Keep the Best and Toss the Rest (no!)

How Pixar's Inside Out 2 pulled my insides out (plus a re-visit/re-post)

While on vacation with my family last week, we hit the movies on a rainy afternoon. My two kids (ages 17 and 10) joined me to see Pixar’s Inside Out 2. The three of us were equally excited to see it (even my 17-year-old son!) If you haven’t seen the original from 2015, run (don’t walk) and watch it. You needn’t have children to watch. You needn’t like animation to love it. You simply have to feel things. It is by far my favorite “children’s” movie of all of them and its sequel delivered.

I did not think it was possible to have a moment in the sequel that could match how verklempt I got during the “Bing Bong scene” (if you know, you know). If that scene didn’t do something to you, you might be dead inside.

The sequel had a moment. A moment that not only made me feel things but made me feel so seen. So understood.

Ever since my daughter has received the diagnosis of generalized anxiety, I have been trying to normalize this with her and for her. We talk a lot about it to let her know it’s nothing to be scared of or ashamed of or embarrassed by. I have had numerous conversations with her about how I, too, get bullied by my own inner voice who twists my mind up and makes me anxious and worried. She and her therapist normalize anxiety and how common it is. They come up with tools and strategies to quell it from swelling too big. Nothing - nothing - so far came close to the lesson that this movie delivered.

And I’m telling you - it landed with the 17-year-old, too.

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For anyone who doesn’t know, Inside Out takes you inside the mind of a young girl named Riley. In the original she is 10 and, in the sequel, 13. You enter her brain - literally. You follow sequence after sequence in “headquarters” (which is the central hub of her brain) where the main emotions, Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear and Disgust control the console (i.e. her feelings that spill out of her). Both movies brilliantly explore the gamut of emotions that make up a human being and do a beautiful job of delivering the message that all feelings belong.

With Riley as a 13-year-old, we face puberty head on. The delivery is funny (lots of chuckles for parents watching) and it is tender. New emotions don’t only bubble up - they come storming in! In enters Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment. The main event of the movie centers around an invitation only weekend hockey camp where Riley is trying to impress older girls and a tough coach. While eager to impress others, she loses touch with her core self. A lesson that we all learn and unlearn off the screen, right?

There is such clever dialogue between the emotions, too. When Fear meets Anxiety for the first time (“Oh I think you and I will be friends”)

I was so struck by how Joy’s main job (in both movies) was to push out the “bad” memories from Riley’s mind. How she thought this was her role - her job. Her motto, as she slung these memory balls way into the back of Riley’s mind was, “Keep the best and toss the rest.” By the end of the movie, you realize, Joy has it wrong. We don’t heal by hiding from our bad thoughts or our bad memories. Discarding them isn’t the answer.

The personification of anxiety in this film made me realize (and I thought I knew this already!) the extent to which my own console is ruled by it. If you could peek inside my head, she’s running the show. What I’ve learned through therapy and sobriety is that I have become so damn good at masking it. The way Pixar pulls the curtain back on anxiety is teaching its audience (children and adults alike) how beneficial it is to look at it straight on. And the beauty of it all, is that we witness how Anxiety is truly there as a protector part. It is only trying SO HARD to protect Riley.

Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll just say that there is a scene in which anxiety swirls up so strongly in Riley and the lessons in that scene- about embodiment, emotional regulation, autonomy, rupture and repair between friends, compassion (oh I could go on and on), land so beautifully and artistically on the screen. When my husband asked us about the movie, listening to my daughter describe this particular scene, she said, “Dad, you know how I sometimes get during basketball games, Riley does too except it’s hockey”. GAH! Holy Mama water works. Thank you, Pixar. Thank you for validating my kid. For letting her (and me) know that suppressing our feelings is not the answer. For normalizing all emotions.

I feel like there should be a support group for folks who watched this movie and need to talk about it (Kidding. But sorta not kidding). Maybe I’ll start a thread with peeps who saw this and related so much (as a parent or sober person or just straight up human). If that is you, and you want to untangle all of this, let me know! I think my kids are done talking about it with me.

SIDENOTE:

I recently was introduced to a song that could be an anthem for this movie. Or maybe just the anthem for my life. Just Fine by Desiree Dawson (see link below to give it a listen). It’s a gorgeous song.

