1) When allies respond to your sadness with comfort and presence, they’re essentially saying “your wellbeing matters to me” and “you still belong here despite this loss.” This creates a buffer against secondary psychological harms you alluded to, like isolation, abandonment fears, or spiraling into deeper despair that might come from bad frames where losing the contest means you’ll always lose future ones, or wasted all your time practicing, etc. The original loss remains, but you’re not facing it alone and it’s not extending beyond what actually happened.
2) Even when the specific thing can’t be fixed, allies might offer practical support that reduces the overall burden. Some might try covering responsibilities so you can rest, like bringing food or helping with chores so you have fewer stressors and your capacity isn’t overwhelmed. This help can range from the direct to the indirect depending on how fungible the loss is; no one would pretend that buying someone a nice dinner would make up for the loss of a wedding ring, or even something much cheaper with heavy emotional significance, but it can still help take some of the sting out, especially if it’s something like missing a flight where the financial loss is a more significant fraction of the overall.
3) Seeing others who care about you remain stable and functional despite your loss can itself be reassuring evidence that this setback isn’t catastrophic to your broader social world. This may sound like 1, but I think it’s actually separate because it doesn’t require you to having additional negative beliefs that spiral out from the initial loss, but rather bolsters you more directly in continuing to try hard things or feel less of the sting from loss.
Also as an aside, the hockey ring situation is from Inside Out 2: in the first one Sadness signals to Riley’s parents that she is very unhappy and needs a lot more support and attention, which isn’t going to make up for e.g. losing her friends, but can help her feel more cared for in all three ways, to some degree.
Thanks. I have more thoughts but not gonna try to bring them out right now at least.
Also as an aside, the hockey ring situation is from Inside Out 2: in the first one Sadness signals to Riley’s parents that she is very unhappy
I don’t know how accurate my memory is.[1] But the scene I remember is from the first movie. Joy’s spent the movie asking what Sadness is even good for, and then she sees some of Riley’s memories. In one of them, Riley is sitting alone on a swing under a tree branch, sad because some sport event didn’t go how she wanted, I think specifically because she didn’t perform as well as she wanted. And her friends come cheer her up, and Joy realizes (and exposits to the viewer) that Sadness shows people we need help.
(Actually, a thing just occurs to me about this scene. I don’t remember if her friends were also her teammates. But if they were, then “my friends all hate me now” is an at-least-vaguely reasonable hypothesis to hold, and them coming to cheer her up shows that they don’t. Though I still wouldn’t frame this as “Sadness shows people we need help”.)
I assume the thing you describe also happens, but I don’t remember it :p. Assuming the scene I remember happens at all, my guess is it happens before yours? In which case Joy’s realization and exposition aren’t driven by your scene, though they probably are driven by more than just the scene I remember.
Related anecdote: I remember that the sixth rule of Fight Club is “there is no sixth rule”. I remember the cadence and delivery of that line. That is not the sixth rule of Fight Club.
Ahhh, you’re talking about the memory. Yes, that was the moment of Joy’s realization for why Sadness has value. But before her friends/teammates show up to cheer for her, it’s her parents that show up to comfort her. I think it’s fair to say that her friends showing up to cheer for her probably meant a lot more to Riley than her parents’ comfort in that moment, since it was more tied to the specific thing that was making her feel bad, but Joy’s out-loud recognition was that Riley’s parents showed they cared about her when she was sad, which is the important parallel for the issue in the plot where Riley feels like her parents don’t care about her.
Ahh, I see. There’s a few things here:
1) When allies respond to your sadness with comfort and presence, they’re essentially saying “your wellbeing matters to me” and “you still belong here despite this loss.” This creates a buffer against secondary psychological harms you alluded to, like isolation, abandonment fears, or spiraling into deeper despair that might come from bad frames where losing the contest means you’ll always lose future ones, or wasted all your time practicing, etc. The original loss remains, but you’re not facing it alone and it’s not extending beyond what actually happened.
2) Even when the specific thing can’t be fixed, allies might offer practical support that reduces the overall burden. Some might try covering responsibilities so you can rest, like bringing food or helping with chores so you have fewer stressors and your capacity isn’t overwhelmed. This help can range from the direct to the indirect depending on how fungible the loss is; no one would pretend that buying someone a nice dinner would make up for the loss of a wedding ring, or even something much cheaper with heavy emotional significance, but it can still help take some of the sting out, especially if it’s something like missing a flight where the financial loss is a more significant fraction of the overall.
3) Seeing others who care about you remain stable and functional despite your loss can itself be reassuring evidence that this setback isn’t catastrophic to your broader social world. This may sound like 1, but I think it’s actually separate because it doesn’t require you to having additional negative beliefs that spiral out from the initial loss, but rather bolsters you more directly in continuing to try hard things or feel less of the sting from loss.
Also as an aside, the hockey ring situation is from Inside Out 2: in the first one Sadness signals to Riley’s parents that she is very unhappy and needs a lot more support and attention, which isn’t going to make up for e.g. losing her friends, but can help her feel more cared for in all three ways, to some degree.
Thanks. I have more thoughts but not gonna try to bring them out right now at least.
I don’t know how accurate my memory is.[1] But the scene I remember is from the first movie. Joy’s spent the movie asking what Sadness is even good for, and then she sees some of Riley’s memories. In one of them, Riley is sitting alone on a swing under a tree branch, sad because some sport event didn’t go how she wanted, I think specifically because she didn’t perform as well as she wanted. And her friends come cheer her up, and Joy realizes (and exposits to the viewer) that Sadness shows people we need help.
(Actually, a thing just occurs to me about this scene. I don’t remember if her friends were also her teammates. But if they were, then “my friends all hate me now” is an at-least-vaguely reasonable hypothesis to hold, and them coming to cheer her up shows that they don’t. Though I still wouldn’t frame this as “Sadness shows people we need help”.)
I assume the thing you describe also happens, but I don’t remember it :p. Assuming the scene I remember happens at all, my guess is it happens before yours? In which case Joy’s realization and exposition aren’t driven by your scene, though they probably are driven by more than just the scene I remember.
Related anecdote: I remember that the sixth rule of Fight Club is “there is no sixth rule”. I remember the cadence and delivery of that line. That is not the sixth rule of Fight Club.
Ahhh, you’re talking about the memory. Yes, that was the moment of Joy’s realization for why Sadness has value. But before her friends/teammates show up to cheer for her, it’s her parents that show up to comfort her. I think it’s fair to say that her friends showing up to cheer for her probably meant a lot more to Riley than her parents’ comfort in that moment, since it was more tied to the specific thing that was making her feel bad, but Joy’s out-loud recognition was that Riley’s parents showed they cared about her when she was sad, which is the important parallel for the issue in the plot where Riley feels like her parents don’t care about her.