I I started seeing a therapist in January to help me manage my stress, and after a few sessions, he introduced me to an exercise to help me manage my anxiety: the container exercise. To practice it, imagine a closable container in which you put your less-than-ideal feelings. The idea is that by using your container, you are communicating to your body that you recognize those emotions or experiences and that you will come back to deal with them at a less tumultuous time. And for me, it has worked wonders.
To explain why the container exercise can be so effective, the therapist Nina Firooz, LMFT (who often uses the container exercise with his clients), explains the concept of tolerance windowdeveloped by psychiatrist Dan Siegel, MD. The window is essentially the sweet spot for stress that allows people to function as they normally would. However, when stress pushes you out the window, you may be too overwhelmed to make logical decisions. “One of the ways you can get back into your window of tolerance is through the container exercise, which is based on imagination,” says Firooz.
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While it may seem like the dumpster exercise is akin to sweeping things under the rug, it’s actually a way of putting things away for safekeeping. Exercise can crucially help you identify a stressor and then know where you are placing it. This allows you to return to it when you are ready to heal or resolve an issue at hand.
In the two months that I have been using the container exercise, I have found that putting things in my container has reduced anxiety and increased productivity.
For example, I use the container exercise when I am experiencing anxiety about work, fear for the well-being of my family, or a sense of helplessness when trying to navigate adulthood. In the two months that I have been using it, I have found that putting things in my bin has led me to anxiety reduction and increased productivity, because I am better able to take care of what I am currently doing instead of spinning my wheels on concerns that I cannot effectively address at the moment.
Read on to learn how to practice the container exercise for yourself, as well as some tricks I’ve done that you might find useful.
How to practice the container exercise by yourself
While you can practice the container exercise on your own, it’s helpful and recommended to work with a professional who can help you work through difficult feelings. But, if you don’t have access to therapy or don’t feel comfortable opening up to strangers, the following therapist-recommended tips can be a good starting point.
1. Identify your feelings and choose your container
Start by closing your eyes and understanding what you feel. (After all, it’s hard to put anything anywhere when you don’t know what that thing is.) From there, she “imagines any kind of container that feels strong; it’s as big as you need it to be in your mind’s eye; and it has a very airtight lid that you have access to at any time, but it won’t open at any time,” says Firooz. Once you know what the stressor is and you have your container, you can imagine putting those feelings in there so you can come back to deal with them at a later time.
It’s important that your container has a tight lid and is a good size so that you have full control when those feelings arise. You can use the container when you feel overwhelmed by your emotions.
And although this is an exercise based on imagination, its container does not have be made to believe. You can also use a physical container (that’s what I do!) and write things to put inside.
2. Customize the container exercise to fit your needs
When I was using an imaginary container, I often forgot what I put in it. That’s not ideal, Firooz says, because while my conscious self might have forgotten, my subconscious self and my body definitely didn’t.
During particularly difficult weeks, I found myself carrying around my imaginary container but never going back to the problems and thoughts I put into it, so they remained in my body. And Firooz is right: The body does to remember. I slept 17 hours straight.
It was then that I decided to use a physical container, an old eucalyptus candle, instead of an imaginary one. I would write my feelings on a sticky note and place it on the candle. And even though I physicalized the exercise, Firooz says the imaginative heart remained. I had yet to visualize my feelings on this paper and in the container. It worked better for me this way, and that’s the most important thing.
3. Schedule time on your calendar to review the sentiments in your bin
Checking what’s in your bin on a scheduled cadence can be helpful because doing so prevents you from avoiding feelings. This was harder to do when I didn’t have a physical container (sometimes my memory fails me), but it’s gotten easier since I started writing things.
I usually sit down on Fridays after work and pull out the candle sticky notes. For the next 15 minutes, I try to remember what I was going through and what I was feeling when I wrote the note, and how it all worked out. Not only does this help me manage my anxiety, but it’s also a (very welcome) reminder that no matter what I’m going through, I have everything I need to get to the other side.
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