I have two daughters so have watched Frozen my fair share of times. I never imagined that I would be glad to have Let it Go stuck in my head for eternity. Most of all, I never expected this movie and its messages to resonate with me so deeply.
I am one of those people always hoping to create more time. My mind swirls with a lengthy list of "to-dos" ranging from business ideas and dreams for the future, completing projects like hanging new art on our bare walls (I cleared them to inspire me to get it done!), to the mundane of dealing with my cluttered inbox. Of course, logically, I know that I cannot create more time and have learned that in order to free up time, something has to give. Much like the "one in, one out" rule that my husband tries to have me employ in my closet, something has to go to make room for more. Let me share that letting go doesn't come easily to me at all. Controlling feels like a harsh label but in all honesty, it's quite fitting and hence why my new mantra has become "let it go."
While participating in an online course called the Bliss Habit created by Lori Harder, I had an epiphany while doing a forgiveness exercise. I realized that I didn't really have anyone in my life to forgive, except... myself. I realized how much guilt I held onto about all kinds of things in my life. I'd ruminate over saying the wrong thing, guilt myself over things that I hadn't completed, things that I hadn't succeeded at, and even my less than stellar parenting decisions. You name it, I held onto it and the guilt that came along with it. I've come to realize how useless of an emotion guilt is, how it keeps us planted in the past, and keeps us from being present and happy.
When Elsa in Frozen unties her braid and lets the wind whip through her hair I felt myself saying "YES!, you go girl!" Let is go has seriously become my meditation. When my little one has to have ALL of her fingernails clipped when we are already late for school or I have to re-do my elder daughter's ponytail five times to get it right I repeat silently, "let it go..."
I was very fortunate to hear Arianna Huffington speak in Bermuda, she sparked another "ah ha" moment for me. She said (and wrote in her book Thrive), "It was very liberating to realize that I could "complete" a project by simply dropping it -- by eliminating it from my to-do list."
It sounds so simple but I was making it so hard! I wasn't forgiving myself, I wasn't dropping the things that were never going to happen. Holding on to everything was making me stressed and burdened and all I had to do was stop. I can't even begin to explain how freeing it has been to just release all that guilt and pressure simply by choosing to let it go.
We do manage our minds and realizing that we have the power to choose to let go of things is just simply awesome! Let it go... let it go...