Inside Out

While cleaning out my office recently, I found a journal entry I wrote sometime in 2020. I still feel that these ideas are ones to keep in mind despite being a few years separated from the pandemic chaos, so I thought I’d share that with you.

In a rare moment of being alone this morning, I decided to watch Inside Out. I have wanted to watch it for a few days, and today gave me the time and opportunity.

For those that need a refresher, it is a Disney movie that goes through the turmoil of emotions experienced by an 11-year-old girl during a large change in her life. If you have seen the movie, you know that it is about feelings and how experiencing those feelings makes us who we are as a person. It demonstrates and explains how our emotions evolve as we grow and experience new things. By the end of the movie, you remember, or maybe learn, that memory is built on more than one emotion. All of our experiences are mixed emotions that form that piece of our lives.

I feel like this reminder is critical right now. We are all experiencing new things or new combinations of emotions. I know my feelings mix has been all kinds of new combinations throughout every day.

But these combinations build the people we will be when this is over. It is revealing new aspects of who we each are as a person. Some of that may not be good (like realizing that you are angrier than you originally thought), but we have time to learn and work through these new revelations.

I am trying to be intentional with sorting through my emotional combinations. I have been trying to talk them through with my family because they are experiencing their own combinations of emotional mixups.

This pandemic and all that has come with it is shaping who we are now and who we will be moving forward. Focusing on the pieces of that mentally and emotionally will help us to understand it better.