What Inside Out 2 Reveals About the Diversity of Emotions

The new Pixar film explores adolescence by bringing its complicated feelings to life.

BY DEMOND HILL JR. | JUNE 18, 2024

In 2015, Inside Out hit theaters and soon became renowned for its creative and scientific brilliance. In the movie, nine-year-old girl Riley moves with her mother and father from Minnesota to San Francisco, which means she needs to navigate a new life–social, school, and home.

The emotion characters from Inside Out 2: Ennui, Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, Joy, Fear, Disgust, Anger, Sadness

Riley’s primary emotions become characters in the movie, each with their own personalities: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. The story largely takes place inside Riley’s head, in a place called Headquarters, where these emotions work together to help her to find her way in a new city–and to achieve a balanced emotional state.

Inside Out is more than just an animated film. It’s a thoughtful and profound exploration of the human emotional experience, highlighting the importance of all emotions, not just happiness, for one’s positive well-being. By creatively and empathetically portraying the inner workings of Riley’s mind, Inside Out reminds us that understanding and embracing our emotions while prioritizing positive relationships fosters a sense of safety and belonging despite the challenges we encounter.

This past Friday, Pixar released a sequel to Inside Out. In part two, Riley is now thirteen years old and she’s pushed into a new development stage, which brings to life new emotions inside of her: Anxiety, Ennui, Nostalgia, and Embarrassment, each one a complex character in its own right. She is changing. Her body is changing. Her mind is changing. Her social world is changing. As time passes and interactions unfold, her body or emotions keep the score and are reflected in her everyday behaviors. On her journey, Riley feels true pain, hurt, remorse, and, most importantly, grief—the grief of her past self–and the grace required to heal, along with the challenges of unconditionally loving the new self.

As many Greater Good readers already know, Pixar turned to the Greater Good Science Center and our faculty director (and my mentor), Dacher Ketlner, for help in grounding Inside Out and its sequel in the science of emotion. And indeed, science and art converge ever so gently in these two movies, reminding us of our innermost and outer (childlike) selves. But, when you look closer to the margins, major question is raised as a critical emotion science scholar: what does the new movie reveal about the science of our emotions, and what or who was left out of the film?

The beauty of emotion science on screen

While many scientists agree that emotions are universal and inherited, more and more scholars see how they are expressed as very social. These researchers study how our daily interactions with others shape our feelings, thoughts, and actions.

In the film, Riley’s emotions are influenced by her interactions with others and her social environment, like a hockey camp with high-school girls. Riley is shown to be easily influenced by the social expectations around her. The first Inside Out movie suggests that emotions are linked to past experiences, especially in how childhood experiences shape our understanding of feelings, ourselves, and the world.

In the new movie, Riley’s emotions intensify as she tries to maintain her relationships with her best friends while trying to impress a new group of friends. This storyline demonstrates how social expectations and norms affect our emotions and behavior as Riley shifts between the two groups.

The film emphasizes that emotions are key to communication, and her emotions help Riley build and repair relationships with her peers. Emotions/characters like Fear, Disgust, Anger, and Embarrassment act as signals to protect her in different situations, like pulling away after realizing she held her friend Val’s hand for too long. Inside Out 2 clearly shows that emotions are social and serve social functions, demonstrating that our interactions, cultural backgrounds, and everyday experiences shape our feelings.

There are also sociological perspectives on emotions. In the early 1980s, sociologists focused on feelings and emotions, exploring their role in human motivation and social structures. Many argue that emotions are inherited and biological but still shaped by historical, social, and political contexts. Although Inside Out 2 doesn’t explicitly follow this sociological view, it aligns with Arlie Hochschild’s “Emotional Labor” and “Feeling Rules” concepts.

Emotional Labor is about managing feelings and behaviors to show certain emotions publicly, often to fit in or be accepted. Feeling Rules are social guidelines that tell us how and when to feel certain emotions, varying across different contexts. In the film, Riley adjusts her emotions to get positive reactions from others, and she follows social-feeling rules, which increases her anxiety.

That concept is rarely applied to children, but my own “Emotion as Play” research examines how young African American people use Emotional Labor and Feeling Rules. Watching the film, I realized that emotional labor is like a weight people carry, and they need social, emotional, and physical effort to manage it. Riley’s struggles with moving into different spheres and fitting into them show how these pressures build up over time, affecting her deeply. In this way, Inside Out 2 highlights that adolescence is a critical time when mental health issues often become more noticeable and intense.

The scientific power of the humanities

Inside Out 2 is such a beautiful display of science and art. It opens our minds to possibilities and reminds us of how central emotions are to our humanity. However, the film missed a vital opportunity to bring to light the real stars of the show, who seemed to have been pushed out on the margins. Just where are Love, Grace, and Empathy?

While some argue that love is not an emotion in the strictest scientific sense, both science and the humanities have long considered Love–along with Grace, and Empathy–as crucial to the development of communities of wellness. By using research from the humanities, we can see how they appear in the film and how they could help build families and communities that focus on mental health and well-being. Inside Out 2 hints at these deeper connections and helps us to understand what they reveal about ourselves and each other–and they led me to reflect on how the movie highlights certain concepts from science and the humanities

A Critical Love Ethic: This is a conception of love that requires truth, understanding, and acceptance. Through her various moments, Riley was forced to sit with herself–as she spent time tossing and turning in her bed alone, her mind working, her emotions intense. It seemed like the only thing that freed her from herself and the expectation of her environment was love from her best friends Bree (of African descent) and Grace (of Asian descent). These two possess what thinkers like bell hooks, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison refer to as a Critical Love Ethic.

