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I firmly hold the belief that it is forever an option to change. I believe you absolutely are able to instruct a veteran learner, provided that the mature being is open-minded and ready for growth. As long as the person is ready to confess when it was in error, and work to become a improved version.

OK yes, I am that seasoned creature. And the trick I am attempting to master, even though I am set in my ways? It is an important one, a feat I have battled against, repeatedly, for my whole existence. I have been trying … to grow less fearful of huntsman spiders. My regrets to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be realistic about my potential for change as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is sizeable, commanding, and the one I encounter most often. This includes three times in the last week. Inside my home. You can’t see me, but a shudder runs through me with discomfort as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least attaining Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders dating back to my youth (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). Growing up, I had ample brothers around to guarantee I never had to handle any directly, but I still freaked out if one was obviously in the immediate vicinity 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 made its way onto the family room partition. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, almost into the next room (for fear that it ran after me), and emptying a generous amount of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it managed to annoy and irritate everyone in my house.

As I got older, my romantic partner at the time or cohabiting with was, automatically, the bravest of spiders between us, and therefore responsible for dealing with it, while I emitted whimpers of distress and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my method was simply to exit the space, douse the illumination and try to forget about its existence before I had to re-enter.

Recently, I stayed at a friend’s house where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the sill, primarily lingering. In order to be less scared of it, I imagined the spider as a female entity, a girlie, in our circle, just chilling in the sun and overhearing us yap. It sounds quite foolish, but it worked (somewhat). Or, actively deciding to become less phobic did the trick.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I reflect upon all the sensible justifications not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I recognize they consume things like insect pests (creatures I despise). I know they are one of nature’s beautiful, non-threatening to people creatures.

Alas, they do continue to move like that. They move in the utterly horrifying and somehow offensive way imaginable. The appearance of their multiple limbs transporting them at that alarming velocity causes my ancient psyche to kick into overdrive. They are said to only have a standard octet of limbs, but I maintain that increases exponentially when they get going.

Yet it cannot be blamed on them that they have unnerving limbs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I have discovered that implementing the strategy of working to prevent instantly leap out of my body and run away 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 fuzzy entities that move hastily at an alarming rate in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. It is possible to acknowledge when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by irrational anxiety. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” stage, but you never know. A bit of time remains within this seasoned learner yet.