In this episode, Dana Daugherty invites my guest Melissa Braunworth, a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) in California (lic # 129701), to explore sibling loss and how to talk about grief with kids. Melissa brings both professional and personal experience to this conversation, having lost her younger brother to a two-year journey with advanced stage cancer, just two weeks after her own engagement. In the years since, she’s navigated major life milestones, such as growing her family and continuing her clinical work, all while carrying that grief, impacting how she now supports children and families and builds a language for loss.

With over a decade of experience supporting kids, teens, parents, and school staff, Melissa specializes in grief and loss, trauma, ADHD, perinatal/postpartum mental health, and faith deconstruction/reconstruction. We talk about what it really looks like to support a child through loss, how creative expression opens doors that words can’t, and how Melissa brings grief language into conversations with her own kids.

Melissa is a mom to three children, a spouse, a sister, a Native to the Bay Area, an eldest daughter, and a first generation Asian-American U.S.-dweller. Also a note that anything that Melissa says today is for educational purposes and does not constitute therapy or therapeutic advice.

For more information or for the best way to contact Melissa is through her website where you also find a link to her Substack: www.lithopsandbloomtherapy.com 

Connect with Dana online:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/untetheredtorooted/

Monthly newsletter: https://www.danadaugherty.com/socialnewsletter

Work with Dana: https://www.danadaugherty.com/contact

Disclaimer: The information shared in this episode reflects personal stories and opinions only. The views shared by podcast guests are not reflective of the host's. This podcast does not constitute therapy. The information shared here does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking medical advice should consult with their licensed treating provider.

In this episode, Dana Daugherty invites her guest Lexi Mattocks to share her powerful journey of surviving foster care adversity and finding identity in becoming a survivor and a community leader. Lexi grew up in an abusive household where she became the whistleblower for her family’s struggles while dedicating herself to protecting her seven foster siblings, often sacrificing her own goals to keep them safe. We talk about what it meant for her to become a guardian for her severely disabled foster brothers, and how that experience shaped her into an advocate for differently abled people. Lexi opens up about surviving homelessness during her final year of college, and how she found healing, discipline, and a new sense of identity through powerlifting. We also explore the tools she leaned on to cope in her twenties, and why those same tools needed to evolve as she enters her thirties and a new chapter: motherhood. Lexi speaks candidly about confronting generational trauma, grieving what she didn’t have, and why she believes there is real courage in knowing when and how to ask for help. She reflects on the role models she needed to lean on throughout her life, and the lessons she’s carried into her advocacy work today. 

Lexi Mattocks is a South Korean adoptee, survivor, and advocate whose life has been shaped by resilience in the face of trauma. She’s on the board for the USA Powerlifting Disabled Athletes Committee, and has a passion for spreading adaptive awareness in the gym, science lab, and community.

You can find Lexi on Instagram @lexi_adaptive_athlete or on YouTube @LexiAdaptiveAthlete.

Connect with Dana online:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/untetheredtorooted/
• Monthly newsletter: https://www.danadaugherty.com/socialnewsletter
• Work with Dana: https://www.danadaugherty.com/contact

In this episode, Dana Daugherty invites her guest La Quanna Cooper to talk about how rest, ambition, and grief can coexist, and what it looks like to choose address your grief instead of not tending to it. After losing her mother several years ago, La Quanna found that travel, something deeply tied to her bond with her mom, became something that pushed her to trust herself and shed old ways of being that no longer served her. She learned to listen to her body, reset her boundaries, and commit to showing up differently so she was intentional about not leading with her wounds, but with her healing. Now, La Quanna channels her experience into wellness retreats designed to give others a safe place to land, process their emotions, and reconnect with themselves and community. In this episode we talk about grief, growth, and the courage it takes to re-root yourself.

La Quanna Cooper is the founder of Poised Wellness Retreats, a biotech professional by day and wellness entrepreneur outside of her 9-5, creating restorative experiences that honor cultural identity, intentional rest, and the balance between movement and stillness. She is also a Spin and certified Lagree instructor who knows firsthand that taking care of yourself isn’t a luxury, it's the foundation for how we lead, live, and show up for our communities. 

