When the Pool of Sport Became the Pool of Life
I’ve spent most of my life in the water. Chlorine, echoing walls, and ball splash with my teammates were my earliest forms of meditation, back then I still didn’t see it that way. I started swimming when I was five years old, and before I turned ten, I was already part of a world that lived by discipline, repetition, and quiet determination. I didn’t choose the pool; it was the bond that had to come to practical reality, way of life.
By the time I was twenty, I was a professional water polo player, representing Partizan, one of the strongest clubs in Belgrade, Serbia. It was everything I had dreamed of as a child. The long hours of training, the victories, the camaraderie, the moments when your body is failing, lungs burning but your heart keeps pushing and I was enjoying every moment of it. The pool was not just water; it was identity, purpose, structure, and home.
I thought that’s what life was supposed to be: push, achieve, prove. And I was good-ish at it. Until one day, the Universe reminded me that even water can become too heavy when we resist its flow.
The Break I Didn’t Expect
It was an ordinary training day, I remember it clearly that period, like yesterday. Games were Wednesday - Saturday - I was tired, emotionally (I guess I wasn’t emotionally mature enough for that). I had been pushing myself hard, trying to prove something that, in hindsight, no one had asked me to prove. It was in my hands to navigate it. I felt overwhelmed. Somewhere deep inside, a quiet voice whispered that I needed a pause, but I kept ignoring it.
Then, one evening, when we came back from the trip and after we had a practice, i made a statement that, eventually, changed my view on life, existence, perception on energy and it’s power. That emotional state I was in, I processed it mentally, I have visualized it and I have sent it directly to the God-Source, the Universe, or how ever you call it, with the gentle whisper.
“I need a break, just two days to sit and not do anything.”
At that moment, it felt like just words thrown into the air. But the universe was listening more carefully than I realized, then I didn’t know that Universe always listens. Universe said - I hear you, I understand you and here is your Lesson!
The next evening, during practice, I was fighting for a position, ball was in the air, and in an instant — a sharp pain shot through my ear. My eardrum tore…. The pain was blinding, but the silence that followed was even louder. Just like that, I was out of the water. Not for a day or a week — for two months.
At first, I was furious. Frustrated. Angry at life. Bad luck. At everything. I had been playing well, gaining momentum, and I couldn’t understand why this had happened. I kept asking: Why me? Why now?
I didn’t see it then, but that injury was not a punishment - it was an Answer.
Only some 12-15 years later I realized this correlation. Only when I understood how, where and why Energy flows I have realized that this pattern I used, Emotion-Thought-Visualization-Word, was the winning script.
The First Glimpse Into Energy
It was during that forced pause that I first began to notice the invisible forces that move life — energy, intention, awareness. A family friend of ours, named Pedja, who had just returned from studying Traditional Chinese Medicine in China was the first next life’s lesson. Later I came to another realization, the Universe ‘‘presents you an obstacle’’ but also a door, that leads to the path of the solution, follows. It is up to each one of us to perceive it and act accordingly.
At first, I was skeptical, bur also intrigued. I was a man of the physical world but also i was seeing their approach and their extremely fast results in healing others. The idea that energy could influence healing seemed… abstract. But butterflies in my stomach were pushing a smile on my face. Perhaps the bigger picture we agreed earlier, started painting it self.
I went to him and after a brief chat we had, he smiled and said, “You’ll see. It’s not me doing the work - it’s you.”
Those words stayed with me.
We began working together, and what followed was strange, fascinating, and at times, even uncomfortable. I could feel sensations of warmth, tingling, light pulsing through my body. The healing was intense and surprisingly fast. My ear improved beyond the doctors’ expectations. I returned to the pool sooner than predicted, but I came back changed.
Something inside me had shifted. I began to feel that the body listens to us, and that our thoughts and emotions hold more power than we allow ourselves to believe.
The Gradual Awakening
Looking back, that was the seed of my awakening, though it took years for me to understand it. Reiki came later, when I was twenty-five, but the real journey began long before that.
At that time, I didn’t yet call it spirituality. I didn’t meditate, I didn’t read about energy work, and I didn’t have the language for what I was sensing. But I started noticing patterns.
When I was calm, life flowed smoothly.
When I was frustrated, things resisted.
When I forced outcomes, pain appeared.
When I surrendered, clarity followed.
I began to realize that life, like water, has its current. You can fight it and exhaust yourself, or you can learn to float, trust, and move with it.
But awareness didn’t come all at once - it was gradual, humbling, and deeply personal. Reiki entered my life not as a sudden revelation, but as a continuation of something my soul had already begun exploring.
Meeting Reiki
Through a friend of mine, I met Žarko. Žarko was her cousin. Amazing guy, from a very first moment he I was attracted to him. He had different view on everything, but I was resonating with it on a Soul level. At that time he was entering into the World of Reiki. He was just initiated in the Second level and got the Permit to work on others. While he was working on himself, Žarko was quiet and kept it for himself (as we should do while healing our selves). At certain moment he asked if I would be willing to help him practice his techniques. I smiled and said, “I am all in, use me as your guinea pig.”
