Chris Weller, contributor to “Business Insider,” analyzed Pixar’s movie, “Inside Out” to provide a psychological review of this look into the mind of a young girl. Five emotions are personified in her head, creating feelings, thoughts and memories. As the movie progresses, you see the power of each emotion to affect memories.
Every experience of your day creates a new memory. According to “thehelpfulcounselor.com,” some experiences go into long-term memory while others become core memories that shape who we are. Some experiences we would like to forget, while others we wish would paint the canvas of every day.
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[/custom_frame_center] “We don’t remember days, we remember memories.” – Casare Pavese
In the movie, the Sadness character touches a golden-colored memory ball. Her blue touch changes the color of the orb, which had been a joyful memory. It showed how easily the memory could be affected by a different emotion at a different time. Quoting American University psychologist Nathaniel Herr, Weller says we remember certain events through the lens of our current emotion. This is called “reframing” and we apply that to every memory. “Being able to recognize that our memories aren’t just simply good or bad, but have different sides to them, is a way people cope with their complicated lives.”
If you could handle all situations or memories with a consistent measuring stick, perhaps you would create a balanced result, but as you see through “Inside Out,” no human has the ability to handle everything with one approach. The fear emotion in the little girl’s head provides so much visual anxiety, you can almost feel it. Forty million American adults suffer from an anxiety disorder. (Source: National Institute of Mental Health) It can be a stressful endeavor to allow memories to resurface, review them and (hopefully) accept the gifts or lessons they contain would change the memory. Thus is the power of counseling and changing core memories; a worthy but hard-fought battle.
Amy Cuddy, social psychologist, addresses anxiety in her book, “Presence.” She outlines strategies to increase confidence and copy with stressful situations. One exercise involves writing a core value and a time or experience that showed the value’s importance. Increasing positive memories and using their messages to address future issues gives you more power in what affects you in the short- and long-term.
By the end of the movie, the message is clear that core memories are complex, changeable and can truly shape who we are. And if we only see memories in a one-dimensional way, we miss the value of multi-faceted experiences and emotions.
*thespiritscience.net – Kasim Khan
*Pixar’s “Inside Out” – Chris Weller
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By: Melissa Hardin Baysinger
