Frozen: Keep it in or let it go?

I saw the movie Frozen again recently.

It’s a vivid, delicious, and tender demonstration of the limits (and dangers) of thinking about one or the other and the beauty and power of shifting to a mindset of both.

The benefits of thinking and thinking are most apparent when problems are complex and stakeholders seek long-term sustainable solutions. It is the kind of thinking we need in our world and which, at least from this blogger’s perspective, is sadly lacking. However, it also applies in other contexts.

OnPower and love: a theory and practice of social change, Adam Kahane writing on the “both-and” of power Y love quotes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr .:

… power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic …

What struck me about Frozen, aside from the great music and animation, is how the movie highlights the false choice between power and love and what can happen when we choose both.

Elsa, the Snow Queen, struggles in the first part of the film to “keep it”. Because his power is dangerous to those he loves, he is afraid of it and holds it back. Thinking that she is choosing love, she represses her enormous power and eventually becomes completely disconnected from herself and those she loves the most.

In the powerful show-stopper, “Let It Go”, he finally explodes and unleashes his life force to do whatever he does, without shackles of any kind. She has finished hiding, not feeling and repressing herself. Stop worrying about what people say, stand your ground and let it fly without limits. But in the process, he builds a tower of isolation and eventually harms the one person in his life that he loves the most.

At the end of the film, through an equally enormous act of love, Elsa understands that it doesn’t have to be “neither” let it go “or” let it go. “She finds the path that leads to both and, where she can channel her vast power, your vital energy, your kiconstructively, powerfully and lovingly.

Aikido, the martial art that I practice and love for its physical and metaphorical basis, demonstrates this combination of power and love in what is known and in “The Impossible Arm.” Physically, the arm that cannot be bent is effortless and strong at the same time. As a metaphor for life, it shows us that when our vital energy (our ki) is purpose-driven, we can effortlessly accomplish great things, flow through difficult conversations, and consciously influence our environment and lives.