♪ This little light of mine ♪

I’m standing here, exposed, spiritually naked, alone in the dark, about to reveal my light to the world and let it shine on its own. Am I scared? Hell yes. Am I alone? Absolutely. Do I want to pull the blog altogether and not move forward? The thought has certainly crossed my mind.

So why am I here? Because I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of living a life that’s not in full alignment with my soul, living a life that looks good from the outside but doesn’t always feel good on the inside. Our society is chasing the wrong things. It’s time to uncover our lights and make a stand. I’m tired of chasing things that don’t feel good on this inside. I’m tired of worrying about the approval of others more than I’m worried about being authentic to myself. I’m tired of ignoring that tiny inner voice that whispers “give it a try.” So here I am.

I’ve made a lot of soul crushing decisions in my life. So much so that my soul, at times, has been screaming inside me to run. I rarely listened. Often, I used my intellect to talk myself off the ledge. Turns out, those ledges weren’t worth saving me from. I also came to realize that my intellect was what got me there in the first place. In order to get from where I was then to where I am now, I actually had to learn to take control of and sometimes tune out my intellect.

No matter what I did, where I was, who I was with or where I was working, I always felt this movement inside me. This pull towards something different. Like something was trying to come out of me but I couldn’t figure out what it was or how to birth it.

♪ I’m gonna let it shine ♪ 

That all changed in about my mid-thirties when I hit what some might call rock bottom. I don’t really love that term because it can always get worse. Always. I think the better way to say it is that I got to the point where I had had enough, the tipping point where the pain of staying the same was worse than the pain of change. Something had to give. Nobody around me really knew, because, again, everything from the outside looked fine, maybe even perfect to some. Have you ever had that feeling that you should really be happy where you are but you just aren’t?

Step by step, I started on a quest to feel better. I didn’t know what I was looking for, rather I only knew what I was moving away from. It started with looking for more energy, then nutrition, then exercise, then mindfulness, then forgiveness, then healing, then what to do next and so on and so on. I just kept trusting that next step, over and over again.

Haven’t we all just been looking for more purpose and meaning in our lives? That purpose is locked deep down inside all of us, dying to see the light of day. We feel this pull in us towards a life that’s in full alignment with who we are on a soul level. The problem: we don’t understand what the pull is and what it’s trying to tell us. So we chase all the wrong things. All the things that the world tells us we should want but it’s not what our soul wants so we are always left empty handed.

♪ This little light of mine ♪

In this process of unlocking whatever it was that’s inside me, I discovered my Busoula. If you’ve never heard of the word Busoula, it’s probably because I’ve made it up. I would soon discover that we all have this invisible guiding force within us, we just aren’t aware of it. Let me explain.

Each person on this earth has their own unique gifts and talents. We are born with this big, beautiful shining light that is the essence of our souls. There’s nobody else on this earth exactly like us and there will never be anybody on this earth like us again. Consciously, we all know it. We believe we all have this inner light. So what’s the problem? We don’t actually know how to let our lights shine. Or rather, we do, but we shut it down a long time ago. We are scared. Many are afraid of the light. Hiding is safe. Hiding is comfortable. Nobody wants to be vulnerable but as I soon discovered, being vulnerable is the key to living an authentic life.

From a very small age, we are told how to act, what to believe, what to think, how to dress, how to sit, what to wear, what not to wear, how we should raise our children, what our marriages should look like, what happens after death, who to believe in, who not to believe in, what you should eat, what you shouldn’t eat, what you should watch, what you shouldn’t… I could spend a decade on this list but I imagine you get the point. It happens at school, from our parents, friends, families, teachers, religions. You name it, if it’s a person external to you chances are that they’ve in some way or another exerted (consciously or unconsciously) some form of influence over your life.

There’s so much noise in our outer worlds that we forget to stay connected to our inner ones. Have you ever really sat and just observed a toddler? It’s beautiful. They marvel at life. I often look at my children just to see their inner lights, I feel them, I connect to them and I honor them. Their lights give me strength and belief. Belief that we’ve been doing it all wrong. Our children deserve better. It’s heart breaking to watch them hide their lights away as they get older. The only way to stop it is to show them how to do it. I have to go first. And even then, there’s no guarantee that they will follow me. I just have to trust.

♪ I’m gonna let it shine ♪ 

Often times we let out a glimmer of our lights only to find it shot down but a parent, teacher, friend, etc. That hurts. We don’t want to feel pain so we tell ourselves, got it, I won’t do that again or I won’t be that person again. Slowly but surely we mold ourselves to those around us without even noticing until we get to a place that we don’t even recognize ourselves anymore.

One by one, we unknowingly let these beliefs in that lock away the essence of who we are until we are left only with the feelings that things aren’t right. Somethings feel off, maybe way off, but we don’t know how to make it right and often times we are just too busy to even notice it, too busy chasing all the wrong things and not paying any or enough attention to the right things. Those feelings are the first signs from your Busoula that your compass is not pointing towards your North.

Our inner lights never stop shining deep within us…. They just get covered up by untruth after untruth that we mistakenly believe is truth. When we are born, we are fully connected with the essence of who we are. It’s the reason small children live without a care in the world for what people around them will think. But slowly and surely, we are integrated into the herd and become fully disconnected with the essence of our souls. I believe some call this ‘adulthood’

The secret, the real secret that brings magic back into our lives, is to rediscover our lights. To connect back with who we are at the deepest levels of our souls, find our unique gifts and share them with the world. Fulfillment, soul level fulfillment, is only found when we use these gifts to make the world, in one way or another, a better place. When we stop asking what life can do for us and start asking what can we do for life. The best gift we can offer life is to shine our lights as brightly as they were the day they were gifted to us from life. Life didn’t give us those lights to hide them away. They were given to us to shine. They were given to us to shine out upon all of humanity. It’s our soul level mission to rise up and gift our lights back to the world.

