Family Movie Night | INSIDE OUT: Why Emotions Matter So Much | Podcast

 How Pixar Shows Us the Healing Power of Sadness

Why does Inside Out hit so deep?
Because it’s not just a kids’ movie — it’s a blueprint for emotional health.

Listen to the podcast here:

In Episode 11 of This WILD Journey, we unpack the deeper lessons hidden in Riley’s journey:
🧠 How Joy’s attempt to block sadness mirrors toxic positivity.
💙 Why sadness slows us down, brings connection, and says, “This matters.”
🌱 How trauma forms without a villain — through disconnection, not just disaster.

Here’s What You’ll Learn:

• The cost of suppressing sadness

• How to spot emotional displacement in kids

• Language shifts that build emotional safety

• Why “Don’t cry” can harm more than help

🎁 FREE RESOURCE
Inside Out Family Discussion Guide — your tool for turning movie night into a safe space for emotions.

💬 Favorite Moments:
“Sadness isn’t the problem — it’s the bridge to connection.” — Bren
“What you bury, you marry. If you don’t name it, it leaks out sideways.” — Sarah

Catch this episode on YouTube:

Meet your hosts: 

🧠 Sarah McDugal – high-conflict communication strategist guiding protective parents through family court chaos with integrity, clarity, and calm under pressure (no tiptoeing, no legalese, no playing nice with coercive control)

🧬 Bren Wise Mays – neuro-sensory wellness provider translating wild-but-true neuroscience into real-world tools for resolving toxic or traumatic stress (no fluff, no fakery, no bypassing—just real regulation)

Together, we blend somatic support, legal strategy, and zero-BS tools to help you stop spiraling and start thriving.

👉 Hit follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube
👉 Share this episode in your group chat. 

THINGS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST

"Exposing the PLAYBOOK: the 3-Step Blueprint to Anticipate Your Abuser's Next Move in Family Court"

The $7 Investment That Could Save You Thousands

• What’s Inside:

  ✅ The three biggest myths that can sabotage your case before it even starts.

  ✅ The 3-step strategy to anticipate their next move before they even make it.

  ✅ The exact tactics abusers use to manipulate the system—and how to fight back.

  ✅ Insider tips to protect your sanity and self-care while navigating family court.

• Get it here.

SUPPORT WILD:

• Join the SCOOP for $17/mo (it’s like our Patreon, but with mega-perks!)

• And check out our workshops for quick, bite-size steps to clarity.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

  Welcome to this Wild Journey, the podcast where your body, your brain, and your battle plan come together.

If you're reeling from betrayal trauma, drowning in the chaos of divorce or custody court, feeling overwhelmed by post-trauma parenting, you are in the right place. We're here to untangle hard truths that bring clarity and courage so you can reclaim your power, protect your peace, and resolve trauma without reliving it.

Let's get to work.

Hey friends. Welcome back to this Wild Journey. Today we are exploring the family film masterpiece called Inside Out a film that gets right into the heart of emotional health and core memories and trauma in ways that are both brilliant and incredibly tender and age appropriate for the whole family.

With me today is my go-to trauma expert and all around brilliant human, one of my favorite people, coach Bren.

Bren, why do you think this film lands so deeply with so many people from all ages, but especially parents?

Oh, Sarah! Inside Out is one of the most emotionally intelligent films I've ever seen. It captures what so many of us never had language for.

Emotions aren't problems, they're messengers. And it shows what happens inside us when emotions get suppressed, especially ones like sadness when we teach kids or ourselves that only happy emotions are allowed.

We shut down the very parts of us that make connections possible, and that's what hits so many parents in the gut.

Because we've all been trained to say things like, "you're fine." Or "don't cry." Not out of cruelty, but out of fear or habit or helplessness.

That is so true. I mean, it, it can just be knee-jerk because that's how you were raised. Then, "hey, don't cry. Don't be a baby. You're fine. You're gonna be fine. Stop whining."

You know? Let's talk about that. Mm-hmm. One of the first big emotional moments in the movie is Riley crying at school, and it's almost like this dam just breaks.

So why is that scene so important?

Oh, yeah. That moment when sadness touches Riley's core memory and the wave breaks like her composure cracks. Not because she's weak, but because her nervous system finally can't hold it in anymore.

That's what happens when grief, confusion, fear, and frustration all get layered up with no outlet, and eventually the body says "Enough! This needs to come out."

We're wired for emotional expression and suppressing sadness takes energy. And that energy has a cost.

