Feel like your mind and body are separate? This is how life changes when we become perfect Mental health

I I just got back from running. I was shocked when I wrote these words. I think it’s probably been a decade since I last did this. But I recently discovered that I have slightly high cholesterol and was advised to exercise regularly.

This is the first time in my life that my motivation to exercise is my physical health. In my youth, I used to run because I wanted to be thinner. I also ran to cure my anxiety (and wrote about it – I was just running away from anxiety, not treating it). Other times, I ran because I wanted to become a better runner. That’s what it meant to me then to build a better life.

Running for a different reason now has made me think about the ways I’ve connected to my body over the course of my life and how that’s changing as I move from being a young person to being a middle-aged person. I don’t think I respected my body, not deep down. I valued them only for their functions and the purposes they served for me: trying to attract others; Avoid feelings. Run a little faster (or rather a little slower) for 5 km. Until today, I don’t understand that my body is me, it’s my life, not something that produces results.

Much has been written over the centuries about the dichotomy (or lack thereof) between body and mind, which you will be relieved to know, and which I will not summarize here. What I found most convincing was Freud’s understanding that mind and body are developmentally integrated from the beginning, because physical development requires psychological development and vice versa. An infant’s physical experiences – such as the physical sensation of hunger – prompt the mind to develop the ability to recognize hunger as a feeling that can be satisfied with food; The emotional comfort and satisfaction of feeding after feeding nourishes the baby’s mind just as milk nourishes him physically. Psychological experiences – such as the desire to stand up and reach for something, and the insistence on trying again and again – are also the reason why muscles grow stronger. From our first moments, our body and mind are intertwined in mutual development as integrally as a double helix.

But I have noticed, in therapy with my psychoanalyst, that my mind and body can be in a different kind of relationship—one that is less complementary and more exploitative. My mind can use my body to store and express things that my mind finds unwanted or unacceptable. In my sessions, we become aware of how there are certain emotional states that I fear I cannot handle; Instead of feeling these things in my mind, I unconsciously push them into my body, where they stick as physical symptoms.

I had indigestion, which had nothing to do with what I was eating, but was a kind of physical reflux of more acidic feelings that I couldn’t digest in my mind. This was not a conscious choice, but when the analyst brought it into my awareness, and the fear, vulnerability, anger, and panic became possible to feel and translate into words rather than into a physical sensation, it was resolved. I rarely suffer from indigestion now.

At the worst times I had this terrible acid reflux, I didn’t sleep for several nights in a row. I felt like I was losing my mind. I went to the GP, who organized all kinds of scans and tests, but there was nothing physically wrong. Another doctor told me it might be psychological. My analyst did not disagree. I was shocked, but I also knew it was true.

When a patient has physical symptoms, he or she may feel insulted when it is suggested that they may have a psychological cause. They may feel this as disrespectful, or hear that their illness is not real or that they are making it up. Of course, this does happen, and people’s pain may be ignored or misdiagnosed. But in some cases, the physical symptoms can be real – without a doubt – and the cause is psychological, as the subconscious uses the body to express some pain, anger, or any emotion that the mind cannot bear. Sometimes, we may assume that our experience only has value and can only be real when it is expressed in physical form. We constantly disrespect our minds as individuals, as a society and as a culture; Why else would we tolerate the appalling murder of psychodynamic therapy in the NHS?

My experiences have taught me that a better life cannot be built when we are stuck in ways of communicating, within ourselves and with others, that are rooted in disrespect, exploitation, and transactionalism. It is often easier to identify these dynamics “out there” in the broader society. It can be uncomfortable to think about how they appear there, to recognize these forms within ourselves and within our closest relationships, in the economy of our minds.

But it’s worth persevering. When I put my running shoes back on after that long decade, and didn’t head out to get in a better body, or get rid of a feeling, or run a 5K, it was a whole different story. Honest, less stressed, more optimistic. I felt grounded in my awareness of my age and my desire to take care of my precious life. When I came back with my muscles aching and sweat on my face, I thought I’d better write a column about this before I blow my chance — because it might be another decade before I do it again.

Moya Sarner is an NHS psychotherapist and author When I Grow Up – Conversations with Adults in Search of Adulthood