You can find her on Instagram @Lifebyq, @poisedwellnessretreats, @fortheculturecoalition. You can also check out her retreats online at www.posedwellnessretreats.com, or email her at [email protected]

Connect with Dana online:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/untetheredtorooted/
• Monthly newsletter: https://www.untetheredtorooted.com/socialnewsletter
• Work with Dana: https://www.untetheredtorooted.com/contact

In this episode, Dana Daugherty invites her guest Frank Ivey to talk about how reflection and journaling helped him in the grieving journey. Losing his father three years ago left Frank overwhelmed, losing hope, and noticing how grief impacts his relationships. In this episode, Frank shares with us about how journaling became his lifeline and helping him unlearn what he'd been taught about masculinity, where he can process his emotions honestly, and reconnect with himself. Allowing himself to truly feel his pain opened the door to deep personal and spiritual renewal, and how his journey through grief became a calling where he works with children in developing the emotional skills and sense of belonging he had to find the hard way.

Frank Ivy is a husband, father, brother, and friend who is deeply committed to growing, loving, and showing up fully in the lives of those around him. He holds a master's degree in health services and is a Made for Pax Fellow in the Contemplative Activism + Spiritual Formation Cohort. He’s passionate about becoming a better man through self-awareness, faith, and real-life experience.

You can find him on Instagram @creatingforevers and learn more about his services at here!

Connect with Dana online:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/untetheredtorooted/
• Monthly newsletter: https://www.untetheredtorooted.com/socialnewsletter
• Work with Dana: https://www.untetheredtorooted.com/contact

For future episode drops and information visit: ⁠https://www.untetheredtorooted.com/social⁠Give us a follow on IG: ⁠@untetheredtorooted⁠

Disclaimer: The information shared in this episode reflects personal stories and opinions only. The views shared by podcast guests are not reflective of the host's. This podcast does not constitute therapy. The information shared here does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking medical advice should consult with their licensed treating provider.

In this episode, Dana Daugherty invites her guest Jean Carlo Martinez to explore how loss and grief opened up deep exploration of himself, his family, and his Latino identity. For Jean, he found that grief was a way to learn about his family dynamics and history and to reclaim his Guatemalan roots and culture. The loss of his father sparked different grief reactions in his family, which unearthed hard truths and realities that were always there. In this conversation, we talk about the influence of narratives he grew up with around masculinity and Latino identity in processing grief and how his process reconnected him with his Guatemalan roots and the land. has set him on a path of connecting his rediscovery and reconnecting with Latino identity, specifically as a second-generation Guatemalan immigrant.

Connect with Jean:

- on Instagram: @Jeancito__19

- via email: [email protected]

- on Substack: jeancarlo19.substack.com

Connect with Dana online:

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/untetheredtorooted/

- Monthly newsletter: https://www.untetheredtorooted.com/socialnewsletter

- Work with Dana: https://www.untetheredtorooted.com/contact

For future episode drops and information visit: ⁠https://www.untetheredtorooted.com/social⁠

Give us a follow on IG: ⁠@untetheredtorooted⁠

Disclaimer: The information shared in this episode reflects personal stories and opinions only. The views shared by podcast guests are not reflective of the host's. This podcast does not constitute therapy. The information shared here does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking medical advice should consult with their licensed treating provider.

In this episode, Dana Daugherty invites her guest Susana Baker to explore the layered grief of loving someone whose health is changing while they’re still alive. Susana shares her experience of anticipatory, ambiguous, and compounded grief as her father’s medical conditions grew more complex over time. Together, we reflect on caregiving from afar, navigating family dynamics, and grieving multiple versions of a parent, before and after loss.

Susana Baker is a lifelong creative and the founder of Untangling Ideas, a values-led marketing agency providing small businesses and organizations with award-winning brand strategy, messaging, and web design. A proud eldest daughter of an immigrant, she’s Colombian-American, fully bilingual, and now based in Richmond, VA with her rescue dachshund, Lucy, where she's become an enthusiastic amateur potter. You can find her on Instagram or Threads at @untanglingideas.

