Episode 353: How does the movie "Inside Out" help in understanding and normalizing emotions, and what lessons can we learn from it?

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No need to whine, it's Winey Palooza Wednesday! Have some wine and join us on Winey Palooza Wednesday with the Greene family.

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From my dad's account.

I know, I was so hopeful that we would be back on my Facebook tonight, and here we are on Seth's.

Sorry about that, people, we're trying.

I have driven my husband crazy because I don't have Facebook. Oh, Ella, I have to use your Facebook when we get off of this. I'm driving Ella nuts because I have to do stuff on her Facebook and Seth's Facebook because at this point I don't have Facebook. And I can't call Facebook and message Facebook through Facebook because I don't have Facebook. So Seth has spent 3 weeks—

Drink and game alert!

Every time she says the word Facebook, take a shot and let someone else drive you home.

So I, so Seth has been talking to Facebook for a week, a week trying to get my account back every day. If you have any help for us, let us know.

You know anyone at Facebook? Hook us up.

So, so he has tried.

Keep track of how many drinks Ella's taking.

And what I, what I want to say is— oh my God— what I want to say is that I'm going to start a new account and then my old account's going to come back.

Well, now you said it, you just ruined it. You needed to not say it and legitimately start a new account and then your old account would have come back.

So if you get a friend invite from me, it is because I decided to start a new account. So please accept my friend request. I did, I did that account for 16 years. I had accumulated like 1,200 people, which is nothing compared to what Seth has accumulated. It's not a competition, but for me, 1,200 people took me 16 years, and it's really daunting to think about starting at zero, but it is what it is if I have to, and hopefully I don't have to. So Here we are. Yes, on Seth's account. Yes, to talk about Inside Out 2. Yes, so I took my girls with their friends to the movies on Saturday, and Max also went at night to the drive-in with his friend. So all of us except Seth have seen it. All of us give it a thumbs up. All of us, ages 17, 15, 11, and sitting right here, I'm almost 48 next week. So we all loved it, we all recommend it. Take your children because here's what I want to tell you: not only will it entertain you, but it will help them with their emotions. I am so impressed. As a therapist sitting there watching it, I was like, oh, therapists need to use this in their practice. So it would have good talking points, good talking points. So I'm going to start with Ella so that she can go do her thing. Or she can stay for the whole thing. It's up to her. I don't know how much Dad's gonna have to offer because he hasn't seen the movie.

I haven't seen the movie.

But you did read the blog, so okay. So Ella, do you want to— you want your notes?

Yes, please.

Okay, we're gonna go to Ella's notes. Anything stand out that you want to share?

Reporting live.

I will tell you. Um, well, the first thing is that I thought it was a really important mental health tool.

Yeah, people.

Yeah, because it's a guide of what not to do and then sort of what to do.

Well, so what was— we don't want to give too much away, but what was so interesting is that she was feeling— the main character is Riley. Go see the first Inside Out if you haven't at home, and then go watch the second one, and you see her as a kid, and then you see her as a teenager in this movie. And I wish that Ella had seen this before she was a teenager because it would have really helped her. So you see Riley be really sad about something that she tries to stuff down, and when we try to stuff down our feelings, never goes well. It is always going to bubble out in different ways. I have often been told that anger is sadness turned inwards. Do you know that? Do you know that when you are angry, it is probably because you are not dealing with your sadness? Yeah, so she's trying to stuff her sadness down and it's coming out as really poor behaviors, right? And I love what you said was that it really helps you learn about how people think, and you said it really was the best depiction of anxiety that you have seen.

Yeah, I mean, it's the best way to portray it, and also just to portray the newly teenage girl experience. And I've never really seen it quite done as well.

And you also were talking about how her perseverance, her determination, turned into anxiety, which is—

which is exactly what happened to me.

You can totally relate. Do you want to tell them how you can relate?

Not really.

