Lifelong body nerd

I have always explored the movement capacity and healing potential of the human body. I was a competitive gymnast and acrobat beginning at age 5. In my tweens, I fancied a career as a medical illustrator. Dance, track and field practices filled my high school evenings. Then, at age 16, a knee injury grounded me and erased all my athletic hopes. When I went to college, a degree in psychology seemed a sensible substitution for continuing to explore how the body behaves, reacts, and feels… indeed all are verifiable “movements!” It was from this history that my decades-long career in bodywork and movement therapy evolved. I never stopped asking, “What does freedom in the body feel like?” “How do we get into and out of daily pain?” “How does our physical experience of ourselves become entwined with our emotional, intellectual, societal, and cultural selves? And what then needs to happen inside us and to the world we live in to express that multi-dimensionality?"

EveryBody has a right to feel whole and to rest.

two women one assisting the other in yoga pose

Practice philosophy

What I’ve discovered in a life dedicated to helping people (including myself) find a deeper relationship with their body is that real self-care is a liberation practice. Embodiment is living life with less fear and more on purpose. Movement is activism. Pain is not only a symptom of joints and tissues that break down and need support. Nor is dysfunction simply the result of lifelong habits that need rebalancing and repatterning from time to time.

We are a collection of the psychobiological histories of our caregivers and the traditions of our ancestors, the books we have read, the conversations we have had and the ones we may be too afraid to have yet. Our current ways of moving in the world are affected by our societies, the privileges we can access or, the lack there-of and our innate sense of safety in our Self and who we know that Self to be despite whatever limitations, inequalities pain and injustices we have faced. Afterall, the body records all of this while it houses and protects us!

And it is from our body where we can learn to harness our innate capacity for healing and our vast potential for connection. It is the place where we can experience ourselves anew in any moment and grow outward with the generations that follow.

PRIVATE SESSIONS

GROUP CLASSES

My lenses and credentials

I am a licensed massage therapist and a Thai yoga massage therapist since 2005. In 2015, I became a certified Clinical Orthopedic Massage Therapist. I have owned a private practice in movement and manual therapy in Connecticut for the last 20 years.

I am a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, a journey that began in 2017. SE is a different way of working with the body, stress, and trauma. It seeks to release and recover areas of the nervous system that are stuck in the body’s survival strategies- fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. SE helps one to reach their bodily experience through a subtle sensory yet deeply felt realm. I see individuals in person and online for this type of work but also find that integrating SE® into movement and bodywork sessions can greatly enrich the experience and learning for the participant.

I was certified as a yoga teacher (E-RYT) in 2001 and I lead and develop embodied anatomy courses as well as trauma-informed movement trainings, classes and retreats for yoga, pilates and fitness students and teachers around the globe. My massage therapy background greatly informs my teaching approach and helps synthesize a creative and exploratory yet anatomically-informed path to self-awareness.

I have a B.A. in psychology and an Associates degree in Fine Art. I am often busy collaborating with my creatively aligned colleagues to blend bodywork, movement and mark-making into fun, feel-good and revelatory experiences and conversations about identity, power, equity, and belonging.

FAQ

What is your work like?

Because my work contains the integration of multiple disciplines, people are often left wondering what it is like.

Private sessions: The truth is, there is no one-size-fits-all session, but all sessions include bodywork, talking, body sensing, relating, moving, learning self-care tools, and more.

Group classes: Group classes include movement, self myofascial-release, and nervous system regulation. As a devoted body nerd, they also tend to include a fair amount of education around how the body works.

Workshops and Retreats: I co-lead workshops with a number of my brilliant colleagues. Each is often themed around a focused therapeutic exploration but integration lies at the heart of multi-day explorations.

Consulting: Please email for further inquiry.

What do people experience as a result of the work?

Clients usually report a relief from physical pain and/or tightness, as well as a reclaiming of self and of presence. Said another way, people often describe rediscovering capacity and energy that they didn’t know they had access to.

Tangibly, this means people are usually experiencing things like increased range of motion, decreased pain, and an easier time moving physically and psycho-emotionally as well. There is a steadying and a calming that occurs as well, and many of my clients report less anxiety and a greater sense of ease and agency.

I am also dedicated to fostering people’s relationship with their body and therefore their own care, so rather than teaching my clients that they are dependent on me and my work, I consider it a good outcome when they need me less.

Who do you work with?

Anyone who wants to address pain and mobility issues, and who is open and available to the idea that their nervous system patterns play a role in how they can resolve things more deeply.

People who don’t see themselves as the typical “wellness” person, and they want to receive care in a space that will be welcoming to them.

Anyone supporting systemic change whether in their personal or professional lives. In other words, they are interested in giving back in some way.

People who have worked in a traditional talk therapy framework and who are now looking to connect the dots somatically.

Anyone who really wants to get to know their body better and to inhabit it more fully!

I’ve been getting bodywork from Lillee for the past 20 years. Last year, I came out as nonbinary and told Lillee I would be having top surgery. I was very scared of being put under anesthesia, and that’s when Lillee introduced me to Somatic Experiencing (SE). SE helped prepare me for surgery by allowing me to connect with my body on a deeper level. I was able to go into and come out of surgery with a calmness I’ve never experienced before. This, in turn, allowed me to embrace my healing both emotionally and physically. The work we do helps me to continue to grow and know myself better. What keeps me coming back to Lillee is her unwavering support, expertise, and genuine care. I can’t imagine navigating my wellness journey without Lillee’s guidance.

-Ash Estep (they/them)

What people are saying

Lillee’s work is sure-footed, delicate, and expansive. Over the years, Lillee’s space has been a sanctuary where I have developed a sturdier and more compassionate relationship with my body and spirit.

- Susan N.

What people are saying

Thanks for another amazing [online] class. Your verbiage, the clear, creative way you move us through the practice is so profound. I’ve written out the physical practice, but the way you interpret and describe things, allows everyone to move deeper with a true personal understanding. I can’t write all that down.

- Darcy Bowman

What people are saying

As a student in Lillee's movement classes for over ten years, I learned to hear what my body was telling me in loud tones—aches, stiffness, limitations—and respond in innovative, soothing and transformational ways. But I was still trying to fix my body and corral it into serving my overfull life. Working with Lillee privately in the one-on-one SE framework is helping me, at long last, be a true friend to my body—a good and steady listener, a curious and patient companion, who compassionately remembers the many storms she has weathered. Each session I understand a bit more of the quiet, subtle, easily missed wisdom my body has been trying to offer me my whole life, and to await her guidance about the most spacious and grateful life I can lead.

- JP, North Haven CT

What people are saying

Lillee has been able to keep me active and functional despite my best efforts to over-train and injure myself! She has a gift for finding the source of an issue, and providing excellent treatment, both hands on as well as by way of advice on targeted exercises. I recommend her to friends and family at every possible opportunity.

- Bill B