Can the rollercoaster of emotions be a tool for deeper understanding and empathy? Join me, Monique Simmons, as I recount the heartfelt experience of watching "Inside Out 2" with my daughter, Zoey. This episode promises to unravel the intricate emotional landscape portrayed in the film, introducing new characters like Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Boredom. We'll explore how these emotions shape Riley's journey into her teenage years and reflect on the poignant moments that resonated deeply with us, particularly Joy's struggle to maintain constant optimism. This film serves as a rich conversation starter for families and couples, making it a must-watch to better understand and support our loved ones' emotional growth.
We confront the overwhelming dominance of Anxiety in Riley's life and discuss the significant pressures she faces from multiple fronts. As Joy comes to a crucial realization about her controlling nature, akin to Anxiety's, we delve into the pivotal moments that highlight the necessity of embracing all emotions. Through this exploration, we emphasize the importance of a balanced emotional core and how acceptance of both positive and negative experiences helps in building resilience. Join this insightful journey to understand how embracing a full spectrum of emotions can be a transformative experience for anyone.
Can the rollercoaster of emotions be a tool for deeper understanding and empathy? Join me, Monique Simmons, as I recount the heartfelt experience of watching "Inside Out 2" with my daughter, Zoey. This episode promises to unravel the intricate emotional landscape portrayed in the film, introducing new characters like Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Boredom. We'll explore how these emotions shape Riley's journey into her teenage years and reflect on the poignant moments that resonated deeply with us, particularly Joy's struggle to maintain constant optimism. This film serves as a rich conversation starter for families and couples, making it a must-watch to better understand and support our loved ones' emotional growth.
We confront the overwhelming dominance of Anxiety in Riley's life and discuss the significant pressures she faces from multiple fronts. As Joy comes to a crucial realization about her controlling nature, akin to Anxiety's, we delve into the pivotal moments that highlight the necessity of embracing all emotions. Through this exploration, we emphasize the importance of a balanced emotional core and how acceptance of both positive and negative experiences helps in building resilience. Join this insightful journey to understand how embracing a full spectrum of emotions can be a transformative experience for anyone.
what's up, guys? Welcome to demo with mo. I'm your host, monique simmons. We'll be discussing dating, engaged and married objectives from a young christian's perspective. Are you guys ready? Let's dive in. Hey, what's up, guys? Welcome to a new episode of demo with mo. I am your host, monique simmons. Today we are going to be discussing repressing emotions. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert if you have not seen Out 2 yet, you may want to pause this episode and come back to it later, because I will be discussing some things from Inside Out 2. So, spoiler alert. Now you have been warned. I do not want to ruin it for you. It was an amazing movie and I do not want to ruin it for you. Today we will be discussing repressing emotions, and what does that have to do with Inside Out 2.? If you have seen it, you know the answer to this question, and if not, we're going to go ahead and jump right into it.
Speaker 1:
So this past weekend if you're listening to this live this past weekend, I took my youngest daughter, miss Zoe, to see Inside Out 2. And for those of you who know, I have an older daughter as well, a teenage daughter. The plan was to take her originally, but she was out of town for a basketball tournament with her dad. So I had to take baby girl because she had saw the previews of it while we were previously seeing another movie and I promised that I would take her and if I'm being honest, don't you guys tell her this but I wanted to go see it by myself. I had heard so many great things about it. I heard a lot of things about this new character anxiety, so I really wasn't sure how I was going to do for a four-year-old. But it worked out very well. She watched the first 45 minutes to an hour and she ended up falling asleep after eating a junk load of popcorn, so it worked out very well for me.
Speaker 1:
Inside Out 2,. I highly recommend this movie, highly recommend. And if you have teenage not even just teenage daughters, even though the main character in the story who's a teenage girl? Her name is Riley, even though the main character is Riley a young lady, I even recommend you taking your teenage young sons, if you have them. I really recommend this movie. I do. And even if you don't have children, I recommend you going to see this by yourself. This is a great date night movie as well. Hear me out, hear me out. I know it's not the most romantic, it ain't nothing. You probably gonna be booed up or cuddled up watching, but I promise it's a great discussion starter to have in your relationship. I plan on having some combos with my husband about it soon. It's just great overall to intend across the board from me. Seriously, I thought it was so good I wanted to come and talk about it with you guys.
