WHAT’S YOUR SPARK? – A THERAPISTS REFLECTION ON PIXAR’S SOUL
As a therapist, I see mental health everywhere. I can’t help it, it’s pretty much automatic at this point. I recently watched Pixar’s SOUL and I absolutely loved it because the main character Joe and his journey through the movie speaks to the lived experience of so many people. There were so many parts of the movie that stood out to me and how much they embodied the human experience. If you haven’t watched the movie…. spoilers ahead!
In the film Joe, a brilliant Jazz pianist, lands his dream job, only to fall into a manhole and die. His soul refuses to accept what has happened and he lands up in The Great Before (the place where souls are made and they learn skills and develop their personality before going to earth). There he meets Soul 22, an apathetic soul who has no interest in making the journey to earth. Joe gets tasked with mentoring 22. In one scene Joe and 22 go through the memories of his life, and as Joe watches his life played back to him he feels devastated as he believes he has wasted his life.
There is one memory where Joe is eating pie alone in a diner, and he views that memory as being sad. Through the movie, 22 is the one who ends up teaching Joe that life is not about big achievements rather it’s about taking joy in the day-to-day living that we so often take for granted. At the end of the movie we see Joe (alive and well!) in the same diner eating pie alone, but this time he is savoring the moment. The pie is delicious and he is experiences happiness as he connects with the simple joy of eating his favorite slice of pie.
People feel unfulfilled in their lives because they haven’t been able to achieve their dreams or haven’t become the “best” in their field. They feel like they’ve wasted their life. These are the beliefs that people often come to therapy with. When you think that you’ve squandered your life, it can leave you feeling depressed, anxious, and full of unresolved grief. Feelings that you have no idea how to deal with.
In the movie, Joe can’t see that prior to meeting 22 he wasn’t really connecting with life, he thought once he landed his dream job then his life would start. At the end of the movie, another character tells Joe this anecdote:
“I heard this story about a fish, he swims up to an older fish and says: ‘I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.’ ‘The ocean?’ the older fish says, ‘that’s what you’re in right now.’ ‘This?’ says the young fish, ‘this is water, what I want is the ocean!”.
Joe at the start of the movie is the young fish, looking to start living his life, looking for the ocean, but he fails to see that he is already in the ocean and if he were to stop searching for it then he would see he was already in it!
Joe gets his dream job and accomplishes his goal but feels disappointed that he doesn’t feel any different. He is still the same old Joe. He realizes that just reaching milestones isn’t what life is about, rather it’s about the journey and the process it takes to get there. To take in each moment and appreciate the present, as that is what makes life truly worth living.
