Reviewing Inside Out 2: Anxiety Steals the Show
By: Dr. Chrissy Davis, Ph.D
Inside Out 2 gave us new characters to love and adore and have mixed feelings towards! For a recap, if you haven’t seen Inside Out 1, well, go watch it right now. It’s a Pixar movie that gives us a visual representation of what our internal emotions can look like, with our original characters of: Fear, Joy, Sadness, Disgust, and Anger, all inside a kiddo main character named Riley.
Inside Out 2 brings some new players to the game as Riley becomes a teen with teenager feelings. We get to know Anxiety, Envy, Ennui (aka, French for “bored and listless”), and Embarrassment in the sequel. As I watched in the movie theater as a 30 something, with my friends who are also in their 30s, amongst a crowd of families with kiddos and adults alike, I ate my candy and watched with glee as I learned more about my favorite emotion: Anxiety.
Why was Anxiety my favorite character you may ask? First off, she is so cute. **Spoiler alert, I’ll try my best to describe without too many spoilers for the movie’s plot, but if you’re worried about that… go see the movie and have some overpriced (but yummy) popcorn, and then come back and analyze with me!
With a fluff of orange hair and a big toothy smile/grimace, Anxiety is bold as she enters the stage. She is both worried, yet determined. She’s bossy, but kind of endearing. She does hit a point she’s got arguably too much control of the control panel when it comes to Riley’s feelings. Riley’s behaviors start changing. She hangs out with the cool girls vs. her friends at hockey camp because she worries about her future. She worries about belongingness. She stops sleeping as much and gets to the rink early in the mornings to practice after the coach gets on to her. Anxiety is convincing our main character the right thing to do is plan, plan, plan, and when it comes to the future, to worry, worry, worry. But it comes with costs. Upset friends, sleep deprivation, changes in how she sees herself.
All of Riley’s other feelings express some confidence yet some confusion about Anxiety’s take-over. Fear says at one point, “Hey, Anxiety would know what to do!!” when the original gang of feelings are trying to solve a problem together. Joy seems somewhat annoyed with Anxiety at first, then becomes increasingly concerned and realizes the need to take action against Anxiety’s takeover. Sadness runs an underground mission with Embarrassment to try to shield Riley from a complete Anxiety takeover. Oh… not to mention Anxiety is slowly taking over Riley’s belief systems. Riley, when her feelings were working together in childhood, believed things like she was a good friend, she was adequate, and she was lovable. When Anxiety started delivering too much data to Riley’s beliefs, Riley starts to question herself and believes she’s not good enough.
For those of you who have struggled with anxiety, or emotion dysregulation in general, does this sound familiar? You’re not alone! And, the good news is, we can learn how to let our feelings work together, and our beliefs in ourselves are changeable! But it does take some intention and work.
How does this relate to how clients and therapists can address anxiety together?
Firstly, we have to get to know our anxiety. What does your anxiety look like? Is she an orange haired cartoon, or is she a hawk? Or an energizer bunny? Is she silly looking, or scary looking? Does she give you racing thoughts, or is your heart beat racing even more? When we get to know our anxiety, we can better manage it. You and your therapist can review together symptoms of anxiety and which symptoms you experience. You can find somatic interventions (aka, body tools) to relax your muscles and control your breathing, and cognitive interventions (aka, brain tools) to be mindful about your thoughts and feel empowered to take actions you’d like to take.
Once we know our anxiety and coping strategies, we have to then create a good relationship with our anxiety. As we saw in Inside Out 2, Anxiety often times is trying to protect us. Help us plan for the future. Help us manage our racing thoughts by trying to control the world around us even when that is not possible. That’s why we have to learn what our anxiety is trying to tell us, then listen, without letting it take over.
How can you befriend your Anxiety, without letting it run the show?
Some common ways folks like to befriend their anxiety, is by understanding how it has served them before. Did it help you to be organized as a kid if your home felt out of control? Did it help you to worry about the future when the present was too scary or uncomfortable? Did it help you achieve your goals in your career or at school? Anxiety tries to help us in a lot of ways, but when it turns from addressing our stressors to worrying excessively about the future, then anxiety becomes maladaptive. When this is happening, we have to validate the anxiety by thanking it for trying to protect us, then letting it step aside so our other emotions can help it out. Are we driven by fear and uncertainty because we actually are experiencing grief and sadness? Are we planning for the future when we are feeling angry about a family member? Are we letting anxiety step in and take over because we are worried about feeling embarrassed or disappointed? Also…if anxiety starts to dictate how we see ourselves and what we believe, we can remind it that we are capable of holding many beliefs about ourselves, and we aren’t bad, inadequate, or bad friends for feeling anxious.
So, instead of hating your anxiety, or trying to run from it, get to know it. Understand how it manifests and be able to recognize when it shows up. When it is trying to show us we need protection or help, listen without letting it take over. If it is taking over, it’s just trying to do it’s job, so listen to your other emotions so they have space to do their job too. Anxiety needs to be part of a team, not the captain of the ship. When she shows up, I can picture Anxiety from the movie and find her endearing and cute with her orange hair and toothy smile, but I also can tell her to please not take over. I hope you can find ways to get to know your anxiety and live with it peaceably.
About:
Dr. Chrissy Davis, Ph.D (she/her) is psychotherapist for And Still We Rise. She is under the supervision of Dr. Natasha Holmes. Learn more about Chrissy here.