A cartoon hasn’t blown me away like this in a long time that I was taking notes the entire time and my fingers were itching to type this text.
This text is full of spoilers, so if you want to watch this beautiful cartoon, you have three options:
- read this text and watch the cartoon with this perspective
- save this post in your browser’s “favorites” and come back to it after you watch the cartoon
- read this text and not watch the cartoon
Let’s begin ! 🙂
The main character, Riley, is a girl who is entering puberty, which brings many changes to the inner world of our heroine.
The focus of her world is friendship and hockey, around which she builds her self-image through the core belief, “I am a good person,” a belief that most children have if they grow up with emotionally mature and available parents.
Other beliefs grow like roots from memories that Joy plants in Riley’s consciousness, forming the tree of Identity, which is beautifully depicted through metaphor in the movie.
However, the mistake that Joy was making with good intentions was sending memories that didn’t align with the belief “I am a good person” to the Subconscious Mind. (And you already know that what is suppressed only pops up stronger later).
How this is connected to trauma and panic attacks, I will explain in the following.
Like a wrecking ball (literally xD), changes come in, smash everything that’s there, and signal the arrival of new emotions.
In the previous segment, we got to know how the basic emotions (Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, Sadness) manage Riley and create her inner world.
With the arrival of the messy puberty phase, new emotions emerge: Anxiety, Shame, Envy (comparison), and Boredom (meh).
It’s interesting to see how the new emotions quickly try to connect with complementary basic emotions:
* Anxiety + Joy + Fear
* Disgust + Envy
* Sadness + Shame
Boredom stands out from the others right from the start and scrolls through the phone (sound familiar?).
Why are Anxiety, Fear, and Joy complementary emotions?
Joy uses presence and imagination to create positive scenarios.
Anxiety uses the future and imagination to create protection from everything that could go wrong.
Fear uses the past and memories to protect us from both the known bad and the unknown.
Disgust + Envy
Disgust notices that something is different, new, unfamiliar, and potentially threatening, and it automatically protects us from it.
Envy sees that different, new, and unfamiliar as better and wants it for itself.
Sadness + Shame
Sadness is an emotion we feel when we feel separated from someone or people who are important to us and we feel some kind of loss.
Shame is the emotion we feel when we feel separated as a being because of who we are, how we are, and how we behave (not belonging).
Anxiety, as soon as it arrives, starts imposing itself and offering ideas for a “New Riley,” pushing Joy into the background.
It succeeds because Riley, guided by Joy, makes social “mistakes,” which prevents her from immediately appealing to the new popular girl.
Very vividly depicted in the cartoon, at one point, the new emotions suppress the basic emotions and completely take control of Riley’s behavior.
Anxiety begins to instill new, unsupportive beliefs and build a new, unstable, and deviant core belief – YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
How did it succeed after 13 years of building an image of herself as a “good person”?
Anxiety violently rips away the previous Identity and sends it far into the Subconscious Mind.
This is why, as a people pleaser, cut off from your true, core SELF, as well as from the experience of basic emotions, you constantly need validation and approval from the outside.
Also, a toxic thought filter occurs, where new beliefs are instilled through conditioning.
For example, “If I don’t fit into the group, I’ll be alone forever.”
“If he doesn’t like me, no one will want to be with me as I am.””If I make a mistake, I’ll never be able to fix it.”
“If I don’t do this, everyone will resent me.”
Anxiety, Envy, Shame, and Boredom are the emotions whose main task is to make others like you and fit in, which lies at the core of a people pleaser’s identity.
Anxiety says:
“It doesn’t matter what you are, but what you NEED/ CAN become!”
“Become the BEST version of yourself!”
“Discover your FULL POTENTIAL!”
…. Poznato od nekud?
SELF-WORK has become the code for normalizing these emotions as part of our internal control center because this way – it’s profitable.
The idea behind this movement is that, as you are, you are set apart and do not belong, and that you must become something else in order to fit in and belong.
Get up at 5.
Do yoga every morning.
Surround yourself only with “positive” people and be on “high” vibrations.
Train, have a perfectly organized diet and habits.
Achieve excellent results at work.
Have a great romantic relationship and friendships.
A perfectly tidy living space according to feng shui.
….
But what’s wrong with those habits?
But shouldn’t we all aspire to that?
….
Not if the path to it is not guided by Joy.
If you’re pursuing it from the feeling that “you’re not good enough” and that only when you become a certain way you’ll be okay… These habits will only be sustainable as long as you receive praise and validation from the outside.
If you enjoy and have fun in the process, the final result won’t be the sole focus.
You’ll WANT to and will be excited to wake up at 5 because you enjoy the peaceful, focused morning while everyone else is still asleep.
You’ll WANT to and will be excited for yoga because you enjoy feeling your body in motion.
You’ll WANT to and will be excited about tidying up because a space with fewer things calms you.
Do you feel the difference?
That’s why personally, I prefer to say “rediscovering yourself,” “returning to yourself,” and the way to do that is to face and bring out what has been suppressed.
THAT is the essence of psychotherapeutic work.
Building upon the understanding of oneself, one’s beliefs, and values, as well as being guided by what
makes us happy and makes sense to us –
THAT is the essence of coaching.
Now, let’s get back to the analysis of the cartoon.
Not at all coincidentally, the first emotion that manages to escape and return to the control center is Sadness, which quickly connects with Shame, hiding it from Anxiety and Envy.
Sadness here is actually an example of Vulnerability and how it changes our inner and outer world, not in spite of, but alongside Shame.
The other emotions, guided by Happiness, seek their way to the Subconscious Mind, where suppressed memories and the Self reside.
On the way, they arrive in Dreamland, which Anxiety has used for projecting negative scenarios – overthinking.
Happiness manages to stop Anxiety by imagining positive outcomes with the help of the very same imagination, which is a powerful message of how adaptable and powerful our mind is.
In the end, when they manage to bring the suppressed Self and all the suppressed memories back to the control center, something unexpected happens.
A new Self tree begins to grow, however, it doesn’t have a fixed shape – it is instead CHANGEABLE and HOLISTIC.
“I am selfish, but also generous.”
“I am lazy, but also determined and hardworking.”
“I am nervous, but I also know how to be calm.”
Both previous trees were RIGID and EXCLUSIVE.
And another significant change occurs.
Emotions can no longer choose when they want to take control.
They are INVITED by Riley.
This is a metaphor for developed self-regulation. It brings me to the final scene of the cartoon and the moment after the panic attack I mentioned at the beginning.
When Anxiety tries to control everything, it falls into a whirlpool, but in reality, it is completely stuck in one place.
Happiness comes to Anxiety and says the following (I was crying at this part, of course):
“You don’t get to choose who Riley is. You have to let her go.”
After that, Riley steps back onto the ice and glides from pure joy.
We aren’t determined by our emotions, nor our memories.
We are defined by the MEANINGS we assign to them.
And they are changeable – if you dare to look into them.
Thank you for taking the time to read this through to the end. <3
Now, so it doesn’t remain just read, I invite you to apply it through the next few questions.
1) Which emotion is in control of your control center?
2) Which emotion have you suppressed deep in your subconscious?
3) List the beliefs that are “rotten” roots and don’t build a SELF that supports you?
You can expect more exercises for emotional work and self-regulation throughout the entire module of the online program starting in September. Stay tuned 😉
Želiš li bolje razumijeti i prigrliti svoje emocije i prevladati anksioznost, javi mi se za psihoterapijski rad ovdje.