1

Kierra Wiley

Professor McKinley

COM 2206.504

25 October 2017

Inside Out: Writing Prompt 2

The Walt Disney Movie, Inside Out, is a great film that (in a cute and entertaining way)

accurately depicts different emotions felt in people. We are human, and as humans, we have

most likely felt every single emotion there is at one point or another throughout life. We have felt

not only extreme joy and happiness at times, but also sadness and maybe even anxiety or

depression. Recently, I went through a personal situation in which there was a conflict that

caused me to be very sad. Throughout this paper, I will discuss my scenario in detail, why I felt

sadness, the physiological changes I experienced, my nonverbal reactions, the cognitive

interpretations I made, and even the verbal expressions I used.

To fully understand this story, we have to turn the calendar back to eleven months ago. In

the middle of November in 2016, my uncle Brian was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, a deadly

form of brain cancer. He was a middle aged pilot who had formed a family of two daughters and

a wife he had been married to for over thirty years. The news of his disease took a toll on my

entire family, but we were very hopeful and prayed for a miracle. Not even an entire four months

later, my uncle Brian suddenly passed away from this disease. This situation was sudden, tragic

and life changing for our family.

Fast forward the calendar to a few months later, and there you would find my Grandpa

Jerry brainstorming ideas to keep his family together and create new memories. You see, after
 2

my Uncle’s passing, my Grandpa became even more sentimental than he already was and

realized that he was now the oldest in the family. He knew how quickly life can come and go,

and wanted to create more memories with his family that we would never forget. With this

mindset and a lot of brainstorming, my grandpa decided that his whole family needed to be

together for a whole week and go on a vacation. By ‘whole family’, I mean over fifteen of us.

My grandma and grandpa, two aunts and two uncles, three cousins, all of their husbands and

children, and then my little family of four. This was planned to be a large, meaningful, fun

vacation that we could look back on and cherish.

Here we are in October of 2017, and our trip is creeping up on us. We are set to begin our

drive to Destin, Florida in three days (yup, you read that right). After months of planning and

every class schedule checked, I felt excited and even a little relaxed as I would begin to count

down the days until our departure. As a health science student, I am currently taking Anatomy

and Physiology, which I knew would be a difficult class that I needed to keep up with. With that

being said, when I began my planning and syllabi checking, I saw that there could potentially be

a conflict with dates as I have an Anatomy exam scheduled on the week I am supposed to be in

Florida. Seeing this, I quickly decided to book a flight so that I could come home early by myself

and not miss the exam or sacrifice my good grades.

The planning seemed perfect and in place until my Anatomy and Physiology class threw

me for a loop last week. I was sitting in lecture quickly jotting down my notes when my

Professor said, “because we’re ahead of the other classes, you can now anticipate your third

exam to be two Tuesday’s from today, instead of that Thursday”. WHAT? I had made my flight

reservation for Wednesday morning, therefore being on time for my Thursday exam. I also

booked dog kenneling reservations for Friday-Wednesday which I had planned months in
 3

advance. Everything had been planned to a T and then I heard this syllabus change a week before

the trip. Needless to say, I was seriously panicking. I emailed my professor that evening telling

her my situation and asked if there was anything I could do. I refreshed my email every hour on

the dot for over three days, and no response. Do I cancel my flight and not go on the trip my

grandpa desperately cares about? Do I cancel the dog kennel reservations? Do I change my flight

so I instead fly out on Thursday evening and only stay for two days? These were just some of the

thoughts racing through my head.

After days of no response, I was extremely sad and disappointed. Sadness can be defined

as, “feeling or showing sorrow; unhappy” (Sad | Definition). I would have described my bout of

sadness as being extremely unhappy, teary and emotional. I did not think there was any way I

would be able to go on this trip with my family. I knew that it was planned in bad timing because

it is in the middle of my semester, but it meant so much to my grandpa for his entire family to be

there. Finally, after close to four days, I received an email back from my professor explaining

that I was not the only person who had a scheduling issue with the exam. Because of several

students having conflicts, she changed the exam date back to that Thursday. Everything was right

and in place again and I was beyond grateful. It was something that my grandma, mom and I all

prayed for for days. The situation was stressful, but luckily my professor was kind and wanted to

make sure all of her students would be able to take the exam without any issues.

