In this moving and powerful episode, Dr. Leelo Bush reveals how grief coaching can be one of the most life-changing tools in a coach’s toolbox. Grief is not just about loss through death—it can stem from divorce, job loss, infertility, or a painful diagnosis. Dr. Bush shares personal experiences, biblical truths, and neuroscience-backed strategies to equip coaches and counselors with real tools for healing. You'll learn why grief is not a niche but a universal human experience, and how the Christian coaching community is uniquely positioned to lead others from heartbreak to hope.

✅ WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• Why grief affects every client you’ll ever coach—whether you realize it or not

• How to recognize grief, even when it’s hidden beneath success or progress

• The false beliefs that keep clients trapped (e.g., “I’ll never be okay again”)

• How to bring Scripture-rooted and neuroscience-backed tools to your coaching

• Why retelling the pain isn’t required for healing—and what works instead

• How to become a certified grief coach through Dr. Bush’s programs

• New resource: Healing the Grieving Brain and how to use it with clients

💬 QUOTABLE MOMENT

“Grief doesn’t have to break your clients forever. With the right knowledge, you can guide them toward healing, hope, and lasting joy.”

📖 SCRIPTURES MENTIONED

• Biblical prophecy affirmed by neuroscience (specific verses not cited but referenced thematically)

• Faith-based encouragement woven throughout all coaching practices

📝 EPISODE SHOW NOTES

In this heartfelt episode, Dr. Leelo Bush explores the deep impact grief has on every coaching journey. Whether your client just lost a loved one or is quietly struggling through a divorce or career setback, you’ll learn why grief coaching is no longer optional—it’s essential. Discover how science and Scripture work together to bring lasting healing, and how you can be the coach who shows up when it matters most.

Mentioned in this episode: 🔹 Healing the Grieving Brain – https://griefcoachu.com/healing 🔹 Apply for the Kingdom Impact Scholarship – griefcoachu.com 🔹 Join our Facebook group: Courageous Christian Coaching Tribe

TRANSCRIPT: A couple of days ago, I was scrolling through my social media feed when a photo of a beautiful middle-aged couple caught my eye. They looked so happy together that I stopped to read the post. That’s when I realized it was written by a man sharing about his deceased wife. Although it had been years since she passed, he was still unable to move forward.

Trapped by his own thought patterns and false beliefs about grief, believing that grief was a life sentence that he could never escape, it was heartbreaking to see. I’m uniquely qualified to speak to this because grief coaching has been a central focus of my research, curriculum development, and professional training for well over a decade. In fact, I’ve created several of the most effective hybrid modalities for grief recovery available today.

As I read his words, I knew exactly what could help him. But because it was a group post, I wasn’t allowed to reach out privately. Group rules, you know. This wasn’t the first time I’ve come across someone experiencing such profound grief and felt helpless to intervene. And sadly, this is far from an isolated situation. Grief is everywhere, affecting lives silently and often unnoticed.

The good news is there are excellent solutions, and real recovery is absolutely possible. But more people, including you, need to be trained to provide that help. As you may already know, the signature training programs I’ve created are rooted in Scripture, and yet they also integrate evidence-based science like neuroscience, cognitive behavioral strategies, and related fundamentals. I am passionate about these methods because today’s scientific discoveries confirm truths revealed in biblical prophecy thousands of years ago. And these strategies have now been tested and proven to work.

And here’s the most exciting part. I’ve recently created a new guide that anyone can afford to help you bring these powerful tools to yourself and others. So stay with me, because later in this episode, I will share exactly how you can get your hands on it.

Welcome to the Christian Coaching School podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Leelo Bush. I’m a master coach, author, curriculum creator, and the number one authority on spirit-led Christian coaching. I’ve trained tens of thousands worldwide since 2003, and if you are ready to uplevel your skills, find greater fulfillment, and employ the most powerful coaching available to mankind—let’s go.

