The Magic in the Middle

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How the energy you carry shapes your life and the people you love.

A group of children were told that the first one to find the treats would win them all. So they took each other’s hands, ran together, and sat down to enjoy the treats as one.

When asked why, they answered with a single word: Ubuntu. I am because we are. How can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?

It is a simple idea with a surprising link to your energy, your mood, and the people you love. This week, Sarah shares the unexpected ways Ubuntu showed up in her life, from a neighborhood restaurant to a room full of people making candles and laughing together, and how it can change the way you feel today.

In this episode, you will learn:

• What Ubuntu means and why “I am because we are” can transform your day and your life!!!
• How to treat your emotions as messengers, with a gentle pause to ask, “Do you have a message for me?”
• How to set an intention by first stepping into the energy you want, then letting go and trusting the universe
• What a baseball pitcher teaches us about surrendering the outcome and finding peace in the middle of pressure
• How a small shift from “I have to” to “I get to” turns chores into gratitude
• Why your energy is contagious, and why filling your own cup first lets you give from fullness

Sarah shares from her own journey through a very dark season. Whether you are brand new here or have been with us from the start, you are welcome. And thank you to everyone who supported her Alzheimer’s Walk with donations, prayers, and love.

You are the magic. And the middle is the pause where your energy shifts and the whole world feels it.

Continue this journey:

Practice with Sarah live, Monday through Friday at 7am Pacific, for 30 to 35 minutes of Spring Forest Qigong: https://marrvelouslife.com/spring-forest-qigong-practice-group-page

Download the free Fire Horse Journey and bring these practices into your mornings, middays, and evenings: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

You are the heart of this community, and I am so grateful you are here. The Magic in the Middle is a labor of love, and if it has touched your life, you can help support the work with a small gift. Every bit helps me keep creating and sharing, and there is never any obligation. Thank you for being the magic: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/supporters/new

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

Something in your life has ended. Maybe you have not named it yet, but your body has been carrying it. What if honoring it is the fastest way to what comes next?

Grief is not only about losing a loved one. It can come from a move, a season of life that closed, a version of yourself you have outgrown, or a dream you let go of. In this episode, Sarah shares that grief is simply love with no place to go, and walks you through a gentle practice to give that love somewhere to land. No fixing, no rushing, no judgment.

This is Fire Horse Journey day three of week 4, Grief as Gateway, during the metal element season of fall, when your lung energy comes on duty and your body is naturally ready to release. Sarah also brings in what she learned from her conversation with Rose Rita James: the power of making an appointment with yourself, and meeting change with curiosity.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why unprocessed grief can settle in your lungs and weigh on your energy, and why releasing it makes room to feel creative, clear, and alive again
• A morning practice that sets your reticular activating system before you even get out of bed, using the mantra “Today, I look for the unexpected beauty that arrives after something ends”
• A midday grief release breath and movement, a gentle forward fold you can do standing or sitting in just 5 to 8 minutes, to let your body move grief through physically
• An evening completion ceremony in your journal to acknowledge what has ended with love and gratitude, then make space for what is coming
• Why honoring what has ended is not weakness, it is the most efficient path to what is beginning
• What the trees teach us about fall: the leaves let go while the roots are busy underneath, preparing for spring
• How to bring contentment in after you release, so you are not just letting go, you are filling the space with something nourishing
• Why small, regular practice, even five minutes, shows your mind and body you love them

You do not have to do all three practices. Try one for a week and see how you feel. Or simply listen along with Sarah, as part of a community breathing and releasing together.

You are the magic. And the middle is the pause where grief softens and something new begins.

Continue this journey:

Practice with Sarah live, Monday through Friday at 7am Pacific, for 30 to 35 minutes of Qigong practice: https://marrvelouslife.com/spring-forest-qigong-practice-group-page

Download the free Fire Horse Journey and receive the practices in your inbox to save or print: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

Listen to the conversation with Rose Rita James, and get her book Tears Are Holy Water: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-magic-in-the-middle/id1874475146?i=1000795902918

You are the heart of this community, and I am so grateful you are here. The Magic in the Middle is a labor of love, and if it has touched your life, you can help support the work with a small gift. Every bit helps me keep creating and sharing, and there is never any obligation. Thank you for being the magic: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2571681/supporters/new

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 the answer you keep searching for outside yourself has been living in your body all along?

