The Woman Behind Down to Earth

Hi, I’m Rachel Bilski

I am a qualified yoga therapist, manager of the UK’s national PTSD charity, supervisor to yoga therapists in training and philosophy lecturer for The Minded Institute. 

In everything I do, my mission is to empower others to discover their own innate capacity for healing, growth and personal transformation.

Below you’ll find all the information you need for a quickfire understanding of my work, but if you really want to get to know me, scroll down for my story...

  • In addition to her role as Operations & Business Development Manager of PTSD UK charity, Rachel’s adventures with yoga have led her to host retreats in Europe & Asia, manage a yoga studio in Vietnam and facilitate the retreat programme at an integral yoga and meditation centre in Cambodia. She shared her wisdom for years as a writer for Yogapedia, and taught over 500 hours of studio classes, workshops, retreats and yoga festivals before turning to yoga therapy.

    As a yoga therapist, Rachel specialises in working with trauma, stress, depression, anxiety and chronic pain, but is experienced in offering tools to work with a wide range of physical and mental health conditions. Unique areas of experience include a research specialism in yoga therapy for Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and delivering trauma-focused yoga therapy for Afghan refugees. She is thrilled to be on the faculty of The Minded Institute—one of the world’s leading yoga therapy training organisations—where she is both Philosophy Lecturer & supervisor to yoga therapists in training.

    Rachel’s therapeutic offering is deeply influenced by Buddhist teachings and in particular, mindfulness. She takes an integrative, holistic and accessible approach to yoga, teaching skills which can be employed both on and off the mat—always balanced with a splash of playfulness and creativity. She sees yoga as a way of life; a practical tool which not only improves health and wellbeing, but can help people to live mindfully and with purpose.

  • Anxiety, Depression, Stress, Trauma, (Complex) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD & PTSD), Nervous System Dysregulation, Motor Neurone Disease (MND), Chronic Fatigue/ME, Chronic Pain, Women’s Health, Major Life Transitions, Mindfulness, Embodied Creative Expression, Philosophy & Reflective Practice

  • Yoga Teacher (500hr Hatha Yoga & Mindfulness, 30hr Yin Yoga, 30hr Anatomy & Alignment Intensive)

    Yoga Therapist (2-year/580hr Professional Diploma with The Minded Institute, 5-day Yoga as Medicine intensive with Timothy McCall)

    Specialist Qualifications in Yoga for Trauma & Yoga for Anxiety (5-day intensives with Hala Khouri)

    Yoga, Purpose & Action Facilitator (5-day intensive with Off The Mat & Into The World)

    Mindfulness Facilitator (3-month intensive within Plum Village tradition)

My Story

Most bios begin with a dry and direct lowdown of professional background or a catchy line about the kind of clients one works with, but Down to Earth was created with honesty and authenticity in mind. The goal of Down to Earth is to share yoga therapy in the most accessible, relatable way possible, and for me this begins with a little vulnerability. 

Throughout a decade of practicing and teaching yoga, I’ve observed pretences turning too many away from practices that would be deeply healing for them. For a long time in the world of yoga teaching, I felt mute; powerless to communicate my own experience for fear of disrespecting the tradition. It took me a long time to understand how to express my embodied understanding that science and spirituality need not be a dichotomy, and that yoga really can be for every body and everybody. 

Broken Beyond Repair

I began living yoga and mindfulness after a life-changing retreat helped shift me out of chronic depression and debilitating anxiety. Little did I know at the time that these conditions were in fact expressions of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD); probably why a decade of Prozac and talking therapy did little other than make me feel completely inadequate as a human being. Broken beyond repair.

Unable to leave the house without full-blown panic attacks, I got to the point where I no longer wanted to live. If medication and therapy hadn’t worked for me, what else was there? Self-medication brought short-lived relief, but comedowns were dangerous alchemy for my fragile spirit. I felt like I was constantly fighting a losing battle with my own body and mind, completely convinced that I would never be free from the hurricane of negative, self-destructive, self-effacing thoughts that swept through me daily. By this point, I’d known little else.

Desperate, I turned to Google: ‘Positive thinking’. I sat there and typed out the words, one after the other, convinced I was losing the plot. My desperation drove me to a Buddhist meditation class in Brixton, on a bitterly cold and dark January evening. I had never before encountered meditation or mindfulness. I kept one eye open throughout the practice, squinting around judgmentally at what I immediately deemed to be ‘not my people’. The whole experience was frustrating, awkward, and far from the enlightening encounter I’d expected. 