The lyrics that could be my words:

There is a part of me
That knows that I'll be just fine
There is a part of me
That knows it's all in my mind
There is a part of me
That knows that I'll be just fine
Just fine

I have this part of me
That always tries to keep me safe
Another part that seems
To sign me up for every race
And both sides they fight
Yeah they try to show who's best
So now I mediate
I'm always stuck cleaning the mess
I found a broom
The time to sweep
I found some reasons why
I throw myself down on the ground
When every cell says fly
From way down here
The sky is clear
The ground supports my weight
Step into the wild

**Below is a re-post of an essay I shared back in October. I share it today because it speaks to how my anxiety shows up. How it tells me to sign up for all the things. Do all the things. Master all the things. And then all those things make me unravel inside. And is speaks to how our kids feel this way, too. **

Peeling back the gold stars

Four years ago today, I ran and completed the Marine Corps Marathon.  And I have complicated feelings about that achievement.  I did not grow up running.  I did not play sports.  I was on the sideline, always a spectator but too inhibited to join. Too unsure of myself.  I picked up running in my late 30s.  Many of my close “mom friends” in the town I live in are running enthusiasts.  It became infectious and I gave it a shot.  And I grew to love it. The discipline, the training, the dopamine rush when all those miles logged could be checked off my training schedule - sign me up!  I must admit that the feeling I had when I crossed that finish line, after sludging my way through 26.2 miles in the POURING muggy rain, was a certain sense of accomplishment I may never taste again.  I was so proud of myself.  I am still proud of myself for running that marathon – a task I NEVER thought I could achieve.  Yet, four years later, I have a different perspective. 

I’ve stopped using the word ambitious as a compliment.  I recently read the book, All the Gold Stars by Rainesford Stauffer. It summed up all my complicated feelings with ambition and what it means to produce and perform.  Stauffer describes a pattern in her behavior that she experienced as hyperambition – a signal to her that she later discovered meant she wasn’t doing well.  This ambitious drive hid her struggles.  She writes, “The fact that my mind was in a seemingly ever-present state of fight-or-flight – and, frankly, felt most inclined to try to fight itself- wasn’t a hindrance to my ambition; it was an asset. The more anxious I became, the more ambitious I was.”    Sound familiar?  Yeah, those words resonate with me to my core.

I don’t run anymore.  When I decided to stop drinking alcohol, I had romanticized this vision of me being in the best physical shape of my life.  Crushing race after race, signing up for all the marathons.  I ended up instead with a left knee injury that still tweaks and pings me with daily pain.  The sober bad ass runner crossing all the finish lines was a dream that would not come true.  What surprised me the most, perhaps, was my acceptance of it all.  My mind didn’t fight it and my heart didn’t cave.   Instead, I slowed down.  And I looked up. 

Now that I have distanced myself from running long distances, I can see the connection between how my drinking amplified with each medal I earned. I drank because I was anxious.  I ran because I was anxious.  And I was able to hide my problem with alcohol by sweating it all out and proving to anyone that cared to look that I was achieving things.  I was functioning just fine. Didn’t you just see my post on Facebook?  I ran 14 miles this morning.  The fact that I drank 2 gin and tonics and 4 vodka sodas last night means nothing.  I would not be able to run like that if I had a drinking problem.  Right?

As the miles stacked up on my Garmin, the more distance I accumulated away from what I really needed.   To quit pushing.  With each mile I ran, I paved a road that led further and further away from myself. I pushed myself physically as a means of separating from myself.  And I didn’t realize this until my body found a way to wake me up to it.   The thing is you can’t heal what you can’t feel.  Pounding my feet along the pavement was my way of pounding out, pushing out, sweating out all my feelings I was afraid to face. I was essentially running in circles.   There was no real finish line. 

I’ve replaced the word ambition with aspiration.  That feels better to me.  In peeling back all my personal layers underneath the idea of worth through work, overproducing to gain recognition and accolades, I aspire to connect.  Connect the dots from my past so that I can live with more purpose. 

In diving down the rabbit hole of overachieving, I came across another book that is broadening my lens on the idea of ambition and specifically how it relates to parenting our kiddos.