Hi, I’m Dr. Leelo Bush and I am so glad you’re here today. I know your time is precious and it means the world to me that you have chosen to spend part of it with me for this very important episode. Let me ask you something. What if the single most important thing you could do as a coach wasn’t about helping your clients set goals or build better habits, but about knowing how to guide them through the darkest, most painful moments of their lives?

And what if the greatest gift you could ever offer your clients was the ability to help them heal when grief strikes? Because sooner or later, it will.

You see, grief doesn’t only come from the death of a loved one. It can spring from a wide variety of life events: a painful divorce, the loss of a job, the heartbreak of infertility, a devastating diagnosis, or even the silent, slow loss of watching someone you love fade during a long illness.

Sometimes grief arrives in an instant, like the recent flash flood in Kerrville, Texas, which changed lives forever in just moments. And here’s what you need to know: Even if you’re a tender-hearted person who struggles with hearing the details of others’ pain, you don’t have to rehash the stories for healing to happen. In fact, reliving these stories is rarely helpful anyway.

You need to know that the solutions for grief, no matter the origin, are the same. And our culture desperately needs more people like you equipped with these tools to help. When grief strikes, you became a coach or counselor because you wanted to help people change their lives for the better. But here’s the reality you can’t ignore: every client you will ever work with will face loss—and loss doesn’t wait for a convenient time.

It shows up in the middle of breakthroughs, successes, and milestones, and it has the power to unravel everything you’ve been building together. I want you to imagine coaching a client who has just landed their dream job or finally found hope in a new relationship, only to have it shattered overnight by the death of a parent, the loss of a beloved pet, or a devastating health diagnosis.

What happens next if you don’t know how to help them process their grief? Every bit of momentum you’ve created can come to a sudden halt. Your client may withdraw, lose trust, or even abandon the work entirely. And you could find yourself questioning your own ability—not because you’re a bad coach, but because you’re unprepared for what grief does to a person, their overall physiology, and particularly to their brain.

That’s why I believe with every fiber of my being that every coach and counselor—yes, including you—needs to understand how to help clients through grief, because grief is not a niche issue. It’s a universal human experience that can emerge from countless situations. It shows up anytime there is a significant unwanted change or loss.

Yet most coaches—and even many counselors—don’t know this. And because they don’t, they miss the signs of grief in their clients. Or worse, they unintentionally make it harder for them to heal. When you tell someone to stay busy or suggest they move on without giving them the tools to actually process what has happened, you can end up deepening their despair and making them feel alone in their pain.

In my own journey, I have seen this over and over. As someone who has specialized in grief coaching for more than a decade, I am part of many grief support groups online. Every day, my feed fills with heartbreaking posts from people who are lost in grief. They share their stories again and again, hoping for relief, but getting nothing more than sympathy or empty platitudes from people who mean well but simply don’t know how to help.

Group leaders try their best, but they don’t know what they don’t know. And it’s not their fault. It is exactly why real training matters. That’s why I created the grief coaching programs at Grief Coach U. I wanted to give you what so many well-meaning people—and yes, so many professionals—are missing: a proven, practical, and compassionate approach to helping people heal.

When you enroll in my programs, you will learn exactly how to recognize the signs of grief, how to create a safe space for your clients to process what they’re going through, and how to guide them through healing using methods that truly work. You’ll learn what happens to the brain and body during grief so you can work with your client’s natural responses instead of fighting against them.

You’ll learn how to identify the thought patterns that keep people stuck—thoughts like “I’ll never be okay again,” or “I should have done more,” or even the fallacy that somehow love equals grief. To be clear, it never has, and it never will. You’ll learn how to help clients replace those with truth and hope so they can move forward.

You’ll learn how to bring faith-based encouragement to those who want it, how to set meaningful healing goals, and how to support your clients as they begin to rebuild their lives.

If you choose our dual certification program, you will go even deeper—gaining the business and marketing training you need to integrate grief support into your practice or build a specialized coaching business. You’ll also have ongoing support that helps you succeed long after you complete the course.

