The Power of Embracing All Emotions
As we grow older and face more difficult hardships, challenges, and societal pressures, our emotions become more complex.
The movie “Inside Out 2” beautifully captures this complexity, offering deep insights into our emotional journey through life.
As we try to navigate the adulting life, we might always think of all the possible negative outcomes and scenarios in everything that we do. We pressure and force ourselves to fit into the standards of society. The sad reality is, we tend to miss the fun and we miss enjoying the present moment. In short, our joy diminishes and our anxiety heightens.
With this, we become more anxious and stressed. Most of the time, anxiety can take over our minds just as it does with Riley in the film. We dwell on potential negative scenarios that turn into nightmares. Our minds become storms of worries, and like Riley, we might also experience anxiety attacks.
The movie reminds us that anxiety doesn’t have to control everything. No single emotion should dominate our identity because there is great danger in defining ourselves by just one emotion, whether joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, envy, ennui, embarrassment, or anxiety.
Just like what happened in the film, we should not aim to eliminate negative emotions or experiences in our lives but we must learn to integrate them into our evolving “Sense of Self.”
In the movie, “Joy” removes the first “Sense of Self,” allowing a new, complex one to take its place. This new “Sense of Self” is formed from both negative and positive memories. Together, the emotions embrace this new identity, stabilizing it and enabling Riley to calm down. Similarly, our “Sense of Self” evolves with our experiences, both good and bad. This is a powerful reminder of how we, too, can integrate our varied emotional experiences into a cohesive, complex identity.
So, we should learn on how to embrace our ever-changing “sense of self.” Let’s allow ourselves to grow by accepting and understanding all the good and bad parts of our lives.
After all, like Riley, we’re not just one thing — we’re a beautiful, intricate tapestry of many experiences and emotions.
