This New Year, I recommend you watch the Pixar movie, Inside Out. It is a masterpiece! Not only is it humorous and touching like most all Pixar movies, but it contains some extremely valuable lessons about life — also a part of many Pixar movies! But this one, well, it goes above and beyond. Watch it once for the laughs and the storyline, and then watch it again for the messages that I am about to share. I think you will find this movie intriguing and insightful. So what is Inside Out about? According to the movie description from IMDb: "After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions — Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness — conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school." If you are looking close enough, here is what you will discover: Sadness (both the feeling and character) can be the source of good change in your life. While trying to not make this blog a big ‘ole Spoiler Alert, let’s just say that during the climax of the film, Sadness swoops in and saves the day. She helps to override the Anger that is propelling the main character forward on a path of potential destruction and bring her back to what is important in life, her family. The “color” of memories can change over time, for good.When Sadness touches a memory, it changes. Joy assumes this is a bad thing, but without Sadness, Joy has no lessons to teach us in life. There is not one without the other, and Joy learns this in the end. I personally have memories full of anger and regret, that if I focus on the sadness of the moment instead, I can move past them more easily and see my way through to the future. Most memories are a mixture of different emotions. As the main character grows up, it becomes obvious that memories are not just only Joy or Sadness, or even Anger. Memories can hold many emotions at the same time, and that is okay. We just have to be mindful of the emotion that we want to focus on when we recall that memory … and find out which one serves us better? That someone besides us decides what we will forget. Without our participation mostly, memories are deemed unimportant and discarded by little bean-shaped organisms in our long-term memory bank. If you really want to remember something, make an effort to pull the memory up and revisit it from time to time. That cats operate completely different than dogs. I know, you knew this already, but wait until after the movie to catch a little glimpse of the inner mental workings of the two species. It’s so cute and funny! Oh, and if you are a parent and have the disc with the “Bonus Features," be sure to take a minute to watch Riley’s First Date — TOO cute!
