I just took my kids to Inside Out 2 yesterday in theaters. We are a BIG Disney family and an even bigger Feelings family. My kids have ALL the feels (and honestly, I do too). Inside Out has always been a great movie to help kids talk about their own feelings and understanding them, as well as a way to create play around feelings and help bring them to life and what role they play in our lives. However, I also use this concept in my everyday life as a therapist. Talking about our emotions and feelings and normalizing them, recognizing all our parts and knowing each of our emotions play a part in our life and there are no bad emotions. Inside out 2 knocked this out of the park for me. (some spoilers ahead...read with caution) This movie new emotions enter into Riley's life...welcome Anxiety. I'm sure you saw the previews. I'm sure if you are a millennial parent...you related to the previews and to the baggage anxiety carried and chuckled with knowing how much anxiety plays in our everyday life. Anxiety not only came into Riley's life...but took it over. One of the biggest themes in this movie was Riley's belief system of self. Having a sense of "I'm a good person" being her previous belief system that Joy created by keeping the memories that filled this belief system and "getting rid of the rest" that didn't fit into this belief system. When anxiety took over, she started to create the belief for Riley based in worries, doubt and fear that lead to the belief system "I'm not good enough". As a human, have you had this thought? As a parent, have you feared your kids having this thought? Hearing Riley's internal belief system turn into "I'm not good enough" started to run her life. The choices she made, the friendships she had, how hard she worked all came down to not feeling "enough". This is what happens when an emotion takes over our life. It creates an image in our head of what we think we are and runs with it. At the end both belief systems were flawed. Joy creating a belief system as being a "good person" by deleting any unwanted memories that didn't fit this created a belief that Riley couldn't do wrong. By being a "good person", she couldn't hurt her friends, set boundaries for herself, do poorly at something, or fail. It made this image of always needing to do the best--which actually paved the way for anxiety to come in. Wanting to be the best, wanting to do everything perfectly, and wanting to make choices now that would impact her the rest of her life. Anxiety demonstrates how the spiral of anxiety works and even led to Riley having a panic attack. (This really hit home and watching anxiety freeze as Joy went into the emotion consol to try to rescue Riley from the panic attack shows how most of anxiety is in a flight or fight response). Inside out 2 is a MUST see. Must see for kids, to get them talking about their emotions--even uncomfortable unwanted emotions. A must see for the anxious millennial to help connect them with their own belief system and internal dialog. A must see for the Disney lover, because it again had me crying Disney tears. I absolutely loved this movie. It allowed me and my anxious 6-year-old to have a great conversation about his own emotions and feelings and to better understand them. I also am already jumping into therapy metaphors with Riley's emotions and belief systems to help clients connect with it as well. What are your thoughts of Inside Out 2 and the new emotions? Are there any you feel were missing?
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