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Dispatches from The Wilds

Jennifer O'Sullivan, Certified IFS Practitioner & Yoga Educator

I guide seekers, space holders, healers, and social change-makers through their inner terrain with shame-free embodied practices rooted in timeless wisdom and science. Let's connect - sign up for my free Monthly Letter below and check out my other free resources.

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Featured Post

[January Dispatch] Calm In the Chaos: Adversity, Growth, and Equanimity

Hi Reader, Happy New Year! 🥳 Yeah, yeah. I know we're way past the point of saying that to each other. But here I am, more than a week late getting this Dispatch out. I'll spare you the details, but this year has already revealed its spiciness. 🫔 And I feel like I have way more on board to handle it. (Unlike last year, which was...uhm... not great) There's a lot of talk in the wellness world these days about post-traumatic growth. This is really a clinical way of saying, "Hardship seasons...

3 months ago • 5 min read

Hi Reader, If you've been with me for a while, you know I'm not much of a New Year's resolution person. In my business, I prefer quarterly planning to stay nimble and responsive to all the changes these past few years. In my personal life, I get inspired when I get inspired. Forcing goals on myself just because the calendar turned over doesn't match my energy. And as a parent, much of my life revolves around the school calendar anyway. And if I can be candid, how much fixing do we really...

5 months ago • 2 min read

Hi Reader, Welcome to your latest Dispatch! Enrollment for ✨Into the Wilds✨is coming up soon! Before I launch into this month's contemplations, I wanted to make sure you know that my IFS skills-building group program, ✨Into the Wilds✨, is returning in the New Year. Using experiential exercises and thoughtful group support, Wilds is all about uncovering ways to work with your internal system to create more ease in your life so you can show up boldly and authentically in all your spaces (home,...

8 months ago • 4 min read

Hi Reader, As Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, "the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley." <-- That last bit, of course, means "go awry." When the family and I hopped on a plane to relocate to the other side of the world for a month back in June, we planned to work part of that time. "It's not just a vacation," we said. I planned to do up my July newsletter while abroad. Well, as you now know, things went agley, and I couldn't send last month's dispatch. I'm sorry for that....

9 months ago • 4 min read

Hi Reader, When I was around 4 or 5 years old, I loved to watch a TV show called "Romper Room." It was a folksy variety show that featured puppets and skits for preschoolers. At the end of each episode, the show's host, Miss Nancy, would pull out her "magic mirror" and pretend to see the children who'd watched the show that day. She'd say, "I see Mary, and Tommy, and Suzie..." Although "Jennifer" was the most popular girl's name in the US in the 1970s and 1980s, I never once heard Miss Nancy...

11 months ago • 3 min read
Peace in Oneself, Peach in the World

Dear Reader, You may have noticed some changes around here if you’ve been with me for a while. Before I continue, I want to let you know that my exploration and sharing of yoga and mindfulness are not going away. I’m not retiring from teaching. My practice and teaching are evolving into something more integrative and alive. But things are changing in my world because they have to. I believe the pandemic presented us with an opportunity (a euphemism for “dragged us kicking and screaming”) to...

12 months ago • 4 min read
Peace in Oneself, Peach in the World

Dear Reader, Recently, I was working with Annie, my Skillful Means Podcast co-host, on an upcoming episode of the show. We were prepping questions for an interview with a very special guest next month. Annie suddenly asked, "who are we doing all of this for?" By "this," she meant "practice." It's a good question especially as she and I both live in a hyper-individualized culture that seems to be abandoning all sense of the common good by the second. The simple answer is, of course, both. The...

about 1 year ago • 4 min read

Dear Reader, If you're receiving this letter, I'm willing to bet that one of the things we have in common is compassion as a guiding principle. I'm sure that, like me, you believe in the inherent value of all living beings and that everyone deserves love and kindness. And yet, one of the hardest things to do is extend compassion to ourselves. I think part of the reason is that even though individuals value compassion, most societies don't model it. In fact, we get the opposite: shame. Shame...

about 1 year ago • 5 min read
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