By Catherine DiNuzzo (Licensed Professional Counselor)
I just went to see the new animated Disney film “Inside Out 2”… WHOA! My mind is racing! There’s SO MUCH to be said about the content of the movie, and perhaps someday I’ll get to all of that but as a first-take, I’d like to offer a few helpful insights and discuss the realities of anxiety among Catholics.
I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor and have been helping people with anxiety my entire career. I’m so excited that the concept of anxiety is being brought to the forefront by mainstream media in a positive way! This is something that needs to be talked about. Typically, the mental health narrative is always and only discussed as a problem, as a crisis, and as a negative. Characters with mental health concerns are depicted as crazy, erratic, unreliable, and doomed. This movie showed the complexity of the human psyche through a lens of normalcy and humanity, and that should be applauded!
What I want you to know is that you will likely come out of the movie feeling many things – and I think that’s normal, expected, and the purpose of the movie. Even as a counselor, I’ve been playing parts of the movie over and over in my head and feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of it. If you happen to take your children know that they too will be feeling all the feelings! The movie was very cleverly done and the humor was witty, but parents should plan to have chats with their children afterward because everyone leaves feeling “ very seen” and that can be hard for some people who feel more comfortable feeling everything more privately.
Often children and adults – but especially children – feel that no one can see or know that they’re having these feelings. There’s a false sense of comfort when they think they’re masking how they feel and that they’re the only one who could possibly be experiencing feelings like theirs. Although this might seem like a reasonable coping mechanism, masking one’s feelings can actually be very detrimental. The writers even show this in the movie; the main character Riley has all sorts of thoughts but she’s not acting them out, they’re merely in her mind and they show the internal chaos that ensues. So, as children watch, they’re seeing themselves and their feelings on the screen which can be scary. They might feel some insecurity or the thought “oh my goodness, that’s me.”
This movie is positive in that it is saying “Hey, those feelings are normal and a lot of people have them… so many that they would make a movie about it!” If you take your kids, and I think you probably should, it’s an awesome opportunity to start these important discussions about what to do when anxiety strikes. “Inside Out 2” is a secular movie, so it’s understandable that there’s not a faith component but that doesn’t mean that you can’t bring the faith component into your conversations.
As I walked out of the movie, I realized there was a lot of content presented but no tools or methods to work through it all. I’m working to create extra resources for parents and individuals as they process this movie because I want to be a resource. In the meantime, a great place to start is with my book “The Catholic Guide Through Anxiety”. My book isn’t a medical textbook, but it’s a user-friendly tool to help Catholics and Catholic families to support each other with dignity, through God’s love for each of us. I’ve already spelled out what’s happening in the body when anxiety hits, and what someone can do about it. I talk about the realities, the biology, and the struggles, but provide strategies, tools, prayers, and encouragement through the Catholic lens for how to work through anxiety. (The book is available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, e-book, and audio book, as well as on my website SacredHeartMentalWellness.com.)
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