Tag: loveserveinspire

From The Inside Out 🌀

On By Heather Wiest

I just returned from guiding a beautiful holistic retreat weekend in Carefree, Arizona. From The Inside Out developed out of a calling placed upon my heart in the summer of 2023. I am beyond grateful God empowered me to prepare and facilitate this incredible weekend at the hospitable Spirit in the Desert Retreat Center, January 17-19, 2025. Each beautiful soul attending was a treasure to have and get to know better. ❤️ “I’m thanking you, God, from a full heart, I’m writing the book on your wonders. I’m whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy; I’m singing your song, High God.” Psalm 9:1-2 MSG

  • Spirit in The Desert Retreat Center
  • Beautiful Views of Carefree
  • From The Inside Out Holistic Retreat 2025
  • Ravenscroft Chapel
  • Body Prayer Session
  • Inspired Intentions Yoga Nidra Session
  • Paint and Create Session with Vangie Rodriguez
  • Labyrinth in the Desert
  • Sound Bath Healing Session with Angela Sanchez
  • God, Thank You!

“Use three words to describe your experience at this retreat,” was one of the retreat evaluation questions:

Needed
Important
Inspiring
Peace
Joy
Love
Relaxing
Empowering
Releasing
Blissful
Challenging
Reflective
Cleansing
Comforting
Refreshing
Soothing
Restorative
Absolute perfect timing
Just what I needed
Energizing
Spiritual
Immersive
Timely
Enjoyable
Rejuvenating
Useful
Meditative
Embodied
Serene

Another evaluation question asked, “Name one thing you will remember most about this retreat.”

•Spending time with my daughter-in-law
•Community
•How everyone was free to be vulnerable and open
•Incredible community as well as alone time
•The importance of making time to be still, feel my body, listen and receive
•The variety of things I learned that I didn’t know I needed
•The whole weekend was amazing
•The sound bath meditation was an added bonus at the end of the retreat
•The beauty of Christianity with yoga
•I loved the spiritual aspect
•Experiencing this with my daughter
•Having my token male husband join me. And loved the surprise at how much he enjoyed it since he didn’t really know what he signed up for! 😊
•Being still and communing with the triune God…

Amen! 🙏🏻 There have been requests for more experiences like this one… let’s see where God leads… ❤️

I determine to live the outer life in the inward sanctuary. The outer life must find its meaning, the source of its strength, in the inward sanctuary. As this is done, the gulf between the outer and inner will narrow and my life will be increasingly whole and of one piece. What I do in the outer will be blessed by the holiness of the inward sanctuary; for indeed it shall all be one.” Howard Thurman

Miracles 💫

On By Heather Wiest

Don’t give up on a MIRACLE!

Our world is filled with deeply hurting people and seemingly impossible situations. I know God can move in mighty and mysterious ways—my own life is a miracle itself! I have been praying for MIRACLES for family and friends—for physical healing, financial provision, relationship restoration, and spiritual direction. God loves to answer petitions in Divine will and timing, and rejoices when our hearts are devoted to intercession for others and our world. We’ve got to speak to the impossible!

“For with God nothing will be impossible.” — Luke 1:37 NKJV

I will do the impossible for you. The love I have for you is endless. I will intensify your experience of My love as you seek more of Me. Is there something in front of you that looks impossible? When it looks like everything has blocked your way and there is no one near you to help, I will make it easy for you. Grace will always empower you to sacrifice your personal wishes as you worship in My presence. Strength replaces weakness, grace floods into your impossibility, and I will make it easy for you. The burden you carry must be laid down as you take up My easy yoke and learn of Me. I will enrich your soul, enflame your heart, and give you a greater joy. Song of Songs describes God’s love for us as an unquenchable fire. Imagine standing before that fire and throwing in all of the impossibilities of your life. See them go up in flames! — Brian Simmons

“Place this fierce, unrelenting fire over your entire being.
Rivers of pain and persecution will never extinguish this flame.
Endless floods will be unable to quench this raging fire that burns within you. Everything will be consumed. It will stop at nothing as you yield everything to this furious fire until it won’t even seem to you like a sacrifice anymore.” — Song of Songs 8:6-7, The Passion Translation

Miracle Question Exercise:

Imagine you go to sleep tonight and you awake tomorrow morning. During the night a miracle happened and, when you wake up, your most positive dreams for your future have come true. Remember, a miracle has occurred, so you are waking up to your life as you would ideally like it to be. At this point, you may have only hazy visions of your ideal future, so to help you be specific about what the real life changes would be for you, think about your answers to the following questions:

1. How do you feel when you awake?
2. What is the first thing you will do?
3. Your best friend arrives. Immediately, they notice things have improved. What specific changes do they see?
4. What happens next in your day?

Give a detailed account of the whole day of your ideal life when everything is just as you would ideally want it to be. There are no limits!

This exercise is called the miracle question. It is a question that coaches often ask their clients in order to help them process what they want to change about themselves and their lives.

