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I have just returned from a run. I’m amazed to write this fact. It seems it could have been many years since my last. However It came to my attention that I have slightly high cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to do sweaty exercise frequently.

For the first time ever in my life that the reason to exercise has been my bodily well-being. In my youth, I jogged because I desired to slim down. At times I ran to cure my anxiety – I was just running away from the anxiety, instead of dealing with it. On other occasions, I jogged because I sought to get better in running. That represented the meaning to me at that time to build a better life.

Jogging with altered intent currently sparked reflection about the methods I’ve related with my physical self throughout my life and how this is changing as I progress from early adulthood to midlife. It seems unlikely I’ve valued my own body, not deep down. I’ve appreciated it just for its capabilities and the aims it provided: trying to attract others; escaping emotions; completing a speedier five kilometers. Until today, I failed to grasp that I am my body, it is my existence, instead of an instrument for achievements.

A great deal has been written for ages about the split of mind and body – which you will be relieved to know, I’ll avoid detailing in this piece. What resonated most fascinating is Sigmund Freud’s view that consciousness and physique are innately connected from the beginning, because bodily growth demands emotional evolution and conversely. A baby’s corporeal feelings – like the physical sensation of hunger – drive the mind to cultivate the ability to recognise hunger as a sensation that may be satisfied by eating; and the mental reassurance and fulfillment repeatedly brought by feed after feed feeds the young mind similar to the nutrition nourishes them physically. So too emotional occurrences – such as the wish to rise and grab an object, and the resolve to persist through effort – are the reason and method the body develops power. Since infancy, our body and mind are interlinked in shared growth as integrated as a double helix.

Yet I have noticed, in treatment with my psychoanalyst, that mental and physical aspects may exist in a distinct connection – a less unified and more exploitative. My mind might utilize my body to retain and express aspects that my mind deems unwanted or intolerable. In my sessions we’ve become aware how there are particular emotional states that I am afraid I can’t handle; instead of experiencing them mentally, I unconsciously shift them into my body, where they remain as corporeal issues.

I previously experienced this as indigestion – unrelated to what I’d eaten, but represented a form of bodily backlash of the more acidic feelings I failed to handle in my mind. This wasn’t an intentional act, but when it was brought into my consciousness through therapy, and my dread and vulnerability and anger and terror were experienced and expressed verbally instead of transformed into bodily feelings, it vanished. I rarely suffer with digestive issues today.

The worst time I experienced this severe heartburn, I was unable to sleep for many nights straight. I believed I was forfeiting my mental stability. I visited my doctor, who organised multiple examinations and assessments, but everything was physically wrong. It was a different physician who told me that the origin could be emotional. My analyst agreed. I was shocked, but I recognized it was correct.

If an individual is suffering a physical symptom, they can be offended at the suggestion that it could have a mental root. They might feel as invalidation, being told that their condition is fabricated. Certainly such cases occur – individuals may experience their suffering discounted or wrongly assessed. Yet occasionally it might be that the corporeal issues are genuine – certainly – and the cause is psychological, the unconscious using the body to express emotional hurt or anger or whichever sentiment awareness fails to handle. Occasionally, we might assume our emotions only has value when it is expressed in physical form. We persistently neglect our minds on a personal level, as a society and within our culture; why else do we accept the shocking killing-off of psychological therapies through health services?

Personal insights have taught me that a superior lifestyle cannot be built if we remain trapped unconsciously in patterns of interaction, inside us and socially, that originate in disregard, manipulation and exchange. These interactions are frequently more straightforward to spot “externally” in the general public. It’s likely less comfortable to consider where they come from, and to recognise these forms inside us and in intimate connections, in the dynamics of our mental lives.

However persistence pays off. When I put my running shoes again post a long hiatus, heading out not for bodily change, or to eliminate an emotion, or to surpass a personal best, {it