Speaker 1:
On the podcast episode, the main character, riley. She is becoming a teenager and she is now experiencing some new emotions and some new emotions are coming on the scene. A few of the new emotions that's coming on, one of the main ones that everybody was talking about, and they talked about it so much that even before I went and saw the movie for myself, I was thinking that it was going to be like the only one that they kind of focused on the whole entire movie. But that wasn't the case. So I just want if you felt like me, I just want to let you know that is not the case. They're going to also talk about other emotions, but anxiety was talked about so much. I was thinking that was the only emotion that they were going to focus on. So anxiety is one of the emotions that was new on the scene. They had embarrassment, they had boredom, and there were a few others and Joy, who I'm just going to go ahead and say I relate to so much. I mean, so many people were relating to anxiety and again, I kept hearing about anxiety, so much and so many people talking about it. But when I went and saw the movie for myself, the person that kept that I kept relating to, that stood out to me was Joy. Like Joy was like girl, you, you, you understand me like Joy had a moment in the movie where she like, kind of like, goes off on the other emotions, the ones who've been there. The originals is the other emotions, the ones who've been there. The originals is what I call them, the ones who've been there from the beginning. And I'm not going to give you guys everything, because if you're still listening to this and you haven't seen it, I really want you to go see it. I'm not going to give you everything, everything.
Speaker 1:
But she has this moment with them when they're searching for the back of Riley's mind and they're getting lost and she's getting frustrated and with joy, she's always optimistic, she's always believing for the best, hoping for the best. That's just who she is. She's joy, her emotion, is joy. She's always going to try to believe the best. She's always has a smell on her face. That's just who she is. That's what she embodies, that's her character, that is her emotions. That's who she is. But she has this moment where they're all getting so frustrated and they begin to like, try to like, tear her down, basically Like you don't know what you're doing, we're lost, you know cause? She's like the leader, unspokenly, like she's the leader, the leader of the bunch, and they're following her and you know they've been following her along this whole day and they're trying to figure this thing out. And she doesn't have it all together, but she's trying, she's always continuing to try. And they begin to say all of these negative things and Joy gets to the point where she has enough and she said do you know how hard it is to always try to be optimistic, to always try to see the good? Basically and I'm just this is my summarization and she's just like do you know how hard that is? You think, because I'm joy, that it's just easy being joy. Do you think this is just easy? To always try to see the good, to always believe for the best. Do you think this is easy? So that scene. My daughter is asleep by this time Because everybody was on social media and TikTok and I was seeing all the videos and commentary.
Speaker 1:
After I saw the movie, people were having all the commentaries and videos about how they felt and who stood out to them and who they related to and everybody was saying how, at the end there is a specific part with anxiety and that was the piece that stood out to a lot of people. But for me, because I related to joy, it was the part where joy finally like had enough of all of their negativity and all of their negative comments at her, even though she was continuing to try over and over and over and be optimistic over and over and over and try to see the best and believe the best over and over and over again where it was like she had had enough the bits over and over and over again, where it was like she had had enough I. That was the part that like, yes, joy, yes, joy, I I feel you joy, because I felt her, like so many people, had that, that revelation in that moment where they could relate to some emotion in that movie, because that was a beautiful thing. It was so many emotions and so many different characters that I don't care where you are in the world, who you are, what you've been through, what you've experienced, what age you are. It's some emotion that you can relate to. There was disgust, there was sadness. I mean there were so many different, different emotions. There's going to be one that stands out for you, that's going to make you be like yes, that's me, that's where I am, that's how I feel. You get me, you understand me. And for me, that was joy. I felt joy, I understood joy, I related to joy, and this is not even what this episode. I just went on a whole rant about that because that's how good this movie was. You guys, you have to go see it. You have to go see it, you have to go see it. You have to go see it. But we're talking about repressing emotions.