When I first received Reiki, it felt like coming home. I didn’t know what to expect, i didn’t have any expectation, I just wanted to see what it was about. But as soon as the practitioner placed his hands on me, I felt waves of warmth and peace wash over my body. My mind, usually restless and strategic from years of competition, suddenly went still. A moment just became an eternity.
I remember thinking: This is what balance feels like.
After that first session, I slept deeply, the kind of sleep that feels like being held. After few sessions, colors seemed brighter, my body felt lighter, and even my interactions with people changed. I was more patient, softer, and strangely more present.
That presence became addictive, but in the healthiest way possible.
I began studying Reiki, first for myself, then to understand others. Each level revealed something new, not about magic or miracles, but about the power of awareness. I realized that Reiki wasn’t giving me something I didn’t have, it was teaching me to access what was already inside and to connect with everything there is.
Becoming Aware
The more I practiced, the clearer it became:
Without awareness, there is no true healing.
Without awareness, you cannot help.
Without awareness, you cannot understand.
And without empathy, deep honest empathy, I don’t know how life would be. Because I have sensed emotions from others for as long as I can remember. As a child, I could feel when someone was sad, even if they smiled. I could sense tension before words were spoken. I was noticing when words, emotions and body language were not in a sync. I wasn’t able to put my finger on it, i Just had that feeling in my gut.
For years, I thought everyone was like that. It wasn’t until later that I realized; this was empathy in its rawest form, and it would become the foundation of everything I would later teach, and now write.
Lessons From The Pool
Even today, I see my life as divided between two pools — the Pool of Sport and the Pool of Life.
The first taught me discipline, teamwork, endurance. It showed me that effort, repetition, and consistency are sacred. It built my body and my willpower.
The second, the Pool of Life taught me surrender, awareness, compassion, and flow. It taught me that not everything can be achieved through force. That sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is be still and observe.
When I began to see these two worlds merge, everything started making sense. The discipline of sport and the softness of spirituality are not opposites - they are two sides of the same truth. They complement each other Perfectly. They are made for each other.
When we align effort with awareness, we stop fighting life. We align ourselves with it start co-creating together.
From Healing to Helping
The more I healed myself, the more people came to me; first friends, then strangers asking for guidance or support. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t announce it. It just unfolded naturally.
At some point, I stopped seeing healing as something I do and began seeing it as something that flows through me, which actually does!!!
Through Reiki and energy work, I learned that true healing begins when a person feels seen, safe, and understood. Sometimes, all someone needs is for you to sit quietly beside them - no advice, no judgment, just presence.
Presence is medicine.
Awareness is healing.
Empathy is the bridge.
Be Present, Be Aware
Over the years, I’ve learned some guiding truths that shape not only my practice but my life:
Be present. Nothing real happens outside the present moment. Healing, connection, love - they all exist here and now, simultaneously and they are ever present.
Be aware. Awareness is not just seeing; it’s understanding without the need to control. Accepting it for what it is.
Don’t rush the situation. Everything unfolds in divine timing. I needed only 15 years, we are not all that ‘‘Fast’’ :)
Don’t judge by your feelings. Emotions are weather - they change. Wait for the calm before acting.
Don’t handle situations by experience. Each moment is new. Let it teach you before you label it.
Experience teaches these corner stones. Experience can not teach us how to handle situations. Each one of us has a different past, different subconscious patterns, different expectations, different Soul contract…The only thing we All have in common is that we are all different.
These aren’t rules, they’re reminders. They keep me grounded, when life speeds up, and connected when it feels chaotic.
The Inner Current
Sometimes people ask me if I miss my professional sports life. The truth is, I never left it. I just changed the arena. I left the pool of sport when the Universe said - It’s about time….
The same drive that pushed me to train for hours now fuels my dedication to understanding human energy and consciousness. The same teamwork that won championships now helps me connect with others on their healing journey.
And the same water that once carried me to victory now teaches me patience, stillness, and surrender.
In the end, the pool never changed - only my awareness did.
Where This Path Leads
Everything I’ve learned about healing, awareness, and energy brought me to a deeper understanding of one universal truth -
Empathy is the foundation of human connection.
This realization, along with working with kids for last 12 years, is what inspired me to create the Empathy Series. Because empathy is not just a feeling it’s a living force that can be nurtured, understood, and expanded from the earliest moments of life.
From babies to adults, empathy is what makes us human, the Human create by God to live the Earth experience, in all it’s glory. It’s what allows healing to happen between people, within families, and inside ourselves.
So as this series begins, I invite you to step into this same current with me.
The one that flows quietly beneath all things.
The one that heals not by doing, but by being.
Because once you learn to feel the energy beneath life’s surface, you realize that -
you were never meant to fight the current.
You were meant to flow with it.
Be well, stay Centered
Marko
