Blurb:
Which emotion has gone rogue and stopped listening to you? Today is both a practical and spiritual journey, learning how God models compassion on the parts of us which are the most wounded and exiled? Join the cast of Inside Out 2, and discover a new type of freedom!
Transcript of episode:
Introduction
Today, we’ll dive back into the world of emotions and core beliefs, exploring the role they play in the spiritual life. I say dive back, because some of you may remember that Ep 62 was also about emotions, in an episode called on Emotions and Holiness. Since them, Disney/Pixar have released Inside Out 2, and as the title would suggest, takes the themes of the first movie but deepens it to a whole another level, which gives us plenty of material to explore. I want to particularly encourage today to be a quasi-therapeutic episode, where I’m going to get you to name, at the start, a particularly difficult emotion that you’ve been carrying—one that’s sort of out of control and that is sort of ruling your life. For some, it would be fear, for others, anger, others still a deep crippling shame or loneliness. Whatever it is, see if you can identify that rogue emotion … for the goal of this episode is to take that very emotion on a journey. Like with the character Anxiety in Inside Our II, my goal is that we may not only gain freedom over that emotion, but also, to learn to love it.
Summary of the Story
Inside Out 2 revisits the mind of Riley, now entering the emotionally complex world of puberty. As Riley faces the pressures of growing up—new friendships, shifting identity, and performance expectations—her emotional team evolve too. The film introduces new emotions into Headquarters: Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui. These join the original cast—Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust—who now feel increasingly side-lined as Riley’s internal system becomes more complicated.
The story pivots around the character Anxiety, who emerges as a dominant force when Riley tries to fit into a new social circle and impress the coach at hockey camp. At first, Anxiety takes charge with good intentions—to keep Riley safe and to protect her from all future harm. She strategizes, plans, and micromanages her in the hope that Riley won’t fail or be rejected. However, as Anxiety pushes harder, she begins to override the other emotions and disregards the very allies that helped Riley develop her Sense of Self. The film’s tree representation of Riley’s Sense of Self —once warm, joyful and believing that she was a good person, begins to erode… and at some point even gets cast away to the proverbial back of Riley’s mind. Joy and the other original emotions are literally exiled too, in trying to retrieve Riley’s sense of self. And there’s much creative adventuring as they try and return to Headquarters.
The climatic scene takes place inside Headquarters again, where there is a brilliant representation of what happens when Anxiety herself loses control. We’ll explore this scene a little more later in detail, but it is sufficient to say that Anxiety’s reign doesn’t end by being defeated, for she is in fact not a villain. Rather, it is by Joy listening to her, understanding what service she is trying to offer, that Anxiety is able to let go of her total grip on Riley’s life. By the end, Riley begins to accept the full range of her experiences—both the good and the bad, the confident and the uncertain, the joyful and the sad. A new, more mature, more integrated Sense of Self emerges, one that embraces the full spectrum of being human.
Emotions and Christian Spirituality:
So there’s the story in summary. Friends, you may remember the saying that emotions are wonderful servants but terrible masters, and Inside Out 2, illustrates this well. All our emotions exist to serve us – especially the rouge ones. It is very important to point out that in both Inside Out 1 and 2, there are no villains – only emotions that have been neglected or overactive. Yet, whenever an emotion is sidelined like this as a rogue, it creates havoc not only for ourselves, but the world. For Riley, her rogue emotion was Anxiety, but it may be different for everyone. What is it for you? What’s your runaway emotion that is running amuck, dominating your life and not allowing your other emotions to serve you? Dear friends, this is where grace is available for you this episode.
For some spiritual context, when Jesus says “be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect,” most of us read that as meaning that we have to be morally good … sinless, flawless a goody-goody. No. While a person who follows Christ will certainly grow in moral goodness, the better translation of the word perfect is actually “wholeness”, or “teleios”. So what Jesus is actually saying is “be whole, as your heavenly father is whole” or even “be undivided as your heavenly father is undivided”. It is an invitation to a greater harmony of all our parts and emotions and thoughts – which is why addressing our rouge emotions and loving them, is essential for our holiness. It is a non negotiable.
