Inside 'Inside Out'

A few years ago, Pixar knocked it out of the park (yet again) with Inside Out. This special film creatively depicted the significant role our emotions play in our day to day interactions with the world. It showed that each emotion is necessary and vital. Even more impactful, the film discussed the importance of grieving our losses. 

“[We have] to have this full complement of emotions to develop. I think we all need to remember that. This is a weakness in Western culture and the United States. You need sadness, you need anger, you need fear.”

— Dr. Dacher Keltner

Dacher Keltner, leading scientist in the study of emotions and a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, was one of the psychologists who served as a consultant for Pixar's Inside Out. He shared in a PacificStandard magazine interview with J. Wesley Judd, "Well, I think that the film really got a couple of big ideas about emotions right. One, [emotions] are really critical to how we look at the world — our perception and our attention and our memories and our judgment. They guide us in our handling of really important life circumstances, like moves and developmental changes...People in different traditions like to refer to emotions with a social idiom or a grammar of social interactions. Emotions are the structure, the substance, of our interactions with other people. If I’m falling in love with somebody, everything that I do in that euphoria of love — buying flowers, reciting poetry, touching the individual’s hair — it’s textured by the feeling, and it sets up these patterns of how we relate to each other. Those scenes in particular with Riley’s fights with parents and running away and coming back are all about sadness. That’s what it really got right. Emotions shape how we relate to other people."

One thing I personally and professionally appreciated about the film was its portrayal of Sadness. The film normalized an emotion often discarded because it is uncomfortable and is often a response to a loss. Often times, people will come into my office struggling with their sadness. Their sadness confuses them and they want to ostracize or minimize it. But it's a real emotion and true to the human experience.

Keltner and his colleague, Paul Ekman, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote a New York Times article entitled, "The Science of 'Inside Out'" explaining that sadness is a healthy part of emotional development.

Dr. Keltner says, "One of the things I really resonated with is that we have a naive view in the West that happiness is all about the positive stuff. But happiness in a meaningful life is really about the full array of emotions, and finding them in the right place. I think that is a subtext of the movie: The parents want Riley to just be their happy little girl. And she can’t. She has to have this full complement of emotions to develop. I think we all need to remember that. This is a weakness in Western culture and the United States. You need sadness, you need anger, you need fear."

“1. Emotions organize- rather than disrupt- rational thinking.
2. Emotions organize- rather than disrupt- our social lives.”

— Dr. Dacher Keltner

He writes, "The real star of the film is Sadness, for "Inside Out" is a film about loss and what people gain when guided by feelings of sadness."

The articles continues by explaining insights from the science of emotion, "First, emotions organize- rather than disrupt-rational thinking. Traditionally in Western thought, the prevailing view has been that emotions are enemies of rationality and disruptive of cooperative social relations. But the truth is that emotions guide our perceptions of the world, our memories of the past and even our moral judgments of right and wrong, most typically in ways that enable effective responses to the current situation." 

"Second, emotions organize- rather than disrupt- our social lives. Studies have found, for example, that emotions structure (not just color) such disparate social interactions as attachment between parents and children, sibling conflicts, flirtations between young courters and negotiations between rivals." 

""Inside Out" offers a new approach to sadness. Its central insight: Embrace sadness, let it unfold, engage patiently with a preteen's emotional struggles. Sadness will clarify what has been lost (childhood) and move the family toward what is to be gained: the foundations of new identities, for children and parents alike."

Sadness purposefully contributes something beautiful to life. Keltner explains the "vital function of Sadness" is to guide the main character "to recognize the changes she is going through and what she has lost, which sets the stage for her to develop new facets of her identity." 

As a counselor, I want to help clients become acquainted with their sadness, their grief, by identifying and acknowledging their loss and its affect. In doing so, over time, their grief can add new textures and significant meaning to their lives. There is strength in the sorrow and beauty in the tears.

“Sadness can be one of our best teachers. We have much to learn from her. Will we be willing students?”

Homeward Bound

I wanted to continue the conversation on Rumi's "The Guest House" and a reactive response of denying parts of oursevles. We last left off with the question of whether or not we would agree to exile nothing or as Rumi would say, "welcome and entertain them all".

To dispel the often misguided notion that counseling is solely to talk about your feelings, let me tell you that, for me, that is never the end goal I have for my clients. For those who are concerned that the purpose is to dredge up every past, painful memory, please hear me: we are not setting out to be masochistic (feeling pain for pain's sake) or indulge in every emotion that comes our way. While "feeling talk" does occur and is important to good therapeutic work, "the goal of this journey is to reunite us with ourselves" (Stephen Cope). A homecoming. 

“What are the narratives that keep you from feeling whole?”

For many of us, we've presented a facade that has led to being gone for a long while and aren't really sure how to get back home, back to what is authentic. The breadcrumbs we left along the way got eaten up. Or maybe we didn't ever feel at home in our own skin; we never had a chance to develop a healthy connection to our innermost being because it was not safe for various reasons. Either way, we're lost.

