🔗 Share this article

I recently came back from jogging. It’s shocking to write this fact. It seems it was likely a decade since I last did so. But It came to my attention that my levels show somewhat raised cholesterol, and the recommendation was to perform intense workouts frequently.

It’s the initial instance in my existence that the driving force to exercise has been my health status. When I was younger, I exercised because I wanted to be thinner. I’ve also run to manage feelings of anxiety – I was just running away from those feelings, instead of dealing with it. On other occasions, I jogged because I sought to get better at running. That represented the meaning to me at that time to create a better life.

Running for a different reason at present sparked reflection about the approaches I’ve connected with my body over my lifetime and its transformation as I move from being a young person to being a middle-aged person. I don’t think I’ve honored my own body, not fundamentally. I’ve valued it just for its roles and the purposes it served me: aiming to appeal; escaping emotions; running a faster 5K run. Up to now, I failed to grasp that I am my body, it is my existence, as opposed to something that produces results.

Much has been discussed through history about the division between body and mind – which it’s reassuring to know, I’m not going to precis here. What resonated most compelling is Sigmund Freud’s view that mental and physical selves are innately connected from birth, because bodily growth necessitates mental growth and vice versa. The infant’s corporeal feelings – for example the bodily feeling of hunger – drive the mind to cultivate the capacity to identify hunger as a feeling that may be satisfied by nourishment; and the psychological solace and satisfaction repeatedly brought by meal after meal nourishes the child’s mind similar to the nutrition nourishes them bodily. So too emotional occurrences – such as the urge to stand up and attain a goal, and the determination to persist through effort – are the reason and method the body develops power. From our earliest moments, mind and body are interconnected in shared growth as unified as a double helix.

Yet I have noticed, in treatment with my analyst, that my consciousness and physique may exist in an alternate dynamic – a more separated and more exploitative. My psyche might utilize my physical self to retain and express aspects that my mind considers undesirable or intolerable. In my sessions we’ve become aware how there are certain emotions that I worry I cannot bear; in place of experiencing them mentally, I unconsciously push them into bodily form, where they remain as physical symptoms.

I previously experienced this with indigestion – not connected to food intake, but represented a type of physical reflux of the sharper sentiments I was unable to process mentally. This was not a conscious choice, but when it was brought to my attention in sessions, and my anxiety and vulnerability and frustration and terror could be felt and put into words rather than changed into physical sensation, it resolved. I seldom experience from stomach problems today.

The most severe episode I experienced this terrible acid reflux, I failed to rest for many nights straight. It seemed I was forfeiting my sanity. I visited my doctor, who scheduled multiple examinations and assessments, but no issues were found corporally problematic. It turned out to be a different physician who suggested that the cause could be mental. My therapist agreed. I was shocked, but I also knew it was correct.

When a patient is suffering a bodily issue, they can be offended upon hearing that it could have an emotional origin. They might feel as invalidation, hearing that their symptom is fabricated. And of course that does happen – individuals may experience their pain dismissed or incorrectly identified. But in some cases it could be that the physical symptoms are genuine – certainly – and the source is mental, the unconscious utilizing the physique to convey certain suffering or fury or whatever emotion awareness fails to handle. Occasionally, we may believe our experience matters solely when it is expressed through the body. We often undervalue our psychological well-being as individuals, collectively and as a culture; for what reason can we allow the appalling elimination of psychological therapies through health services?

My experiences have shown me that a superior lifestyle cannot be created while caught unawares in patterns of interaction, inside us and with others, that originate in disrespect, use and dealings. Such patterns tend to be simpler to recognize “externally” in broader culture. It’s likely harder to consider their origins, and to see these forms personally and within our closest relationships, in the dynamics of our mental lives.

However persistence pays off. After donning my trainers again after such a long decade, heading out not for a better body, or to eliminate a sensation, or to surpass a running record, {it