Understanding Our Emotions: What The Inside Out Movies Teach Us
June 26, 2025
Have you ever felt at a complete loss in understanding your emotions? One moment you’re laughing with your friends, and the next you’re on the verge of tears. Emotions can be a tricky thing to understand, especially when they seem to take over without warning, and we feel busy navigating the stressful transitions in life.
The Inside Out movies, Inside Out and Inside Out 2, explore this struggle. Between the two movies, we follow Riley and her emotions, exploring what is (kind of) happening in our heads when we are feeling big emotions.
All of our emotions have a purpose
Sometimes we try to focus on always being happy or only experiencing the so-called “positive” emotions. However, by doing this, we run the risk of neglecting or suppressing other just as important and valid emotions, which can hurt our well-being. Nobody says it better than Joy in Inside Out 2: “You can’t just bottle us up!”.
In Inside Out, we are shown this when Sadness is suppressed. Sadness is often not allowed to give her opinion or go near the console which controls how Riley feels. Riley then can’t respond to situations appropriately, as she is missing an emotion. By the end, we learn that sadness is a vital emotion; it allows Riley to express when she is struggling and to receive support from her parents.
In Inside Out 2, the characters are different, but the message that all our emotions are vital to our well-being is the same! Anxiety, a new character that Riley gains when hitting puberty, appears as the bad emotion at first. She bottles up the original emotions when they go against her and causing Riley to experience severe anxiety and a panic attack. However, we learn that Anxiety does care about Riley, and that anxiety can be helpful when controlled.
Joy
Joy is one of those emotions we all love to feel, described as “an intense, momentary experience of positive emotion”. In the movies, Joy always wants to keep things fun and positive; she wants Riley to do things she loves and have fun with the people around her. However, as presented in the movies, we can’t be joyful all the time. Sometimes we have to allow ourselves to experience other emotions to truly understand what we are feeling.
Sadness
As mentioned in Mindsum’s earlier Inside Out article, sadness is often labelled as a “bad” emotion that many people try to avoid; it can feel uncomfortable and heavy, but sadness is an important emotion. It suggests that we are not okay and may want support, and signals that something is upsetting us. This allows us to confront what we are experiencing and its impact.
Fear
Fear definitely does not feel fun, but it is a vital emotion that plays an important part in our lives. Fear reminds us to be careful, it alerts us to potential threats that are in our current environment so that we can respond appropriately, and helps us assess risks. It is an important emotion that helps keep us safe and alive!
Disgust
Disgust is an important emotion that helps protect us, both physically and socially. In the movies. Disgust helps us make choices that protect our health, our reputation, and even our friendships.
Anger
Anger is another emotion that is often given a negative reputation because of the behaviours associated with it, such as violence. However, “Anger is an emotion, not a behaviour”, and it is a normal emotion for us to experience. We can feel it if something feels unfair or if our boundaries are being crossed. In other words, feeling angry is normal and okay; it is what we do with that feeling that matters.
Anxiety
As presented in Inside Out 2, Anxiety can be a tough emotion to navigate. When it becomes too strong, it can take over our thoughts, cause self-doubt, and even lead to panic attacks. However, the movie also reminds us that Anxiety isn’t a bad emotion; it’s a useful emotion that comes from a place of good. Anxiety is there to make sure we are prepared and protect us by making sure we think carefully about our choices. As the character Anxiety puts it: “My job is to protect her from the scary stuff she can’t see. I plan for the future.”.
Embarrassment
Most of us know what embarrassment feels like. The burning red feeling on our cheeks, sweaty palms, or the desire for the ground to swallow us whole when we’ve done something we find embarrassing. Whilst we associate embarrassment with these uncomfortable feelings, it does have a purpose. It can signal to others that we may be in need of some support, and it may help us reflect on the situation.
Envy
Envy is another emotion that doesn’t really feel great and often has a bad reputation. However, envy can be very useful as it means there is something you want or value. When managed healthily, envy may push us to work harder, set goals, and take proactive steps in order to achieve what we have realised we value.
Ennui
Ennui, also known as “the boredom” according to Ennui themselves, can be…well…boring! It can be an emotion that we may try to escape, often by distracting ourselves with anything we can find. However, ennui is an important emotion, signalling that we want more; something more meaningful, or more challenging, and it can spur creativity.
Anxiety can be scary, but when managed, it's useful
As briefly mentioned, Anxiety is presented as a challenging emotion in Inside Out 2. Anxiety suppresses the other emotions, causes Riley to stay up all night and eventually causes a panic attack. When anxiety becomes too intense, it can lead to struggles with well-being and mental health. Many young people can relate to this, with 204,526 young people aged 17 or below being referred for anxiety in 2023-2024.
