Sadness and Joy are the two main characters. Joy is the leader and she is not a fan of Sadness. Joy doesn't want Sadness to influence Riley (the little girl) in any way. Joy attempts to ignore Sadness, confine her to a tiny circle drawn on the floor, and even escape from her all together by leaving her behind. This reflects the way people will do just about anything to escape from feeling sad, or pain, or especially any kind of suffering. We have endless amounts of entertainment to distract us from any feelings of sadness, and a plethora of medications for even the slightest of discomforts, even the ones we cause ourselves such as eating so much food we get a stomach ach.
All of Joy's attempts to get rid of Sadness' influence backfire only causing more problems. This is what happens to us when we ignore our sadness, run from it, or try to bury it deep within ourselves. When we do this rather than dealing with the source of sadness we cause ourselves even more problems.
The best lesson in the movie occurs when Big Bong, Riley's imaginary friend, becomes so sad he can not continue their quest. At this point Joy tries her best to cheer Big Bong up, but nothing she does works and she becomes frustrated with him because he refuses to be happy. Sadness on the other hand sits down with him, listens to his pain, acknowledges how in makes him feel and enters into his suffering with him. Big Bong is comforted by this and is soon able to return to his normal self. This revels a very powerful way for us to help those we know who are suffering or depressed. If you know someone who has experienced a tragedy or is going through something very difficult, we should not run from that person, or try to cheer them up, or even come up with solutions to try to "fix" them. The most loving thing to do is accept them, accept that they are sad or suffering. Be willing to empathize and be with them in whatever it is they are going through. We don't have to become sad as well, but we should be willing to be calm, peaceful, and listen to them without interrupting or coming up with solutions. Most of the time people don't need others to fix a situation for them, they just need someone to listen to how they feel and what they are going through.
Later, when Joy is all alone in the pit of forgotten memories, she finds happy a memories and rewinds it until it becomes sad. She realizes that it was because of the sad moment that the happy moment was able to occur. This revels a deep truth for us. That without the experience of sadness we don't truly know what happiness is. This is also true for pain and suffering, someone who has a healthy pain free body often takes that for granted until they experience some kind of pain. Then it becomes clear what a blessing being without pain is. Sadness, and pain enhance joy and pleasure. Thus sadness and pain are allowed to co-exist with joy and pleasure so that when we experience something good we appreciate it more and understand it more because we know what it is like to be without it.
During our natural lives we will all experience some kind of sadness or pain. This is not something to be afraid of or to be ashamed of. Even Jesus experienced sadness when Lazarus died and in the garden before he was arrested. The best thing we can do is acknowledge our sadness or pain and unite it to Jesus' suffering on the cross, asking Him to use it for the salvation of souls. While the movie didn't point out this part, it did do a good job of showing that sometimes it is okay to be sad and that accepting your sadness for a time can bring about healing.
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