As bell hooks outlines, Riley is suffering from the oppressive forces of societal expectation or pressure that led to the distortion of her sense of self and, most importantly, her connection to herself. Critical Love Ethic is a counter-cultural idea that argues for collective resistance to the social norms, feelings rules, and social expectations that lead to the suppression of emotions to help create a society of human flourishing. A Critical Love Ethic equates love with strength, courage, and truth, which was displayed beautifully by both Bree and Grace as they, through the power of love, bridge differences and provide Riley the reassurance to feel safe but held accountable for her behavior without further embarrassment.

Although I yearned for love throughout the film, I found my moments and rejoiced in it because I had the chance to witness young people practice a Critical Love Ethic. Integrating love into children’s or youth films is not a superficial act but a radical act of care, compassion, and belonging that will have the power to change the world around us for all.

Grace Abundance: Grace is a multifaceted concept that encompasses love, gentleness, and a sense of inner peace and disrupts traditional definitions. In many eyes, Grace is something we all need to show others and show ourselves as the world around us gets faster and more complex. Many of us have the weight of the world on our shoulders–with stress compounding and trauma continuing to increase, taking a tremendous toll on our mental health. We are sometimes hardest on ourselves –when we do not meet expectations and deadlines or show up as our best selves. Grace is the ability to slow down, get grounded, and speak life into the nooks and crannies of your imperfections–because for others, your imperfections are beautiful, too.

Riley needs some Grace (literally and emotionally) in her life to ease the weight she carries trying to be all the things all at once. But, as marginalized groups have always done due to the realities of an unjust world, we rely on unique, often not spoken or understood emotions to uplift and, at times, resist in order to thrive. Riley’s best friends extend Grace to her, reminding her that their love is unwavering, that their care is unconditional, and that it will simply be okay. It seems to me that Inside Out 2 missed an opportunity in not explicitly naming and making space for Grace in Riley’s story.

Empathetic Desires: Empathy is the ability to understand why someone feels the way they do, why they are doing the things they do, and how that is informed by who they are as an entire person (e.g., identity, lived experiences, upbringing). Empathy requires sensitivity to the world, a desire for a deep sense of connection, and acknowledgment that other people are different from you and have different feelings.

When individuals truly understand and feel what someone else is going through, they are more likely to offer support, comfort, or assistance. This compassionate response is fundamental in nurturing and sustaining personal and professional relationships. Riley, through her ups and downs, is extended empathy by those around her, even those who she is trying to impress, like her new friend Val, who was a simultaneous source of anxiety and comfort.

Despite Riley’s awkward and quirky behavior, Val is gentle to her, comforts her, celebrates her, and cares for her. She simply wants Riley to be herself and not conform to the expectations that are both explicit and implicit. In the end, Inside Out 2 reminds me of James Baldwin’s liberating words in The Fire Next Time: “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word love here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

Demond Hill Jr.

Demond Hill Jr. is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the mental health and emotional well-being of Black children and youth, their families, and communities.

© 2024 The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

Five Practices for a Healthier Emotional Life

Source: ChatGPT

Five Practices for a Healthier Emotional Life

Inside Out 2 teaches that all emotions are useful, the difficult ones included. So how do we accept and work with our feelings?

BY LAINIE ROWELL | JUNE 13, 2024

The much-anticipated sequel Inside Out 2 premieres in theaters, making it a perfect time to revisit the science behind the original 2015 Pixar hit that brought psychological research into the public eye and emphasized the importance of embracing all emotions.

I recently talked with Dacher Keltner, one of the world’s foremost emotion scientists, the cofounder and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center, and the scientific consultant for the first Inside Out. His collaboration with Pixar brought the science of emotion to the public in an engaging and impactful way.

His message to the creators of Inside Out was that what we often label as negative emotions—such as sadness, anger, and fear—are not just inevitable parts of being human but are essential to our emotional and psychological health. “All of the emotions have their purpose,” says Keltner. “Even an emotion like envy can lead you to good things if you use it in the right way and don’t hurt people.”

Sadness, anger, and fear connect us deeply with others, foster empathy, and serve as crucial alerts in our lives. Rather than suppress these feelings, argues Keltner, we should acknowledge and manage them. In some contexts, we may even want to lean into these emotions. For example, we might want to leverage an emotion such as anger in competitive settings like sports or an academic debate.

Keltner’s work continued with Inside Out 2, which explores more complex emotions such as anxiety. That’s timely, given that 30–40% of young people are grappling with anxiety or depression. As the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Marc Brackett, explains, anxiety does serve a purpose, like all so-called negative emotions.

“Anxiety narrows our attention and improves our focus on details,” Brackett says. “It makes us anticipate what could go wrong. That may not seem like a feeling we’d welcome, but it’s a good frame of mind when we’re performing tasks involving numbers, such as finances.” Anxiety, while uncomfortable, prepares us for effective action by alerting us to potential dangers.

“The film arrives at a thesis that really you can find in all the great contemplative traditions, like Buddhist meditation, prayer, etc.: Be kind to yourself, be open and accepting of all human experiences,” says Keltner.

We need these emotions to guide us, serving as signals and signposts that help us stay safe—even alerting us when professional help may be necessary, especially when these intense and unpleasant feelings are pervasive and relentless.

Thus, embracing the full spectrum of emotions helps us understand their purpose and manage them effectively. According to Keltner, Brackett, and other emotion scientists, the goal isn’t to completely eliminate certain emotions but to regulate them so that we don’t have too many occurrences, can avoid overreaction, and don’t stay in those unpleasant emotions too long.

But how do we do that? Managing unpleasant emotions effectively involves more than just understanding them; it requires active engagement in practices that transform our relationship with these emotions. Here are insights and strategies I’ve gleaned from a few of my interviews with leading social scientists and my own exploration into the science.

Self-compassion: “The self-criticism that my students at Yale experience is just terrible,” says Laurie Santos of Yale University. She teaches that a better path to pursuing their goals and to motivating themselves could be through more self-compassion. She went on to share, “When they try it out, they start to realize . . . being kind to myself is actually pretty helpful and makes me procrastinate less and obviously makes me a lot happier.”