In this episode, Dana Daugherty sits down with Jessica Sun for an honest conversation about grief, healing, and contemplative political activism aided her in the search for something worth living for. Jessica shares how growing up in an apolitical, culturally conservative, nonreligious, and capitalist-focused household led her to politics as a source of meaning, and later to faith and spirituality as part of her healing journey. We talk about navigating racial discrimination, controlling authority figures, and the mental health system at a young age and how receiving therapy and helping others became a way to survive and make sense of her own pain. Jessica reflects on community organizing as both a path toward self-actualization and a stand-in for healing her family and talks frankly about navigating political burnout and connecting with political activists in community to ground herself again. Jessica is a second-generation Chinese U.S.-ian, community organizer, and former software engineer, currently in the application process with the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods..

You can find Jessica Sun online on LinkedIn, or @JessicaSun on UpScrolled and Spoutible.

Links mentioned:

• principled: https://principled.careers/
• Anand Giridharadas' 2023 commencement address to Sidwell Friends (pay walled): https://the.ink/p/a-commencement-address
• "Let Yourself Be Loved" by Philip Bennett: https://www.paulistpress.com/Products/8-482-1/let-yourself-be-loved-revised-and-expanded-edition.aspx
• Noam Chomsky quote "What does it mean to be truly educated?": https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7360975-what-does-it-mean-to-be-truly-educated-i-think
• Lever News: https://www.levernews.com/
• Drop Site News: https://www.dropsitenews.com/

In this episode, Dana Daugherty invites her guest Reverend Angela Farrar Small to explore intergenerational grief and the unique position clergy are in when navigating grief in their congregations. Rev. Angela discusses how responses to grief and trauma are passed down within families and the negative impact of platitudes on grief. She shares why platitudes come up, and healthier ways we can acknowledge grief and respond instead. Rev. Angela is a licensed clinical social worker who was a pastor of a small congregation of elders. She has worked in hospice, in HIV disease care, and counseling individuals living with chronic conditions and their caregivers, including families impacted by dementia. Rev. Angela has a private practice and is newly focused on pivoting to spiritual care and spiritual trauma healing as it connects to mental health.

You can follow Angela Farrar Small, MSW, LICSW, M.Div., M.S. work at: www.EastSideTherapyAssociates.com and reach out to her at: [email protected] 

For future episode drops and information visit: https://www.danadaugherty.com/social 

Give us a follow on IG: @untetheredtorooted

Disclaimer: The information shared in this episode reflects personal stories and opinions only. The views shared by podcast guests are not reflective of the host's. This podcast does not constitute therapy. The information shared here does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking medical advice should consult with their licensed treating provider.

In this episode, Dana Daugherty and her guest Averry Cox continue to talk about Averry's experience of grief as a child of a parent who struggles with alcohol dependence, or what is commonly known as alcohol abuse. Averry discovered much of this stemmed from intergenerational trauma that was ever present in her family lineage. As a biracial neurodivergent therapist, writer, and author, Averry talks with us about how her relationship with her mother impacts and shapes her worldview, and ways this particular type of grief shows up in her everyday life.

Connect with Averry on Instagram @averrycoxcounselingFor future episode drops and information visit: ⁠https://www.danadaugherty.com/social⁠Give us a follow on IG: ⁠@untetheredtorooted⁠

Disclaimer: The information shared in this episode reflects personal stories and opinions only. The views shared by podcast guests are not reflective of the host's. This podcast does not constitute therapy. The information shared here does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking medical advice should consult with their licensed treating provider.

In this episode, Dana Daugherty invites her guest Averry Cox to share her experience of grief as a child of a parent who struggles with alcohol dependence, or what is commonly known as alcohol abuse. Averry discovered much of this stemmed from intergenerational trauma that was ever present in her family lineage. As a biracial neurodivergent therapist, writer, and author, Averry talks with us about how her relationship with her mother impacts and shapes her worldview, and ways this particular type of grief shows up in her everyday life.

Connect with Averry on Instagram @averrycoxcounseling

For future episode drops and information visit: ⁠https://www.danadaugherty.com/social⁠

Give us a follow on IG: ⁠@untetheredtorooted⁠

Disclaimer: The information shared in this episode reflects personal stories and opinions only. The views shared by podcast guests are not reflective of the host's. This podcast does not constitute therapy. The information shared here does not constitute providing medical advice or professional services. The information provided should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, and those seeking medical advice should consult with their licensed treating provider.