We were lucky to catch up with Allison Bradsher recently and have shared our conversation below.

Allison, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

For years I have been asking the question: how do we change, heal, and grow in meaningful, lasting, and whole hearted ways? How do we become who we are made to be, individually and collectively? This desire for transformation is rooted in the idea that we live from the inside out. We can tweak our circumstances, our roles, and our responsibilities, but the reality is that you go with you wherever you go. This means that the invisible landscape of our mental, emotional, and spiritual lives is influencing everything about our outer, visible lives. We may want to manage our anger, have successful relationships, and experience peace and alignment, and those things are possible, but not without a journey of healing, one that I believe is spiritual at the core.

I have always been oriented toward the needs of others. As an oldest child, I felt a responsibility to help and nurture. That desire continues to show up in my relationships as a wife and mom of 4. Through the years it has shown up in my friendships, volunteer work, and neighboring as well. Coming alongside others has been a way that I have operated in the world for as long as I can remember, but in the last 10 years it has become vocational in the truest sense of the word. As I have discovered tools for inner healing, connecting with God, living less on the surface and more from depths of my inner life, I have wanted other people to experience their lives and themselves this way too.

It has been a journey of learning how to walk around in my own inner landscape, to stick with what I find there, and to allow God’s compassionate presence to really love me. By default we all live from our pain, our narratives about ourselves, God, and others, and from our habitual ways of being in the world. But this is malleable. We are made to heal. We are made to live from a place of being loved, cherished, honored, and deeply at peace with ourselves and our story. I wanted this for others, and in the process of becoming trained and credentialed to help people find that, I found it for myself.

Allison, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I began practicing spiritual direction, the art of listening to someone’s spiritual journey, helping them sit with their joys, doubts, questions, curiosities, and experiences of God, about 5 years ago. At that time I was discovering all sorts of contemplative practices that were helping me to deepen my journey with God, myself, and others. Another of these was silence. At this time I also began leading silent retreats for Christians around Memphis seeking a chance to escape the noise and distractions of life to listen to God’s voice. I was offering these things from my home and in rented spaces, and I began to dream of Memphis having a physical hub for this inner life care, a place that was full of beauty, nature, and hospitality.

Several years into my own journey I synced up with some friends, Britney Christie and Lacey StLuka who were offering similar things in the same ways: in their homes and rented venues. As we joined our ideas and dreams together, things really began to come to life. We started looking for a property that would be outside of the city, so that people could truly step away from everyday life, but close enough that it was within reach. Accessibility has been a core value for us from the beginning.

We looked at several but kept coming back to a wooded 10 acre piece of land with a main house, cabin, and pond that was just brimming with possibility. It was the home of a woman selling after living there 30 years. It had just enough charm and potential to win us over. We spent the next few months fundraising to secure this place, all the while wondering if this dream could become a reality. We needed a village of Memphians to come around this idea and give their financial support, and we spent each day of those months inviting people in and hoping the vision would catch.

In the end we did receive enough support, almost down to the dollar, to move forward with the purchase and renovation of what has now become The Retreat House! Since then, it has continued to be a journey of spreading the word and inviting people to support and participate in what we are offering. We have renovated the main house to be a space for retreats and rooms for counseling, spiritual direction, art therapy, and we even have a chapel. There is also a log cabin on the property that gives us the opportunity to host guests seeking overnight retreat and refreshment.

In everything we offer, we are seeking to help people connect. We want people to experience connection to God, creation, themselves, their story, and even their heartache. This is a place to cry, process, rest, learn, delight, and recenter. We know that the on-ramp to these things is different for everyone. We have worked hard to develop a variety of offerings that meet people where they are. We will walk with you! In whatever you are going through and wherever you are starting the journey of becoming who you are made to be, we are here for you.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I love the story of how I met Britney and how our friendship and work together has developed. We are both moms of four kids, and 6 years ago her family decided to enroll their kids at the school where my kids attended and still attend. When a new family joins this school community, they are assigned a current family that will welcome them and help answer questions making sure they feel included and informed. The Christies were assigned to us. That year each of our oldest girls were entering 2nd grade. We took them to a trampoline park to play and get to know each other before the start of school, and I realized Britney was someone I had a ton of connection with and that we could be real friends.

Over the years we realized we had a shared heart for lots of things: loving people in marginalized areas whether that be globally for her or locally for me. We realized we had a shared heart for silence, stillness, and contemplative practices. And we also shared a desire to lead and invite others into those things.

As time went on we were both offering spiritual direction and retreats for those seeking to pay deeper attention to their spiritual journeys. We began to overlap more and more in this work, and one fateful day on the playground, watching our kids on the monkey bars, we began talking about a dream we shared for our city: a retreat house. We really let ourselves discuss what it would take for this to move from a dream to a reality. Britney is an activator. While I might ponder and wonder and imagine for decades, she gets things in motion. Within a week, we were looking at properties.

Britney had been in nonprofit work for 12 years with her ministry partner, Lacey StLuka. Together the three of us began working on this dream for a retreat house. There is a verse in our Scriptures that says, “a three stranded cord is not easily broken.” We have found this to be true if not vital to the work that is happening at The Retreat House. We all three see the world in different ways. We each bring different strengths and gifts to this project, and it cannot be overstated how crucial this has been. We are one year into this journey, and there is zero percent chance that things would be where they are without each one of us. I am grateful to be co-founders with these two amazing women.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

The initial capital needed for this endeavor was an enormous fundraising effort. Because Britney and Lacey had established a 501c3 years ago for their global work, that then developed into local work, we were able to start The Retreat House under this umbrella. We found the unique home and property (that is now The Retreat House) and asked the seller if we could go under contract on her home with no proof of funds. In an act of faith and favor, she agreed.

We spent the next 3 months inviting everyone we knew to come and lean more about what we believed could become a beacon of hope for Memphians. We hosted gatherings in homes, offered zoom calls, and had countless coffees and lunches to try to spread the word. We needed a village of support for this to really manifest. We prayed and hoped and put ourselves out there, vulnerably asking friends, family, and anyone we could get connected with to give to this dream. We had a very specific number needed to be able to close and move forward, and down to the day and down to the dollar we believe God provided. This will forever fill me with gratitude and wonder. The names of those who were a part of this initial launch live on the entry wall of The Retreat House.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.bfrlocal.com
• Instagram: Theretreathousememphis
• Other: Hello@theretreathousememphis.com

Image Credits
Allison Bradsher Morgan Hibbs