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The pause is not a break from your life. It is where your life actually begins.

In this science-rich, deeply personal episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah explores what happens in your brain and body when you finally stop. Not slow down. Stop. And why that single act, backed by neuroscience, is one of the most powerful things you can do for your health, your clarity, your joy, and your ability to receive everything the universe is trying to bring you.

Drawing on the extraordinary work of the late Dr. James R. Doty, neurosurgeon, Stanford researcher, and author of Mind Magic and Into the Magic Shop, Sarah bridges his science with the spiritual heart of this podcast in a way that will make you want to put your phone down, place your hand on your heart, and breathe.

Because here is what the science says: when you are rushing, stressed, and running on autopilot, the CEO of your brain goes dark. The Central Executive Network, the part of you that creates, decides, solves, and envisions, goes offline. And you are left running on old loops, old fears, and old stories that have nothing to do with who you are becoming.

The pause brings it back online. Every single time.

In this episode you will discover:

• What the Central Executive Network is, why chronic busyness shuts it down, and the one practice that brings it back online instantly
• The Default Mode Network, your inner narrator and inner critic, and why without a pause to interrupt it you will keep living the same story on repeat
• Dr. Doty's daily pause practice, a simple breathing technique that shifts you into parasympathetic mode, the calm, open, creative state where positive beliefs take root and synchronicities begin to appear
• Why the average American spends 91 waking days per year on their phone and what that is doing to your nervous system, your creativity, and your ability to hear your own intuition
• The neuroscience of neuroplasticity and how every pause, every breath, every golden light practice is literally pruning old neural pathways and building new ones
• The breathtaking synchronicity story of a neighbor, a university shirt, and the woman who helped Sarah get her very first job in the film industry, and why it happened the moment she slowed down
• How Penny Makris intuitive calendar theme for July, relaxing and contemplating, is the exact fertile ground where your deepest intentions finally take root. Here is a link to Penny's gorgeous and intuitive calendar https://www.zazzle.com/2026_seasonal_monthly_calendar-256392882718449413

This episode is the second in a two part journey. If you have not yet listened to The Magic Is in the Pause, go back one episode first. Then come here. Together they are one of the most complete teachings The Magic in the Middle has ever offered.

The pause is the middle. And the middle is where the magic is.

Pick up Dr. Doty's books Into the Magic Shop and Mind Magic wherever books are sold. Explore Stanford's CCARE research at ccare.stanford.edu.

Join Sarah's free Qigong practice group, Monday through Friday, 7 to 7:35am Pacific on Zoom. Learn more at marrvelouslife.com.

Support the show

Thank you for spending this time in The Magic in the Middle.

If this episode supported you, follow the show and continue exploring the space where science meets spirituality and life begins to flow with greater clarity, joy, and ease.

New episodes are released every Monday.

If someone you love would benefit from this conversation, share it with them. Every time you listen, follow, or share, you help this community grow and support more people reconnecting with the brilliance already within them.

You are deeply loved.

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You are being called right now. Can you hear it?

Not the to do list. Not the notifications. Not the rushing and the busy and the go go go. Something deeper. Something quieter. Something that has been waiting, patiently and lovingly, for you to stop long enough to feel it.

In this soul-stirring, deeply intimate episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah shares a spontaneous midday download that stopped her in her tracks. Because in the middle of a rushing day she realized she could not hear herself anymore. And that is exactly when this episode was born.

