 I know I'm six years late, but Pixar's Inside Out has just taught me something that I didn't even know about myself. So the first time I watched this movie I was 16 years old. I watched it with my family and came out of it largely unaffected. I thought it was boring and honestly one of the worst Pixar movies that I had seen. I'd always been a Pixar fan. I love Up. Up is one of my favorite movies and I was greatly affected by the emotional scene at the beginning of that movie, but Inside Out to me was kind of a snoozefest. I didn't get it and especially it was kind of confusing seeing the reaction from my family members. They were so emotionally, emotionally affected and I didn't get it. Now six years later I watched it again and I don't exaggerate when I say that I wept through this movie. Perhaps I was just in a particularly emotional mood, but after some reflection I don't think that's it. Now I realize some of you haven't watched the movie, but I hope that this will make sense regardless. So the movie's primary conflict is between joy and sadness. Joy is the leader, the frontrunner of the emotions and she's trying to keep sadness from ruining everything. For me this is what I would consider a form of suppression and it often works its way into a lot of our lives. In fact when I was a teenager this was my primary coping strategy. I would attempt to suppress my sadness and anxiety and then attempt to amplify the joy in my life. I would put off a goofy and carefree persona, at least I tried, but that came at the expense of the very real emotions that I was suppressing. You see throughout my whole life I've struggled with anxiety. I can remember as far back as like being 11 years old and needing to come forward and read a story about Billy the bunny that I had wrote to to other group of homeschoolers and I was so nervous and even in the days and weeks honestly coming up to that time where I knew I had to read that story I was so nervous I would just lie on my back on the couch and just feel my heart beating out of my chest. Then past that even into basketball I was on a community wreckley. Everybody thought it was a joke it wasn't that serious but to me it meant so much I would get so much anxiety looking at the standings each week and just I don't even know like it it disabled me basically from doing anything else when a basketball game was on the horizon or it was Saturday and the game was on Sunday I just couldn't do anything it was terrible and then when I got you know this is just a highlight of all the things that I've I don't know struggle with I guess just give you an insight at the suppression but getting my driving license that was and I was older at that point like 16 years old but that was crippling anxiety that I experienced and I just couldn't deal with it and at that point I guess sometimes it was less of suppression and just being overtaken by it but other times when I try to make make it work and make life good and pretend it was it was just a constant battle of feeling these feelings creep up and feeling anxious about feeling anxious or feeling sad about feeling sad and trying to push them down as a method of of self-protection or trying to pull out of life what I thought I should get which is joy which is happiness and that's what I wanted now more on that in a second but let's go back to the movie it's only when joy begins to realize the important place for sadness that true acceptance begins to take place and a deeper meaning is brought forward it's not a meaning based on ponies or rainbows or butterflies it's a deeper meaning built on the reality of the ups and downs of life and the peace that comes from acceptance you see this is exactly what I experienced when I watched this movie for a second time when I accept the sadness I feel I finally give myself permission to heal when I accept that sadness will come I take the reins back from fear and anxiety who are trying to help me avoid all these emotions and I finally allow myself to walk in acceptance peace and rest you see we spend so much time in our head fighting off these emotions fighting off anxiety or fighting up sadness like I spend so much of my mental and emotional energy um feeling anxious about feeling anxious or feeling sad about feeling sad I don't know if you guys can relate to that but it just drains me so quickly as Christians Jesus has offered us a better way he's invited us into a rest that's brought about by the all-consuming love and grace of Jesus that he demonstrated for us on the cross what that means practically is that though we live in a broken world we live with our eyes focused on Jesus and not allowing our emotions to dictate our actions but also not suppressing how we feel we are guided by faith not our feelings at the same time though I don't want us to become an emotionless people or start suppressing our feelings again because we're scared that they'll overtake us ultimately what we need to do is not suppress but accept we're gonna experience sadness we're gonna experience pain and suffering and depression and worry and anxiety and all those things are gonna come but when we look at life like I just want you to look at a life and so often we have an ideal being just a happy joyful no no none of the extra stuff none of the anxiety none of the worry none of the pain none of the sadness but I just think back to Inside Out that movie where sadness the emotion kind of comes over and touches all these memories and all of a sudden the memories are clouded with with blue which is kind of the the sadness and that moment is so emotionally tangible you can feel it in your bones because you know what it means sadness in a way fills out the experiences of our lives it it brings meaning and in a fullness to the human experience because joy or just positivity all the time isn't real it's not authentic to the human experiences it isn't but what is real is sadness what is real is depression what is real is is a mangled mix of emotions that come in our life and go out of our life and come in our life and go out our life we ought not let those things control us but rather see the deeper meaning in the midst of them and also regardless of what you're experiencing this is the game changer right it's not about trying to control how we feel it's about experiencing each emotion knowing that Jesus is walking with us through it and inviting him to do that so often we think we need to experience this stuff on our own that's why we want to avoid it so thoroughly we're scared of feeling anxious we're scared of feeling sad what will that bring about we're scared of visiting the hurt and pain of our past because we think that it'll leave us in shambles and it might how might our life change how might healing take place if we could actually hone into God's word that he says when he says he is the comforter when he says he will bear our burdens when he says he will be present with us like did that mean anything to us i'm not perfect at this i'm actually terrible at this i i'm like the worst person to talk about this in a way maybe i'm the best person because i fail so mightily at this but i think man it's painful to accept it's painful because it's like defeat in a way we see it as defeat if i accept that i feel sad that i'm been defeated that my ideal is gone of feeling happy of feeling joyful all the time but maybe we could have a different goal maybe instead of our our goal being just happy all the time maybe our goal could be i want to serve God regardless of how i feel i want to walk with him through it all through every emotion and take that on as as the journey hey lord we're walking this new season of life i'm experiencing new things i'm experiencing new emotions i'm not having a fun time can you help me walk in this and letting our relationship grow with god through that i don't know man i don't have a lot of advice except invite god to walk with you through it invite god to clothe you with his love and your in his peace as you experience these things and and check up on people around you like they're they're dealing with this stuff on their own and and they put up walls of protection emotional walls of of protection and suppression but a curious and compassionate community is what we all need someone that can ask questions and be compassionate about it where we can let our walls down and say this is what i'm experiencing and i don't want to put this i don't want to deny that this is how i feel but rather i want to invite jesus into it that's all i got guys i hope you enjoyed listening to the ramblings of me for this 10 15 minutes but i pray that this was healing for you maybe encouraging and thank you so much to everyone on patreon that supports what i'm doing it's such a blessing um yeah blessings guys i'll see you guys next