Jillian Pransky

In setting New Year's resolutions, we tend to disregard the essential wisdom that the journey of yoga is not one of “fixing” ourselves, but rather one of reconnecting with our inherently exquisite selves—our wholeness.

For a long time, my yoga practice was all about getting stronger. I pushed myself to improve my headstands and perfect my Wheel pose.

Instead of trying to “let things go,” yoga teacher Jillian Pransky invites students to “let things be,” creating an environment that allows us to simply loosen our grip. Jillian offers two practices to support that process.

Tension can be long-standing and result from something physical, like the way we try to protect ourselves from a past injury. Or it might accumulate as a result of an old hurt—the way we may slouch because we were made fun of in third grade.

Winter demands that we move inward for rest and replenishment, just as the earth stops producing in order to build a new reserve for spring.

February 14, 2011, was my most heart-opening Valentine’s Day to date. As the sun rose, my father passed on.

This healing practice is being offered everywhere from yoga studios to athletic trainings, from hospitals to corporate environments, and featured in popular magazines. Restorative yoga is the new power yoga, says Jillian Pransky.

My reckoning with the power of storytelling came in 2014, after more than a decade of experience working with powerful voices as a book publicist.

We’ve had a spectacular year of celestial events (eclipses, meteor showers, Blue Moons, and Supermoons, to name just a few), but tonight’s Harvest Moon offers another good reason to stare up at the sky for a while.

Narrative medicine is not about fully understanding our story of life, but rather that we remain an open channel for that story to continually ebb and flow through us.