Focused Coaching and Consulting, LLC

07/16/2026

🧐 People ask me all time “How do you keep your composure in your sessions without crying in front of your clients?” 🧐

The answer: By the sheer grace of God. 🙏🏾🙏🏾

I went to the store to replenish my bubble supply today… and forgot the bubbles. 🙄🤣

Without even knowing this, one of my youngest clients came in less than an hour later and surprised me with a big blue bubble wand for my office. They figured my tiny blue bubble wand was cute… but struggling. 🤣🫧 🫧 🫧

This was the absolute sweetest. 🥹

As we played 5 rounds of a “box it out” match to set the stage to process their grief, I suggested we have a hype song for our last round. The score was tied!! 🥊🏆

They recommended their sibling’s favorite song. As the music played, those powerful lyrics filled the room:

“I wanna say I lived each day, until I died
I know that I had something in somebody's life
The hearts I have touched, will be the proof that I leave
That I made a difference and this world will see
I was here…” 🎶💔🥹

Listening to this child sing those words loud from the depths, I silently thanked God for this assignment. To hear a child enduring loss and sing those specific, powerful words about making a difference and leaving proof of love is a holy moment. 🪽

It is truly only by God’s grace that I hold it together in sessions and my sessions are not about me. I got to witness this young, future leader dedicate this game-winning moment to a sibling forever cherished. 👑✨

Btw: They beat me… maybe not fair and square 😅🤷🏽‍♀️ and it was what their nervous system needed in that moment.

07/15/2026

If you missed the opportunity to join us today I have only 3 words for you:

CATCH. THE. REPLAY!!!

God was surely in this space with His people today!!

What we explored:

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 The definition and validation of Ambiguous Loss and Disenfranchised Grief experienced when a parent is absent.

Not many receive empathy and support for the grief experienced surrounding an absent parent as they would when a parent dies.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 The traditional responsibilities of parents and how the absence of a parent (leaving these responsibilities abandoned) puts a child at a higher risk of grieving, avoiding, chasing, performing, and growing into a deprived adult.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 What “absence” truly looks like.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 How this type of loss impacts our self worth, ability to trust, choose partners with discernment, and our parenting style.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 The attachment styles that develop from our inherited foundation of grief and deprivation.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 Soooo much more…

🌬️ God is calling His people to heal broken places before we enter new spaces.

🌬️ It’s up to us to be intentional about our healing now to break generational dysfunction of our past.

🌬️ Your childhood experiences created the foundation for how you define who you are, how you think, and how you move today in EVERY area of life.

🌬️ The winds are changing for those who allow the shift.

Coach C is an absolute heavy-hitter 🥊 in the healing space and I thank him for collaborating with me to bring this vital conversation to life.

Click the link below and see what you missed so you don’t miss out.

🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗

https://www.clubhouse.com/i/the-impact-of-absent-parenting-on-relationships/pV2ix13R

You were invited to join this live room

07/09/2026

Parents…

The "acting out" you’re seeing in your teen isn’t hatred. “It’s love imploding without words™.”-MLF💔

In a recent family session, a pre-teen stuck in a cycle of massive “tantrums” experienced a breakthrough.

I gave them a heavy ball for my 3R activity and asked what they wanted to throw down and release. Their answer? "I don’t know what I feel sometimes. That’s the problem."

🧐 Reflect: We labeled that heavy feeling "Uncertainty" and traded it for "Clarity."

☄️Release: They lifted the ball, felt the physical weight of that confusion, and threw it down.

The parent and I were blown away (I had to keep my cool, but my insides were turning 🤸‍♂️). That physical release opened a major door to provide the “clarity” no one expected.

🌬️Relax: Once the child’s body let go, the words poured out. They were secretly GRIEVING:

💔 Lost connection: Missing the one-on-one hugs and quality time with parent before their sibling arrived.

💔 Heavy pressure: Suffocating under the demand to be the responsible child.

💔 Feeling misunderstood: Not knowing how to express themselves clearly, leaving others with the wrong impression.

💔 Feeling unseen: Exploding at school and home just to force someone to hear them.

💔 Disenfranchised pain: grieving a loved one who had a special place in their heart but wasn’t “family” on paper. Without an official family title, the child placed restrictions on their grief.

