🔗 Share this article

I have just returned from jogging. I’m amazed to write this fact. I believe it could have been ten years since my last. Yet I recently discovered that my tests indicate elevated cholesterol, and doctors suggested to engage in vigorous activity on a consistent basis.

This is the first time in my existence that my motivation to work out has been my bodily well-being. When I was younger, I exercised because I aimed to slim down. I’ve also run to cure my anxiety – I was merely escaping from the anxiety, not addressing it. At other times, I ran because I sought to get better with jogging. This was the definition to me then to build a superior lifestyle.

Jogging with altered intent now got me thinking about the ways I’ve related with my body over my lifetime and its transformation as I progress from being a young person to being a middle-aged person. I believe not I’ve respected my body, not truly. I’ve appreciated it just for its capabilities and the purposes it fulfilled for me: trying to attract others; dodging sentiments; completing a speedier 5K run. Up to now, I’ve not understood that my body is me, it is my life, as opposed to a tool for outcomes.

A lot has been written over the centuries about the separation of mind and body – a topic it’s reassuring to know, I won’t summarize here. What I’ve found most compelling is Sigmund Freud’s view that mental and physical selves are innately connected right from the start, because physical development demands emotional evolution and conversely. The infant’s physical sensations – like the physical sensation of hunger – drive the brain to cultivate the ability to identify hunger as a sensation that may be satisfied by eating; and the psychological solace and fulfillment repeatedly brought by repeated nourishment nourishes the child’s mind similar to the nutrition nourishes them physically. Similarly mental events – for instance the wish to get up and grab an object, and the resolve to try again and again – are the cause and means muscles grow stronger. From our earliest moments, our physical and mental selves are intertwined in mutual development as unified as DNA strands.

However I have noticed, in sessions with my analyst, that mental and physical aspects can be in a distinct connection – one less integrated and somewhat abusive. My consciousness can use my physical self to hold and manifest elements that my consciousness views undesirable or unbearable. During therapy we realized that there are certain emotions that I am afraid I can’t handle; rather than sensing them mentally, I subconsciously shift them into bodily form, becoming trapped as corporeal issues.

I often had this as indigestion – unrelated to what I’d eaten, but represented a kind of corporeal reaction of the more acidic feelings I failed to handle psychologically. This was not a conscious choice, but once it was raised to my attention by my analyst, and my dread and insecurity and frustration and terror became palpable and put into words in place of converted to physical sensation, it disappeared. I seldom experience from indigestion now.

The most severe episode I had this terrible acid reflux, I didn’t sleep for multiple consecutive nights. I felt I was losing my mental stability. I went to the GP, who arranged various diagnostic procedures, but there was nothing medically abnormal. It was an alternate medic who informed me that the origin might be psychological. My therapist agreed. I was stunned, but I recognized it was correct.

When a patient experiences a corporeal problem, they can be offended if told that it could have a psychological cause. They might feel this as being disrespected, being told that their condition isn’t real. Certainly such cases occur – people can have their symptoms dismissed or misdiagnosed. But in some cases it might be that the physical symptoms are genuine – without doubt – and the origin is mental, the subconscious employing the body to express certain suffering or anger or any feeling the mind fails to handle. At times, we might assume our feelings only has value only through expression as bodily symptoms. We often undervalue our psychological well-being on a personal level, as a society and as a culture; why else would we tolerate the shocking killing-off of psychodynamic psychotherapy in public healthcare?

Life lessons have shown me that a better life is unattainable when we are stuck unawares in modes of connection, within ourselves and in relationships, that originate in disregard, exploitation and dealings. These dynamics tend to be simpler to identify “in the world” in wider society. It may be harder to think about how they got out there, and to see these patterns within ourselves and among loved ones, in the dynamics of our mental lives.

However it’s worth persevering. Upon wearing my trainers back on post a long hiatus, venturing out not to get a better body, or to eliminate an emotion, or to surpass a 5km time, {it