“The first thing you identify when you find yourself in the dark is light.” ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Here’s the most important truth that I’ve found: Our Busoula’s have been guiding us to this place of truth our entire lives. There’s this inner guiding force within all of us that will lead us back to the light. We just have never been taught how to listen to it and how to navigate life with it. In order to find it, we have to learn how to quiet the mind, how to be still, how to heal our past wounds, how to embrace and love ourselves, how to embrace and love others, and how to serve the world.

♪ This little light of mine ♪

Before today, I didn’t believe the English language had a word for this inner guiding force. Eastern languages do, but English, not so much. So I decided to create one.

The word bussola in Italian translates to the word compass (for those not familiar with a compass, the definition, according to M-W.com, means “a device for determining directions by means of a magnetic needle or group of needles turning freely on a pivot and pointing to the magnetic north“).

The word soul, according to Merriam Webster, is defined as “the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life.”

The marriage of bussola and soul gave birth to the word Busoula.

In the simplest terms, your Busoula is the compass of your soul. It comes through you, not from you. It is that invisible guiding force within each individual that when followed, uncovered and cultivated, leads them to a life filled with authenticity, purpose, love, compassion, passion and joy. It’s that inner yearning to make a difference in the world. It’s our inner lights guiding the way. It’s a combination of our intuition, our gifts and our purpose. It helps you to uncover the truth of who we are, the gifts that we’ve been given and utilize those gifts for the betterment of humanity. When following the Busoula, the individual feels fully connected with their higher self and navigates life with a sense of direction and guidance. You cannot create it, you can only allow it. It’s the compass of your soul and whatever direction your North points to, is completely individual to you.

Welcome to Busoula. This is a written documentation of my journey. I’m here to show you how I have learned to connect and navigate life in partnership with my Busoula. While I don’t believe our Busoulas point us towards the same ‘Norths’, I do believe that the tools to unlock and navigate life with our Busoulas are the same.

I made a commitment many years ago to figure out what was missing from my life, to figure out who I was at a soul level and I was relentless in getting there. I don’t think I fully understood what I was committing to at the time but I do now. I’ve learned to navigate life by watching others who have gone ahead of me. I watched in awe of their shining lights. I listened, I asked questions, I took notes, and I went to work. I applied the things that resonated and were in alignment with my true North and left the ones that didn’t. Some things worked, other things didn’t.

“Fix your course on a star and you’ll navigate any storm” ~Leonardo da Vinci

I don’t believe we can just connect to any star, we have to find our star. The magic is finding it. When you not only find it but take action to navigate towards it, all the forces in the universe rejoice, sing and conspire with you to help you navigate your life. Magic enters. Your Busoula will lead you in that direction each and every time.

I believe my soul is now guiding me to write. So here I am. Raw and real but connecting every day to that deep, authentic part of me that had been screaming for so many years to come out.

This blog is a part of my light. What I’ve come to realize is that it’s going to shine regardless of how the world feels about it. I’m not here looking for approval. I stopped looking for external validation to prove my worth and instead starting showing up as my true self, in full authenticity. My Busoula requires it.

My promise to you is this: I will show up and be vulnerable and share my journey. I so desperately needed that from those who went before me and now it’s my turn to keep recycling it back out into the world. What you do with that writing is your choice. Many parts of my journey may not resonate with and I applaud you when you recognize that. That shows that you are listening and recognizing when something isn’t in alignment with your North. Your journey is your journey and my journey is mine.

♪ I’m gonna let it shine ♪ 

I am here because I believe in you (please imagine me holding your face with both my hands and looking deep enough into your eyes straight to your soul). I see you. I hear you. I am you. No matter what your race, background, education level, gender, religion, political view, or beliefs are, we are all one. We are all the same. Our experiences may be different but our soul journeys are the same. When we shine our lights, we give others permission to do the same. We may never have met but I see your light. I always have I just never understood it. That’s one of my superpowers. I see the potential hidden behind each and every person I meet, even if it’s hidden under years of limiting beliefs, self-doubt, abuse and suffering. No matter how hard you try to convince me, I don’t buy your stories. I see right through them to the depths of your soul. I see the inner soul longing to be set free. I believe in the potential of people, all people, even when they don’t believe in themselves. I will show up every day because I believe in the potential that lies within you.

My hope for you is this: that you will be inspired to take action to find your North star. The truth is, I don’t know if anyone will. In order to find out, I have to put myself out there and take a chance. In taking that step and sharing my journey, I hope that you uncover your Busoula and begin the journey to bringing magic, joy, fulfilment and purpose back into your life. When you do that, you will allow others to do the same… and so on, and so on. That you, in whatever way possible, leave your mark on the world and find more meaning and purpose in your lives.

Living a life in authenticity to your soul is the key to inner success. You have to find your light and celebrate it with the world. Do you want to live in a world of darkness or a world full of light? I chose light. I want to see your light, even if you don’t know it’s there. If that’s the case, let my light be your illumination until you discover your own. There’s enough to go around for everyone. I will help you get there but only if you are willing to take that first step. 

♪ let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ♪ 

Are you ready to join me on this journey?