Inside Out 2's Lessons in Mindfulness 🍿
I took my 3-year-old daughter to see Inside Out 2 this weekend.
Like most Pixar films, in my opinion, it's brilliant. The experience is equally refreshing and emotional for adults and children.
The first Inside Out debuted in 2015, introducing the emotions "Joy", "Anger" "Sadness" "Fear" and "Disgust" as the main characters in 11-year-old Riley's head as she navigates becoming a tween.
For the sequel, Riley is 13, and alongside puberty come new characters "Anxiety," "Envy," "Embarrassment" and one of my favorites, "Ennuie."
It was my first time taking my daughter to a movie theater and I couldn't help but watch her face as she took it all in.
While much of the movie might've gone right over her head, it struck me that this was my first time introducing emotions like "Anxiety" to her.
The character is, quite frankly, endearing.
She's frantic, yes, and desperately controlling.
But, somehow you come to believe her when she insists that Riley "think about the future!" as an excuse for an overwhelming amount of worry and scenario planning for the worst.
Anxiety wouldn’t be so hard to counteract if it weren’t so believable, right?!
Every time there was a comment or concept that I thought would be too "big" I saw my daughter smile, or wrinkle her brow. She's always been a deeply feeling child, empathetic to the bone - but I also realized...
She was excited about seeing this movie - where emotions are the characters.
And I’m excited about this, too.
One of the foundational practices in mindfulness involves learning to bring non-judgemental awareness to what we’re feeling.
Emotions are an integral part of our human experience, providing us with loads of important information about how we’re doing in the moment, which in turn helps us take the steps we need to care for ourselves.
And this need is rooted in the data. With the mental health crisis on the rise, according to a 2022 Pew Survey, the number one source of parental worry is their kid's mental health. And with rising rates of mental health issues in schools, we are seeing a new generation of our kids showing delayed development of pro-social skills.
As an organization with program tools and services that provide a solution for this, schools continue to reach out to us for age-appropriate ways to help students develop the ability to calm and care for themselves.
This is because mindfulness has been shown to support improved self-regulation and impulse control for young people (as well as adults). It also promotes enhanced kindness and compassion - to ourselves as well as others.
While we love the work we get to do in the classroom with students, we start first with the educators in the building, many of whom are parents themselves. We share basic neuroscience about how the brain and nervous system work, and then provide practices that they can build into their day to regulate their own nervous system for the holistic intergenerational benefit of learning.
From there, we help them build habits of modeling “mindful moments” with their students, share ways to integrate it throughout teaching time, and suggest age-appropriate activities rooted in play, choice and leadership.
Importantly, these moments aren’t extras they need to squeeze into an already over-crammed curriculum. They become part of the day itself.
I’m excited for my daughters' to come of age in a time when we have a deeper appreciation and respect for the power of emotional awareness and mindfulness.
And as my daughters get older, I'm taking a few pages out of my colleagues' books to make mindfulness fun, and to introduce it as a natural part of our lived experience and daily routines - just like being kind to your siblings, brushing your teeth, and eating your vegetables.
We'd love to hear from you! What resonates in your family? Your kids' classroom? With the young people in your life?
Until then, wishing you a restful holiday break,
Ella Saunders Crivello
Executive Director