Your nervous system is not your enemy. It is your ally, and it has been trying to keep you safe since the day you were born. In this conversation, Sarah sits down with somatic psychotherapist, author, artist, and ritualist Rose Rita James, author of Tears Are Holy Water: Somatic Wisdom and Rituals for Feeling and Aliveness, to explore how listening to your body can change the way you know yourself and the world.

This is a warm, grounded, deeply practical conversation for anyone who is ready for real change, and who wants it to feel safe, gentle, and possible.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why your nervous system can flare up even when the change is good for you, and why familiar patterns can feel safer than healthy ones
• How to grow at your own pace using titration, the gentle art of working in small doses so your body can trust the process
• What “somatic” really means from Rita's perspective, and how the mind, body, and emotions all get a seat at the table
• Why ritual is an ancient technology for feeling safe, and the simple structure behind every ritual: set the space, orient, ground, work briefly with what is present, and close with care
• What to do in the moment when panic rises, including how to feel your feet, lengthen your exhale, and find your choice points
• How to find your embodied yes and your embodied no, and why saying no can actually deepen your relationships
• What it means to become your own oracle, trusting an inner knowing that does not depend on outside approval
• Why small steps, curiosity, play, and safety are the foundation for lasting growth

You do not have to push through, fix yourself, or do it all at once. You only have to begin where you are, with curiosity.

You are the magic. And the middle is the pause where your body’s wisdom finally gets to speak.

Continue this journey:

Practice with Sarah live, Monday through Friday at 7am Pacific, for 30 to 35 minutes of Spring Forest Qigong: https://marrvelouslife.com/spring-forest-qigong-practice-group-page

Download the free Fire Horse Journey and bring these practices into your mornings, middays, and evenings: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

Get Rita’s book, Tears Are Holy Water: Somatic Wisdom & Rituals For Feeling and Aliveness - https://a.co/d/0c740A6T

Follow Rita for free somatic mini lessons, journal prompts, and tiny rituals on Instagram - @roseritajames, Threads - @roseritajames, and TikTok - @roseritajames

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 the change you have been waiting for does not take a year, a retreat, or a whole new life? What if it begins with the very next thought you choose?

Welcome to October, the month of changing and transforming. Your guide for this journey is Sarah, a certified Spring Forest Qigong practice group leader and trainer who has walked from her own darkest season to a life she describes as magnificent, and who is here to show you that the same shift is possible for you. Transformation is not about becoming someone better. It is about revealing the powerful being who has been inside you all along.

In this episode, you will learn:

• How to change your mind and your mood in any moment, using a breath, a movement, or a one to five minute meditation
• A simple way to interrupt the thought loops that keep you stuck, and choose a thought that supports you instead
• The story of the two wolves, and the question that can change your week: which one are you feeding today?
• How to treat your mind like a garden, pulling out what no longer belongs and planting what you want to grow
• Why fall can stir up grief or heaviness, and how to move toward contentment one small step at a time, without pretending you are not hurting
• Why the little light inside even your hardest feelings is the part of you seeking to emerge
• How Penny Makris' intuitive calendar for October, changing and transforming, can guide your month

You do not have to fix yourself to begin. You only have to be willing to play with change and see what happens.

You are the magic. And the middle is the pause where everything begins to shift.

Continue this journey:
Practice with Sarah live, Monday through Friday at 7am Pacific, for 30 to 35 minutes of Spring Forest Qigong: https://marrvelouslife.com/spring-forest-qigong-practice-group-page

Download the free Fire Horse Journey and bring these practices into your mornings, middays, and evenings: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

Penny Makris Intuitive Calendar 2026 - https://www.zazzle.com/2026_seasonal_monthly_calendar-256392882718449413

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

Your phone is not in charge of who you are today. You are. And it is time to take your power back.

