Ep 23 The Science of the Pause: What Dr. James Doty Taught Us About Rewiring Your Brain and Receiving the Magic

Ep 23 The Science of the Pause: What Dr. James Doty Taught Us About Rewiring Your Brain and Receiving the Magic

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/support] 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.

Ep 22 The Magic Is in the Pause: How to Hear What Is Calling You From Within

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-ai] and without AI support https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong [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 [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/support] 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.

Ep 21 Show the Universe How You Want to Be Treated: The Self-Love Practice That Changes Everything

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/support] 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.

EP 20 Below the Surface: Why High Achievers Doubt Themselves and What Actually Shifts It with Sabine Lehner

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://www.turnaroundpractice.au/confidence-audio] Book a free 30 minute consultation with Sabine here: https://book.turnaroundpractice.au/30-min-marrvelous-life [https://book.turnaroundpractice.au/30-min-marrvelous-life] Find Sabine Lehner and the Turnaround Practice at https://www.turnaroundpractice.au/ [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 [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/support] 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.

Ep 19 Growing Pains Are Good: How to Calm Your Nervous System and Grow Beyond Your Edges

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/fan_mail/new] 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 [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/support] 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.