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I want to tell you about a cat who was peeing all over the basement.

Stay with me. This gets good.

His owner, let's call her Maya, had just come through a divorce. Not the quick, clean, amicable kind where everyone is very mature and wishes each other well over a nice cup of tea. The other kind. The kind where you walk on eggshells. Where nothing is ever your fault but somehow everything is your fault. Where you second guess yourself so often you stop trusting your own judgement entirely. The kind of relationship where the control is so subtle at first you barely notice it, and then one day you look up and realise you have been managing someone else's ego for years while quietly disappearing.

Narcissistic. Controlling. Toxic from the foundations up.

Read more: She Was Exhausted, So Was Her Cat. Turns Out They Had the Same Problem

Sit up straight. Shoulders back. Stop hunching.

We have been hearing this our whole lives, and honestly it is excellent advice if the problem is posture. But if your shoulders have been consistently, persistently, stubbornly tight since approximately the mid-2000s and no amount of yoga, massage, hot baths, that foam roller you bought off Amazon and used twice, or stern reminders to sit properly has made the slightest lasting difference, posture is not the problem.

Read more: What Your Shoulders Have Been Carrying (That Has Nothing to Do With Posture)

Notice your jaw right now.

Go on. Just for a second. Is it relaxed? Or is it doing the thing, teeth not quite apart but not quite together, a low-grade clench you had completely stopped registering because it has become your face's permanent resting state?

Most people reading that just quietly unclenched their jaw. If you did not, go back and read the first paragraph again. It will happen.

The jaw is one of the most honest places in the body. Not because of what it does physically, chewing, speaking, existing, but because of what it stores. And what it stores is deeply specific.

The jaw holds everything you did not say.

Read more: Your Jaw Is Holding Everything You Never Said

Think about a song that does it to you every time.

You know the one. It comes on and something in your body changes immediately. Your shoulders drop. Your breathing slows. Or the opposite, something lifts, energy floods in, you find yourself doing something embarrassing in the kitchen involving a spatula that you would absolutely deny if asked.

Read more: Why a Song Can Shift Your Entire Energy in 30 Seconds