Speaker 1:
So one of the things that was going on with Joy Riley would have. Just like any of us in life, we're human. We have beautiful moments in our lives great times with our families, happy moments, things that make us laugh, great things. We all love times like that. But also with life, you have sad moments, times where you're disappointed, you're hurt, you're disgusted, you're let down, somebody does something to hurt your feelings, or you may not pass a test, or someone dies in your life, or you just experience things that are not so good or don't feel so good. And I know some of you are listening today and you're like, yeah, you know, and some of you may be even experiencing some of those things that I just said right now. Or you have experienced them or you will one day, because that's life, we're human and that's part of life.
Speaker 1:
The issue was in this movie with Joy, what Joy would doiley experienced the the not so good things, the unwanted, the unwanted memories. Joy would get rid of them. And joy's way of getting rid of them? She invented this one-way mechanism to like shoot. They had, like these balls. It shaped like a ball and it was different colors. And for the unwanted memories, the bad things, the negative experiences, they were orange and this is very important because each ball was a color, but these negative experiences, these unwanted memories, they were orange. So what Joy would do after getting a good amount of orange balls because all of us are going to have a good amount of orange balls or unwanted memories or experiences in our lives, things that hurt us, disappoint us. We're going to experience that.
Speaker 1:
But after Riley would get a good amount of these things to happen, what Joy would do she would gather it all, gather them all up, gather all these memories all up, and she would shoot them off in this little invention that she created, on this one-way express, like this little tube that would shoot the memories off, and it's specifically you specifically need to know. It's one way, because they can't come back. Once she shoots them off, they're gone, they're. They're gone, basically forever. So joy kept all of the good things, all of the pleasant things, all of the happy memories, but she got rid of all of the unwanted memories, anything that would remind Riley of anything bad that ever happened in her life. She would get rid of all of these things, and her reason for doing this? She didn't want it to be a part of Riley's core memory, her core memory being the things that made her who she was, like her core values, the person that she would come to be, those things that make you who you are, those things that make me Monique, those memories, those things that I vividly remember from my life, that make me who I am, that make me believe the way I believe, the values that I have, the morals that I have, the things that make me who I am. So joy would get rid of all of these things. So Riley hits puberty.
Speaker 1:
And when Riley hits puberty the new emotions that I told you guys about in the beginning of the episode they pop up on the scene. And one of those emotions was guess who? Anxiety, the one I told you everybody has been talking about, and I'm sure you've heard about Anxiety by now. This movie has been out for a little while now, so I'm sure you've heard about good old Anxiety by now. And guess what color Miss Anxiety is? She is orange, very important, because remember I told you the color of the unwanted memories that Joy kept shooting off on the one-way expressway they were orange. So guess who's orange, little old Miss Anxiety.
Speaker 1:
So these unwanted memories that you were trying to get rid of, that you didn't want to be a part of her, that you were trying to suppress of, that you didn't want to be a part of her, that you were trying to suppress, because I told you guys, we're talking about suppressed emotions. You only wanted her to remember the good things, but you didn't want her to remember the sad things, the things that hurt her, that disappointed her. You basically wanted to suppress those emotions. Does that sound familiar to you? Have you ever done that? You don't allow yourself to feel because you, you know we're not joy. We don't have an invention where we can just shoot off the bad things that have happened to us, the things we wish we couldn't remember anymore. But we can suppress them. We cannot allow ourselves to feel those things. We don't talk about them, we don't acknowledge them, we act like it didn things. We don't talk about them, we don't acknowledge them, we act like it didn't happen. We don't deal with it. We just want to be what Joy kept saying. Raleigh's a good girl, raleigh's a good person. That's what Raleigh kept saying.
Speaker 1:
And even her parents kept insinuating and kept saying to her you're such a good girl, you're such a good girl. They kept saying that to her over and over, like throughout, even when they show like memories from the past and in different scenes in the movie they would say you're such a good girl, you're my good girl. They kept on saying it and Joy would say that you know, I take such good care of the other emotions would tell Joy, you take such good care of Riley and Riley, you're such a good girl and you're a good person. And Riley would say you know what Riley would say to herself You're a good person, you're a good person. So that's from suppressing all of those unwanted emotions. You only want to remember what's good, so you only want to do what's good because you want to be a good person.
