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I recently came back from jogging. It’s surprising to write those words. It seems it could have been many years since my last. But 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 the driving force to work out has been my physical health. During earlier years, I exercised because I aimed to slim down. I also jogged to alleviate my anxiety – I was just running away from those feelings, not addressing it. On other occasions, I ran because I aimed to enhance with jogging. It signified the meaning to me at that time to build a better life.

Jogging with altered intent now got me thinking about the ways I’ve connected with my physique throughout my life and its transformation as I transition from being a young person to middle age. I don’t think I’ve valued my own body, not deep down. I’ve appreciated it just for its capabilities and the objectives it provided: aiming to appeal; avoiding feelings; running a faster 5K run. Previously, I hadn’t realized that I am my body, it is my life, instead of something that produces results.

Much has been explored through history about the separation between body and mind – a topic it’s reassuring to know, I’ll avoid detailing here. What has struck me most fascinating is Freud’s understanding that mind and body are naturally unified from the beginning, because physical maturation requires mental growth and the reverse is true. A baby’s bodily experiences – like the physical sensation of hunger – drive the brain to cultivate the capacity to recognise hunger as an emotion that is alleviated by a feed; and the mental reassurance and fulfillment regularly delivered by feed after feed feeds the infant’s psyche just as the food fuels them corporally. Similarly emotional occurrences – for instance the wish to rise and reach for something, and the persistence to try again and again – are the cause and means the body develops power. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are interconnected in reciprocal evolution as unified as DNA strands.

However I have noticed, during therapy with my analyst, that my mind and body may exist in a distinct connection – one less integrated and more exploitative. My mind might utilize my physical self to hold and manifest things that my consciousness views unwanted or intolerable. During therapy we realized that there are certain emotions that I am afraid I can’t handle; rather than feeling these psychologically, I unintentionally shift them into my body, becoming trapped as bodily signs.

I often had this with indigestion – not connected to food intake, but represented a form of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process in my mind. It wasn’t a conscious choice, but when it was brought to my attention in sessions, and my fear and insecurity and anger and terror could be felt and expressed verbally instead of changed into physical sensation, it vanished. I rarely suffer from indigestion now.

The most severe episode I had this intense reflux, I didn’t sleep for many nights straight. I believed I was losing my mind. I consulted a general practitioner, who organised various examinations and assessments, but everything was medically abnormal. It was a different physician who informed me that the root could be mental. My psychoanalyst agreed. I was surprised, but I also knew it was correct.

When a patient endures a corporeal problem, they might feel insulted upon hearing that it may have a mental root. They might feel this as being disrespected, being told that their symptom isn’t real. Naturally it’s a real phenomenon – some face their symptoms ignored or misdiagnosed. But in some cases it could be that the bodily signs are real – certainly – and the origin is psychological, the subconscious employing the physical self to manifest some pain or rage or whatever emotion the mind is unable to bear. Occasionally, it’s easy to think our experience only has value when it is expressed as bodily symptoms. We continually disrespect our minds personally, collectively and within our culture; for what reason would we tolerate the terrible reduction of mental health treatments on the NHS?

Life lessons have revealed that a superior lifestyle cannot be created when we are stuck without realization in modes of connection, internally and with others, that stem from devaluation, use and transaction. These interactions are frequently more straightforward to recognize “externally” in the general public. It may be more challenging to reflect on how they got out there, and to recognise these shapes inside us and within our closest relationships, in the economy of our psyches.

However persistence pays off. When I put my running shoes back on following many years, going outside not for bodily change, or to get rid of a sensation, or to surpass a personal best, {it