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I recently came back from a run. It’s surprising to state those words. I think it could have been a decade since my last. However I found out recently that I have somewhat raised cholesterol, and the recommendation was to do sweaty exercise frequently.

It’s the initial instance in my existence that the driving force to exercise has been my health status. During earlier years, I ran because I desired to lose weight. I also jogged to manage feelings of anxiety – I was merely escaping from the worry, without confronting it. Sometimes, I jogged because I wanted to enhance at running. It signified the meaning to me back then to create a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent currently sparked reflection about the ways I’ve interacted with my physical self during my years and its transformation as I progress from youth to midlife. It seems unlikely I’ve valued my own body, not deep down. I’ve prized it just for its capabilities and the objectives it served me: trying to attract others; escaping emotions; completing a speedier 5km. Until today, I hadn’t realized that I am my body, it is my existence, rather than an instrument for achievements.

A lot has been discussed over the centuries about the separation involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s comforting to know, I’ll avoid detailing here. What I’ve found most intriguing is Freud’s understanding that mind and body are naturally unified from birth, because physical development necessitates mental growth and conversely. The newborn’s corporeal feelings – for example the corporeal experience of hunger – propel consciousness to build the capacity to recognise hunger as a feeling that is alleviated by a feed; and the mental reassurance and fulfillment consistently provided by meal after meal supports the infant’s psyche just as the food sustains them physically. Likewise emotional occurrences – for instance the wish to get up and reach for something, and the resolve to try again and again – are why and how the body develops power. Since infancy, our body and mind are interconnected in mutual development as integrated as a double helix.

But I have noticed, during therapy with my psychoanalyst, that my mind and body can be in an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and more exploitative. My consciousness might utilize my physique to hold and express things that my mind deems unacceptable or unacceptable. During therapy it emerged that exist certain emotions that I am afraid I can’t handle; instead of feeling these mentally, I unconsciously shift them to my physical self, where they remain as physical symptoms.

I used to get digestive discomfort – not connected to my diet, but acted as a form of corporeal reaction of the harsher emotions I failed to handle psychologically. This wasn’t a conscious choice, but after it was introduced into my consciousness through therapy, and my fear and insecurity and frustration and panic were experienced and expressed verbally rather than transformed into corporeal symptoms, it vanished. I rarely suffer with digestive issues today.

The most severe episode I endured this severe heartburn, I was unable to sleep for many nights straight. It seemed I was slipping away from my mental stability. I went my doctor, who scheduled all sorts of scans and tests, but everything was medically abnormal. It turned out to be a different physician who told me that the cause may be mental. My psychoanalyst concurred. I was shocked, but I also felt it was accurate.

Whenever someone is suffering a physical symptom, they might feel insulted at the suggestion that there might be an emotional origin. They can experience like disrespect, the idea that their condition is imagined. Naturally such cases occur – people can have their symptoms discounted or wrongly assessed. Yet occasionally it might be that the corporeal issues exist – no question – and the cause is emotional, the unconscious using the physique to manifest certain suffering or fury or whichever sentiment awareness cannot tolerate. At times, we may believe our feelings only has value if manifested in physical form. We persistently neglect our mental states on a personal level, in social contexts and as a culture; how else do we accept the shocking elimination of psychodynamic psychotherapy through health services?

Personal insights have taught me that a better life cannot be built when we are stuck unconsciously in modes of connection, within ourselves and socially, that originate in disrespect, use and dealings. Such patterns tend to be simpler to spot “out there” in broader culture. It’s likely less comfortable to think about their origins, and to see these patterns inside us and among loved ones, in the workings of our mental lives.

Yet it’s worth persevering. Upon wearing my jogging shoes once more after such a long decade, going outside not to get bodily change, or to get rid of a feeling, or to surpass a running record, {it