My five year old daughter recently told me that she loves Elsa, from Frozen, because, “she saves herself.”

It gave me pause. I told her that I loved that idea, and I do. But, it gave me pause.

My first thought was that she was actually incorrect; technically, Elsa’s sister Anna saves her, in both the original movie and its sequel. My second thought was that Anna couldn’t have saved Elsa at all if Elsa herself hadn’t done what she had to do to escape the confines of her royal role and embrace her true self.

Is that what my five year old meant? I don’t know. Probably not. But I think she stumbled onto something.

Half of the battle to survival is finding a connection with someone who sees you as worth saving. But the other half, the bigger half, the better half, is in seeing yourself as worth saving, and in so doing, letting yourself be who you truly are.

It is okay to want to be saved. I’d even venture to say that’s normal (a word I don’t really set much store by most of the time). It is equally valid and important — maybe more so — to fight like hell to save yourself.