Dabbling with Mindfulness

And yet, something shifted. Though almost imperceptible at first, it was enough to entice me to dabble in meditation apps between hangovers. I’d stubbornly sit with myself day after day, still not enjoying the process but slowly surrendering to its undeniable effects; over time I became calmer, less reactive, more emotionally stable and better equipped to face life’s twists and turns with equanimity. After a decade of trying and failing at every other option, how could this simple, silent act be so profoundly transformative? Did other people know about this? 

Still, I kept my practice secret. I convinced myself that yoga was for hippies; one step too far. So when I eventually ended up at my first yoga retreat, it was intended to be a mere pit-stop on a trip I’d imagined would be full of cocktails on beaches and partying with strangers. I was not-so-fresh out of university and in need of some serious TLC; shoulders permanently up to my ears, jaw always tightly clenched and the worries of the world sat in my stomach like lead stewing in acid. I arrived with tonsillitis, my pasty white skin in sharp contrast with the ruby red rash all over my body. In short, my body was as much of a mess as my mind had always been.

Discovering Yoga

On day one, I reluctantly dragged myself from the beach for the first yoga class, relatively disinterested and quietly cursing over the time I was losing to top up my tan. It therefore came as a total surprise that whilst lying in Savasana, I couldn’t stop tears from rolling down my cheeks. One by one at first, slowly but surely erupting into quiet sobs that came from depths I didn’t know existed. It turned out that meditation in movement allowed me to process parts of my past I’d been carrying on weary shoulders for too long. I felt uncomfortable and vulnerable and had no idea where this explosion of emotion had come from. Was I somehow doing yoga wrong?

After the class, I shyly loitered around the teacher, waiting to ask what had just happened to me. I was told it was normal, common even, for deep emotional trauma to be released during yoga. This certainly had never happened to me at the gym, and I couldn’t help but wonder why this class was any different. Curious, I persisted. I observed as layers of tension melted away day by day. I watched as my body and mind somehow became stilled by my previously shallow and laboured breath. What fascinated me most was how deep the transformation seemed to be going in such a relatively short space of time. I arrived feeling depleted and lost, but left only days later totally full; full of joy and calm and hope and excitement and energy, sensations I hadn’t felt for a long time

Studios & Retreats

Needless to say, I ditched my plans and dove headfirst into what has since become a lifelong path. I spent years at intensive retreats and trainings across Europe & Asia, eager to understand how these practices had not only helped to heal deep wounds, but had also held up a mirror to their causes. It soon became clear that every other approach had been a plaster at best. And in time, I realised that I was never broken after all; I had always been whole. 

After many years of teaching, I came to what I thought must be the pinnacle of any yoga career: managing a yoga studio. Whilst I loved every moment of cultivating that beautiful community, I knew deep down that there was so much more to yoga than could be shared in a studio. What’s more, I noticed that the vast majority of people attending yoga studios were already well into their wellness journey; where were all those who were suffering in silence? Did they know just what yoga and mindfulness could do for them? 

I moved on to focus on retreats. I knew first-hand that such a simple formula could provoke profound responses, and hoped to encounter many others—like me—who would get more than they bargained for. Facilitating Hariharalaya’s world-renowned programme in the Cambodian countryside came closer to living yoga than I’d ever been. I watched as people arrived frazzled and fatigued, tight and tense, only to leave lighter, more open and authentically themselves within mere days. 

Becoming a Yoga Therapist

I soon learned the importance of taking yoga off the mat. It’s not about sixty minutes of stretching or sitting; it’s a way of living. It’s about what you carry with you from the practice into your daily life. Whilst retreats are still and always will be close to my heart, I soon came to understand that I would need more in-depth academic knowledge in order to skilfully and safely apply yoga and mindfulness to health conditions in the way I’d always been driven to do. This is how I found yoga therapy; an emerging health profession, through which I have been blessed to help others apply these practices to help ease an array of physical and mental health conditions. 

Becoming a yoga therapist felt like stepping into shoes I’ve been waiting a lifetime for. I wholeheartedly believe that there is a practice for anyone and everyone, no matter what stage of life or state of health. I am endlessly awed by the innate wisdom of body, breath & mind, and to be able to bring together science and spirit through yoga therapy now allows me to share this wisdom in such a diverse range of contexts.