What Inside Out 2 Gets Right About Anxiety (And What It Can Teach Us About Our Emotions)
“Maybe this is what happens when you grow up. You feel less joy.”
This line from Pixar’s Inside Out 2 struck a chord with many people.
Not because it’s necessarily true, but because at some point in our lives, many of us have wondered whether something has changed within us. We remember being carefree as children and then find ourselves as teenagers or adults carrying worries, responsibilities, self-doubt, and anxiety that can feel overwhelming.
One of the reasons Inside Out and Inside Out 2 have been so widely loved is that they give us something many of us have spent years trying to understand: a way of making sense of our emotions.
As a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, I found myself smiling throughout both films. Not because they perfectly represent therapy or psychology, but because they capture something incredibly important:
Our emotions are not the enemy.
And perhaps nowhere is this demonstrated more powerfully than through the character of Anxiety.
Anxiety Isn’t The Villain
When Anxiety arrives in Riley’s mind in Inside Out 2, she doesn’t arrive with bad intentions.
She isn’t trying to ruin Riley’s life. She isn’t trying to make her unhappy. She isn’t trying to sabotage her friendships. In fact, Anxiety believes she is helping.
She wants Riley to fit in. She wants her to succeed. She wants her to avoid embarrassment, rejection, failure, and disappointment.
The problem isn’t that Anxiety exists - the problem is that Anxiety slowly takes over the control panel.
For anyone who has experienced anxiety, this probably feels familiar. Anxiety often begins as an attempt to keep us safe. It asks questions such as:
What if something goes wrong?
What if I embarrass myself?
What if people don’t like me?
What if I fail?
What if I’m not good enough?
These thoughts can feel exhausting, but their purpose is often protection. Anxiety is trying to predict and prevent future pain.
The difficulty is that anxiety frequently overestimates danger and underestimates our ability to cope. And before we know it, Anxiety is running the entire control room.
What If Our Emotions Are Trying To Help?
One of the most beautiful messages from both films is that every emotion has a role:
Joy helps us connect.
Sadness helps us process loss and seek support.
Fear helps us identify danger.
Disgust helps us avoid things that may harm us.
Anger helps us recognise when something feels unfair.
Anxiety helps us prepare for uncertainty.
None of these emotions are inherently bad. Yet many of us spend years trying to get rid of certain feelings.
We tell ourselves:
I shouldn’t feel anxious.
I shouldn’t be upset.
I shouldn’t be angry.
I should just be positive.
The problem is that emotions don’t work like unwanted house guests who leave when asked. The more we fight them, suppress them, or judge ourselves for having them, the louder they often become.
When One Emotion Takes Over
One of the key themes in Inside Out 2 is what happens when Anxiety begins to dominate Riley’s internal world.
Suddenly, every decision becomes focused on preventing something bad from happening. She becomes disconnected from herself, Disconnected from others and disconnected from the things that once brought her joy.
This is something I often see in therapy.
Anxiety can become so focused on protection that life starts to shrink. People stop doing things they enjoy, avoid situations that feel uncomfortable, spend hours overthinking conversations. They seek constant reassurance and to prepare for every possible outcome.
Ironically, the more we try to eliminate uncertainty, the more powerful anxiety can become.
The Goal Isn’t To Get Rid Of Anxiety
This is something that often surprises people when they first begin CBT. Many people come to therapy hoping to get rid of anxiety completely. The reality is that anxiety is a normal human emotion.
If we removed anxiety entirely, we would lose an important part of what keeps us safe.
The goal isn’t to silence anxiety - it’s to change our relationship with it. To recognise when it is offering useful information and when it is becoming overprotective.
To acknowledge its presence without automatically handing it the controls. To learn that we can feel anxious and still move towards the life we want.
Understanding Changes Everything
One of the reasons this message resonates so strongly with me is because understanding ourselves has the power to transform how we relate to our experiences.
What Therapy Can Learn From Inside Out
If Inside Out teaches us anything, it is that emotional wellbeing isn’t about happiness taking permanent control.
It isn’t about eliminating anxiety, sadness, fear, or anger. It isn’t about becoming positive all of the time.
It’s about recognising that all emotions have something to say and making room for each of them.
It’s about understanding ourselves with curiosity rather than criticism.
And perhaps most importantly, it’s about recognising that no single emotion should be carrying the entire burden alone.
Just as Riley needed every emotion in the control room, we need all parts of ourselves too.
Final Thoughts
One of my favourite things about Inside Out 2 is that Anxiety isn’t defeated or locked away. She simply learns that she doesn’t need to do everything on her own.
Perhaps there is something powerful in that lesson for all of us.
Maybe emotional wellbeing isn’t about getting rid of difficult feelings - maybe it’s about understanding them.
Listening to them.
Learning from them.
And recognising that they are often trying to help, even when their methods aren’t particularly helpful.
Because when we begin to understand ourselves, we often discover that the emotions we have spent years fighting may simply have been trying to protect us all along.
🌿 Sophie Bolam CBT