Peace, Freedom, Clarity, Joy

Jen loves celebrating and encouraging the beauty she sees in others. She's a gatherer and builder who naturally nurtures community and hosts safe environments for meaningful connection. She believes in our inherent wholeness and need for ongoing discovery, growth and relevance.

After pursuing careers in dance and design, Jennifer recognized that she thrives most nurturing people. She spent almost two decades developing and facilitating programmed trips and events for youth and families, including helping develop a national servant leadership program for teens as director during several of its formative years. As dean of girls at a midwestern boarding school, Jen heard a calling to nurture the kind of sisterhood that defies current cultural stereotypes and expectations. Honest Heart Journeys was conceived during long conversations about strong, gracious womanhood with a sister friend during COVID lockdowns. Jen loves exploring timeless women’s topics in her blogs and on her Honest Heart Podcast hosted on Spotify. 

Travel has always been a passion of hers, and she’s seen firsthand the powerful impact of intentional experiences facilitated within correlative environments and universal themes found in literature. Thus, the birth of Honest Heart Journeys!Wherever Jen's gone, her 'sisters' -- wonderful women with whom she’s built teams, programs, and deep friendships – have been steady, supportive companions. This kind of quality sisterhood is woven through the HHJ experience. It encourages others to give time to nurture their spiritual hearts and gently holds them accountable to seeing and living their fullness, which of course blesses others. 

Jen lives in Colorado and Florida with her husband, Bill, and is mother to three beautiful adult children who have blessed her with the new role of "Nani."

Devon first came across Honest Heart Journeys through a dear friend. A few texts and a zoom call later, she is over the moon inspired by Honest Heart Journeys! Her soul was on fire being connected with an organization of like minded, passionate women who want to give, connect, and heal.

Devon leaves every interaction with HHJ feeling inspired to help women heal inwardly, so that they can express themselves more fully and authentically outwardly. She is grateful for the synchronicities of life and the will to surrender to this divine connection with women. 

When Devon is not life coaching or retreat planning, you can find her immersed in the flow of mother nature. She feels deeply connected to the water and loves to scuba dive, outrigger-canoe race, stand-up paddle race, and surf.

Nature is a conduit for her to “come home” to herself and experience the power of presence. She is passionate about providing the space for others to heal in nature surrounded by a supportive community of wholehearted women through retreats with Honest Heart Journeys.

You belong here. You are ready. You are not alone. 

These are the three powerful and comforting truths that came to Heather on a harrowing climb to the summit of Mt. Rainier in 2005. Those guiding truths led her into a lifetime career of coaching teens, adults and, more recently, couples, who are facing wilderness moments in their lives. She’s been an Integral Coach since 2007, and a certified Ceremony Celebrant and Wedding Officiant since 2010, as well as a grief counselor, a certified Community Building Facilitator, an inspirational speaker and conference emcee. 

All these roles have been for the purpose of carrying forward that Mt. Rainier message to hurting and hungry hearts everywhere. Heather’s mission is to mirror back the innate wholeness we all contain and to help each client hear their inner teacher speaking (beneath all the static and noise of the world). She’s devoted to creating and nurturing spaces that empower us all to embrace our true power in order that we may bring our much-needed unique gifts into this world. 

Heather grew up in Central California but fell in love with the Arkansas River Valley when she was in her teens. She lives in the glow of her favorite mountain, Mt. Princeton, with her chef hubby and beloved pup Lucy-Lou. She feels deeply rooted in the mountains but has the heart of an explorer – both spiritually and physically – and has wandered the world from the Himalaya to the Australian Outback, Trinidad to Greece, and most recently to Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, Panama and Patagonia.

Aileen’s passion is self-development. Her inner journey began as a young teen when her mother introduced her to the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, sparking a passion for metaphysics and inner growth. In her mid-twenties, she became a student of Dr. Kenneth Wapnick, A Course In Miracles - a self-study course where the central teaching is the practice of forgiveness - and has continued her study for 20 years.

Aileen believes that how we experience the world is directly related to the thoughts and beliefs we hold about it. In 2007, she discovered The Work of Byron Katie. In a short time through this powerful practice, she began to feel more relaxed, flexible, tolerant, and more deeply connected to herself and others. 

Her desire to support others in their journeys led her to become a Certified Facilitator for The Work of Byron Katie and for the last twelve years she has worked to share this simple, yet transformational method of self-inquiry. She offers workshops in the US, Mexico, Europe, South America and Africa.  

Aileen walked the Camino de Santiago, in its entirety, over five weeks in 2021. Setting out from St. Jean, at the foothills of the Pyrenees, she was originally unsure what exactly had drawn her to the Camino. But, as she walked she discovered her calling as a listener to other travelers, and shared the transformative power of the Work with those who asked to be facilitated.

Aileen speaks English, French and Spanish fluently and has traveled extensively, especially in Europe and South America. She is excited to share her passion for travel and inner growth with the women traveling with Honest Heart Journeys!