This is an episode about the pause. The sacred, underrated, revolutionary act of stopping. Of breathing. Of placing your hand on your heart and listening for what is actually trying to reach you. Because here is what Sarah knows and what this podcast has always been about: the magic is not at the finish line. It is not in the achieving or the doing or the arriving. It is in the middle. In the space between the inhale and the exhale. In the quiet where something greater can finally get through.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why the pause is not a luxury but a lifeline, and how even 5 minutes of genuine stillness can shift everything about how your day unfolds
• How to use your heart center as a receiver for the guidance, love, and direction your spiritual team, your guides, your God, has been trying to send you
• The difference between prayer as asking and meditation as receiving, and why both are essential to a life that feels truly supported
• A gentle guided breathing practice to bring you out of the rush and back into your body, your heart, and the present moment
• Week one of Sarah's free Fire Horse Journey, including the kidney water element morning practice, the 5 minute water walk midday reset, and the gratitude harvest evening ritual
• How the Reticular Activation System works with gratitude to literally rewire what you see and notice throughout your day, from parking spaces to mother ducks with seven ducklings to the exact person you needed to meet
• Why the Fire Horse year of 2026 is asking you to move and take action AND to fill up first, so the fire does not burn you out before the year is done

This is not a passive listen. This is an invitation. To pause. To breathe. To place your hand on your heart and ask: what is calling me right now?

It is already there. It has always been there. The middle is where you hear it. You are greatly loved.

Sign up for Sarah's free Fire Horse Journey, with or without AI support, with AI support the link is https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-ai and without AI support https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong and for more information and to join her free Qigong practice group, Monday through Friday, 7 to 7:35am Pacific on Zoom go to marrvelouslife.com.

Support the show

Thank you for spending this time in The Magic in the Middle.

If this episode supported you, follow the show and continue exploring the space where science meets spirituality and life begins to flow with greater clarity, joy, and ease.

New episodes are released every Monday.

If someone you love would benefit from this conversation, share it with them. Every time you listen, follow, or share, you help this community grow and support more people reconnecting with the brilliance already within them.

You are deeply loved.

Send us Fan Mail

You have heard the saying show people how you want to be treated. But what if you took that one step further and showed the universe?

In this warm, luminous, and deeply personal episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah shares the simple daily rituals that have shifted her energy from a lifetime of feeling abandoned, unworthy, and alone to feeling celebrated, supported, and deeply loved. Not because everything changed on the outside. But because she changed on the inside first.

This is an episode about radical self-love in the most practical, beautiful, accessible way possible. No grand gestures required. Just a face cream, a warm bath, rose petals, and the willingness to say to yourself...I am worth this.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why showing up for yourself in small, intentional ways is one of the most powerful signals you can send to the universe
• The face care ritual Sarah does every morning that turns a two minute routine into a healing, energetic practice using Qigong principles
• How blessing your skincare, your food, and your drinks shifts the energy inside your body at a cellular level
• The mirror exercise that Sarah credits as one of the most transformational and tearful practices she has ever done
• Why an empty cup cannot fill another empty cup and how filling yourself first is not selfish but sacred
• How music, rose petals, bath oils, and a single cup of sleepy time tea can become acts of profound self-devotion
• The connection between how you treat yourself and what the universe mirrors back to you

Sarah has walked from deep self-loathing, feeling small and unworthy of her own love, to this. And she wants the same for you. Because when you are full, when you are truly full, everything shifts. The way you speak. The way you think. The way life shows up for you.

You are worth slowing down for. You are worth rose petals. You are worth every beautiful thing.

Show the universe. It is listening.

DM Sarah for her free Fire Horse integration class at marrvelouslife.com and join her free Qigong practice group, Monday through Friday, 7 to 7:35am Pacific on Zoom.

Support the show

Thank you for spending this time in The Magic in the Middle.

If this episode supported you, follow the show and continue exploring the space where science meets spirituality and life begins to flow with greater clarity, joy, and ease.

New episodes are released every Monday.

If someone you love would benefit from this conversation, share it with them. Every time you listen, follow, or share, you help this community grow and support more people reconnecting with the brilliance already within them.

You are deeply loved.

Send us Fan Mail

You have the track record. You have the experience. You have done hard things before. So why does that voice inside still whisper that you are not enough?

