I’m guilty of this one.  A lot.

The last two days are a prime example.  Yesterday I had a difficult evening with the girls, which ended up with me in tears and all three of them completely hysterical – all over nothing in particular, just end-of-term-tiredness-from-too-many-late-nights-and-early-mornings-and-not-enough-connecting-properly-as-a-family stuff.  We were friends again by the time they went to bed, but I woke up this morning carrying the shame and guilt and bad feelings from the night before heavily on my shoulders.  Result?  I snapped at the tiniest inconvenience, knowing even as I did so that I was just setting myself up for an identical experience.

Then Mimi asked me to put some music on, and I danced away my bad mood right then and there in the kitchen, surrounded by the remnants of breakfast and the giggles of my daughters.

One of their favourite songs at the moment is ‘Let it go’ from the Disney film ‘Frozen’.  I’m pretty sure most of you will know it.  If you’ve miraculously managed to avoid the global phenomenon for the last six months, let me enlighten you… (come on, you knew it was going to happen as soon as you read the title of this post!)

(Sorry to all those of you who already have the lyrics to this tattooed on the inside of their brain – you can skip this bit if you want…

…Ha!  Who am I kidding?  We all know you’re all going to sing along at the tops of your voices, complete with all the actions) 😉

When I first heard this, I wasn’t sure about the message it gave to my young daughters: “Conceal, don’t feel” and “Don’t let them in, don’t let them see, be the good girl you always have to be” are the two lines in particular that come to mind.

But the more my girls listened to it, and the better I got to know the song (seriously – it’s on repeat in my car, in the CD player at home, on my laptop, they act it out together – it even got played at my wedding!), the more I realised that actually the key message is pretty good:

“Let it go”

Try it…

~  Let go of all the negative self talk.

~  Let go of the beliefs that you hold about yourself that you don’t need to any more.

~  Let go of the idea that you have to be perfect.

~  Let go of all the bad stuff that’s happened and move forward in the way that feels right for you.

~  Let go of the crappy yesterday.

~  Let it all go – the past is in the past.

You’ll feel better, I promise.

(And if all else fails, learn the lyrics and join the millions of other people across the world by singing your heart out in the shower, the supermarket, the school playground, and anywhere else that takes your fancy – because that’ll make you feel good too…) 🙂