Summer has traveled to over 35 countries. Throughout her career, she has organized and led tours through Ecuador, Morocco, Turkey, Peru, Nicaragua, Cuba, Spain and Portugal. Fluent in English, Spanish, French and Moroccan Arabic, she considers learning languages as the key to understanding, connecting with, and positively impacting the world. 

Summer strives to create experiences with authenticity, conviviality, hospitality and true friendships.

In 2010, she began leading walking tours in Hollywood and Los Angeles, starting her own business in 2012 and becoming a member of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and LA Tourism & Convention Bureau. Today, she owns and operates tour companies both in Los Angeles and Morocco.

She says, "I hope to inspire my guests with beauty - naturally dramatic landscapes, peaceful moments, and kind people. I hope they open their minds, to allow more love, acceptance and wonder to enter in. I want each guest to let go of any personal strain or stress and fully absorb the love reflected in each moment - a carefully prepared pot of tea, a smiling welcome from the guest house owner, a glorious sunset. 

I wish for all my guests to consider how they might positively change their own lives. Once our eyes are opened, we can open our minds to accept new ideas, imagine what could have never occurred to us before and develop new concepts of health, wealth, beauty, family, community and ourselves. Learning how other people live, build, communicate, work, eat, love, means we no longer accept just one singular 'right' way. Through meeting and interacting with others, we often encounter solutions or situations that make us rethink how we act at home. Least of all, we should have more consideration for and understanding of a different culture, which then inspires us to explore further."

Kerste and her husband live and work in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, in Bellevue, WA. Kerste enjoys hiking, camping, kayaking and trail running every chance she gets.

Jess was raised by mountain guides and has been working and playing in mountain ranges across the world her whole life. Love of walking through wild places was instilled in her at a young age, when she became the youngest person (a title since given to an even younger individual) to thru hike the famed Continental Divide Trail in a 3,200 mile odyssey across the country with her family.

For more than a decade, Jess has been guiding both internationally and domestically, including leading a team across west Antarctica. She loves connecting people to beautiful and wild landscapes, creating spaces in which people feel equally challenged and supported. Jess is a seasoned adventure guide, instructor, mentor, teacher. She loves supporting women in exploring elements of themselves that are not as often brought into the light and connecting them to an incredible outdoor community of like minded individuals, whether it is set against the backdrop of foreign peaks or in the familiar setting of her hometown in Colorado. And as a lover of  literature and journaling, Jess is naturally drawn to the way HHJ facilitates unique transformational experiences!

Jess lived for five years in Patagonia and speaks Spanish fluently. Getting to take a group of women into the area of the world that she called home is a dream come true. Her greatest desire is that women walk away from her trips feeling like they have discovered that they are more capable, stronger, and have more sparkle than they originally believed.

While her career has centered on writing, Ellen’s deep passion is language - the cultural connections and implications, the unfamiliar sounds and meanings, and the surprises. She had spent time in Western European countries during college and grad school (MA in French), but after nine days in Slovenia studying creative nonfiction writing for her MFA, she was smitten with the nascent country that had been part of Yugoslavia until 1991.

Ellen couldn’t get enough of the culture, landscape, history or gelato, so she designed a month-long study abroad program for college students, which she has since led three times. When she returned from her last visit in 2022, she realized that while she was going to miss the country, what she would miss most were the friends she had made in her several visits to their Central European homeland. When offered the opportunity, she jumped at the opportunity to organize an Honest Heart Journey to Slovenia.

Since 2015, she’s been learning Slovene, but with little opportunity to practice, she says she’s really just a Slovene enthusiast with a lot of vocabulary and good friends. By reading literature from other countries, stories from Slovenia and its neighbors, Ellen learned enough about the history and culture of the region to feel she had built and completed her own master’s degree in Balkan studies.

Ellen lives in the mountains of Colorado with her husband, Josh, and her German Shorthair Pointer dog, Bader. She currently works remotely from her home as the Principia College Writing Center Director.

Millie is a mother, lover of nature, gardener, yoga practitioner, and mindfulness meditation teacher. She has been meditating for 30 years, first learning Transcendental meditation and gradually felt a sense of calm, clarity, and ease in her daily life. During the next 23 years, Millie attended many retreats and workshops on different forms of meditation, and in 2012 she started focusing more on Insight/Vipassana.

Millie is a graduate of the 2-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, an intensive training program of the Awareness Training Institute at the University of California Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. Her core teachers are Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, and Rick Hanson, although she draws on the great knowledge of many other teachers today - Jon Kabat-Zinn, Sharon Salzberg, Kristin Neff, Joseph Goldstein, and Dr. Daniel Siegel. Millie has had training in Mindfulness Cognitive Based Therapy and Interpersonal Neurobiology.

Millie is a firm believer that the practice of mindfulness has the potential to bring about a more peaceful coexistence in our world today. She believes meditation opens the way to a better knowing of our true nature and creates a foundation for thriving throughout life with all its many challenges and beauty. 

Awake, Aware, and Alive!