We've attempted to make due with the loneliness of our homelessness by distracting or numbing through various addictions (work, relationships, substances, food, shopping, working out, and on and on the list can go). But we know that in each of those places, you can't truly relax. You're not home. And that is a terrifying feeling.

You may feel like you've been gone too long and wouldn't even know if you'd be welcomed back. Or perhaps you're meant to be a vagabond, roaming around from the next place to the next. Shame tells you that you've pretended and hidden for so long that that is the only version of you that will be accepted. These are all important things to consider and examine and explore. What are the narratives that keep you from being reunited with yourself, from feeling whole?  

“Until we can accept and embrace joy, depression, meanness, sorrow, the dark thought, shame, and malice, we leave ourselves stuck in no man’s land.”

Our map back home cannot contain exiles. Those parts that have been split off leave us fractured which is the complete opposite of being whole. Until we can accept and embrace each arrival ("a joy, a depression, a meanness", "a crowd of sorrows", "the dark thought, the shame, the malice"), we leave ourselves stuck in no man's land. 

Can we, as Rumi beckons, treat each guest honorably? I love this notion of honoring our emotions, our parts, our self. Each, in its own way, is there to tell us something, sent as a guide. They serve as our compass and have an important purpose. And perhaps, instead of shutting the door in their face, by greeting them, hosting them, having gratitude for them, they may be "clearing you out for some new delight" and lighting the way back home, where the possibility exists of feeling safe, received and accepted. Whole. 

Hide and Seek

I recently shared with you one of my favorite poems. When I first read Rumi's "The Guest House", several years ago, I was challenged by its bold call to embrace all aspects of one's self. "Welcome and entertain them ALL"? Herein lies the quandary: we won't take issue in embracing laughter, delight, joy, celebration. These we deem "acceptable" and "good". But the others? They are intrusive. Sadness, grief, anxiety, depression, anger, and guilt are not welcome and should they force their way in, they are kept hidden in the basement.

“We lose access to our true selves when we numb and deny our emotional reality.”

Whether informed or defined by cultural norms, family rules or past painful experiences, we all have an innate idea of how to "appropriately" present ourselves in order to receive the love and affection we crave. We make vows on how to best navigate relationships with others in order to secure acceptance.

““If I’m angry, they won’t like me. Your anger pushes people away. Hide your anger.”

”Your fear makes you weak. Never let them see you weak.”

”Put on a happy face. Everyone loves a happy girl/boy!”

”When you were crying, they made fun of you. Don’t ever be embarrassed like that again.”

”You need to be perfect to be loved.”

”Your needs will be burdensome and no one wants to be around a burden.””

These and others like this are our internal messages. While they seem helpful, they are actually detrimental to our emotional health and growth. We don't get to pick and choose what emotions we siphon off and which we keep around. We like the idea of compartmentalizing but if we refuse to experience sadness, we are also numbing ourselves from joy. 

We lose access to our true selves when we numb and deny our emotional reality. The more and more we do this, the more difficult it will be to distinguish between what is true and what is false. We respond, "I don't know" to "how are you feeling" because we've legitimately lost touch with our own experience.

Rumi's idea of inviting all guests in is quite bold because it entails high risk. There is a reason we've put up the "no vacancy" sign. To allow painful emotions to surface means we are opening ourselves to feel heartache and loss and those are excruciating. We don't know if we can survive their existence. It seems safer to keep them at bay. But if we want to be people that are whole and true, then we must do the work of learning to welcome and entertain all.

Psychotherapist Stephen Cope describes what occurs, "The "night sea journey" is the journey into the parts of ourselves that are split off, disavowed, unknown, unwanted, cast out, and exiled to the various subterranean worlds of consciousness...The goal of this journey is to reunite us with ourselves. Such a homecoming can be surprisingly painful, even brutal. In order to undertake it, we must first agree to exile nothing."

Later this week, we'll look at what it will require to make this agreement and what it can mean to meet ourselves again.

“If we want to be people who are whole and true, then we must do the work of learning to welcome and entertain all our varied emotional guests.”

Belongingness

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody. I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”

— Mother Teresa

We are a tribal species. No man is an island, you've heard. Studies have proven this inherent pull to be a part of something is crucial to our ability to not only survive but thrive.

In a CNN article entitled, "The Importance of Belonging", Amanda Enayati reported on such consequences, "Isolation, loneliness and low social status can harm a person's subjective sense of well-being, as well as his or her intellectual achievement, immune function and health. Research shows that even a single instance of exclusion can undermine well-being, IQ test performance and self-control." 

It is clear we were wired to belong. But there are many things that can threaten our sense of belonging. Whether through a choice we made with isolating consequences, difficult life circumstances or harm inflicted by another, we find ourselves lost and alone.

