Feeling Inside Out - Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Disgust

This post was last updated on October 24th, 2016 at 03:55 pm

Feeling Inside Out – Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Disgust. Last night we took the family to see the new Disney Pixar movie Inside Out. It’s about a tween girl’s emotional journey moving from the Midwest (where she had a lot of friends, played ice hockey and was comfortable in her life,) across the country to San Francisco with a new house, new school and new friends. The little girl’s name is Riley and her story is told through her emotions: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust. The emotions live in Headquarters, the control center inside Riley’s mind, where they help advise her through everyday life.

Feeling Inside Out – Joy, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Disgust

It’s a great family movie with a message at the end- as all Disney Pixar movies have, which I won’t give away because I’m not a spoiler. But, this movie actually resonated with me on several levels. I suppose I’m feeling a little inside out, except instead of Joy playing a prominent role as she should, it feels like during the last year or so Fear, Sadness, Anger and Disgust have pushed Joy to the curb. She makes small appearances here and there, but not nearly as much as I would like. It’s been a rough few years and it started just a few weeks after I turned 40: exercise induced asthma attack which triggered anxiety I didn’t know existed. That was followed by a gallbladder attack (resulting in having my gallbladder out 1 year later due to fear), numerous untimely deaths in my community, business issues beyond my control, frozen shoulder, my grandmother passing away and the ensuing family drama, and now it looks like my 13-year-old dog will have to be put down.

Call them trials. Call them challenges. Call it a complete loss of control. Call them whatever the heck you want to call them. In the end it all sucks big time. That would be Disgust talking. Joy would quote German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsch who said, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” I’m going to hope Joy is right. It’s time to start laughing more, enjoying the small successes, and weeding out the negativity. It’s time to start setting goals again and live in the moment. I would love to do away with Fear, Sadness, Anger and Disgust, but as I’ve learned you really do need to experience them in order to appreciate and embrace Joy when it happens.