717. Triumph Over Any Challenge with The Shine Project's Ashley LeMieux

So something that I've started doing, especially on those days where the fear makes me forget the truth about who I am in life. I literally tell myself, I literally hug myself and I say, thank you for trying to protect me right now. But I'm okay.

Welcome to the Earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of Light Pink, best selling author, three time fitness world champion, and I'm a crazy, multi passionate entrepreneur. My journey has taken me everywhere. From being a broke waitress, barista, retails associate and personal trainer with massive anxiety and no belief in myself, to later becoming a multimillionaire in love with my life. In 2007, my husband and I lost everything. We found ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. At rock bottom, we had no ideas and I had no education to fall back on. This is when I found personal development and learned everything I could. Not by choice, but because I realized no one was coming to save me. The conversations on this podcast are going to let you know that you're not alone and that we all feel like we don't know what we're doing. We're going to give you the tools to help you face your fears, take action, start your business, and grow those massive dreams that are keeping you up at night. It's time to create a life that you can't hide from and put so much on the line that your higher self is free, forced to come out. You're going to stop waiting for someone to approve of you, and you're going to anoint yourself. Because I'm obsessed about building businesses that give women a platform, I want to feature you. So if you text the word podcast to 310-496-8363, you can get your questions answered on our Q and A segment along with a shout out. And if you rate, review and subscribe to this podcast, subscribe. We're choosing someone every month to get coached and featured on our show. It just might be you. So let's get started. Welcome back to the show. Today is so crazy. Extra special, you guys. I legit cried during this podcast probably three or four times. Sometimes you can hear it, sometimes you can't. I was so moved and every single time I've talked to this person, I just get just massive takeaways and life shifts and that is going to happen for you today. She is a genius businesswoman. She has gone through so much in her life and the way she looks at life and just helps you with the challenging things. Whatever it is you've gone through, whatever it is that you're thinking you're gonna want to take notes on this show because Ashley Lemieux is my guest today, and I was lucky enough to have her in person. She actually lives near me in Phoenix area, and she's the founder and CEO of the Shine Project and the author of two books, Born to Shine and I Am Here, which just released. You have to go and get it. I do a giveaway at the end of this podcast for this book. This is the book that I'm reading every single morning right now, and I'm obsessed. The Shine Project is an online community for women that helps them find support, resources, motivation, and encouragement to triumph over the challenges in their lives. She's empowered thousands of women to find their purpose in pain and find the courage to keep going. She's also the host of the Epic podcast, the I Am Podcast, and her passion for youth in the foster care system has put her on the board of directors for National Angels. She lives in Phoenix with her husband and crazy puppy, Honey. And like I said, this podcast is going to shift your world. Make sure that you just do those couple of steps at the end. For the free book, all you have to do is share and tag and let us know what your biggest takeaway was. And I'm going to be giving 10 free books to the first 10 people who do that. So, you guys, I'm so excited for you to listen to this podcast. Let's go. Ashley, I'm so excited to have you back on the podcast. Thank you for being here.

It's crazy.

We're neighbors now.

I know. I'm so excited. We're neighbors. I'm so excited that you're, like, close to me.

I know. It's really bizarre. Like, I had no idea. If you would have told me two years ago that I would be living here, I would have never believed you. Which you were. You were in Nashville.

Yeah, yeah, we were in Nashville the first time that I recorded. That's right. Yeah. So we moved, I think, a year before you did, back to Phoenix. So.

So crazy. And okay, so I have not done a summer here yet, so.

Well, you have a pool, so you're. You're gonna be good.

That's what everyone says. I'm like, so what do we do? Do we, like, stand in the pool and put our computer on the edge and just, like, keep our bodies immersed? Or how does this work?

Well, you're probably gonna have to work inside. Your computer might combust because we do this experiment every summer. You can fry an egg on the sidewalk or on the asphalt or something. Cause it gets really hot, so you probably don't want your computer there. But, oh, my God, you'll make it.

It's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. Yeah.

Just take a road trip. If it gets a little bit too.

Hot, that's what we're gonna do. We're already planning road trips, so there you go. It's great. So. All right. So last time I had you on, we were talking about your amazing book, Born to Shine. And you're somebody who I just. I can watch from afar and be in your. You're so connected to people like you are. So it's almost as if you are sitting with them on their journey. And I know that you are one of the women who just. Whenever there's something big in my life or something that I'm processing, I can always go to your page and just feel like you're sitting next to me on that journey. And you have so much empathy. I want to know, where does that come from? I know that you have been on the craziest. You've had a wild ride. You've had kind of a crazy experience. Crazy experiences in your life. And you just have so much courage and grace. So can you tell me a little bit about the last. Maybe. I know that we summed this up in our last podcast, so we don't need to go super far back, but just a summary of the past few years of your life. And if you guys want to hear her entire story, I'm going to link up our last podcast together as well.

