Inside Out

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Renee Gebhart, One of Thousands of Relationship Coaches on Noomii.

This past Father’s Day, our family went to see the new movie, “Inside Out”. We were looking forward to this movie for a number of reasons. What I enjoyed the most was that my son learned an important psychological concept from the movie. And on one recent morning he asked, “Mom, which little person has control of you right now?” Busted! I usually do a decent job of letting my family know when I am off my game, but I am not perfect, and that morning I had not alerted my sweets to my less than stellar mood. My son was spot on. And thanks to my own work, I was able to stop and speak for what was going on with me and we were able to better connect.

My colleagues in the mental health community are absolutely geeking out about this movie because it makes what we know as professionals more accessible to a greater audience. I have read some reviews of “Inside Out” and I have read my friends’ comments on my personal Facebook page, and it seems that the response to the movie has been overwhelmingly positive. Adults and children are walking away from the movie with a concept of what goes on inside their brains when it comes to emotions and memories. I love that the movie is raising awareness.

In the movie, you see the main character, Riley, being driven or controlled by 5 little characters inside of her: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. Life seems to go better for Riley when there is some inner collaboration going on amongst the 5 characters.

The depiction of Riley’s characters fits so well with what I learned in an intensive training. If you combined an “Inside Out” sequel with my training, it would look like this: Riley would learn to think of her characters as “parts” and she would learn to connect with her parts and collaborate with them versus letting them exclusively “run her show”. In training world, we call that “self leadership” and when you are in that place you feel more: calm, curious, confident, creative, compassionate, courageous, and connected (the 7 Cs).

This is accomplished by finding and growing the internal space of your essential self and knowing and working with your parts (i.e. characters) from that place of self. I help adults engage in this process of personal transformation (children can learn this too), and when they do I see vast improvement in how they: self regulate, make decisions, and deal with conflict and communication.

Self Regulate
My family particularly enjoyed the scenes wherein Riley was controlled by Anger or Disgust. It makes for good comedy, don’t you know!?! Sometimes it feels good to be “triggered”. It can even be helpful or necessary for certain parts to be in control (i.e. Riley’s anger during her hockey game). However, most people don’t particularly like being “triggered” or taken over by intense feelings when they are not in control of it. To manage triggering and feel more in control, figuratively take a step out of the thought or feeling of a part and make note of what is going on, as an observer. This stepping back allows you to exercise self leadership, making an active choice about how you want to be, rather than letting your parts run your show.

Make Decisions
I find people feel the most frustrated, stuck, or confused when they have parts of them that want to do different things, kind of like Riley’s Joy and Sadness. Joy and Sadness clearly had different ways of being and getting things done for Riley. They both wanted to help Riley; they just had different ways of doing so. This is usually true for most people. Finding the intention that each of your parts holds for you is key to moving through decision gridlock. And by being in the observer role of the self you can move out of the tug of war between parts towards active decision making.

Deal With Conflict and Communication
In the movie, after the family has moved and Joy was no longer at the controls, you could see Riley move from one “part” to another, leaving her parents feeling confused at best and mutually triggered at worst (at least until Sadness took the reins). If Riley had been able to say, “there is part of me that is sad about the move and a part of me that wants to look happy for your sake and there is a part of me that wants to just run away”, the movie may have been much, much shorter! Or, if Riley’s parents had spoken for their parts more directly the family may have experienced more cohesiveness during their transition.

Making the switch to speaking “for” a part instead of speaking “from” a part sounds small but it actually has a huge impact on how interactions go. Who would you rather deal with: someone who is acting from their anger (i.e. loudly, harshly, out of control) or someone who is aware of why they are angry, can speak for their anger, and move on in a constructive way? I get to teach clients how to do this and I just love it!

I also really love to see couples using this skill. From the simple, “what do you want to do tonight?” to the more major issues “are you ready to have another child?” using parts language helps couples gain clarity, achieve consensus, and attain greater intimacy.

So, I wonder….Are you parts led or self led?
How are you doing with the 7 Cs? Do you need more calm, courage, confidence, creativity, compassion, curiosity, or connection in your life?
Want help regulating, making decisions, or communicating?

I can help you, call me!
If not me, I’ll send my son…..he’s a coach in training;)