Notes On… Inside Out
I love Inside Out. Like, LOVE. IT. It’s not just a great movie; it’s a startlingly accurate, quietly profound look at how emotions work. As a therapist, I find myself referencing it all the time. There’s something about how it distills big, messy psychological truths into something simple, but not simplistic. Also? It gets me every time.
At its heart, Inside Out is about emotional integration. It shows us that all feelings, even the ones we’re usually told to shove aside, have value. Joy might be the glittering front-runner at the start, but by the end, we see what truly matters: Sadness. It’s Sadness that helps Riley feel seen. It’s Sadness that allows connection. That moment, when Riley finally cries and lets her parents in? That’s therapy, in miniature.
I can’t tell you how many clients come in wanting to “get rid of” their difficult emotions. They want to not feel angry, or anxious, or heartbroken anymore. But healing isn’t about elimination. It's about integration. Like the movie teaches us, joy without sadness isn’t real joy; it’s performance. Growth doesn’t happen by pushing feelings away; it happens when we learn to sit with them, understand them, and make space for them to coexist.
The film also hits another truth squarely: our core memories shape who we are. Watching Riley’s memories change in color, her personality “islands” shift, her sense of self expand, it’s basically the visual version of deep therapeutic work. We revisit old stories. We question them. Sometimes we rebuild from scratch. And often, we discover that what we thought was a weakness was actually a form of protection.
Honestly, I wish everyone would watch this movie. Kids. Adults. Everyone. It’s such a beautiful reminder that having hard feelings doesn’t make you broken. It makes you human. We don’t get to choose what emotions show up. But we do get to decide how we respond to them. And sometimes, the most courageous thing we can do is to stop pretending we're fine and let ourselves feel what hurts.
That’s the beginning of healing. Not fixing. Not suppressing. Just feeling fully and finding that we're still okay.
