Yoga
The principle of self-trust is at the heart of what is damaged by traumatic experience, and restoring it is at the heart of recovery.
Lilly’s teaching practice, Body Song Yoga, has evolved out of her training in the Kripalu Yoga tradition, the Trauma-Sensitive Yoga model as developed by Bessel Van der Kolk, and the principles of Body-Mind Centering. Since 2007, she has brought yoga to studios, private homes, libraries, churches, homeless shelters, kindergarten classrooms, bachelorette parties, prisons, juvenile detention centers, board retreats, birth blessings, nursing homes, veterans’ hospitals, rehabs, and crisis stabilization centers.
In 2010, Lilly studied and trained with Bessel Van der Kolk, author of Body Keeps the Score, in a trauma-informed approach to yoga, and in 2012, she developed and lead the first trauma-informed yoga program at the James J. Peter’s Veterans Hospital in the Bronx. In 2014, through the support of The Give Back Yoga Foundation, she conducted an interview series called At Attention, At Peace, highlighting the voices of veterans, therapists, and politicians to explore holistic health and its evolving role in addressing the mental health crisis within the military. Excerpts of this series were featured in The Huffington Post, elephant journal, and the 2017 book Best Practices for Yoga with Veterans.
She currently leads Embodied Expression retreats, which combines creative writing and trauma-sensitive yoga to empower students to move towards greater clarity, self-trust, and healing.
She also offers Principles of Trauma-Sensitive Yoga workshops for yoga teachers, therapists, and educators interested in understanding the foundations of this practice and how it can be integrated into their personal and professional work.
More about Embodied Expression:
This workshop celebrates the connections between the power of language and the riches of Yoga. Through a combination of reading, writing prompts, group discussion, meditation, and yoga, we will explore these central questions:
What is the relationship between listening to our bodies and listening to ourselves?
What are the connections between the effects of traumatic experience as they can reside in our bodies, as well as our voices?
What stories might our bodies have to tell, that our bodies are not yet aware of?
Where are we stifled, silenced, in pain, and what happens when we allow ourselves more time to listen, more room to move?
How can we find more courage and creativity on our mats and the page?
What structures of support can we create so that we are writing, and practicing, more often?
What might it look like to transform our greatest doubt and pain, into our greatest power?
Sharing of writing is welcome, but 100% optional from beginning to end and a trauma-sensitivity will be reflected in the structure and guidance of the class. Students will leave with:
A foundational understanding of the physiology of extreme stress
Selections of poetry, non-fiction, and fiction
Writing prompts
Resources and ideas for further writing and yoga practice
More about Principles of Trauma Sensitive Yoga:
Drawing from my teaching and research experience as well as my training with Bessel van der Kolk, this workshop will serve as a foundation for those interested in a conversation about yoga as a support for healing trauma. In our time together, we will:
Explore the basic physiology of Traumatic Stress
Experience an hour and 15 minute Trauma-Informed practice
Discover the foundational principles of a Trauma-Sensitive Approach
Consider how this practice can serve us in a traditional or therapeutic setting
Discuss how trauma manifests in our bodies, our lives, and our culture
Learn how other participants are integrating mind-body approaches into their therapeutic practice and teaching
A trauma-sensitivity will be reflected in the structure and guidance of the class. Personal sharing is welcome but always optional. Students will leave with:
A foundational understanding of the physiology of extreme stress
Comprehensive notes and resources for further study
New found connections with other yoga students, teachers, therapists, and educators
Testimonials
Lilly helped me through one of the hardest times of my life. She is an extraordinary teacher.
— Edward
To many beginners the world of yoga is bewildering, it's everywhere and yet so inaccessible. Lilly is a guiding light which led me into this world with patience, wisdom and enthusiasm. Private sessions allowed a space to discuss the philosophy of yoga and revealed to me a surprising simplicity.
— Helen
Lilly's classes are very fluid and never rigid; I never know what we're going to be doing when I arrive at the studio, and it always seems to hit the right spot for me—every time. I always feel way better in form and shape and state of mind when I leave the studio after a practice with her. For me, practicing yoga used to mean a set of postures that I had to do as beautifully as the teacher—and in my mind I never got it right. In Lilly's class, however, I can't do anything wrong. And I enjoy myself immensely.
— Sissel
What makes Lilly Bechtel's teaching distinct is her unfailing attention to, curiosity about, and deep listening to you as her student. While her knowledge of her own system and practice is vast, when she is guiding a student, she is re-translating that knowledge to your breath and body and to where you are at the moment. It's a gorgeous thing and this skill makes her particularly wonderful.
— Kay
Lilly’s thoughtful and loving presence for my birth blessing class was exceptionally delightful. I whole heartedly recommend mothers to be to look into gifting themselves and their loved ones with this sacred practice with Lilly to either begin or punctuate their celebratory day.
— Sidney
Lilly created a beautiful and purposeful yoga practice and meditation session for myself, my husband and our guests on our wedding day. She created a heart opening, joy-filled and contemplative practice sharing her enormous grace and skills as a yogi and facilitator. We're so pleased to have shared our most memorable of days with Lilly.
— Jenna
Lilly Bechtel gave me individual yoga lessons over a couple of years. She was careful to adjust her recommendations to my stated wishes for progress in alignment and offered suggestions that were very helpful. She taught me principles of movement, to which I, still, refer. Best of all, she taught me that even when I do not have stated principles to which to adjust myself, in a given exercise, I can find them through careful work. This has been a wonderful gift.
— Sonia
I really enjoyed Embodied Expression: A Creative Yoga Workshop! Lilly connected two of my practices in a helpful and beautiful way. The workshop had a very calming, grounding effect that stayed with me after I left.
— Jennifer
Lilly Bechtel gave my husband and I private yoga instruction over a period of eight months in our Brooklyn home. We are both in our sixties, with different levels of experience and limberness. Whether we were following her through a guided relaxation or a challenging series of poses, we always felt supported and challenged. Her precise use of language and her gently soothing manner helped us to calm our minds and listen to our bodies. After a session with Lilly we always felt renewed and refreshed. She is a uniquely gifted yoga teacher.
— Claire
Lilly took great care in walking us through the key principles that inform yoga teachers working with traumatized populations, first leading us through a trauma-informed sequence, which really helped to ground the theory in practice. She was also extremely generous with her time and self, in answering all of our questions about trauma yoga and about her individual journey. I can absolutely say it inspired me on a personal level to further explore the path of trauma-sensitive yoga. Our small group of yoga teachers agree—to a person—that Lilly's workshop was one of the most impactful in our whole training.
— Steven
Lilly has a deep well of knowledge and experience in Trauma Sensitive Yoga. Her offerings have been a tremendous asset to our 200 hr teacher training program. She is skilled at guiding people into a more settled place within themselves -people who come to the mat for the very first time as well as those who have extensive yoga experience. Her classes strike at the heart of yoga—that everything is as it should be and allowing people permission to experience the present moment.”
— Jennifer
