Frozen: It’s the beginning of March and we are still being gifted by mother nature with ice and snow.
Frozen: The Oscar nominated song Let It Go, in 2014, a hit for little girls everywhere.
Frozen: The Disney Movie which defines Love as: “Love,” the character states, “is putting someone else’s needs before your own.” The definition is not only key to the story’s surprising climax, but also biblically solid. For the Scriptures tell us, “Greater love has no one than this: than he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
Frozen: Webster defines it as, frigid, very cold, obstructed by ice.
It’s amazing how one word can have so many different meanings. So why am I stuck on this very cold, sometimes debilitating word? Because in the last few years I have had many circumstances where I felt, or wanted to be frozen. There were times during my trial when something would happen and the result would cause me to feel trapped and out of control of my circumstances. In those moments I was literally frozen, in that I was not able to do anything to change the outcome. I was physically and emotionally frozen.
Lately, I feel like I am stuck, I”m sitting on a very large piece of ice in the middle of nowhere, an emotional glacier. It’s strange because for a while now I have not had any issues with releasing my feelings but for some reason I find myself wanting to hold things in again. We all know that holding in feelings is never a good idea and that came to pass for me last week. Now that I can see it though I am committed to working through whatever it is that I am holding on to. From the lips of a very dear woman “It’s OK to not be OK”.
The last few days I have been trying to figure out what it is that has me trapped on this current glacier. Other than the obvious, there is an anniversary (not mine) that does seem to be at the forefront of my mind. It’s something that I knew I would never be “OK” with, but something I thought I had moved past. Divorce is truly the death of a relationship and unfortunately for me, I am still in mourning.
I know I have made a lot of progress in my healing but then I have these surprises creep up on me and throw me right back onto that glacier where I have an emotional explosion! The hard part is not to feel like I’m right back at the beginning. I need to put all those other explosions behind me and just focus on the one that has me on this current block of ice. Also hard, is to let it all out; finding someone to confide in and tell all of this too. I have been through three counselors since my divorce; they keep leaving, maybe I need to look into that! (ha ha) Most importantly though is recognizing when you are feeling isolated on the glacier before it’s too late and you are piled up high one on top the other before the damn breaks. 
In the words of Disney’s Frozen….LET IT GO! Let it all in and then let it all out. We have to remember that tears are healing and it’s OK. Keeping in mind also not to be angry with yourself when you get to these moments. My first reaction was how angry I was at because I am still holding on to some of these issues, but then I realized its because I haven’t let them go from my heart. They are still there because they still cause hurt, and I need to face them in order to release them.
I have been living in the biggest storm of my life, there may be nothing harder than this. It is going to take time, patience, understanding, love, faith, and hope to guide me towards being healed. I have no idea how long it will take, or if I ever will be completely over everything that I went through. For now I know that it’s OK for me not to be OK, and I need to let other’s around me know when I am feeling that way. It’s not healthy to be alone on that block of ice, the more people I let in and the more I talk about it, the quicker that ice will melt and I will be free of it. I have to admit when I first pictured myself sitting on a glacier and it was melting away, I felt panic! What if I”m not ready? What if it melts and I drown? Well, the people around, us, those helping us, will be our life jackets. They will make sure that we are safe to swim and they will lead us safely to the shore.
Do you feel trapped on your own emotional glacier? Respond in the comments.
Kimberly
Courageous Butterfly
3/2/14
Related topics/blogs
Let It Go, momofthreelivinginbfe
Seeing Emotions, Enchanted Heart
Out of the Chrysalis 
Oh Kimberly – Another insightful and timely post. God does indeed work in mysterious and wonderful ways.
This past weekend I attended a Women’s Retreat with women from the new church I have been attending for a little over 4 months. We were asked to bring with us something that brings us Joy. Of course the first thing that came into my thoughts was my beautiful Grandson. He does indeed bring me Joy – but a voice inside kept pushing me to something I had written about a experience at a previous Women’s retreat. That retreat occurred less than 8 months after my ex told me of his unfaithfulness and wanting a divorce. The writing seemed so sad – not joyful like we were asked to share.
I continued to feel the urge to bring this writing to share. As a result – I brought both a book of photos of my Grandson – and this writing with me. I finally realized when I got to the retreat that this truly was a story of Joy for me. The Joy of being with women who care and support me and a closeness with God that truly brings me Great Joy!
I was totally surprised when I began to read this story that the tears began to flow. I thought I had moved past the emotional part enough that I would not react in this way when I read the story. Not so!!
I will be so glad when I get to the point that I can tell these stories and not react so emotionally.
One nice story that was told to me after my story was two women who came up to lend me support. One told a story of her calling the other woman after some interaction with her ex where she had again become emotional. She had been divorced for some 5 years at that time. She asked the other woman when she felt comfortable being around her ex again. Her friend said – Oh I can tell you exactly when – last Tuesday – she said. At that point she had been divorced for 15+ years. She had been remarried for a number of years and had children from this new marriage by this time.
We just need to give ourselves a break – realize that it takes time!!
Blessings,
Phyllis
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Thank you very much for sharing Phyllis. Wow 15+ years sounds horrifying but it makes sense. I also had a phone conversation with my ex just last week. Lucky for me I had people over and I could care less what they were hearing or that I was rudely having a phone conversation in front of them. There was no way I was going to be alone with that phone and my ex on the other end.
Kimberly
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Thinking of you today…
I am rushing off to work now and will comment later.
Take care 🙂
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Thanks Elizabeth!!!
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Hello everybody, I’ve not posted for a while because I haven’t been able to put into words what was happening to me. I’ve had to find the courage and strength to end the relationship with the love of my life. I’m in such pain, but I know at last that I deserve more, and because it was me who walked away I feel I will be able to get past this. What it showed me was that to be in a dying relationship was because of his cowardice, not mine – my feelings never changed, I was always authentic but to actually leave was too terrifying to contemplate. I know I’ll have days when the pain will be intense, but I feel I did the right thing.
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Hi Lani, keep believing in yourself and go with what your gut tells you. I learned the hard way when I didn’t listen to my intuition. Remember we are here for you to work through any emotion. Keep your chin up!
Blessings,
Kimberly
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I know what you mean. In the beginning I worked SO hard just to survive that when I was able to ‘let go’ I thought I had reached whatever-place-it-is-you-get-to-surviving-divorce. In reality I had simply got to a place of acknowledging what happened. For a while I was OK but then sunk again with the sudden realisation that I was alone – truly alone. By that I mean I had previously thought of my husband as part of me. I had been half of a whole. I knew that to be true to myself I could never let that happen to me again. This is a scary place to get to (a realisation of the aloneness of self) and yet an amazing place at the same time.
I initially felt this place to be ‘frozen’, a twilight place between past and future that lacked the meaning I craved. I am no longer wife and mother and yet I do not not who i am instead. I have a vision for my future yet it is foggy. There are parts of the past that haunt me. Yet both the past and the future do not exist. Only the present is real, and the present is me stuck between the past and the future.
The encouraging thing is I am NOT stuck. I now know that being in transition between past and future – as cold and lonely as it it – is a lot better than being stuck in the past that does not exist.
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PS. Read “The Adult Years: Mastering the Art of Self Renewal” by Frederick Hudson. It describes stages one goes through in shifting from one ‘chapter’ of life to another. Your description of a frozen place is a phase he describes as a place you go when in between two chapters of life.
What is happening to you is quite normal.
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