Anyone who has experienced puberty will benefit from Disney/Pixar’s latest masterpiece, Inside Out 2.
Although Inside Out 2 is not touted as a spiritual film, it is a spiritual experience, as is common with Disney/Pixar films. On the surface, the film presents itself as a coming-of-age story of Riley Anderson, a young girl learning to manage her emotions. But the film’s themes lean toward the existential and can help us reevaluate the foundation (or lack thereof) we have in the divine.
The original Inside Out followed 11-year-old Riley as she dealt with new and uncomfortable emotions brought on by her family’s cross-country move. Joy, sadness, disgust, fear and anger were embodied by lovable characters in her inner “headquarters” who reviewed her memories, personality, friendships and real-life experiences. By the end of the film, the crew – and by extension, Riley herself – learned that joy was not the only valid emotion.
The newly released sequel begins with Riley on the cusp of puberty. Joy tells us that in her maturity, Riley has begun to develop a new dimension of herself. She now has a “belief system,” physically represented as glowing threads deep within Riley’s mind that can be shaken to hear their particular resonance: “I’m a good person,” “I’m kind,” “Mommy and Daddy are proud of me.” The threads of these beliefs rise up into Riley’s headquarters and form her seemingly spirited and positive “sense of self.” To ensure that “sense of self” remains strong, elevated, and inherently good, Joy regularly sends Riley’s negative thoughts to the “back of her mind.”
If we base our belief system on blind optimism or, worse, fear, we do not truly experience the grace of God.
As we all know, this picking and choosing is unsustainable. Soon, puberty sets in, causing chaos and destruction in Riley’s mind. Suddenly, the core gang is infiltrated by new emotions: envy, embarrassment, boredom, nostalgia, and the “villain” of the story, fear.
Fear is a woman who takes initiative. She initially presents herself as a positive force in Riley’s life. She plans for the future. She describes scenarios Riley might encounter so that she is better prepared when the time comes. She takes it upon herself to break Riley’s existing “belief system” and announces to the other emotions that Riley needs a new and improved, more complex “sense of self” as she enters high school.
While this seems to work temporarily, soon fear takes control of headquarters and its unhelpful traits dominate. It uses Riley’s imagination against her, creating literal “projections” of worst-case scenarios, eventually causing Riley’s “sense of self” to become a repetitive “I’m not good enough” noise. Anxiety is in overdrive and Riley’s mental health falls victim to a groundbreaking depiction of a teenage anxiety attack after a particularly important penalty shot in hockey.
At this point, only Joy can break through the tornado of confusion and plead with Fear, “You have to let her go.” Fear realizes that, despite her best efforts, she cannot control Riley. The collective bond of emotions realizes that trying to influence life’s consequences will not make the bad things go away, but will only cause more trouble.
As good as Joy’s intentions were to protect Riley from grief and embarrassment, her interaction with fear forces her to realize that hiding any of Riley’s difficult experiences or deficiencies was actually not healthy for the girl’s “self-esteem.”
This is where the message of Inside Out 2 can invite us to look deeper into our relationship with God. Many of us who struggle with our faith can identify with Riley. From the beginning of our spiritual development, we are told to seek joy, “let not our hearts be troubled,” and to cast all our cares on Christ, for we are more precious to Him “than many sparrows.” But surrender is not easy. Many of us Catholic Christians find this path treacherous—and for those prone to anxiety, cultivating a relationship with God can be an even more daunting task.
We tend to start with a positive attitude. As young children in faith formation, the focus is primarily on joy: we are taught that God is love and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. But soon we are confronted with the concepts of sin, eternal damnation, and camels going through the eye of a needle. If catechesis is misguided, too much emphasis may be placed on what we are forbidden to do rather than what we are called to do. This separation can create “belief systems” and “senses of self” that, despite the best of intentions, are built on rocky ground.
The internalized message, similar to Riley’s, transforms from “God loves me” to “I’m not good enough.” We may begin to question our worth or struggle with ruthlessness. Even saints like Ignatius of Loyola and Thérèse of Lisieux struggled with traits of this mental illness, which is similar to obsessive compulsive disorder. These illnesses can completely blind us to the beauty of God’s mercy.
If we base our belief system on blind optimism or, worse, fear, we do not truly experience the grace of God.
God calls us to be our full selves. And as much as we hate to admit it, our full selves are a mix of good and evil. I’m a good person – and I’m selfish. We’ve become so used to the binary (light and dark, good and evil, heaven and hell) that we don’t realize that humanity lies somewhere in between. We can use knowing our weaknesses and accepting our complexity to grow closer to God.
God does not expect perfection. As CS Lewis so eloquently wrote in Mere Christianity, “Why then did God give them free will? Because free will, while it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes love, goodness, or joy worth experiencing possible.” After all, who wants to receive love from someone who does it out of duty or fear?
As Inside Out 2 so vividly shows, human nature is bound up with a spectrum of emotions: sadness, fear, disgust, anger, boredom, anxiety, and embarrassment, to name a few. But in God, the core of our “belief system” can be love and self-fulfillment; and knowing that we are loved and accepted, with all our faults, can help ease the yoke of our mental health problems.
That’s a lesson Riley – and all of us – will learn eventually.