I am in the middle of reading, Never Enough, by Jennifer Breheny Wallace.

This book feels important to me right now as I am walking through life parenting a junior in high school.  Wallace delves into the insidious rise of “toxic achievement culture” which has infested our lives, to the detriment of our kids’ mental health.  Wallace weaves in this concept of mattering - how we all as individuals add value to those around us.  An important reminder that our kids need now more than ever.  That their presence means something.  And their worth is not contingent on how they perform on that test.  Or on that soccer field.  Or in that classroom.  And I would argue adults need a refresher on this, too. Mattering - adding value to the world. Not to our resume. Not to our bank account. How are we treating each other?  Can we step out of our cocoon of self-regard and see the bigger picture.  In a world filled with reels that go viral, can we know our worth if it is quietly unperformed? Perhaps a softer imprint can leave just as big an impression. 

Along these lines, for a while now I’ve had an adverse reaction to the word goals. #goals (cue - eyeroll). I’ve replaced that word in my vocabulary with growth. And I make that my North Star. My North Star consists of all the sparkly promises I make to myself - one of them is this very thing you are reading. I made a promise to myself that I would commit to writing weekly to gauge how a regular writing practice feels to me. Because I’ve had this dream since childhood of being a writer. And when I glance back, I cannot pinpoint the moment I let that fall away. When the writing light diminished, I chased goals that didn’t always feel like mine. Law school, marathons, my own business. I’m not saying I regret these things or that I’m not proud of how I worked my tail off to accomplish them. I’m just acknowledging the emptiness that can sometime accompany a goal. 

What I now know is I can care about my work - my profession and my personal endeavors - and not have it define me or let it have all of me. Because the true me, underneath the compulsions to over work, is a woman that craves balance. A kind of self-allowance where I can say no to my inbox in the evening knowing that someone else’s urgency is not my emergency. It will be there for me at 9:00 AM. And underneath this gorgeous allowance is the question: what does saying no give you the chance to say yes to?

It's hard to stay in that lane of intentionality.  Because the dopamine hit is real. It’s powerful when you crush a goal. What I experienced though, is that on the other side of that, once the confetti of accolades disintegrated, I found myself standing alone saying, ok what’s next? I hardly allowed myself a minute to marinate in the afterglow. So now, I purposefully grow distance between the things I want to accomplish. I don’t want to feel like I’m running a race, frantic to finish. I want to remain in the sweet spot of discovery. Meander through my days, as needed. There’s a term in sober circles – slowbriety.  That is where I am now.  Living an alcohol-free life, for me, is a slow-burn realization. A slow return to stability.

Before I sign off of this week’s post I have to end with this admission- my ambition is a beast I can’t always tame. I’d be lying if I sit here typing away and not confess that I am striving for more readership here at Substack. I pay close attention to the number of new subscribers I get here, anxiously clicking open the analytical weekly email to see if my readership has grown. I envy the gorgeous writers on here that I follow who have thousands of subscribers. Do I want that? Is this my new end goal? Part of me lights up with the idea of that - because that would bounce me back to that North Star. That inner voice I’ve had since a kid - urging me to write write write. Pouring the words out, no longer keeping them in, this feels like growth. #growthnotgoals So I’m going to let myself want it. Because maybe what I want wants me.

In my quest for growth, I won’t focus on the ending. Here - there’s no ceremonial ending. No commencement. No fancy degree. No finish line with a medal. I don’t know the end of this story I’m writing. The pages I have left are for me to explore and share along the way. And that feels like a different kind of motivation. One that breeds freedom and expansion.

One that matters.

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As October comes to a close, I’m leaning into the spirit of gratitude & thanksgiving that November brings. Stay tuned. I will write and honor the things & people that matter to me. The ones that bring value to my days.

P.S - do any of you listen to or follow Nora McInerny on here or elsewhere? I am a huge fan and start my day by listening to her quick and uplifting podcast, It’s Going To Be Ok. Yesterday, Nora shared MY ok thing. Yes, I fan-girled and wrote in to share and Nora dropped my “ok thing” yesterday. It’s been such a heavy week (month!) for us all, allow yourself a smile and a break and listen in. xoxoxoxo

The Yard Sale

Nora’s Substack: She Tried

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