A Tale of Overcoming

By: Kate Marinangeli

✦Once upon a time... this guy

lived outside my window. Although two panes of glass and a heavy wooden door (not to mention a host of other advantages I had) stood between us, at 6:52 this morning when we first laid eyes on each other (all 654 of his eyes), I stood paralyzed just at the sight of him.

✦ It was at this point that I realized I have a problem. This paralysis causes me to lose all sense of reasonability. Truly - I lose my mind. I’m not really a screamer until I come eye-to-eye with one of these guys. So, I decided that today would be the day of conquering fears.

Me, circa 1950...

✦ After hours upon hours of research, I found that I’m not alone in this world. No, in fact, there are entire groups devoted to this very problem. Thankfully, there is hope! Casting aside anything that required hypnosis or money, my research left me with a few interesting solutions to the problem.

These are my people. None of this.

✦ After whittling down the options for my cure, I found that I could do one of three things:

2. Control: Taking over control of situation through not thinking and rationally conquering the fear.

3. Encounter: Simply letting spiders crawl all over me until it no longer freaks me out.

1. Anchoring: Detaching the emotion (petrified fear!!) I connect with spiders and reconnecting a calmer, more peaceful state with the thought of a spider thus re-writing my reactions.

From here...

to...

here.

That’s a spider.

That’s control.

...And that’s not happening.

✦ Because option one seemed like too much psychoanalysis and option three seemed like it could actually increase my fear of spiders, I decided to follow option two. I’m regaining control from this moment forward. There are brighter days ahead. I can feel it.

My future frame of

mind.

✦ Each piece of research dealt, in some way, with learning to control emotions. In one case, controlling them while spiders crawled all over me, another by creating new emotions, and another by dealing with the emotions that were already in existence.

Oh, the variety of my emotions.(Not so cute on me, though.)

✦ Because time was of the essence (It is really time to see this last piece of irrationality disappear from my very rational life...), I decided to try the “control what’s already there” approach.

Not my best day.

What’s already there.

Project: Control this.

✦ In order to do this, it took several steps. First, I had to train myself not to think. That took a lot of training. Every morning when I flipped on the light and saw that guy staring intimidatingly at me, daring me to freak out, it took everything in me not to heed his taunts. However, as I monitored my internal temperature, I noticed that each time I saw the spider - though I did not always respond outwardly - my inward fear was just the same.

I’d say this chicken is

cooked.

...And by chicken, I

mean me.

✦ Thankfully, the results began to change with the introduction of step two. This step includes having a back up thought for when “just don’t think about it” fails. Because I generally encounter my friend early in the morning, I began to train my mind to think about what I was going to wear that day. Much less scary.

So much cuter than a

spider!

So much.

✦ Steps one and two were easy enough when I was prepared to see the spider. However, the results really fell apart when my bedroom window spider called all his friends and told them to sneak up on me in the garage, bathroom, and classroom. These unsuspected villains got me. Every. Single. Time. Step three helped here.

✦ Step three involves looking toward the future. After three weeks of practicing mind-over-matter, I began to see consistent improvements. I now began to wonder, “What will life be like when I’m able to turn on a light without the fear of what will move in the corner? What about when I can go hiking without freaking out whenever I cross paths with a cobweb? Moving boxes? The possibilities are endless. Oh the freedom!” This step helped. Suddenly, it was no longer about the moment, it was about the future. Spiders began to represent a giant victory I was on the cusp of achieving.

This is the future me.

In my mind.

✦ Step four came naturally. Each time I saw a spider and contained my shriek to a small squeak, or better yet, no sound at all, it built my confidence. I gradually began looking forward to seeing spiders as an opportunity to prove that they were 1 inch, and I was 68.

That’s me. All 5’8’’

of me.

That’s a spider. All

1” of it.

✦ Though the occasional wolf spider still causes me to recoil, I’m nowhere near where I was. And, I’m still moving forward. So far, this has spanned the course of a month, but this research project is still in action. I noticed that the more I cut off the initial fear, refuse to dwell on any emotion, and avert my thoughts to something else, I see the most concrete progress. As these steps are coupled with looking toward the future and appreciating each victory, my mindset consistently changes. All of the sudden it becomes less about the fear and more about the conquering. I’m taking the steps I used here and applying and adapting them to other fears. Next up: heights. Goodbye fear! Hello skydiving!

Anything is possible.