Strategy: Write a letter to yourself from a compassionate friend’s perspective. This form of psychological distancing has us using “you” and “your” and could look something like, “You’ve been pushing yourself really hard. Just a reminder that perfection isn’t the goal; progress is. Every step you take is bringing you closer to where you want to be. Keep going. You’re doing your best, and that’s enough.”

• Self-Compassionate Letter

  Stop beating yourself up for flaws and mistakes

  Try It Now

Awe: Dacher Keltner describes awe as essential for mental and physical well-being. “There’s nothing better for you than a few minutes of awe,” claims Keltner. “It’s good for your immune system, it’s good for your heart, it’s good for your digestion, it’s good for your brain, it’s good for your sense of self, it’s good for your relationships.” This emphasizes how everyday encounters with awe can transform our lives.

Strategy: Everyday awe is attainable; we can use “awe outings” to appreciate the physical vastness and novelty in the world around us. Reflect on these transcendent moments to amplify their benefits and share the wonder with others to boost connectedness.

• Awe Outing

  Find wonder and inspiration in the world outside

  Try It Now

Gratitude: Science reveals that gratitude can have an outsized, positive effect on well-being and relationships. Researcher Andrea Hussong suggests a practical approach to practicing gratitude focusing on “notice, think, feel, do”:

• Notice the things in your life that you can be grateful for.

• Think deeply about why you have been given this thing you value.

• Reflect on how you feel about the gift you have been given.

• What can you do to express appreciation?

The first three prompts are really about reflecting to experience gratitude, and the last prompt is a call to action to express gratitude.

Strategy: Gratitude journaling leads to better health and happiness, and there is no one way to do it. Consider using the “notice, think, feel, do” approach in your journaling to deepen the practice. We want to focus on depth over breadth and get specific on what we are grateful for. Possible topics include everyday things, family members, friends, health, coincidences, nature, experiences, tough times, places, or life lessons.

• Gratitude Journal

  Count your blessings and enjoy better health and happiness

  Try It Now

Connection: Robert Waldinger’s research underscores the importance of maintaining robust social connections, which he calls “social fitness,” for both emotional and physical health. He shares, “‘Social fitness’ was a way to signal this is something you want to do every day, every week, small actions, just to keep in contact with the people you care about and to strengthen the connections you have with the people who are most important to you.” The power of our social bonds are not just about grand gestures, but more about the small, consistent acts of connection.

Strategy: Enhance social fitness by engaging in regular social activities, maintaining friendships, and participating in community events that cultivate strong interpersonal bonds. We can even make small talk with a stranger for social fitness.

• Small Talk

  Strike up a brief conversation with a stranger to feel happier

  Try It Now

Kindness: “No one has ever become poor by giving,” Anne Frank famously noted, illustrating how prosocial behavior not only nurtures relationships but also plays a crucial role in our happiness. Performing acts of kindness mitigates stress and improves our mood, creating a cycle of positivity that strengthens our emotional resilience and enriches our social interactions.

Strategy: Even small acts of kindness can have a huge impact on the giver and the receiver. This could be anything from complimenting a coworker, helping a neighbor, or sending a thoughtful message to a friend. Capturing these acts in a journal can also magnify the positive results, making us more aware of our contributions to others’ happiness and our own.

• Random Acts of Kindness

  How to feel happier by doing things for others

  Try It Now

These practices not only regulate emotions and reduce stress but also promote a greater sense of community. Keltner points out that “one of the fascinating things about the transcendent emotions—awe, compassion, gratitude, bliss, joy—is that they potentiate each other. And in a state of awe, what our studies show is people feel more generous, more cooperative, more humble, less self-focused. They’re more likely to see the humanity in other people.”

Every emotion, from joy to jealousy, sadness to satisfaction, has a purpose in our lives. As demonstrated in Inside Out and further explored in Inside Out 2, these emotions are not random but are essential components of our human experience, uniquely contributing to our personal growth and understanding.

Reflecting on the sequel, Keltner highlights a vital message: “I think [Inside Out 2] has a profoundly important message for our time about young people accepting themselves and valuing the right things, like friendship.” This insight underlines the significance of self-acceptance and the value of meaningful relationships in navigating today’s complex emotional landscapes.

Let’s actively engage with one of the strategies we’ve discussed—whether it’s taking awe outings, practicing positive self-talk, or strengthening social connections—and integrate it regularly into our lives. Learning from our emotions and applying these strategies, we can thrive, becoming more resilient and compassionate individually and collectively.

 © 2024 The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing, focusing on community building, social-emotional learning, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn postgraduate degrees in education. An international keynote speaker, Lainie has presented in 41 states as well as in dozens of countries across four continents. She is the author of Evolving with Gratitude and the lead author of Evolving Learner. Her latest, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You & By You, is an innovative and interactive gratitude journal that empowers individuals of all ages to embrace their unique preferences and express gratitude in their own way.

Seven Ways to Be an Emotionally Intelligent Leader

Emotional intelligence skills can improve your well-being and help you be a better leader.

BY ROBIN STERN, JANET PATTI, KRISTA SMITH | JUNE 5, 2024

David, a school counselor, took a deep breath when he saw a missed call from his principal. As he touched the screen to call back, he braced for the “bark and the bite” he was accustomed to hearing from Principal Carrie.

This time was different.

In fact, he told us he was stunned when the voice that picked up sounded kind, even cheerful. He couldn’t believe it. After years of working together, he had grown to dread interactions with Principal Carrie, as had most of his colleagues. But this was clearly a different version of her. Who was this new principal, and what had she done with Carrie?

Carrie was finishing up a year of engagement in emotionally intelligent leadership coaching—a program designed to enhance leaders’ well-being through education and training in social and emotional skills.

