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Blog Entry #7: Ghosts of The Past

In this entry, I discerned new realizations about me and my mother’s upbringing and how these influenced my growth and development as an individual. Some influences are necessary and some are not. Yet all of these factors made me the person I am now.

First, the realizations start with how my mother was influenced by her parental figure and how that affected my upbringing. How these were mere products of continuous intergenerational factors were discussed next. Lastly, these discoveries were used to analyze how my stages of development as a person were affected by these influences.

The Mother’s Influence

Seeing my primary parental figure in life, which is my mom, in her perspective as a child once was challenging and eye-opening. It is difficult, at first, to investigate my mom’s history as it is a sensitive topic for the reason that she lost her mother during her teenage years.

Still, I decided to ask her about her most memorable story as a child. She started by telling me how strict and punitive her mother was to the point that she was wary of making a single mistake in every order that my grandmother gave to her then. She was raised conservatively considering that she was raised during the 1970s when life was harsher for women compared to the present. According to her, she was often scolded and punished by having her kneel on salt for minutes whenever she had done something unacceptable. My grandmother was still caring and loving though, as my mom defends. Most importantly, she told me how this formation taught her to be strong and that it was consequential for her growth as the firstborn.

Seeing how she rationalized my grandmom’s stern upbringing to her, I can see now why she kept the same for us, me and my siblings. It is because in her mind, what my grandmother did for her was right and justified. Nonetheless, she lessened the disciplinary actions for us compared to what she experienced then as she didn’t want us to have marking memories of pain from her. Yet, she kept her conservative values in raising us and I am thankful for that.

In the end, it affected me less relative to my grandmom’s influence on my mother. I and my siblings know how sometimes rigid behavior is warranted from our parent and how it gave us a solid moral code what we ought to and ought not to do.

Intergenerational Patterns

One of the family’s ongoing intergenerational pattern on both sides is piety and passionate dedication to our religion. I easily recognized this trait as I’ve observed how my mother stresses how God has been generous for our lives and the lives of her ancestors. Hence, we currently go to church twice each week consistently as fervent members of the Iglesia ni Cristo. More than that, all of us in the family hold significant church duties which we accomplish every week.

I look at this devotion to faith as an integral part of my life since I was a child. This trait built my commitment and conscience as an individual and my gratefulness in life. It is helpful to our family’s nurturing of values as a whole. To keep these virtues going through the next generation, I can continue the same beliefs and pass them on to my future children (if ever there may be). It might be convenient to keep our family friends in the same religion in close contact to have a surrounding community of avid church members around the family to be good influences. Through this, good qualities like compassion, generosity, and hospitality can be further fostered alongside piety as the family’s intergenerational attributes.

On the other hand, our family held strong disbelief against politics. My family, down to my grandparents, were not as involved in political concerns of the country. More than that, our current religion doesn’t give us the liberty to be opinionated on these matters. I find this characteristic to be harmful to the family’s ideals because this limits our involvement with the state of the nation. As citizens of the Philippines, I believe that we should have been responsible for the development of the nation. To change it, I consider leaving our current religion in the future as it is the primary factor why we stay apolitical.

Personal Growth and Development

When I ask my mother about a childhood story, she told me that I was a quiet child who never played outside. I never really played games with other children and that I stayed at home most of the time when I was young. My same age classmates in preschool then weren’t social or interactive with me at school as I was snobbish and dismissive back then to other kids.

Considering how this past is a stark contrast of how social I am with people, I think that this tendency to isolate myself from peers didn’t affect me as much as my mother thought it would. This is in line with Erikson's Stages of Development. During preschool, I would have been in the initiative vs guilt stage and my aloofness would have had an effect on my sense of purpose or responsibility. I think in the present, I have a good sense of both. However, I recognize how I still acquired a little of the negative outcome from this stage as I tend to be inhibited by myself in opening up my real self to people. But when it comes to working environments, I could easily lend some help.

Going back to the first stage of Erikson's Stages of Development, trust vs mistrust, I would say that I am leaning more towards distrust. In a scale, it would be a score of 4 on the negative side. I wouldn’t know the reason why since I was just an infant then but I am a skeptic college student. I don’t believe hearsays and other people easily as I tend to be disappointed by my expectations of them. I still have hope and security but I always keep a doubtful stance on everything, unless confirmed by myself.

