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I have just returned from jogging. It’s shocking to state this fact. I think it might have been ten years since my last. Yet It came to my attention that I have slightly high cholesterol, and doctors suggested to perform intense workouts frequently.

It’s the initial instance in my life that the reason to work out has been my bodily well-being. During earlier years, I ran because I wanted to lose weight. I’ve also run to alleviate feelings of anxiety – I was just running away from those feelings, not addressing it. At other times, I ran because I sought to get better at running. That represented the meaning to me then to develop a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent currently sparked reflection about the approaches I’ve interacted with my body over my lifetime and the way it’s evolving as I transition from early adulthood to midlife. I don’t think I’ve valued my body, not truly. I’ve prized it only for its capabilities and the purposes it served me: seeking approval; escaping emotions; running a faster 5km. Previously, I hadn’t realized that my body represents me, it is my existence, rather than a tool for outcomes.

A great deal has been discussed through history about the separation involving physical and mental aspects – which you will be relieved to know, I won’t summarize in this piece. What resonated most fascinating is the Freudian perspective that consciousness and physique are developmentally integrated right from the start, because physical maturation demands emotional evolution and vice versa. A baby’s bodily experiences – such as the corporeal experience of hunger – propel the brain to build the skill to perceive hunger as an emotion that is alleviated by eating; and the mental reassurance and contentment repeatedly brought by meal after meal nourishes the infant’s psyche just as the food fuels them physically. So too psychological experiences – like the desire to rise and reach for something, and the determination to attempt repeatedly – are the cause and means muscles grow stronger. Starting at birth, our body and mind are interlinked in reciprocal evolution as unified as a double helix.

However I’ve observed, in sessions with my therapist, that my mind and body might experience a different kind of relationship – one less integrated and somewhat abusive. My mind can use my physical self to store and express aspects that my consciousness deems unwanted or unbearable. During therapy we realized how exist specific feelings that I worry I can’t handle; instead of sensing them in my mind, I unintentionally push them into bodily form, where they remain as physical symptoms.

I used to get digestive discomfort – which had nothing to do with food intake, but represented a type of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I failed to handle mentally. This wasn’t an intentional act, but once it was raised into my consciousness by my analyst, and my dread and vulnerability and frustration and panic were experienced and expressed verbally rather than transformed into corporeal symptoms, it resolved. I rarely suffer with digestive issues now.

The most severe episode I endured this severe heartburn, I failed to rest for several nights in a row. I believed I was forfeiting my mind. I went my doctor, who scheduled all sorts of scans and tests, but there was nothing physically wrong. It was another doctor who suggested that the origin could be emotional. My analyst concurred. I was stunned, but I also felt it was correct.

Whenever someone experiences a corporeal problem, they can be offended if told that there might be a mental root. They can experience like disrespect, being told that their illness is imagined. Naturally it’s a real phenomenon – people can have their suffering discounted or wrongly assessed. But in some cases it’s possible that the bodily signs exist – certainly – and the source is psychological, the inner mind utilizing the physique to express certain suffering or anger or any feeling awareness cannot tolerate. Sometimes, we might assume our feelings only has value if manifested through the body. We often undervalue our psychological well-being on a personal level, as a society and within our culture; for what reason can we allow the terrible elimination of mental health treatments on the NHS?

My experiences have revealed that a superior lifestyle cannot be built while caught unawares in patterns of interaction, within ourselves and socially, that are rooted in disrespect, use and exchange. These dynamics tend to be simpler to identify “out there” in the general public. It’s perhaps less comfortable to reflect on their origins, and to recognise these shapes personally and among loved ones, in the economy of our psyches.

However it’s worth persevering. Upon wearing my running shoes again after such a long decade, venturing out not to get bodily change, or to eliminate an emotion, or to improve a personal best, {it