Yeah. Well, thank you. That's so nice of you to say that. I. I feel like the experiences that I've had in my life have really allowed me to view people and the world around me with an entirely new lens than I had before. It's been four and a half years ago now. My husband and I lost our kids, who we were permanent guardians of, literally overnight. We had raised them for over half their lives, and that literally destroyed us. That destroyed me. It's hard to find human words that can describe that feeling. And I did a lot to be able to get out of bed in the morning and keep moving on and waking up every day and live my life. And last year, three years after then, we had lost those two kids. My husband and I decided it was time to. To move forward again in growing our family. And this time, we decided that we were going to try to get pregnant for the first time. And we got pregnant. We were obviously so excited about it, and 16 weeks in, I got really sick, literally, from. I was planning the baby's nursery in our new home that we had just moved into to accommodate our growing family three days before. And Covid had also just hit. So the pandemic was happening, and no one really knew what was going on. And I went from being okay to within a couple hours, I was just screaming in pain. I couldn't even walk. And I was rushed to the hospital and ambulance. And they learned when we were there that I went septic, which is a blood infection that a lot of people don't make it through. At that time, it was the first day that the hospitals wouldn't allow outside guests to come in with you, so my husband couldn't come. So for the next week, I was in the hospital by myself and in the most severe pain in my life, but also so terrified about our baby. And our baby was okay at first. And then one of the days, I got really sick, and I woke up to a rapid response team around me putting tubes all over. I wasn't breathing. And I remember I came to and I kept yelling, am I having a stroke or am I going to die? I thought I was going to die. And after that, I asked them if they could check the baby, because I just knew that there was no way we both could have survived that moment. I just knew it. And I was right. And I delivered him alone. The next morning, he came really fast, and I was just there, alone. Like, literally in the worst moment in my life, just sobbing, wishing that I could change it or fix it or make it stop happening. But it was totally out of my control. And so I think that in those experiences where I have felt so alone in my life, it's helped me know how to sit with other people when they feel alone. And that's what I try to do now, because I don't feel like any of us should have to go through those worst, lowest moments by ourselves. Like, it just gets too hard sometimes. And so if I can just help provide any type of support at all during someone's lowest moment, then that's how, I guess I give part of my pain purpose in life. Otherwise, it just starts kind of destroying me if I can't put it somewhere.

Thank you so much for sharing that. I know so many people have similar stories and just being able to, I think, talk to someone and see another woman and how she's dealt with it. What were some of the things that you did when you got home? Just what did you. How do you allow yourself space how did you. What did you even start? Were you even thinking? How did you handle that?

Going home was rough. I still had. I had a picc line for antibiotics. For the next six weeks, I was hardly able to get out of bed. So I just had. I just had a miscarriage delivery, and on top of that, I had gone septic. So there were just all these things.

Happening, still happening in your body.

Yeah. And so at first, it was really hard for me because I had to prepare every morning on how I was going to get out of bed that day. And it kind of took me back to this really basic, minimal point in my life of really refiguring out what's important to me right now. Where am I going to put my energy today because I have so little of it? What is the most important? And also, we were still very much in a new pandemic, and so there wasn't a lot of outside help that I could seek. I had a home nurse that would come, but even my family, they'd visit me from the window. So it was just my husband and I. It was a very much. We're kind of feeling like we're on our own. I have very minimal energy. What do I focus on? And so some of the things that helped me, I started doing little things like breath work from my bed. I was really afraid to be in my body because I felt like my body had betrayed me. I didn't feel safe in my body. So that meant that every experience that I had going throughout the day felt absolutely terrifying. And so I had to learn how to start trusting myself and life again. And I had to do it very simply. Like, how do I breathe right correctly when I feel panic coming on? How do I connect to myself to God when I feel very not safe and upset right now? How do I connect to my husband for more support when I need it? So truly, it took me back to this place of the bare minimum and finding those connections again so that I could have help moving forward.

Mm. Would you ever notice moments of progress waking up? And how would you kind of track those? Or what would you. Did you have goals on? Like, okay, this is what I want to. You know, as you maybe time progressed, as you started to slowly go, or did you just say, you know what? I'm just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other and not even put anything on myself at first.

I had to just put one foot in front of the other. I could not have an expectation. My goal at that time was to stay alive.

Life.

That Was it. And then my goal was to be able to take a shower. So after that, I'm like, okay, it's been a couple of weeks. I really want to be able to take a shower. So that became my next goal. And as I did that, I was like, oh, my gosh. I was able to stand up and do this thing, and my husband had to help me, but I could do it with his help.

And.

