Skillful Means Podcast

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According to Chinese Energetic Medicine, the heart is vulnerable to heat of the summer season. In this short but sweet practice, Jen while guide you through three Yin Yoga postures — melting heart and empty coat sleeves — to nourish this most vital organ. Each posture is paired with meditative practices phrases in the Plum Village tradition to foreground the qualities of presence, self-compassion, and peacefulness.

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Skillful Means Podcast offers these guided practices to help you deepen into your yoga and mindfulness journey.

We welcome your comments. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, send us a note at [email protected], or leave us a voicemail at https://www.speakpipe.com/skillfulmeanspodcast.

You can get in touch with Jen directly at https://sati.yoga where she offers yoga and mindfulness classes, workshops, trainings, and IFS coaching.

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SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.

Text me your feedback.

In this guided meditation, Sarah Jane supports you in turning toward what is present in the body, heart, and mind, and holding it with kind regard without insisting it change or improve. This act of compassion toward our humanness is the means by which we move from a state of dissociated trance to wholeness and presence.

Near the end of the meditation Sarah Jane reads “Clearing,” by Margaret Postlewaite, a New York-based licensed psychologist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner.

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Skillful Means Podcast offers these guided practices to help you deepen into your yoga and mindfulness journey.

We welcome your comments. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, send us a note at [email protected], or leave us a voicemail at https://www.speakpipe.com/skillfulmeanspodcast.

You can get in touch with Sarah Jane directly at https://www.sarahjaneshangraw.com/ where she offers donation-based classes, meditation and yoga practice groups, and 1:1 mentoring sessions.

~ ~ ~

SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.

Text me your feedback.

In this guided practice, Jen shares the Microcosmic Orbit, a Taoist meditation for longevity. Circulating Qi (life force energy) through a loop formed by the Governor Vessel (Du Mai) and the Conception Vessel (Ren Mai), protects Jing, or Essence Energy, from depletion.

Jing is finite, given to us during conception from our parents. As we live our lives, our activities will either conserve or deplete Jing. Once we use up all of our Jing, our life is at its end. So, it's important to protect Essence Energy whenever possible through a balanced and harmonious lifestyle and with practices like this.

~

Skillful Means Podcast offers these guided practices to help you deepen into your yoga and mindfulness journey.

We welcome your comments. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, send us a note at [email protected], or leave us a voicemail at https://www.speakpipe.com/skillfulmeanspodcast. 

You can get in touch with Jen directly at https://sati.yoga where she offers yoga and mindfulness classes, workshops, trainings, and IFS coaching.

~ ~ ~

SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.

Text me your feedback.

In this guided meditation, Sarah Jane invites you to settle into a posture that will support your mindfulness by inviting a relaxed quality in the body and wakefulness in the mind. After a period of arriving, she shares a technique for how you might use mental noting to disrupt discursive thinking.

With 1-minute-long periods of silence interspersed with gentle encouragement and descriptions of the effects mental noting might produce, this 20+ minute meditation is a good one to try if you’re newer to sitting for longer periods.

~

Skillful Means Podcast offers these guided practices to help you deepen into your yoga and mindfulness journey.

We welcome your comments. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, send us a note at [email protected], or leave us a voicemail at https://www.speakpipe.com/skillfulmeanspodcast.

You can get in touch with Sarah Jane directly at https://www.sarahjaneshangraw.com/ where she offers donation-based classes, meditation and yoga practice groups, and 1:1 mentoring sessions.

~ ~ ~

SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.

Text me your feedback.

In our second book club, Jen and Sarah Jane follow some dharmic threads through the ancient Taoist text the “Tao Te Ching” by Laozi and enjoy the poetic language used to, somehow, beautifully illuminate something that cannot be defined.

The Tao is the source of everything and the way of life, and this text invites us to align ourselves and our lifestyle with the natural order of things. In their discussion, Jen and Sarah Jane focus on just a couple of themes: effortless action (wu wei), as well as Taoism’s Three Treasures: compassion, frugality, and humility.

