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I recently came back from a jog. I’m amazed to admit that statement. It seems it could have been ten years since my last. Yet I found out recently that my levels show slightly high cholesterol, and I’ve been advised to do sweaty exercise frequently.

This is the first time in my existence that my motivation to work out has been my physical health. In my youth, I exercised because I aimed to be thinner. I also jogged to manage feelings of anxiety – It was an avoidance tactic from the anxiety, instead of dealing with it. On other occasions, I jogged because I wanted to improve at running. This was what it meant to me then to develop a better life.

Jogging with altered intent now got me thinking about the approaches I’ve related with my physical self over my lifetime and the way it’s evolving as I move from being a young person to being a middle-aged person. I believe not I’ve valued my own body, not truly. I’ve valued it only for its capabilities and the aims it fulfilled for me: trying to attract others; dodging sentiments; running a faster 5K run. Previously, I’ve not understood that my body is me, it is my existence, instead of an instrument for achievements.

Much has been written for ages about the split involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s comforting to know, I’m not going to precis in this piece. What has struck me most fascinating is the Freudian perspective that consciousness and physique are innately connected right from the start, because physical development requires mental growth and conversely. A baby’s bodily experiences – for example the corporeal experience of hunger – motivate the mind to develop the ability to identify hunger as a sensation that may be satisfied by nourishment; and the psychological solace and satisfaction regularly delivered by repeated nourishment supports the child’s mind in the same way the nutrition sustains them bodily. Likewise psychological experiences – like the wish to stand up and grab an object, and the persistence to persist through effort – are the reason and method muscles grow stronger. Since infancy, our body and mind are interlinked in shared growth as integrated as a double helix.

However I have noticed, in sessions with my analyst, that mental and physical aspects may exist in a distinct connection – a less unified and increasingly manipulative. My mind might utilize my physical self to hold and express things that my mind deems undesirable or intolerable. In analysis it emerged how exist specific feelings that I am afraid I cannot bear; rather than sensing them psychologically, I unintentionally force them to my physical self, becoming trapped as physical symptoms.

I often had this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with my diet, but was a type of bodily backlash of the more acidic feelings I was unable to process in my mind. This was not a deliberate decision, but when it was brought to my attention through therapy, and my fear and sensitivity and anger and panic could be felt and articulated rather than converted to bodily feelings, it resolved. It’s uncommon for me from indigestion today.

The most severe episode I endured this severe heartburn, I was unable to sleep for many nights straight. I felt I was losing my mental stability. I consulted to the GP, who organised multiple scans and tests, but everything was medically abnormal. It was a different physician who informed me that the origin could be psychological. My therapist agreed. I was stunned, but I also felt it to be true.

If an individual endures a corporeal problem, they might feel insulted if told that it could have an emotional origin. They can experience as invalidation, being told that their symptom is imagined. Naturally such cases occur – individuals may experience their suffering ignored or wrongly assessed. However, sometimes it might be that the corporeal issues are genuine – no question – and the origin is emotional, the unconscious employing the body to convey emotional hurt or rage or whichever sentiment the conscious self cannot tolerate. At times, it’s easy to think our experience only has value when it is expressed in physical form. We persistently neglect our minds on a personal level, in social contexts and as a culture; for what reason can we allow the appalling reduction of mental health treatments on the NHS?

Personal insights have shown me that an improved existence cannot be created if we remain trapped unconsciously in ways of relating, inside us and with others, that are rooted in disregard, manipulation and exchange. These interactions tend to be simpler to recognize “out there” in broader culture. It may be less comfortable to reflect on how they got out there, and to see these forms inside us and in intimate connections, in the economy of our mental lives.

But it’s valuable to continue. After donning my trainers once more after such a long decade, going outside without aiming for a better body, or to get rid of a feeling, or to surpass a personal best, {it