Illuminating Our True Nature: Yogic Practices for Personal and Collective Healing

“The demand for healing tools has never been greater in these critical times. Illuminating Our True Nature provides a comprehensive framework for connecting with ourselves through yoga. This profound work guides us toward personal healing and illuminates a path toward healing on a collective level, making it an essential resource for our current moment.”—Dianne Bondy, author of Yoga Where You Are   “Through her deep philosophical study and sharing of vulnerable lived experiences, Michelle Johnson offers meaningful tools for understanding and navigating the kleshas, afflictions that cause suffering, while steering the reader back to the path toward liberation.”—Tejal Patel, yoga teacher, podcaster, community organizer   “With remarkable generosity, Michelle Johnson equips us with the essential tools to take deliberate and compassionate action, facilitating positive change not only within ourselves but also within our communities and the broader world. This is an important book that should be read by anyone seeking liberation and desiring that same liberation for all.”—Seane Corn, author of Revolution of the Soul   “In this immediately useful book, Michelle serves as a compassionate guide to help you alleviate your personal suffering. When you do that work, you can then remove obstacles to our collective liberation. Her approachable writing explains what could be opaque and inaccessible in clear language that will directly help you to help yourself—and everyone around you.”—Sage Rountree, PhD, E-RYT500, author of The Art of Yoga Sequencing and Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses   “Michelle Cassandra Johnson offers a powerful and unique perspective on the kleshas—five poisons rooted in ignorance that obscure the mind and close the heart. She asks us to consider not only how they cause suffering in our own lives but how they contribute to systems of oppression. Her wise and compassionate counsel, coupled with practices of deep reflection, is the medicine we need to bring us home to our true nature and, in doing so, work toward the liberation of all beings.”—Linda Sparrowe, author of The Woman’s Book of Yoga and Health and Yoga Mama“In Illuminating Our True Nature, Michelle Cassandra Johnson is giving us a salve for our suffering. Rooted in classical yoga philosophy, this book is an embodied invitation to recover ourselves and heal the whole of who we are. It is an essential tool for these times.”—Kerri Kelly, author of American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal