What Inside Out 2 Taught Me About Anxiety

When I saw Inside Out 2 for the first time, I was expecting a cute movie about the inner struggles of teenage life. I wasn’t expecting the deep, heartfelt, depiction of anxiety that I found.

Inside Out 2 distills the complex dynamic of our emotions down into a simple metaphor: nine emotions working together to guide the actions of their human, sometimes fighting for control. The structure is simple and yet it captures the many important nuances of emotions. Thanks to the individual capacity for emotional expression given to each emotion character in Riley's brain, complex emotions are beautifully demonstrated in easy-to-grasp visuals. This is especially true with anxiety.

Anyone who has felt anxiety (which is all of us) knows that anxiety is complex and can be difficult to explain. Anyone who has ever struggled with anxiety knows that it can be difficult to identify the triggers leading to anxiety and then how to manage those anxious feelings. Inside Out 2’s anxiety character does a great job displaying the motives and function of anxiety and even includes a helpful way to visualize anxiety management. 

(Caution, spoilers ahead!)

The Goals of Anxiety

At the beginning of the movie, Anxiety shows off her ability to predict what decisions are likely to threaten Riley’s social safety and what decisions will protect Riley. Anxiety plans ahead and considers how Riley’s actions will affect her future.

Anxiety’s goals are to keep Riley safe now and secure a safe future for her as well.

At first these seem to be in Riley’s best interest. Anxiety is protecting her. We learn as the movie progresses that the reality is that Anxiety only gets in Riley’s way and hinders the very things she was aiming to protect. 

Anxiety’s intentions are good, that’s not the problem. The issue is the tactics and method she uses.

How Anxiety Tries to Protect

Anxiety’s favorite tool is avoidance. It protects us by avoiding vulnerability. And by doing so, we lose out on connection. Which is exactly what happens to Riley. 

Anxiety tries to help Riley "fit in"(counterfeit emotion) vs finding true "belonging"(authentic emotion). She wants Riley to be accepted by her peers (she wants to protect and secure Riley’s social standing). To fit in, Anxiety says to be just like her cool new friends(including dying her hair), avoids communicating Riley’s true feelings to her long time friends, avoids making any decisions that are different from new clique, and avoids accepting the greatness in Riley but rather steers clear of facing her fears and facing her faults.

This doesn’t protect Riley, it only alienates her from the friends who love her and prevents her new friends from getting to know her true self. 

In the movie, there is an intense scene where Anxiety usurps Riley’s imagination department. Anxiety asks the imagination department of Riley’s mind to conjure up every bad thing that might happen the next day. Anxiety’s intention is to prepare Riley to make safe decisions and avoid risks, but only succeeds in keeping Riley from getting the rest she needs for the big day ahead of her and destroys her self-confidence. 

Acknowledge the Message and Then Take Action

Anxiety is great at recognizing potential threats, and it can be great at keeping us safe from physically dangerous situations. But when it comes to social, intellectual, mental, and emotional contexts, anxiety really drops the ball. 

Anxiety is a slippery slope of fear. It feeds on itself and spins and spins frenetically in a panic which actually keeps us frozen in place. 

Buying into anxiety’s advice only fuels the fear and accelerates the spin. It does not calm it down. When Riley listened to all of the horrible scenarios Anxiety imagined up and avoided taking risks, it didn’t make her feel better or safe. Instead, she became more confused about what she was feeling, more isolated from other people, and more afraid of everything she was avoiding. 

The surest way out of anxiety is to do the thing you are anxious about doing. Every time we avoid what we are anxious about, it confirms and cements the faulty belief and anxiety grows. It's self perpetuating. Anxiety says don't try because you'll be embarrassed or look like a fool so we don't. The next time that scenario comes around we now have a neural pathway that says this thing is too scary don't do it and we don't which digs that neural pathway a little deeper. Each time we face the very thing we are afraid of, our confidence grows, and our fear of the unknown dissipates.

Don’t let anxiety hijack your imagination with as many worse-case-scenarios as it can produce. Instead, face those fears and build that confidence!

Inside Out 2’s Anxiety Management Metaphor

At the end of the movie, the emotions come up with a solution to keep anxiety from creating more cranial whirlwinds. When anxiety gets riled up, Joy sits her in special special massage chair, positioned far from the control board.

Anxiety’s worries are acknowledged, then Anxiety is given a space to relax where she can’t make impulsive decisions for Riley, and Joy directs her attention away from the future and toward what they have power over in the present. This is the perfect way to channel Anxiety’s awareness of potential dangers while keeping her fear from catastrophizing the world around her.

Transforming anxiety into its more rational counterpart, awareness, is key here. Awareness allows us to rationally consider the threats of a situation or outcome, without letting worry run rampant. It maintains a healthy level of concern and leaves plenty of room for hope. Awareness realizes when things are important and when it's nothing more than story telling.

When anxiety starts to ring the alarms, send it to its special chair where it can relax and bring awareness to the situation without making any rash, avoidant decisions.

Related articles:

•  Belonging - 4 Emotions for Mental Health Awareness Month
• Opening the Box: Understanding the World of Emotional Triggers
• Vulnerability, The Bullet Train to Connection