10 Lessons About Your Emotional Mind from Inside-Out

“Do you ever look at someone and wonder, what is going on inside their head?” Joy, Inside-Out movie.

Picture: Disney/Pixar

Would you like to meet the voices inside your head that speak to you all day?

Well, find out the identity of these voices and how they drive your behavior by watching the Disney/Pixar movie Inside-Out.

On first glance, it would seem that Inside-Out – being an animated movie – is meant for kids. However, I found it to be great for adults too. I had watched it with my family over the weekend. The movie sheds clever and enlightening insights into the complexities of emotion; in a way that is also touching, fun and charming.

Here is a summary of the storyline. Like all of us, Riley is guided by her emotions – Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness. The emotions live in Headquarters, the control center inside Riley’s mind, where they help drive her behavior in everyday life. Emotional turmoil ensues when Riley had to move to San Francisco from Minnesota. Although Joy, Riley’s main and most important emotion, tries to keep things positive, the emotions conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.

As in all stories, a journey that unfolds learning lessons must take place. Joy, together with Sadness, traverses Riley’s vast mind to find their way back home. Here is where Inside-Out shines brilliantly in explaining how the mind works in a subject matter that is deep. It is no easy feat. Disney/Pixar has done a great job in piecing key aspects meaningfully together.

10 Lessons that You can Learn from Inside-Out Pixar Movie

Without giving the answers away, learn the following profound lessons when you watch the movie yourself:

1. How emotions influence our physical behavior. Specifically, how havoc reigns when Anger, Disgust and Fear are in charge.

2. Importance of embracing negative emotions (even Sadness) instead of stuffing them.

3. Differences between core memory, forgotten memory and long term memory.

4. How the various worlds of your mind and brain exist: Imagination Land, Personality Islands, Abstract Thought and memory storage facilities.

5. The role that our imaginary friend – formed mentally during childhood – played.

6. How dreams are drawn and formed – although via a fact distortion lens – from various events during waking consciousness

7. How a jingle from a TV ad forms subconscious programing and how embedded it can be in our psyche.

8. How to reframe a single memory that has both shades of sadness and joy, for psychological well-being (reframing is a term that coaches often use in Neuro-linguistic Programing).

9. Why all emotions contribute to the richness of our human experience.

10. Most importantly, How to be the best that you can be with your emotional Headquarters in balance and harmony!!!

Shine Brilliantly from the Inside-Out

In this mob of I’s inside, which one is me? Hear me out. I know I’m wandering, but don’t start putting a lid on this racket. No telling what I’ll do then. Every moment I’m thrown by your story. One moment it’s happy, and I’m singing. One moment it’s sad, and I’m weeping. It turns bitter, and I pull away. But then you spill a little grace, and just like that, I’m all light. It’s not so bad, this arrangement, actually.” – Rumi

Inside-Out resonates with me on many levels. If you are a reader to my blog, you would understand why. I had been sharing many of these ideas in my articles all this time. They also form the basis of my work with clients – exploring the emotional and subconscious mind and distilling wisdom from our life experiences, for greater wellness.

“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.” – Swami Vivekananda

Best of all, I like how the story has Joy as the leader to the Headquarters. It is equivalent to saying that Joy is the basic driver of our diverse human experience and that ultimately, what we long for is happiness. At the same time, as the movie indicates, Joy shines best through emotional awareness and balance!

Love and Abundance Always,

Abundance Alchemy Life Coach

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