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I maintain the conviction that it is forever an option to transform. My view is you absolutely are able to instruct a veteran learner, as long as the old dog is receptive and ready for growth. As long as the person is prepared to acknowledge when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a improved version.

OK yes, I am that seasoned creature. And the skill I am working to acquire, even though I am a creature of habit? It is an major undertaking, an issue I have battled against, often, for my entire life. The quest I'm on … to grow less fearful of those large arachnids. My regrets to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be realistic about my capacity for development as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is imposing, commanding, and the one I encounter most often. Encompassing a trio of instances in the recent past. Within my dwelling. You can’t see me, but I'm grimacing and grimacing as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I’ve been working on at least attaining a standard level of composure about them.

I have been terrified of spiders since I was a child (unlike other children who find them delightful). In my formative years, I had plenty of male siblings around to make sure I never had to confront any directly, but I still freaked out if one was obviously in the general area as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the family room partition. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, almost into the next room (for fear that it chased me), and spraying a significant portion of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it did reach and disturb everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whoever I was dating or living with was, automatically, the bravest of spiders between us, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I produced frightened noises and beat a hasty retreat. If I was on my own, my strategy was simply to vacate the area, douse the illumination and try to ignore its existence before I had to re-enter.

Recently, I was a guest at a friend’s house where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who made its home in the window frame, mostly just hanging out. To be more comfortable with its presence, I conceptualized the spider as a her, a girlie, in our circle, just lounging in the sun and listening to us yap. It sounds rather silly, but it had an impact (a little bit). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become less scared proved successful.

Whatever the case, I’ve tried to keep it up. I reflect upon all the sensible justifications not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I recognize they prey upon things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). I am cognizant they are one of nature’s beautiful, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to move like that. They propel themselves in the deeply alarming and borderline immoral way possible. The vision of their many legs propelling them at that alarming velocity induces my primordial instincts to go into high alert. They ostensibly only have eight legs, but I am convinced that triples when they get going.

However it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I’ve found that employing the techniques of trying not to have a visceral panic reaction and retreat when I see one, trying to remain still and breathing, and consciously focusing about their beneficial attributes, has begun to yield results.

Simply due to the reality that they are furry beings that dart around with startling speed in a way that invades my dreams, does not justify they deserve my hatred, or my girly screams. I can admit when I’ve been wrong and fueled by irrational anxiety. It is uncertain I’ll ever make it to the “scooping one into plasticware and taking it outside” phase, but one can't be sure. Some life is left for this veteran of life yet.