This is One Thing, a column with tips on how to live.
When I was in my early 20s, I was stuck in an awful job with awful bosses. And I had accumulated (what felt like) a massive amount of credit card debt. I simply couldn’t afford to quit. I had another job lined up, but they couldn’t give me a start date yet. I needed to hold on just a bit longer. However, holding my tongue during various situations at work was becoming harder by the minute. I felt angry a lot. Every day, I struggled to drag myself to the office.
I had started seeing a therapist whose thing was working with your body to treat your emotions. She would do things like make me dance around her office with my eyes closed. She could make me cry just by pressing my chest, or make me feel instantly calm by rubbing certain parts of my back.
She used to say anger is “very vital energy” and that my “vital energy” was going to waste when I repressed it in the name of professionalism.
But she also understood that, on a practical level, I had to be professional at work, and that I did have to wait things out. I had to channel my emotions—but also not make a decision or say something I would regret.
So she taught me an exercise that I could do in her office, or at home: She would have me hold something over my head with both hands, like a rolled yoga mat or the dustpan stick, and hit a bed or couch while moving my hips to the front. Each time your hands move to the front, your hips do too. When your hands go back to above your head, your hips go back as well.
I don’t know why, but it worked and still does. It helped me feel calm and weirdly energized before going into the office every day. It also kept me from quitting until I got my new job (and my Christmas bonus).
To this day, whenever something unfair happens to me and I cannot immediately act on it, I look for my yoga mat and hit my bed again. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned again and again that life is often unfair, and that being an adult can mean being patient even when you’re boiling inside. But I don’t repress my anger or frustration anymore. I just express it privately until I can change things.
