By Dheeksha Rabindra

Inside Out – Part 1 (2015)

“Inside Out – Part 1” emphasizes the importance of the emotion of sadness to feel complete. The movie begins with emotion -Joy controlling Riley to ensure she never becomes sad and stays happy.
 
As Riley moves from one town to another, she misses her friends, hockey team, and old place. Shift to a new place, makes her overwhelmed, but “Joy” always puts forward a positive memory and suppresses the actual tough emotion of “sadness”.  Always attempting to put a positive spin on a sad situation, “Joy”, suppresses the actual “Sad” emotion and Riley fails to acknowledge the actual emotion.
 
At the end of the movie, “Joy” realizes the importance of sadness, and lets Riley feel the sad emotions so she feels complete.

Inside Out – Part 2 (2024)
 
Riley hits puberty and enters teenagerhood – I feel it is the most dreaded growing phase by parents. New emotions are introduced – Anxiety, envy, embarrassment, and boredom. In part two, anxiety takes over and bottles up the basic emotions – Joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust.
 
Anxiety is all about the future – What if Riley does not get into the Hockey Team? what if she is not friends with the coolest and most talented kid on the team? Anxiety takes control of Riley in deciding her future. To secure her future she puts “Joy, anger, sadness, fear and disgust” in a jar, representing “bottled-up emotions.”
 
The best part of the movie is “Sense of Self”. Riley’s “Sense of Self” is built from her childhood years. Who is she? her value system, her close friends, her true likes and dislikes, what makes her happy or sad, etc. Simply put her “True Self”. Anxiety hijacks her Sense of Self (built by Joy), and tries to build “Anxious Self”. “Anxiety” tries hard to fit Riley to be part of the leading hockey team. She ditches her close friends, she ditches teamwork, she fakes her identity, she becomes dangerously competitive, she steals the coach’s diary to check if her name has been included in the team or not, etc.  At the end of this drama, she self-doubts herself, her integrity, and her capabilities as a player. She gets highly anxious – panic attacks.
 
Earlier, the “Sense of Self” was built by joy, as she chooses only happy, successful, and good memories with positive affirmations for Riley such as “You are brave”, and “You are the winner.” When Riley has a panic attack due to High Anxiety, “Joy” tries to replace the “Anxious Self” with the “Sense of Self”. Riley does not feel relieved. “Joy” wonders, what is she missing?
 
I especially loved how the movie ended. As “Joy” wonders what is she missing, it dawns on her that Riley needs every emotion. She throws the “sense of self” built only with positive affirmations, and all the emotions embrace Riley, and let Riley decide what emotions she is truly feeling. A new “True Self” is born – which accepts every aspect of Riley and not just positive affirmations. The new Self is built by Riley herself.
 
Further, “Joy” realizes, it’s not her role to control all the emotions, but rather it is for Riley to decide and build her True Self. This is in a true sense, “do not let emotions take control of you but learn to manage your emotions, including tough emotions.”
 
5 key take aways:
 
Do not let emotions take control of you
Do not ignore tough emotions
Do not bottle up emotions
Mindfully embrace all the emotions and learn to manage the emotions
Build and embrace your “True-Self”

Do not miss to watch both Part 1 and Part 2 of Inside Out.