And so as those once normal things that became these huge milestones in my healing, as I was able to start hitting those that started allow me to track that I was moving forward. But truly, I focused on just taking it one day at a time. And some days were going to be better than others. But at the end of the day, I knew that if I made it through that day, then it was a good day.

How did you communicate to your husband what you needed or the outside world, or whomever was in your life kind of asking for how they could help? How did you communicate that?

That's a really good question. I feel like with my husband, particularly, he was carrying so much weight during that time because he wasn't able to be with me in the hospital. So he was at home terrified about losing me.

I can't.

He also just lost his baby boy, and now he's so concerned about me because he's watching me and I'm not okay. And so he was carrying a lot. And at first, I didn't know what to ask for because I didn't know what I. I truly didn't know what I needed for myself. And so I'm so grateful for him because he had to kind of perceive what it was that I was needing and because we didn't know what to ask for. I'm also really grateful for the people in our life who just stepped in. Groceries would be delivered at the door, toilet paper, because remember, all the toilet paper was off the shelves at that time, and we had not been home or able to go get them.

We didn't get any toilet paper.

So we would get toilet paper dropped off or paper towels. I think that is a really important part of the grieving process or when someone's going through a hard time is a lot of times we don't even know what we need. We're just in the survival mode. And to be able to have people who just acknowledge that and just show up and drop something off, that was really big for us. Because looking back, I honestly don't know what we would have done in trying to just feed ourselves every day. It just wasn't. It was just a lot. It was a lot. And then as time went on, I got better about identifying what it was that I needed because I started learning what was helping me and what was adding light and life and power back into my life. But that was probably four months after everything had happened where I could finally start trusting my voice again to advocate for the things that I needed.

2026 is the year that you launch your business. It's the year that you've become the boss. You become the leader. That idea that you have that has been eating at you forever that just will not leave you alone is going.

To come to life.

Maybe it's something that someone tells you you should always sell or a store you've already designed in your head. And with Shopify, 2026 is when you finally make it happen. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have already made from household name to first time business owners. Just getting started, you guys. I use Shopify for glossy and I remember when they sent me my little shopping bag celebrating my 10,000 sales and I literally cried because I was so scared to take the leap. And I'm so glad that I did.

And that I use Shopify.

It gives you all the tools to easily build your dream store. You can choose from hundreds of beautiful templates that you can customize to match. Your brand setup is fast with Shopify's built in AI tools that write product descriptions and headlines and help you edit photos. So marketing is built into you can create email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they scroll. So as you grow, Shopify grows with you. You can handle more orders, expand to new markets and do it all from the same dashboard. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com happy go to shopify.com happy that shopify.com happy hear your first judging this new year with Shopify by your side. Too many people finish their workday feeling frustrated, drained and unfulfilled. I know that. I have experienced that myself. And the good news is it doesn't have to be this way. And you don't need a new job to fix it. Patrick Lencioni, author of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and more than a dozen other bestsellers, created the Working Genius assessment to help you pinpoint the kind of work that gives you energy, the kind that lights you up, and it also shares the kind that drains it. So over a Million people, including me, have taken it and completely changed how I lead and show up every day. If you're a CEO, an entrepreneur, or someone who just wants to level up in business and in life, working genius is going to give you the clarity and confidence to operate in your strengths and find greater joy in what you do. Because confidence isn't pretending to be good at everything. It's knowing where you're truly gifted. Take the working genius assessment today and get 20% off with code. Earn@workinggenius.com that's workinggenius.com you'll be glad you did it.

What would you say to somebody who maybe has someone going through something rough in their life? What is a powerful way for them to potentially step in?

Such a good question. And I love talking about this because one of the things that we're not taught ever in school is how to go through grief or how to show up for people in grief. And we all go through it, and then we're like, what do I do? And I don't want to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, but I want to be there. And I think the most important thing is that they know that you're there. Some of the most helpful times in my life have been when people have said, I'm so sorry this sucks so much, and I want you to know that I'm here in it with you, and they don't try to fix it because it can't be fixed.

And.

And then they do something and it can get really overwhelming if a friend or someone is going through a hard time and they're constantly asked, well, what can I do for you? Or, hey, reach out if you need anything, or what do you need? A lot of times they don't know what they need because they're just trying to make sense of this new life that they're getting accustomed to. And so being able to show up and identify those needs for them. Hey, I'm bringing a meal tonight. Do you have any allergies? Or, hey, I'm gonna come pick up your kids so that you can have some alone time. Or, hey, I'm sending. One of my favorite things is when we've had hard times and someone's just sent a cleaner over to help clean my house for me, because that's just not what I was capable of doing. So those tangible things, I think, can go a really long way.

