16/07/2024
A thought I can’t help but share from “Inside Out 2” -
A scene I found very unsatisfactory, and even misleading, from “Inside Out 2” happens near the end, when in the midst of a full-blown panic attack, Anxiety was simply told to “let go” [of her control over the individual] and thereby cease being anxious.
It felt unsatisfactory because from my own experience, and from my conversations with other people, I’ve learnt that our encounters with such heightened anxiety rarely, if ever, *willingly* shuts down. In fact, when anxiety does stop so suddenly, it is often because we use something else to distract it… And it is not as if the creators of the film are unaware of this. Actually, they acknowledge this phenomenon by highlighting our tendency to cope with unpleasant experiences through avoidance (recall Joy’s clever “send it to the back of the mind” machine).
So it baffles me when, at the crux of the story, the same creators would show that anxiety can be successfully managed by having a pleasant emotion single-handedly intervene. In an instant, Anxiety stopped doing what it had evolved to do, and Joy took back control. Not only is this depiction unrealistic, but from my experience, it suggests an unsustainable way to interact with one’s anxiety, which is why I think it is misleading.
When that scene was playing out and Joy walked into the eye of Anxiety’s storm, I actually said the words, “Anxiety needs a hug”.
Two years ago I would not have said anything of the sort. But having since spent much of my time continuously witnessing, and reflecting upon, a person’s experiences with their emotions (especially the unpleasant ones), I have understood that each emotion - pleasant or unpleasant - is a messenger trying to remind us of what we care about and/or what we fear. This is what psychologists mean when they tell us that our emotions are “functional”. Their every arising signals whether the goings-on in the external world matches the expectations we have formed in our internal world. And anxiety, in particular, excels at this by being hyper-vigilant towards the external world; thus constantly conjuring and predicting the numerous potential goings-on that could happen in our future.
With this understanding in mind, I have slowly learnt to appreciate how even emotions we often perceive and experience as “bad” (such as anxiety) actually have their own very important role to play. But more importantly, because they are functional, they rarely (if ever) respond well when they are told to stop doing what they are supposed to do.
I’m reminded of teenagers who tell their parents to stop fussing over them. I’m not a parent (yet) but I can imagine that your child telling you to back off hardly pacifies your concern for them. And that’s because worrying about the wellbeing of your child is part of the role that you are supposed to play.
So what would pacify a parent in that case? I imagine a teenager who could, first of all, *understand* why their parent was fussing, and second of all, *appreciate* their parent’s intentions (however misguided the effort) by expressing to them that they get the message and know that they care, would satisfy most parents’ yearning for connection with their child. And with that satisfied, who knows? Maybe the parent could adopt a different, more teen-friendly, conversational approach next time, and maybe their relationship shifts just a bit.
Similarly, how we choose to respond to our anxiety could change how it interacts with us in the future. Anxiety needs a hug just as the parent needs affirmation from their child that they understand and appreciate mum’s/dad’s “fussing”. Only by understanding and appreciating the function of our anxiety - that it just wants us to stay safe, and never to be hurt, rejected, or disappointed - can we begin to *accept* that anxiety will often be there for the ride even if it annoys us (just like our parents!). Because that’s just what anxiety is and it can’t help itself.
Maybe I’m being too harsh at judging this scene. Maybe the creators had Joy say to Anxiety, “you need to let her go”, because Anxiety needs to back off in order for Riley to get on with her life. And that is completely true. But, we need to be aware that this process of letting go takes *much longer* than what we were shown. Plus, this process needs to contain the consistent practice of understanding, appreciating, and accepting anxiety as a necessary and meaningful emotion. Once we start doing that, then letting go no longer needs to be a command, but becomes an inevitable side effect.
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