That’s right, who knew that a movie made for 4 year olds could help a grown adult deep-dive into their emotions? I was so tired of not knowing where my emotions came from or how to handle them. I would react to situations and make decisions based on my emotional response alone. Someone cut me off? Anger. Then say unkind things. Unkind thing was said to me? Sadness. Take it personally. Running late to work? Anxiety. Speed up and text manager at the same time I was maybe going to be one minute late.
So, you get my point. It’s easy to let your emotions rule your thought process and then lead you to make poor or irrational decisions. Not to mention, recognizing and being more in-tune with your emotions can affect how often you feel those emotions. For example, someone cut me off? Empathy. Maybe that person’s rushing to the hospital. Unkind thing was said to me? Caring. I feel bad that person feels they need to put me down to pick themselves up. Running late to work? Indifferent. There’s nothing I can do about it now, other than get to work safely & let my supervisor know I’m running behind.
I’ve learned to flip my emotions to a positive. Well, most of the time. There’s no denying that we will all have bad or off-days. However, being able to recognize and navigate your emotions instead of them controlling you, is a freeing experience. How did I get such a good grip on my emotions? It takes practice and time. An everyday effort to be more self-aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. My first step to give you: watch Inside Out.
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What is Inside Out?
This movie depicts emotions as living beings within our heads. Joy, a yellow ray of sunshine with vibrant blue hair. Sadness, a short and blue droopy character who’s always moping. Anger, a red, mean-looking character with a very short temper. Disgust, a green, picture-perfect girl who can’t stand social awkwardness and bad fashion trends. And finally, the last character in the first film is fear; a skinny, purple man that’s afraid of his own shadow.
The movie follows a girl, Riley, from birth to her “tween” years (they left puberty to Inside Out 2) and her emotions during those times. By the end of the movie, one of the themes that I gathered is that our emotions are all there to help us in one way or another. Whether it’s anger or sadness, they each have a role to play in our day-to-day lives.
What are my “negative” emotions telling me?
As I mentioned, in order to hone in on your emotions you must first recognize them and learn to appreciate them. The section below will outline some emotions and why they may be in place to help you, not hurt you.
Can you believe that person cut me off? Why would he use that tone with me, I’ve done nothing wrong! This waiter better bring me some water soon or they’re not getting a tip!
We’re all familiar with these feelings, when your blood starts to boil and ears start to burn. That’s anger, frustration, and sometimes confusion. In the movie Inside-Out, Anger’s head literally light’s on fire when he takes over Riley’s emotions!
How could this feeling be helping me? Start to pay attention to what is making you angry. Is this emotion consistently coming up when you’re waiting for food? In this case, maybe Anger is telling you that you’re afraid of starving. Think of a time in your past when you went without food, what were you feeling then? Your emotions might just be a reflection of emotions or traumatic experiences that you’ve been through in the past.
Stress getting the best of you? Nothing some good ol’ stress balls can’t help with!
Sadness
Why am I not good enough? It hurt when they called me selfish. Will I ever be a better partner?
Man, sadness is a tough one. It was hard for me to believe that this feeling was doing anything other than tear me down. However, recognizing patterns of what kinds of things made me sad helped me to figure out why they were making me sad. For example, whenever my integrity gets questioned I take that very personally and generally get quite sad when my intentions get questioned. Once I recognized that my sadness was trying to tell me that I stand true by my intentions and feel bad when they’re questioned, I was able to stop taking those comments so personally. Instead, I question the comments made in hopes for more understanding.
Disgust
The reason behind disgust is pretty straightforward. Instead of the gross, moldy-bread I’ll take the fresh one. Instead of saying something that makes you “cringe,” maybe choose a more witty thought. This emotion protects children from poison, teens from social embarrassment, and adults from mis-matching their clothing or drinking car gas (despite the smell…).
Anxiety
In my opinion, anxiety can be the most helpful and hurtful emotion of all. Let’s start with a hurtful instance for example, social anxiety. Connection with other human beings is a basic human need, and unfortunately anxiety sometimes talks us out of being around other individuals. Another example would be when anxiety overtakes a beautiful situation. Let’s say you’re at a wedding, and all of a sudden those anxious thoughts of “what if I spill wine on her dress by accident?” Or “what if I make a fool out of myself on the dance floor?” Show up. Unfortunately, these thoughts are common for someone ridden with anxiety.
In my blog post 3 Attachment Styles & How to Overcome Them I give an in-depth view of what an Anxious Attachment style may look like. To give a brief summary, anxiety may cause you to consistently wonder if your partner is cheating on you, wanting to cheat on you, or just doesn’t love you at all.
Those are all examples of how anxiety is not benefitting you and your wellbeing. However, as my therapist asks me, “what are some more positive things that your anxiety could focus on?” At first, I was confused about this question. “What do you mean? Anxiety is only here to stress me out!” But then I watched Inside Out 2, and learned that anxiety can help me focus in on an important school paper, stay ahead of my finances, not forget my husband’s birthday, and so much more.
