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I have just returned from a run. It’s surprising to state this fact. I think it could have been a decade since my last. But It came to my attention that my tests indicate somewhat raised cholesterol, and the recommendation was to engage in vigorous activity frequently.

For the first time ever in my existence that the reason to exercise has been my health status. When I was younger, I exercised because I desired to slim down. I also jogged to cure nervousness – I was just running away from the anxiety, not addressing it. At other times, I ran because I sought to get better at running. This was the definition to me at that time to build a better life.

Running for a different reason at present sparked reflection about the ways I’ve connected with my physical self during my years and how this is changing as I transition from being a young person to being a middle-aged person. It seems unlikely I’ve respected my body, not truly. I’ve appreciated it only for its functions and the purposes it served me: trying to attract others; dodging sentiments; completing a speedier 5K run. Up to now, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it is my existence, as opposed to something that produces results.

Much has been discussed over the centuries about the division between body and mind – which you will be relieved to know, I’m not going to precis now. What has struck me most fascinating is Sigmund Freud’s view that mind and body are developmentally integrated from the beginning, because physical maturation demands psychological development and the reverse is true. The infant’s corporeal feelings – like the physical sensation of hunger – motivate consciousness to build the ability to recognise hunger as an emotion that can be sated by nourishment; and the mental reassurance and satisfaction consistently provided by feed after feed supports the young mind similar to the nutrition fuels them corporally. So too emotional occurrences – for instance the urge to stand up and reach for something, and the persistence to persist through effort – are the cause and means the body develops power. Starting at birth, our body and mind are interconnected in shared growth as integrated as DNA strands.

However It’s become clear, during therapy with my psychoanalyst, that mental and physical aspects might experience a distinct connection – one less integrated and more exploitative. My psyche may employ my physique to hold and display things that my mind deems unwanted or unacceptable. During therapy we realized how exist particular emotional states that I fear I cannot bear; rather than sensing them mentally, I unintentionally force them into bodily form, where they get stuck as corporeal issues.

I used to get this as indigestion – unrelated to what I’d eaten, but represented a form of bodily backlash of the harsher emotions I was unable to process psychologically. This wasn’t a deliberate decision, but when it was brought into my consciousness in sessions, and my dread and sensitivity and anger and panic became palpable and articulated in place of converted to corporeal symptoms, it resolved. I seldom experience from indigestion now.

The worst time I experienced this intense reflux, I was unable to sleep for several nights in a row. It seemed I was forfeiting my sanity. I consulted to the GP, who scheduled all sorts of scans and tests, but everything was corporally problematic. The situation was a different physician who told me that the origin could be mental. My analyst agreed. I was surprised, but I also felt it was accurate.

If an individual experiences a bodily issue, it can be upsetting at the suggestion that it may have a psychological cause. It can seem like disrespect, hearing that their illness isn’t real. Naturally such cases occur – individuals may experience their pain dismissed or wrongly assessed. However, sometimes it could be that the physical symptoms are real – certainly – and the cause is psychological, the unconscious employing the physique to express emotional hurt or anger or any feeling the conscious self cannot tolerate. Sometimes, it’s easy to think our emotions is only valid if manifested in physical form. We continually disrespect our minds personally, as a society and culturally; for what reason do we accept the terrible reduction of psychodynamic psychotherapy on the NHS?

My experiences have shown me that a superior lifestyle is unattainable if we remain trapped unawares in modes of connection, internally and socially, that originate in disrespect, manipulation and exchange. These dynamics are frequently more straightforward to identify “in the world” in the general public. It’s likely harder to think about their origins, and to recognise these forms personally and in intimate connections, in the workings of our minds.

Yet persistence pays off. After donning my trainers once more after such a long decade, heading out not for bodily change, or to eliminate a sensation, or to beat a personal best, {it