The parent realized in that moment that the child didn't hate them. The tantrums were bottled-up emotions—a cry for connection that spilled over when triggered & shaken. 🍾🍾

The Lesson: Children & Teens can't always talk out their grief, but they will behave it. When the weight is too heavy for words, give them a physical release first. The clarity follows the release.

Let’s teach them how to get it out 🌬️without acting out. 🪶🪶🪶

To add to the praise——The child wasn’t even scheduled to see me this day. Only the parent. I didn’t know this baby could talk so much.

You can’t tell me God wasn’t in it. 🙏🏾🙌🏾🪶

06/22/2026

https://youtu.be/K6ZibD1eFWE?si=z2hzafwOW8Ct_Fjj

If you don't tune in to any other episode of this podcast series, it's imperative that you tune in to THIS one.

What happens when the ache you’ve carried your entire life finally gets a name?

“I didn't know I was allowed to call the absence of my father… 'GRIEF'. I didn't know I was grieving.”

In alignment with Father’s Day and Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month, we are breaking the silence on a generational shadow. So many men (and women) navigate life carrying a nameless ache, completely unaware that the complex emotions surrounding an absent father are actually a form of chronic, unprocessed loss.

In our very first video broadcast episode, I sit down with three brave men who pull back the mask on their behaviors, relationships, and healing journeys. We are "calling it what it is" so that recognition can be normalized and healing can be prioritized. An army is rising up to break these chains!

Join us as we unpack:

The Power of Naming the Pain: Why the emotional void left by an absent father is fundamentally a grief experience.

Breaking the Silence: Moving conversations out of hidden therapy sessions and into normalized, community spaces.

Generational Deliverance: How acknowledging chronic loss initiates deep psychological and spiritual healing that alters family dynamics and legacies.

This isn't just a podcast episode—it is a sacred room where unvoiced pain meets validation.

"Awareness will save your life."~MLF

🔔Hit play, subscribe on our YouTube channel and official page, and join us for some essential, transformative grief education, and long overdue "soul work."

Thank you to Consuello Hodges for sharing your mission to do the soul work and initiate and normalize tough conversations!

I love you all to life and wholeness. Mean it. ❤

06/19/2026

The most common phrase I hear in my work: “I didn’t know I could ‘grieve’ that.”

Maybe that explains how you’ve been “moving”… because of what you’ve been carrying-and not naming-all this time. 🤷🏾‍♀️

06/19/2026

https://youtu.be/XxvtbEaZEWc

It's time to talk about it.

💔 "You're so strong."
"I admire how well you're handling everything."
"You haven't even cried yet—you're doing amazing."
"I hope I can be as strong as you one day."

How many times have we said these words to a newly grieving person? How many times have they been said to you?

We are mistaking a phase of grief for strength and equating the presence of faith with the absence of grief and the presence of grief with the absence of faith.

Episode 5 of What’s Grief Got To Do With It?™ is now available on all major podcast platforms. Let's talk about it!

We look at someone who is meticulously organizing a funeral or delivering a flawless eulogy, and we instantly equate their composure with strength. But today on the podcast, we are dismantling that myth entirely.

What looks like strength to the world is often just a profound, protective form of natural anesthesia. When a major loss hits, your nervous system steps in to numb the area so your brain can survive the heavy task of the business of death. It's not coldness. It's not a lack of emotion. It's survival.

But here is the danger: when we praise people for being "strong," we inadvertently trap them in a performance. We make them feel like finally falling apart is a failure.

In this week's episode of What’s Grief Got To Do With It?™, we talk about what happens when the funeral ends, the food stops coming, and the emotional avalanche finally hits.

If you’ve ever felt like a robot during a loss, this episode is your official permission slip. You weren't unfeeling—you were protected.

Love you to Life, Family! Mean it! ❤

Don't Measure My Pain by My Posture: Navigating Loss When the World...

06/17/2026

Weather Forecast: SunnyCloudy 🌦️

A 7-year-old client navigating the loss of a parent is becoming fluent in their language of grief while some of my adults are still trying to translate it. 🙏🏾

“It was storming the other day. It was raining hard. The wind was blowing real bad. Then the lights went out and it was dark…but I found some games to play in the dark and had fun. I was kind of mad when the lights came on because I was having fun in the dark.”

