Lilly Bechtel | elephant journal

About: Lilly Bechtel

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Profile: Grappling with the question of how alternative forms of healing can address social justice, Lilly has brought poetry, theater and yoga workshops into correctional facilities for the past six years. A graduate of Bard College, she has published in "Field Notes", in the anthology "Creating Behind the Razor Wire: An Overview of Arts in Corrections in the U.S." as well as "The Brooklyn Rail" and "The Faster Times". Ms. Bechtel is currently offering Trauma-Sensitive yoga classes at a veteran’s hospital, a women’s correctional facility and a sober house for young adults as well as serving as programming assistant for the online radioshow ‘Where is My Guru.’ (http://www.whereismyguru.com/). In her free time, Lilly dances and dreams is one of the proudest, if not the brawniest, member of The Five Borough Ladies Arm Wrestling League (http://5blaw.org/).
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Posts by Lilly Bechtel:

Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga: An Interview with David Emerson.

by Lilly Bechtel on May 22, 2012

“There’s something about yoga that has helped people feel more fulfilled in their relationships. And we kind of speculate on that: if I feel safer in my own body, more confident and safe in my own body, then I can be more available to someone else.”

“Trauma is this process of our selves being taken away, our body, our sense of self, everything is just stripped away. And then we have to take it back.”

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Yoga and Blame; Lessons from Prison

by Lilly Bechtel on Dec 1, 2011

The practice of yoga questions victimhood and looks instead at the role each of us play relates a counter-culture inside the prison walls; a culture which flips the mirror inward to reveal the self-responsibility involved in both healing and harm. To see oneself clearly, after all, is one of the greatest goals in yoga.

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Upon Returning Home: Giving the Gift of Yoga to Veterans.

by Lilly Bechtel on Nov 11, 2011

“Because there’s no magic pill, there’s not even a magic pose, that’s going to erase your past, that’s going to bring your friends back. But there’s definitely things that we can learn that can teach us how to cope with what we lived, what we lost. And that acceptance, to live with what I have lost, is what I have learned through a yoga practice.”

-Hugo Patrocinio, ex- Marine and soon to be yoga instructor

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Why Heartbreak Could Be The Best Thing…

by Lilly Bechtel on Aug 21, 2011

Having been living with the loose ends of an ended relationship for months now, my imperfect desire seemed to be all I had. So I was moved by the idea that my longing didn’t have to mean some kind of deformity. That the incomplete feeling that grief had given me was not necessarily the complete truth. That missing someone didn’t have to mean that I missing something. That my pain was not an indication that I hadn’t yet found that perfect piece, the one that would make me good again. Something fiercely thirsty was rising towards the idea that if I let it, my fumbling, fragmented, flickering heart could write its own love song and that that song could carry me to higher ground.

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