Anxiety and Joy- Kristin Ream- July 28,2024
July 28,2024
If I had to rank the things I’m REALLY REALLY good at in order from 1-10… Worrying would easily make the top 3. In fact, there are times in my life when being anxious and worrying about the future hold ALL of the top ten spots on the list of things Kristin excels at. If you look around now you can see my family nodding. Now, this isn’t a new skill for me, I’ve been first in the class at worrying since i was a little girl. I can vividly remember my dad saying “Just slow down and enjoy this moment…you don’t have to worry about what’s next.”
Spoiler alert… I was NOT cured of worrying by that statement from my dad. And, even though the Bible is PRETTY CLEAR in this scripture passage where it says “Don’t be anxious about anything; rather, bring up all of your requests to God in your prayers and petitions…
….I’m guessing I’m not alone when I say…. I’ve found some wiggle room here.
When I preached last summer, I introduced you to the term “sparkle-brained”. It’s what one of my preschool teachers lovingly described me as, when my brain jumps from one topic to the next, and they don’t seem to quite connect… but then at the end, you can see the whole picture. I’m inviting you to sparkle with me now.
I know we don’t really do this in church but— can I get a show of hands- who has seen the Disney movie Inside Out 2 that premiered this summer?
The original Inside Out premiered in 2015 and Pixar Studios took us inside our own minds. By giving emotions animated personalities, suddenly kids and parents, school teachers, and psychologists had a whole new way of connecting how our feelings drive our being. In the original film, we meet Rylie, an 11-year-old girl who has just moved out of state. We’re also introduced to 5 core emotions, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust. The emotions each have access to the “control center” in the brain, and Pixar expertly depicts how each of these original core emotions drives who we are.
Each animated character embodies the emotion they are trying to portray. Anger is a tiny red guy whose head catches on fire with every angry thought. Fear watches out for all the ways that Rylie could get physically hurt. Disgust is a fashionista who protects Riley from the horrors of broccoli and also terrible fashion choices. Sadness moves with weight and slowness and can quickly overtake all the other emotions. And joy… Joy is just delight incarnate. She is always bubbly and excited, she’s flighty, and she’s infectious. In Rylie’s childhood, Joy is firmly in control at headquarters.
If we imagine back to our childhoods, or if we look around at the children we love, we notice that they do seem to access joy so easily. Children laugh easily, love easily. By in large the children we see are just JOYFUL. My sparkle brain wondered for a moment if that’s why God wants us to have faith like a child… we’re able to access the Joy better.
In a weird time warp, Inside Out 2 premiered this June, almost a decade after the first film, but our protagonist, Rylie, aged only a year, and is turning 13. It’s clear that the Pixar writing team had a ball writing about the inside of a teenage girl brian- there’s a sar-casam, the stream of consciousness, and all kinds of other clever things- but the real stars of this film are Rylie’s new emotions, in particular, anxiety.
*play intro clip* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4rC-9NR7dk
The second set of emotions, now that Riley’s a teenager, are much more complicated. Pixar spent a lot of time researching and talking with psychologists, and they concluded that Teenagers become very self-conscious and very interested in other people’s opinions. That’s also when these more social emotions start to appear like anxiety, envy, embarrassment and on-whe.
These new emotions hit close to home not only for the teens (and preteens) in the audience but also for adults. In true cinematic animation magic, we are immersed once again into the inner workings of our minds.
For my sparkle brain, this is where we really get into the good stuff. It’s easy for us to categorize emotions as good and bad. Joy equals GOOD, anxiety equals BAD. Isn’t that what our verse from Philippians is telling us? Don’t be anxious about anything.
But, the more I learn about parenting almost teens, and loving youth group teens, and even, if I’m honest, the more I learn about being HUMAN, it’s not quite that easy.
I’m of the firm belief that God has made us all in his image, and so there is nothing, not one SINGLE thing that is inherently unloveable about us, and that includes our anxiety.
As Inside Out 2 continues, Anxiety takes over the command center in the brain, convincing herself, and the other emotions, that by looking out for all of the potential problems in the future, she’s helping Rylie. The original emotions are literally bottled up and sent away to the furthest recesses of the mind.
The longer anxiety has control over the command center, the worse things get for Rylie. Her core belief system starts to break down and worries start to take over. The climax of the movie happens when late at night before a big scrimmage, Anxiety is at the controls. She orders the staff that work in the imagination center of Rylie’s brain to make up terrible possible scenarios for the next day. Anxiety does this because she truly believes that she’s helping Ryliey avoid future discomfort, but really she’s just keeping her awake, catastrophizing wildly.
