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I have just returned from a run. It’s surprising to state that statement. I think it could have been ten years since I last did so. However I found out recently that I have slightly high cholesterol, and the recommendation was to do sweaty exercise regularly.

This is the first time in my life that the driving force to work out has been my health status. When I was younger, I jogged because I aimed to lose weight. I’ve also run to alleviate feelings of anxiety – I was just running away from the worry, without confronting it. Sometimes, I jogged because I aimed to enhance with jogging. It signified the meaning to me then to develop a better life.

Exercising with new motivation currently got me thinking about the methods I’ve interacted with my body over my lifetime and its transformation as I transition from early adulthood to being a middle-aged person. It seems unlikely I’ve valued my own body, not deep down. I’ve valued it solely for its functions and the purposes it fulfilled for me: trying to attract others; escaping emotions; achieving a quicker 5K run. Previously, I’ve not understood that my body is me, it is my existence, instead of something that produces results.

A lot has been discussed over the centuries about the split involving physical and mental aspects – a topic it’s comforting to know, I’ll avoid detailing here. What I’ve found most fascinating is the Freudian perspective that mental and physical selves are naturally unified right from the start, because physical development demands psychological development and vice versa. The infant’s physical sensations – such as the physical sensation of hunger – drive consciousness to cultivate the capacity to perceive hunger as a sensation that may be satisfied by nourishment; and the psychological solace and satisfaction consistently provided by repeated nourishment nourishes the infant’s psyche similar to the milk nourishes them physically. Similarly mental events – such as the desire to get up and reach for something, and the persistence to persist through effort – are why and how the body develops power. Since infancy, our body and mind are interconnected in shared growth as connected as a spiral.

Yet I have noticed, during therapy with my therapist, that mental and physical aspects might experience an alternate dynamic – a less unified and more exploitative. My consciousness can use my body to store and display things that my psyche views unwanted or unbearable. In my sessions we’ve become aware how there are particular emotional states that I am afraid I can’t handle; in place of sensing them in my mind, I unconsciously shift them to my physical self, where they get stuck as corporeal issues.

I previously experienced digestive discomfort – unrelated to my diet, but was a kind of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process psychologically. This wasn’t a deliberate decision, but after it was introduced to my attention by my analyst, and my dread and vulnerability and anger and alarm were experienced and put into words in place of changed into bodily feelings, it resolved. I rarely suffer from stomach problems currently.

The toughest period I endured this terrible acid reflux, I failed to rest for many nights straight. I believed I was losing my sanity. I visited a general practitioner, who arranged various examinations and assessments, but no issues were found medically abnormal. It was another doctor who told me that the origin might be emotional. My analyst did not disagree. I was stunned, but I recognized it was accurate.

Whenever someone endures a corporeal problem, they might feel insulted upon hearing that it may have a psychological cause. They might feel like disrespect, the idea that their illness is imagined. And of course it’s a real phenomenon – individuals may experience their pain dismissed or misdiagnosed. But in some cases it might be that the bodily signs are genuine – no question – and the origin is emotional, the inner mind utilizing the physique to manifest emotional hurt or rage or any feeling the conscious self fails to handle. Occasionally, we might assume our feelings matters solely when it is expressed in physical form. We often undervalue our minds on a personal level, collectively and within our culture; why else would we tolerate the appalling killing-off of psychodynamic psychotherapy on the NHS?

Personal insights have shown me that a better life cannot be created if we remain trapped unconsciously in ways of relating, internally and in relationships, that are rooted in disregard, exploitation and transaction. These dynamics are often easier to recognize “externally” in wider society. It may be more challenging to consider how they got out there, and to see these patterns personally and within our closest relationships, in the workings of our psyches.

However it’s valuable to continue. When I put my jogging shoes back on after such a long decade, venturing out without aiming for physical improvement, or to escape an emotion, or to surpass a running record, {it