How to Make Your Own Magic

We are the genies in the our own lamps, and we can create our own dreams.

- AJ Miller

I used to spend most of my life daydreaming. I would daydream about finding a magic lamp, and asking the genie inside to make me skinny and confident and cool. I couldn’t imagine looking and feeling that way without magic—and I didn’t think that magic existed outside of daydreams. Most of my life was spent in a state of perpetual fear, doubt and avoidance.

My scarcity mindset overwhelmed me. I barely functioned. I was listening to a story told by myself, about myself, that had no happy ending, middle or beginning, and I believed every word. At 17, after a few failed attempts to find a job—with my weight and health starting to catch up with me, and having been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, depression, anxiety, and learning disabilities—I was put on disability benefits, and that was my only means of income for the next 13 years. This created an ironic feedback loop of guaranteed safety and survival alongside crippling feelings of inadequacy, shame, and a lack of identity that only exacerbated the health issues and anxiety that had disabled me in the first place.