We just crossed the equinox, equal daylight and equal night, and your body is moving right along with the Earth into fall. This is the season when your lung energy comes on duty, and Sarah is back with week two of the Fire Horse Journey, precision and purpose.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why the pause, that quiet space between one thought and the next, is not wasted time but where the magic actually happens
• A morning practice that puts you back in charge of your own day, before your phone tells you who to be
• A midday white light purification breath that balances your lung energy and clears anything gray, heavy, or stale
• An evening energy audit journal to gently notice what is feeding you and what is draining you, no judgment required
• Why the fire horse year can push you toward overextension, taking on too much because everything feels possible and urgent
• How the metal element offers the corrective, discernment, quality over quantity, and the loving no that protects your yes

Sarah shares this from a place of real experience, having known deep darkness herself, and speaks directly to the magnificent being that already lives inside you, the one that is always worth the few quiet minutes it takes to come home to yourself.

Contentment is a choice. You are worth choosing it.

You are the magic in the middle.

Continue this journey:
Join Sarah live on zoom for Qigong practice, Monday through Friday at 7am Pacific, link is here https://marrvelouslife.com/spring-forest-qigong-practice-group-page

And deepen this work with the full Fire Horse Journey, free, here is the link https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

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

Welcome, welcome, welcome. As Sarah worked in her garden this week, hands in the soil, she felt the season shifting, and it reminded her of something we forget every fall: this isn't a time to shut down, it's a time to nurture.

The equinox is here, that perfect balance of yin and yang, equal light and equal dark. In Qigong, this is when our lung energy system comes on duty, the metal element, governing grief, depression, and release. If you have been feeling a heaviness you cannot quite explain, your body may simply be responding to the season. That is not something wrong with you. That is your body doing exactly what it was designed to do.

In this episode, Sarah walks through the fire horse journey week four, metal week, clarity and conservation. You will learn a morning practice using the reticular activating system to direct your day before your phone does it for you, a midday Qigong lung activation you can do standing, sitting, or lying down, and an evening journaling practice for naming what you are ready to release.

You do not have to release everything tonight. Just simply name it.

Sarah also shares Master Chunyi Lin's pear tea recipe for lung support, why gratitude and contentment work together to raise your vibration, and why letting go is not losing, it is making space for what wants to grow and express next.

You are the magic. The middle is the pause, the contentment, the beautiful emptiness where healing lives.

Continue this journey:
Join Sarah live on zoom for Qigong practice, Monday through Friday at 7am Pacific, link is here https://marrvelouslife.com/spring-forest-qigong-practice-group-page

And deepen this work with the full Fire Horse Journey, free, here is the link https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

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

There is a feeling you may know well. Scattered. Lost. Like you have misplaced your map in the middle of nowhere and there is no signal, no signs, no direction. Just you, floating, not knowing which way to go.

That feeling has a name. Separation. And it is the one thing Sarah wants to talk about today.

In this deeply intimate and quietly extraordinary episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah opens with one of her most vulnerable personal stories, the moment as a young child when she shut down her gifts completely after being met with fear instead of wonder. And then she traces the journey back. Back to reconnection. Back to oneness. Back to the spiritual team that has been there all along, waiting to be asked.

And then she asks them to speak.

What follows is a channeled transmission from Sarah's spiritual team, arriving mid-episode with a message so tender and so clear that you may need to listen twice. About separation and oneness on this planet right now. About why communities like the Marvelous Cheese Circle are literally raising the vibration of the earth. About birth angels and 5D consciousness and why it is absolutely okay to skip through life like a child.

