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I am someone who believes that it is always possible to transform. My view is you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the experienced individual is open-minded and ready for growth. Provided that the old dog is prepared to acknowledge when it was wrong, and endeavor to transform into a better dog.

OK yes, I am the old dog. And the lesson I am attempting to master, although I am decrepit? It is an important one, an issue I have grappled with, repeatedly, for my whole existence. The quest I'm on … to become less scared of those large arachnids. Pardon me, all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my potential for change as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is sizeable, in charge, and the one I encounter most often. Encompassing on three separate occasions in the previous seven days. Within my dwelling. You can’t see me, but I'm grimacing and grimacing 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.

A deep-seated fear of spiders dating back to my youth (unlike other children who find them delightful). In my formative years, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to guarantee I never had to engage with any personally, but I still panicked if one was visibly in the same room as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and trying to deal with a spider that had crawled on to the living room surface. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, almost into the next room (for fear that it pursued me), and emptying 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.

With the passage of time, my romantic partner at the time or cohabiting with was, automatically, the most courageous of spiders between us, and therefore responsible for managing the intruder, while I made whimpers of distress and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my tactic was simply to exit the space, plunge the room into darkness and try to forget about its existence before I had to return.

Recently, I stayed at a pal's residence where there was a particularly sizable 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 gal, in our circle, just relaxing in the sun and listening to us yap. This may seem quite foolish, but it was effective (to some degree). Or, making a conscious choice to become more fearless proved successful.

Whatever the case, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I reflect upon all the rational arguments not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I know they consume things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). I know they are one of nature’s beautiful, non-threatening to people creatures.

Alas, they do continue to move like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and almost unjust way conceivable. The appearance of their multiple limbs carrying them at that terrible speed triggers my caveman brain to kick into overdrive. They claim to only have eight legs, but I believe that increases exponentially when they move.

But it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. My experience has shown that implementing the strategy of making an effort to avoid instantly leap out of my body and run away when I see one, attempting to stay composed and breathing steadily, and consciously focusing about their beneficial attributes, has begun to yield results.

The mere fact that they are hairy creatures that dart around extremely quickly in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my shrieks of terror. I am willing to confess when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “catching one in a Tupperware container and relocating it outdoors” phase, but miracles happen. A bit of time remains for this veteran of life yet.