Adapted from De Shazer, S. (1988, p. 78), Clues: Investigating solutions in brief therapy, New York: Norton

Miracle (Lyrics) by Unspoken
Have you stopped reaching 
No longer seeking greater things 
Have you forgotten 
You have a Father listening
He tells the sun when to rise 
Gives the wind its breath 
Swings a door wide open and 
Moves in the moment you least expect
Don’t you give up on a miracle 
You’ve got to speak to the impossible 
You gotta
Pray till your breakthrough breaks through the ceiling 
Keep on believing 
Don’t you give up 
Don’t you give up 
On a miracle
How many chances 
How many answers 
Pass us by 
You know it takes faith 
To step on the waves 
When you’re terrified 
When you’re backed in a corner 
And you can’t wait any longer
Don’t you give up on a miracle 
You’ve got to speak to the impossible 
You gotta
Pray till your breakthrough breaks through the ceiling 
Keep on believing 
Don’t you give up 
Don’t you give up 
On a miracle
Feels like the prayers and the words you have spoken 
They go unnoticed 
Like drops in the ocean 
Just beyond the veil of your vision 
Your mountains are moving, moving on 
Remember the works His hands have done 
Where you once were and how far you’ve come
Don’t you give up on a miracle
You’ve got to speak to the impossible
You gotta
Pray till your breakthrough breaks through the ceiling
Keep on believing
Don’t you give up
Don’t you give up
On a miracle
Publishing: © 2016 Centricity Music Publishing (ASCAP)/Jon Lowry designee/Wordspring Music, LLC & Fleauxmotion Music (SESAC) Writers: Chad Mattson, Jon Lowry and Tedd T

You’re Going Someplace New!

On By Heather Wiest

You are opening up more and more. You are becoming clearer each day. Embrace the changes taking place. They are good. They will last. They will take you and your life to someplace new, someplace you can’t fully imagine now because it’s so different from where you have been…Things that used to bother you, hold you down, hold you back, will roll easily off you. Problems that used to plague and pester you, making you feel weighted down, will be lifted easily. You will know and trust that the answers you need will come to you. Your powers will increase. You will find yourself doing, knowing, and feeling things that you thought only certain others could do. You will find yourself gliding through life in a way that brings you joy, and touches and heals others. You will laugh a lot. And yes, you will cry a lot, too, because an open heart feels all it needs to feel. But you will not think twice about your emotions. You will feel them with the purity of a child and the wisdom of a sage. You will see, touch, taste, and feel life’s magic in a way you never imagined. You will love, and you will be loved. And you will learn that it is all the same. You are open now, more open than you’ve ever been. Trust the process and trust your heart. The journey is not in vain. Its purpose is to lead you to love. ❤️ ~ Melody Beattie

Reflection: What parts of this reading resonated with you in this moment? This week’s intention revolves around OPENNESS: being open to new experiences, possibilities, adventures, being willing to let go of doubt and fear, and with bold faith and trust, saying “yes!” to your heart & soul’s deepest longings.

Oftentimes, to allow something new in–to create space–we need to let something go. What do you need to let go of? Exhale fully and let it go. Release your grip. Feel the freedom. Let go in order to move forward.  Inhale deeply and embrace the openness, the limitless opportunities.

Maybe you can relate to these powerful song lyrics by Danny Gokey.

Tell Your Heart to Beat Again

You’re shattered
Like you’ve never been before
The life you knew
In a thousand pieces on the floor
And words fall short in times like these
When this world drives you to your knees
You think you’re never gonna get back
To the you that used to be

Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace
Yesterday’s a closing door
You don’t live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you’ve been
And tell your heart to beat again

Beginning
Just let that word wash over you
It’s alright now
Love’s healing hands have pulled you through
So get back up, take step one
Leave the darkness, feel the sun
Cause your story’s far from over
And your journey’s just begun

Now, absorb the words of this heartfelt poem by David Whyte.

Sometimes

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come
to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.

Turn inward and listen. What are your tiny, but frightening requests, conceived out of nowhere, but in this place beginning to lead everywhere?

You are open now, more open than you’ve ever been. 
Trust the process and trust your heart. 
The journey is not in vain.
Its purpose is to lead you to love.

Returning to the intention: Being open to new experiences, possibilities, adventures, being willing to let go of doubt and fear, and with bold faith and trust, saying “yes!” to your heart & soul’s deepest longings.

Forget all the reasons it won’t work, 
and believe the ONE reason that it will. ❤️

Headlong Into Love by Danna Faulds

I slip into the swift river of grace
the moment I stop trying to control
my fate. The current takes my 
breath away, leaving me amazed
at the release. Use me up, I say.
Smooth my rough edges
until I offer no resistance to the flow.

Within the enclosure of my open heart,
may awareness wake and take aim
at my last attempts to grasp the known.
I pray to give myself over to a strength
that isn’t mine, to be carried by the 
energy of change and evolution.

