A weekend of yoga, shared presence, creative expression, and attunement to the sacred rhythm of the Autumnal Equinox
Join us—Heather Hagaman and Elise Cunningham, a mother-daughter yoga teaching team—for a nourishing weekend retreat at Seven Oaks Retreat Center in Madison, Virginia.
We bring a unique blend of warmth and creativity to this sacred gathering. The retreat is lovingly designed to guide you into a deeper connection with your body’s innate wisdom, attuned to the natural rhythms of the Earth. Held during the Autumnal Equinox—when day and night are in perfect balance—we’ll explore the themes of harmony, transition, and renewal.
Throughout the weekend, we’ll move with intention to honor both our inner cycles and the shifting seasons around us. Through gentle yoga, mindful movement, and reflective practices, you’ll cultivate balance between effort and ease, light and shadow, doing and resting.
This sacred time invites you to harvest your growth, release what no longer serves, and nourish your whole self—mind, body, and spirit. In a space of safety and grace, you’ll be supported by shared presence and creative expression through art-making. Elise, a gifted mural artist who created all the paintings on the walls of Beloved Yoga, brings her soulful visual artistry to the retreat, infusing the space with inspiration and beauty. You’ll be invited to listen deeply, embody wholeness, and come home to yourself.
Elise will be six months pregnant at the time of this retreat and we warmly welcome other mothers-to-be. Mothers and adult daughters, sisters and best friends are also encouraged to attend as part of the intention of this retreat is generational connection and shared wisdom between women in all phases of their lives.
Facilitated by Heather Hagaman, MA, C-IAYT, Director of Trauma Recovery, Beloved Yoga, and Founder of ResilientYoga4U
and Elise Cunningham, 500RYT, RPYT –Founder and Director of Reliant Yoga Services
Retreat Schedule – At a Glance
Friday – Arrival & Grounding
3:00–5:00 pm – Soft Landing
5:00–6:30 pm – Seasonal Nourishment: Dinner
6:30–8:30 pm – Opening Circle & Gentle Yoga with Heather & Elise: Connecting to the Wisdom of Our Bodies
Saturday – Deepening & Creativity
7:00–8:00 am – Awakening Inner Curiosity & Creative Presence through “awe walk”
8:00–10:00 am – Breakfast & Reflection Time
10:00 am–12:00 pm – Yoga with Heather & Elise: Balancing Effort and Ease
12:00–1:00 pm – Nourishing Lunch
1:00–3:00 pm – Free Time, hiking or lounging
3:00–4:45 pm – Art Workshop with Heather & Elise: Cycles, Inner Spaces, and the Sacred Self
5:00–6:30 pm – Dinner
6:30–8:00 pm – Art sharing and restorative meditative practices
8:30–10:00 pm – Fire Circle with Heather and Elise: Honoring the Wisdom Within
Sunday – Integration & Release
7:00–8:00 am – Letting Go Ritual with Heather & Elise: The Leaf Offering
8:00–10:00 am – Breakfast & Optional Solo Time
10:00 am–12:00 pm – Equinox-Inspired Movement with Heather & Elise: Embodying Wholeness
12:00–1:00 pm – Nourishing Lunch
1:00–3:00 pm – Pack & Personal Time
3:00 pm – Farewell & Departure
Spaces are limited.
Location: Seven Oaks Retreat Center, 403 Pathwork Way, Madison, VA 22727
Full payment is due by August 30.
RATES:
Triple occupancy with a shared bath - $500
Double occupancy with a shared bath - $570
Double occupancy with a private bath - $650
Single occupancy with a shared bath - $650
Single occupancy with a private bath - $770
Heather Hagaman MA C-IAYT is the Director of Beloved Yoga’s Befriending Therapeutic Programs with a specialization in Trauma and Recovery in Reston. She has a Master's in Psychology from Marymount University and is a board-certified Yoga Therapist. Heather also holds a Certification in Trauma Sensitive Yoga from David Emerson and Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk (Kripalu).
Heather is a pioneer in the new field of Yoga and Trauma Recovery. This emerging field utilizes Trauma-Informed Yoga and Meditation to help people start to move beyond PTSD, Addiction, Anxiety, and Depression and start to build fulfilling lives. There are numerous studies now that show that Yoga complements addiction and trauma recovery. Heather has worked extensively with psychotherapists and health practitioners to assist clients in reaching their wellness goals.
Heather believes that recovering from trauma requires healing of the mind, the body and the breath. Many people in addiction recovery have experienced traumatic stressors from childhood. These events can create havoc in one’s nervous system and set up a maladaptive coping system for years to come. Yoga helps to move the stuck energy in the body; it helps release the issues that live in our tissues. Once released, a person can begin to learn yogic tools to self-regulate and to self-soothe. Yoga helps one to pause and not run from the feelings but flow with them as energies. Yogic tools help the person to stay present, breathe and grounded rather than to reach and run to the outside world for an instant fix.
By creating a non-judgmental and confidential environment, Heather holds sacred space to help her clients connect and feel safe in their own bodies. This space encourages clients to experience inner connections and a way back to wholeness. Clients are given enormous control in their sessions and are encouraged to approach their practice with curiosity and mindfulness. This approach assists her clients in developing body awareness through interoception (the sense of the physiological condition of the body) to cultivate the feeling of being grounded and embodied. Grounding invites you to sense your body, notice your tension patterns, and surrender the weight of your physical body into gravity to feel the support of the earth. As a resource for trauma recovery, grounding can help you reclaim a sense of safety, feel rooted in the present moment, and strengthen your resilience.
Elise Cunningham is the founder and director of Reliant Yoga Services, based in Richmond, Virginia. Since 2012, she has been devoted to making yoga accessible, inclusive, and trauma-informed, with a focus on integrating yoga into clinical and therapeutic environments.
After earning her 200-hour RYT in Shambhava Yoga at the Shoshoni Ashram near Boulder, Elise went on to complete a degree in Religious Studies with a focus on Buddhism and Eastern Traditions at VCU, where she also founded a Mindfulness and Meditation student organization. Her passion for the philosophical roots of yoga and meditation has continually informed her work. In 2017, she brought Beloved Yoga’s Trauma-Informed Yoga Training to Colorado while managing Half Moon Yoga, which profoundly shifted her approach to teaching. She later completed her 500-hour RYT at Beloved Yoga in Reston, VA, further deepening her focus on yoga as a tool for therapeutic growth and healing transformation.
Since 2021, Elise has specialized in teaching yoga within residential eating disorder treatment centers, as well as in partial hospitalization (PHP) and intensive outpatient (IOP) behavioral health programs. Her work centers around the belief that body-based practices are essential in clinical spaces—yet often underutilized. Elise strives to bridge that gap by combining the traditional roots of yoga with its evolving therapeutic applications, designing programs that support recovery at every stage of process and growth.
Through Reliant Yoga, Elise develops research-based, trauma-informed yoga offerings tailored to outpatient and treatment center settings. Her mission is to help individuals cultivate emotional resilience, somatic awareness, and inner stability—especially in transitional or challenging phases of life.
Elise’s approach is grounded, compassionate, and accessible. Aside from yoga, Elise is also a certified Hypnobabies™ hypno-doula, visual artist, and proud mother to a 9-year-old son—her greatest teacher.
Most recently, she was honored with the Best Theme Exploration award in the Virginia Art Therapy Association’s 2025 annual show, Creative Recognition: The Importance of Healing Art, for her work exploring the intersection of art and somatic experience. Elise continues to explore how movement, creativity, and mindfulness can be woven together to offer meaningful pathways of transformation for all.