The movie doesn’t suggest that anxiety is the enemy, but it shows the consequences of what happens when anxiety takes over. Anxiety serves the purpose of considering consequences and making decisions; this is an important emotion for us to have. However, when this emotion becomes too much and is overwhelming, suppressing our other emotions and thought processes, it is harmful rather than helpful.
It’s important to make sure anxiety doesn’t drown out the other emotions, and the key to that is balance. We can acknowledge anxiety whilst also considering alternative perspectives.
Our beliefs about ourselves are more important than we may think
Early in Inside Out 2, we are introduced to Riley’s sense of self, which is an incorporation of Riley’s memories and beliefs about herself. These beliefs and thoughts shape her identity. For example, at firs,t Riley’s sense of self has phrases such as “I’m a good friend”, which then becomes “I’m not good enough”.
A powerful scene in the movie is where Riley’s sense of self becomes more complex and realistic; it becomes a representation of all her emotions. A healthy sense of self includes our strengths and weaknesses, acknowledging that we are human and do make mistakes. This is what Riley does at the end; her sense of self echoes her belief that she is a kind person, but that she is also sometimes wrong and makes mistakes.
The beliefs we hold about ourselves form our sense of self, and it is an important part of our development and belief system. It has a huge influence on how we behave and how we view ourselves in the world. If we constantly fill our heads with negative thoughts, then those thoughts will become our sense of self, and we will only hold negative opinions of ourselves.
Growing up can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be bad!
The Inside Out franchise, particularly Inside Out 2, explores the emotional turbulence of growing up. Inside Out 2 focuses on puberty, which is a time that can feel overwhelming and confusing for many. One especially significant moment is when Joy suggests, “Maybe this is what happens when you grow up. You feel less joy.”. This is a heartbreaking line, but one that many people have probably been able to relate to at one point or another.
However, whilst life may become more complicated at first, growing up doesn’t have to be bad! By the end of the movie, we see Riley’s emotions working together, and Riley has adjusted to this new period in her life. This is a great representation of the fact that whilst growing up can feel overwhelming, we grow with these changes, and we can definitely still experience joy. Growing up is about emotional expansion, deeper connections, and ultimately, a stronger and more complex sense of self.
What can Inside Out 2 teach us about mindfulness?
Take a moment to breathe and refocus
A key part of Inside Out 2 is at the end of the movie, when Anxiety is not suppressed or disregarded. She is valued for her important purpose and supported when she becomes overwhelmed.
What many others may have resonated with in this scene was when Anxiety was calming down, sitting in an armchair whilst drinking “Anxi-Tea”. Many of us can probably remember a time when we have been told to “just breathe” or “have some tea” when feeling overwhelmed. When in the middle of experiencing such overwhelming emotions, these tips can feel unhelpful. Despite this, taking a minute to breathe and refocus can indeed help us regain control, and the movie reminds us of this.
Focus on what you can control
The movie also reinforces a key mindfulness principle, which is to focus on what you can control. At the end of Inside Out 2, Anxiety begins to worry about all of the potential consequences if Riley doesn’t make the hockey team. Joy reminds her that they aren’t able to control whether Riley makes the team, but they can help Riley revise for her Spanish exam. This reminds us that focusing our energy on what we can control is incredibly helpful in supporting our mental well-being and ensuring we don’t burn out by trying to do everything.
Final Thoughts
Emotions can be difficult to understand, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. They can make us feel happy, uncomfortable, excited, or even overwhelmed. Sometimes we may seek them out, and other times we do everything in our power to avoid them. However, emotions are important; they help us understand what we need, how we are feeling, and help us connect to others.
So, the next time you want to hide your face when you’re crying, hold back a laugh, or can feel your cheeks getting warmer by the minute and want to run for the hills, take a minute to pause. Remember the purpose of emotions, feel it rather than suppressing it, and try to ask what it might be trying to tell you.
As Joy says in Inside Out 2: “But every bit of Riley makes her who she is, and we love all of our girl. Every messy, beautiful piece of her." Every bit of you makes you who you are. You may feel happy, you may feel embarrassed, you may make mistakes, but that’s okay. Learning to navigate and regulate our emotions is all part of growing up.
If you are finding it difficult to navigate emotions and feelings, Mindsum has dedicated mental health professionals who provide a free initial consultation.