A little less than a year ago I was sat on a long flight back from my honeymoon in Africa, looking for something to watch to pass the time. I could see a lot of children on the flight watching this new film ‘Inside Out’ and since I love a good kids film I thought I would give it a go.
What I did not expect was the profound effect it had on me! Not only did I invest a lot of effort trying to hide the tears that kept flowing down my face (all the children were laughing their heads off), the film really stuck with me for some time after.
As a therapist I spend a lot of time talking about emotions and trying to help people to respect a whole host of emotions as well as find a way in which to talk about them and manage them where necessary.
Everything I talk about and work with in my sessions with clients was captured perfectly in 1 hour 42 minutes of Pixar magic and they did it in the most creative, enjoyable and accessible way I can imagine.
I think its wonderful that so many children will see this film and it will act as an emotional education for them at such a young age.
No adult should miss out on this film either. I strongly encourage you to watch it but I wanted to share with you the 3 important lessons about emotions that I think this film really highlights and that I believe are hugely beneficial to your health and wellbeing as a human being.
Check out the video here…
The film explores what is happening within 11 year old Riley as she goes through a life transition of moving house. Her emotions of sadness, joy, anger, disgust and fear are represented by different characters and we get to watch their interactions during this life transition.
There are 3 powerful lessons about emotions within this film:
[divider number=”1″ title=”Life can be hard and it is normal to have an emotional response to this”]
We have to respect the fact that some situations are just difficult and that we are human beings who have emotional reactions. Sometimes it is necessary to simply respect an emotional reaction as real for you at that time, even if it seems to make no sense. When you can accept your emotional response, you can give yourself what you need.
We need to let go of unhelpful judgements on ourselves such as ‘I should be happy’, ‘I should be over it by now’ or ‘other people have it worse than me’. These judgements will only keep you stuck.
[divider number=”2″ title=”Happiness is about the integration of emotions”]
Expecting to feel good all the time is unrealistic and unhealthy. I see too many people who believe that if they are not feeling good they are broken or failing in some way. This is just not true. I believe it is so much healthier to respect all your emotions, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and aim to accept and integrate all of these within yourself. Once you can do this you can learn to manage your emotions more effectively.
[divider number=”3″ title=”Keep your imagination alive”]
‘Bing Bong’, the imaginary friend in the film teaches us that sometimes we have to let go of things to provide space to grow and move forward to new things.
However, I believe he also represents the importance of imagination, something which I feel very strongly about. The imagination holds so much potential for us all and we need to make sure to exercise it to stop it from fading away. You can do this through playing, visualising and watching great films like this one!
Happiness requires emotional integration. When you can accept your emotions you can learn to manage them.
