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I have just returned from a jog. It’s shocking to state that statement. I think it might have been ten years since my last. But It came to my attention that I have slightly high cholesterol, and the recommendation was to do sweaty exercise on a consistent basis.

This is the first time in living memory that my motivation to work out has been my health status. In my youth, I ran because I aimed to slim down. I also jogged to alleviate nervousness – I was just running away from those feelings, without confronting it. At other times, I exercised because I aimed to get better with jogging. That represented what it meant to me at that time to build a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent currently got me thinking about the ways I’ve connected with my body throughout my life and how this is changing as I move from youth to middle age. I don’t think I’ve honored my physical form, not fundamentally. I’ve appreciated it solely for its capabilities and the purposes it fulfilled for me: trying to attract others; dodging sentiments; completing a speedier 5K run. Previously, I hadn’t realized that I am my body, it is my existence, rather than something that produces results.

A lot has been discussed over the centuries about the separation involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s reassuring to know, I won’t summarize here. What I’ve found most compelling is the Freudian perspective that consciousness and physique are naturally unified right from the start, because bodily growth demands emotional evolution and the reverse is true. A baby’s corporeal feelings – like the corporeal experience of hunger – propel consciousness to cultivate the ability to identify hunger as a sensation that may be satisfied by a feed; and the emotional comfort and contentment repeatedly brought by repeated nourishment nourishes the child’s mind just as the milk sustains them corporally. So too psychological experiences – like the urge to get up and attain a goal, and the persistence to persist through effort – are the cause and means the body develops power. From our earliest moments, our body and mind are intertwined in shared growth as connected as DNA strands.

But It’s become clear, during therapy with my psychoanalyst, that my mind and body can be in a distinct connection – a more separated and more exploitative. My consciousness can use my body to hold and manifest aspects that my consciousness deems unacceptable or unacceptable. In my sessions we’ve become aware that there are particular emotional states that I am afraid I can’t handle; in place of experiencing them psychologically, I unconsciously push them into bodily form, where they get stuck as bodily signs.

I previously experienced this with indigestion – unrelated to what I’d eaten, but was a kind of bodily backlash of the more acidic feelings I was unable to process in my mind. This wasn’t an intentional act, but after it was introduced into my consciousness in sessions, and my dread and vulnerability and anger and alarm could be felt and put into words rather than changed into bodily feelings, it resolved. I rarely suffer from stomach problems currently.

The worst time I endured this severe heartburn, I was unable to sleep for multiple consecutive nights. I believed I was forfeiting my mental stability. I consulted a general practitioner, who scheduled various examinations and assessments, but everything was corporally problematic. It was an alternate medic who informed me that the origin could be mental. My analyst agreed. I was stunned, but I recognized it to be true.

If an individual experiences a physical symptom, they can be offended if told that there might be a mental root. They can experience this as being disrespected, being told that their symptom is fabricated. Naturally such cases occur – people can have their suffering ignored or incorrectly identified. Yet occasionally it might be that the corporeal issues exist – certainly – and the source is emotional, the inner mind utilizing the body to express emotional hurt or anger or whichever sentiment the mind cannot tolerate. At times, we might assume our feelings matters solely when it is expressed as bodily symptoms. We persistently neglect our psychological well-being on a personal level, as a society and culturally; how else can we allow the terrible reduction of mental health treatments through health services?

Personal insights have revealed that a better life is unattainable if we remain trapped without realization in ways of relating, inside us and socially, that stem from devaluation, manipulation and dealings. These interactions are often easier to recognize “in the world” in broader culture. It may be harder to reflect on their origins, and to identify these patterns inside us and among loved ones, in the economy of our psyches.

Yet it’s worth persevering. When I put my trainers again following many years, heading out not to get a better body, or to get rid of a feeling, or to improve a personal best, {it