November 16, 2019
updated March 16, 2022
Frozen
Letting Go to Heal & Grow
I felt drawn to write an article about the Disney movie Frozen as one of the main character’s journey largely encapsulates the thematic growth I experienced in psychotherapy and that I see as a part of many clients’ work; the theme of self-acceptance. I coined my personal journey going from ‘self-loathing to self-acceptance’ and see this shift as moving toward one’s natural dispositions paired with mindful management of when these get in our way. Usually, when someone or a family is coming in for therapy, something about how they are living is not working as they would like. Often people are reacting to situations in a way that is perpetuating or worsening their lot. They may shame themselves for their reactions, or hastily numb or dismiss the pain they feel. Feelings like worry, sadness and anger may mistakenly be viewed as pathological and entirely problematic. When someone is built as a feeling and sensitive person, these uncomfortable emotions can serve as accurate reactions to circumstances and as part of an adjustment process to situations as we consider the grieving process to demonstrate this intuitive propensity for healing. Growth and healing essentially result from shifting reactive operating to a more cognizant and deliberate mindfulness with which to experience our emotions. By meeting ourselves where we are with our emotional predispositions and needs to heal, we foster integration of our experiences into our being, instead of forcefully directing how we ‘should be’ feeling from a more superficial and societally prescribed framework. Freeing ourselves to experience these emotions and to meet ourselves where we are with our natural orientations can free-up frustrated operating styles, where we had persisted in believing our square peg should fit a round hole. For example, an intensely feeling person experiencing stressors like job insecurity or fractures in interpersonal relationships may naturally get increasingly irritable or emotional as a way of working through the impact of these events. Their mind may default to musing about events, to the detriment of efficiency and inner peace. If this person finds themselves in an environment that discourages emotional expression, this unmet processing will often leave them with an over-expression of what outlet is possible and with an elongated timeframe, for their frustrated healing process. These dynamics are illustrated beautifully in Frozen. The story of Elsa and Anna includes early childhood events that traumatize Elsa and her family into repressing powerful parts of the young girl. Traumatic loss freezes this repressive mind-set such that working through loss, resiliency, and self-acceptance are all inhibited, leaving Elsa a solitary and fearful character who is reactive to her own potential. Anna, as the empathetic extraverted counterpoint to her sister, is frustrated in her development as her connectedness is abruptly terminated and the capacity for resiliency as a family is lost. As the ultimate heroine of the tale, Anna’s unconditional love and intuitive draw to connect win the day.
The initial traumatic loss occurs when Elsa and Anna are playing in their parents’ grand castle, as girls of less then ten years of age. Anna is urgently pleading with her sister to “do the magic”, as their play gets increasingly boisterous. Anna is insatiable for her sister’s ice creations and walks higher and higher on magically appearing steps of ice, when her sister, frantically trying to keep up, errantly zaps Anna in the head with her powers knocking her younger sibling unconscious. Alerted to the accident, the girls’ parents take them to magical troll healers in a nearby wood. These healers advise the King and Queen of Arendelle that their daughter can be healed, but that memory of such dangerous play with her sister, as well as knowledge of her sister’s magical capabilities, should be removed from Anna’s consciousness. The removal of these experiences leaves a disconnect between the girls, which Anna never understands and cannot accept. Elsa literally shuts herself off from her sister, hearing her sibling’s pleas for companionship from the other side of a locked bedroom door. Elsa is told to conceal her exceptional nature and by implication to fear that part of herself. The trolls explain that over time Elsa will learn to control these powerful parts of herself, however the death of her parents serves to leave her stuck in the all-or-nothing belief that her abilities are unacceptable. These poor girls were already isolated from each other, when their parents are shown taking a stormy ocean voyage on a brigantine that sails into high waves eventually disappearing from the surface in subtle and tragic Disney style. The loss of their parents leaves everything frozen in time in the castle and within the girls. A song montage shows time lapse after the funeral and the girls progress in age to coronation day, presumably Elsa’s 18th birthday.
