I’ve written lately about the fractured nature of my family’s past, and the long, complicated shadow cast by the Yugoslavian war. It’s a story of displacement, of sudden endings, and of the difficult work required to bridge those distances years later.

But today, I want to talk about something else that emerged from that period.

I want to share a specific skill – a tool I added to my internal toolbox in the early nineties – one that I have used regularly ever since. I call it “The Map“. Back then, it was a survival mechanism to keep from being swept away by the chaos. Today, it is how I stay tethered to myself in a busy professional life and how I navigate the ups and downs of my own growth.

It all started on an island in Croatia.

We had just escaped war torn Bosnia. I remember standing there, looking at the water, and being fascinated by a strange, jarring realization: we were only hours away from a war zone, yet here, there was no war. People were at the beach. They were laughing. They were swimming. They were having fun.

That contrast did something to my brain. To handle it, I started a mental exercise. I would imagine myself standing on a physical map, and then I would slowly start to zoom out.

I’d get smaller and smaller. I would watch my city disappear, then my country, then the neighboring lands.

It wasn’t a way to escape reality; it was a way to find perspective. When I was in the city, the problem was everything. It was the only reality that existed. But when I zoomed out, I saw that the city was just one part of the country. And when I zoomed out further, I could see that even amidst the conflict, there were other possibilities, other horizons, and other solutions that simply didn’t exist when you were standing in the middle of the fire.

This visualization has become my anchor. It has given me the courage to never give up, because it reminds me that no matter how loud the immediate crisis is, it is not the entire map.

What is a tool you’ve picked up in a difficult season that still serves you today?