Both Jen and Sarah Jane’s teaching practices and offerings have been informed by years of study and practice in Yin Yoga, which is based in Taoist energy practices. Their appreciation for the text, the lineages it has birthed, and the teachers who transmit its teachings is great.

If it has been years since you read the pithy 81 chapters that constitute this metaphysical classic, or you haven’t yet picked it up, you won’t want to miss this. 

As Skillful Means Podcast heads into a partial summer break (though Jen and Sarah Jane will continue adding guided practices to the podcast feed), you are invited to also drop into simplicity inspired by advice both practical and profound of the “Tao Te Ching.”

Tao Te Ching Translations Used in this Episode

"Tao Te Ching Online Translation" is Derek Lin and Lama Surya Das’s “Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained.” https://taoism.net/tao/tao-te-ching-online-translation/

“Tao Te Ching” translated by Gia-fu Feng, Jane English, and Toinette Lippe: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780679724346

"Tao Te Ching" translated by Wikisource: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Tao_Te_Ching

Online Programs

Jen leads Yin Yoga teacher trainings and is offering a 35hr Yin Yoga & Taoism virtual course in June 2021. You can find out more at www.sati.yoga. 

Giving to India

UNICEF: https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/india-faces-brutal-covid-19-crisis-unicef-there-help/38520

Indian Red Cross:  https://www.indianredcross.org/ircs/COVID19Donate

Oxfam: https://www.oxfamindia.org/coronavirus

Word Central Kitchen: https://wck.org/news/wck-activates-chefsforindia

Care: https://www.care.org

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You can find us on  Facebook and Instagram. We also welcome your messages at [email protected] or in our voicemail box on SpeakPipe.

You

~ ~ ~

SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.

Text me your feedback.

In this guided practice, Jen offers a meditation on establishing body awareness as a mindfulness anchor. Because the body is always available, bringing our attention to the posture and sensations of the body helps us to connect to the immediacy of the present moment.

~

Skillful Means Podcast offers these guided practices to help you deepen into your yoga and mindfulness journey.

We welcome your comments. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, send us a note at [email protected], or leave us a voicemail at https://www.speakpipe.com/skillfulmeanspodcast. 

You can get in touch with Jen directly at https://sati.yoga where she offers Yin Yoga and mindfulness classes, workshops, trainings, and IFS coaching.

~ ~ ~

SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.

Text me your feedback.

In this episode, Jen and Sarah Jane talk about the concept of precious impermanence, an organizing principle for many Asian religions and belief systems.

Impermanence dignifies the transient nature of reality. Clinging to things as if they could be permanent is what causes unnecessary suffering in life. 

Through Buddhist, yogic, and Taoist textual references and stories, Sarah Jane and Jen demonstrate the value of seeing the world as ever-changing and uncertain. Not only is it realistic, but it compels us to live meaningfully, passionately, now.

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Books 

Find the following books in your  local Black-owned bookstore:

"Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong" by Norman Fischer
"Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living" by Pema Chödrön
“The Five Invitations” by Frank Ostaseski
“A Year to Live” by Stephen Levine
“The Trauma of Everyday Life” by Mark Epstein. 
"The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace & Ecology" by Thich Nhat Hanh
"The Next in the Stream: Lessons from Nature on Being with Pain" by Micheal Kearney, MD.

Online Programs

A Year to Live course at Spirit Rock. You can also find it at InsightLA and other centers, usually offered at the beginning of a calendar year. 

Mortal with Alua Arthur (end-of-life doula, attorney, professor, and minister) and Caitlin Doughty (mortician and author). This course helps people meet their fear of death.

Sarah Jane is an end-of-life educator and doula, focusing on mindfulness practice for presence, peace, and purpose. She offers Death Cafes and a mini-course she calls Mindful Approaches to End-of-Life Matters. For more information, go to www.sarahjaneshangraw.com. 

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May Dharma Book Club

Start reading the Tao te Ching and send in your insights and questions by May 1 to be included in our next episode.

