How the “Inside Out” Movies and Quaker Advice Converge

The release of the new Pixar movie Inside Out 2 takes place in a time when many people need greater emotional insight. In the United States, rates of anxiety and depression have substantially increased in recent years, particularly for young people assigned female at birth and members of the LGBTQ+ population, and rates of substance use disorders have increased as well, often with devastating consequences. This social-emotional context may be one of the reasons why Inside Out 2 is doing so well at the box office since its release last month. It surpassed expectations to become the top grossing film of 2024 and the top grossing animated film of all time.

For those who don’t know, the Inside Out movies take viewers inside the mind of a young girl named Riley. In the first movie, 2015’s Inside Out, 11-year-old Riley works through the trials of her family’s move from Minnesota to San Francisco, Calif. Featured in this story are five characters that personify Riley’s emotional life: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. The sequel, Inside Out 2, continues with Riley as a 14-year-old experiencing puberty and the challenges of identity formation and friendship. More complex social emotions get introduced into Riley’s life, including Anxiety; Embarrassment; Envy; and, my personal favorite, Ennui. Although animated films have a reputation for being “kids’ movies,” the Inside Out movies uniquely explore the science of emotion and provide deep insight for emotional well-being at any age.

Like many boys, my childhood didn’t exemplify a life of emotional insight. I was raised in a German Catholic town with a population of about 300 in rural Minnesota. My family and others around me loved me and had the very best of intentions, but I don’t remember receiving much instruction in processing soft emotions, or maybe that instruction was there and I just wasn’t ready to receive it. In any event, the attitude I internalized was that though positive emotions are good, vulnerable emotions shouldn’t be displayed or maybe even really felt, as this conveyed too much weakness. Although this may have, at times, meant I came across as robotic and unfeeling, the reality was I experienced a full range of strong emotions and just didn’t know what to do with them. This struggle only grew after my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 12 and eventually died when I was 14. During so many parts of her journey, I didn’t know how to respond, particularly with respect to the emotional dimension of what was happening. An older friend later commented that I showed virtually no emotion during the time surrounding my mom’s suffering and death. Although that emotion definitely was there, it felt safer to keep what I was feeling to myself and suppress as much as possible.

Another aspect of my early emotional confusion related to my experiences in church. One of my earliest memories is of one particular Sunday morning when I was four and attending Catholic church with my family. We always seemed to arrive soon enough to say the rosary, but this particular Sunday morning, my mom, brother, and I were late. We double-timed it up the concrete stairs to heave open the metal doors of the traditional red-brick church only to find the sanctuary doors closed. It seemed we were not allowed entry because of our tardiness, so we were confined to a small, cold foyer filled with nothing to look at but posted advertisements for local businesses and two holy-water stations. Being so young, I became bored pretty fast. A hymn had started around this time, and I sneaked a peek through the closed passageway. The congregation was being led in song: “Here I am, Lord! Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night! I will go, Lord, if you lead me!” Powerful words, I thought, and yet they were sung with no hint of emotion. Much of the congregation didn’t even sing along. This and many other similar experiences left me puzzled: religion seemed to be another source for emotional disconnection.

By the time I attended college at the University of Wisconsin–Madison—even though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate this at the time—I felt a strong pull toward doing whatever was possible to gain greater emotional insight. After my first semester—to the great surprise of my family and friends back home—I changed my major from accounting to psychology. Eventually, I became involved in a research lab investigating emotion with Dacher Keltner, who was to become one of the world’s leading experts on the science of emotion and a key science advisor to Pixar for the Inside Out movies. I later went on to get my doctorate in counseling psychology at the University of Minnesota, doing research on emotional well-being, particularly in relation to religion and spirituality.

At the same time as my psychology courses and work in an emotion lab during college, I also started a decades-long project—still ongoing to this day—to explore great world religions. I’ve always been on a spiritual quest of sorts, probably largely to help me gain more emotional insight as well as a general understanding of what a good life looks like when embodied. I eventually stumbled onto Quakerism. Although I still haven’t really ever found a spiritual community in which I feel truly at home, with Quakerism, I’ve especially loved learning about the testimonies, queries, and advices. Last year, I spent several months reading through as many versions of Quaker books of faith and practice as I could find online. I would look for quotes that sparkled with meaning for me, and write them down in a journal to reflect on later. At some point, I read the advices section of Britain Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice, and I was stunned to find some advice that felt like a synthesis of so much of what I’d learned about the science of emotion in the previous three decades. It reads: “Try to find a spiritual wholeness which encompasses suffering as well as thankfulness and joy.”

Underlying all of this is a lesson that to be whole, one must be compassionate to ourselves and others.

When I watched Inside Out 2 with my family shortly after its release, this advice came to mind, as it coincides so well with the core message of the films. Based on decades of emotion science, the Inside Out movies emphasize how every emotion has a purpose. Like sensations of physical pain, each emotion provides a signal that, when heeded, can point us toward how to function at our best. We often have a preference to feel positive emotions such as thankfulness and joy, and these emotions—along with many other positive emotions such as awe, curiosity, and contentment—definitely have an important place in a balanced, healthy emotional life. However, listening to different forms of emotional suffering can be instructive as well. Without spoiling the movies, as demonstrated in the first Inside Out, sadness can be a hero in pointing us to deeper meaning and connection. As demonstrated in Inside Out 2, anxiety can be a hero in helping us make wise plans for the future. Although there’s a point where they can overwhelm us, we would do well to acknowledge and understand these more difficult emotions, and even lean on them as guides, as opposed to the tendency to avoid them, suppress them, or medicate them with addictions or other unhealthy behaviors.

Underlying all of this is a lesson that to be whole, one must be compassionate to ourselves and others. Emotions can be hard—life is hard—but accepting all of our emotions as part of being human is essential to living well and connecting with the experiences of other people in our lives and, indeed, all humanity.

We’re all on an emotional journey. But when rightly understood, great science, art, and spiritual wisdom can be powerful reminders and resources in creating a world where we can all thrive.

I’m left wondering about the connection between emotion and spirituality. Maybe having a balanced emotional life that, as the Quaker advice says, “encompasses suffering as well as thankfulness and joy,” is part of a spiritual wholeness as well, but there also seems to be differences. For instance, unlike emotion, spirituality uniquely involves a search for what is sacred. Perhaps connecting with suffering connects us with the human tendency to also long for more. Maybe listening to our uncomfortable emotions such as sadness, anxiety, and anger as well as positive emotions such as thankfulness and joy, allows us to open to different dimensions of Spirit or different pathways for doing so.

I don’t believe any movie or any one bit of Quaker advice is enough to help people overcome mental illness or attain emotional well-being. I also went to therapy for about 15 years to figure out some of my tendencies to avoid and suppress difficult emotions. We’re all on an emotional journey. But when rightly understood, great science, art, and spiritual wisdom can be powerful reminders and resources in creating a world where we can all thrive.