Oh, yeah, I think that's. It is interesting because like you said, we're not taught how to go through grieving or to Help people go through grieving. And until this last summer when Chris lost his dad, I didn't understand how to show up for people when they had lost someone. So I found that I felt it's almost an awkward thing where you don't know what to say. So sometimes we say nothing at all, even though you desperately want to help. So I think it's a really powerful conversation because people want to help, right? And it's like you want to know that other people are sitting there with you. And it's one of the most powerful things when you're going through something like that. So I love that you share just these ways of letting. Let me tell you, from the place of experience, of what this person might need if they're going through this, or what they could use if they're going through this. I think it's vital that we get to tune into that so that we can show up for those people and not turn away from it because there's maybe an awkwardness or you don't want to say the wrong thing. So I love that so much. And I love that you're an author, because all of the things that you've gone through, you just pay forward to use to help women. So with your new book, I know that you talk a lot about moving from fear into freedom. How did that resonate, fear into freedom? Tell me why you chose that and how that reflected in your life what that path was.

I feel like one of the biggest questions that women ask me or express to me is, how do I get unstuck? Or I feel so stuck in my life. How do I move forward? And in my life, I started noticing that the times that I felt really stuck was because I was afraid. I was afraid of things staying the same, or I was afraid of what if I started moving forward and I failed? Or what if I started moving forward and something bad happened again? Or I was scared about past things that have happened repeating themselves. And so you stay stuck, and you stay stuck in that fear. And so fear then starts becoming something that just can really darken every part of your life. And in my life, especially after we lost our older two kids, I felt so trapped and so stuck that the only word that kept coming to my mind that I knew I wanted to feel again was freedom. I wanted to feel freedom, to feel joy, to feel connection, to feel happy, to feel like I was alone, allowed to rebuild a new life for myself. And I wanted that. And so as I was writing my new book, I Am Here, I knew that if I could take the tools and the things that I was learning throughout my grieving process and trying to rebuild my life, that I could help equip other women on how to feel free again and free to be themselves and free to dream that it's okay to dream even after. Even after past dreams have been shattered and that we're allowed to and that we're deserving of it. And that just because we've had a bad day or a bad experience doesn't mean our entire life is going to be bad forever. And there's so much freedom that comes in really starting to understand that, because then it allows us to have the confidence and the courage and the clarity to move forward, to rebuild something new.

Oh, my God, I feel that so deeply, you guys. I'm holding back tears the whole time, which I'm sure they are. I feel that so deeply because fear is the thing that just. God, it stops us from our entire purpose of why we are here. And I think that can be an excruciating pain for so many people as well. And I know that in my life and from a lot of the women that I talk to, it's kind of like we're afraid to experience too much joy. Or we're always like, if something good happens, it must mean that there has to be an evening out. We can't just keep going up. It has to be impossible. So when good things start happening, it's like, okay, let's wait. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Yes.

This is such a huge topic for me because I want to be available for even more joy and even more expansion and even more opportunity and more connection and bliss and love and just deepen that. And I think we can't get there unless we start to do what you're talking about and really moving away from the fear and not thinking. It's almost like, I'd love your take on it, which I think is your whole book. But how do we move away from that belief that if it's good, something either bad has to happen or the other waiting for that other shoe to drop? Especially if people's past have reflected that, how do we move past it? And then what happens when something bad happens again to maybe confirm what our old belief was?

I love talking about this. I literally have chills over my own body. You can see them. Because I think that this is one of those things that really prevents so many of us from being able to actually feel safe or experience all the joy that is available for us in our lives. And this is where in the first whole section of my book is all about. How do we reframe our thoughts? How do we reframe so that we remember that pain was never supposed to destroy us? And we're going to feel it, and we're going to feel it again, and there's going to be moments throughout our entire life that really are disappointing to us, but that doesn't mean that we can't feel joy through it. And I think that a lot of times what I have realized is that life is both the really good and the really bad, and the mixture of the two allow us to see what it is that we can overcome, how much strength we have, how powerful we are, how to connect with other people in a new way. For me, once I. And this is such an active practice for me, because the fear part just comes in. But I think a lot of us spend a lot of time being afraid of pain. But it's confirmed all of us. It's like, that's where the fear is. The fear comes from. Well, I don't want to feel that pain. I don't want to go through that. But what if pain is something that can teach us? What if it's something that actually can support us? What if it's something that allows us to connect with ourselves and each other on a totally different level? And so then that would mean that, well, what if. Then we don't actually need to be afraid of pain, but that we are uncovering tools constantly so that we can invite it in and learn from it and then keep stepping forward in our lives. That's helped me stop having this mentality of, well, today was really good, so what is going to come and destroy me tomorrow? Because then I know that pain was never supposed to destroy my life. And instead it can keep supporting me if I can drop some of those stories around it and move forward in a new way.

