🔗 Share this article

I have just returned from jogging. I’m amazed to admit this fact. I think it was likely many years since my last. Yet It came to my attention that I have elevated cholesterol, and doctors suggested to perform intense workouts on a consistent basis.

For the first time ever in my existence that my motivation to work out has been my physical health. During earlier years, I jogged because I wanted to slim down. At times I ran to alleviate nervousness – I was merely escaping from those feelings, not addressing it. Sometimes, I ran because I wanted to get better at running. That represented the definition to me then to create a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent now prompted contemplation about the methods I’ve related with my physical self over my lifetime and how this is changing as I move from early adulthood to midlife. It seems unlikely I’ve valued my own body, not fundamentally. I’ve appreciated it solely for its capabilities and the purposes it provided: aiming to appeal; escaping emotions; running a faster five kilometers. Up to now, I failed to grasp that my body is me, it embodies my life, rather than a tool for outcomes.

Much has been explored through history about the separation between body and mind – which it’s reassuring to know, I won’t summarize here. What I’ve found most intriguing is Freud’s understanding that mental and physical selves are developmentally integrated from birth, because physical maturation requires emotional evolution and conversely. A baby’s physical sensations – like the bodily feeling of hunger – motivate consciousness to cultivate the skill to recognise hunger as a feeling that is alleviated by eating; and the mental reassurance and fulfillment regularly delivered by repeated nourishment feeds the child’s mind just as the nutrition nourishes them bodily. Likewise psychological experiences – like the urge to rise and attain a goal, and the persistence to attempt repeatedly – are the reason and method muscles grow stronger. From our earliest moments, mind and body are interlinked in mutual development as integrated as a spiral.

Yet It’s become clear, in treatment with my therapist, that my mind and body might experience a distinct connection – a less unified and more exploitative. My mind may employ my physique to store and express elements that my consciousness considers unacceptable or unacceptable. During therapy we realized that exist specific feelings that I am afraid I can’t handle; in place of sensing them mentally, I unintentionally force them into bodily form, becoming trapped as corporeal issues.

I used to get this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with my diet, but acted as a kind of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process psychologically. This was not a conscious choice, but when it was brought to awareness through therapy, and my dread and sensitivity and rage and panic could be felt and put into words rather than converted to bodily feelings, it resolved. I rarely suffer from stomach problems now.

The worst time I had this terrible acid reflux, I failed to rest for multiple consecutive nights. I felt I was slipping away from my sanity. I visited my doctor, who arranged all sorts of examinations and assessments, but no issues were found physically wrong. It turned out to be a different physician who suggested that the origin might be psychological. My therapist agreed. I was stunned, but I recognized it was correct.

Whenever someone experiences a corporeal problem, it can be upsetting at the suggestion that it may have a mental root. They can experience this as being disrespected, hearing that their symptom is imagined. And of course that does happen – individuals may experience their symptoms ignored or wrongly assessed. Yet occasionally it’s possible that the corporeal issues are genuine – certainly – and the origin is psychological, the inner mind employing the physique to manifest certain suffering or fury or whatever emotion the mind is unable to bear. Sometimes, we may believe our emotions only has value only through expression in physical form. We continually disrespect our mental states as individuals, in social contexts and as a culture; for what reason can we allow the terrible elimination of psychological therapies on the NHS?

My experiences have taught me that an improved existence is unattainable when we are stuck unawares in patterns of interaction, internally and in relationships, that are rooted in devaluation, use and exchange. These dynamics are often easier to spot “out there” in the general public. It may be more challenging to reflect on how they got out there, and to see these forms within ourselves and among loved ones, in the workings of our mental lives.

Yet it’s valuable to continue. When I put my trainers once more after such a long decade, venturing out not to get a better body, or to eliminate a sensation, or to improve a 5km time, {it