On Arachnophobia and Looking for a girl I once knew.

I was thrilled (and a little nervous) when Kathleen asked me to be a guest writer for her blog in her absence. I had to ask myself - what is it, right now, that’s important in my life. What can I convey in a few short paragraphs that will have the potential to mean something to someone who doesn’t even know me, and more importantly, to myself. Well, I came to a roadblock. And why? Because it’s been so long since I actually stopped, I mean really stopped, and listened to myself, that I didn’t know how to respond.

Fear, if used for its most core purpose - to keep us from imminent danger - is a very useful tool, but taken out of that context, fear holds us back from our goals. Fear of success. Fear of failure. Fear if we achieve our goals then ‘what happens next?’ And then there are the more common fears; spiders, snakes, heights. There has been much written on fear over the ages, and much more in the arguments of reasons to be fearful; conditioned, learned behavior, acquired responses to external stimulus. My viewpoint is that for the most part, even though they can be rationalized, fear and the reasons for fear are irrational, and really need to be treated as such.

I’ve been on this path of self-discovery for many years now, although more often than not, I have left my self behind, for fear of one thing or another. I’ve let stumbling blocks (fears) literally block my journey. I used to test myself to do better, to be better. Where did that girl go?

A parable: I had arachnophobia. It wasn’t rational, or logical; it was definitely a learned behavior from my mother’s extreme fear of spiders. It was at times debilitating and embarrassing; yet all along in the back of my mind I knew it did not make sense to me. Ten years ago I was working at a summer sea cadet camp in a very warm, very beautiful part of Nova Scotia where our ‘smoking room’ was out back of a building in a ‘fancy’ green army tent. On the first day, a very kindly (and very cute) young officer showed me the way to the tent, beside which an orb-weaver spider was happily sunning himself in the huge web he probably just finished building the night before. He was gigantic, as large as a golf ball. I froze. Perhaps I screamed. The cute officer giggled! I walked all the way around that tent to the other side for weeks to avoid that massive fear generator, all the while the very cute officer offering me kind words of wisdom, that I, over the years, have unfortunately let fall to the back of my mind. There really is nothing to fear. The spider is not going to harm you. Well, although I walked around to the other entrance of the tent for most of the summer, I pushed myself every day to get closer. I started at about a yard away and stared at him, each day spending a little more time with him and getting a little closer (and talking to him when no one else was around.) Eventually I did it! It was an unbelievably empowering, and magnificently freeing sensation, when at the end of our 6 week camp I actually let go of my fear of him. By the time I arrived back home, (possibly with the help of a beer or two) I actually let a spider (though much smaller) walk in my hand. Positively exhilarating!

That spider and I had a relationship that represented a heck of a lot more that just one little bug against a girl - it was a journey in liberating one-self, in trusting one-self and in knowing ones limits.

When I think back to that time of my life, and how free and at peace with myself I was, I can’t help but wonder what has happened between then and now; where did that girl go?

Well, I know she’s here somewhere, maybe I need another cute officer to come along and giggle at me – or maybe I just need to remember to giggle at myself!

Note to self: Recognize irrational fears & laugh at them! Fear only stagnation!