So good. It's even powerful when you start to believe that. To even just say, my whole body was just like, felt like a full body, yes, it can support you. And I feel like the resistance. Chris and I always talk about this. I'm like, it's the resistance around the thing is worse than the actual thing that we need to get done or that we need to do. And it's like, I think sometimes when you can spot it, when you can call it out, when you can name it, when you can really process through what maybe that fear is, or how are you going to. It's not going to destroy you. It's never been something that has taken you down in the past. Look what you've gone through. You stop feeling this clenching in your body, this full body clenching life clenching of just always trying to avoid and taking opportunities off your plate because you're like, yes, I want to do that, but what happens if blank happens? And I think sometimes when you can name it and even think the exact way that you said it's here to.

Support you.

You don't fear it as much. Exactly what you're saying, it's just not as scary because if it is here to support you, it's like, how do I extract the lesson right away? That's been really big for me is yes, feeling it. And also, okay, if this was here for me, if this was making me stronger, what would this be helping me understand or look at or see in a deeper way that maybe I wouldn't get from it if I didn't feel this.

There are so many challenges to business that I don't want starting to be.

One of them for you.

And when you want more. When you're starting a business, you need Northwest Registered Agent because you get access to thousands of free guides, tools and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. And it's all in one place. You can build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow business for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US with over 1500 corporate guides. Real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. You can sign up for free account to begin managing your business hub with lawyer, drafted operating agreements, bylaws, resolutions, membership certificates, bills of sale, and more at no cost. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business, they give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes and thousands of how to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And let me tell you, this is life changing because I had no idea how much went into this. So don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business Identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit www.northwestregisteredagent.com Earn free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent@www.northwestregisteredagent.com earnfree.

I love that so much. Okay, so reframing thoughts is your first section and I know that you go into reframing the future Tell us about.

That one, reimagining your future. Because I feel like I don't know if you've gone through this experience, but I have many times when we are trying to build this life that we think is going to look a certain way, and then something else happens, or maybe even something catastrophic doesn't happen, but we don't get the job we want, or we get let go from a job, or just something happens that changes, or we're in a pandemic and it changes what our future once looked like. How do we reimagine something new? How do we rebuild that? How do we find clarity on what it is that we want, first of all, and then the steps that we need to take to get there? I think a lot of times, when we're ready to move forward in our lives, that's a part that we can get hung up on, which is, well, how do I actually do this thing? So I uncovered this process that I call clarity mapping. After we lost our older two kids and I was buried, I didn't know what life was supposed to look like anymore. I didn't know what we wanted. And going from a household of four to now just two of us, and it was so quiet. We sold everything that we owned in Phoenix and we moved to Nashville to just try to start asking ourselves what, like, what happens now? And with clarity mapping, it helps me get really clear on what it is that I want in my life. What is my intention every day so that I have something that I'm working toward, and how can I build this actual map, this actual path and plan that allows me to get from where I am to where I wanna be? And clarity mapping is the whole reason I'm here talking to you. It's the whole reason I have a new book coming out. It's the whole reason that we're moving forward in our lives, because it invites you to ask yourself some really important questions that we have to get really honest about so that we give ourselves the freedom to keep walking forward.

Okay, so now I need to know some of those questions, all about better questions.

I ask myself these five questions every single morning. And you can also ask yourself them to start a year or at the beginning of every quarter if you're taking on a new project or just want to kind of reevaluate where you are. The first question I ask myself is, what is my intention? What is my intention today? And the word intention, I feel like we hear it a lot, but really what an intention is, is a guide. So That I know what to say yes and what to say no to. It keeps me on this path so that I'm really clear about what my focus is. And it can be something related to business, or it can be as simple as there were a lot of days. My intention was to find deeper connection with my husband because we were both hurting. Okay, what does that look like today? And then the second question I would ask myself is, who can I serve? Who today can I serve? Is it someone that I know? Or am I going to allow myself to keep my eyes open when I'm just out and about? And because I'm paying attention, I'm gonna have this opportunity to connect with someone who has what I have to offer them that day. The third thing that I ask myself is, what can I set down? What can I set down today? Because we carry so many things with us every single day that, quite frankly, we don't need. Whether it's the fear of something or this negative comment that someone gave us, or we feel responsibility for this other thing that we actually have no control. What if we just invited ourselves to just set it down for the day? What would that look like? And how would we feel if we felt a little bit lighter from that? The next question that I ask myself is, why am I worthy? That's something that was really hard for me because after losing three children, it took me a while to realize that I was still worthy of finding joy in my life, that it was okay for me to. That I didn't fail them, that I did my best, and that I'm still worthy of a life full of love and joy. And I think as women, we're really hard on ourselves and being able to answer that question every day, to allow these good things to happen, to allow ourselves to stop that mindset of, well, what shoe's gonna drop now? Because the universe is just gonna balance things out for me and make it bad Today. That question's been really powerful for me. And then the last question that I ask is, how does the truest version of myself show up today? I used to ask, how does the best version of myself show up? But when I asked that, I started answering it based off what I thought other people wanted out of me. How could I be the best mom or the best boss or the best person on best online thought leader? That one was based off of what other people needed. But when I can show up as my truest self, that allows a lot of freedom and clarity to come into my life so that I can impact the Things and people I want to, but I'm staying true to myself and to what my intention is at that time.

