{"id":302407,"date":"2025-06-20T07:36:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T07:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/how-to-coexist-with-fear-and-spiders\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T07:36:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T07:36:01","slug":"how-to-coexist-with-fear-and-spiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=302407","title":{"rendered":"How to Coexist with Fear (and Spiders)"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\u201cIf you are willing to look at another person\u2019s behavior toward you as a reflection of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over time, cease to react at all.\u201d ~Yogi Bhajan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Several years ago, I hiked into the remote forestlands of Bukidnon, a mountainous province in the southern Philippines. I was there to make a documentary about the Pulangiy\u0113n people, an Indigenous community living in the village of Bendum. No roads led there. No running water. Just a winding trail upwards, a slow-moving carabao pulling my camera gear, and a few kindhearted villagers helping me climb.<\/p>\n

I had come with the intention to listen\u2014to observe daily life, record sounds, and learn what I could. What I didn\u2019t know was that one of my deepest lessons would come not from the forest or the people, but from a spider.<\/p>\n

A very large spider. Hairy. Big and spidery.<\/p>\n

My lodging was a small, hand-built hut with bamboo walls and a woven floor mat. I felt honored to stay there, grateful for the simplicity and peace and the respite from the rains. But my gratitude dimmed a little when I noticed, down on the floor in the corner of the room, a dark shape\u2014a spider. Motionless. The size of my outstretched palm.<\/p>\n

I asked one of the locals if it should be, well\u2026 removed.<\/p>\n

They smiled gently. \u201cIt lives there,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

That was it. No concern. No plan to catch it in a cup and carry it away. The spider wasn\u2019t a problem. In fact, to interfere might have been seen as disrespectful\u2014not only to the spider, but to the spirits believed to dwell in all things, visible and invisible.<\/p>\n

So I had a choice: coexist or live in fear.<\/p>\n

The Challenge of Coexistence<\/strong><\/h3>\n

At first, I couldn\u2019t sleep. Every creak of bamboo startled me. I imagined the spider descending on my face in the middle of the night. But day after day, the spider never seemed to move around much; at least I was not aware of any major roaming around by the beast. And slowly, I began to wonder\u2014what exactly was I afraid of?<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just the spider. It was the unknown. The loss of control. The feeling of being vulnerable in a place far from what I understood.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s what I learned: coexistence is not about agreement or comfort. It\u2019s about choosing not to reject or destroy what we don\u2019t yet understand. It\u2019s about pausing long enough to see whether what we fear is truly dangerous\u2014or whether it\u2019s just unfamiliar.<\/p>\n

That spider became a mirror.<\/p>\n

Fear Isn\u2019t Always a Problem to Solve<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Over time, my relationship with the spider shifted. I stopped checking the corner obsessively. I still noticed it, but I didn\u2019t react. I stopped trying to protect myself from something that wasn\u2019t actually threatening me.<\/p>\n

In the quiet of those forest nights, I began to think about all the other things I\u2019d tried to avoid or control in life\u2014conversations, emotions, uncertainties, even my own sense of failure. The pattern was the same: discomfort would arise, and I\u2019d try to evict it.<\/p>\n

But this experience showed me a different way: you don\u2019t always need to solve the fear. Sometimes, you just need to sit with it. Let it stay in the corner.<\/p>\n

And over time, your relationship to the fear changes. You grow larger around it.<\/p>\n

In the Indigenous worldview of the Lumad people, coexistence isn\u2019t an abstract concept\u2014it\u2019s life. Trees, rivers, stones, animals\u2014everything has a presence, a role, a spirit. You don\u2019t have to like every being you share space with. You just have to respect it.<\/p>\n

This is echoed in many traditions. In Buddhism, the practice of\u00a0metta<\/em>\u00a0encourages us to extend loving-kindness not only to friends but to enemies, strangers, and even things that scare us. In modern mindfulness practice, we learn to observe our experience without judgment, to allow thoughts and sensations to come and go.<\/p>\n

Even ecology tells us: thriving systems are diverse, and balance depends on the peaceful presence of all things\u2014even spiders.<\/p>\n

What I Tell My Students Now<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve taught filmmaking and storytelling for many years. My students often wrestle with fear\u2014fear of being seen, of not being good enough, of making mistakes. Before, I tried to coach them out of it. Now, I teach them to make room for it.<\/p>\n

I tell them about the spider.<\/p>\n

I tell them about the time I shared a hut with something I was afraid of\u2014and how, by coexisting with it, I changed more than it did. The fear didn\u2019t go away. But it stopped running the show.<\/p>\n

So the next time something in your life scares you\u2014not because it\u2019s harmful, but because it\u2019s unfamiliar\u2014see if you can let it stay in the corner a little while longer. Don\u2019t push it away. Don\u2019t judge yourself for feeling it. Just breathe.<\/p>\n

Let it be there.<\/p>\n

You might discover, like I did, that peaceful coexistence is possible\u2014even with the things you never thought you could accept.<\/p>\n

And once you learn that, there\u2019s very little left to fear.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
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\n

About Tony Collins<\/a><\/h3>\n

Tony Collins, EdD, MFA is a documentary filmmaker, teacher, musician, writer, and consultant with forty years of experience. His work explores creative expression, scholarly rigor, and nonfiction storytelling across the USA, Central America, Asia, and the UAE. In 2025, he is self-publishing\u00a0Creative Scholarship: Rethinking Evaluation in Film and New Media<\/em>\u00a0on Amazon, challenging traditional academic assessment in film and new media. Website:\u00a0anthonycollinsfilm.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

See a typo or inaccuracy? Please contact us<\/a> so we can fix it!<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf you are willing to look at another person\u2019s behavior toward you as a reflection of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over time, cease to react at all.\u201d ~Yogi Bhajan Several years ago, I hiked into the remote forestlands of Bukidnon, a mountainous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":302408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134640,102969,134641,96742,103597,134642,96749],"tags":[93255,3191,55611],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-302407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accept","category-acceptance","category-afraid","category-blog","category-fear","category-scared","category-wisdom","tag-coexist","tag-fear","tag-spiders"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Coexist with Fear (and Spiders) - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=302407\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Coexist with Fear (and Spiders) - 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