I want you to think about what happens when you don’t have the skills. Imagine you’re working with a client on improving their marriage, but suddenly they lose a parent. If you don’t know how to help them navigate their grief, the relationship you’ve been helping them heal could quickly unravel.

Or maybe you’re helping an executive with leadership skills, and they unexpectedly lose their job. Without tools to address their grief, your client may spiral into depression, anxiety, or self-doubt—and all your joint efforts could go to waste.

When you don’t know how to address grief, your coaching or counseling becomes incomplete, and your clients suffer. But when you do know how, you become the hero they need. You become the coach or counselor they will always remember because you were there when it mattered most.

And here’s something else you may not know—grief coaching isn’t just a moral or professional imperative. It can also be financially sustainable as a niche. Estate funds or life insurance payouts are often intended to help survivors restore their well-being, and it’s not unusual for insurance benefits to cover grief support.

This isn’t about taking advantage of someone’s pain—it’s about offering a service that genuinely helps people heal and honoring their need for support during one of the hardest times of their lives.

Before I finish, I want to speak directly to those of you who lead support groups—whether it’s a grief support group, recovery group, a caregiving circle, or any other community where people are navigating loss. Your members need more than sympathy—they need real, effective help. And you deserve to have the training that empowers you to truly make a difference.

If you lead a group, I invite you to apply for our Kingdom Impact Scholarship at griefcoachu.com. Tell us about your group, who you serve, and what you hope to accomplish. You could be eligible for significant savings off your tuition in one of our grief coaching programs, because your group deserves a leader who can bring real healing—and I want to help you become that leader.

I also want to tell you about a brand new resource I’ve created that can radically transform the grief recovery process for you and your clients. It’s called Healing the Grieving Brain: How to Overcome Thought Errors to Find Peace and Fulfillment, and you can find it now at griefcoachu.com/healing.

This guide will show you how thoughts create feelings, and why we need to intercept unproductive thought patterns that can deepen hopelessness and prolong grief. As usual, links mentioned in this episode will also be provided in show notes for you.

You will discover exactly how to identify and correct the false beliefs that keep people stuck—so proper healing can finally take place. You’ll receive practical exercises, and we’ve even added an optional journal with a daily emotion tracking tool. This resource helps you and your clients experience real progress and see more good days than bad as time goes on.

So let me leave you with this: Grief doesn’t have to break your clients forever. With the right knowledge, you can guide them toward healing, hope, and lasting joy. And when you do, you won’t just be another coach or counselor. You will be the hero who showed up when they needed it most. And that’s the kind of impact you were meant to make. And that’s the kind of legacy you can create—starting today.

So if this conversation has opened your eyes to the reality of grief and the desperate need for real solutions, I want to invite you to take the first step now. Get your copy of Healing the Grieving Brain, my practical, faith-honoring guide that shows you exactly how to identify and correct the thought errors that keep people stuck in pain. Whether you’re hurting yourself or want to help others, this resource will give you powerful tools to begin the healing journey today. That’s griefcoachu.com/healing to get your copy.

Because when we heal, we don’t just change one life—we ignite a chain reaction of hope that can transform families, communities, and generations to come.

I’m Dr. Leelo Bush, and I will see you in the next episode.

Before you go, I want to personally invite you to join our private Facebook group, The Courageous Christian Coaching Tribe. This is where bold, Spirit-led coaches and aspiring coaches gather to grow, get equipped, and stay encouraged together.

Inside you will find exclusive tips, training, supportive community, and the kind of Kingdom-minded conversations you just can’t find anywhere else. If you are feeling called to coach, or if you want to stay sharp in your calling, this is your place.

Our group culture is: “Each one, bring one.” So invite a friend to join you—the more the merrier. Just go to facebook.com/groups/courageouschristiancoachingtribe, or just tap the link in the show notes. But don’t wait, because the sooner you join, the sooner we can start pouring into you.

And I will see you inside the tribe.