So many secondary questions. This is so good. Oh, my God. So this is my favorite thing to talk about. So on the second one, the question around, what can I put set down today? I love that one. I actually say it to myself every day, too. I say it in what can I offer up today? And I actually put it in my hands and give it up to God. And that has been a big thing for me of picturing it. It sounds like you kind of do that.

I have a God box.

Okay, awesome.

You write it and I put it in the God box. And I just know there's nothing I can do to change this. I'm giving it up today.

Oh, my God, I have chills. Okay, I'm going to start one. You're going to see mine.

It's so cool.

That is so cool. That helps even more because I do love to picture it energetically. You actually have to be willing to surrender that and give it up. And it's a feeling in your body. So can you explain that a little bit more? Because for some people, they're like, how do I. How do I set that down? Because it's not a practice for them. It's a new thing. It still feels very much present. So what is that practice of the offering up or the what am I going to set down today? What does that actually look like for you when it's in practice in your brain?

That's such a good question. And I think to start, we need to imagine what that would feel like, because if we haven't done it before and we're not sure how to do that, that it's okay if you don't know yet. But how I started was I would imagine how I wanted to feel. I would imagine how I would feel if that was gone. And I would literally close my eyes and I would put myself into this moment of time where that thing that I felt just so burdensome and so heavy was gone. And I would literally walk through. What does it feel like to feel lighter from this? What does it feel like to have light come in to this place that feels really dark and heavy? And I would allow myself to have my body feel that and to picture it in my mind. Because once you can imagine something, then you can start inviting it in as a daily practice that becomes a reality. And so if you have to imagine it for a while, that's okay because you're still feeling that in your Body. And so now sometimes I still have to. Sometimes I still have to imagine things. This feels really heavy. So how do I. How do I want to feel? And what would that feel like if I felt that way with my God box? Now it's literally a box. And I write whatever the thing is, and I put it into my box so that I can't see it. And I just. I have this boundary with myself that I've created that once it's in the box, I literally am trusting it over to God, to universe to take care of for now while I'm focusing on these other things that I know are really important for me to do. But I think that first step is to imagine what it feels like, so then you know what it feels like. And you can keep inviting that feeling in every day.

It's so interesting because not only is that super powerful, but a lot of men are better at compartmentalizing. And it's kind of like that's the actual practice of compartmentalizing. I used to always get so pissed at my husband because he. We could be fighting, and then five minutes later, he's on his phone, and I'm like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm looking at Packer News. And I'm like, how are you not still in this fight? And he's like, I put that away. He's just like, we are not doing anything about it right now, and we're not solving it or something will feel catastrophic in our lives. And he's again, probably reading some form of football news. And he's like, I just put it away for a while if we can't fix it. And I am like, how?

What does that mean?

Show me how. And now I am really understanding the power of being able to. If you cannot take care of that thing, I have heard it referred to as on your computer, pulling up a million different sites. And women, it is harder for us to close out of those sites. We leave them all running in the background where men can be like, okay, what am I looking at right now? And then when they are done, they close out of it and then go on to the next next thing. And I always thought, because that's how their brain just tends to work. It's a learned thing. But I do believe that it can be learned. And I think that practice, a really tangible. For me, just like you said, a really tangible practice of either seeing it or now I'm going to add the physical element to it, because that is the most powerful thing that we can do is realize, like you said in the very beginning of this podcast, what, what thing is requiring my. What's most important for me to pay attention to today? And what's the thing maybe I am paying attention to that's actually taking my power? Because there's nothing that I can do about it right now. I know that you had talked about that. I think that might be actually the last section of your book is reclaiming the power and really talking about the things we're giving our power to. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah. So I'll use this example because I feel like there are so many things throughout our lives that either take our power away because of really bad decisions from other people or experiences we have no control over, or sometimes we are the one who just freely gives our power away because we give weight to things that maybe we shouldn't be. So an example of this is after we lost our baby boy last year. There is something that happened a lot of times people say, well, your rainbow is coming. Your rainbow baby will come. Or if it's not a baby, it's, well, your rainbow's coming. The thing to make this all just feel better after the storm is going to come for you. And one of my mentor said to me one time last year, because there was just something with it that just wasn't resonating with me. I was like, there's something I feel like I'm missing. This helps a lot of people, but I. It just doesn't feel right. And so my mentor was helping me with a lot of different things, like learning how to eat foods, to support totally different foods, to support my body because my body had changed after sepsis, different ways to work out because I could hardly get out of bed, just all these different things. And one day she just said, ashley, what if you're the rainbow? What if all this pain and all these things that you're going through, it's actually inviting you to lift yourself higher in life, to live a different way because it's allowing you to uncover more truth about who you are. What I have learned is that you're the rainbow. That there's not just some mystical magical thing just waiting that hopefully one day you find to create this rainbow in your life and make everything feel better. But that it can be right now, it can be you. It's inside of you. And so reclaiming our power invites us to understand and really uncover who it is that is sitting inside of us already and supporting her and giving her what she needs. And giving her a voice and allowing her to speak up for herself and allowing her to find joy even when it feels stormy outside. Because we know that no matter where we go, the rainbow's always with us. Because it is us. And for me, that's been a huge step in reclaiming my power and entrusting my voice again and in being able to just stand firm in who I am so that the pain doesn't keep taking it away from me anymore.

