how to summon the magic genie within
you have the power to make your wishes a reality
How can you possibly live a life of ease when there’s poopy diapers and a messy house hanging over your head?
My 5 year old still poops in her diaper at night.
I didn’t know this was a thing, but she’s been potty trained for over 3 years and she still has a hard time pooping in the toilet.
Why? I have no idea.
I only know that I’d rather bring her to the bathroom in the middle of the night than have to clean up her messy, poopy diaper in the morning.
I got sick of waking her up in the middle of the night and stopped. But I still worry about it every night.
Why couldn’t I just ask my husband for help and let the worry go?
…because of my need for control.
People who feel the need to control others, don’t have control over themselves.
BOOM.
There are very few things in our lives that we actually have control over. And we certainly don’t have control over others. I worry about lots of stuff:
About difficult conversations at work.
About how my kids will turn out.
About my mental state. (This one, I have 100% control over.)
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
~Benjamin Franklin
For me, keeping in the sunlight [positive thoughts] requires work and lots of self-awareness. My mind automatically goes to worry mode. The reason I worry is because I’m dwelling on the future. And the past. How would it look if focused on living in the present?
I would act in the best interest of myself instead of worrying about what I should be doing. I would just do it.
But reality is, I know I should take my daughter to the bathroom, but I don’t want to. And then I worry.
If the shoulds stopped here, it might be OK. But I use this excuse everywhere.
I should sweep the bathroom floor.
I should get to bed earlier.
I should write my blog post.
And that’s what shoulds are, they are an excuse.
The above are all things that would likely produce a good outcome if I did them, and they are simple to do. You don’t need a Master’s degree in engineering to figure it out. But somehow the shoulds always get the better of me.
The bathroom goes unswept.
Yet again, I wake up tired and grumpy.
Another week goes by without writing a blog post.
Note: It is important to differentiate between the shoulds that are real and the shoulds that are just you trying to please others.
And then there are the slightly more grown-up shoulds, that come in the form of wishes.
I wish we could go on an overseas vacation once a year.
I wish I no longer had to work a 9 to 5.
I wish it wasn’t so hard to be an adult.
It’s easy to get sucked up in self pity when your wishes never get granted. Is there a magical genie that will grant me my wishes?
I can already hear the genie knocking on my brain.
Helloooo, Terumi, stop wishing and start doing!
Lucky for all of us, there is a magical genie! She stares back at us in the mirror.
In his book, “Turning Pro,” Steven Pressfield writes:
The payoff of living in the past or future, is you never have to do your work in the present.
The advantage — of when I’m just sitting and dwelling on all the things I should be doing, or desperately wishing to start my own business someday — is that I don’t actually have to do anything.
BUT it’s the cowardly way out. All I have to do is feel sorry for myself and feel stuck.
Self pity party, woohoo!
We all have this tremendous power over our lives, but we tend to hand it over to others.
I frequently hand my power over to the person that others expect me to be. I was raised to absolutely obey authority for fear of punishment, so I became overly perfectionistic to combat this. I dreaded getting looks of displeasure.
Now when I catch myself saying, “I should…” I interrupt and ask myself if it’s really something I should do. If it is, I just do it. No shoulds, aka excuses, needed.

When we focus on what’s right for us — we/ourselves/our own happiness becomes the focus.
Make that genie work for you.
So if the bathroom floor is dirty and it’s bothering me, of course I’ll clean it because it will make me feel better. And if I need to get to bed earlier, I will because my body needs it (Ok, I’m still working on this one). And if a blog post needs to be written this week, it will get done because writing brings me joy.
Is focusing on making ourselves happy selfish? So many of us feel like being miserable is the only way to live. Nope, not true. I refuse.
I am not saying to act inconsiderately towards others. Remember,
If mom’s happy, then everyone’s happy.
And the opposite it true too.
No more guilt because you should be doing something. No more giving your power away to others. Like we keep our hands to ourselves in kindergarten — keep your power to yourself, always. ;)
To sum it up:
- Notice when you’re handing your power over to others.
- Turn your I should’s and I wish’s into I will’s.
- Put YOUR happiness first.
Live a life of ease and get more done; your genie might even grant you all your wishes!
Here’s a big YES to stepping into your own power and living your life as the real you, doing what makes you happy.
❤
P.S. My daughter has [finally] started pooping on her own in the toilet, woohoo! Now it’s really time to party.
Post-Publish Reflections
(Note: I’ve been wanting to this for a while, to post a reflection after I’ve time to think about what I wrote in the blog post. Including updates, for further thoughts invoked by comments, etc.)
So, here we go!
Thanks for the feedback, Steven Thompson and Dave Newell — your encouragement keeps me wanting to write more. And also a huge thank you to all of my continued fans on Medium and Facebook. ❤
Erica Walter Thanks for the applause on my mommy success! lol Though it was more her than me. And thanks for your questions. Great question about handing your power over to another. You’re getting right at the heart of the matter; it’s hard to notice unless we are aware. And how can we be aware if we don’t know what to look for? My suggestion would be to start noticing when you feel pressure/resistance/unwanted thoughts/emotions. When you feel it - stop and notice it, feel it in your body and just sit with it. Once you try it, you’ll start to get that awareness. And your intuition will tell you where it’s coming from — you’ll get a good sense of it.
Tamara Kemper Thanks especially for your words about vulnerability and trust with the audience. It is something I wonder, why I’m OK with putting my stuff out there. I grew up feeling numb to my emotions so now I feel I need to express them, it’s a form of therapy for me. I’m OK with being vulnerable because we all have faults and so I feel judgment is unnecessary. I also feel our personal journeys are so important and people tend to only focus on their careers, so this is my way of standing up to what I feel is an important part of our lives. Re getting out of my own perfectionistic ways — I actually wrote a recent post about it if you’re curious :) : https://medium.com/@tworoomie/is-striving-for-perfection-good-or-bad-e573a025e1dd
