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I have just returned from jogging. It’s shocking to admit this fact. I think it was likely ten years since I last did so. But I recently discovered that I have somewhat raised cholesterol, and the recommendation was to perform intense workouts frequently.

It’s the initial instance in living memory that my motivation to be active has been my bodily well-being. When I was younger, I ran because I wanted to slim down. At times I ran to cure my anxiety – I was just running away from the anxiety, without confronting it. At other times, I exercised because I sought to enhance at running. This was what it meant to me at that time to build 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 how this is changing as I progress from being a young person to being a middle-aged person. I believe not I’ve respected my own body, not fundamentally. I’ve valued it solely for its capabilities and the objectives it served me: trying to attract others; escaping emotions; achieving a quicker 5K run. Up to now, I’ve not understood that I am my body, it is my existence, instead of an instrument for achievements.

A lot has been written through history about the division between body and mind – a topic it’s reassuring to know, I’m not going to precis here. What I’ve found most compelling is Sigmund Freud’s view that mental and physical selves are developmentally integrated from the beginning, because bodily growth necessitates mental growth and the reverse is true. The infant’s corporeal feelings – such as the physical sensation of hunger – motivate the brain to develop the skill to identify hunger as an emotion that may be satisfied by eating; and the mental reassurance and satisfaction consistently provided by repeated nourishment supports the child’s mind just as the food sustains them physically. So too mental events – like the wish to rise and grab an object, and the resolve to attempt repeatedly – are the reason and method the body develops power. From our earliest moments, mind and body are interlinked in shared growth as integrated as DNA strands.

But I have noticed, in treatment with my analyst, that my mind and body can be in a different kind of relationship – one less integrated and more exploitative. My consciousness may employ my physical self to retain and manifest things that my mind considers unacceptable or unbearable. In my sessions we’ve become aware how there are specific feelings that I am afraid I can’t handle; rather than feeling these mentally, I unconsciously push them into bodily form, becoming trapped as corporeal issues.

I previously experienced this as indigestion – not connected to what I’d eaten, but acted as a type of physical reflux of the sharper sentiments I couldn’t digest psychologically. This was not a conscious choice, but when it was brought to awareness by my analyst, and my anxiety and insecurity and anger and alarm could be felt and put into words rather than transformed into bodily feelings, it disappeared. I seldom experience with digestive issues currently.

The worst time I had this severe heartburn, I failed to rest for several nights in a row. It seemed I was slipping away from my mental stability. I went my doctor, who arranged multiple diagnostic procedures, but there was nothing physically wrong. It was another doctor who suggested that the origin might be psychological. My analyst concurred. I was shocked, but I recognized it to be true.

Whenever someone experiences a physical symptom, they can be offended at the suggestion that it may have a mental root. It can seem like disrespect, the idea that their illness isn’t real. And of course such cases occur – some face their suffering discounted or misdiagnosed. Yet occasionally it’s possible that the corporeal issues are genuine – no question – and the origin is emotional, the inner mind using the body to convey some pain or rage or any feeling the conscious self is unable to bear. Sometimes, we might assume our emotions only has value if manifested through the body. We continually disrespect our minds as individuals, collectively and culturally; how else can we allow the appalling killing-off of mental health treatments in public healthcare?

Personal insights have revealed that a better life cannot be built while caught unawares in patterns of interaction, internally and socially, that stem from disregard, exploitation and transaction. These interactions are often easier to spot “in the world” in wider society. It’s likely less comfortable to consider their origins, and to recognise these patterns personally and within our closest relationships, in the workings of our mental lives.

However persistence pays off. After donning my running shoes back on after such a long decade, going outside not to get a better body, or to get rid of a feeling, or to surpass a 5km time, {it