Ashley LeMieux - Born to Shine: Practical Tools to Help You Shine, Even in Lifes Darkest Moments

This book will change your life. Do you feel like youre stuck? Or maybe like youre just going through the motions? Ashley LeMieux will grab you by the hand and guide you to your truth. Never has a book capturing such despair and heartbreak been so inspirational and motivational. The powerful beam of light that shines from this author will truly illuminate the way for every reader, and when youve reached the final page you too will feel ready to take your first huge step toward reclaiming your life and your light.

- Mallory Ervin , Online Thought Leader, Podcaster

Ashley is a shining example of turning absolutely devastating loss into something purposeful and beautiful. She will inspire so many in the midst of their deep suffering to find the healing and hope within themselves, to turn their painful wounds, traumas and hurts into sacred scars.

- Ruthie Lindsey , Speaker, Author

A story of courage, hope, and healing that will remind you that life is tough, but so are you. Ashley opens herself up to the heartbreak and healing in a way that causes you to reflect on your own life and your own journey with pain and hope. Born to Shine instills in us the belief that we can make it through the hard seasons of life and in those darkest seasons, we can be a light to the world that is so desperately needed. Our stories matter and this story is proof that grief and healing can share space, can co-exist while we figure out how to navigate the harder chapters of our lives.

- Jenna Kutcher , Top Online Influencer, Top Podcaster

Few people can achieve the balance of delivering a raw and personal story in a way that is relevant, applicable, and powerful to someone with a completely different story. Ashley has done that so beautifully in Born to Shine . This a tool, not just for the woman who desperately need to experience healing but also for any gal who needs to learn how to live beyond her circumstances with boldness, joy, and confidence.

- Jordan Dooley , Best Selling Author

While the causes may be different, there isnt a human alive who gets through this life without being challenged by heartbreak or adversity. Ashley LeMieux has been in the depths of despair, and fought her way back becoming one of the most inspiring and positive people I know. Born to Shine teaches us when all is lost, how to find hope.

- Sara Walsh , Emmy Award Winning Sportscaster

The way Ashley tells her story, but also invites me to examine my own story, my own trials, my own lifeis both masterful and powerful. I was moved by the unique exercises she offers for self-reflection and found new insight and beauty into my own life. Through Ashley bravely sharing her heart, I was able to see new facets of my own.

- Alison Faulkner , Speaker and founder of The Alison Show

Ashley LeMieux

NEW YORK

LONDONNASHVILLEMELBOURNEVANCOUVER

Practical Tools to Help You SHINE, Even in Lifes Darkest Moments

2020 Ashley LeMieux

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in New York, New York, by Morgan James Publishing. Morgan James is a trademark of Morgan James, LLC. www.MorganJamesPublishing.com

ISBN 9781642793840 paperback

ISBN 9781642793857 eBook

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018914173

Cover Design by:

Meredith Carty

mercarty.com &
Chris Treccani

www.3dogcreative.net

Interior Design by:

Christopher Kirk

www.GFSstudio.com

Morgan James is a proud partner of Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg. Partners in building since 2006.

Get involved today! Visit
MorganJamesPublishing.com/giving-back

For Mike, Z, and S.

Thank you for teaching me how to shine in the darkest night.

I love you to the moon and back.

Forever.

March 5, 2017

Today I deflated; I gave up. How in the world could a human possibly feel so incapable of doing something so good and still be expected to take another step forward? I had given it my all and was sure it was going to work out, but it didnt. What a total failure I was. What a waste. This is how they feelthe people who stop dreaming, who get stuck, who lose faith in themselves, in each other, and in God. What do I do now? What do I give when I have nothing left inside of me? This is how they feel. Im not supposed to feel this way. They are.

T here is no they , there is only us . All of us, all 7.4 billion inhabitants of planet Earth suffer, but why does our unique and personal pain always feel so isolating? Why, in our sorrow, does it feel impossible to breathe, when all around us people seem to be thriving in the midst of their own struggles?

In 2013, my husband, Mike, and I became parents overnight. We signed on to become the permanent legal guardians to S and Z, two wonderful, magical children we loved with all of our hearts and with every last speck of our beings. S and Z called us Mom and Dad. They took our last name. We said our prayers together and dreamed about the future we would share. Four short years later though, after Mike and I pursued formal adoption, S and Z were returned to their biological family. I never got to kiss them goodbye.

I wrote the above journal entry in my new house, at an empty kitchen table sitting more than a thousand miles away from the place where it all happened, the place I grew up, the place where I raised my children and thought I would one day help them their raise theirs. I was trying to find my footing again, trying to learn who I was without them. It was something I thought I once knew, but when my children were taken, they took a huge chunk of me with them. The strong, wide-eyed, and full-of-faith girl I used to be was less than a shadow; she was a chalk outline on the ground. For the next year, inhaling and exhaling felt like work. Life seemed so easy for everybody else, but all I could see when I woke up and looked outside, even on the brightest day, was darkness.

The loss of the deep love Mike and I had been gifted with so briefly weighed on me, but one day while washing my face, it hit me: I could not simply sit back and watch myself slog through this grief. The only person I could nudge and watch thrive was myself. If I wanted to see the light, I was going to have to be the light. I was going to have to stop looking outward and begin looking in. I was going to have to participate in living.

I have learned, not just through our difficult adoption experience, but through a series of hard experiences, to stop trying to prove my worth. The value of each human life is immeasurable. The light that shines within me does not rely on one moment, or one effort; it does not hinge upon one failure or one success. My light is constant and unchanging, and there is something intrinsically wonderful about me that cannot be stripped away, calculated, or reproduced by anything or anybody else.