Speaker 1:
Your parents saying you're a good girl, the emotions inside of you that, the ones that's not being suppressed are telling you to be good. So you're putting this pressure on yourself to be good. Now I got to show up in life as this good girl the pressure of my family, the pressure at school, the pressure with extracurricular activities, because now Riley is playing for a hockey team and his coach this coach sees her from the high school team and she is impressed by Riley and invites her and her friends. And now she has the pressure of trying to make this high school team and I'm a good person and I'm a good girl and I'm a good team player and I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 1:
And now she's beginning to deal with anxiety because I told you she got this new emotion on the scene, all of these feelings and all of these bad, unwanted memories that Joy was suppressing, that Joy was getting rid of. So Riley was never able to deal with him. She was never able to face them and work through them and confront them. She only suppressed them and ignored them and didn't acknowledge them. So you know whatxiety showed up on the scene and anxiety began to take over Riley's life. So where once Joy was kind of driving the seat, anxiety came and took over. Anxiety got rid of all of Joy and her team. So anxiety got rid of all of them, or attempted to anyway. So I'm not going to get into all of that.
Speaker 1:
But what anxiety does? Anxiety begins to come on the scene and with anxiety, anxiety would think about all of the things that could happen in the future. So it's not even happening, it's not real, it's not happening in real time, in the moment. Anxiety would think about all of the things that could happen. Anxiety would literally think about 50 different scenarios of what could happen in Riley's life and she would try to work every scenario of what could happen in all 50 scenarios. That's how anxiety works. Anxiety doesn't go by what's real and what's happening now. But let me solve what could happen. And what could happen is 50 different things and I need to solve all 50 things. So anxiety begins to take over.
Speaker 1:
And anxiety didn't like joy, because joy says well, that's not happening right now and it might not happen, so let's not worry about that if that's not happening. But anxiety is like no, no, that's not how we're doing it anymore. She's getting ready to go to high school and she needs us now. We can't do it the way you've been doing it anymore. Okay, so fast forward, anx.
Speaker 1:
Anxiety takes over and things begin to fall apart in Riley's life because she can't be perfect. She can't be this good girl that she kept telling herself that she was this good person. And it's the same for us. We can't be good, perfect, get it all right. That's not how it works.
Speaker 1:
So Joy and her friends, the other emotions, the originals they begin to try to save Riley. They see how everything is falling apart and they begin to try to save Riley. And I mentioned to you guys earlier how they were trying to get to try to save Riley and I mentioned to you guys earlier how they were. They were trying to get to back to the back of Riley's mind so they could take over and get anxiety up out of there and how joy basically went off on the other emotions. Okay, so they went through all of that and and they get back to the main center. There's so many things that happen, I'm not telling you. I'm getting to the point of repressing emotions. They get back to the main center and anxiety has lost her mind, literally. It looks like because she's going so fast and working through so many scenarios and trying to do like a million things at crazy speeds, like it looks like a tornado is going through the main room that they're in and all of the emotions, even the new emotions that came in with anxiety, they're all worried about anxiety. They're all looking at her like somebody needs to get her because anxiety is controlling the control board.
Speaker 1:
There's a control board that, whichever emotion is touching the control board, this is the emotion that Riley is reflecting in her life. So if joy is touching the control board, riley is reflecting joy in her life. That's how she's presenting herself in life. If disgust is touching the board, riley is reflecting disgust. Maybe she ate something disgusting and she didn't like it. That disgust would be on the control board. So this is how the control board works. Well, anxiety is on the board and anxiety is losing it. She is going around that control board like a tornado. She's touching every piece of board and it literally looks like she is a tornado. Have you ever seen a Tasmania devil? This is what anxiety looks like going around this board. Every time somebody tries to get close to her, it knocks them back. That's how fast she is going. Well, after attempting multiple tries, joy finally gets in.
