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I have just returned from a run. It’s shocking to write those words. I think it might have been many years since the previous time. Yet I recently discovered that my levels show slightly high cholesterol, and doctors suggested to do sweaty exercise on a consistent basis.

For the first time ever in my life that my motivation to work out has been my physical health. When I was younger, I exercised because I aimed to slim down. At times I ran to cure nervousness – I was just running away from the worry, without confronting it. At other times, I ran because I aimed to improve in running. This was the definition to me back then to build an improved existence.

Running for a different reason now got me thinking about the approaches I’ve connected with my body throughout my life and how this is changing as I progress from early adulthood to middle age. I believe not I’ve respected my physical form, not truly. I’ve appreciated it just for its capabilities and the objectives it provided: seeking approval; avoiding feelings; running a faster 5km. Up to now, I hadn’t realized that my body is me, it is my life, instead of something that produces results.

A great deal has been discussed for ages about the split involving physical and mental aspects – which it’s reassuring to know, I’ll avoid detailing in this piece. What has struck me most compelling is the Freudian perspective that mental and physical selves are developmentally integrated from birth, because physical development demands psychological development and the reverse is true. The newborn’s physical sensations – such as the physical sensation of hunger – propel the brain to build the ability to perceive hunger as an emotion that may be satisfied by a feed; and the emotional comfort and contentment consistently provided by meal after meal supports the infant’s psyche just as the milk sustains them corporally. Similarly mental events – for instance the desire to rise and reach for something, and the determination to attempt repeatedly – are why and how the body develops power. Starting at birth, our physical and mental selves are intertwined in shared growth as integrated as DNA strands.

Yet I have noticed, in treatment with my psychoanalyst, that my mind and body may exist in an alternate dynamic – a more separated and more exploitative. My mind can use my physique to hold and manifest aspects that my psyche views unwanted or intolerable. In my sessions we’ve become aware how there are particular emotional states that I am afraid I can’t handle; instead of feeling these mentally, I unintentionally force them to my physical self, becoming trapped as bodily signs.

I previously experienced this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with food intake, but acted as a kind of physical reflux of the more acidic feelings I failed to handle psychologically. This wasn’t an intentional act, but after it was introduced into my consciousness in sessions, and my anxiety and vulnerability and rage and terror could be felt and expressed verbally in place of converted to physical sensation, it vanished. I rarely suffer with digestive issues currently.

The toughest period I had this severe heartburn, I didn’t sleep for many nights straight. I felt I was slipping away from my mental stability. I consulted a general practitioner, who scheduled multiple scans and tests, but everything was physically wrong. It was an alternate medic who suggested that the cause may be psychological. My therapist agreed. I was surprised, but I recognized it to be true.

When a patient is suffering a physical symptom, it can be upsetting at the suggestion that it could have an emotional origin. They might feel like disrespect, hearing that their symptom is fabricated. And of course such cases occur – some face their symptoms discounted or misdiagnosed. Yet occasionally it might be that the bodily signs exist – no question – and the source is emotional, the unconscious using the physical self to convey certain suffering or anger or whichever sentiment awareness fails to handle. Occasionally, it’s easy to think our experience is only valid only through expression in physical form. We often undervalue our minds on a personal level, collectively and within our culture; why else do we accept the terrible killing-off of psychological therapies through health services?

My experiences have taught me that a better life cannot be built while caught unconsciously in ways of relating, inside us and socially, that stem from disrespect, manipulation and transaction. These dynamics are often easier to recognize “out there” in broader culture. It may be harder to consider their origins, and to identify these shapes within ourselves and within our closest relationships, in the dynamics of our psyches.

Yet it’s valuable to continue. When I put my trainers again following many years, heading out without aiming for physical improvement, or to escape a feeling, or to surpass a 5km time, {it