President and founder of Liberty Oaks Healing & Retreat Center
Meet Stephanie Kaeberlein, an inspiring leader with a superpower of seeing potential in everything, even after facing significant life challenges.
Her journey is one of transformation, resilience, and inspiring leadership. Liberty Oaks is her vision and dedication to holistic well-being, offering a space for reflection, growth, and healing. Through her personal experiences and professional expertise, Stephanie leads by example, showing that even in the face of profound loss, there is potential for new beginnings and lasting impact.
“My vision is grounded in the belief that everyone has the capacity for radical transformation. Liberty Oaks is a testament to resilience, vulnerability, and the enduring human spirit. I invite people to join us on a journey of self-discovery, to find solace, to learn, and to grow.”
Stephanie Kaeberlein
Journey of Resilience and Triumphs
Turning a 20-acre homestead into a non-profit dedicated to serving a multitude of communities championing holistic health and well-being is an amazing feat in itself.
Add that Stephanie Kaeberlein, the pioneer who started Liberty Oaks, has faced these significant challenges, and you will see more clearly how she has consistently accessed her own superpower:
- became a single mother to two teenagers after her husband committed suicide in 2022 and was forced to reboot and expand her interior design business to support them.
- grieved the death of two parents just a few years before losing her spouse.
- had a near-death experience that brought her to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) fighting for her life, and fully recovered.
- grew up a latchkey kid taking care of two younger siblings, left on her own at age 12 to take a train out of state to visit her grandparents, where she learned early on to build trust in herself and become a self-starter.
“I’m resourceful and have always seen potentials in everything—in people, situations, in physical spaces,” she shares. “It’s my superpower. I see beyond what’s obvious, I see the beauty in it, and what things can become and how they can evolve.”
No wonder she started a successful interior design firm, Matchline Interiors, in 2018, with 20 years’ experience now creating inspiring and purpose-driven spaces. Her expertise spans residential and commercial design, leaving a mark on projects for Fortune 500 clients and five-star hospitality resorts to small businesses and churches.
“We design environments where people thrive”.
She is passionate about designing aesthetically welcoming workplace environments for purpose-driven businesses and organizations that promote higher performance, greater joy, and improved overall well-being.
“We design environments where people thrive,” Kaeberlein explains.
Kaerberlein’s personal life mirrors her love for family, vintage items, historic settings, and a passion for life on a small farm. Nature serves as her greatest inspiration, infusing her designs with a sense of connection to the environment.
She brings those same design skills, based on her training at Savannah College of Art and Design (which she calls “one of the best decisions of her life”), to the grounds of Liberty Oaks. The bucolic setting includes healing gardens, walking trails, and a pond, all of which invite reflection and transformation by being in stillness and peace amidst a vast expanse of nature.
"I’m emerging from my grief journey, with a vision for healing and growth that I now feel compelled to share.”
Stephanie walks her talk: A behind-the-scenes peek at her healing journeys
Leading a retreat center that transforms lives became her mission after doing decades of “inner work” and surrounding herself with holistic health professionals, corporate leaders, and others aligned with well-being and optimal living.
She also benefitted learning from her husband, Chris who was entrenched in personal growth and development most of his career as an Agile coach, which entails a leadership model that often brings rapid results through experimentation of new ideas quickly upfront.
Both of them also nurtured their marriage and its growth spurts with relationship counseling throughout their 20 years together. They participated extensively in parenting classes, which has added layers of personal expertise in transformation for Kaeberlein beyond her leadership and design skills.
They relocated from Wake Forest, N.C., to a rural homestead to raise their two children, now 17 and 20, in nature. At the time, they planned to grow gardens, raise chickens, host art camps, and work with neighbors in maximizing the use of the adjoining properties as well.
That dream expanded into becoming a healing and retreat center after her husband killed himself in 2022.
“As I navigated the complex landscape of grief and loss, grief became my teacher, and I discovered valuable lessons in self-care, shifted perspectives, and embraced the transformative power of living from the heart,” she shares.
“Chris’ death became a catalyst for a profound shift in my outlook, prompting me to consider how I could turn this tragedy into an opportunity to honor him and help others. I’m emerging from my grief journey, with a vision for healing and growth that I now feel compelled to share.”
Liberty Oaks, which was established as a non-profit in 2023, is the evolution of that vision.
“My life felt like a 1,000- piece puzzle all over the floor and I had no idea of what the picture was even supposed to look like initially.”
Stephanie Kaeberlein
The shock of reinventing her life
Kaeberlein was no stranger to grief. She lost her dad suddenly over 12 days to an aggressive form of blood cancer, and her mom died of recurrence of breast cancer and passed away six months later.
“This was a completely different way of processing grief for me than my husband’s suicide because there was at least some preparation that death was coming,” Kaeberlein explains.
With her husband’s death, which rocked not only her world, but her children’s, she was forced to handle grief differently.
“Chris’ death, which came completely out of nowhere, was so personal, if affected every fiber of my being in every way, and it was like losing a part of myself,” she shares.
She immediately realized she had to “put the oxygen mask of self-care on herself first“ so she could be there for her children and make time to reorient on how she perceived life. Suicide is also often a more complicated grief that leaves people with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD).
Although she participated in GriefShare, which is a popular grief recovery support group for help and healing from the hurt of losing a loved one, she had so many tasks to handle that it forced her to strategize and compartmentalize. These tasks kept her in control and focused.
“I had to start a “to do” list and carved out what are the big rocks in my life that I have to manage solo now — me, the house, money, each of the children’s states of healing and well-being, and legal estate details from my husband’s death,” she notes. “And under each category there were 20 to 50 things for each one, so I created Post-it notes on the back of my office door to get things out of my head. It felt like where 1,000 tabs opened all the time.”
It was so overwhelming and confusing that when issues appeared, like a water leak in the bedroom, she would just sit and ask: Should I move things back or just leave it for now?
She is grateful for her solid team of support, and her decades of spiritual and personal growth and development work that helped keep her grounded in creating anew.
“Having a support network of close friends is so important, and they don’t even have to be in the same circles, but they are people you can go to with different needs,” she advises. “ I have seven or eight women in my life of different ages and stages. Two are in mom roles, others bring a different perspective and are always there for me. I would been a puddle on floor if I didn’t have any or all of them.”
Now she sees part of her mission from her deep healing journey is teaching others ways to move beyond what grief is at its most painful points, and to start looking at the potentials for growth in new ways.
“It’s important that you start trusting in yourself and believing that you will figure things out as you move forward.”
Her key message to all those reinventing themselves after the death of a loved one or in facing some other type of life curveball or major challenge :
“It’s important that you start trusting in yourself and believing that you will figure things out as you move forward.”
She also stresses aligning with others who share similar values and keep you motivated in pursuing a new life and being able lean in and receive help.
Kaeberlein knew from the start of Liberty Oaks in 2022, that she needed to build a solid team, including an operations manager, top-notch professionals and healers, and others from all walks of life to enrich the collaborative power of community.
She has a Board of Directors that includes experts in holistic medicine and other therapies, corporate leaders, wellness pioneers and coaches, landscapers, town officials, teachers, retirees successful in their chosen professions, salespeople, event planners, PR and marketing specialists.
Book Stephanie to speak at your next event
Whether it’s a podcast, school function, mental health conference, retreat, community workshop, leadership summit, holistic health seminar, youth empowerment event, parenting workshop, or grief support group. Her powerful story of resilience, personal growth, and holistic well-being will inspire and uplift your audience, providing them with valuable insights and practical strategies for navigating life’s challenges and achieving transformation.