When someone experiences a strong emotion of any kind, there can be physiological

changes (changes in the physical body) that accompany that emotion. A physiological change

can be described in our textbook as being, “an increased heartbeat, a rise in blood pressure, an

increase in adrenaline secretions, a high blood sugar level, a slowing of digestion, and a dilation

of the pupils” (Adler et al. 98). In my personal situation, when I was in the state of being sad and
 4

nervous, I experienced physiological changes such as an increased heart rate and even slow

digestion. I was sad, anxious and my stomach had been turning for days. These physiological

changes are not always pleasant, but they can be very common when in a distressed state.

Not only did I experience physiological changes with my emotions, but I also had

nonverbal reactions that accompanied my sadness. A nonverbal reaction can be described in the

textbook as, “ a powerful way of communicating emotion that mimic the emotion such as facial

expressions, blushing, sweating, etc.” (Adler et al. 100). The nonverbal reactions that

accompanied my sadness was sweating and a sad look on my face. Every morning that I would

wake up and check and phone, I would begin to sweat because I was anxious and nervous to see

if I had received an email from my professor. My thought process was all over the place and it

made me a wreck. Did she respond? Did she respond and tell me she can’t help me? Is my family

going to be upset with me? My body communicated in a nonverbal way to show that I was in

distress.

When you are experiencing a particular emotion and your body has physiological

changes, this is usually due to cognitive interpretations. A cognitive interpretation is, “the

recognition that the bodily components of most emotions are similar led some psychologists to

conclude that the experience of fright, joy, or anger comes primarily from the labels-- and the

accompanying cognitive interpretations-- we give our physical symptoms” (Adler et al. 99). The

definition in the book basically tells the reader that when we begin to experience an emotion, we

also recognize what physiological changes can occur with that emotion, and then can cause our

bodies to have a physiological reaction. Isn’t that amazing? That you can tell yourself you’re

nervous and then your heart starts to beat faster or you begin to sweat? This is what happened to

me during my story when I was sad. I knew that I was sad and feeling anxious about my current
 5

situation, and because I knew what physiological changes can occur with those emotions, I

caused my heart rate to increase and my body to sweat.

On top of the nonverbal expressions, physiological changes and cognitive interpretations

experienced with emotions, there are also verbal expressions that can be made. A verbal

expression can be defined as, “the communication (in speech or writing) of your beliefs or

opinions” (Verbal Expression). When I was dealing with my personal conflict, I made verbal

expressions with my parents as we discussed the situation. My verbal expressions with them

were usually about what changes I needed to make with flights and reservations. However, I also

expressed my sadness to my family because I knew they felt the same emotions. My family was

not sure if I would be able to make it on the trip and they were extremely disappointed and sad as

well. My family and I were able to share our emotions and verbally discuss the situation.

When it comes to emotions and the different kinds we have, there are two main ways we

can classify them. A facilitative emotion can be defined as, “emotions that contribute to effective

functioning” (Adler et al. 374). While a debilitative emotion is defined as, “emotions that prevent

a person from functioning effectively” (Adler et al. 373). I think the emotion sadness would be

described as a debilitative emotion because it prevents a person from fully functioning

effectively. When someone is depressed, they are usually unproductive and want to lay in bed all

day. Even though I was sad when I was going through my personal conflict, it was not

debilitating for me because the circumstance of why I was sad was not enough to make me

unproductive, depressed or want to lay around all day. I still got my necessary work done and

pushed through the conflict until it was resolved. However, there have been plenty of times when

I have gone through depression and it can be extremely debilitating for anyone struggling with it.

Anyone going through and struggling with depression should find someone they trust whom they
 6

can confide in. In the end, my recent conflict was resolved and everything worked out the way it

was supposed to. In the future, I will try to deal with sadness the way I did in this scenario. I will

continue to push through a conflict until it is resolved and just trust that everything will work out

in the end.

Works Cited

Adler, Ronald B., et al. Interplay: The Process of Interpersonal Communication. Oxford

University Press, 2009.

“Sad | Definition of sad in English by Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English,

Oxford Dictionaries, en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sad.

“Verbal Expression.” The Free Dictionary, Farlex, www.thefreedictionary.com/verbal

expression.
7