Grief plays an important role in the tale. Natural grief is best conceptualized as a rollercoaster of emotion the body automatically boards following a loss. Losses include strong feelings of sadness, anger and anxiety. We mourn the loss of someone, something, an ideal or a dream, by depressing over the loss of joy, closeness and future potential. We anxiously muse, or bargain, about how this loss will effect our living, and the unfairness and incredulity of our experience. We anger about the imposition and injustice of the loss. Healthy grieving involves recurrent experiencing of these and other emotions in a non-linear, overt and covert manner. The body and mind will automatically take on this work with losses of subjective significance. The only way to screw up grief is to numb it. To superficially steer grief as we or our society, see fit, or to reactively repress elements of the process, often will set people up to experience longer bouts of grief. For example, someone who doesn’t allow themselves to anger around a loss may experience exacerbated feelings of sadness and anxiety. Elsa’s loss of her parents, as well as her body’s betrayal with the loss of trust in her power, serve as two sources of grief with which she must contend. Her mistrust of her feelings inhibits her capacity to attend to her grief.
Death requires the freedom to bargain, or question incessantly the details around what has been lost, what part we may have played, and how we are to survive in a post-loss world. The utility of this action could be to help map out a new future inclusive of the loss. By deeply worrying about the impact of our loss, we are able to identify new sources of resilience and paths to progress. This musing can lead to exploration of who we are, why we are built the way we are and react the way we do. A loving and self-caring approach to this healing can nurture new understandings and resiliency. Elsa however, has been taught to fear strong emotions. Her default to repression has engrained a “Conceal, don’t feel” mentality which interferes with her body’s need to process her experiences. As a poorly tended pressure cooker would on a stove, Elsa eventually explodes. Her emotions leak out during her coronation festivities, as the additional stressors overwhelm Elsa’s willful attempts to repress. As the new queen has been sitting for many years with the turmoil around harming her sister, learning parts of her were unacceptable, losing the lives of her parents and her relationship with her sister, Elsa’s explosion is massive leaving everyone and everything around her chilled, distant and afraid. This distance is magnified by Elsa’s reaction to her unintended release. While she is freed to explore her beautiful previously repressed powers, she is also steadfast in her belief that she could never lbe accepted or loved for who she is. Elsa isolates herself in an unimaginably beautiful ice castle, a product of her emotionally releasing her power at the climax of the story. The struggle for self-acceptance is moving for Elsa during this tumultuous period. The experience of revealing her true self to others allowed the possibility of more balanced living, with all parts of her being acceptable. This ultimately would not happen without her family’s support. Elsa swings as a pendulum from fully repressed in society, to fully released but in isolation. In both situations, a belief that “I could never be loved for who I am” persists. Anna’s unwavering drive to be connected with her sister merges these dispirit parts of Elsa. From her hours of pleading for her suddenly distant playmate to re-emerge, to her freezing journey to find her sister in isolation, Anna proved no slights, behaviors or eccentricities would keep her from loving her sibling. Elsa’s reception of this unconditional acceptance, peaking at her sister’s willingness to sacrifice her own life for Elsa’s, frees Elsa to accept these parts of herself as well. The experience of unconditional love allowed a new homeostasis to emerge within Elsa, where her emotions could be felt and valid, without reactively causing blizzards. Our own acceptance of who we are, what we have experienced, and our body’s need to physically work through these experiences, allows for healthier individualized homeostasis’ of our emotional systems. Trusting in the healing mechanisms within us and around us can allow us to Let Go of inhibitions, heal and thrive in our authentic selves.
William Adams, Licensed Professional Counselor & Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Will Adams has practice psychotherapy at The Link Counseling Center in Atlanta Georgia since 2007. Feel free to contact him with your experiences and reactions at healingandhopewm@gmail.com