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I just got back from a run. I’m amazed to admit those words. It seems it was likely many years since my last. Yet I recently discovered that I have slightly high cholesterol, and doctors suggested to engage in vigorous activity on a consistent basis.

For the first time ever in my life that the reason to be active has been my health status. In my youth, I jogged because I desired to slim down. I also jogged to cure my anxiety – I was just running away from the anxiety, without confronting it. At other times, I exercised because I aimed to improve at running. This was the meaning to me at that time to build a superior lifestyle.

Exercising with new motivation now sparked reflection about the ways I’ve related with my physical self over my lifetime and how this is changing as I transition from early adulthood to midlife. I don’t think I’ve honored my body, not truly. I’ve valued it just for its capabilities and the objectives it fulfilled for me: seeking approval; avoiding feelings; achieving a quicker 5km. Up to now, I’ve not understood that my body represents me, it is my existence, rather than an instrument for achievements.

A great deal has been written over the centuries about the separation of mind and body – which you will be relieved to know, I’m not going to precis now. What has struck me most fascinating is Sigmund Freud’s view that mental and physical selves are developmentally integrated right from the start, because physical maturation requires psychological development and conversely. The newborn’s physical sensations – like the bodily feeling of hunger – motivate the mind to cultivate the ability to perceive hunger as an emotion that is alleviated by nourishment; and the psychological solace and satisfaction regularly delivered by repeated nourishment supports the child’s mind similar to the milk sustains them bodily. Likewise emotional occurrences – such as the urge to stand up and attain a goal, and the resolve to attempt repeatedly – are the reason and method the body develops power. From our earliest moments, our physical and mental selves are interconnected in shared growth as connected as DNA strands.

But It’s become clear, in sessions with my analyst, that my mind and body may exist in a distinct connection – a more separated and more exploitative. My consciousness can use my body to store and express aspects that my psyche views unacceptable or unbearable. During therapy it emerged how there are particular emotional states that I worry are too much for me; instead of sensing them in my mind, I unconsciously shift them into my body, where they remain as corporeal issues.

I previously experienced this with indigestion – which had nothing to do with what I’d eaten, but acted as a kind of bodily backlash of the sharper sentiments I failed to handle mentally. This wasn’t a deliberate decision, but when it was brought into my consciousness by my analyst, and my fear and insecurity and anger and alarm became palpable and articulated instead of changed into corporeal symptoms, it disappeared. I rarely suffer from indigestion now.

The toughest period I had this terrible acid reflux, I was unable to sleep for many nights straight. I felt I was slipping away from my mind. I went my doctor, who organised all sorts of diagnostic procedures, but there was nothing corporally problematic. It turned out to be a different physician who suggested that the cause may be mental. My therapist did not disagree. I was shocked, but I recognized it was accurate.

Whenever someone experiences a bodily issue, it can be upsetting if told that it may have a psychological cause. They can experience like disrespect, the idea that their symptom is imagined. And of course such cases occur – individuals may experience their pain dismissed or incorrectly identified. However, sometimes it might be that the bodily signs are genuine – certainly – and the cause is mental, the inner mind utilizing the body to express emotional hurt or fury or whatever emotion the conscious self cannot tolerate. At times, we might assume our emotions only has value only through expression in physical form. We persistently neglect our psychological well-being as individuals, as a society and culturally; why else can we allow the terrible reduction of psychodynamic psychotherapy on the NHS?

Personal insights have taught me that a better life cannot be created while caught without realization in modes of connection, internally and socially, that are rooted in devaluation, use and exchange. These dynamics are often easier to identify “out there” in broader culture. It’s likely more challenging to reflect on where they come from, and to recognise these shapes personally and in intimate connections, in the economy of our mental lives.

But it’s worth persevering. When I put my running shoes once more post a long hiatus, venturing out not to get physical improvement, or to escape a feeling, or to beat a running record, {it