Recent research from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence supports the notion that emotionally intelligent school leadership predicts educator well-being, and we know that well-being and emotional intelligence skills are necessary for effective leadership, especially in times of crisis—from higher job satisfaction to lower emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions. Indeed, even when leaders, especially in education, have little to no control over their environment, they have control over their own behavior and can still cultivate a culture of healthy relationships and emotionally intelligent responses to uncontrollable circumstances. School leaders who have decided to invest in their own emotional intelligence and well-being consistently report interactions like the one between David and Carrie.

But doing so is no easy feat. Carrie came to us as many school leaders have in recent years: chronically stressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted. The job she loved was feeling increasingly unsustainable. Her distress was also affecting her colleagues, to the detriment of teachers and students alike. Carrie had been in education for nearly 25 years, but it was the last four years that had shaken the sustainability of her career. And who could blame her?

Ever-shifting rules, regulations, and ripple effects of the pandemic brought demands on school staff and leadership to a peak, straining an already turbulent educational landscape. Monitoring COVID-19 absences, distributing laptops in bulk, adapting curriculum for uncharted virtual territory, and consoling frightened, grieving students and families suddenly became daily tasks for which school leaders were held accountable.

Those new responsibilities added to pre-existing pressures and crises that they were already navigating daily, such as teacher turnover, inequitable funding, politicization of learning material, mental health, school safety, standardized testing, and, of course, the overwhelming influence of social media, artificial intelligence, and technology. Altogether, these factors created a web of uncertainties and challenges so great for even the most effective, seasoned leader to sustain.

So, where does that leave school leaders like Carrie?

While she could not fix, on a day-to-day basis, the systemic problems that made her job so stressful, Carrie could invest in her well-being by regularly practicing emotion regulation techniques and modeling these behaviors for others, like practicing reframing and turning moments of harsh criticism to compassion. While she could not eliminate the stress, she could be more committed to getting more sleep, cutting down on sugar, and walking 10 minutes a day—activities that will positively affect mental and physical well-being. It is crucial that school leaders have the tools to realistically assess what they can and can’t do to create greater well-being and leader effectiveness.

And this is just what Carrie did—and all school leaders can do—using strategies provided in our new book, Emotional Intelligence for School Leaders. We offer tips for harnessing a healthier you and, in turn, healthier relationships. It’s this emotionally intelligent leadership that will help you to not just survive but thrive in the ever-demanding landscape of education.

Emotional Intelligence for School Leaders (Harvard Education PR, 2023, 304 pages)

Check in with your emotions regularly—and honor them. Before rushing into the hectic schedule of each day, pencil in time to sit and reflect on how you feel. Your emotions give you important information. They are not something to simply ignore or push away. Your emotions will inevitably influence your conversations, behaviors, and relationships whether you notice it or not (recall David’s long-held impression of Carrie). Prior to a meeting, event, or other obligation, prioritize a few minutes to honor and assess your own well-being. This could be through silent reflection, journaling, or even apps on your phone like How We Feel, a handheld journal that helps you name, track, and better understand your emotions.

Regulate your emotions. Checking in with your emotions is one crucial piece of the emotional intelligence puzzle; you have to be able to name it to tame it. Regulating, or managing, those emotions is another. While feeling joyful or proud may not require strategies to help you stay grounded, feeling angry or burned out certainly do—and you may experience all of these emotions on any given school day. Identify strategies that are sustainable and beneficial for managing your big emotions in challenging moments, such as mindful breathing, meditation, or pausing your schedule to take a walk outside before a demanding situation overwhelms you. Such practices don’t actually take up much time—just a few minutes—but the benefits are evergreen.

Establish clear boundaries and stick to them. We know how hard this one can be. In an environment that constantly asks you to say “yes,” we challenge you to say “no” more often. This can look like rescheduling a meeting (or canceling it if it “could’ve been an email”) or extending a deadline for your colleagues so everyone has some breathing room. Leaning on emotion regulation techniques above, identify circumstances that are most emotionally taxing for you, which tasks you can delegate to others (don’t be afraid to ask for help!), and where you can reallocate your energy for better use.

Listen with empathy and without judgment. School leaders cannot afford to be “too busy” to listen to each other and elicit feedback in school settings. Active listening builds trust. The moment we are too overbooked to engage in authentic conversation with colleagues, we can quickly lose our emotional regulation, our boundaries, and our purpose. It’s a slippery slope to devolving into unhealthy, transactional relationships. Even in the most strenuous circumstances, aim to be an emotion scientist—curious about your own and others’ emotions—and a learner, not just a responder in times of crisis.

Reflect often. It is critical that school leaders create safe spaces or practices dedicated to self-care through self-reflection. Some leaders pipe in music to create a meditative environment throughout school hallways, others close their doors to give themselves space when needed. Some take a five-minute walking meditation outside the school. We have seen more and more leaders embrace personal/professional coaching to create regular time to reflect on actions taken, decisions to be made, and emotional responses. Because leadership entails co-regulation, reflection leads to opportunities for strengthening your own emotion regulation muscles as well as co-regulating with others.

Nurture your relationships. The people you work with will enhance your mood or squash it. And you can enhance or squash theirs. Aim to be the enhancer by greeting people with a smile, asking them how they are feeling and taking time to listen to the answer, creating opportunities for everyone’s voice to be heard, giving others a shoutout when they achieve, and remembering to be a curious emotion scientist. Investing time and energy in your relationships will make all the difference in building trust and motivation needed for others to wholeheartedly join you in making your vision a reality.

Model for others. Emotions are social and contagious components of life. When you prioritize your own emotional well-being, boundaries, and interpersonal relationships, it shows and it rubs off on others. Just as annoyance or frustration from your morning meeting can spill into your afternoon check-in, so can your balance, appreciation, or gratitude. In using the techniques we’ve discussed, you simultaneously model for others what emotional intelligence looks like in practice to the benefit of your students, staff, and self.

