I would like to add this post as a follow up to my earlier post, Faith & Fear cannot co-exist.
This post comes a month after me and my family tested positive for Covid-19. By the grace of God, we were fortunate enough to have mild symptoms that could be treated at home.
In my blog I have always been talking about Being Positive and taking every experience positively. But the last few days came with its own set of challenges. I am sure there are a lot of people out there who faced similar problems, predicaments, challenges (maybe much worse) and handled it in their own way.
I went through a series of emotions during this time. I was the first one to get the symptoms and although I isolated myself immediately, it just wasn’t enough. My son and husband were down within a day, followed by my daughter in the next few days. It was overwhelming. Sometimes the instructions, precautions from well wishers and sometimes the stress and exhaustion that comes with the illness.
These series of emotions included a major chunk of “not being positive” (ironic as it is). Guilt, anger, frustration and most importantly Fear.
I felt guilty as I think I was the one to bring this illness to my family. Anger, irritation and frustration for not being careful enough. But most importantly, FEAR. The fear of the uncertainty that comes along with this illness. Will the symptoms get severe? Will my family’s symptoms get severe? Is this going to have a long term impact on our health? Will we get the medical essentials like a hospital bed, oxygen, remdesvir injections, if matters take a turn for the worse? There were so many messages floating on various whatsapp groups about people losing family members due to lack of hospital beds and the required medicines/ injections. And I have to admit, there were a few moments where this dark fear gripped me.
The immediate counter to that thought in my head was, Where there is faith, there is no fear. Truth be told, I started feeling like a hypocrite. When I wrote my blog that Faith & fear cannot co-exist, it was the truth. And it still is the ultimate truth for me. Then why was this fear gripping me? Why was I suddenly not able to delete this from my head. It kept on creeping up every few hours. I was able to overcome it by thinking about Lord Krishna because that’s who I believe in. That’s where I have put my faith. For others, it could be another God or another form or something else that they truly believe in. Lord Krishna always says, Not a leaf moves without my will. So the almighty is the doer of things and hence no matter what happens, it always has to be for the best although we are unable to justify it with our logical mind bound with its limitations.
It took me about two days to completely overcome these thoughts. After I recovered from Covid-19, I spoke to few people who have shared with me some inspiring yet very simple anecdotes of their spiritual journey and they were kind of enough to explain my predicament to me. The take away from those conversations were, Guilt comes naturally to every human being. That shows you care. Although in retrospect I think its futile, because none of these things are really in my hands. Did I take the necessary precautions? Yes, I did. Then I did my best, and that’s it.
About fear, well that also is very natural. And the fact is, feeling afraid or experiencing fear is not the problem. Not overcoming it, is the problem.
I found this beautiful quote to explain it,
I learned that courage was not the absence of Fear, But the Triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela
And I think our Faith helps us conquer the Fear. That is my takeaway from this experience. It is Faith which generates positive vibes and helps us overcome our fear or negative thoughts. It may not happen in one go, It may take few days, months or even years to entirely let go off the fear. But with every such experience one moves forward little by little to conquer that fear and move on.
As Aristotle states, “He who overcomes his fears will truly be free!
Today’s conditions, circumstances are such that there are a lot of people out there living in fear. I hope that through this post I can relieve the stress and help them gather the strength and faith required to pass through these tough times.
