where they get stuck as physical symptoms.

I used to get digestive discomfort – not connected to my diet, but acted as a kind of physical reflux of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process mentally. This wasn’t an intentional act, but once it was raised to awareness by my analyst, and my dread and vulnerability and anger and panic were experienced and put into words rather than changed into corporeal symptoms, it vanished. I rarely suffer from stomach problems now.

The worst time I experienced this terrible acid reflux, I was unable to sleep for many nights straight. I felt I was slipping away from my mind. I went a general practitioner, who organised various examinations and assessments, but everything was physically wrong. It turned out to be an alternate medic who told me that the origin might be mental. My therapist agreed. I was shocked, but I also knew it was correct.

When a patient endures a bodily issue, they might feel insulted at the suggestion that there might be a mental root. It can seem like disrespect, being told that their illness isn’t real. And of course that does happen – individuals may experience their symptoms dismissed or misdiagnosed. However, sometimes it could be that the corporeal issues exist – certainly – and the source is emotional, the subconscious employing the body to manifest emotional hurt or rage or whichever sentiment awareness is unable to bear. Sometimes, it’s easy to think our emotions is only valid if manifested as bodily symptoms. We often undervalue our mental states personally, as a society and as a culture; how else can we allow the terrible elimination of psychodynamic psychotherapy through health services?

Personal insights have shown me that a superior lifestyle cannot be created when we are stuck unawares in ways of relating, inside us and in relationships, that stem from devaluation, use and exchange. These dynamics tend to be simpler to recognize “out there” in the general public. It may be less comfortable to think about where they come from, and to recognise these patterns personally and within our closest relationships, in the workings of our mental lives.

But persistence pays off. When I put my running shoes once more following many years, heading out not for bodily change, or to eliminate a feeling, or to improve a 5km time, {it