After completing my Landmark Advanced Course this past weekend, I’ve truly discovered that I have the power to create life, or freeze it to death. If my words and actions don’t align, or if I’m dishonest about how much I passionately care about people and making a difference in the world, it’s killer. It’s like being frozen and icing over everything around me. Also, if I lack a constructive focus for my creative energy, I isolate myself and get lost in a snowstorm of my own creation.

Like me, the young snow queen in “Frozen,” Elsa, is a powerful woman who experiences the stifling pain of isolation and creative power run amuck. Also, like me and most of you reading this, as a child Elsa comes to believe sharing her amazing abilities will cause people to shun her. When pushed to her limit, she freezes her entire kingdom in the summer. Then she creates an ice castle to hide in. Elsa is so determined to shove life and the risk of hurt away; she nearly kills her younger sister. It is only her sister’s willingness to sacrifice herself to save Elsa that melts the ice and opens Elsa’s eyes to reality. After her sister’s brush with death, Elsa is moved to focus her power to create joy and fun for all with a year-round ice rink and a melt-proof talking snowman.

I, too, can be such a snow queen. When dismissed from a job two years ago, I retreated into my ice castle focusing on my pain, trying to fix myself and figure out what went wrong. Then I lost myself in a flurry of networking and training. First, I worked environmental consulting circles, then I tried EMS (environmental management systems) and recently I’ve drifted into green business/renewable energy circles with a short trip down pollution prevention lane. Based on my feelings of isolation and rejection from teasing way back in grade school, I’ve kept my true passion and ideas for a more sustainable world concealed. In the last two weeks I’ve chosen a focus for my energy. I’ve opened up and shared a vision for transforming a North Austin business park into a model of a sustainable business community for the world. Amazingly, several people think it’s a great idea! They actually want to help make it possible!

How freeing it is to let it go and share an inspiring possibility with the world! I’ve taken Elsa’s empowering anthem, “Let It Go,” as my personal anthem. It often runs in my head reminding me to take courage and funnel my creative energy on this project that will make a difference. I’m ready to do whatever it takes to make the North Austin Green Dream for Braker Center a reality, including funding it by applying for grants, and taking my chances on winning cash from a car dealer’s grand opening. I’ve even offered myself as an unstoppable force in collaboration with a solar installer to put solar panels on the property as a gateway project, though how we’ll do it is yet unclear.

The dream begins to take form now and life begins to thaw.