Speaker 1:
Now this is the scene of the movie that everybody has talked about. Everybody has talked about it and you have probably heard it from different perspectives. You probably heard it from the emotional side, the scientific side, even from Christians and believers. They wanted to shout in the theater. I'm just telling you. You probably heard it from everybody's point of view.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so this scene is when Joy finally gets into anxiety at the control board, and it's. You can still see anxiety whipping around the control board, whipping, whipping, whipping, but anxiety is stuck. She's stuck at the control board, even though it's still going insanely crazy around her. She's stuck at the board and she can't let go. She's holding on so tight to the board, trying to control Riley's life. She don't want things to fall apart, even things that aren't happening. She wants to control everything the future, what could happen? Because that's how anxiety is working. You're worried about every outcome. What is what could happen? Because that's how anxiety is working. You're worried about every outcome. What is what ain't what could be? Anxiety is just she's stuck, she just can't let go. She's stuck in a zone. She can't hear what's going on outside of her, she can't see what's going on, she's just stuck in a zone. Well, joy gets in there and Joy says anxiety, you got to let go. And anxiety doesn't hear. And Joy says anxiety, and y'all I'm paraphrasing, you got to see it for yourself. It's just so much, it's just so much. Joy calls her name anxiety and at this point, joy, it's like Joy's breathing slows down or something Like everything slows down. Joy was like Anxiety. I think that's why the Christians got so excited at this point. And when she says it, a tear begins to fall out Anxiety's eye. This is like the moment where she finally hears Joy and Joy said you have to let her go. And anxiety lets the board go. And they're finally able to do that.
Speaker 1:
They were trying to add this piece to the machine that made Raleigh's core beliefs, that is a whole thing. But it was this pieceigh's core beliefs, that is a whole thing. But it was this piece for her core beliefs Because you remember when I told you guys earlier when I started out, how Joy would get rid of the unwanted memories, the bad things, because she didn't want those unwanted memories to become a part of Raleigh's core beliefs, which is what makes us who we are and what we believe, why we believe our values, just makes us the individual that we are our core beliefs. So something that I left out that's important when anxiety went into the control board, she broke the core belief like but it looked like a little trophy is what it looks like and anxiety broke it because she went and started adding those unwanted memories that joy got rid of. She went and got those unwanted memories that Joy originally got rid of and started adding them to to Riley's core belief and it created this new little trophy of core beliefs because now it had it. It had the unwanted memories that Joy never wanted there.
Speaker 1:
So when Joy got back to the control room and got anxiety to let go of the control board, she put the original trophy back and I'm sure y'all trophy is not what it's called, but you know, rock with me, rock with me. She put the original trophy back of the core beliefs, the one that she originally had, with just a good memory. She got rid of the one that anxiety put up there, okay. So anxiety is laid out on the floor. She's tired, anxiety has been all over it, like she's been worried and stressed out and you could just tell they just portrayed this so well Like she's literally on the floor out of breath and she's talking. But you well, like she's literally on the floor, out of breath and she's talking, but you can tell she's like talking barely with any breath. This is how she's talking.
Speaker 1:
And she says to joy, as joy's getting ready to replace the trophy back the way it originally was, she tells Joy, she says I'm so sorry, I was only trying to protect Riley, which is what anxiety was trying to do. She was only trying to protect Riley. And she says you're right, we can't control who Riley will be. And it was at that moment. It was at that moment where Joy realized the same thing she had just accused anxiety of doing by telling her to let her go you can't control who Riley would be. She realized that that moment they have this moment, like you can tell where the light bulb came on and all of these past memories come up for joy, where it showed, like all of the things that she had been doing in the past to control Riley, who Riley would be.