I pray to tumble headlong into love
and not reach out even once
to try and break the fall. ❤️

“Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” — Isaiah 43:19 NKJV

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Intention: The Seed of Action

On By Heather Wiest

“The journey of a year is drawing to a close. Cherish the moments, all of them, even the ups and downs. Honor the lessons you’ve learned, and the people who helped you learn them. Honor the journey your soul mapped out for you. Trust all the places you’ve been. Make a scrapbook in your heart to help you remember. Look back for a moment. Reflect in peace. Then let this year draw to a close. All parts of the journey are sacred and holy. You’ve learned that lesson by now. Take time to honor this ending though it’s never really the end. Go to sleep tonight. When you wake up tomorrow a new adventure will begin. Remember the words you were told when this last adventure began, the words whispered quietly to your heart: Let the journey unfold. Let it be magical. The way has been prepared. People will be expecting you. Yes, you are being led.” ❤️ ~ Melody Beattie

Goals vs. Intentions: I think evaluations and goals are useful, but I am a bigger fan of reflections and intentions. Intentions come from the heart and soul — they are rooted in the values most important to you. I have found my goals to be more authentic and impactful if I slow down, reflect, and connect with my deepest intentions. Intention is the seed of action.
“Setting your intention is like drawing an arrow from the quiver of your heart.” ❤️ ~ Bruce Black

Exploring Intention (Sankalpa) Meditation Exercise:
*Close eyes and breathe
*Focus awareness on brow center
*Receive the question: “What are the most satisfying moments or decisions of this year?”
*Notice what comes up first, without thinking or searching
*Write down your answer and how it feels…
~ Pause ~
*Close eyes and breathe
*Focus awareness on brow center
*Receive the question: “What is one aspect about myself I have especially loved this year?” 
*Notice what comes up first, without thinking or searching
*Write down your answer and how it feels…
~ Pause ~
*Close eyes and breathe
*Focus awareness on brow center
*Receive the question: “What would I have done differently this year? What do I want to let go of?” 
*Notice what comes up first, without thinking or searching
*Write down your answer and how it feels…
~ Pause ~
*Close eyes and breathe
*Focus awareness on brow center
*Receive the question: “How have I noticed Divine/God’s presence in my life this year?” 
*Notice what comes up first, without thinking or searching
*Write down your answer and how it feels…
~ Pause ~
*Close eyes, hold your hands on your heart center and breathe gently into your heart space.
*Receive the question: “What am I bringing to life in the new year? What do I desire on the deepest level?” Maybe it’s a theme or word for the year. 
*Notice what comes up first, without thinking or searching
*Write down your answer and how it feels…

Create an intention (or two) with what you wrote in the meditation exercise using the following guidelines. Take your time. Let it be authentic and impactful. Affirm what you desire, instead of what you fear.

Four Principles of Effective Intentions:
Present — stated in the present tense, as if already happening
Positive — stated in the form of what is desired
Concise — clear and to the point
Resonates — feels right with your true self

“Embracing intention infuses every breath, every moment with a deep sense of peace, confidence and clarity.” ❤️ ~ Erin Madore

Let the journey of a new year unfold! Inhale the NOW, the NEW — exhale the OLD!

“Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” ~ Isaiah 42:9

May this be the BEST year yet! 🎉

Recharge & Radiate ✨

On By Heather Wiest

The holiday season is filled with lights and all the beautiful traditions surrounding them. Many years ago, as our family was decorating the Christmas tree our daughter asked her Dad, “Do these lights run on a parallel or series circuit?” It reminded me of a quote from Mother Teresa, “Each one of us is merely a small instrument. When you look at the inner workings of electrical things, often you see small and big wires, new and old, cheap and expensive, lined up. Until the current passes through them, there will be no light. That wire is you and me. The current is God. We have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, produce the light of the world.”

In nature, the glow worm produces a constant light throughout its entire body and can turn the light off and on at will, shutting down as a protective measure and relighting again when at ease. An inquiry for you – when, where, and with whom do you shine the brightest? Throughout this busy season take time to recharge and connect to your true source of love & light. Embrace yourself with supportive surroundings and loving people. Be your genuine self. Radiate your own unique light.

Light Meditation

Visualize a tiny light somewhere in the distance. The light may take any form you can imagine. It could be the glowing aura of a candle, a light bulb, a flashlight, a streetlight, any light that enters your awareness. Begin to move toward that light. It may be clear, or obscured by a misty fog that creates an aura around it. As you get closer and closer, the light becomes more significant and more brilliant. Keep your mind focused on the light and feel it growing brighter as you approach nearer and nearer to it, now surrounding you entirely.

Imagine that the Spirit is at the center of the light, and so, all of the Wisdom and Holiness of God are also in that light, which is presently glowing intense and white. Now move into the center of the light and feel it enter your being, moving all around and through you. Feel the presence of Divine Love within it, and realize it is your love. Feel the embrace of the Spirit all around and through you. Surrender to the Love, and become one with it. Savor the presence and the warm embrace as you connect with Love. Understand it will always be with you. Relax, knowing you are one.

Now, feel all the light that was surrounding you, and flooding through you, begin to gather inside your being, as if you are a magnet, pulling all that light inside, so that you become the light itself. You are a being of pure light. You contain God, the Spirit, and the entire essence of Love. Now, collect all the light together, allowing it to focus in the center of your heart space where it settles and glows with the same intensity. You deeply rest, renew, recharge & radiate.