I think it's more— would it relate Okay, she doesn't want to talk about how she relates, but she related to Riley. All of your kids will relate to Riley. Max related to Riley. Riley puts so much pressure on herself with her sport, which Max totally understood as far as sports are concerned, and trying to impress the captain of the team and not being true to who she is. And I'm trying to remember what you said about anxiety. You said that you really got a hold of your anxiety. Do you want to tell them how you did that? Because it's really good advice. Um, you don't have to.

I guess just taking a minute to refocus yourself helps.

Well, you said— I don't remember exactly what Ella's words— I'm going to quote Ella because this was amazing. She said, finding friends who like and accept you versus trying to be something that you're not. Be yourself and find people who accept you for who you are instead of trying to fit in with people who make you feel less than. Give yourself grace and realize that everyone messes up. Ella wasn't giving herself grace and that was causing more anxiety. And reminding myself that no one is inherently better than you.

Oh, so yeah, that makes more sense than what I was gonna say.

Well, you and I have talked about the fact that every single person is a human being. Taylor Swift is a human being. She's not better than you. Don't think too much about what people are thinking. We overthink what people are thinking about our— about us.

And they're usually self-involved, thinking about themselves. They're not usually thinking about you.

That's really good.

Right, the invisible audience is a thing.

Ooh, tell us about the invisible audience.

Um, so the invisible audience is a term in psychology they use when people feel like everyone is paying attention to you. And it's especially worse in teenagers. And it's not real.

Is that like that you think everybody's talking about you?

Yes, you think everyone's talking about you. You think everyone is judging you. But in actuality, they're probably busy judging themselves.

That's really good.

And having the exact same feeling.

That's really helpful. So I had a few lessons from the movie that I would like to share with you, starting with the understanding and normalizing of emotions. I think that it's really good for our kids to see Riley going through all the emotions— joy, sadness, anger, boredom, disgust. What else?

Anxiety, envy, embarrassment. Embarrassment was one of my favorite emotions in that movie.

There were new emotions. Go see it.

That's in the trailer, Mom. Okay, that's not a spoiler.

There's new emotions, and we know from beyond the first movie— the first movie was just like the first—

anger, sadness—

because it was just being a child. And then the second movie brings on new emotions like embarrassment, and we know teenagers get embarrassed.

We embarrass our kids all the time.

Riley was trying to impress the captain of the team and she kept embarrassing herself. So we all understand that, and I love that they brought boredom on because how many times are our kids like, "Boring," right?

Pretty good impression.

Yeah, so it helps your kids understand what they're feeling because they see it on the screen. They can identify their emotions better and it normalizes it for them, like, "Hey, Riley has that feeling too." Right?

Right.

We all have the same feelings, all of us. I love that they talked about the value of sadness. I think that—

That's been explored throughout both Inside Out movies too.

Okay, do you want to talk about it at all?

Well, in the first movie it shows how when you're a kid you feel like you have to be happy all the time, but there are reasons that you can be sad too. And then in this movie it almost shows how sadness becomes more prominent as you grow up and just how essential it is. And I'm not going to go into spoilers.

Yeah, we don't want to, we don't want to give anything away, but what we find is that when we push our sadness down, our feelings and our behaviors bubble into not good things. But when we acknowledge our sadness and we let ourselves be sad, that's where the healing and the growth comes from. Like, I was crying the other night and Seth was like, you finally let it out. Like, you— I, I am one of those people who— I don't like to cry, so I stuff it and I stuff it and I try not to cry, and then eventually it comes out, right?

That is very true. You have been saying every day for a week, "I could cry," and I kept saying, "So cry already, get it out," and then you finally did. Way to go, honey.

Thank you for being so happy that I cried. So we learned from the movie that growth and change are constant, and we're not going to tell you Well, Riley and her friends are going to high school, and going to high school is a huge change. And there's more to the movie that we're not going to give away about why it's such a big change, but the only thing that we know in life is that things are going to change. Things don't tend to stay constant. So if we can learn to ride the wave of change like Riley shows us, how to accept change and how to ride the wave of change. Do you agree, Ella?

