Inside Out

At 36, I watched this kids movie for the third time lol.

I’ve been uncharacteristically emotional in the past year. And even though it’s a kids movie, I felt some powerful messages while watching it.

If you haven’t seen it or heard much about it – it follows the story of a girl’s five personified core emotions of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger as a cross country move with her family instigates a journey through depression.

Anyways, here are a few of the messages that I took away from it:

Sadness.
It’s OK to feel sad sometimes. Don’t let it take over, but it can build closeness and empathy with others and you can get lost and cause bigger messes if work too hard to avoid it or fight it.

Letting go
Riley loved Bing Bong, but she needed to forget about him in order to bring joy back. It’s OK to let yourself forget about things you loved if that’s what you need to do to move forward.

Happiness
Joy was joy. She wasn’t happiness. Happiness is when all of your emotions are in balance, acknowledged, and work as a team to express themselves in the best possible way for yourself and those around you.

Console upgrade
We’re always learning from our experiences and emotions. As long as we’re lucky enough to be breathing, we’re always growing. But life doesn’t get simpler as we learn, we just have more tools to choose from when faced with a problem.

Facing the Source
Something that didn’t occur me until the third sitting of Inside Out is that Riley began her path to true depression when her mother asked her to “be strong.” This simple request and Riley’s strong desire to please her mother is what led to her begin desperately trying to repress and avoid her sadness. In the end, it was allowing her sadness to emerge and having it be accepted and reciprocated by her mother that allowed her to heal.

Unfortunately, in real life sometimes when you go through depression and hurt the ones you love, they may not be there anymore when you finally face them. Moreover – “you”, at least as you knew and understood yourself may not be there either.

If you haven’t seen it already, I recommend this one 🙂

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/