Speaker 1:
Even though she's Joy, Even though she's doing it in a positive way, basically protecting Riley, the same way anxiety was protecting Riley. They're all doing it with great motives. They all was doing it for the benefit of Riley. They both had the same goal in mind. They had this moment where they were showing all of the things that Joy was doing to basically control who Riley would be. They show where she got rid of all of the unwanted memories and how she toast them on the one-way express and how Joy was saying she's a good person and that good girl. They were showing all these past things that had happened to show how Joy was also trying to control who Riley was being. But Joy's way of doing it was making Riley a good person. So she thought it was okay because she was making Riley a good person and in her making Riley a good person and her trying to suppress all of those unwanted memories and all those hurtful times and disappointments and those feelings and shortcomings and trying to be a perfect girl, a good girl, a good person all of that pressure and added stress onigh to hold up some standard. It created anxiety. It made anxiety show up Because in the midst of all of this, while all of this was going on, when anxiety was holding on to that control board and controlling that control board, raleigh was in the real world at her hockey game, on the sideline, having a panic attack.
Speaker 1:
That's what was going on with Riley. She was in the midst of having a panic attack and you know what happened for her to stop having that panic attack. It was when that light bulb came on, for joy that she was doing the same thing that she was accusing anxiety of doing, of trying to control who Riley would be, even though her motives were right. But she was trying to control Riley by only allowing her to keep the good memories, not allowing the bad memories, the bad moments, the hurts, the disappointments, the things that would have a negative impact on her life, trying to get rid of those things. But all of those things make us into who we are supposed to be. Those things have to be a part of our core belief as well. So, in the midst of us, trying to suppress those negative things that happen in our lives, those things that hurt us, those things that we didn't like, that didn't feel good, that we didn't want, that we didn't like experiencing, but we want the good. All of that makes us into who we are. All of that shapes us into who we are. All of that shapes us into who we are supposed to be. All of that creates the person that you want to see looking back at you in the mirror.
Speaker 1:
So when that light bulb came on for Joy, she didn't change that trophy out. She let the core belief turn into what it was supposed to be A combination of all of the emotions, all of the memories. So what Joy did? She begins to hug that trophy and I hate to even keep calling it a trophy, but that's what it looks like. She began to hug this trophy and when she hugs the trophy, when she hugs the trophy, all of the emotions, other emotions begin to run in Sadness, disgust, embarrassment, and all of them just begin to run in. And the last one Joy looks over at anxiety on the floor. I told you anxiety is still on this floor. She looks over at anxiety, anxiety comes in and they all group hug. And when they all begin to group hug over this core beliefs, trophy, this core belief.
Speaker 1:
Who makes Riley who she is? A mixture of the good and the bad, with all of the emotions. All of these emotions make us who we are, all of these experiences make us who we are. Remembering all of these things make us who we are. Acknowledging them, feeling them, experiencing them. The anxiety attack ceases, it goes away as they come out of this huddle. They look up at the control board and it says Joy, riley needs you.
Speaker 1:
Because throughout the movie it's like anxiety has taken over and Joy is at a place because she's hit puberty, she has all these things going on, she's allowed anxiety to kind of take over her life and Joy is kind of taking the back seat and Joy feels like Riley doesn't need her anymore. So now things have shifted and they end with this and they say Joy, riley needs you. So Joy goes over to the control board and she kind of takes over and Riley finishes out her game and all is well. And that's the beautiful thing. We don't have to suppress our emotions. We don't have to suppress our emotions, we don't have to neglect and not acknowledge and act like the things that hurt us or disappointed us or we didn't like. We don't have to act like they didn't happen and just portray being a good girl or a good guy or a good person. We can be all who God has created us to be the good and the bad. It all shapes us into the person that he has made us to be. So, y'all, this movie was good. It was really good.
Speaker 1:
I'm going back to see it, to take my oldest daughter to see it. If you have not seen it yet, I done. Gave you so many spoilers. I hope, if you stay this long, you have seen it. If not, go see it. I mean, it's so good and there's so many things, so many things I didn't even talk about, so many things that I've left out. I hope you guys have enjoyed today's episode. Remember I love you, but God loves you so much more and I'll see you guys next week. Bye, I hope you guys have enjoyed. Follow me on Facebook at Demo with Mo. If you have any questions you would like answered here live on my podcast, email them to me at demow with mo at gmailcom. That's D-E-M-O-W-I-T-H-M-O at gmailcom.