I’m going to share with you one of my biggest fears… large spiders!

In fact, they’re the only thing to send me in such a panic that it has me racing the other way, unable to talk, heart palpitating, and in so much fear that I burst into tears. I’ve always been that way… since I can remember.

In my part of the world (Australia) we have these huge, fearful looking spiders – the Huntsman and the Wolf (apt names, I reckon!).

The Huntsman likes to crawl up walls and peer down at you from the ceiling (not a nice sight to wake up to!), whilst the Wolf will stalk you on the ground.

To put it into perspective, when their legs are extended some Huntsmans can be the entire size of a large hand, and the Wolf as big as the palm of my hand. Not what you would call tiny!

Well, last week a Wolf Spider decided to see what was available in my house.

When I saw it stealthily making its way across my dining room floor, what did I do? Yep, you guessed it. Ran.  Picked up the phone to tell my dad there was an emergency and he better get round pronto to get rid of it! Thing is, I couldn’t talk! Didn’t matter anyway; no answer!  DRATS! I would have to get rid of it myself!

So fly spray hugged to my chest, and my dog worriedly watching from the shadows, I bravely approached Wolf and, standing as far away as I could, promptly proceeded to empty half  the can onto its body. It ran around going mad and I felt so sorry for it, I thought to myself “I’ll have to put it out of its misery and give it a quick death.” Out came the broom and, BAM,  it was flattened. And I know, that sounds very terrible. In fact, I started feeling like a murderer.  I’m not used to doing this dirty work myself.

For the rest of the night I had visions of it being Mummy Wolf and Baby Wolf Spiders fending for themselves out in the backyard. Then I envisioned that flattened spider as a REAL living species… it had a heart and, no doubt, it had feelings too. I felt awful, to say the least.

Let’s fast forward.

As I wandered into my kitchen last night I was greeted by another Wolf Spider… no doubt Daddy Wolf! It was standing right in my doorway, ready to pounce! I scuttled backward to  grab the fly spray, heart pounding, when this voice inside my head said “Murderer!” I stopped in my tracks and wondered what the heck I was going to do! I just couldn’t kill it like the  last fiasco!

I knew then I would have to conquer my fear and get it out of the house; alive! Either that, or live with this horrible feeling of murder on my conscience (I even hate squashing or killing bugs!).

And you know what happened? As soon as I thought that, I looked down at Daddy Wolf and thought to myself, “Well, I can run quicker than you can! I’ll just get a little  closer and take a look at you.”  So there I was, inching closer on my heels and I was starting to break out in a sweat.  I actually felt physically ill. But I kept on going… inching closer and closer.

I was thinking for awhile I was a pretty good “spider whisperer” as he wasn’t doing a thing! All calm and just sitting there watching me… patiently.

I got a little closer. Then suddenly, he hunched up on all hairy legs ready to pounce! You can well imagine that I had a heart attack. Where were my ‘whispering’ skills? I grabbed the big broom and dustpan I had next to me, and making a little dance (I didn’t want it running up my leg!) I flicked it into the dustpan. Whilst it lay there stunned marveling at my Ninja moves, I slid the dustpan out the door with the long end of the broom handle! PHEW! Done!

And you know what? It felt SOOOOOO good! When I was close to Daddy Wolf, I could see so much to admire and it wasn’t really as scary as I imagined. And to top it all off, I didn’t have to kill it to get it out of my house.

I can tell you, I’m still not a big fan of large hairy spiders and will be taking measures so they don’t get in the house… however, if they do get in, I know that I can deal with it and they aren’t going to gobble me up and I die a grisly death 😉  The thought is freeing and liberating.

Afterward, these questions popped into my mind that can apply to anything in life:

• What are you missing out on because you don’t have the courage to face the fear head on?
• What would happen if you DID have to face the fear head on? Go on… flip the fear and imagine THAT in your head. Would it be as bad as you think it is?
• Are your fears real or imagined?

Sometimes, we live out these fears in our head and we’ve never been in the ‘place’ where that fear is imagined.

For instance, with the large hairy spiders, I’ve never had to worry about ‘getting rid of it’ myself… I’d always imagined that it would jump on me and bite me and so on and so on, thus I ran the other way, with no thought whatsoever to what the spider could REALLY do. Or even to the fact that it is a living species that I give a life sentence to, instead of thinking of ‘rehabilitation’ outside the house 😉

When faced with my fear head on, I realized it wasn’t really as frightening as I imagined. Still frightening, yes. But not on the scale I imagined. Yes, the BIG spider DID nearly kill me… but only in my head. That spider was more scared of me than I was of him! I reckon I would get ready to pounce and attack too if a big giant suddenly appeared in front of me, looking all menacing! 😉

This is what our fears are in our head. Big giants, standing over us; that in all reality are like fairy tales that will disappear as soon as reason and ‘proof’ steps in.

So, I have a question for you…

… What one fear are you going to eliminate over the next 2 days? Are you going to take the challenge and stand up to it and fight the big giant?

Why not leave a comment right now to ‘put it out there’ on what fear you’re going to conquer. Then in a couple of days, drop on by and share with us all your experience in fighting the giant! I’d love to share in your excitement that YOU conquered the fear 🙂

PS: No, Daddy Wolf hasn’t come back into the house – YET… I reckon he’s learned his lesson 😉