In this deeply illuminating episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah sits down with her friend, executive coach, and clinical hypnotherapist Sabine Lehner, founder of Turnaround Practice in Australia, for a conversation that goes far below the surface of confidence, doubt, and what it actually takes to change the tapes that have been running your life.

Sabine spent nearly a decade in finance before a single moment with a colleague in tears showed her that people mattered more to her than numbers ever would. She walked out of that office on a Thursday and never went back. What followed was a decade of deep study, corporate transformation work across three continents, and the creation of a coaching practice that does something most coaches never do: it goes straight to the subconscious source.

And while Sabine works with leaders and high achievers, everything she shares in this episode is for every single one of us. Because the subconscious mind does not care whether you run a company or a household, whether you are a CEO or a creative, a parent or a student. The old tapes run the same in all of us. The patterns formed in childhood do not check your job title before they show up. And the freedom that comes from finally understanding what has been quietly running your life belongs to everyone.

Because here is what Sabine knows, and Sarah knows from personal experience: you cannot think your way out of a subconscious pattern. And until you find the old tape that is running in the background, all the strategy in the world will only take you so far.

In this conversation you will discover:

• Why high achievers are often the most secretly insecure people in the room, and the surprising reason why their success makes the doubt louder, not quieter
• The difference between doubt that is undermining you and doubt that is actually your wisest informing agent, and why knowing which is which changes everything
• How Sabine combines clinical hypnotherapy with executive coaching to clear the window so you can finally see your situation, your strengths, and your path forward with total clarity
• Why an 18 minute guided hypnotherapy session can shift something that years of talk therapy never touched
• The moving goalpost pattern that keeps high achievers perpetually feeling like they are falling short, no matter how much they achieve
• How stress literally narrows your thinking and sends you straight back to a belief you formed at age 10, and what to do the moment you feel that happening
• Why unshakeable confidence is not the goal, and what emotional intelligence has to do with genuine, grounded success

Sarah speaks personally in this episode about her own experience working with Sabine, and what shifted in her when the old tapes finally stopped running. This is one of the most practical, science-grounded, and quietly transformational conversations The Magic in the Middle has ever hosted so far.

You are not your doubt. You never were. And there is a way through that is faster and more freeing than you might ever have imagined.

Grab Sabine's free confidence audio gift here: https://www.turnaroundpractice.au/confidence-audio

Book a free 30 minute consultation with Sabine here: https://book.turnaroundpractice.au/30-min-marrvelous-life

Find Sabine Lehner and the Turnaround Practice at https://www.turnaroundpractice.au/

Join Sarah's free Qigong practice group, Monday through Friday, 7 to 7:35am Pacific on Zoom. Learn more at marrvelouslife.com.

Support the show

Thank you for spending this time in The Magic in the Middle.

If this episode supported you, follow the show and continue exploring the space where science meets spirituality and life begins to flow with greater clarity, joy, and ease.

New episodes are released every Monday.

If someone you love would benefit from this conversation, share it with them. Every time you listen, follow, or share, you help this community grow and support more people reconnecting with the brilliance already within them.

You are deeply loved.

Send us Fan Mail

That panic you feel right before you take the next step? That voice saying who do you think you are? That is not a stop sign. That is proof you are growing.

In this episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah gets beautifully raw and real about her own nervous system, sharing the panic that still visits her as she steps deeper into this podcast, this work, and the next greatest version of herself. From painfully shy and self-loathing to leading Qigong in front of thousands, she is walking this path right alongside you, and she wants you to know: the growing pains are not the problem. They are the invitation.

This episode builds on last week's guided manifestation practice and goes even deeper, giving you the science and the somatic tools to keep your nervous system on your side as you expand.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why your excuses, your fear, and your resistance are not character flaws but your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do
• Three powerful somatic techniques to calm your nervous system in real time, including the Voo breath, the sniff and exhale, and the shoulder tap practice
• How to speak directly to the frightened part of yourself with love instead of frustration, and why that changes everything
• Why what we resist persists and how loving the monkey mind rather than fighting it is the key to finally moving through it
• How the Fire Horse energy of 2026 is making this the most potent time in 60 years to release old karma, old patterns, and old stories that have been keeping you small
• Why your growing pains, just like a teenager's, are simply proof that you are becoming more

Sarah speaks not from theory but from a lifetime of hard-won healing. This is practical, loving, grounded wisdom for anyone who is ready to grow and just needs to know it is safe to do so.

