Lessons from 'Inside Out 2': Embracing Emotions and the Power of Vulnerability

Insights on Emotional Health and Connection from a Therapist's Perspective

Jul 18, 2024

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After eagerly awaiting its release, I finally immersed myself in the world of "Inside Out 2." As a therapist working with emotional modes we all have, such as Vulnerable Child and Angry Child. "Inside Out 2" brilliantly illustrates the importance of these emotional modes, showing that even Anxiety has a critical role. In my practice, I see how the Eating Disorder Mode suppresses these emotions through behaviors like restriction, binge eating, purging, and overexercising.

Side thought: If I were to conceptualize another 'Inside Out' movie, it would feature a character representing Eating Disorder mode that is a bit more differently built than emotions. The ED mode would take over the console and and bottle up all the ten emotions we’ve met in the first two movies, similar to what Anxiety did in the second movie, arguing that it is trying to protect Riley from being left with all these emotions to deal on her own. This character could help children understand how eating disorders impact one’s emotional health. Just a thought! P.S. If you work at Pixar, hit me up and let’s discuss this possibility ;)

When working with my clients, the main goal of sessions is to connect with the emotional modes, because emotions are there for a reason. This brings me to the first message I love in both movies:

“ Emotions Are Messengers of the Body: They All Have A Function ”

Therapists, including me, tend to say, “ You need to feel emotions. Emotions cannot be bottled up. ” You might ask, “ Why do we have to, though? Why can’t we just live detached from our emotions? ” Well, Inside Out 1 does a great job answering this question.

Emotions are there for a reason and they all have a function. In the first movie, we see that Joy’s role is ensuring Riley remains happy and optimistic. Joy introduces Anger as caring deeply about fairness, Disgust as a protector from getting poisoned physically and socially. Fear is about keeping Riley safe from physical threats. In the second movie, new emotions are introduced in the Headquarters, including Anxiety, which exists to protect Riley from things she cannot see by planning for the future.

The first movie is actually an exploration of the function of Sadness. While the functions of the four basic emotions (Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear) are quite clear, they are very much confused about the role of Sadness in the Headquarters. After Sadness is introduced, Joy immediately says, “ I’ve checked, there is nowhere else for Sadness to go ,” implying that Sadness’s presence is not really welcome. Throughout the movie, we especially see Joy not really appreciating Sadness, dragging her around forcefully and unwilling. She also tries to stall and get rid of Sadness, giving her fictional tasks like staying in a circle. I found this a fascinating way of reflecting how humans tend to approach the emotion sadness: we don’t want to feel it and we don’t want to have anything to do with it. This actually made me think of toxic positivity that is very common these days, we seem to be almost _ allergic_ to being sad. This allergy is also splattered onto how we approach our bodies with body positivity, especially in eating disorder recovery. This trend makes us feel like we have to love our bodies at all times and never have a single bad body image day, creating this gold standard that we all by nature fail to meet. Joy’s relentless optimism and her initial dismissal of Sadness mirror how society often pushes for constant positivity, completely ignoring the value of feeling and processing sadness. In the second movie, the moment Joy finally has enough and gives the monologue about how she has to be delusional because it is extremely difficult to be positive all the time, I totally related to her in that scene!

Joy trying to keep Sadness busy. Inside Out (2015) dir. Pete Docter

All emotions are there to tell us something about our needs, even unpleasant ones such as Sadness and Anxiety. We all need Sadness in our emotional palette , because as they discovered at the end of the first movie, Sadness helps us connect with others. Without really letting ourselves feel sadness, it’s hard to see what we need (connection) and give ourselves that.

Although, Anxiety went into overdrive in the movie, we all still need Anxiety in our Headquarters because without it, we wouldn’t be able to foresee unpleasant events (such as being under scrutiny and getting socially rejected at a new high school, like Riley experienced after being goofy in the first hockey practice), plan for the future and minimise getting hurt.

Such beautiful messages about _ both_ emotions that are often _ demonised_ by our society.