About why you are worthy of the dream. All of you. Right now.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why separation from your inner spirit and your spiritual team creates feelings of fear, lostness, and terror, and why reconnection is simpler than you have ever been told
• The story of how Sarah shut down her gifts at three, four, or five years old in her mother's kitchen, and how the Rampa School of Enlightenment helped her find her way back
• How the military and the CIA use remote viewing and what that tells us about how powerful we actually are as human beings
• The simple journal practice for building a relationship with your spiritual team, including how to prepare your body, call them forward, and let the words pour through without editing or judgment
• What the spiritual team says directly about separation and oneness on this planet right now, and why focusing on your neighbors, your communities, and the love around you is the most powerful thing you can do
• Why your imaginary childhood friend was almost certainly not imaginary at all
• How birth angels work, what they protect you from, and why they are with you until your agreed upon exit from this life
• Why it is not only okay but encouraged to be happy, to skip, to live in wonder, even when the world around you feels heavy

Sarah floats when she is connected. That is what her spiritual team says. And they want that for you too.

You did not come here without help. You came here with an entire team. And all you have to do is say hello.

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

The Fire Horse Journey without AI support: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

The Fire Horse Journey with AI support: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-ai

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

Look around you. The people, the places, the experiences surrounding you right now are not happening to you. They are showing you something about you.

And that is the most liberating thing you will ever learn.

In this rich, rain-soaked, deeply personal episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah opens with the sound of a rainstorm pouring down outside her window and the feeling of pure blessing it brings, and then delivers one of the most powerful teachings she has ever shared. The mirror. The idea, confirmed by quantum physics and brought to life through her own raw experience, that everything outside of us is reflecting back what is happening within us. Not as judgment. As information. As invitation.

Including a stolen bike, an orchid at the door, and a neighbor who said exactly what Sarah needed to hear to finally heal a belief she did not even know she was carrying.

This is not a passive listen. This is a practice. And by the end, you will have a completely new way of seeing everything around you.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why the people, places, and experiences surrounding you right now are mirrors of your inner world, and how to read them with curiosity and compassion instead of judgment
• How the observer effect of quantum physics confirms that you get to choose what you observe, and why that choice is the most powerful creative act available to you
• The affirmation practice that works even when you do not believe it yet, and how to find the version that your nervous system can actually receive, starting with I am willing
• A complete somatic healing technique for when something in your outer world triggers a feeling you do not like, locating it in your body, breathing Christ consciousness into it, dissolving it with golden liquid light, and choosing a new belief from a clean slate
• Why you were born onto this earth for abundance, health, vitality, joy, and friendship, and how every low feeling is simply your body showing you where your thoughts have drifted out of alignment with that truth
• The bike story, fully resolved. The neighbor. The orchid. The words that confirmed the oasis was real all along. And what the whole experience taught Sarah about the beliefs she did not know she was carrying
• Why you do not need to relive your pain to heal it, and what science is now confirming about the damage of returning to old wounds again and again

Sarah also shares, with total honesty, that she once gathered the means to end her life. And that life is now so good, so supported, so full of evidence of the universe's love, that she tells you this not for sympathy but as proof. The mirror can change. You can change it. And she is living proof.

You are not broken. You are not bad. You are a powerful creator who gets to choose what comes next.

And right now, the rain is washing the slate clean.

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

The Fire Horse Journey without AI support: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

The Fire Horse Journey with AI support: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-ai

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 been doing the work. Planting seeds. Peeling back layers. Shining your light even when it felt scary. And this month, September, Penny Makress's intuitive calendar has one beautiful instruction for all of us.

Harvest and celebrate.

In this joyful, luminous, and deeply personal episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah invites you to stop for a moment and actually receive the goodness of everything you have been growing inside yourself. Not someday. Not when everything is perfect. Right now. Because the harvest is already here and it belongs to you.

Drawing on the Qigong practice of harvesting chi after a practice, the wisdom of Penny Makris' September calendar, and her own journey from the shyest, most self-loathing child to a woman who at 62 is finally stepping fully into the light she was always meant to carry, Sarah makes the case for celebration as a spiritual practice. A radical, healing, necessary one.