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You can find us on  Facebook and Instagram. We also welcome your messages at [email protected] or in our voicemail box on SpeakPipe.

You can also get in touch with Jen and Sarah Jane directly. 

Don't forget! You can also practice with us live each week: https://www.sati.yoga/practice/virtualclasses.html

~ ~ ~

SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.

Text me your feedback.

In this meditation inspired by popular teacher Jack Kornfield’s tree meditations, Sarah Jane guides you through a visualization that accesses the stabilizing and steadfast qualities of trees. 

Recalling a tree that has been significant in your life is the beginning of a short relational journey that includes rooting downward for nourishment and rising to the challenges of life’s seasons.

Then, breathing like the tree and being like the tree, we enhance a sense of  interconnectedness and presence, and trust this inner ground as a place to  return to, again and again.

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Skillful Means Podcast offers these guided practices to help you deepen into your yoga and mindfulness journey.

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, or send us a note at [email protected]with your comments.

You can also get in touch with Sarah Jane directly. She offers a donation-based mindfulness/compassion practice group, weekly Insight Yoga classes, and 1:1 sessions. In all her offerings, she promotes self-awareness and interconnectedness using contemplative and somatic methods drawn from yoga, Buddhism, and spiritual psychology.

~ ~ ~

SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.

Text me your feedback.

In this inaugural episode of the bi-monthly Dharma Book Club, Sarah Jane and Jen chat about The End of Your World. In this book, based on a series of his talks on the nature of enlightenment, spiritual teacher Adyashanti describes both the initial “glimpses” and the journey to “abiding awakening,” which he also describes as abiding as “Spirit.”

Concerned that folks will assume this book is not for them, Jen and Sarah Jane encourage listeners to see for themselves, and not to be surprised if it validates a potential “glimpse” into a non-dual understanding of reality.

Uninterested in re-teaching Adyashanti’s worldview from their point of view (which can only be limited and incomplete) Sarah Jane and Jen simply lay out the themes of the book, and talk about a few things that “popped” for them, made them think about other teachings, or seemed like places to investigate further.

If you haven’t read the book yet, Jen and Sarah Jane hope their chat will inspire you to take a look. No spoilers in this episode! You can still send in your feedback -- they’d love to hear from you.

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The Dharma Book Club pick for May 2021 is the Tao te Ching, a fundamental text on Taoism, which Jen and Sarah Jane draw from in their integrative style of teaching.

~~~

You can find us on  Facebook and Instagram. We also welcome your messages at [email protected] or in our voicemail box on SpeakPipe.

You can also get in touch with Jen and Sarah Jane directly. 

Don't forget! You can also practice with us live each week: https://www.sati.yoga/practice/virtualclasses.html

~ ~ ~

SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.

Text me your feedback.

In this month’s guided practice, we offer Yoga Nidra, the sleep of the yogis.

The practice of Yoga Nidra dates back thousands of years and was developed to invoke a deep meditative state so that the practitioner may gather soma nectar for rejuvenation and immortality. 

Today, Yoga Nidra has drawn a lot of interest for its ability to relax the body’s stress response. Many people who practice Yoga Nidra regularly experience reduced anxiety and depression along with better nighttime sleep and overall improved feelings of wellbeing. 

In this practice, Jen guides you to invite radical self-acceptance and awaken to boundless compassion, invoking the ancient Tibetan mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum.”

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Skillful Means Podcast offers these guided practices to help you deepen into your yoga and mindfulness journey.

We welcome your comments. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, send us a note at [email protected], or leave us a voicemail at https://www.speakpipe.com/skillfulmeanspodcast. 

You can get in touch with Jen directly at https://sati.yoga where she offers yoga and mindfulness classes, workshops, trainings, and IFS coaching.

~ ~ ~

SMP welcomes your comments and questions at [email protected]. You can also get in touch with Jen through her website: https://www.sati.yoga

Fill out this survey to help guide the direction of the show: https://airtable.com/appM7JWCQd7Q1Hwa4/pagRTiysNido3BXqF/form

To support the show, consider a donation via Ko-Fi.