Methods to Coexist with Worry (and Spiders)

“In case you are prepared to take a look at one other individual’s habits towards you as a mirrored image of their relationship with themselves moderately than a press release about your worth as an individual, then you’ll, over time, stop to react in any respect.” ~Yogi Bhajan

A number of years in the past, I hiked into the distant forestlands of Bukidnon, a mountainous province within the southern Philippines. I used to be there to make a documentary in regards to the Pulangiyēn folks, an Indigenous neighborhood residing within the village of Bendum. No roads led there. No operating water. Only a winding path upwards, a slow-moving carabao pulling my digicam gear, and some kindhearted villagers serving to me climb.

I had include the intention to hear—to watch day by day life, report sounds, and study what I might. What I didn’t know was that certainly one of my deepest classes would come not from the forest or the folks, however from a spider.

A really massive spider. Furry. Huge and spidery.

My lodging was a small, hand-built hut with bamboo partitions and a woven ground mat. I felt honored to remain there, grateful for the simplicity and peace and the respite from the rains. However my gratitude dimmed slightly after I observed, down on the ground within the nook of the room, a darkish form—a spider. Immobile. The scale of my outstretched palm.

I requested one of many locals if it ought to be, properly… eliminated.

They smiled gently. “It lives there,” they stated.

That was it. No concern. No plan to catch it in a cup and carry it away. The spider wasn’t an issue. In actual fact, to intrude may need been seen as disrespectful—not solely to the spider, however to the spirits believed to dwell in all issues, seen and invisible.

So I had a selection: coexist or stay in worry.

The Problem of Coexistence

At first, I couldn’t sleep. Each creak of bamboo startled me. I imagined the spider descending on my face in the midst of the night time. However day after day, the spider by no means appeared to maneuver round a lot; a minimum of I used to be not conscious of any main roaming round by the beast. And slowly, I started to surprise—what precisely was I afraid of?

It wasn’t simply the spider. It was the unknown. The lack of management. The sensation of being weak in a spot removed from what I understood.

However right here’s what I realized: coexistence just isn’t about settlement or consolation. It’s about selecting to not reject or destroy what we don’t but perceive. It’s about pausing lengthy sufficient to see whether or not what we worry is really harmful—or whether or not it’s simply unfamiliar.

That spider turned a mirror.

Worry Isn’t At all times a Drawback to Clear up

Over time, my relationship with the spider shifted. I ended checking the nook obsessively. I nonetheless observed it, however I didn’t react. I ended making an attempt to guard myself from one thing that wasn’t really threatening me.

Within the quiet of these forest nights, I started to consider all the opposite issues I’d tried to keep away from or management in life—conversations, feelings, uncertainties, even my very own sense of failure. The sample was the identical: discomfort would come up, and I’d attempt to evict it.

However this expertise confirmed me a distinct manner: you don’t all the time want to unravel the worry. Typically, you simply want to sit down with it. Let it keep within the nook.

And over time, your relationship to the worry adjustments. You develop bigger round it.

Within the Indigenous worldview of the Lumad folks, coexistence isn’t an summary idea—it’s life. Bushes, rivers, stones, animals—every part has a presence, a task, a spirit. You don’t have to love each being you share house with. You simply must respect it.

That is echoed in lots of traditions. In Buddhism, the follow of metta encourages us to increase loving-kindness not solely to mates however to enemies, strangers, and even issues that scare us. In trendy mindfulness follow, we study to watch our expertise with out judgment, to permit ideas and sensations to come back and go.

Even ecology tells us: thriving methods are numerous, and stability depends upon the peaceable presence of all issues—even spiders.

What I Inform My College students Now

I’ve taught filmmaking and storytelling for a few years. My college students usually wrestle with worry—worry of being seen, of not being ok, of creating errors. Earlier than, I attempted to educate them out of it. Now, I educate them to make room for it.

I inform them in regards to the spider.

I inform them in regards to the time I shared a hut with one thing I used to be afraid of—and the way, by coexisting with it, I modified greater than it did. The worry didn’t go away. However it stopped operating the present.

So the subsequent time one thing in your life scares you—not as a result of it’s dangerous, however as a result of it’s unfamiliar—see when you can let it keep within the nook a short while longer. Don’t push it away. Don’t choose your self for feeling it. Simply breathe.

Let or not it’s there.

You would possibly uncover, like I did, that peaceable coexistence is feasible—even with the belongings you by no means thought you may settle for.

And when you study that, there’s little or no left to worry.