Anxiety taking over the console. Inside Out 2 (2024) dir. Kelsey Mann

“ Real Connection Requires Vulnerability ”

Another message that I absolutely loved was that real, authentic and secure connection - a need we all have, cannot exist without vulnerability. In the first movie, at her lowest, Joy discovers that each moment where Riley felt sad was followed by connection and love. When she loses an important hockey game, goes to sit alone and feels extremely sad, her parents and teammates come to support her; which later becomes one of her core memories.

Before, Riley tends to analyse social situations with the help of Disgust and connect with others through Sadness. But it is with age and puberty that more complex emotions come and Anxiety worries about Riley being good enough and belonging to a group. Anxiety does everything it does to connect with the cool girls in the hockey team and to be a part of their group. With Anxiety at the sole controller of the console, Riley changes her personality to look cool, lies about disliking a boy band and dyes her hair red to be similar to the hockey team girls. Although the girls are approachable and kind to Riley, there is no moment where Anxiety takes a breather because Riley _ never_ ****really feels like she belongs. The need to belong remains unmet , despite all the drastic efforts put in by Anxiety.

Until… Riley has an anxiety/panic attack and her friends truly see her struggling. Until that specific moment, Riley’s friends never truly see what is happening inside of her: she is extremely sad, angry and feels left behind that her friends haven’t told her about going to a different high school next year. Note how all these feelings are masked by Anxiety’s frantic efforts and behaviours, marked by Anxiety taking over the console and bottling up other emotions.

Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Fear bottled up and sent away by Anxiety. Inside Out 2 (2024) dir. Kelsey Mann

When Riley’s friends recognize she isn’t well, they approach her and ask if she is okay. Riley then, with the help of all emotions hugging her sense of self, tells her friends how she has been really feeling all this time after being told they won’t be attending the same high school as her next year. She admits that she hasn’t been very nice to them, and apologises. Only then they connect and become a team again where she feels like she belongs.

“ All Parts Have To Work Together To Feel Whole ”

In both movies, we see how problematic things get when only one emotion tries to dominate the console. Joy is like the leader of the group, tries to stay positive all the time, regardless of how hopeless things seem. In the first movie, she tries to push Sadness out of the picture with the well intention of keeping the “good” feelings. Yet, things don’t go as perfectly as she expects them to. When Bing Bong is feeling hopeless, Joy’s Polyanna-like-motivational speech does nothing for Bing Bong. Bing Bong is only able to truly hear Joy and be motivated when Sadness first validates Bing Bong’s feelings. Ultimately, Joy and Sadness working together allows Bing Bong to play a part in Joy going back to Headquarters and Riley meeting her need for connection.

In the second movie, Anxiety takes over the console and all hell breaks loose. Riley does things that she would never do usually, like breaking into the office of her coach and reading her notes. She embarrasses her friends for liking the boy band she also secretly likes. She knocks over her teammates during the try-outs in order to score 3 points to ensure her place in the team. All because she is dominated by Anxiety only, while if there were other emotions present, she wouldn’t have done any of those due to the possibility of feeling Sadness, Anger, or Disgust. Without those four and Joy, there is nothing stopping her or making her consider others.

She ultimately has an anxiety/panic attack and is unable to breathe. Only when all emotions come together to plug in her nuanced Sense of Self and hug, Riley feels grounded again. Although some are unpleasant, there are no bad emotions or modes. They mention that they love all parts of Riley now, as she is. Teamwork at our Headquarters matters!

All emotions in Riley’s Headquarters. Inside Out 2 (2024) dir. Kelsey Mann

Too long; didn’t read? In short, my favorite messages from both movies are:

• Emotions are messengers of the body, and emotional needs. All emotions, although some cause negative consequences, are there for a reason. They are not the enemy, but they have a function.
• We can connect with people around us and feel like we belong only when we let ourselves be truly vulnerable.
• When we act from a certain emotion only, things don’t work out. There are no “bad” parts or emotions, but we need all parts of ourselves to work together to feel whole.

How did you find 'Inside Out 2'? Did any particular theme resonate with you? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

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