You are safe. You are growing. And those two things can absolutely be true at the same time.

Join Sarah's free Qigong practice group, Monday through Friday, 7 to 7:35am Pacific on Zoom. Learn more at marrvelouslife.com.

Support the show

Thank you for spending this time in The Magic in the Middle.

If this episode supported you, follow the show and continue exploring the space where science meets spirituality and life begins to flow with greater clarity, joy, and ease.

New episodes are released every Monday.

If someone you love would benefit from this conversation, share it with them. Every time you listen, follow, or share, you help this community grow and support more people reconnecting with the brilliance already within them.

You are deeply loved.

Send us Fan Mail

You came into this world pure, whole, and worthy of love. No conditions. No performance required. Somewhere along the way, someone forgot to tell you that.

In this deeply healing episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah takes you on a guided inner child journey unlike anything you may have experienced before. Not back into the pain. Not to relive what hurt. But into the arms of the little one inside you who has been waiting, maybe for decades, to finally feel safe, seen, and loved exactly as they are.

Sarah shares her own raw, tender discovery, the little girl curled up in the corner of her bedroom, feeling small, feeling wrong, feeling like she had to earn the very roof over her head. And then she shows you what she did with that. She held her. She loved her. And everything began to shift.

This episode is an invitation for you to do the same.

In this guided practice you will experience:

• A gentle, somatic inner child visualization you can return to again and again, no prior experience needed
• How to locate the part of you that still carries old fear, shame, or unworthiness and meet it with love instead of resistance
• Why the nervous system panic, the self-doubt, and the feeling of not being safe often trace back to a moment in childhood, and how healing that child heals you now
• The practice of calling in your spiritual team to shower that child with the love they always deserved
• How this single practice can shift health, spirit, and mental wellbeing because everything, including old pain, is energy, and energy can be transformed
• Why loving the parts of yourself you have judged the most is the key to breaking down the walls that have been covering your light

Sarah healed suicidal depression and severe anxiety through Qigong and inner child work. This is not theory. This is a lived path. And she is walking it right alongside you.

You were never broken. You never needed to be fixed. You only needed to be loved.

Come back to this one as often as you need to. That child inside you is worth every single visit.

Join Sarah's free Qigong practice group, Monday through Friday, 7 to 7:35am Pacific on Zoom. Learn more at marrvelouslife.com.

Support the show

Thank you for spending this time in The Magic in the Middle.

If this episode supported you, follow the show and continue exploring the space where science meets spirituality and life begins to flow with greater clarity, joy, and ease.

New episodes are released every Monday.

If someone you love would benefit from this conversation, share it with them. Every time you listen, follow, or share, you help this community grow and support more people reconnecting with the brilliance already within them.

You are deeply loved.

Send us Fan Mail

It was Easter Sunday. Sarah woke up feeling sad, heavy, and off. Not exactly the energy of resurrection.

But what happened next was exactly that.

In this intimate, soul-baring episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah shares a deeply personal Easter morning practice that started as one thing and became something she never expected. She sat down to write about how she was feeling, intending to burn the page and let it go. What poured out instead was a journey from mourning to rising, from loss to light, from the old self falling away to something bright and new being born.

She reads it to you, exactly as she wrote it. Messy handwriting and all.

This episode is an invitation to try this practice for yourself, because you deserve to pause. You deserve your own attention. And there is something inside you right now, waiting to be seen, loved, and released so that your light can finally come forward.

