What Is Sadness Good For?

You ever gone into a movie and then come back out with something entirely different than what you expected? That’s how I felt watching Pixar’s Inside Out. Sure, it’s a kids’ movie. But if you’ve been around here for a while, you know that doesn’t stop me.

It didn’t this time, anyway. I came out of the movie feeling like I’d been hit in the face with a Pixar movie, a psychology lesson, and a counseling session all at once.

It really explains so much, these emotions running around in a bright, colorful version of our brains. Explains why we get random songs stuck in our head. Explains why facts and opinions get so jumbled. Even explains why cats can be perfectly calm and then need to be in the next room RIGHT NOW.

In Riley’s head, Joy is in control. At least, she was until this whole move happened and all the other emotions thought they needed control of the board. And Sadness (who is secretly Joy’s least favorite person, uh, emotion in the world) felt the need to touch everything no matter what Joy tries.

When you think about it, it’s really that misguided attempt to keep Sadness from touching everything that gets Joy and Sadness sucked up a tube and deposited in long term memory. Leaving Anger, Fear, and Disgust to rule Riley’s head.

It’s a long movie with a lot of nuances that I can’t dive into here. (Well, I could, but it’s not really necessary.)

But really, the whole journey isn’t as much about getting back to Riley’s headquarters. I mean, Joy and Sadness are stuck together for this whole journey. And along the way, Joy is forced to admit that Sadness gets some things right. Like the way she comforted Riley’s imaginary friend Bing Bong who was in danger of being forgotten. Like the way she came up with the idea to scare Riley awake to get the train of thought running again.

But that’s not enough. When it comes down to keeping Riley’s core memories entirely happy or getting them both back to headquarters, Joy chooses to go on alone.

Of course, the tube she’s taking back breaks and lands her in the dump, where any memories left fade to gray and then into ash and then into . . . nothing.

Joy wanders through the gray memories, picking up one here, another one there. “Remember this?” “Remember that?”

Finally Joy drops all the memories, wraps her arms around herself, and begins to cry. “I just wanted Riley to be happy.”

That’s when she notices the one glowing memory still scattered among the grey.

It’s one of Joy’s favorites—a time that Riley spent with her parents and her entire hockey team. But when she rewinds the memory a bit, she realizes it only came because Riley missed the winning goal and was sitting in a tree alone wanting to quit the team.

“They came to help because of Sadness,” Joy realizes.

Nobody really likes Sadness. Not many of the people watching the movie. Not her own emotional peers. In real life, we don’t like feeling sad. (I don’t, anyway.) We don’t want Sadness invading our everyday life, our memories, our anything.

It’d be so much easier to just skip and dance our way through our happy days.

But what I’d never thought about or expected when watching Inside Out was that sadness is what makes happiness possible.

The best moments of joy come from the deepest moments of sadness.

Sadness is like the listening ear that comes and sits next to us in our darkest moments. Joy is the friend that comes and helps us stand back up.

I wouldn’t know how deep joy is if I hadn’t known how deep sadness was.

I wouldn’t know how much my friends and family care about and support me if I hadn’t felt alone first.

I wouldn’t know how much God loves me and His power over the darkness if I hadn’t felt unloved and helpless first.

Sadness isn’t a place to camp out. It’s a checkpoint, a train station on the way to Joy. A checkpoint we need.

We need sadness. But we need joy too.

Luckily, I know the Source of all joy—the One Who works even sadness to lead towards the brightest moments.

*What about you? Did you like Inside Out? Any insights from your own emotional journey?*