Joy Needs Sadness: Lessons from “Inside Out”

Yes, I’m a bit late to the party, but I finally saw “Inside Out.” It was brilliant! Another fantastic screenplay from the Pixar folks. As I watched it, I kept thinking, “The writers must know the Enneagram.”

Why? Because Joy is the embodiment of Type Seven, and Sadness that of Type Four (at their average levels). If you saw the movie, you know that Joy worked super hard to keep her charge, Riley, happy and upbeat at all times. Whenever Sadness got the upper hand, Joy was right behind her, grabbing a happy memory to send down the emotion chute. Joy even went so far once as to physically remove Sadness from the scene altogether by dragging her into the library and encouraging her to read thick memory manuals (which ended up saving the day, incidentally). And she actually tried to cheer Sadness up on one occasion! How’s that for a brain tweak? And an exercise in futility?

For her part, Sadness does seem like a useless downer initially. Riley’s move sets off a chain of behavior in Sadness that causes the initial havoc of the storyline, in fact. She seems to exist solely to rain on Joy’s parade.

That’s why it’s such a genius move for the screenwriters to throw Joy and Sadness together as the heroes who must save Riley’s memories. They are each other’s shadow, as my Enneagram Four friend taught me. Neither can be complete without the other, and neither can save Riley without the other.

Throughout the film, Joy can be heard saying, “I can fix this!” in reaction to any situation that is not joyful. For her, and for Type Sevens, any state other than constant joy is something that needs to be fixed. For Sadness, and often for Type Fours, it is easy to get stuck in the painful places, unable to see what is joyful.

The pivotal scene in the film came when Joy saw that what was needed in the moment was NOT her endless cheerfulness, but Sadness. That is what would best serve Riley right then. She handed over the happy memories she’d been so carefully guarding to Sadness. When those yellow balls turned blue, I have to admit that I teared up. Because I have experienced that handover in my personality journey, and my tears were those of gratitude.

As a Type Seven, for most of my life I have fled into busy-ness and joyful activities to avoid the very deep fear that I would become trapped in emotional pain and never be able to get out of it. I didn’t understand this, of course; I just thought I was having fun. I stayed upbeat, pursued many interests, avoided sad people and sad things – mostly. Yet I couldn’t reconcile the fact that my favorite books and movies were the saddest ones. Since learning the Enneagram, I have realized that my assertive cheerfulness was just another kind of fear, and that those sad books and movies were my Four shadow calling out to me, “Come experience the fullness of life.”

This brings to mind the famous verses in Ecclesiastes 3:

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven…  A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…” I thank God for leading me (because he did) to the Enneagram, for this opportunity to begin to get free of my false self and really experience every part of life.

But this post is not just about me! The lessons of “Inside Out” and of the Enneagram are for you, too. What is your personality Type keeping you from? How does your particular fixation prevent you from experiencing the full range of emotions and experiences? If you don’t know, find out! Take an Enneagram test and start your journey to freedom right now.

PLEASE SHARE