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Breathe Love & Magic

Breathe Love & Magic

By: Ronnie Ann Ryan
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 A magical mix of mystical methods including everything that works to live your best life, grow spiritually and maybe find love. Open your heart, expand your mind and connect with spirit to embrace the magic that is all around you.Copyright 2023 Breathe Love & Magic Social Sciences Spirituality
Episodes
  • Here’s How You Know You’re Using Midlife Magic

    Here’s How You Know You’re Using Midlife Magic
    Jan 29 2026
    Reaching the age of 50 isn’t when the magic fades, but when you encounter the midlife magic and inner wisdom that brings you greater peace and joy. Those small signs, strange coincidences, and odd little nudges you’ve been noticing are life trying to get your attention! Slow Down to See the Magic This is something I’ve been noticing more and more, both in my own life and in conversations with women like you. It’s subtle and often hard to name, yet once you begin to sense it, something shifts. Life starts to feel a little easier, more exciting, and unexpectedly richer. Midlife carries a particular kind of magic. Not the dramatic kind, but something subtle and more alive. A kind of magic that doesn’t announce itself loudly. Instead, it becomes visible when you slow down enough to notice what may have been present all along, waiting for your attention. For many women, this stage of life arrives with mixed feelings. On the surface, things are fine. You’re functioning, capable, and holding things together. Yet underneath, you might notice a low hum of restlessness. Friends have moved away. If you have children, maybe they’ve left home. Days can feel repetitive. Nothing is wrong, but something feels off. You may find yourself wondering if this is really all there is. That feeling doesn’t mean something has gone wrong. In fact, it may be a signal that something deeper is ready to emerge. The Subtle Shift in Midlife By the time you reach midlife, you’ve already lived a rich stretch of life. You’ve loved, adapted, endured, learned, and carried responsibility in countless visible and invisible ways. Even if you don’t always recognize it as wisdom, there is a depth of knowing that comes from navigating real experience over time. This is often the moment that quiet sense of blah surfaces, not as a failure, but as a signal that something deeper is ready to emerge. For many women, an internal shift begins to unfold. The constant drive to prove, push, or keep up starts to loosen its grip. You may care a little less about what others think. The outer noise dims just enough for you to sense something more subtle moving underneath it. What emerges is a different kind of awareness. A willingness to listen more closely to what’s happening around you and within you. There may be a growing curiosity about what feels meaningful now, rather than what once felt necessary or expected. Midlife doesn’t arrive with a clear announcement. It creeps in gradually, and then one day you realize you’re standing in a new phase. Yes, it may come with a few gray hairs, but it also brings the possibility of greater discernment, honesty with yourself, and a deeper connection to what truly matters. This stage of life naturally invites reflection and a slower, more intentional way of listening. You may find yourself relying less on figuring everything out and more on presence, patience, and awareness. Becoming the Wise Woman This is why I call you wise women, even if you don’t fully identify with that name yet. Wisdom isn’t about accumulating more information. It’s about recognizing and sensing what’s essential. You begin to trust what you’ve learned through experience and more of that can be cultivated over time. By midlife, your knowledge has had time to mature into meaningful insight. Your sense of inner authority may be emerging, even if you still look to others out of habit. With greater awareness and reflection, you may notice how your timing, decisions, and attention shape your life in more intuitive ways. The wise woman moves through life with discernment. She understands that clarity doesn’t always come through effort or logic alone, but through attention and reflection. This way of living can be strengthened with practice, support, and guidance. Even if you’re not fully living this way yet, you may already sense it’s possible. That knowing is important. It means the door is open. What Magic Looks Like When I talk about midlife magic, I’m talking about perception. The ability to notice underlying messages from your inner wisdom, higher self, or spirit. Magic lives in awareness. It shows up as moments of resonance, gentle guidance, and the feeling that life is quietly responding to you. You may notice synchronicities appearing more often, beauty landing more deeply, or intuition speaking more clearly. As internal noise quiets and striving eases, space opens. Your perception sharpens because you’re available to notice more. This connection doesn’t need to be summoned. It reveals itself naturally as you move through your day with openness and attention. One of the most reliable ways this magic appears is through beauty. Beauty that arises naturally and catches your attention. Light filtering through trees. Firelight flickering across a room. Snow falling into stillness. These moments slow you down and bring you into your body. They remind you that life is still offering meaning in quiet, ...
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    24 mins
  • How To Use The Fire Element To Transform Your Life