My response: Hmmm…that sounds a lot like grief. You might feel sunny on the inside…and the outside…and all of a sudden the weather changes. It might feel a lot like that storm with the rain and the wind…and when things seem dark…🌩️

I paused…

They looked at me and said:
“That’s right! And when it gets dark, I can still find a reason to play and feel happy.”

My response: 🤯 Give me a high five… that’s called adapting and YOU. ARE. ABSOLUTELY. RIGHT!!!

I didn’t know what I expected them to say…but it wasn’t that.

Look at their drawing. They called it feeling “SunnyCloudy.”

We spend years as adults trying to figure out how to hold grief and joy in the same space. Trying to figure out how to “cope” but this brilliant 7-year-old just gave us the perfect blueprint. ☔️🌈

Coping mechanisms are good for navigating through and managing symptoms of loss like anxiety or intrusive thoughts experienced in that moment but grief is more than a moment and the symptoms often return.

We have to process each and every way your life has changed and will be forever changed and breaking down exactly what is “lost” while discovering who you are becoming along the journey. That’s adapting.

…and we work to give ourselves permission to still find a reason to play…to laugh…and live through the storm.

06/02/2026

🎉 It’s My “Build-i-versary!” 🏠🎉

I completely let my own business anniversary slip right by me! It has officially been two years since my hard launch—two years since I took a massive leap of faith and rented my physical office space after years of being virtual. It truly feels like 3 years because of how much life has been lived, restored, and transformed in this space.

When I first opened these doors 🚪, I didn’t fully know what expansion beyond my virtual clients would look like. I’ll admit, I underestimated the transition. But while I KNEW without a shadow of a doubt that my own community deeply needed grief education, what I couldn’t have predicted was the unforgettable, amazing human beings God would place directly in my path. 🛣️

In just twenty-four months, I have had the absolute honor of witnessing true miracles, deep restoration, and beautiful, yet active transformation right here in my own town and surrounding communities. My heart remains full daily.

Thank you to every single one of you for your prayers, the referrals, the collaborations, and the continuous connections.

But most importantly, thank you for doing the WORK!! 🕵🏾‍♀️🕵️🕵️‍♂️🕵🏼‍♂️ When you step into this space or join me online, you show up for YOU 🫵🏾—and I am so incredibly here for it. I know it’s not easy to take that step to face your fears and your feelings.

Here’s to the next chapter of rewriting the narrative on loss by renewing our minds, transforming our lives, reclaiming our joy, and building a community that knows how to fully embrace life while holding and honoring space for grief.

Love you all to LIFE! Mean it! 🤎

05/30/2026

“If my own friend told me my grief wasn't 'normal'... what would another therapist think of me?” 💔🎭

That is the question a licensed mental health professional confessed to me as she brought her now unapologetic vulnerability.

The fear of being judged, pathologized, or labeled by her own peers kept her from seeking the very support she desperately needed…keeping her in a cage of isolation.

The secret she was hiding? She was still paying her mother’s cell phone bill... four years after she died. 📲🕊️

To the outside world—and even to some traditional clinical frameworks—this gets labeled as "stuck," "denial," “abnormal”…it gets pathologized as a “disorder.”

I looked her in the eyes and ensured her: It is different, but it is not wrong. In the world of adaptive processing and reorganization, the world that most clinical frameworks do not tap into, this isn’t dysfunction. It is the human heart navigating the "yearning and searching" phase of grief. 😩

When a loss shatters your world, maintaining a connection through something you can control is a brilliant example of how the mind tries to adapt. It’s not about letting go; it’s about figuring out how to carry the love that is yearning to be demonstrated without the physical presence of the person or people we hold that love for. 💔❤️‍🩹

If we, as practitioners, are too terrified to expose our own human ways of coping for fear of a clinical diagnosis from our colleagues, how can we ever expect our clients to show up unmasked?

Helpers need help. Space holders need space.

🎬 Listen to this unmasked moment before the full episode drops tonight!

Tune into Episode 4, “Beneath the Profession: Healing the Human Behind the Credentials,” airing in just a couple of hours on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio. 🎧✨

05/29/2026

Countdown to Episode 4!

What’s Grief Got To Do With It?™

This Saturday on all major podcasts platforms.