Feeling As If Your Consciousness and Body Are Disconnected? Here’s How Life Changes When We Become Whole.

I have just returned from a jog. It’s surprising to write those words. It seems it was likely many years since I last did so. Yet It came to my attention that my levels show elevated cholesterol, and doctors suggested to engage in vigorous activity regularly.

For the first time ever in my existence that the driving force to exercise has been my physical health. In my youth, I exercised because I desired to slim down. I also jogged to manage feelings of anxiety – I was just running away from the worry, instead of dealing with it. Sometimes, I jogged because I aimed to improve in running. That represented what it meant to me at that time to develop a better life.

Exercising with new motivation currently sparked reflection about the methods I’ve connected with my physique throughout my life and the way it’s evolving as I progress from early adulthood to middle age. I don’t think I’ve respected my body, not fundamentally. I’ve appreciated it solely for its functions and the aims it fulfilled for me: trying to attract others; escaping emotions; running a faster five kilometers. Previously, I failed to grasp that my body represents me, it is my life, as opposed to an instrument for achievements.

A lot has been discussed for ages about the separation of mind and body – a topic you will be relieved to know, I’ll avoid detailing in this piece. What resonated most intriguing is the Freudian perspective that consciousness and physique are innately connected from the beginning, because physical development necessitates psychological development and conversely. A baby’s corporeal feelings – for example the corporeal experience of hunger – propel consciousness to build the capacity to perceive hunger as a sensation that is alleviated by a feed; and the emotional comfort and contentment consistently provided by feed after feed supports the infant’s psyche just as the milk nourishes them physically. So too mental events – for instance the urge to get up and grab an object, and the resolve to try again and again – are the reason and method physical strength increases. Starting at birth, our physical and mental selves are interlinked in mutual development as unified as a double helix.

However It’s become clear, in treatment with my therapist, that mental and physical aspects can be in an alternate dynamic – one less integrated and increasingly manipulative. My psyche can use my physique to store and display aspects that my mind deems unacceptable or intolerable. During therapy it emerged that there are specific feelings that I fear I cannot bear; instead of sensing them psychologically, I unconsciously force them into my body, where they remain as physical symptoms.

I often had this as indigestion – not connected to my diet, but represented a kind of physical reflux of the sharper sentiments I failed to handle mentally. This was not a conscious choice, but once it was raised to my attention in sessions, and my dread and sensitivity and rage and alarm could be felt and put into words instead of converted to corporeal symptoms, it resolved. I seldom experience from stomach problems currently.

The worst time I had this intense reflux, I failed to rest for several nights in a row. It seemed I was forfeiting my mind. I consulted my doctor, who scheduled various examinations and assessments, but there was nothing corporally problematic. The situation was another doctor who informed me that the root could be mental. My analyst agreed. I was stunned, but I also felt it was accurate.

Whenever someone experiences a bodily issue, they can be offended if told that it could have an emotional origin. They can experience this as being disrespected, being told that their condition is imagined. Certainly that does happen – some face their symptoms ignored or incorrectly identified. But in some cases it might be that the physical symptoms are real – without doubt – and the cause is emotional, the subconscious employing the physical self to express certain suffering or rage or whatever emotion the conscious self is unable to bear. At times, it’s easy to think our experience is only valid if manifested as bodily symptoms. We often undervalue our psychological well-being as individuals, as a society and within our culture; why else can we allow the shocking elimination of psychodynamic psychotherapy in public healthcare?

Personal insights have taught me that an improved existence is unattainable if we remain trapped unconsciously in patterns of interaction, within ourselves and with others, that stem from devaluation, exploitation and dealings. These dynamics tend to be simpler to recognize “externally” in broader culture. It may be harder to reflect on their origins, and to see these patterns within ourselves and among loved ones, in the workings of our minds.

Yet it’s valuable to continue. Upon wearing my running shoes back on following many years, heading out not to get physical improvement, or to escape a feeling, or to improve a 5km time, {it