That's so powerful. How do you get back to that place when you feel like you are not feeling like a rainbow? When you're just like, oh, man. And that actually resonates with me deeply. But on the days where you're like, wow, I'm not. How do I get from here to there again?

Yeah. I think that we have to remember that not every day is going to feel like that. I think there's this time where we're like, well, I want it to feel right. And why do I feel like this? Because life is hard. And that's something I keep telling myself.

Like, life is hard.

Ashley, you're actually probably not even doing anything wrong. It's probably hard cause you're doing things right. Because you're putting your heart out there. You're putting yourself out there. You keep standing up even when it's hard. And it is hard. So for me, it goes back to again. How do I reframe my thoughts so that I can then reclaim my power? Something that I've started to do, going back to. To the topic of fear, is that I've learned that my fear, it's become a whole body response for me. I don't know if you've ever felt that before with fear. With fear. Oh, yeah. It's like this whole body, like, sometimes. I'm honestly gonna start puking. Sometimes my anxiety in my head is so cloudy that it's like puking my stomach, but also cloudy in my brain and get tensed. Like, my whole body changes. And so something that I've started doing, especially on those days where the fear makes me forget the truth about who I am in life, I literally tell myself. I literally hug myself and I say, thank you for trying to protect me right now, but I'm okay. I've learned that fear in some of those things is also a reaction because it wants us to protect us from pain that we have felt in the past. And so I have to keep being the person to remind myself, I'm okay right now. I can get through this. I thank you. I honor you for trying to keep me safe and protect me, but I'm okay. And so on those days that it gets really hard, that's one of the first things that I remind myself. And then I also something else that I do because I feel like a lot of times we can get caught up in this culture of we must keep grinding or we must keep hustling, or we must keep just self sacrificing everything to make this thing happen. Sometimes we just need to take care of ourselves and rest. And sometimes on a bad day, we can acknowledge that it is a bad day. And then we can ask ourselves, what do I need today? What do I need to be reminded that tomorrow I can have a good day? Is there people in my life that I wanna spend time with is, do I need to take a nap? Do I need to sleep longer today? And allowing ourselves to have permission to do that, that's been something that's been really powerful for me.

Oh my God, yes. That's been actually one of the biggest gifts that I've learned just in life in general is sometimes on those bad days, it's almost better to just say, no, we're cutting it off here and now. I'm only good at all of those things that you think you needed to do or be or show. Like giving yourself permission to maybe cancel the dinner that night or cancel that meeting or cancel whatever it is because you just need to nurture yourself so that you. For me, it's kind of like in order to keep showing up, I have to know that it's okay to not always have to show up if it's been really bad. And I think in the past, I would have been like, still got to show up, still got to show up. And as much as I do, I really am a person of my word. I really want to keep that word. It is detrimental to me showing up long term if this starts to become something in my life where it's like, if I don't show up, I'm a failure, or I can't do this. If I disappoint people, that's not sustainable. Especially as a woman, it's not sustainable. So I love that you said that. Just like, what do I need? Do I need to cut it off and take a nap? Do I need to go bring a bag of chips into bed right now and just put the covers over my head and not come out and know that. Or maybe you need to really take care of yourself with food and water and sleep. And I know that those are huge things that I think as we go through on this journey, like what you said, I'd love to hear just how you make that decision of. Maybe sometimes we want to make those super comforting food decisions or drink that whole bottle of wine or what that looks like. But what do you do to kind of remind yourself that it's not going to make a better day tomorrow?

