Emotional Agility – Inside Out

This Summer’s blockbuster movie ‘Inside Out’ has had a major impact on all generations that have had the pleasure of seeing it.  At the heart of the story are 5 of our leading emotions, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, Fear and my favourite, Joy, All controlling the emotions of an 11 year old girl. The creative genius of Pixar gave each emotion a face and a personality for us to befriend and build relationships with.  The many ‘in your face’ realisations allow us reflect on how each emotion has a right to exist and ultimately works best in co-existence with the other emotions.  This is especially brought home when Joy and Sadness embark on a journey together.

We don’t normally consider the co-active power of emotions working together yet in this story we our shown that to deal with our ever changing complex world – we need to adapt to each challenging situations with a range of emotions available.

Have you every laughed and cried at the same time?   This is a healthy human response to an emotionally charged situation.  The crying is every bit as healthy as the laughing.

Let’s stop getting fixated on ‘I MUST BE HAPPY’ and instead allow the full potential and power of our emotions support what’s going on for us on the outside by being more emotionally agile

I love the simple imagery to show us our ‘train of thoughts’ that carry us to and from our personal characteristics (personality islands) depending on what we are experiencing on the outside.  The tracks appear in front of the train depending on what emotion is at the controls.  Such a clever representation of letting our emotions run away with us – a runaway train…

A beautiful and endearing character called Bing-Bong represents our childhood imagination whose only mission is to bring happiness and fun.  Interestingly, as the 11 year old ages she is less and less in touch with Bing-Bong.  A sweet and yet heart-tugging reality reminder to us as adults- how often our inner child is left behind when we embark on our complex adult lives

When we consider that emotions are at the core of who we are and the heart of our relationships, its time to accept the beauty and necessity of all our emotions and reduce the amount of time over-correcting to always, and only, show our happy side.

Following Brene Brown’s lead – being vulnerable is allowing scope for all our emotions – not just the perceived happy ones but with the full spectrum of emotions that show our inside to the outside.  That way we can lean on the truth of our emotions in the moment and get a much more meaningful response and support from those around us.  When we are vulnerable we can show those close to us that sadness indeed serves a positive purpose as does disgust, anger and fear.  All five emotions are essential to our wellbeing and balance.  The one trait we want to ignore is numbness – doing nothing.

We are evolving through our new awareness of human behaviour, neuroscience and emotional intelligence.

Tune in and embrace your emotions, when you do – you have the option to steer the thoughts that support your true self.

Why not start  re-kindling the relationship with Bing-Bong!

Reflect and connect back to the version of us that is creative and fun.