How Grief Inspired Gloria Mendez to Help Others Overcome Sorrow

Gloria Jean Mendez is the founder and owner of True Light Coaching, LLC, Luna Evolution Counseling, and Clinical Director of Ellie Mental Health, based in Texas, San Antonio. She is a Certified Grief Informed Professional (CGP) who helps people overcome their grief and move forward. To her, life is like a book, and with more than 20 years of experience as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Texas, Gloria Mendez has been living through good and bad chapters. She provides individual and couple counseling via teletherapy. Her focus is grief, depression, and anxiety. She is also trained in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a psychological approach that uses psychotherapy, behavior, and communication to evoke change.

Gloria’s Journey

Gloria’s journey began with traumatic grief. When she was 15, her grandfather, Lucio T. Mendez, had a stroke and passed away three days later. He was one of the most influential people in her life, and his death made everything very intense for Gloria. Much later, when she started interacting with people and helped them overcome their grief, she realized where her trauma came from and how to eliminate it. She took several courses to become a professional coach and counselor to help others navigate their grief better.

According to Gloria, the time it takes to overcome grief is a much-debated subject. While most researchers and diagnostics say that overcoming grief takes around a year, Gloria believes that it has no timeline and is a part of life. Some days you feel good, and sometimes there are days when you are depressed. Gloria believes grief is very personal. Each person has their way of dealing with it, and following a formula set by others does not help. It makes them get sucked deeper into darkness.   Gloria believes that her grandfather was instrumental in all that she is today. “My calling came from him,” Gloria said.

True Light Coaching, LLC and Luna Evolution Counseling

Gloria founded True Light Coaching to help people overcome grief and emerge more robust and better. This coaching platform offers counseling that is without any diagnostic stigma. Gloria Mendez believes that counseling gets into a person’s life, catches holes, and brings him/her to the present to lead a better life.

Similarly, Luna Evolution is a counseling platform where Gloria offers various treatment methods that she has developed. With her companies, she has tried to create a balance between coaching and counseling.

“Even if you have not thought of being an entrepreneur, you can be! You can be your boss. Women can be whatever they want to be.”  ―Gloria Jean Mendez

Focus of Treatment

Understanding an individual’s story, bases, and how they process their grief is important in helping them overcome it. “It is also essential to know their family background, culture, religious upbringing, and how these work for them. Once you figure out what they need externally to facilitate their personal journey, it becomes easy to treat them,” Gloria adds. 

Gloria feels that our cultural and religious practices were formulated long ago and have not been updated to match the environment that we deal with. There is a need to buffer them with other things besides fine-tuning them so that they can work for us.

Learning how to communicate and use correct language is an essential aspect of Gloria’s therapy. “Often, you try to talk to somebody, and the other person does not understand because their comprehension levels are different. Such lack of understanding is not anyone’s fault, but while treating people, it is essential to use the words and visuals they are familiar with. So, when I engage with someone, I keep track of the words they are using. I use those to keep the same level. In a way, it is verbal mirroring,” says Gloria.Treatment Modalities

Initially, Gloria starts with cognitive behavioral therapy with clients and progresses into what they need. According to her, trauma gets trapped in our bodies, and breathing exercises, stretching, and yoga are necessary to release it. She also makes her clients perform visualization exercises to trigger feelings. She gets into their unconscious brain and syncs it with the conscious part to reverse the output. Gloria says that it can be very intense, and it is essential to get the client ready to accept the transition.

Sometimes, it takes only one session to transition and get immediate relief from grief. Some find it shocking, while many get emotionally drained. Therefore, it is crucial to get the client to know what to expect. If the client cannot take the therapy, she helps through counseling.

Gloria Mendez is a life-long learner and teaches herself as many processes and skills as possible. She also employs trauma-release methods, CBT, play therapy, music therapy, and meditation. Now, she is training to become a Reiki specialist, as she believes that it will facilitate healing in her patients.

Gloria also likes to have all her patients tell about what they want their stories to be in the future. Helping the patients visualize their future will ensure that they are not stuck in darkness. “I call the process illumination as it gives hope,” she explains.  

Gloria’s Goals

Gloria desires to create a non-profit organization with facilities that can provide services to individuals. Currently, she is working on a book (a grief book) based on her own story. She also intends to go back to academics and get a doctoral degree.   Gloria is also set to become a Clinical Director of Ellie Mental Health in San Antonio. The organization plans to open ten exclusive mental health facilities.

Message for Young Entrepreneurs

Gloria advises women who want to start their business to be fierce in their passion and never accept ‘No’ for an answer. At the same time, new entrepreneurs need to believe in themselves. She adds that if you fall, get up, never stop, and always keep going. “Even if you have not thought of being an entrepreneur, you can be! You can be your boss. Women can be whatever they want to be,” she signs off.