To thrive and lead a fulfilling life, I believe we need to nurture the most important relationship in our life – the one we have with our Self!
The earth awakens from winter’s sleep – the green is greener, and pink, yellow and white colour the landscape; the air is filled with the sweet, intoxicating perfume of blossoms – a fragrance that carries whispers of renewal; the melody of birdsongs touch the eardrums calming the mind; the rays of the Sun warm the bones and a dash of hope warms the soul. Spring has just begun, igniting the world with the promise of a new beginning. 🌷
So, let us begin…
The recent events in my homeland shook me to the depths of my core. Kocani – the city of my first love, the city of my father, the city where I created countless summer memories growing up, the city my parents call home… my heart is bleeding. It is my city, too. The anguish I feel stretches beyond personal bonds; it is a shared human sorrow to learn that 59 young lives vanished in mere hours, swallowed by a bitter brew of irresponsibility, ignorance, indifference, greed, corruption– and perhaps, at its root, a fear for survival.
I am not going to analyse the reasons, nor prescribe fixes and give advice. Instead, much like I do with my clients, I will offer questions – questions that I hope will awaken something within, cast light on shadowed processes and will make a difference, both individually and across the collective.
Through my own path and the journeys of those I’ve walked beside, I’ve learned that every event that shakes us out of our balance carries a purpose. Traumatic moments – whether life-threatening illness, the sudden loss of someone dear, or a tragedy like the one in Kocani – are not mere chance. Those events are brutal teachers, relentless and merciless, much like the strictest school teacher that caused us suffering. They arrive bearing lessons we are meant to learn.
When catastrophe crashes in, our first cry is often: Why? Why me? I survived a rare type of cancer, and in the darkest hours of that journey, I too wrestled with the question: Why me? It’s a reflex, as human as the tears we shed. But it’s also a question that chains us to victimhood, stripping away our power just when we need it most. Worse, it can bind us to a quiet, gnawing shame and guilt, as if daring to ask: Why not someone else? These feelings scar us deeply.
Before we continue, a few announcements:
My Macedonian readers this is for you! My signature program, the Self-Expedition is starting with a webinar in Macedonian. You can get your ticket here, and maybe even gift one for your best friend – that’s how affordable it is! The reason – I would like to see every single person begin loving their Self.
Two NLP groups will be beginning their journey in 2025, one in Skopje and one in Vienna. I work in small groups. If you wish to be considered to join my transformational NLP Practitioner program and create the person you want to be, then join the waitlist, and I will reach out to you.
Let’s move on now,
How we continue from here is the most important!
Events like this change us at a cellular level. The change is inevitable, the question is in which direction are we going to change?
What if, instead of lingering in Why me?, we asked: What now? What can I learn? How can I grow? These questions don’t erase the pain – they can’t, nothing can… they shift the ground beneath us. They pull us from the quicksand of despair and plant us on a path toward meaning. The tragedy in Kocani, like my own battle with illness, is a teacher we never wanted. It is brutal, unyielding, its lessons delivered through a storm of grief. Yet, one of my biggest learnings in this life is: you don’t have to like the teacher to learn the lesson! In fact, it’s often the harshest instructors who carve the deepest wisdom into our souls.
What can the loss of 59 young lives – stolen by a cascade of human failures – teach us about the fragility of existence? Even more important, what can it teach us about responsibility? It’s easy to always place the blame on others, on the system, on they or them… but, let us shift the focus inwardly and on the individual!
How am I being responsible? How am I contributing?
Will this event inspire us to speak our truth even when it’s unpleasant? What does it demand of us as individuals and as a collective – a city, a nation, a shared humanity? Could it be an awakening to the systems that crumbled, a call to build something stronger, more compassionate, more just?
These questions are not meant to soothe or simplify. They sting, as they should. But they also beckon us toward possibility. They ask us to look into the abyss and find not sorrow or helplessness, but seeds of strength and transformation. What if this pain is an invitation – to cherish the fleeting, to mend what’s broken, to forge connections that outlast the wreckage? What if, in our shared anguish, we discover a resilience we didn’t know we possessed? What if, as small as we are we can make a big difference in the world?
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”– Haruki Murakami
I’ve walked this road myself. Cancer stripped me bare, left me questioning everything I thought I knew. Yet, in its unrelenting grip, I found something unexpected: purpose. Survival became more than enduring – it became evolving. It meant letting go of old familiar identities and imagining who I could become. So, another question I can offer here is:
Who will you become?
Because the truth is: you have a choice! Trauma knocks us down, but it cannot dictate how we rise. How will we live differently in the wake of the loss? Will still allow to be defined by fear? What will we choose, every moment of every day? Will we finally accept responsibility for all our actions – individually, each one of us? The lessons are there, they wait for us to learn them.
So, I ask: What now? How will we honour these 59 souls – not just with words, but with the lives we lead? Will we build a world where irresponsibility and indifference have no foothold? Will we become a community that holds each other up, not just in crisis, but every day? And within ourselves, will we find the courage to transform this wound into a wellspring of strength? What are the possibilities for us?
Let’s begin, each and every one of us on individual level, and once we begin changing individually – the system will follow!
The teacher is merciless, yes. But its lessons are ours to shape. As we stand in the shadow of this tragedy, let us choose – not victimhood, but agency; not despair, but purpose, not escape, but responsibility. Not for us only, but for the generations that come after us! Let us live in a way that makes their loss mean something.
What will you learn? How will you live? What will you choose?
To finish,
My message for the month of March is:
Remember the unpleasant events, what are the lessons to be learned?
A suggestion for your further reading:
The fear of change– the October 2022 edition of the Self-Expedition, very valid these days.
Values-Driven Life: The way to congruence– the July 2024 edition of the Self-Expedition newsletter.
Into the mud: A lesson on resilience– how can you become more resilient?
Donate for Kocani:
You can support the survivors, their families and the families of the victims by donating at 👇