To the second stage, autonomy vs shame and doubt, I would say that I have a score of 8 which leans on the positive side. Considering the outcome,  I would say that I was not restricted by my parents when I was a toddler in directing my actions. This great self-determination that I have now is the result of the development in this stage. Still, I think I wouldn’t have a perfect score of 10 as I tend to be doubtful of myself sometimes especially when doing things that I haven’t done before.

The third stage, initiative vs guilt, is as explained previously. I think I would have a score of 7 on the syntonic side. This is because I was a reserved toddler who rarely socialized then. But in school, I have a great initiative in working on school activities not just in forming bonds with my classmates then. Now, I developed a solid sense of responsibility in areas of labor but I am slow to open up myself to other people.

I would say that I have a really positive fourth stage of development, industry vs inferiority, with a personal score of 9, leaning on competence. When I was in grade school, I participated in a lot of competitions and won most of them. This developed my self-efficacy as a child. I achieved multiple recognitions at that age that I am sure of what I can do in school and as a person. This also inspired me to take on a difficult career in the future which is being a physician and surgeon.

Now in the sage of identity vs role confusion, I would give myself a score of 7. At first, I thought that I am spreading myself to thin by easily getting along with people of different backgrounds. However, as time passed, I realized that I am not changing myself for others and this amiable characteristic is an innate trait of mine which is not affected by the people I interact with. I now am confident with my position among my peers, with what I believe in as a person, and with the occupation that I am pursuing. With these, I would assume that I am close to solidifying my identity that’s why I give myself a syntonic score.

With all these realizations, I am now seeing myself in another light aside from introspection. With the help of our family’s history and my personal upbringing, I am able to confirm my development as a person influenced by all these said factors.

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Blog Entry#8 Johari Window

Performing a Johari Window activity with most people being those that I don’t usually know and vice versa would not have garnered a deeper result in the first place. This is because I did not spend enough valuable time with them. This is the thought process I had at that time. However, I was proven wrong.

Some of the Blind Spot outcomes were spot on but some were shallow. This could be because of some classmates that I am closed with. Sadly, some didn’t treat the activity seriously as some responses were teasing and uninspired.

Firstly, this is what I wrote for my Arena:

As you can see in the following page, there is no connection between my arena and my blind spot. People see me differently than the way I portray myself. Given, this could partly be caused by the lack of interaction between me and these people that wrote on my paper for them to provide proper judgments. I wasn’t able to show enough of myself for them to realize these self-descriptions that I have for myself because of the limitations of the setting (classroom) and lack of bonding and time for each other.

For my Blind Spot, these are what my classmates wrote:

These results could easily say that the idea of myself is different from how others see and judge me. From what I show to others, it seemed that I am a happy and nice person. They see me as hardworking -- a stark contrast from lazy which is how I described myself. The thing is I never saw myself as industrious it is just that I try to finish always according to time to spend more time idling and resting. This misconception is also seen in how they see me as humorous which I don’t really agree on. It’s just that I say what I think even if it’s unacceptable. Lastly, they see me as smart. This is what I definitely do not agree on as I am very careless and mistake-driven. I always try to try things and make mistakes and learn from them.

In light of these differences, I realized that I am oblivious of how other people define people from what they can observe. These are shallow remarks on how I present myself and perform. They are not to blame, though, as it was me who had a disconnect with how I see and present myself. In a way, I am also oblivious of the way I act.

One new thing that I learned is that presenting yourself can be perceived differently by people based on their personal descriptions and caricatures of what is shown. If they see me smile, laugh or make jokes, they jump easily to saying that I am a happy and humorous person. This is because that is how a happy and humorous person looks to them which is different from what I think when I use those words. Another is that I realized that I am not limited by what I show and perform as I get to be the same person that I know while being the nice person that they observe. I also knew now that changing myself to fit other’s perception of me to what I see is unnecessary as I can still be who I am. Relating to this, I can posit that I don’t really care about what these people think of me as most of them don’t really get to see the self that I knew I am.

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Blog Entry #6

Goals:

I will try to treat myself (and maybe friends) to watch a movie.

I will finish a novel that I have put off for so long.

I will sleep earlier!

I will buy a new pair of shoes.

I will treat myself (maybe with friends) to eat outside.

I will be present in our church services.

Results:

The week of doing this activity started and ended quite naturally as changes made were not that different than what I often do. However, these small changes subtly improved the way I felt throughout the previous week.

