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I firmly hold the belief that it is forever an option to evolve. I believe you can in fact train a seasoned creature, on the condition that the mature being is open-minded and willing to learn. Provided that the individual in question is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and strive to be a improved version.

OK yes, I am that seasoned creature. And the trick I am working to acquire, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an significant challenge, an issue I have struggled with, frequently, for my all my days. My ongoing effort … to grow less fearful of huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be realistic about my capacity for development as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is sizeable, dominant, and the one I encounter most often. Encompassing three times in the previous seven days. Inside my home. You can’t see me, but I'm grimacing at the very thought as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least achieving a standard level of composure about them.

I have been terrified of spiders dating back to my youth (as opposed to other children who adore them). In my formative years, I had plenty of male siblings around to make sure I never had to confront any directly, but I still became hysterical if one was visibly in the general area as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had crawled on to the living room surface. I “managed” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, practically in the adjoining space (lest it ran after me), and discharging a significant portion of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it managed to annoy and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, my romantic partner at the time or living with was, as a matter of course, the most courageous of spiders in our pairing, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I produced frightened noises and ran away. If I was on my own, my strategy was simply to vacate the area, plunge the room into darkness and try to erase the memory of its being before I had to re-enter.

Recently, I stayed at a companion's home where there was a notably big huntsman who made its home in the sill, primarily hanging out. In order to be less fearful, I envisioned the spider as a female entity, a one of the girls, one of us, just chilling in the sun and listening to us chat. This may seem extremely dumb, but it was effective (a little bit). Put another way, actively deciding to become less phobic worked.

Whatever the case, I've made an effort to continue. I reflect upon all the rational arguments not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I recognize they eat things like flies and mosquitoes (my mortal enemies). It is well-established they are one of the world's exquisite, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to walk like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way possible. The sight of their many legs transporting them at that terrible speed induces my ancient psyche to kick into overdrive. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I am convinced that multiplies when they are in motion.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have unnerving limbs, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I’ve found that taking the steps of working to prevent instantly leap out of my body and flee when I see one, working to keep calm and collected, and intentionally reflecting about their good points, has actually started to help.

The mere fact that they are fuzzy entities that dart around with startling speed in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they warrant my loathing, or my shrieks of terror. It is possible to acknowledge when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by unfounded fear. I’m not sure I’ll ever attain the “catching one in a Tupperware container and taking it outside” stage, but you never know. Some life is left for this veteran of life yet.