© 2023 The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

Six Ways to Deal With Someone Who Wronged You

Here's what we have learned from 25 years of research about forgiveness—and its alternatives.

BY EVERETT L. WORTHINGTON JR.

MAY 15, 2023

If you had experienced a serious hurt or off ense 25 years ago and you wanted to forgive,you generally would look to simple willpower or perhaps religion for the strength to doso. Science had little to offer. Back in 1998, Michael McCullough and his colleagues found 58 good studies about the nature of forgiveness. As for interventions, only a handful of studies—and a meager handful at that—had been published. And most of them were demonstration experiments with very few participants.

In early 1998, research into forgiveness dramatically accelerated. In the 25 years since then, thousands of studies have been done. Recently, the new book I co-edited with Nathaniel G. Wade, Handbook of Forgiveness, 2nd edition, includes over 30 qualitative review chapters. Each chapter described multiple studies on such things as how forgiveness is related to mental health symptoms, addictions, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as to well-being and flourishing. Other reviews of research described how forgiveness can benefit relationships with loved ones, work colleagues, friends, and societies. Still other research detailed how it can lead to lower cortisol (a primary stress hormone) and higher oxytocin (the so-called bonding peptide) soon after experiencing it. They showed how heart rate variability, a measure of ability to self-soothe, increased. Some found better overall physical health if forgiving is practiced often.

So, in that brief 25 years, we have found out much about forgiveness—and how to help people who want to forgive to do so more efficiently and effectively. We also know that forgiveness alone does not have to do all of the work in dealing with injustices. People can seek justice, relinquish the matter to a higher power, tolerate the injustice, forbear, or accept and move on with their lives. They can also lower their emotional arousal through practicing mindfulness. But for those who choose to pursue it, forgiveness is very beneficial. Here are six new findings that can help you reduce your interpersonal stress, depression, and anxiety, while increasing your flourishing and hope.

1. Think about forgiveness like a scientist

In recent years, scientists have found three major ways to help people forgive. First, we can ponder how forgiving helps the forgiver. Second, we can understand the role of perceived injustices to help us to deal with the injustices life throws at us. Third, we can use many ways of dealing with injustices, forgiveness being only one.

By thinking about the benefits to themselves, people get a leg up on forgiving. Merely dwelling on the benefits for about 10 minutes can motivate forgiveness. We actually found that from our randomized controlled trials studying the REACH Forgiveness intervention. We had people spend comparable time to the time spent in forgiveness groups familiarizing themselves with the benefits of forgiving to the forgiver. Whether they contemplated benefits to themselves for eight hours, six hours, five hours, two hours, one hour, or just 10 minutes, they had about an equal amount of forgiving—and it was substantial, though not as much as the active interventions. Funny how science sometimes works: Even our “placebo control group” consistently helped people forgive.

The essence of science is to keep an open mind to new and often unexpected possibilities. Then, we test them out and see which ones work.

2. Remember that we have options

By recognizing that we have options to handle injustices other than forgiving, we take pressure off of forgiving.

We all “keep score” after we’ve been hurt. The injustice gap is an ongoing subjective tally of how much perceived injustice is attached to each hurt or offense. The injustice gap was proposed in 2003, but a good measure did not exist until 2015. Theory (and experience) told us that our sense of injustice increased if people refused to acknowledge that they had hurt us or kept piling on hurts. However, our sense of injustice was usually reduced when offenders apologized, made amends, and sincerely asked for forgiveness. The larger the perceived injustice gap, the more difficult it is to deal with. In fact, sometimes the injustice gap seems so large it seems like a canyon that feels impossible to leap rather than a gap we can step across with forgiveness.

By realizing that forgiveness does not have to do all of the heavy lifting needed to deal with large injustice gaps, people’s flexibility is increased. We can mix many actions to reduce their sense of injustice to where it is manageable by forgiving. Here are some options.

Actively wait. We might use active waiting. Most forgiveness happens quickly without much effort. McCullough and his colleagues invited people whose hurts were raw to rate their forgiveness daily for 18 days. On the average, most forgave, accepted, or just forgot within 72 hours. Actively waiting worked well. Except when it didn’t. McCullough and his colleagues plotted individual responses. Some instantly forgave. Others quickly did so. Some eventually did so. Most people were quite resilient. But some seemed stuck in the same level of unforgiveness for weeks. Others just seethed and got worse as the weeks went on. The lesson: Forgiveness is very individual. We also know that even if we usually are quick to forgive, we aren’t always equally willing to let go of resentment.

Look for justice. One way to reduce a large perceived injustice gap is to see justice done. Sometimes that is as simple as seeing bullies get their just desserts—like the guy who ran me off the road on my bike one morning and got a ticket for speeding within one mile of his disrespectful, aggressive driving. I didn’t hold a grudge. He got what he deserved.

Stop striving. We can reduce our sense of injustice by actively turning the matter over to God, fate, or karma. When we stop striving, we can begin thriving.

Decide to put up with it. There are four levels of putting up with the injustice. First, we could just minimize it—no big deal. That little cognitive trick rarely fools anyone, least of all ourselves. So, that way of putting up with an injustice is not usually recommended.

Second, we could grit our teeth and tolerate it. That has costs that can twist our gut and increase our internal stresses even though it might ease external and interpersonal stresses.

Third, and better for relationships, we could forbear. Forbearance is putting up with the wrongdoing for the sake of the relationship or group harmony. This does not have to mean that we cave in and do turtle to keep from ruffling our partner’s, boss’s, or work colleagues’ feathers. But forbearance can actively embrace refusal to respond negatively so that we benefit our relationship.

Fourth, and better for our individual peace of mind, we could practice acceptance. We could accept that life is too short to hold on to bitterness. Then, when we feel a trigger to negatively react, we might practice mindfulness.