The week began with me trying to feel better by buying a new pair of shoes. Unalarmingly, it lifted my spirits as soon as I used it to school. Just the simple act of looking at it made me a little bit naturally ecstatic. So far, I thought then, it felt as though these things that I set for my self-compassion were quite fitting that I didn’t have to force myself to really feel glad about this project.

That night, I forced myself to sleep as early as I could. It shocked me how I was able to sleep by 8:30 in the evening. The morning after, I woke up at 3 AM. I expected then that I won’t be able to sleep again so I tried to read the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Without blinking an eye, I was able to finish a great part even though the English were crooked and the spellings gave an eyesore.

The week remained the same uniformly. I slept early and wake up early. I read the same novel and prepared for school. Then, I go back home, do my assignments and the cycle continues. This week, certain events broke this monotonous schedule as I tried to go out with my friends to eat which we all enjoyed. However, going out for a movie was impossible as the week had us carry too many assignments.

It is important to note that I also went to church for our midweek services. As a member of the Church of Christ (Iglesia ni Cristo), I am required to attend two services each week but lately, I was only able to attend the weekend services. Last week, I really tried to fit it to my schedule and it was quite uplifting to be able to do so.

Almost everything went accordingly to the plan and just this accomplishment made me feel my positivity ratio increased. There were incidents that tried to bring my feelings, like the exam results being less than my standards, but I was able to push through.

Generally, I felt less anxious and more relaxed. My emotions were also from different spectrums without a tint of a little sadness. I realized from this that rest makes a really great improvement for my daily demeanour. More importantly, my interactions were much more fluid and natural and not me being too inside my head. My laughs were more heartfelt and my conversations were much enjoyed.

To continue this would be to change my lifestyle. From sleeping early to regularly going to the church, my schedule would be heavily affected. Despite these, I’ll try my best to continue and push forward. I’ll continue reading my novel and sleep as early as I can.

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Blog Entry #5 Project: Positivity

Amazingly, I scored a flat average of 3 on the self-compassion scale. This shows how I have a balanced way of seeing myself and how I feel about myself is not less than or more than how I feel for others.

My strongest point for my self-compassion is my common humanity. This is shown in the way that I try to be fully cognizant of other’s personal issues in my interactions. This is not just to please everyone but to also feel and relate to other’s personal problems. In this way, I would not feel alone in my own obstacles.

My lowest point is in my capacity for self-judgment. I am fully aware of that, however. I know that I tend to be overly critical of myself every single day. It comes with its perks though. For one, in every school requirement, I can become extremely focused on perfection which gives high returns in the long run. When around my peers, I can be critical of what I say but not in a timid way as I remain fully sociable while running these gears in my head. I rarely say things I don’t really mean which makes me as honest as I can be. I do what I like and correct myself on my mistakes before others point it out. It makes me feel better and be better on my own.

However, this gives me more anxiety than I should have had. Worst-case scenarios are the most played out expectations in my head. My feelings are often disregarded but I have improved on this. I aim to develop on this through the following proposal.

Proposal

Background: Given that my action towards myself is relatively worse than how I act towards others, I think it is better to have myself as the object and subject of this proposal instead of doing something for others.

Objective:  To apply the lessons in class on increasing my positivity ratio as I try to address my weakest self-compassion component.

Action: With all these, I will go with the option of self-compassion. This involves acts that alleviate my feeling about myself. The following are my set plans to do this week:

I will try to treat myself (and maybe friends) to watch a movie.

I will finish a novel that I have put off for so long.

I will sleep earlier!

I will buy a new pair of shoes.

I will treat myself (maybe with friends) to eat outside.

I will try to study more efficiently for my test. In this way, I won’t be too harsh on myself once the tests arrive.

I will be present in our church services.

I will try to do most with these proposed actions. In this proposal, it is preferably better to put more and try which I can accomplish this week.

I hope everything will turn out well!

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Blog Entry #4: The Bell Jar

Like a bell jar, I see myself as transparent and contained. It is as if all the inner conflicts of mine stirs and spoils inside me much to the view of the few who really wants to take a good look. If one does, he or she will see their own vague reflection on me as I try to mould myself for the selected who interests in me.

The bell jar is the holder of the concoctions of my belief, whether they are helpful or not. As one belief influences the other my psyche is being made within. Unfortunately, these unhelpful beliefs have been kept inside with no way out.