I love that question. I ask myself the question, what is most supportive to my body after going septic? Literally, the whole makeup of my body on the insides has totally changed. There are foods I cannot eat anymore that I used to be able to that literally send this inflammation reaction that will keep me in bed for days. And so a lot of times the foods that I want right now in the moment are also the foods that will take me out for a longer period of time. And so that's why I have to ask is what is the best support to my whole body, to everything I need? What is most supportive? Because I think also when we are in moments of pain, we want anything that will take that away. Anything. So the food, the alcohol, the online shopping, the bad relationship, whatever the thing is to make us forget how much pain we're in for the moment is normally what we gravitate for. But if we can look at it as. And it's hard to do this when you're in the moment, so you have to keep committing yourself to it so that it becomes just something you do because it's just a practice that you have. And so it just becomes a part of your life. But being able to have a bigger view of, okay, I know I want that right now, but is that going to add more suffering to my pain or is that going to be supportive of the pain that I'm feeling right now? And so I base my decisions off of that because for me, I know that I have a physical reaction if I'm just trying to mask my pain for the moment. And it made me really sick for the last half of last year until I finally allowed myself to find a better way to help cope and bring support through those moments.

Oh, man, I love that so much. That's the only. Yeah. I sit and say, are you making this worse for yourself? Let's make this easier. This is how you love yourself today. And it doesn't always work. Sometimes I find myself with the wine and the online shopping. I've got a good relationship, so thank God for that one. But in the past, it was wine shopping and bad relationship, you know, all the things at once. But like you said, it's like an ever. You're going to have days where you relapse and you're going to have days where you get back into the practice or you're doing really well. And it's the journey. It's the ever present journey. So I think the last question I want to ask you is how do you keep. Because, Ashley, life is hard. The good things are challenging. They are tough. The things that make us amazing humans stretch us and make us the most uncomfortable ever. The things that I can look back that just felt like the worst thing I would not wish on anyone are now the things that I am bizarrely the most grateful for. Would I want them again? No. So how do you keep life is hard from not becoming a mantra? How do we have both Life is hard and joyful or how do we. How help?

There are three words that I use that are really simple that have really helped me. They are and now. And so. So like you just said, we are having moments where it's life is hard or I am really sad or I am devastated. I love throwing in the word and I am really sad right now and I'm really happy because this thing just happened. I have learned that grief and joy coexist. And so life is hard and it's a miracle and it's filled with so much joy and there are so many people who I love surrounding me and I'm so grateful that I'm waking up again today. And you know, like, there's so many things so that the mantra isn't just life is hard, it's life is hard. And. And so being able to complete that sentence with whatever the and is for you has helped me know that, yeah, it's hard, but there's also. There's also more beyond that. The second word of so is something that helps me complete the sentence. Let's say you get let go from a job or let's say you didn't get the job that you wanted. Man, I'm really upset right now that I didn't get this job. So I'm going to go home and pull myself a bubble bath and start again tomorrow. It just, it so creates this action to this feeling so that there is forward movement instead of you just feeling stuck in the life is hard part. And then the last one is now life is hard. And right now I feel X, Y and Z. And I know that I'm not going to feel like this forever. So using those three words have been really helpful for me and they're really simple, but it just Allows us to see that there is more beyond only having it be hard all the time.

That is so good. Oh, my gosh. I love that so much. So everybody is probably wanting to read this book right now. So can you tell us where we can get it, where we can find it, all of that stuff?

Yes. Oh, my gosh. I just feel like it's my greatest privilege that this gets to be released. I'm just so excited. You can go buy. I am. Anywhere books are sold. And we're doing a lot of fun things throughout the month of May for everyone who has the book, because we're gonna be reading it together in a book club and be able to just do this work together. Cause I know that it's hard alone, but you can go buy it anywhere where you like to go buy your books.

That's amazing. And Ashley, what I want to do is I want to do a book giveaway. So we are purchasing 10 of your books.

Oh, that's so nice to hear, girl.

Everybody needs to read this book. So we're purchasing 10 of your books. And what we're going to do is for the first people who end up tagging Ashley and tagging myself with the story of this or on stories on Instagram and saying, your biggest takeaway from this podcast. So upload the story, share your biggest takeaway, tag Ashley, tag myself. I'll be taking the first 10 people and sending you all a free book so that you can read this incredible, incredible book that Ashley has released. So I'm so, so grateful for you. Thank you for coming on the show. Anytime that I can drop in with you like this, I just feel so blessed and this added so much to my life. And Bananas wants to say hi as well, apparently.

I love Bananas.

He's been in the room with us this whole time, so he's like, we're done now.

We're done. Thanks for having me. Lori, you're the greatest. I'm so grateful to be able to talk to you and in your community today. So thank you.

Oh, so grateful to you and you guys. Until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone. Sat.