In this episode you will discover:

• The free writing and burn practice and why putting pen to paper is one of the most powerful energetic tools you have
• Why sometimes what feels like sadness or mourning is actually the old you falling away to make room for who you are becoming
• How Sarah moved from heavy and humdrum to feeling light, protected, loved, and cheered on, all through one unexpected writing session
• Why writing by hand carries an energetic charge that typing simply cannot replicate
• How to check in with yourself throughout the day, even in a busy office, even with five minutes and a piece of paper
• The difference between feeling your feelings and being consumed by them, and how the tools Sarah teaches help you do exactly that

No matter your faith, your background, or what this season means to you, this episode holds something for everyone. Spring, Easter, rebirth, the shedding of what no longer serves, these are universal truths written into nature itself.

You have been squashed. You have been covered. And that light inside you has never gone out.

It is time to rise.

Join Sarah's free Qigong practice group, Monday through Friday, 7 to 7:35am Pacific on Zoom. Learn more at marrvelouslife.com.

Support the show

Thank you for spending this time in The Magic in the Middle.

If this episode supported you, follow the show and continue exploring the space where science meets spirituality and life begins to flow with greater clarity, joy, and ease.

New episodes are released every Monday.

If someone you love would benefit from this conversation, share it with them. Every time you listen, follow, or share, you help this community grow and support more people reconnecting with the brilliance already within them.

You are deeply loved.

Send us Fan Mail

What if you stopped putting fun on hold until life felt easier and you have more time? What if research says fun is not a luxury at all, but one of the most restorative tools you have?

In this conversation-packed, science-rich episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah sits down with Mike Rucker, PhD, behavioral scientist, author of The Fun Habit, and fellow Chapman University alum, who found each other again across decades through the most magical of coincidences. What followed was one of the most refreshing, permission-giving conversations this show has ever had.

Mike spent years immersed in positive psychology, convinced he had the tools to wheel himself out of the hardest season of his life, the sudden loss of his younger brother, the discovery of a hip injury that ended his running, and the slow erosion of the identity he had built around his body and his joy. The tools did not work. Not because they were wrong, but because he was chasing the wrong thing. That search led him to fun, and it changed everything.

This episode will make you laugh, make you think, and quite possibly make you look at your week in a completely new way.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why chasing happiness can actually make you more miserable, and what the research says to do instead
• The four quadrant PLAY model, Pleasing, Living, Agonizing, and Yielding, and how to use it to redesign your 168 hours/ week so fun stops being an afterthought
• Why the body cannot tell the difference between fun you planned and fun that just happened, and how to use that to your advantage
• How Mike completed an Ironman in board shorts and a mohawk by making the whole thing fun, and why that approach beat grit every time
• Why yielding behaviors like doom scrolling feel like rest but leave you more depleted, and the simple science behind breaking that cycle
• The surprising research on how people whose fun cups are full become the most productive, the most generous, and the most resilient
• Why in a world that feels heavy and uncertain right now, fun is not a luxury. It is essential to thrive.
• And where Mike finds his own magic in the middle, the mystery of quantum mechanics, the beauty of not knowing, and why feeling small in the universe is actually the most freeing thing of all

Mike is warm, funny, deeply human, and extraordinarily well researched. This is the episode you share with someone who needs permission to enjoy their life again.

Find Mike at mikerucker.com and take the Fun Type Calculator to discover your personal fun profile. Pick up The Fun Habit wherever books are sold.

Join Sarah's free Qigong practice group, Monday through Friday, 7 to 7:35am Pacific on Zoom. Learn more at marrvelouslife.com.

Support the show

Thank you for spending this time in The Magic in the Middle.

If this episode supported you, follow the show and continue exploring the space where science meets spirituality and life begins to flow with greater clarity, joy, and ease.

New episodes are released every Monday.

If someone you love would benefit from this conversation, share it with them. Every time you listen, follow, or share, you help this community grow and support more people reconnecting with the brilliance already within them.

You are deeply loved.