As I understood myself more through last week’s lessons, I get to recognize these bad apples mixed within my mind. Most evident are the following:

1. “Why can’t I try on different lives, like dresses, to see which one fits me and is most becoming?”

This is a quote from Sylvia Plath’s only novel, that is also entitled The Bell Jar, which definitely resonated with me.

I always see myself as insufficient as if my life is not enough to live. Most of the time, I feel limited for not being a lot of things, for not knowing more, for not meeting more people or for not being in different places.

In moments of loneliness, I fill my mind with fantasies of waking up in another person’s reality. To fuel this endeavour, I try to read a lot of books, mostly fictions and watch series and movies as much as I can. Sometimes, these are too time-consuming that I sacrifice the time meant for living my own life.

These activities that I do are the usual medication to this unquenchable thirst for life that I have. I am fully aware that these are ineffective as they are only quick fixes that could never change the belief that I have. It still comes down to my openness to accept my life fully to live it satisfyingly.

In the end, I could only live this only life that I have. It is debilitating to lend this limited time that I despise to events I could never fully live. Although these hobbies are not wrong in a general sense, they can never satiate my hunger for more from this life. I still have to wake up another day in this skin and start to change the belief that this life is not enough.

2. “If you expect nothing from anybody, you’re never disappointed.”

For years since I’ve been failed by the closest people around me, my family, that I have started to stop myself from expecting anything from anybody. In reality, I can never change anyone much to my liking so I must never expect anything from them as I can only change myself.

This belief is another quote from the same book which fascinated me even after years that I have read it. Anyways, this way of thinking has made me more lenient of people in general to the point that I have had empty opinions of people. This made me less emotionally attached to people as if there’s a barrier that I’ve never dared to cross in every relationship that I have had lately.

Handling this belief comes from my little ways of being more open to people of the type of person that I am, that is open for any complimenting personalities, so they can freely act however they want to be around me. This makes me more attached to them and vice versa.

I am fully aware that this is not enough as I save myself from feeling disappointment and pain from people. This, in hindsight, is a cowardly behaviour that I should change to push my reservations towards people.

3. “...The cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you.”

This, just like every belief preceding it, is another gem from Plath’s only novel that reflected me way too much that it scared me. It is as if the words finally constructed the sentence that encapsulated a facet of my personality that I subconsciously portray.

In the years of my junior high school, I have always found myself aiding my classmates who were challenged academically. As I reflect back on these days, I have realized that I have been less introspective then than I am now. Maybe it’s the naivety of youth or as the mentioned belief had it.

Lately, I have been less helpful towards people within my circle and I have become too introspective much to be too bothersome. Along with this realization is my deeper subscription to the idea that I have to help people for me to become less focused on myself.

In retrospect, I have been less open to aiding people to counter this belief yet the more I counter it, the more I tend to agree to it. However, when I aid people for the sake of this belief, I am only doing a selfish act to lessen my introspection.

It still boils down to changing my motives and belief to fully fight this idea. My thought must be more outward both for my own and other’s sake.

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Blog Entry #3: A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi)

The movies A Silent Voice, Manchester by The Sea, and Inside Llewyn Davis; the songs Both Sides Now by Joan Mitchell and All Too Well by Taylor Swift; the novels like The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. These

Watching various media, listening to audiobooks and reading novels and non-fiction books are my best past-time. By the time I reached 80 years old, I’ll still be doing these faithfully every day.  These are the best hobbies for me as these make me experience things that I never could. From being a war veteran to being an oppressed farm, perspectives of various spectrums shine from doing these things.

Among these media, my most treasured genre would be a tragedy. Tragic people, tragic experiences, dramatic songs and stories are the ones that I appreciate the most. I guess I have a natural affinity for these things.

Through this week’s lesson, I get to understand this strange attraction and a deeper view as to what my feelings really mean to me.

Sadness

I feel no hesitations in expressing this emotion. As one can guess from my favorite media, this is one of the feelings that I have no problems expressing even though this is mostly considered as an unpleasant emotion.

This is most shown when I watch a depressing film that I can easily relate to. More often than not, tears would just easily flow from my eyes unknowingly when something really touched my feelings.

Even when I am around people, I freely express my disappointments and sadness over things. My rationale is that people are more comfortable to those who are more sincere with their emotions so that is what I aim to be around my peers. As much as possible, I try to make my friends feel that it is okay to show what they truly feel when they are around me.

