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I am someone who believes that it is forever an option to change. My view is you can in fact teach an old dog new tricks, on the condition that the old dog is willing and eager for knowledge. Provided that the individual in question is ready to confess when it was in error, and work to become a more enlightened self.

Alright, I confess, I am the old dog. And the trick I am attempting to master, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, an issue I have struggled with, frequently, for my all my days. The quest I'm on … to grow less fearful of those large arachnids. Apologies to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be grounded about my possible growth as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is large, dominant, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Encompassing on three separate occasions in the last week. Within my dwelling. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me with discomfort as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but my project has been at least becoming a baseline of normalcy about them.

I have been terrified of spiders since I was a child (in contrast to other children who adore them). During my childhood, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to guarantee I never had to confront any myself, but I still panicked if one was obviously in the same room as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and attempting to manage a spider that had ascended the lounge-room wall. I “dealt” with it by retreating to a remote corner, nearly crossing the threshold (lest it chased me), and discharging a generous amount of insect spray toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and irritate everyone in my house.

As I got older, whomever I was in a relationship with or sharing a home with was, automatically, the most courageous of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore tasked with managing the intruder, while I produced low keening sounds and ran away. If I was on my own, my method was simply to vacate the area, plunge the room into darkness and try to forget about its presence before I had to return.

In a recent episode, I visited a companion's home where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who resided within the casement, primarily stationary. To be less scared of it, I imagined the spider as a 'girlie', a gal, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and overhearing us chat. It sounds quite foolish, but it was effective (somewhat). Or, the deliberate resolution to become less scared did the trick.

Whatever the case, I’ve tried to keep it up. I contemplate all the sensible justifications not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they consume things like flies and mosquitoes (my mortal enemies). It is well-established they are one of nature’s beautiful, benign creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to walk like that. They propel themselves in the utterly horrifying and borderline immoral way imaginable. The sight of their multiple limbs transporting them at that frightening pace causes my ancient psyche to enter panic mode. They are said to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I am convinced that increases exponentially when they move.

However it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – if not more. My experience has shown that implementing the strategy of working to prevent have a visceral panic reaction and retreat when I see one, trying to remain calm and collected, and deliberately thinking about their positive qualities, has proven somewhat effective.

Just because they are hairy creatures that scuttle about at an alarming rate in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, does not justify they warrant my loathing, or my shrieks of terror. It is possible to acknowledge when my reactions have been misguided and motivated by irrational anxiety. I’m not sure I’ll ever attain the “scooping one into plasticware and taking it outside” stage, but one can't be sure. There’s a few years for this old dog yet.