    How To Use The Fire Element To Transform Your Life
    Jan 22 2026
    Today, I’m talking about the element of fire. This is the third episode in my series on the elements. Last fall, I explored water and wind, what they represent and how to work with them in everyday life. The Element of Fire When I say fire, I mean the flames that warm you, cook your food, clear land, and forge metal. Fire is one of the few elements that feels instantly familiar and deeply mysterious at the same time. You’ve sat in front of a fire and felt its heat. You’ve probably stared into the flames and lost track of time, almost like a meditation. That alone tells you something important. For thousands of years, fire has been far more than a tool. It has been treated as a presence, revered as a teacher, and even honored as a deity. Across cultures, fire has been seen as a messenger between worlds, a force that connects the visible and invisible. In classical and esoteric traditions, fire is one of the four primary elements, alongside earth, water, and air. It’s associated with energy, passion, illumination, will, creation, destruction, and transformation. More than anything, fire is the element that changes things. Everything that touches fire is altered, and there is no undo button when it comes to flames. That’s exactly why mystics, shamans, and alchemists paid such close attention to it. When I talk about fire as a spiritual element, I’m talking about a force that burns away what no longer serves, illuminates what’s been hidden, and initiates transformation at a deep level. Fire is never subtle. Fire Across Time and Tradition If you look back through history, fire appears everywhere people were trying to understand life, death, and the unseen world. In ancient Greece, fire was considered a divine substance, famously stolen from the gods by Prometheus and given to humanity. That myth alone tells you how powerful fire was perceived to be. Fire wasn’t just heat, it was consciousness, creativity, and civilization itself. In Vedic and yogic traditions, the fire element is called tejas. Tejas represents inner radiance, metabolic energy, and illumination. It’s linked not only to digestion of food, but to digestion of experience, what you can process, integrate, and turn into wisdom. In Chinese philosophy, fire is one of five elements and is associated with the heart, joy, vitality, and spirit. When fire is balanced, there’s warmth and enthusiasm for life. When it’s excessive or depleted, it shows up as burnout, agitation, or a coldness of spirit. Celtic traditions placed fire at the center of seasonal festivals like Beltane and Samhain. Bonfires marked thresholds between worlds, protected communities, and ushered in new cycles. Fire was symbolic and practical. And in homes across the world, the hearth fire was the literal and energetic center of life. It’s where food was prepared, stories were told, and decisions were made. The hearth was both sacred and ordinary. When we work with fire today, we’re stepping into one of the oldest relationships humans have ever had with an element that could both sustain and destroy them. Fire demands respect and doesn’t negotiate. In return, it offers truth by stripping away illusion and getting to the core. Builder, Destroyer, and Catalyst for Change One of the most important things to understand about fire is its dual nature. Fire is both a builder and a destroyer. People usually think of fire’s destructive qualities, but destruction is not inherently bad. Fire clears old growth in the forest, so new life can emerge. It purifies, resets, and creates space. In alchemy and mysticism, this dual role is essential. Fire breaks structures down to their core components. From that essential place, something new can be formed. This mirrors an inner process many people experience, especially in midlife and beyond. There’s often a moment when what used to work no longer does. Old identities might feel restrictive and old patterns can feel exhausting. Maybe there’s an inner fire saying, “This cannot continue.” That inner fire isn’t trying to make you uncomfortable, but working to realign you. Fire doesn’t consider your comfort zone as it eliminates illusion to reveal the truth. Fire and Spiritual Alchemy In spiritual alchemy, fire is the heat that refines raw material into something clearer and more potent. Alchemists weren’t just trying to turn lead into gold. They were working to transform fear, emotion, and confusion into insight and clarity. That doesn’t happen without heat. Fire has long been described as a bearer of information, a force that accelerates transformation and amplifies subtle energy. In yogic and Buddhist traditions, balanced inner fire is linked with clear perception and intuitive awareness. You see more clearly. You digest experience instead of storing it as emotional baggage. This is why working with fire can feel clarifying and, at times, uncomfortable. Fire asks simple but powerful questions such as: What’...
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    23 mins
  • Abracadabra: Words You Speak Have the Power to Change Everything