You say something like that quite a bit. What doesn't get felt, doesn't get healed. One of the ways I say this is, what you bury, you marry and it's gonna leak out underground and sideways if you don't deal with it.

It's two different ways of saying the same kind of thing. And in the movie, the emotion of joy keeps trying to block sadness, right?

Yeah, exactly. And Joy means well. She's trying to protect Riley from pain, but she's also a metaphor for something we see all the time: toxic positivity. The idea that if we just stay upbeat, we can bypass all the hard stuff, but we can't bypass our biology.

And what the movie shows so brilliantly is that sadness is essential.

Sadness is what slows Riley down. It brings connection. It says this matters. And in the end, it's sadness, not joy that keeps Riley connected with her parents.

That is incredibly powerful because so many kids and lots of adults grow up believing sadness is bad... that if you cry, something's wrong with you.

Yeah. That belief runs deep. And the truth is sadness is a healer. It moves grief, it draws others near, and it invites tenderness. When we suppress sadness, we don't just push down a feeling. We cut ourselves off from care and connection and even clarity. That's why Riley begins to disconnect, not only from her parents, but from her memories and from herself.

I can't help but wonder if that dissociation from the emotion of sadness doesn't play a part in why so many adult survivors end up not being really able to remember childhood memories. It just leaves me asking that question.

Okay. Let's, let's talk about the trauma side. In the film, Inside Out, there's no abuse in the traditional sense of violence or aggression, but there is trauma.

Mm-hmm.

How do we help parents recognize that?

I love this question because trauma isn't just about what happens to us. I say that over and over again. It's about what happens inside of us.

Trauma is what occurs when the nervous system gets overwhelmed and doesn't get a chance to recover. So Riley's trauma isn't caused by a villain, it's caused by emotional displacement.

She loses her home, her friendships, her routines, she doesn't feel safe to talk about it. And what we see is shut down, not rebellion, not acting out, but a slow, quiet spiral into disconnection.

That's trauma. It's not loud in this case.

It's not always visible, but it's very real.

I think that's such a huge distinction to make.

And, and the average parent is not necessarily aware of this. That trauma is what happens inside you, not just around you. So it's not just you lived in a war zone and traumatic things happened around you. Right? It's what happens inside you.

Exactly. And it's not a weakness. And this movie illustrates this through the emotions themselves.

So each of Riley's core emotions is doing its best to cope. You have joy pushing for positivity at all costs. And then you have fear bracing for the next bad thing. And anger trying to control what feels unfair. And disgust rejecting what feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar.

And then you have sadness, the one who's quietly holding the truth, waiting to be welcomed. And this is what happens in real life too. Different parts of us try to take over, hoping to keep us safe.

Okay? But parents listening are probably thinking, okay, what do I do with this?

Well, I'd say start small.

Start by welcoming emotions, not fixing them. So when your child is sad, you don't have to cheer them up. You just have to show up.

Instead of saying, "don't cry!" Why don't you try something like, "I'm here. I, I see how hard this all is."

Or instead of saying, "you're fine, you're fine." Maybe try, "that really mattered to you, didn't it?"

You don't have to be perfect. You just need to be present. Because when a child's feelings are met with presence instead of pressure, their nervous system learns, "I'm not alone with this. I don't have to shut it down to be loved."

And honestly, that is like the biggest mind blow right there. The freedom and healing that comes from whatever you're surviving, being survived in community.

You're not alone with this. You don't have to separate yourself from your emotions to be loved. It's so good for adults and kids.

I mean, we can break the next generation a little bit less by learning this as parents, and that's why we made a discussion guide to help out with that.

Right, Bren?

Yes. It's called Family Movie Night Discussion Guide: Inside Out.

Helping kids build emotional safety through story, and it's packed with age appropriate prompts and tools to help you talk about emotions and trauma responses and empathy in a way that feels natural, not forced for kids.

So you could use it with popcorn on the couch or as a bedtime conversation, or even during homeschool, whatever works for your family's rhythm.

Yep. And you can grab it for free from the link in the show notes and use it whenever you need better language to open up a conversation on these kind of topics with your kids.

Because emotional safety isn't about perfect parenting. It's about making space for real connection.

You and your kids deserve to be safe and seen in your full emotional humanity.

And we will be back next time with part two about the deeper relational patterns under the surface of Inside Out and how they show up in real families. Between now and then just remember... you do not have to walk This WILD Journey all by yourself.