FAITH OVER FEAR
Looking fear straight in the eye will eventually fructify as faith, finds Megha Bajaj
I had a strange dream a few days ago. I was at a beautiful resort with my best friend and my Shih Tzu puppy, Zen Bajaj, the cute teddy bear lookalike. I was having the time of my life—when suddenly, something changed. Apparently, the resort people were kidnapping dogs and keeping them in cages. I was beside the pool when I got to know this, and Zen was in our room. Strangely, even in my dream, I felt this sense of security that Zen will be fine. Nothing can happen to him. I experienced this sheer faith that all will be well. Especially because of the surrender I feel towards my Beloved Guru.
I woke up with a smile. Possibly the dream was my subconscious way of dealing with the pandemic that we are going through. However, what amazed me was the deep sense of safety and security I felt, even in my dreams. Faith won over fear, even in a state of consciousness in which I have no control. Somehow, the morning gave me a perspective about myself.
I realised that we spend our lives shuttling between these two states: fear and faith. I am not sure if anyone can claim they have completely overcome fear. It’s more about which one is more predominant. A few years ago, fear would have been my dominant emotion in most situations. From taking a flight to speaking in public; from dealing with complexities in a relationship to health issues. And yet, today, I know for a fact that faith overrules my heart and mind most of the time.
What happened?
I realise faith is a state which one ‘grows into.’ For me, it didn’t happen overnight. It was not like lightning or just one instance but, rather, many experiences strung together. I am sure that for most of us, when we look back, we can see enough instances where things looked really dark, and we had to take the next step without really knowing where we were going. For those of us who had faith and took that next step and then the next one, and so on, without us realising it, we did find the purple patches. Sometimes even beyond our belief!
For me, what worked was understanding what I fear and constantly looking it in the eye and facing it. I don’t mind flights in general, but I don’t enjoy the bumpy ones with a lot of pressure changes. In the last six months, I took over thirty flights as I was working on a few books that needed me to constantly fly in and out. For someone who would avoid eating and sleep poorly on flights, after (maybe) my sixteenth one, I felt so at ease that through storms and rickety rides, I could hold the food and sleep too! I realised that when we face a fear long enough, it no longer exists.
Same was the case with speaking before crowds. As a writer, speaking didn’t come effortlessly to me. However, as people started calling me as a chief guest or to do workshops, I realised I simply couldn’t hide behind my laptop anymore. The more I spoke, the more the faith grew and more opportunities to be a speaker came. To the extent that now I have conducted workshops for most premium corporates and educational institutes, not just in India but also in other countries.
I have realised that the first time you have to break a fear, it’s tough. But when you keep at it, at some point, it just goes away, and you build this faith: “I am stronger.”
It took just one dream to make me realise how deeply faith is now engrained in me. I trust myself in most situations. And situations in which I have no role to play, I trust a Higher hand to carry me. It’s beautiful to grow in faith, and I wish it for all of us.
An award-winning author, film-script writer and poet, Megha is an eternal seeker at heart. She also empowers people to write and get published through her online writing workshop. You can read more on www.WonderofWords.org.