Of course, there are not-so-good ways that we do try to reduce unforgiveness. Condoning or justifying or excusing or forgetting what was done will not lead to healing, necessarily. And, of course, it doesn’t help to seethe in grudge-holding or seek vengeance either passively or actively. That’s why we need to think flexibly about our options, instead of fixating on forgiveness. That’s not the only way to deal with injustices. We can mix these legitimate coping strategies to shrink the injustice gap.

3. Get ready to try actively to forgive

Think about the most difficult thing you ever successfully forgave. By remembering that, you can prove to yourself that you can forgive—even the hard things. Then commit yourself to trying to forgive and to spend time forgiving.

Analyses of many studies show that time spent trying to forgive is the best predictor of successful forgiving. Remind yourself of the benefits to yourself of forgiving. They are many. Forgiving improves your relationship, mental health and flourishing, spirituality, and immediate physical health and long-term physical health, if you practice forgiveness over time. Decide whether you need to try low-effort approaches first or need a full-court press to forgive. If you opt for therapy—one of the full-court presses—it is good to do a six-hour or two-hour DIY forgiveness manual first to make your therapy time smoother.

4. Consider shortcuts

People seeking to forgive have an abundance of options. Here are some shorter-term versions.

Religions and philosophies have touted forgiveness for hundreds of years; your minister, rabbi, imam, or priest can lay out the path for you. Supportive communities that practice forgiveness have developed methods that are tried-and-true. The internet provides a dizzying array of choices, from Greater Good to Mayo Clinic to Focus on the Family to Psychology Today and far beyond. There are brief videos, podcasts, blogs, and helpful (uh, and a few unhelpful) reactions to posts. Many of the internet sources draw (unsystematically) from published protocols that have been vetted by randomized controlled trials. Some psychologists have websites that offer resources.

5. When needed, rely on evidence-based interventions

Evidence-based interventions are often longer-term fixes. In 2014, Nathaniel Wade and his colleagues analyzed 53 randomized controlled trials to promote forgiveness. The studies sampled around 2,300 participants. They found four major things:

• Two programs each had been supported by about one-third of all studies (my REACH Forgiveness model summarized in the sidebar below and Robert Enright’s process model).

• Both programs were equally effective per hour of treatment, and both were equal to all other programs combined.

• The more one tried to forgive, the more forgiveness one experienced.

• Forgiveness interventions not only helped people forgive, they also were associated with reduced depression and anxiety and increased hope.

These programs have been vetted worldwide and are available in psychoeducational groups, DIY workbooks, psychotherapy, couples therapy, and group therapy. A newer qualitative review of research since the 2014 meta-analysis, by Nathaniel Wade and Marilyn Tittler, sampled around 1,800 participants. Its findings supported the 2014 findings.

A huge study at six sites in five countries on four continents was recently led by Man Yee Ho from Chinese University in Hong Kong. It investigated the effectiveness of REACH Forgiveness using a two- to three-hour DIY workbook. The workbook was a response to the global mental health movement that seeks to make mental health treatments available to people who cannot afford the money or time to do psychotherapy.

Ho’s colleagues sampled almost 4,600 participants (more than doubling the samples of all previous randomized controlled trials added together). They found increases in forgiveness and flourishing and decreases in depression and anxiety. In addition, trait forgivingness (i.e., one’s general disposition to forgive) increased, suggesting that people became more confident that they could forgive future transgressions. The workbooks are available free of cost in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Ukrainian, and Indonesian—able to reach over two-thirds of the world’s population in their first language. The REACH Forgiveness steps have also been embedded within couples therapy and self-forgiveness treatments.

6. You can forgive even the hard-to-forgive hurts

Three particular types of hard-to-forgive hurts require special effort. These are people who hurt us often, huge hurts, and a combination of repeated huge hurts.

The frequent offender. Forgiving a romantic partner, work colleague with whom you must have frequent contact, or toxic family member is a challenge. These people create large injustice gaps that keep growing, especially if each instance is not dealt with quickly. Co-rumination between the two parties—in which both parties are marinating in how deeply wounded they are—or co-rumination involving a trusted and supportive third party who feeds our hate can keep the wound fresh. A well-meaning third party can, while being empathic and compassionate, keep us stirred up. How can repeated hurts be forgiven?

After several hurts or offenses, we tend to generalize from events to the person. We think, I can’t forgive her! But understanding how generalization happens gives us a clue to forgiving the hard-to-forgive. We pick a single hurt—usually one that might be symbolic of other hurts from our offender—and we forgive it. Then we pick another hurt. And another. Generalization can then work for us because we can get to the place where we think, I forgive her. So, Tip #6a is this: For repeat offenses, forgive one hurt at a time.

The big event. Sometimes it is the sheer magnitude of harm that makes it seem impossible to forgive. The injustice gap seems as large as jumping the Mississippi River. Some people, by willpower, can forgive such events, but for most of us who do not have that superpower, we must eat away at the size of the injustice gap by using those alternatives. Tip #6b is this: Use the alternatives to forgiveness.

Repeated big events. Of course, the hardest of all are big events that are repeated, like physical, sexual, or emotional abuses, repeated discriminatory acts, gaslighting, and bullying. Those often require forgiveness therapy after one has dealt with the trauma or PTSD of the harm. Enright’s process model has been adapted for long-term treatment, and is the most supported model for such treatment.

If you want to, you can forgive virtually anything. The REACH Forgiveness workbook won’t take away all unforgiveness, in the same way that a COVID vaccine won’t make us forever immune to the virus. But it is a great start. And, remember, you can deal with injustices in ways other than forgiving. While a lot of recent research has documented the relationship, mental health, spiritual health, and physical health benefits to the forgiver, recent research has shown that you can begin to reap those rewards in as little as two hours.

THE REACH FORGIVENESS METHOD

Think about the hardest thing you ever successfully forgave. Remind yourself that you CAN forgive.

