My granddaughters, ages 4 and 2, love this song so much they sang it for me (several times) during my last visit. Of course, their voices and recall for words are such that I couldn't catch all the lyrics until I looked them up on line. Then I was struck, as many here have been, of the resonance with the journey from childhood distress to healing. For example:
Don’t let them in, don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know
is the norm during years when the child suffers. But then the child grows up, leaves the family of origin behind and recognizes that:
It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all
Often accompanying this stage is the feeling that the person deserves better than the way they have been treated in the past. People who reach this stage often come to believe that:
It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I’m free
It is often at this point in recovery from childhood stress that people are able to accept a positive and mutually supportive personal relationship in their lives, often for the first time following serial toxic partners. They are also able to ease off the perfectionism they needed to survive the early challenges so that "That perfect girl is gone."
It is also often a time to "Let the storm rage on" since appropriate anger about past maltreatment grows stronger. My concept of the cause of TMS/PPD is that this anger (not fully recognized and therefore not capable of verbal expression) is expressed via the body. When an individual is willing to "Let it go" and "Let the storm rage on" then the anger is recognized, understood to be justifiable and expressed more and more in verbal form, allowing the physical symptoms to subside and:
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I’m never going back,
The past is in the past
This is a lot to hang on a Disney song and adults can certainly point out that validation of yourself is a lot easier when you have a superpower and look like a Scandinavian bikini model. But the message clearly came through to my granddaughters that expressing yourself is both a good and a powerful thing to do which is a message we can all support.