Inside Out and the principles of Mindfulness
This famous movie expresses one of the most useful aspects of Mindfulness in life.
Today I would like to use a fantastic movie about emotional intelligence to explain the importance of one of the keys to Mindfulness and its importance in our life: acceptance (Hoffman and Asmundson, 2008). As many of you may have heard, there are 6 basic emotions (Ekman, 1992). These are Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, Surprise, Fear.
All these emotions play an important role in the development of the story of the movie Inside Out, with the exception of Surprise, which in the end was not added as a character in the story. These characters go into the mental world and give an animated explanation, quite close to reality, about several aspects studied in psychology. Let's focus, in this article, on the emotional theme.
Positive and negative emotions
We tend to consider the emotions as positive or negative depending on the effect produced on us, well-being or discomfort. In this way, we tend to ignore negative emotions and go in search of positive ones constantly.
This is something we can see in our daily lives. With just a click, with a touch of our cell phone, we enter the world of any social network where everything that appears is perfect. And we begin to have that feeling, which becomes a need, to live all the moments that people around us (or our list of followers) are living.
That is to say, although this obviously happened before, the need to experience positive emotions that we have in the Western world today is much stronger, you could even say that it is almost a social imposition... Or, how many times have you heard that "dry your tears, smile and go out there"?
By this I don't I don't mean to say that putting intention to improve our state of mind is something negative. On the contrary, but first, we must give our emotions the space and time they need to express themselves. This is one of the key principles of mindfulness: acceptance (Hoffman and Asmundson, 2008).
How does Mindfulness relate to the outcome of the movie?
The movie Inside Out introduces the viewer into the mind of a baby (Riley). There, we see how he grows and faces different situations thanks to the emotions (characters who are in charge of monitoring Riley's behavior). As time goes by, Riley goes through certain experiences that influence his mood.
However, Alegria, the main character in charge of monitoring, does not allow Sadness to take control for a moment and ends up isolating her so that she does not influence Riley. The result? A set of events that end up causing Riley to make impulsive and drastic decisions. However, the key lies, unexpectedly, in the reinsertion of Tristeza to the group, letting her take the reins.The moral of the story is that she takes the reins of the command center momentarily. In other words, the moral of the film already hints at the importance of the group's unity to stabilize the situation.
The same thing happens in real life. When we constantly strive to feel good in a certain situation, we are only isolating our emotion. This has a Biological explanation, as living beings, we seek survival, for that reason, we have the tendency to avoid discomfort in every way.
Now then, Mindfulness has a lot to teach us in this aspect.. It is a central component added by Hoffman and Asmundson (2008), on which most of this new technique revolves: acceptance. However, we must be careful when interpreting this word. Acceptance does not mean resignation, it does not mean that we sit back in the face of what is happening. Acceptance implies not judging, seeing things as they are and how they make us feel. It means to become aware, to give ourselves a space to attend to what is happening to us and let it communicate to us without putting up any kind of resistance. Thanks to this, Mindfulness gives us the opportunity to stop and pay attention to what is happening to us internally, and to think about what is happening to us before making a decision and taking action.
So, explained in Mindfullness terms, it could be said that when Sadness takes center stage, when Riley experiences the emotion and bursts into tears, she is paying attention to what Sadness was trying to communicate to her. Because of this, he gets to know a new inner experience and make a new decision.
Final reflection
With this interpretation of the outcome of the film, I intend to show the importance of all emotions in our lives. the importance of all emotions in our life. While it is true that not all the secret is hidden in the practice of Mindfulness, its exercises to attend to what happens in the present moment and become aware of it, help a lot in the integration of our emotions. This is why Mindfulness exercises are being incorporated into current Emotional Intelligence programs.
Therefore, whatever method you use, dear reader, do not forget one thing, take your time to feel each emotion and do not judge it, each of them has something to tell you. Remember that no one can know what is big, without first knowing what is small.
Bibliographic References
- Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3-4), 169-200.
- Hoffmann, S. G. and Asmundson, G. J. (2008). Acceptance and mindfulness-based therapy: New wave or old hat? Clinical Psychology Review, 28(1), 1-16.
(Updated at Apr 12 / 2024)