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I have just returned from a jog. It’s shocking to admit those words. I think it could have been many years since the previous time. Yet I found out recently that my levels show elevated cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to perform intense workouts on a consistent basis.

For the first time ever in my existence that my motivation to work out has been my physical health. In my youth, I exercised because I desired to be thinner. At times I ran to manage my anxiety – It was an avoidance tactic from those feelings, not addressing it. At other times, I ran because I wanted to get better in running. That represented the definition to me at that time to build a better life.

Jogging with altered intent at present prompted contemplation about the ways I’ve related with my body over my lifetime and how this is changing as I progress from early adulthood to being a middle-aged person. I believe not I’ve valued my body, not truly. I’ve prized it just for its capabilities and the objectives it provided: aiming to appeal; avoiding feelings; achieving a quicker 5km. Previously, I hadn’t realized that my body is me, it is my life, rather than something that produces results.

Much has been written for ages about the separation of mind and body – which it’s comforting to know, I won’t summarize in this piece. What has struck me most compelling is Freud’s understanding that mind and body are innately connected right from the start, because bodily growth demands psychological development and vice versa. A baby’s physical sensations – such as the corporeal experience of hunger – propel the mind to build the ability to recognise hunger as a sensation that can be sated by eating; and the emotional comfort and fulfillment consistently provided by repeated nourishment supports the infant’s psyche similar to the nutrition fuels them physically. Likewise emotional occurrences – such as the wish to stand up and attain a goal, and the determination to persist through effort – are the reason and method physical strength increases. Since infancy, our body and mind are intertwined in shared growth as integrated as a double helix.

Yet It’s become clear, in treatment with my therapist, that my mind and body might experience a distinct connection – one less integrated and more exploitative. My mind might utilize my physical self to hold and manifest aspects that my mind considers undesirable or intolerable. During therapy we realized that there are specific feelings that I fear are too much for me; instead of sensing them psychologically, I unintentionally force them into my body, becoming trapped as corporeal issues.

I used to get this with indigestion – unrelated to my diet, but acted as a kind of corporeal reaction of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process psychologically. This was not a conscious choice, but after it was introduced to awareness by my analyst, and my dread and vulnerability and frustration and alarm became palpable and expressed verbally instead of converted to corporeal symptoms, it disappeared. I rarely suffer with digestive issues now.

The most severe episode I endured this terrible acid reflux, I didn’t sleep for several nights in a row. It seemed I was slipping away from my mind. I went my doctor, who organised all sorts of scans and tests, but everything was corporally problematic. The situation was another doctor who informed me that the cause may be psychological. My psychoanalyst concurred. I was stunned, but I recognized it was correct.

Whenever someone is suffering a bodily issue, it can be upsetting at the suggestion that it could have an emotional origin. They can experience as invalidation, hearing that their condition is imagined. Certainly that does happen – individuals may experience their pain discounted or incorrectly identified. However, sometimes it’s possible that the bodily signs are genuine – no question – and the cause is emotional, the inner mind using the body to convey certain suffering or fury or whatever emotion the conscious self fails to handle. Sometimes, we might assume our feelings only has value only through expression as bodily symptoms. We persistently neglect our mental states as individuals, as a society and culturally; how else would we tolerate the shocking reduction of mental health treatments on the NHS?

Personal insights have revealed that a better life cannot be created if we remain trapped unconsciously in patterns of interaction, internally and socially, that stem from disrespect, exploitation and dealings. These dynamics are often easier to spot “externally” in the general public. It’s perhaps harder to think about where they come from, and to recognise these patterns within ourselves and among loved ones, in the economy of our psyches.

However it’s worth persevering. When I put my running shoes again post a long hiatus, going outside not for physical improvement, or to eliminate an emotion, or to beat a running record, {it