When it comes to dealing with our difficult emotions however, often the first instinct is to suppress it, or exile it… which is what Joy tried to do with Sadness in Inside Out 1. This is understandable, especially if this emotion has literally caused us harm in the past. For example, if a person is prone to angry outbursts, it would make sense to try and do away with Anger and to suppress its power. Or… if a person is feeling deeply lonely, it’s normal to try and cover up the cry for connection with busy-ness and activities in order to mask the pain. See, most of us try and handle our rogue emotions by suppressing them. However, this is not a winning, long term strategy to becoming whole.
Step 1: Name your rogue emotion
I’m going to lead you through three steps now that I utilise within spiritual direction to help individuals relate better with a rogue emotion… and I’ll use some concrete examples from both the movie and in real life. Depending on your modality, these steps can called Parts Work, Attention to Experience, Internal Family Systems work, or Divine Compassion. I’m going to encourage you to go through these steps with your chosen emotion.
The first step is to actually build a relationship with that emotion. This could be as simple as giving that emotion an endearing name, describing what it looks like, drawing it out, or trying to locate where you feel it most in your body. This is what the Inside Out films do so well – it presents each emotion as endearing in their own way. By describing that emotion in detail, you’re already loving it – for you cannot love something you don’t know. For example, in the past I called my big-parties anxiety Mr Shell, because I would feel like turtling every time I was invited to a celebration where there’d be big crowds, multiple conversations and loud noises. For a long times, this anxiety was one of my rogue emotions. In another example, one of my directees named the workaholic streak in him as ‘The Lieutenant’ because it seemed to shout at him every time he wanted to rest. See, when we begin to name our rogue emotion, to describe it and characterise it, we not only grow in relationship over it, but we also begin to be master over it. This is why names were so important in the Bible – for whatever you name, you gain mastery over. This is why Jesus demands the names of the demons afflicting the possessed, for knowing someone’s name gives you dominion over that thing. You cannot change what you cannot language. What name will you give your rouge emotion – and like the colourful, creative characterisation in Inside Out, how would you characterise that part, if it were a little character in you?
Step 2: Thank your rogue emotion
The second step is to thank the rogue emotion for how it has served you and is serving you. This may sound rather strange, because most of us have been trying to get rid of that emotion, rather than thanking it! But there’s actually been a reason why that emotion has flared up so much – it’s actually serving you. Theres a gain for it being there. Even something as common as procrastination has a secondary gain – it keeps you safe and protects you from the pain of failing. Using my previous example of Mr Shell, I recognised the following ways it had served me: (1) it had kept me safe from feeling rejected, (2) it had protected me from saying anything brash that would lead to someone stonewalling me (3) it had made me sensitive to the mood and feelings of others and (4) by keeping me away from many parties, Mr Shell actually inspired my introverted gifts, allowing me to flourish at home as an artist, writer, counselor and podcaster. See, all our emotions serve us in some way – and in order to gain mastery over it, we must begin by thanking it for the way it’s served you.
Further, thanking our rogue emotion gives you a chance to have compassion over it. This is very important friends. Compassion is the heart of God, the essence of divine love. The word literally means to suffer with: com + passio. This means that we must learn to suffer with our rogue emotion, rather than silence it. Interestingly, compassion is also what happens to us as we watch Anxiety in Inside Out II. Notice that at the start of the movie Anxiety is presented as a bit of an antagonist, almost the baddie of the film. But as the film progresses, and we see how much Anxiety is trying her best to keep Riley safe (and failing) … we begin to feel sorry for her. We begin to have compassion on her. The climax scene takes place during the hockey try-outs, where Anxiety becomes so anxious, that she becomes a frenzied storm buzzing around the control panel, kicking out all the other emotions and losing her mind in order to protect Riley from being hurt. We the audience know that the real-world Riley is actually, in that scene, having a full-blown anxiety attack and some dear listeners will definitely relate with Riley’s inner experience. The fact that Pixar could so beautifully and powerfully portray that scene is a stroke of cinematic genius.
In the end we learn that Anxiety is only able to serve Riley when she also allowed the other emotions access to the control panel. When any one emotion oversteps its role and suppresses the other emotions, THAT emotion becomes rogue. But it only becomes that way by trying to be helpful. Even Anxiety’s “I’m not good enough” script only arose because it was trying to protect Riley from rejection, to get her to put necessary effort into bettering herself. It just went about it the wrong way—that is, until this scene, where Anxiety could share what it was trying to do all this time. Joy was the first one to recognise this and celebrate it… and that is what allowed Anxiety to finally let go. Before o onto the third and final step, let’s pause a few moments to reflect: how has your rogue emotion served you? What are the ways you’d like to thank it, for the incredible service it has offered you all these years?