Because here is what Sarah knows: the light has always been in you. You were born with it. And everything you have done to uncover it, every layer peeled, every hard season walked through, every moment of courage, deserves to be harvested and honored.

In this episode you will discover:

• What harvesting chi means in Qigong and why the practice of actively receiving and celebrating the energy you have activated is just as important as the practice itself
• How Penny Makress's September theme of harvesting and celebrating connects to the full arc of this year's calendar, from visioning in January to shining and creating in August, and why this month is the natural completion of everything you have been building
• Why celebration is not vanity or performance but a deeply healing act of self recognition that signals to your body, your nervous system, and the universe that you are ready for more
• How Christ consciousness lives within every single human being and what the brightening of light on this planet right now has to do with your own inner work
• Why it took Sarah 62 years to finally step into being seen, and what she wants you to know if you have been feeling called but holding back
• How to harvest and celebrate even if you have not done Qigong, even if you feel like you have not done enough, even if the outside of your life does not yet reflect the inside work you have been quietly doing
• Why creating from within is where the wholeness lives, and how the art, the music, the business, the relationships you want on the outside will be richer and more authentic than anything you could force from the outside in

And if you have ever thought who cares what I have to say or what I know, this episode is a direct, loving answer to that question.

You are a piece of God. Your spiritual team is watching and cheering. And this month, they are harvesting and celebrating you right along with you.

Get Penny Makris beautiful intuitive calendar at the link in the show notes. Join Sarah's free Qigong practice group, Monday through Friday, 7 to 7:35am Pacific on Zoom. Learn more at marrvelouslife.com.

Penny Makris Calendar - https://www.zazzle.com/2026_seasonal_monthly_calendar-256392882718449413

The Fire Horse Journey without AI support: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

The Fire Horse Journey with AI support: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-ai

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 are not just a human having a spiritual experience. You are a piece of God, carrying a light that has always been there, waiting to shine brighter.

In this warm, raw, and deeply personal episode of The Magic in the Middle, Sarah brings together some of the most powerful threads of this podcast into one luminous teaching about who you actually are, how much help you actually have, and what happens when you finally stop covering your light and let it pour through.

She also tells you about the week her monkey mind went absolutely haywire. The low energy, the spiraling what-ifs, the stolen bike, the flat tires, and the neighbor who showed up at exactly the right moment with a security camera video. Because sometimes the universe uses a bicycle thief to remind you to raise your vibration. And that is not a metaphor.

This is The Magic in the Middle at its most alive.

In this episode you will discover:

• Why you are far more powerful than you have ever been led to believe, and what the observer effect of quantum physics, the DNA connection between a mother and child, and the light of God within you all have in common
• How to tell the difference between living at a low frequency and a high frequency, and the single conscious choice that shifts everything
• The spiritual team journal practice Sarah does every day, how to call them in, how to ask your questions, how to let the answers pour through without judgment or punctuation, and why the first few times might feel like nothing is happening
• Why your nervous system is not your enemy but your champion, and how to listen to the fear, the anger, and the doubt in your body as messages rather than obstacles
• The butterfly hug practice for meeting the hard feelings in your body with love instead of resistance, and why what you resist persists
• Why you only need to ask your spiritual team once, just like ordering an iced tea at a restaurant, and then trust it is already on its way
• How to notice the coincidences, the giant blue herons, the sea turtles, the neighbor at the door, and say thank you so that more keep flowing in
• Why we are a we planet not a me planet, and how looking out for each other is part of the very work we came here to do

Sarah's mom reinvented herself at 80, learned green screen technology, and began sharing meditations around the world. Sarah's garden fairy conversation helped her find a home where every plant is thriving beyond belief. This is not theory. This is a woman living this practice out loud, falling down, getting back up, giggling, and inviting you to do the same.

You came here as a creator. You came here as a light. And no matter how many layers have covered that light, it has never once gone out.

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

The Fire Horse Journey without AI support: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-qigong

The Fire Horse Journey with AI support: https://marrvelouslife.com/fire-horse-integration-ai

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.