Skillful Means Podcast
Skillful Means Podcast offers practical wisdom for everyday life. Host Jennifer O'Sullivan explores navigating life's challenges through the lenses of Buddhist mindfulness, yoga, Internal Family Systems, and positive psychology.
Each month, episodes feature grounded guidance and accessible practices for meeting whatever arises with greater ease.
Jennifer is a Certified IFS Practitioner with over 20 years of experience teaching yoga and mindfulness.
Find out more: https://www.skillfulmeanspodcast.com and https://www.sati.yoga
- Update frequency
- every 12 days
- Average duration
- 29 minutes
- Episodes
- 126
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2025
#95 Tonglen Guided Practice
Continuing her mini-series on the Brahma Viharas, the Four Immeasurables, Jen shares the Tibetan practice of Tonglen. This training in compassion is an inner alchemy where the p…
#94 Drawing A Line Guided Practice
It’s counterintuitive but essentially true: all phenomena itself is neutral, including people and events, and they have equal capacity to provoke suffering or ease alike – it al…
#93 Loving-Kindness Guided Practice
Some of the most treasured and widely-practiced Buddhist Teachings are the Brahma Viharas (The Four Immeasurables). They also appear in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras as one of the man…
#92 Mundane Ecstacy Guided Practice
The old Zen proverb that says “before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water” is a gentle reminder that chasing the ecstatic will ult…
#91 Mindfulness of Four Elements of the Body Guided Practice
In the last of our series on the less common practices of the First Foundation of Mindfulness (Mindfulness of the Body), Jen shares a practice of contemplating the four elements…
#90 Yoga Beyond Asana
Could you imagine a yoga class without postures? In fact, millions of dedicated yoga practitioners don't practice asana at all.
In this episode, Annie and Jen discuss ways to e…
#89 Mindfulness of Skin, Flesh, & Bones Guided Practice
In the First Foundation of Mindfulness, the Buddha shared several practices that were intended to help practitioners release their attachments to the body. Whether we are concer…
#88: A Conversation with Sarah Powers on Embodying Love & Compassion
We are thrilled to welcome Sarah Powers, author and co-founder of the Insight Yoga Institute, onto the show to talk about embodying the qualities of love and compassion. This is…
#87 Mindfully Eating an Orange Guided Practice
While we may train up mindfulness in formal settings, our true aim is to become present and aware all the time. So, at some point, we must take the practice off the cushion or m…
#86 Embodying Kindness & Generosity
In their continuing exploration of Annie's 12 Embodiments of Yoga, in this episode, Annie and Jen discuss the nuances of Kindness and Generosity.
While this may seem like a bree…
#85 Mindfulness of Standing Guided Practice
Jen continues her series on Mindfulness of the Body variations with an exploration of standing, one of the four traditional meditation postures.
Standing practice can be a respi…
#84 Embodying Wonder & Whimsy
We're back from an unplanned hiatus with our continuing series on Annie's Twelve Embodiments of Yoga. This month, Jen and Annie are chatting about the role of wonder and whimsy …
#83 Mindfulness of Body Posture Guided Practice
Jen's back with a series new series of guided practices exploring different ways of working with the body to establish mindful awareness. Pulled from teachings in the Buddha's F…
#82 Restoring Balance Guided Practice
Unlike all other biological organisms who have built-in mechanisms to maintain homeostasis, human minds are at the mercy of themselves. They gallivant around, unchecked, until w…
#81: Embodying Sacrifice & Spaciousness
Continuing with our exploration of Annie's 12 Embodiments of yoga, Jen and Annie chat about sacrifice and spaciousness. With Jen feeling like sacrifice is a loaded term, they sp…
#80 Laser Focus & Bright Light Guided Practice
In this guided practice, Annie shares inspiration from recent scientific breakthroughs in nuclear fusion.
She suggests that we can turn simple inward focus into bright, shining e…
#79 Making Room for Other Guided Practice
In this meditation, Annie guides you through a practice of making space for others, especially those who share different philosophical or political beliefs or who we find emotio…
#78 Embodying Courage & Practice
Continuing our exploration of embodied qualities of Yoga, Jen & Annie discuss the nuances of Courage and how it's a necessary ingredient for our Practice.
They also share how th…
#77 Embodied Simplicity Guided Practice
Dovetailing on our conversations on embodiment, Annie's back with a guided practice that reframes distracting thoughts by laying a simple and straightforward path an easy breath…
#76 Embodying Quiet & Attention
In this episode, Jen and Annie take a look at two of Annie's 12 Embodiments: quiet and attention. The sweeping conversation covers a lot of ground from inner spaciousness, meeti…