    Abracadabra: Words You Speak Have the Power to Change Everything
    Jan 15 2026
    What does abracadabra mean? You’ve heard magicians in tuxedos say it, as well as children with magic wands. Maybe even in a Disney movie! It feels magical even if you’ve never stopped to ask why. It’s playful, mysterious, and seems to appear at the exact moment something changes. Today, I’m not talking about stage tricks or fairy tales. This is an invitation to reclaim the magic in words. Abracadabra was meant to heal and to shift energy, and offers a powerful doorway back to something ancient and surprisingly scientific. If you’ve ever felt stuck in the same mental loop, repeating the same old stories about yourself no matter how much inner work you’ve done, this is for you. The Magical Power of Your Words The words you speak shape your brain, your nervous system, and the life you quietly create every day. This is actually ancient and ties to the secret history of abracadabra. If you could travel back to the Roman Empire in the second century and told someone you were sick, they might prescribe something unexpected: Abracadabra – a word-based or spoken medicine. That’s when the earliest written record of abracadabra appears in a Roman medical text called Liber Medicinalis, written by a physician named Quintus Serenus Sammonicus. His instructions were precise. Write the word ABRACADABRA on parchment or metal. Then write it again below, removing the last letter. Continue line by line until only the letter “A” remains. The finished inverted triangle would be worn on a string around the neck, and was suggested for someone suffering from a fever. As the word diminished, letter by letter, the illness was believed to fade out too. Images of reconstructed abracadabra amulets still exist today and are physical evidence that words were once understood as active forces, rather than passive communication. What Does Abracadabra Mean? There isn’t one agreed upon translation, which is common with magical words. Many scholars trace it to Aramaic, a language closely related to ancient Hebrew, with meanings along the lines of “I create as I speak” or “it will be created in my words.” Others interpret the word as “let the thing be destroyed,” which fits the idea of illness shrinking away. There are also connections to Hebrew blessing traditions and to a Gnostic figure named Abraxas. You don’t need a perfect translation to grasp the shared belief underneath the theories. Saying something with intention, was believed to create change. Words shaped reality. A Form of Protection Between the third and seventh centuries, abracadabra also became a form of protection against misfortune and unseen forces. It was spoken, worn, and traced as a spiritual shield. Breath and sound were the tools. So when a magician says “abracadabra” before a big reveal, they’re unknowingly echoing an ancient understanding. The moment you speak is the moment something shifts. Words are spells, in the past and still today. Ancient cultures all over the world shared this concept. Mesopotamian incantations were used to drive out illness. Egyptian healers combined herbs with spoken formulas. Biblical traditions delivered blessings and curses through speech. To the ancient mind, words were a force. Name something and you gained power over it. Speak a blessing and you invited it closer. Today witches may talk of spells but the vast majority of the population doesn’t go there. However, it does show up and is acceptable when discussing neuroscience, psychology, and neural pathways. The actual mechanism is quite similar. See, the stories you repeat to yourself like, “I always mess things up,” “nothing ever works out,” or “I’m too old,” act like incantations. The charm is created through your own voice, and the impact is on your nervous system. Unfortunately, this type of mantra spoken unconsciously and without intentional crafting, can backfire, and could even prevent growth or improvement. After more than twenty years working with intuition and mindset, I’ve seen this pattern again and again. Change often doesn’t happen until awareness and usage of the language changes. The Neuroscience of Self-Talk Modern psychology has studied self-talk extensively. Self-talk includes the running commentary in your head and the sentences you speak about yourself and your life. Supportive, positive self-talk is consistently linked to lower anxiety, better coping skills, and greater resilience. Harsh, critical self-talk is linked to higher stress, increased worry, and decreased performance. On a brain level, negative language activates threat centers like the amygdala, while balanced, compassionate self-talk engages the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for regulation and problem-solving. A fascinating 2024 study from the NIH explored what happens when people hear affirming statements spoken in their own voice. Turns out hearing your own voice activates brain regions tied to identity and ...
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    29 mins
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