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I just got back from a jog. I’m amazed to state those words. I believe it might have been many years since I last did so. However I recently discovered that I have 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 exercise has been my health status. In my youth, I ran because I desired to lose weight. At times I ran to manage nervousness – I was just running away from the worry, without confronting it. At other times, I jogged because I wanted to enhance at running. That represented the meaning to me at that time to create a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent now sparked reflection about the approaches I’ve related with my physical self throughout my life and its transformation as I transition from being a young person to being a middle-aged person. I don’t think I’ve honored my own body, not fundamentally. I’ve prized it only for its roles and the aims it fulfilled for me: aiming to appeal; escaping emotions; running a faster 5K run. Up to now, I hadn’t realized that I am my body, it embodies my life, rather than a tool for outcomes.

Much has been discussed through history about the division involving physical and mental aspects – a topic it’s comforting to know, I’m not going to precis in this piece. What I’ve found most intriguing is the Freudian perspective that mental and physical selves are innately connected right from the start, because physical development necessitates emotional evolution and vice versa. The newborn’s physical sensations – for example the corporeal experience of hunger – motivate the brain to develop the capacity to recognise hunger as a sensation that can be sated by nourishment; and the psychological solace and contentment consistently provided by repeated nourishment supports the young mind similar to the food fuels them bodily. So too emotional occurrences – like the wish to stand up and grab an object, and the determination to persist through effort – are why and how the body develops power. Since infancy, mind and body are intertwined in shared growth as unified as a double helix.

However I’ve observed, during therapy with my therapist, that my consciousness and physique can be in a different kind of relationship – a less unified and increasingly manipulative. My psyche may employ my physique to retain and express elements that my psyche considers unwanted or unbearable. During therapy it emerged that exist certain emotions that I worry I can’t handle; instead of feeling these in my mind, I subconsciously shift them to my physical self, becoming trapped as corporeal issues.

I often had this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with my diet, but acted as a form of corporeal reaction of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process in my mind. This wasn’t an intentional act, but after it was introduced into my consciousness through therapy, and my dread and insecurity and anger and panic were experienced and articulated instead of converted to physical sensation, it vanished. I seldom experience from stomach problems now.

The toughest period I had this severe heartburn, I failed to rest for several nights in a row. I believed I was losing my mental stability. I visited my doctor, who scheduled multiple diagnostic procedures, but no issues were found medically abnormal. It was a different physician who told me that the origin may be psychological. My therapist concurred. I was shocked, but I recognized it was accurate.

Whenever someone experiences a bodily issue, it can be upsetting at the suggestion that it could have a psychological cause. They might feel this as being disrespected, the idea that their illness is fabricated. And of course such cases occur – people can have their pain discounted or wrongly assessed. But in some cases it could be that the physical symptoms exist – no question – and the source is mental, the subconscious employing the physical self to convey some pain or anger or whatever emotion the conscious self fails to handle. Sometimes, it’s easy to think our feelings matters solely when it is expressed in physical form. We continually disrespect our psychological well-being personally, in social contexts and within our culture; why else do we accept the shocking killing-off of psychological therapies on the NHS?

My experiences have taught me that an improved existence cannot be created if we remain trapped unawares in patterns of interaction, within ourselves and with others, that are rooted in disrespect, use and dealings. These dynamics are frequently more straightforward to identify “in the world” in wider society. It’s perhaps more challenging to think about where they come from, and to recognise these forms personally and in intimate connections, in the dynamics of our psyches.

However persistence pays off. Upon wearing my running shoes back on post a long hiatus, venturing out not for physical improvement, or to eliminate a feeling, or to surpass a running record, {it