How are we to find our way to a place with receptive and open arms? Storytelling. Social psychologist and Stanford assistant professor Gregory Walton found that placing our traumatic experiences in a narrative "with a beginning, a middle and an end" provides "meaning [that] the negative experience is constrained, and people understand that when bad things happen, it's not just them, they are not alone, and that it's something that passes."  Through sharing their experiences, his studies' subjects learned that they are not alone when terrible things occur. It brings awareness that others have also experienced similar things. 

“How are we to find our way to a place with receptive and open arms? Storytelling.”

By withholding our stories, we choose to live cut off which can lead to feelings of isolation and depression. However, by offering our stories, we can discover an emotional connection to another that fosters a sense of belonging which can lead to healing. We are comforted that we are not alone in our struggles. 

Academy award winner Mahershala Ali speaks to the importance of both telling and listening to stories, "When you peel all the layers away, we're all the same. We're all dealing with wanting to be a part of a tribe. We all need to be supported. We all need a presence in our lives." The beloved saint would agree. 

“We’re all dealing with wanting to be a part of a tribe. We all need to be supported. We all need a presence in our lives.”

— Mahershala Ali

Beyond the Beast

As we continue to dive into this notion that compassion gives life to empathy, I thought it might be helpful to pull from another beautiful piece of literature, La Belle et la Bête by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. This fairy tale is better recognized from the Disney film adaptation, Beauty & the Beast. 

“We give shame the authority to be narrator and shame’s theme is that we are unworthy of love, of belonging, of kindness.”

While the Beast's plight is due to his own arrogance and pride, unlike Boo Radley, they both experience the painful consequence of being outsiders. They are dismissed and discarded; they are unseen. When we agree with the narrative that others create for us, we become what it is they believe and cast away any notion that it could be different. We give shame the authority to be the narrator and shame's theme is that we are unworthy of love, of belonging, of kindness. And so our Beast, believing he is unworthy of redemption, remains isolated, ferocious, and terrifying. He relates to the outside world the way he does to his internal world. 

That is, until, a woman steps in to counter the story he has surrendered himself to.

Emma Watson, who plays Belle in the live-action version of the original animated film, describes the power in their relationship, "What's so beautiful about this story as a whole is this idea that Belle is able to see past these extraneous, external, superficial qualities of Beast. She is able to see deeper, and that's one of her special powers. It is her superpower: empathy." 

“She is able to see deeper, and that’s one of her special powers. It is her superpower: empathy.”

— Emma Watson on Belle

She juxtaposes Beast to Gaston, "[Beast] has been damaged and needs rehabilitating. He is just in need of love, whereas Gaston is someone who has had nothing but love and admiration and easiness and because he's never suffered, he doesn't have any empathy." How interesting that she correlates suffering to empathy. But is that not true? If we are unwilling to be affected by hardship and pain, we will remain blind.

Belle's own sufferings have allowed her to see "deeper" and in seeing Beast, she saves him. All it takes is one person to see who we were meant to be and can be that can unshackle us from shame. Empathy is  powerfully healing. Empathy says, "I see you. I see your pain. I see your struggle. I see your hopes and longings. I'm here and I'm with you." We need empathy to find our way to our truest self. 

“All it takes is one person to see who we were meant to be and can be.

Empathy says, “I see you. I see your pain. I see your struggle. I see your hopes and longings. I’m here and I’m with you.””

Porch views

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

— Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird

One of my favorite pieces of literature is Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. I read it for the first time as a freshman in high school as part of our summer reading assignments. The relationship formed between Scout Finch and Boo Radley left me with a powerful example of compassion. At the end of the novel, young Scout stands on the porch of the reclusive town outcast Boo Radley. She looks out and for the first time, sees how he sees and experiences the world. And something within her shifts. 

It is a profound gift to offer and receive the compassion of another human being. Someone willing to step into our skin, to stand on our porch, in order to understand. Compassion begets empathy; empathy is the foundation for authentic relational connection. Without the cornerstone of compassion, we cannot be in healthy, thriving relationship. Relationship is disrupted when we demand others behave as we want and judge their motives. It is only when we choose to see the world as others see can we begin to understand what author Ian Morgan Cron describes, "one's behavior is born out of a singular biography, a particular wound, a fractured vision of life". This is true for our own stories; we all see from our own porch steps. In order to live fully, we must pay attention to the experiences that have shaped us. The more we acknowledge these defining stories, the more deeply we will feel compassion for others and ourselves.  

While we can't change WHAT we see or what others see, we can consider HOW we see. This posture creates a beautiful greenhouse of transformation. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist teacher, explains, "When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can't accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don't make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform." 

As we cultivate a heart of compassion, our vision becomes more clear; our vantage point expands to see what we couldn't see before and something within us shifts.

““Atticus, he was real nice.”

”Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.””

— To Kill a Mockingbird