Rehearse the benefits to yourself of forgiving, and know that forgiveness might help your relationship, if it is safe, prudent, and possible to reconcile.

Work through the five steps to REACH emotional forgiveness.
--R = Recall the hurt as objectively as you can.

--E = Empathize with the one who hurt you. Try, if possible, to see things from their viewpoint. If you can’t, use sympathy, compassion, or even love (particularly in romantic relationships) to replace the negative unforgiving emotions.

--A = Altruistic gift of forgiveness. No one deserves forgiveness. Forgiveness is your choice. If you choose to give it, it is an altruistic gift.

--C = Commit to the emotional forgiveness you experience.

--H = Hold on to forgiveness when you doubt that you’ve really forgiven.

Seek to make a decision to forgive, which is deciding not to pay the person back but to treat the person as a valuable and valued person. This is about your intention to treat the person differently.

Try to solidify your forgiveness by applying the REACH steps and making a decision to forgive in several other relationships that are not characterized by full forgiveness.

Everett L. Worthington Jr.

Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Ph.D., is Commonwealth Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University and co-editor (with Nathaniel G. Wade) of Handbook of Forgiveness, 2nd ed. (2020, Routledge). He studies forgiveness, humility, and other character strengths and virtues within positive psychology.

© 2023 The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

Four Ways We Avoid Our Feelings—and What to Do Instead

Avoiding our emotions is not good for our mental health. A psychologist explains how to break the habit and embrace your vulnerability.

BY SABDRA PARKER | MARCH 30, 2023

When was the last time you felt anxious, with your body braced and on edge? It could have been when your partner was late coming home and you couldn’t reach them on their cell, your computer crashed just before a deadline, your child had a full-on tantrum in the grocery store, or you were waiting on medical test results. In that moment, how did you respond?

Maybe you grabbed a bag of cheese puffs, or had a sudden impulse to tidy the kitchen, or found yourself online shopping for that incredibly useful cauliflower corer. Maybe you noticed your racing heart or shallow breathing and started to worry about having an illness. Perhaps you distracted yourself tackling 14 things on your to-do list. Or you had an irresistible urge to check your social media feeds or watch endless TikTok reels of dancing cats. Or maybe you started telling yourself threatening stories (“What if they’ve been in an accident?”; “There’s something wrong with me”; “I can’t cope”; “I shouldn’t be feeling this way”).

In my experience as a psychologist working with clients for 30 years, what is going on in these moments is we are escaping from our inner lives—and this happens when we are confronted with vulnerability. We are triggered by uncomfortable sensations in our bodies heralding emotions stirring beneath, and we do anything rather than face them.

Many kinds of suffering can arise from this. Indeed, research suggests people who avoid emotion tend to have higher pain levels, increased cardiovascular risk, and higher cancer rates, as well as increased depressionn, anxiety, and problems in relationships.

Instead of avoiding what we feel when we are vulnerable, we need to shift our approach. We need to slow down and truly feel our bodies, so we can soothe our nervous systems and access our underlying emotions. When I guide clients to do this, they are able to let go of the urgent need for certainty and control that leads to anxiety problems, release the self-criticism that leads to apathy and depression, and remain present with their vulnerability and benefit from the healthy power of emotion. And this is something you can learn to do, too.

How to recognize unrest

We are always vulnerable, with limited control over the things that matter to us. Maybe you want your brother to quit drinking or your kids to get along or your boss to stop being so critical, or you want to protect those you love from harm or you want an end to world hunger and climate change, or you want this magical moment where everyone is all together at Thanksgiving feeling so close and connected to last forever. Whether we want things we like to always stay the same, or we want things we don’t like to change, it is not entirely in our hands. And just when we are confronted with our vulnerability, a physical feeling disrupts us.

I call this “unrest”: our physical experience of vulnerability, announcing the ideal moment to tune in and spark our growth. And here is the predicament: Unrest causes nervous system activation—a knot in the stomach, braced muscles, shallow breathing, sweaty palms, faster heart rate—and the brain unconsciously interprets this as danger.

This is the moment we usually turn away—toward social media or eating or productivity—but we don’t have to. The first step in embracing our feelings is to differentiate unrest from fear and anxiety. This is not easy to do because unrest, anxiety, and fear activate the same area of the brain and feel identical in the body, despite serving very different functions.

You can recognize anxiety as the avoidant thing you do after unrest stirs you, when you are trying to distract yourself or fix the physical discomfort in your body. Anxiety lets us fantasize that we can control outcomes—the futile “if only” and “what if’s” we often linger upon. Unfortunately, our anxiety lies to us, amplifying (in my experience) our uncomfortable bodily sensations.

Fear, meanwhile, is the core emotion that warns us of immediate threat to life and limb, directing us to fight or flee. Quickened reactions, strengthened muscles, and enhanced lung capacity are lifesaving. In these instances, our physical reactions are not a problem; they are not too much or “stressful.”

If we are afraid of something in the future or the past—anticipating a dangerous possibility or recalling a past danger—we are experiencing anxiety, not fear. This is one of the hardest things for chronically anxious people to accept: that their worry is a story, a prediction, a possibility, but it is not danger.

Four ways we avoid our feelings

Becoming familiar with the ways you typically avoid and escape allows you to tune in even if you missed the initial call of unrest, letting you come home to the body, soothe unrest, and feel. Here is what to look out for.


This essay is adapted from Embracing Unrest: Harness Vulnerability to Tame Anxiety and Spark Growth (October 2022, 274 pages) with permission from Page Two Books.

Minimizing and distracting. We may brush off inner experience as “no big deal.” We might even feel our indifference to discomfort is strength, and there’s no point in feeling, especially when we cannot make outcomes bend to our will. We ignore and neglect our bodies’ signs of stress and may push through our limits until we risk exhaustion, burnout, depression, and physical illness.