This reasoning applies to most of the basic emotions like disgust, fear, and anger. When I dislike something, may it be food, preference in music or series, and even persons, I voice out my opinions to them. Fear is the same. Being afraid around people is easier than being afraid alone so I am more comfortable in showing this emotion with my friends. I don’t shut it off but I let it out to lose it easily. Anger is the most comfortable feeling I can show. This I show and let out as fast as I can because I believe that blocking it in is so much worse.

However, sincere joy is the most difficult to express for me.

Joy

Whenever I feel a sudden uplift of emotion, a silent voice quietly tells me to be guilty. It is not that I don’t get happy at all because I still do, most of the time.

This happens whenever I remember something guilt-inducing like the starving people in Africa whenever I enjoy excess food or my hardworking parents when I enjoy myself too much in endeavors not related to my education. Some more examples are when I ride the cab instead of commuting just because I wake up late that instead of relishing the comfort is that I feel more disappointed or whenever I feel happy spending time in my hobbies and with friends instead of focusing on my studies.

Happiness often comes with a tinge of guilt, in my case. The rare occasions they don’t are whenever I achieved something unexpected and acquired free things. When these happen, I really treasure the moment and celebrate excessively.

On the flipside, when I bottle up my happiness instead of freely showing them, I get more disappointed with myself for not being easier on myself.  In the end, it acquires more negative feelings because of not seizing these special moments.

Although I blame this inside turmoil to the ‘silent voice’, it still is my fault in the end that energizes this perpetual vicious cycle of emotions. Through this week’s lesson, I realized that I should be easier on myself on the inside because I already had it difficult on the outside.

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Blog Entry #2 Veni. Vidi. Vici.

The world is a cruel place. Throughout different pieces of literature, this theme always presents itself. From classic literature like Les Miserables to post-apocalypse movies and novels, people come up with various ways of adapting to the world with only themselves to change and their personal characteristics to use.

Although my life is not as miserable as the ones these forlorn fictional characters have, I can still say that I had faced the world’s cruel side in this short life of mine so far. All I had was myself when I encountered these problems yet my characteristics help me forward.

These traits are divided into three. Based both on the PPCT model and the phrase that Julius Caesar immortalized:

Veni. I Came.

These are the characteristics that I came with in this world or the demand traits according to the PPCT model. Coming from a Filipino descent, my nose is not that sharp and  I am tan-skinned and quite thin. My eyesight is also poorer than the average person. There is nothing quite special about my physical appearance except that I can smile more often than your usual stranger.

I wear eyeglasses for the rest of my day except when I sleep and take baths or wash my face. Due to this, people naturally assume that I am a studious person which is an expectation I can get by because I am, more often than not.

I am currently in the 18th year of my life so adults assume that I assume to know a lot about life which I don’t know anything about according to them. By this age, I know that my gender is not as clear cut as most of the people. So far in my life, I haven’t had any legitimate crush so I guess my gender is still on a limbo. This fluidity, however, makes people assume that I am homosexual or any of the LGBTQIA. I don’t mind it at all at this point. The thing is, people’s expectations towards me don’t matter that much to me and that is one of my resource traits.

Although these demand traits are not destructive to me, they are not as beneficial as well. This just goes to show how external characteristics do not matter as much as they do in yesterday’s society wherein prejudices were prevalent, at least in my case. More than that, today’s environment is more accepting especially in opportunities to all people compared before.

Vidi. I Saw.

These are the characteristics that I use to see the direction that I must have in this world. Coming from a family with an unstable financial history, I have learned to be frugal to the truest sense of the word. I value the wisdom of knowing how to prioritize what I need than what I want. Although following this in my life left me bereft of most of the good things, I have realized that the best things in life are free and I must learn to live simply to be stable, not only financially but also mentally and emotionally.

These realizations have guided my path in this world towards simplicity and afar from extravagance and overconsumption. I commute instead of using Grab. I recycle instead of always buying new things. Due to this, people who don’t know me think I’m financially hopeless. Somehow, I think that this trait actually contributes to the welfare of the environment which I don’t directly intend to.

Since I am in my college in Ateneo de Manila University, acquaintances assume that I must have had vast amounts of money in my name but I don’t because I am a scholar of the school. On the other hand, friends knowing me as a scholar assumes that I am smart and hardworking. I can approve of the former but not of the latter. The prestige of the school, however, put me in a pedestal within my previous schoolmates’ minds thinking that I have it better.