Step 3: Permit your rogue emotion to step aside
The final step is to gently ask the rouge emotion to step back for a moment, but only to allow another emotion to step up and lead. This is symbolised so beautiful in both Inside Out finales, where in Inside Out 1, Joy steps aside to allow Sadness the control panel, and then in Inside Out 2, Anxiety steps aside to allow ALL the emotions a place at the panel—as the moment calls for it. In a similar way, emotional healing for us is consciously telling one emotion to take a break, and then, choosing another to take the lead. By doing this we are still loving our rogue emotion, and not trying to exile it or suppress it. We are still recognising all the ways it may continue to serve us, like how Anxiety at the end reminds Riley to study for her exam, rather than goof around. Using my previous example of Mr Shell, I remember speaking to it with something like “thank you for serving me all these years in all those many ways. However, I give you permission now, to allow some other emotions – such as curiosity and courage to step forward.” I remember for one particular party I was invited to while walking the Camino, I had to have a conversation with Mr Shell to say “I am not the Lawrence I was back when I was 15. I’ve learnt new social skills now, new ways of holding presence without needing to the centre of attention. I give you permission to move aside, to allow Curiosity to come forward.” The reason I chose Curiosity, was that I genuinely didn’t know how I would relate and react to that particular crowd, because they were very different from my usual circles. And as it turned out, it was literally one of the best nights I had on the Camino
I’m aware that as I share about dialoguing with your emotions, it may strike you as a bit foreign, and I totally understand that reaction. However, I want to suggest to you two things. Firstly – try it out on your rogue emotion in a real-life setting – what have you got to lose? Clearly, if the rouge emotion is still being rogue, what you had previous tried hasn’t been effective. But secondly, by doing this sort of parts work on yourself, you’re being to yourself what God the Father is to you: compassionate. Again, God desires your wholeness, for all your parts to be working in harmony, undivided, because that is the definition of holiness. In contrast, it is the Enemy who tries to scatter us apart, keeping our rogue parts exiled and rejected, and weaving lies upon them that causes them to be toxic over other parts. The word diabolic comes from the word diablos, which means to scatter. Dear friends, scatter no more. Love all your emotions, and especially bring home the emotions that have become lost sheep.
Final words:
I want to add a quick but important detail about Inside Out 2 that I really love. You may remember that when Anxiety takes over, Riley’s Sense of Self corrupts and repeats “I’m not good enough”, which is heartbreaking. But what’s cool is that when Joy replaces that tree with the original Sense of Self, which only said “I’m a good person”, that itself didn’t stop Riley’s anxiety attack either, which came as a surprise to all the emotions. Rather, what Riley really needed was a new Sense of Self which embraced not only happy and proud memories, but also sad and bitter ones too. Together, these experiences form her true Sense of Self, one that was able to embrace the full spectrum of human experiences (play). At this point in the scene, all the character emotions gather around the new Sense of Sense, embracing each other. This is cinema at its very best. See, being truly human is to embrace paradox. The greatest saints aren’t those who don’t sin, but those who recognise that they are sinners. The most loving people I know are also those who have embraced their own brokenness. As we approach the end of this episode, a summary of the the three stages of loving a rouge emotion is as follows (1) to name and describe your emotion (2) to thank it for the ways it has served you and (3), to gently ask it to move aside in some situations, so that another emotion can step forward and lead. I realise that today may well be quite stirring, so I encourage you to go gently as you practice this exercise in real life. If you feel you’d like to chat about it more, please reach out to me – I’d love to hear how this episode speaks to you, and if I can personally support you in any way, I will! Till next time dear friends, journey forth, take care and God bless
Would you like further emotions coaching or spiritual direction?
I (Lawrence, your host) am trained in both life coaching and spiritual direction, and have much experience working with emotions and inner healing. If you’d like to set up a session(s) to work through something you’re carrying, feel free to reach out to me via my website! I’m in Australia, but happy to see clients online from overseas too. Cheers