Inside Out 2
Directed by Kelsey Mann
Disney/Pixar
Inside Out 2 follows a young girl named Riley as she attends a hockey camp, and it explores her various emotions. They include some of the same emotions from the previous film, such as joy and sadness. It also gives us some new emotions as characters, especially anxiety.
Post-pandemic, most of us are dealing with anxiety at a new level. It has become such a part of our lives that Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has been sounding the alarm about anxiety as a health crisis. In many ways, this film could not be timelier. Yet its look at anxiety isn’t all Inside Out 2 has to offer us. We can go further and say this movie is ultimately about identity.
Anxiety isn’t the only problem for Riley. Anxiety is a good strategic planner with an eye to the future, which is very helpful.
The problem is that anxiety tries to reshape Riley’s identity and core values toward what anxiety thinks is success. Anxiety’s work causes Riley to push away her friends and engage in questionable behavior. She becomes selfish when she should be striving to work with her teammates.
The thing is, anxiety isn’t the only emotion hiding Riley’s identity from herself. Joy has been doing that too. Part of Riley’s openness to change is realizing the truth about herself and no longer hiding it. She comes to see that anxiety’s path only leads her to think she’s not good enough, and joy prompts her to focus only on the good parts of herself.
She finds that she tries to do good, but sometimes fails. Riley must accept the good and the bad about herself. This gives her the strength to try to be a better teammate. It gives her the courage to ask her friends’ forgiveness for pushing them away.
“Cast all your anxiety on God, because the Lord cares for you,” Scripture tells us (1 Pet. 5:7). Anyone who has dealt with anxiety knows it takes time to overcome. It can also keep us from seeing God clearly.
Like Riley, we come back to our identity, which takes us to the second part of 1 Peter 5:7. Who we are encompasses both good and bad. We hope to live up to the good, but as Paul says in Romans 7:15, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” When we come to recognize that truth, we come to see that God loves us anyway.
When she lacks a balance, sometimes Riley’s individual emotions take her away from the best path. In the end, she recognizes this and turn back. At the heart of this is repentance. Sometimes there are things in our lives that keep us from God, the core of our identity. Like Riley, we can turn back to find our Lord at the root of life once again.
This is the true power of what Inside Out 2 can teach us. It can help us see that sometimes we go astray, even though we want to be good, as we see with Riley in the movie and in Paul’s words in Romans. Recognizing the struggle can be our first step, as with Riley, to return to God once again and allow our Lord to be the core that anchors us in all that we do.
Emotional Health and Inside Out
The original film in this series arrived in theaters at the perfect time in my life. I was going through a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education. CPE programs are seen as an ideal training ground for future ministers to learn how to serve people in hospital and other healthcare settings.
CPE also involves a lot of looking inward. As we help others with difficult and painful moments in their lives, it is often helpful to understand our own emotions and reactions.
Emotional health is what Inside Out is all about. In this story, Riley comes to terms with her family moving to a new place. In that struggle, Riley’s emotions, often led by joy, learn that they need to work together. Sometimes sadness is needed too, and it can even remind us of the joy we had before.
Allowing all our emotions their due is key to emotional health. It is also something we see in Scripture, particularly in the Psalms. The poetry of the Psalter is not all about praising God and reveling in the joy of life. It is also about recognizing the pain we experience. Some of this pain comes from what the Israelites experienced in conflicts with other nations. It is hard to look at our enemies, those who are causing us harm, and not want to see bad things happen to them.
Some of the Psalter deals with individual pain as well. We see this in David’s wrestling with his sin in Psalm 51. David takes the guilt he feels and holds it up to God in the hope that he will be transformed.
If God is to be a part of our lives, we can’t just let our Lord in when we are feeling happy and grateful. We must let God into our pain and suffering so that he can help comfort us. After all, one of the titles of the Holy Spirit is “Comforter.”
The emotional health Inside Out encourages is the start of strengthening our relationship with God. It is a key element as we progress in faith.