Yet, this intelligence that I have is not that special because especially in college because I think that the drive, a force trait,  is a more important factor in surviving the next four years. Street-skills and people-skills are traits that I am confident of which I think will be consequential in surviving my college years.

These expectations by the society and the people around me don’t influence my actions that greatly. Growing in my traditional family forced me to be thick-skinned which I am thankful for. People’s opinions of me don’t pierce me as much as I can endure which helped me survive the most challenging formative years of my life: my teenage years.

On the flipside, I have developed a deeper sense of introspection and self-criticism. This, I think, will be the most challenging hindrance of my college life. As I tend to over-analyze every decision and over-criticize myself, I inflict harm towards myself most often.

These resource traits of mine paved the path of my life for the last decade of my life. I have trusted my instincts and my family and I will continue to do so as they have not failed me yet and I trust they won’t. For my college life, lessening my hardness towards myself will be my focus as it is the only thing I can freely transform among the resource traits I have.

Vici. I Conquered.

These traits are the ones I use to conquer my predicaments and move forward. My life is not an easy road but I make it through each day by the help of these characteristics mostly. Confidently, I can say that I have two significant traits in life, namely patience and resilience.

I exhibit patience in the sense that I don’t easily give up despite continuous negative results. I wait for the best time to act and for the best option to come. In making decisions, I am patient in the results.

I exhibit resilience in a way that I move forward despite hindrances, most I set for myself. I fall and I stand up and learn. I don’t let the world change me from being who I am so I continue to be my own self resiliently.

The world can be a cruel place, yet it is not worth it to be. Still better, conquer it in your own way through the help of your characteristics.

[introspectorenz-blog]

Blog Entry #1 Inside the Bell Jar

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” ― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

As I read this novel by Sylvia Plath years ago titled The Bell Jar, I found myself strangely attached to this passage. Somehow this narrative echoes my sentiments lately as I busy myself with reading books, watching series and documentaries to fill the void of my limitations to experience a lot of things.

With the perspective of a multitude of characters, both fiction and not, I can’t help but sense a little dissatisfaction towards my experiences. My experiences that built me feels tame and inconsequential compared to these people yet I have no choice but to live the life that I have. Little by little, I’m losing interest towards myself and more towards other people.

This predisposition before rewatching the film Inside Out made the experience even more special and reflective. In the end of the movie, three insights were realized.

IN-trospection. Seeing Riley’s core memories being destroyed one by one made me reminisce my similar ordeals. I have had the same instances when growing up made me disregard events in the past that I really value. Friends and people around me have changed as I transform to who I am now.

Looking back to the movie, I recognized how invalidating emotions develops indifference towards things that are special before just as how Riley started losing her core memories when she feign to express her true feelings. This tells us that emotions are meant to be felt and expressed sincerely.

This definitely struck home towards me as I grasped how I tend to set aside my emotions as I compare it to the lives of other people. Thoughts like: “I must not be sad, some people had it worse. People are starving…” or “I must not be enjoying myself, my parents are working hard for me to work hard in my education”, occasionally cross my mind. This affected the way that I feel things which should be natural. Through this, significant memories will pile on which will build my self-interests again.

SIDE-effects. Towards the ending scenes, Riley almost fled her home in a blank trance-like state. By this point, she had her mind in chaos and no emotion was in charge of herself. The parents’ worry was undeniable and relief as they found her in the end.

This event in the film subtly show how the lack of emotion is just as or even more dangerous than having an imbalance of one. I chose this because I often make impulsive decisions that is unguided by what I feel but what I should do. An example was choosing my course. What I feel was not what I should take to pursue medicine. Now I had to adjust instead of just following my heart then. The consequences of this particular decision is significant to my formation and decision-making.

In the end, one must make smart decisions that still require what you feel towards it to be able to accept its side-effects courageously.

OUT-look. The outro of the film was quite humorously framed with the way different side characters’ emotions was shown to the audience. However, this contain a significant insight that is quite understated. It is that different people have different emotions and reactions towards different situations. Everyone is unique in processing their conflicts.

This made me more mindful of how I should treat other people and recognize their emotions so as not to emotionally strain them.

From now on, I must try hard to sincerely express myself, to consider my emotions in making decisions and to be more accepting of others. These learnings from Inside Out made me peek outside the bell jar that I keep myself to be more daring and wise in managing my emotions.