I turned myself ‘Inside Out’

Kaity Holtman

Last Saturday we watched our niece and nephew (one set of a few) at our house. First we did puzzles, played and ate pizza.

But we also decided we’d use the kiddos as a good excuse to rent a Disney Pixar movie we’d been wanting to watch — Inside Out.

The movie was very cute, and I think the kids (5 and 2 years old) enjoyed it.

But I think the true message of the movie might have gone a little over their heads.

*There are some spoilers in this, so you’ve been warned. Continue if you dare.

The whole premise of the movie is that the inside of each person’s mind (in this movie, an 11-year old girl named Riley) is made up of five little characters who control their emotions.

The characters — Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust — run a control panel within her mind, and store memories of each emotion. The memory bank is much like a bank, where they store short-term and long-term memories.

The little girl’s family moves from the Midwest to California, and she has a hard time dealing with all the emotions that come with the transition of a new school, missing friends, and other changes.

While Joy is usually the main controller in the little girl’s mind, Joy and Sadness accidentally get lost, and Joy spends her time trying to get back to help Riley deal with everything.

But throughout the journey, while Joy constantly tries to keep Sadness from messing anything up and making Riley sad, she learns that Sadness is actually very useful.

At the end of the movie, it’s Sadness that ends up saving the day.

I may not be the age meant to be reached by this film, but that was a huge “Ah ha!” moment for me.

I think I try to stay positive all the time and get so frustrated when others aren’t positive, but I have to remember that those other emotions have their appropriate places and are useful too.

Times come in our lives where the other emotions take over happiness, and it feels so terrible, but sometimes actually giving in to the sadness we’re feeling instead of trying to mask it is what gives us a breakthrough or allows us to start the healing process.

To put it in another context, if it were summer here in northwest Missouri all the time, we’d probably take it for granted and not appreciate it fully. But the changes in seasons and having to deal with this bitter cold are what make us appreciate the nice weather and the warm temperatures.

Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we’re willing to make a change. We have to actually deal with the conflicting emotions in our hearts and minds before we can move on with our lives.

And, as the movie portrays, it’s in sadness and revealing of other emotions that we make ourselves vulnerable enough to bond with those we love. We reveal our true character in the worst of times, and that only makes those bonds stronger.

Yes, I got all of this from a children’s movie. But sometimes we just need someone to put it on an elementary level in bright colors for our overthinking-adult minds to really get it.

And I love that the Disney Pixar writers were able to put such an abstract concept into terms that children can grasp, even if not as fully as adults probably can.

It’s a start.

I so appreciate that they are teaching children that sometimes it takes dealing with our other emotions to find our joy again.

I’ve always been so frustrated that growing up seems to mean becoming more jaded.

I’ve spent years trying to avoid becoming cynical and jaded. And while that’s still my goal, to stay positive through hard times, being let down, and other negative experiences, I’ve thought a lot in the last few days about how those experiences shape how I deal with and show emotions.

There are appropriate places for all of our emotions, as long as we don’t permanently lose our joy.

Anyone would have a hard time convincing me that joy shouldn’t run the show most of the time.