As I mentioned in the last instalment, this mini-series is inspired by the film Inside Out. What I love about the film is that even though it is aimed at children, there is still a relevant message for the ‘grown-ups” watching too. It has shown me that the particular emotions of sadness, anger, fear, disgust and joy impact how we show our personalities as well as our mental health. I will be starting with sadness and aim to end on a joyful note!

The power of sadness on the way that you view yourself is something that I can personally relate to. As I have shared before, I have periods of being sad about being shy and not a having a more ‘desirable’ personality. There were times at school when I thought I wouldn’t have much of a future being the way I was and seeing other people with different personalities types who seemed more likeable to others and more successful than I was would cause me to feel worse. However, I have found that when I start to doubt myself, I become oblivious to the positive things that are going on around me and what I can do well. A point that I came across through my research for this post was that any doubts that you have about your abilities does not change what you did well previously before you started to have doubts which can give you hope that you can still do well in the future.

I have also felt sad when I have felt stuck doing something that I am not happy doing sometimes just through unchangeable circumstances but sometimes because of feeling like I will be letting some people down by stepping away from it and even though this might surprise some people who know me well, it is hard for me to take too much risk and still feel comfortable. My sometimes impatient nature often makes it harder for me to wait on a solution to be revealed.

What I find interesting about the end of the film is the unlikely combination of joy and sadness working together to restore Riley’s personality. I have come to realise that that we can sometimes be lead to the answer to what we are missing in our lives to make us feel happy and confident through reminiscing and missing what we once had and long to have again which can help us identify what the biggest obstacle is now and perhaps any changes that can be made to overcome it. I will talk about other ways to find joy in a few instalments time.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you found it useful. As always, feel free to get in touch with any thoughts/feedback on anything I have said. Look out for the next instalment where I will talk about the effect anger can have on our confidence.

Until next time

Kathryn