This part really hit home for me. How many of us lay awake at night imagining all the things we can’t control? There’s the little things like, I can’t believe I forgot to pick up the milk… what will we do if everyone wants to suddenly have 5 bowls of cereal for breakfast tomorrow? And the bigger things- will the boys be good humans? Am I teaching them how to be kind? How could I possibly add seminary to my plate now? Will our business make it? We worry about our parents and our teenagers and our children. We worry about our country. This election season is no joke, and we worry how we’ll make it to November. And then we worry a lot more about what happens in January. We worry about our world. About things we have absolutely no control over. About our earth. About how peace just seems impossible. We worry.
Inside out has this powerful climax moment where anxiety is trying to keep so much afloat in Rylie’s brain, that she is literally spinning out of control.
And i have to tell you…that moment felt SO relatable.
And here’s where my sparkle brain makes the Pixar movie biblical. In just that moment, where anxiety is spinning out of control and Rylie is having a panic attack, Joy makes it back.
Emma read for us in Nehemiah that the Joy of the Lord is our strength. Joy is one of the fruits of the spirit. There is no question that Joy comes from God. There’s a lot of research on the difference between happiness and joy- and I love the way that Joy is described in Berne Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart. She says that she defines joy as an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation. Brown says that top researcher Matthew Johnson shares that the very nature of joy pushes the boundaries of our ability to communicate about lived experience and that while experiencing joy we don’t LOSE OURSELVES, we BECOME MORE TRULY OURSELVES. With joy, he says, colors seem brighter, physical movements feel freer and easier, and smiling happens involuntarily. Berne says she loves thinking of joy as “the good mood of the soul”.
Okay okay…so where does all of this get us? One of our basic human emotions is Joy. As we’re formed and shaped and grow and change JOY is present. In a world where it seems like people can argue just about anything, there isn’t anyone out there claiming that JOY doesn’t exist. 1
As we grow and change, and Pixar points out, as our new emotions load, it can feel like we don’t have access to Joy anymore. One of the most heartbreaking lines in the whole movie is when Joy is trying to get back to headquarters and she says “I don’t know how to stop anxiety. Maybe that’s what happens when you grow up, you feel less joy.”
And here’s the thing. I don’t think that’s true. Joy is our gift from God, and as we grow, we find that Joy is what will quiet the anxious thoughts.
Do you ever have that thing where when you start thinking about something or pondering something, you suddenly see it everywhere? It happens to me a whole lot these days, and I’m sure some of it is AI listening and learning and cybercomputers taking over the world… But… the more peaceful thought is a lovely coincidence. This summer my email has been flooded with some of my favorite writers seeking delight.
Shauna Neiquest wrote an email earlier this month that says“You’ve heard me say a million times at least that I want to be a person who is easily delighted, who lives with an extremely low bar for delight. I want to be flooded with joy by a perfectly ripe peach, heart-bursting with happiness at the sound of my kids’ laughter, dazzled by the sky at dusk.
Shauna says, “I really do believe joy is a flywheel: the more you seek to be delighted, the more joy you’ll experience. You’ll start to see and hear and taste delightful things all throughout your day.”
She goes on to say she started a delight journal, and before she goes to bed she recounts all of the JOY in her day.
I just love this idea. I love this practice. I want that for me. I want that for YOU.
Here’s the thing. We’re created by a God who DELIGHTS in us. Our God LOVES us and KNOWS US. He KNOWS that there will be moments of anxiety and there will be moments of joy. I think that that is the heart of what paul is saying to his letter to the Philippines… when anxiety is at the controls for too long, it’s time remember to access your Joy.
The chapter in Philippians opens with Rejoice in the Lord Always…. …. Rejoice. The definition is To feel or show great joy.
The message translation of these verses further illustrates this idea. It says “Celebrate god all day, every day. I mean, DELIGHT in him. Make it as clear as you can to everyone you meet that you are on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see the Lord is near. And don’t worry! Instead of worrying, pray. Let praises shape your worries into prayers, and god will know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, of everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.”
Let your praise, your JOY shape your worries into prayers, and before you know it, a sense of god’s peace will come and settle you down.
When you feel anxiety taking over your thoughts, your command center, try to turn to delight. Maybe make a delight list of all the joy you’ve encountered. Try to access that joy- it’s there, even if it’s bottled up in the furthest corner of your brain. If you need help finding it, pray, and God will help you access it.
Our lives feel far more in balance, more peaceful, when Joy is in control. May it be so for me, and may it be so for you.
Amen.
