I watched the movie Inside Out the other day, a movie produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. My very biased perspective to every movie from Disney is, it’s for kids(even though adults go watching them too), and I expected no exception for this one but I was completely wrong heh! It’s more than a great movie, it’s also a thoughtful and reflective journey.

Spoiler alert below

Human Mind

It’s fascinated to see a concrete world inside human mind, how personality “islands” are established, what’s the “core” memories, how we struggle and respond to certain events, where goes the subconscious, how trivial memories get dumped and how a core value could be destroyed, etc.

One Big Take Away

It’s ok to be sad.

I know it sounds so strange. But that thought never occurred to me in my 31 years of life.

To be honest I’ve never been very conscious about the way I deal with sadness. Most of the time when it “comes” to me, I just instinctively escape, I would try my best to avoid it, dump it, lock it in a small “circle” like Joy did in the movie to keep myself “happy”. How can you be happy if you’re feeling sad right?

But I was enlightened when Joy realized that because Riley was sad, so her family showed up, her friends showed up to cheer her up, to be there for her, stayed with her, and that made her feel warm.

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It’s ok to be sad, to feel sad. So many things are not controllable, the world, the people change unexpectedly, sometimes good memories from old days could turn to sad ones and you can’t do anything to stop it.

So many books I’ve read are telling me, I could choose my response regarding to the events, telling me to be tough, to fake it until I make it. And I listened to it, pretended to be ok until today.

I still think those are good strategies and are keeping me in the positive side most of the time, but at that moment, at then end of the movie when Joy accepted Sadness, accepted her to turn core happy memories to blue, for such a long time I can’t be sure if it’s the first time at all, I gave myself permission to feel sad, sad for all the past events I failed to handle, for harsh words I’ve said to people closed to me.

There was nothing but sadness in my mind, yet I felt content.

I accepted it. That is one sad core memory for me and I will carry it on, that’s part of me, that grows me up, that brings new air and change to me.

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How about giving yourself a permission to feel sad for just a moment, see if that helps. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

Anyway it’s a great movie, hope you like it. iTunes - Movies - Inside Out (2015)