For example, my client Aaron didn’t even realize how agitated and tense he was. His habit was to ignore his feelings and just push on at work, blaming himself when things went wrong. His sleep got worse and he became impatient with colleagues. He only started to seek help when his doctor insisted that his gastrointestinal problems were caused by stress.

Control and worry. Sophia came into my office for help with anxiety. “I am too uptight. I haven’t slept properly in years. I wake up at night and just can’t get back to sleep. . . . I get thinking about certain difficulties in my life and I can’t let go; my mind is like a dog with a bone.”

Sophia thought of herself as someone who was tuned in to her body. But the problem wasn’t a lack of attention, it was that she only checked in to “fix” the anxiety, to “make it go away.” Sophia was arguing with reality, feeling she should be a certain way and worrying in an effort to get control and certainty in a world that has neither.

Self-attack. If self-criticism is a deep-seated habit, you may have learned in childhood that your vulnerability leads to abandonment, after being left alone in moments of strong emotions. And so you tell yourself that if you tried harder or were smarter, a better person, more lovable or attractive or stronger or not as gullible or more patient or acted sooner…then things would go better. These lies create a harsh inner environment that can lead to flattened emotional experience, low self-worth, and potentially depression.

The emotional masquerade. If it looks like sadness and walks like sadness and talks like sadness, is it sadness? Nope. Sometimes other feelings are employed to remove you from pain. If anger was not OK in your childhood environment, you may get weepy and look sad when you get into an argument with your partner. If sadness was regarded as weak, you may appear angry and push people away when you feel sad. You may feel guilty when you feel angry toward someone you care about. These “faux feelings” can keep you stuck if you don’t access the emotions underneath.

How to embrace unrest

Embracing unrest is a journey for life, without a perfect endpoint. It’s about changing your way of being with yourself when you don’t feel good, so when unrest calls, you approach discomfort and access the power of your emotion. Below are two practices to help you rewire your brain to notice and soothe unrest.

1. What’s your ringtone? Like a telephone, unrest has a unique ringtone that lets us know it’s just for us. Our job is to learn our ringtone so we can quickly notice and respond to the call.

In a few sentences, jot down something that is troubling you. Let yourself be aware of the gap between what you want and your ultimate control over the outcome. Pick up your smartphone to video yourself as you describe your vulnerable situation. When you have described it fully, turn off the camera and play the video back.

Observe your body in the video. Be curious, and really “listen” for your ringtone. You have hundreds of muscles, and some will signal more intensely than others—you might notice tapping toes, holding your breath, a furrowed brow, fidgety fingers, or raised shoulders.

Play the video a few times to make sure you have caught all the signals of unrest that you can see. Try to identify your top three sensations of unrest.

2. Say “I DO.” This is a commitment to yourself, like a sacred wedding vow, to tune inward when you notice unrest.

Identify where you feel the sensation; locate it precisely, one place at a time—not just “My muscles are tense,” but which ones and where? Not just arms, but biceps versus triceps; not just tight chest, but where, how large an area?

Describe what you feel using words that capture the quality of your muscle tension and energy, such as:

• bracing

• constricted

• tight

• heavy

• knotted

• clenched

• agitated

• buzzing

• fidgety

• jittery

• jumpy

• fluttery

Observe one specific sensation with the intention of paying slow, deep attention. Ask yourself: “What does that feel like?” over and over.

• If your answer is “tense,” then ask, “What does ‘tense’ feel like?”

• If your answer is “like a shell,” then ask, “What does that shell feel like?”

Continue this process until you sense a slight release, perhaps a 20% reduction in tension, as your body registers your presence and is soothed. Rest there and feel proud of yourself.

Riding the wave of emotion

Once the body is soothed, we feel safe enough to allow space for the emotions that we have been avoiding. Having guided many clients through this process, I find that it goes something like this: Unrest heralds a moment of vulnerability; something you long for is not entirely in your hands. Your right shoulder grips and instead of ignoring it, you pause, paying careful attention to the tense muscles. After a moment of precise, warm interest, your muscles release and you feel your shoulder drop slightly. Your body registers your awareness and settles.

In that moment, your body understands that, whatever has activated the nervous system, there is no danger—because if there were, you would be focusing outward, not inward. Your body is freed from its prime directive to keep you safe. This safeness opens a channel within you that allows a wave of sadness to come through. This sadness is carrying you to a truth you have been avoiding.

Perhaps you realize you’re working so hard to get everything done but can’t do it alone. Maybe you wish you were more efficient and had more time and energy. But you are indeed only human. The sadness rises and a heavy pressure pulls on your sternum. You breathe into the discomfort as it crests and then ebbs. You find a space inside yourself where you matter. You accept yourself in your limits. You feel less alone, more capable of giving yourself patience and compassion. More able to ask for help.

You might be surprised by the vulnerable truths that emerge when you pay attention to your body:

• “I really want this opportunity but can’t guarantee it, and that makes me mad and sad.”

• “My body is tight because I’m facing longing and limits in our disagreement.”

• “I value our relationship and want to speak my truth, but I can’t guarantee that my protest won’t threaten our bond.”

Getting in touch with your emotions like this can enhance your relationships and have profound mental health benefits. Research indicates that accessing emotion deepens our experience of life’s meaning, buffers stress, aids in decision making, and is a key factor in improved mental health. As well, experiencing emotion is growth-promoting, leading to higher levels of resilience and authenticity.

You are not meant to detach, numb out, avoid, and distract from the pain and beauty of life. You are meant to care deeply without clinging, controlling, or being overwhelmed. Your vulnerability is your strength, and it will grow you. Your emotions are the energy that will transform you and propel you toward your most rich and authentic life.

Sandra Parker, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of Embracing Unrest: Harness Vulnerability to Tame Anxiety and Spark Growth. She earned her doctoral degree at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, and is a member of the BC Psychological Association, Canadian Psychological Association, and Canadian Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology.

© 2023 The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley