Did you watch the movie Frozen 2? You may be surprised by all of the pieces of the movie that could speak to you now, even as an adult. This movie is about following your inner voice, doing something that scares you, and finding harmony in all that lies hidden below the surface.
In the beginning, Elsa’s life is comfortable but she keeps hearing a voice calling her to go out. She is curious and scared, just like most of us are when we hear our inner voice calling us to some place new. For many of us, it is a feeling of restlessness but we do not know what we are supposed to do. All we know is the first step. It can be scary to not know what is coming and be able to prepare for it. It takes a level of trust that we will have what we need and know the right thing when it comes along. Like it did with Elsa, the voice calling us won’t go away until we heed it. We can’t shove it down. And like Elsa, it leads us to our very own “enchanted forest”. The forest is simply the unknown, the place where we are challenged and learn and grow. As Olaf keeps saying in the movie, it is our place of transformation. We often cannot grow in self-confidence until we are given opportunity to test out all that our powers can do. We need to be thrown into the fog in order to trust our internal guide rather than what we see in our environment. So much more lurks below the surface.
Underneath the surface lie feelings that maybe we have shoved down. In the movie, Elsa confronts four elements: wind, fire, water, and earth. The wind is representative of the unexpected, of change, of losing control. This is at times playful, but when it moves too fast, it is scary. Elsa learns how to slow it down instead of letting the loss of control scare her. The fire is representative of her anger, and she learns to befriend it before she hurts the people that she loves with it. The water represents her anxiety, and she learns to ride it instead of fighting it. And the earth represents that subconcious part of us that lies dormant during the day. Elsa begins to engage with it but then stops. But Anna is the one who awakens it in the end to help them accomplish their goal. Just as we may need others to help us awaken our own subconscious. Learning how to live with each of these elements, and recognizing that we have the ability to tame them, helps us to use them for our benefit.
Finally Elsa travels to find the river that remembers everything. She needs to understand her past in order to move forward. The important thing that she learns is that you shouldn’t go too deep or become too entrenched in the past, or you will drown in it. When you carry around not only your own guilt and shame, but also that of your ancestors, you become depressed and unable to contribute to the world. All you can do is the next right thing. You make right what you can make right and then move on. When we become overwhelmed, whether it is with shame or grief, we often become immobile and everything is a struggle. That’s when it is helpful to just take baby steps instead of looking too far ahead. Ana’s song of grief captures this well.
This grief has a gravity, it pulls me down. But a tiny voice whispers in my mind: You are lost. Hope is gone, but you must go on and do the next right thing….Just step and step again. It’s all that I can do. I won’t look too far ahead. It’s too much for me to take. But break it down to this next breath, this next step, this next choice is one that I can make.
Both sisters in the movie learn to just take life one step at a time in trust. And there is something freeing in that, isn’t there? You don’t need to know all the answers or have a clear picture of the future. You just ask for guidance in the moment and then trust your heart, your intuition, to tell you. There will be another stumbling block, another problem to solve, but you don’t need to think about that yet. You just take each moment as it comes… living in the present, not in the past or in the future.
About the Author: Julie Glaser is a healer who creates sacred spaces for people to share, release, and grow. She’s in the habit of being in awe and wonder and writes to share her own experiences and curiosities with other inquisitive souls in the process of transforming.
Spiritual Direction and Healing Touch Energy Therapy 