Margaret Zachary
I know. It’s stuck in your head now, and for that I’m, well—actually, I’m not sorry. Hear me out for a moment, and then rock out in your car like a 6-year-old.
I was driving my daughter to school one morning, and, in blissful anticipation of our Frozen 2 date, we were blasting “Let it Go.” That day, I heard the song differently from how I’d heard it before. I’d always interpreted “let it go” as Elsa’s way of saying, “Forget everyone. I’m done with all these people,” and I’d imagined her in this moment being rebellious, tossing the world aside to run away from her problems and build her “kingdom of isolation.”
Okay, so that is a significant part of what happens in the story; however, in this moment something else happens within Elsa that I believe is overlooked—she embraces courage, pushes past her fears, and unleashes her full, unbridled potential. She becomes one with her purest self, embracing everything beautiful, magical, powerful, and magnificent about who she is, and lets it all out. She pours herself unapologetically into the world with passion, with purpose, and with a fearlessness that allows her to create beyond even her own imagination. She retorts to the darkness that taunts her the famous lines, “The fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all.”
While I recognize within the context of the story that things didn’t go well for Arendelle after that song, my point is this:
We all have fears that prevent us from becoming our purest selves; we all experience assumptions, interpretations, limiting beliefs, and negative voices in our heads that tell us to stand down. And we listen. Now imagine what could happen if we “let it go” and choose to push past those blocks. What could we become if we spoke back to those voices and dared to fully experience and become everything we were created to be?
The next time you find yourself afraid to act on something that nourishes your soul, afraid to have a difficult conversation with someone, afraid to stand up for yourself, afraid to create something and share it with the world… recognize that those fears are blocks. They are not real. They are all in your head, and they are meant to keep you small.
You deserve to feed your soul, have difficult and meaningful conversations, stand up for yourself, and create beautiful things and share them. You deserve to “let it go,” and live limitlessly.
Now go blast that song, sing it at the top of your lungs, and be who you were created to be.
Margaret McCormick is a core energy coach in the Austin area. She partners with survivors of unexpected life events to help them regain control over their minds, bodies, and spirits.