So next time you’re experiencing a strong emotion ask yourself- What is this emotion trying to tell me? And how can I flip this emotion to a positive learning experience?
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Jewelry
To be honest, no matter how much jewelry a woman has, you usually can’t go wrong with getting her more. There are, in fact, billions of different outfit combinations, and I’m sure she won’t mind having necklaces, bracelets, rings, and even earrings for each one.
Another safe gift list for your special woman. Something that she can hide away and every time she sees it, she thinks of the special Valentines when you gave it to her.
So, you’ve discovered Attachment Styles and want to know, “where in the world did I get this from?” Well, you’ve come to the right place!
Some links in this post are affiliate links that may help me earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
What are Attachment Styles?
Attachment Styles are a guide for individuals on how they handle relationships – both romantic and not. There are two categories of attachment styles, and the three subsets fit within those. The two categories are Insecure and Secure attachment types. Anxious and Avoidant belong within the Insecure type, and Secure is the third style that belongs in, you guessed it, the Secure type.
Check out the book “Attached” to get a more in-depth description.
Did my Parents Cause My Attachment Style?
To put it shortly, maybe. Our attachment style is shaped by our primary caregiver. Your primary caregiver is the person that primarily spent time with or cared for you during your early years of childhood.
“But Paige, how did someone who raised me affect my attachment style these 20, 30, or 40+ years later?” Let me tell you! So, whomever raised you taught you how much you could or couldn’t trust the world. For example, a securely attached person had a primary care giver (for the sake of, we are going to call this the “parent” moving forward) that came to them when they cried, and took care of them, almost every time. This child learned that they could trust that the world would take care of them.
However, if your parent rarely came to you when you cried and you had to fend for yourself, you learned that you cannot trust the world, and an avoidant attachment style was acquired so you could protect yourself.
Finally, an anxiously attached person had a parent that was present sometimes, but not all of the time. They learned that you can only trust if you force that trust, and check on it regularly. Therefore, the anxious attachment style was created.
Consistent vs. Inconsistent Parenting
You may notice, the theme to these differences is the consistency, or inconsistency, of care given during early childhood. Consistency looks like the parent promptly coming to help the child when they cry, giving physical needs such as food and water, and satisfying emotional needs with tenderness and closeness.
Inconsistent parenting can take two forms. First, complete and total neglect. Those horror stories that used to pop up in your Snapchat news stores? Yep. That’s what I’m talking about. This looks like a parent that lets their child cry without ever coming to their rescue. Or if they do, it’s extremely rare. The second form of inconsistent parenting is only sometimes coming to the child’s rescue. The randomness of this care causes lots of confusion for the child and, eventually, an anxious attachment style.
Read Jessica Baum’s “Anxiously Attached: Becoming More Secure in Life and Love” here.
Can I Blame my Parents?
So now that I know that my attachment style came from my parents, it’s all their fault! Right? Well, not quite. Although your parents may have set the tone for your attachment style, you have the choice to wallow in your pain and pity, or you can choose to change. It is possible to overcome your attachment style, and achieve a Secure attachment. It’s hard, and it can take years, but it’s worth every ounce of pain and grit that it takes. I know from personal experience.
So yeah, I could have sat back and practiced learned helplessness now that I know my parents caused my attachment style. However, then I never would have grown into the woman I am today! I would have been stuck checking my boyfriend’s phones, their location, and questioning every move they made. Not to mention, my attachment style led me to be with some pretty, how do I say this nicely… insignificant men.
Instead, I mastered my attachment style and am now in a secure relationship with the man of my dreams. If you want to learn more about your personal attachment style and how to overcome it, check out my other post with this link.
Which Attachment Style am I?
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Who did I spend the most time with as a young child?
Did I enjoy spending time with that person?
How much time did they spend with me?
Did that person act like they wanted to be with me?
Do I remember being well fed and cared for by that person?
If not, what did our relationship look like instead? Distant? Maybe inconsistent?
Now that I’m grown, what do my relationships look like?
Do I get jealous easily?
Do I dislike spending too much time with my partner?
My best answer to this question is, it depends. Some people are almost a secure attachment style, but they need a bit more reassurance than someone who is secure. Others are so engrained to being an insecure attachment they can hardly even start a relationship.
I would say the best way to assess how hard the transition to a secure attachment style for you would be to assess your current situation. Are you in a happy, and I mean truly happy, relationship? With no cheating, jealousy, or contentment? Then you’re probably pretty close to a secure attachment! However, if you ask yourself and the answer is no, I can’t seem to get into a relationship either because I scare people off too soon with my intensity or avoid talking to someone long enough to start a relationship, then you’re an insecure attachment style.
Overall, the first step to overcoming your attachment style is finding out your style type. This can be found by pondering your relationship with your primary care giver growing up, and the quality (or lack of quality) that relationship gave you at a very young age.
