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I have just returned from jogging. It’s surprising to admit those words. I believe it might have been ten years since the previous time. But I found out recently that my levels show elevated cholesterol, and doctors suggested to do sweaty exercise frequently.

It’s the initial instance in my existence that the driving force to work out has been my physical health. When I was younger, I exercised because I desired to slim down. I also jogged to manage feelings of anxiety – I was just running away from the worry, instead of dealing with it. On other occasions, I ran because I wanted to get better at running. This was the meaning to me back then to develop an improved existence.

Running for a different reason currently got me thinking about the ways I’ve interacted with my body during my years and its transformation as I move from being a young person to middle age. I don’t think I’ve honored my physical form, not truly. I’ve valued it only for its capabilities and the purposes it fulfilled for me: seeking approval; dodging sentiments; achieving a quicker five kilometers. Up to now, I’ve not understood that my body represents me, it embodies my life, instead of an instrument for achievements.

A lot has been discussed for ages about the division between body and mind – a topic it’s reassuring to know, I’m not going to precis now. What I’ve found most intriguing is the Freudian perspective that mental and physical selves are naturally unified from the beginning, because bodily growth necessitates mental growth and conversely. The infant’s physical sensations – like the physical sensation of hunger – propel consciousness to build the capacity to recognise hunger as a feeling that can be sated by a feed; and the emotional comfort and contentment repeatedly brought by feed after feed nourishes the young mind similar to the food fuels them physically. Similarly mental events – like the desire to rise and reach for something, and the determination to persist through effort – are the reason and method muscles grow stronger. From our earliest moments, our physical and mental selves are intertwined in reciprocal evolution as connected as DNA strands.

However I’ve observed, in treatment with my psychoanalyst, that mental and physical aspects might experience a different kind of relationship – a less unified and increasingly manipulative. My consciousness may employ my body to hold and manifest elements that my consciousness considers unwanted or intolerable. During therapy it emerged that exist certain emotions that I worry are too much for me; rather than sensing them in my mind, I unintentionally shift them to my physical self, where they get stuck as physical symptoms.

I often had this with indigestion – not connected to food intake, but represented a form of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process mentally. This wasn’t a deliberate decision, but after it was introduced to awareness by my analyst, and my dread and vulnerability and rage and terror could be felt and put into words in place of changed into physical sensation, it disappeared. I seldom experience from stomach problems today.

The toughest period I had this terrible acid reflux, I was unable to sleep for multiple consecutive nights. It seemed I was slipping away from my sanity. I visited my doctor, who organised all sorts of diagnostic procedures, but everything was physically wrong. The situation was another doctor who informed me that the cause could be mental. My analyst concurred. I was shocked, but I also felt it to be true.

Whenever someone endures a physical symptom, they can be offended at the suggestion that it could have an emotional origin. They might feel this as being disrespected, hearing that their symptom is imagined. Certainly that does happen – some face their pain discounted or misdiagnosed. But in some cases it’s possible that the bodily signs are real – without doubt – and the source is mental, the unconscious using the body to manifest some pain or anger or whichever sentiment the conscious self cannot tolerate. Occasionally, it’s easy to think our experience is only valid if manifested through the body. We continually disrespect our minds on a personal level, collectively and as a culture; how else would we tolerate the terrible killing-off of mental health treatments in public healthcare?

My experiences have taught me that an improved existence cannot be created when we are stuck unconsciously in patterns of interaction, within ourselves and in relationships, that are rooted in devaluation, manipulation and dealings. These dynamics are often easier to identify “externally” in wider society. It’s perhaps more challenging to think about how they got out there, and to recognise these shapes personally and in intimate connections, in the economy of our minds.

Yet it’s valuable to continue. Upon wearing my jogging shoes once more post a long hiatus, going outside not for a better body, or to escape a sensation, or to beat a personal best, {it