Inside Out

By Chloë

Sometimes I wish those characters in the movie ‘Inside Out’ (yes, I’m a Disney fan) were real. I wish life really was simple as those basic emotions: joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust.

However, it appears that life’s a bit more complicated than this. Throw a bit of jealousy, confusion, emptiness and sorrow into the mix and you’ve got the recipe for, well… a constantly bubbling and brewing disaster.

There must be a way to deal with those emotions, for, without one, the whole of humanity would fall into the shambles. Or has it already? For, from my recent endeavours into literature spanning across centuries, an underlying theme has always been the individual’s inabilities to accurately portray their true emotions. Sure, society is to blame, but I think that the pure fact is as follows: humans cannot be expected to effectively present their emotions when they have an inability to understand them themselves.

Take, for example, a circumstance I currently find myself in. My boyfriend (shocking, I know) wants me to be happy- he says- whenever I express that I am sad because we don’t talk to one another very often. And still, as soon as he gets a drop of free time, he soaks it into his Xbox, letting my joy trickle down the drain like a washed up dream.

Or, maybe, should we consider that I find every action one of my friends commits so agitating that I’ve gone to the measures of muting their Instagram account just so I'm not constantly reminded of them.

If these aren’t clear indicators of how unpredictable and, quite frankly, poopy emotions are- I honestly don’t know what is.

Yet, I’m still here, evolution hasn’t swallowed me up thus far. So, the million pound question we’ve all been dying for: how do I cope?

Quite frankly, not too well, but that's not what you’re here for. Here’s a list of some of my coping mechanisms that I find can help:

1. Listen to music incredibly loudly and dance around in your room like a mad person. It’s exhilarating and I tend to do this daily without even thinking about it anymore.

2. Don’t reminisce too much. It’s better to look forward and strive to be a better version of yourself, rather than constantly living in the fluttering, fragile pages of the past. Use your experiences to guide you and help you grow, rather than hinder you in one place.

3. Remove yourself from anything that makes you experience negative emotions (aka me from my friend’s Instagram).

4. Distract yourself. Whenever I feel negative in any way I either do school work or, if it’s school that’s making me feel blue, I do my volunteering work (and vice versa).

So, emotions, well, they aren’t always too great. They can even make your life miserable if you don’t deal with them with an optimistic and progressive mindset. However, with a bit of determination, time and elbow-grease, I’m sure we can both conquer these overwhelming emotions and strive to become the well-rounded, level-headed figures we wish to be.