Yeah.

And it was a change that you didn't want, but you gotta grow up and go to the next level. You can't stay in middle school.

Not forever.

Not forever. And you can't stay in high school. When you're done with high school, you're gonna go to college. Like, life is always changing. I can't keep you as babies. Every year you get—

as much as you would want—

older and wiser. So empathy and understanding. It was so good to see what was going on in Riley's head. It really shows you what she was thinking and feeling, and her friends had no idea what she was thinking and feeling. But if they had tried to get into her shoes, maybe they could have understood why she was acting how she was acting. And I think it really teaches us to Remember that people are acting a certain way because of how they're feeling. So what are the reasons for their behavior? So don't you feel like it gave you more empathy and understanding for people?

I mean, yeah, it was a good champion of showing that.

Yes, so I have to remind myself to say, what is going on for that person? That's a good question. Communication is key. So all of our problems in our marriage tend to be because we're not communicating.

I would agree with that.

All of your problems in relationships tend to be a lack of communication. Riley was having conflicts because she was not communicating. Once—

it also can be hard to communicate when you're feeling new emotions, so you don't understand. And the movie showed that too.

That was so good, Ella. So I think that what I forget and what Dad forgets is that sometimes I don't communicate because I don't know exactly how I feel yet to communicate. I just know I'm having a lot of feelings and I don't really know how— like, what I need to say to Seth, what really helps in our relationship is, I am not ignoring you. I just am thinking and finding words to try to communicate with you. You.

Yes, if you could tell me, if you could tell me that you're not giving me the silent treatment, that would be helpful.

I do this thing. The silent treatment is so wrong. It's one of the Four Apocalypse from Four Horsemen. Four Apocalypse.

Four Horsemen of the Marital Apocalypse.

Yeah, it's one of the Four Horsemen of, of what you should not do in your marriage from Dr. Gottman, who is a marital expert. You should never give your spouse the silent treatment. And what I do is if I get really upset, I shut down, and it really is not healthy. So I need to do things like, honey, I love you, I'm trying, I'm so upset, I don't know what to say, can you give me, you know, 30 minutes to process and look for words?

And I would say, of course, I'd be patiently happy to patiently wait. If I only knew.

Or like sit down next to each other and try to talk. You don't have to always have the right words. I think sometimes you just need to try. Like Seth will say to me, "If you knew what to say, what would that be?" Yes, I got that from Tony. So, I think the bottom line is when you're having a problem in a relationship, it's probably a lack of communication or a miscommunication. And when Riley blurted out how she was feeling to her friends, they got such a better understanding as to what was going on with her, and they were able to come closer together.

Awesome.

So Ella, what were you going to say about not knowing what you were feeling? Do you have any more to say about that? Because that was really good.

I think— well, you shouldn't be taking marital advice from a 15-year-old, but if we were, what would it be? Well, if you were Well, if you sit together with your spouse, you could also always brainstorm how to communicate together because it would be easier to figure it out with two brains instead of one.

That's actually a pretty good idea.

Um, I think that—

Ella— I think it depends on how heated the argument is. Right, so Ella's advice is very wise and very good for friendship and relationship and marital relationships. I think that the little caveat that I want to add is if I am too upset and too heated and don't want to say something to hurt Seth, then my self-awareness of that has grown in such a good way. Of instead of— Seth has seen the growth. Instead of blurting out things that I don't mean, and instead of being mean and say— and you know, I don't want to call him names, I don't want to tell him he's being a jerk, I don't— I sometimes I don't want to say the wrong thing. So sometimes I need a moment to calm down before I can even try to brainstorm with him how I'm feeling.

Maybe after you've calmed down.

Yes. And sometimes you're right, we just need to sit down and say, let's try to talk about this and try to resolve it. And I need to be honest and say I don't always know what to say.

It's okay, you don't have to know what to say.

So try to communicate. And if your friends have hurt you If your spouse has hurt you, tell them instead of trying to stuff it, because if you try to stuff it, it comes out in the wrong ways, right, Max? Absolutely. Okay, accept yourself, all of you. So Riley is such an amazing person. I mean, she has so many great qualities, and she was questioning herself so much during the movie, and every single teenage girl can relate to that. Right? And I was like, oh, Riley, just love yourself, just accept yourself. You don't have to try to be something that you're not. Every single one of us— not in my 40s, but yes, in my teens— every single one of us has tried to be something to fit in, tried to change myself to try to fit in, try to be something that I think people want me to be. We all relate to that, right? And instead of accepting herself and loving herself, all she was worried about was, I'm gonna be— you know, one of the examples was music. Like, she doesn't have to like the music that the captain of the team likes. Just what music do you like? And it's okay to like whatever music you like. You like Taylor Swift? Own it. I like Britney Spears. Own it. Right, right. You have anything to say about that, Elle?

You also have to accept that you're not a perfect person too.

Yes, well, I think that you have to accept that people are nuanced and—

right, yeah.

I mean, the key to accepting yourself is accepting that you have strengths and weaknesses and that you don't have to be perfect and that you're gonna make stakes, and that, you know, people who are meant to be in your life are gonna like you, right? Amen. I think that Ella finding friends who she connects with and likes and accept her and love her for her have been one of the keys to her happiness. And, and, right, wouldn't you say?

Yeah.

And there was something else I wanted to ask you. Do you feel like you have learned to love all parts of yourself? Or are you still learning?

I'm still learning.

I'm improving every day.

What do you think that that's maturity? What do you think has helped with that?

Um, probably maturity and time. I mean, I've only known myself for 15 years.

Excellent point.

Um, I think that the key that I have found for myself in my 40s is deciding that I wanted to be my own best friend. And every time you talk to yourself, you say, would I tell that to my best friend?

Excellent advice.

I'm waiting for Ella's response to that.

I don't really have one.

Okay, well, any final takeaways from the movie?

Um, I think you've said everything.

Anything I missed out on? What about Seth? Anything that you picked up on that I didn't talk about?

I haven't seen the movie, so I am— I'm— you have sold me on wanting to see the movie.

I want to rewatch it and actually analyze it.

So I'm really frustrated with myself because I went into the movie and I didn't take my— I have a notepad on my phone.

No, you shouldn't use your phone during a movie.

I went in—

the screen would be on the whole time.

I, I went into the movie just expecting to be entertained, like I didn't think anything of it.

Yeah, I always get concerned for Disney sequels.

Well, the sequel blew the first one out of the water. The sequel was better. So what I'm—

in my opinion.

What is it? In my— so what I'm gonna say is I went into the movie just because Ella wanted to go. So I wanted to take Ella and her friends, and I ended up taking Lily and her friends. And I was just going purely to take my daughters and be entertained, and I had no idea that there were going to be so many lessons If I had known that there were going to be so many lessons, I would have like brought a notepad. Well, actually, and taken notes.

Like a physical notebook is fine, but don't go on your phone during a movie.

Well, I did go on the phone during my movie.

Why? This isn't okay.

And I definitely needed to have taken notes.

That's not good movie theater etiquette.

I think that there may be a part 2 to this, and the reason I'm saying this is because I think the lessons are so valuable And because I am gonna watch it again and I am gonna take notes and I am gonna have Seth watch it. So I think we need to do this again when Seth can actually take part in the conversation.

Yes, please.

So I had to talk about this. It was such a good movie. It had so many lessons. And if you go to whinypalooza.com and you read the blog, the blog, we wanna tell you that not only did I write a blog, but if you keep reading, which I forgot to make a note at the top, if you keep reading, Ella also wrote a blog. So I should have written that. I have to go change my posts to note that there's also a section from Ella that she did.

Yeah, guest blogger.

So thank you.

I got paid very good money for writing them.

Thank you for writing. Thank you for working tonight and joining us. And being willing to do this. And you are on— Ella is officially done with school. Yay! And so is Max.

Yay!

And Lily is done on Monday. Yay! So Ella, you are welcome to be paid to write whenever you want to this summer.

Well, I got my nails done, so that was my payment for this one.

I'm just saying that anytime you want to write, I will pay you with actual cash. Okay. And not in nails. Right, good to know. You got a vinyl and you got your— you got your vinyl and you got your nails.

That's true.

That's—

I know, isn't it, Rebecca Greene?

Yes, that's more— that is more money than way more than I was going to give you in cash. I'm just saying.

That's true.

So feel free to write anytime. Feel free to suggest topics this summer while you're home, and feel free to send us your topics, and feel free to send me good energy for me to get my Facebook back.

Amen to that.

So we want to tell you who he is.

I don't want to keep giving him my phone. Yes.

Oh my God, I do need your phone, so don't disappear. Why don't you go take a shower and give me your phone?

Okay, good idea.

Okay, she's gonna shower and give me her phone so that I can post. So you have to find me on Seth and Ella's Facebook for now. Um, you will either see my Facebook come back, or you will see a new Facebook invitation to friend me on a new account. And I want to tell you who's on the podcast this Friday because I'm very excited about this guest. So when I got to moderate Beauty Boost Buffalo, Stephanie Ladewig was one of the wonderful women on the panel. And when Stephanie was talking about hormones, my— I was like peeled to her, like you couldn't like move me off of her. And then I realized I would have to go to the next person, and I was like, but I was listening to Stephanie, like, I have more questions for Stephanie. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna have her on my podcast because I have loads of questions for this woman. So I had her on, I asked her a lot of questions about hormonal health, emotional health, physical health. So tune in this Friday, the Winey Plousa Podcast, to listen to the wonderful Stephanie. You are gonna love her. And the June challenge was awesome, but it disappeared with my account. So I will give someone a prize. I have not been able to do a June prize because you don't know who won. Oh, I have to figure out who won. So I'm really hoping that when my account comes back, all of my content comes back and I can give a prize. If that does not happen I will pick someone that I remember that did the challenge and just give them a prize. I think I'm gonna give away a prize on my birthday. Oh, my birthday is Tuesday, so come join us in the Whiny Blues and Mom group for my birthday challenge on Tuesday. And what else do I need to tell them? Let's go to Seth because he's good at this part.

There he is.

At whinyblues.com, there's a Linktree with links to everything. Uh, go subscribe to the newsletter, which is free and awesome, and multiple times a week of great content, and then please like, share, review, rate, and subscribe to everything.

I can't do that. I mean, he's hired. He's just got to do the ending. Okay, well, we appreciate you finding us on—

4 years later, I'm hired.

You're, you're hired every day. Every day I hire you. Yeah, so I want some money. I'm making you a lot of money with your help, with your help. I'm making us money.

I know you're making— you're doing great.

Okay, so thank you for finding us on Seth's account. Have a wonderful week.

Hello, thank you for watching Whiny Palooza Wednesday with the Green family.

Have a great week. Thank you for tuning in to the Whiny Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, Leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. This show has been produced by Market Domination LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com/podcastoffer.

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This episode, yeah, we made it. The voice you just heard, we helped put them there. And right now someone's out there thinking, I I should have my own podcast.

You should.

Not because it's trendy, not because content is king, but because your voice has weight, your ideas have gravity, and the right people, they're waiting to hear you. We build shows that don't just sound good, they work for your brand, your business, your audience. Ready to step up to the mic? To see if you could grow your business with a podcast, apply at yourdream50.com/podcast. Seth-Green, G-R-E-E-N-E, because your story deserves more than just ears.