Guides of Growth: Meet the Serenità Retreat Team
Ari - Esalen Massage Therapist and Yoga Instructor
July 10-17, October 19-26
October 28-November 4
Ari has been a beloved part of the Serenità Wellness Retreats since 2018, and has lived in Umbria, Italy for over 10 years. Her passion and focus is the optimization of our lived experience, leading her through 20 years of exploration and training in somatic practices. At the retreat, participants are invited enjoy a daily vinyasa yoga practice, incorporating breathwork and meditation. The goal is never to ‘be good at yoga’, but simply and profoundly to feel and enjoy our own body.
Each participant will receive an hour-long Beyond Bodywork session, dedicated to multi-dimensional healing through enhanced somatic awareness and gentle release of tension. Each session is tailored to the receiver, and often involves deep tissue techniques, long flowing strokes and gentle rocking. Ari’s style is somewhat unique, evolved from her trainings with Esalen and Alchemy of Touch. Clients often report experiencing a trance-like state, and a level of relaxation far beyond more traditional massage.
Ari’s work is a constant unfolding, propelled by the belief that in healing our bodies, we ultimately heal our lives. Put another way: the release of trauma memory stored in our physical tissues allows us to rebirth into our very Highest Version of Self.
Mara - Qi-Gong & Sound Therapy for Deeper
Self Connection
October 10 - 17, Sardinia
Deeply rooted in Southern Italian heritage and enriched by her American upbringing, Mara brings a wealth of cultural knowledge to our women wellness retreats that she helps facilitate. With extensive travels across Italy, Mara offers a deep understanding of the country’s diverse regions and traditions.
Specializing in sound therapy, Qigong, and Andean medicine, Mara contributes a unique blend of holistic practices that encourage slow, intentional living and deeper self-connection. Her cross-cultural perspective enriches our Italy retreats, offering women a truly transformative experience.
Mara is a trauma informed, holistic practitioner with over 12 years of experience. She currently works at treatment centers in the Atlanta area with a focus on mental health and addiction. Having suffered from anxiety disorder herself, Mara blends her knowledge of holistic practices such as Sound Therapy, Qigong, Andean Medicine, and Internal Family Systems with her love for travel and wellness.
Mara currently works in mental health and addiction treatment centers in Atlanta, where she integrates holistic modalities into clinical settings. Her personal experience with anxiety disorder fuels her compassionate approach, allowing her to hold space for others with deep understanding and authenticity.
At our Sardinia retreats, Mara guides guests through grounding movement, intentional rituals, and soul-nourishing practices. Her presence offers women more than just rest, it’s an invitation to return to their essence in one of the world’s renowned Blue Zones, where longevity, simplicity, and community naturally support vibrant well-being.
Saida Ilaqua - Holistic Practitioner, Herbalist and Breathwork Guide
October 10 - 17, Sardinia
Saida Ilaqua is a multi-passionate holistic practitioner and creative entrepreneur dedicated to integrative healing and sacred living. Her practice blends herbalism, energy work, medical intuition, holistic nutrition, functional wellness, and breathwork to help clients reconnect with their vitality and innate wholeness.
With over a decade of experience, she draws from both formal training and personal transformation to support clients navigating physical imbalances, spiritual blocks, and emotional disconnection. At the heart of her work is a reverence for the body as a sacred bridge between the seen and unseen. Each offering is created in service of tuning the body as a vessel for devotion, bliss, and spiritual illumination
She is also the founder of The Wellness Refinery, a seasonal beach town wellness café, retail shop, and community space with a core ethos of making holistic wellness feel grounded and inspiring. The space blends nourishment, ritual, and curated experiences that invite connection and conscious living. Through this space, she facilitates workshops, teaches herbalism, and collaborates on retreats and events.
Her work is rooted in presence, reverence, and a deep belief that truth and joy unfold from within. As a visionary entrepreneur, she is passionate about building soul-aligned spaces and loves collaborating with fellow creators and artists who are walking the path of integrity and heart-centred transformation.
At our Sardinia retreats, Saida will guide breathwork journeys, share herbal and plant medicine wisdom, and weave in rituals that awaken the senses and open the heart.
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July 10-17, October 10-17
October 19-26
Olivia Radocchia - Founder, Host, & Workshop Leader
Olivia has hosted 11 groups of women at the Serenità Wellness Retreat since 2018. Her career in clinical psychology, passion for holistic well-being, and love of her Italian heritage and culture has created the foundation for to bring her dream of curating wellness retreats to life.
Olivia's vision for the retreat is one where women of all ages, from all walks of life can come together in community and bond over shared joys and curiosities, embracing the possibilities that are born from a group of women inspiring each other.
During the retreat, Olivia is your go-to for all things, and hosts group workshops where reflection and sharing is deeply encouraged. Topics range and flow depending on the group of women, their interests and challenges, and the intuitive flow of the week. Topics of discussion include our reasons for "needing to retreat", self-care, womanhood, bringing to life our goals and life purpose, and tools for sustaining the retreat magic at home.
Melanie Wilder's Approach to Deepening Self Trust
October 28-November 4
Melanie is a woman’s coach and the founder of The BODY Cure, a method and philosophy that uses awareness of your physicality, as a means to cut through the fog of the mind.
Through her practice she supports women who want to create lives that are fully aligned with their truth, rooted in their power, and sustainably abundant (within AND without), free themselves from the complex trauma and wound-based conditioning that keeps them stuck and unable to actualize. She has developed her approach over a lifetime of her own deep and single-minded dedication to her healing and liberation from complex trauma, and is devotionally driven to guide other women through the process of knowing themselves as more than a reaction to their wounds.
This is the linchpin; what keeps us negotiating our right to step into our worth, our power and our truth until it’s too late. When we dismantle it, we recover our access to life on our own terms, and the world needs more WOMEN living at that level, with that power, lighting a new path.
As the host for the October 28 - November 4 retreat, Melanie’s workshops will focus on knowing who you are beyond and before the wounds, deepening the connection with your self-evident truth, uncoupling your core desires from the limitations familial history may have imposed you, exploring how core wounding or complex trauma have thwarted your ability to thrive in a particular area of life, and unraveling these limitations so you can take your life back.
Connect via instagram @the_body_cure