How to Coexist with Fear (and Spiders)

“If you are willing to look at another person’s 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.” ~Yogi Bhajan

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 Pulangiyēn 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.

I had come with the intention to listen—to observe daily life, record sounds, and learn what I could. What I didn’t know was that one of my deepest lessons would come not from the forest or the people, but from a spider.

A very large spider. Hairy. Big and spidery.

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—a spider. Motionless. The size of my outstretched palm.

I asked one of the locals if it should be, well… removed.

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

That was it. No concern. No plan to catch it in a cup and carry it away. The spider wasn’t a problem. In fact, to interfere might have been seen as disrespectful—not only to the spider, but to the spirits believed to dwell in all things, visible and invisible.

So I had a choice: coexist or live in fear.

The Challenge of Coexistence

At first, I couldn’t 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—what exactly was I afraid of?

It wasn’t just the spider. It was the unknown. The loss of control. The feeling of being vulnerable in a place far from what I understood.

But here’s what I learned: coexistence is not about agreement or comfort. It’s about choosing not to reject or destroy what we don’t yet understand. It’s about pausing long enough to see whether what we fear is truly dangerous—or whether it’s just unfamiliar.

That spider became a mirror.

Fear Isn’t Always a Problem to Solve

Over time, my relationship with the spider shifted. I stopped checking the corner obsessively. I still noticed it, but I didn’t react. I stopped trying to protect myself from something that wasn’t actually threatening me.

In the quiet of those forest nights, I began to think about all the other things I’d tried to avoid or control in life—conversations, emotions, uncertainties, even my own sense of failure. The pattern was the same: discomfort would arise, and I’d try to evict it.

But this experience showed me a different way: you don’t always need to solve the fear. Sometimes, you just need to sit with it. Let it stay in the corner.

And over time, your relationship to the fear changes. You grow larger around it.

In the Indigenous worldview of the Lumad people, coexistence isn’t an abstract concept—it’s life. Trees, rivers, stones, animals—everything has a presence, a role, a spirit. You don’t have to like every being you share space with. You just have to respect it.

This is echoed in many traditions. In Buddhism, the practice of metta encourages 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.

Even ecology tells us: thriving systems are diverse, and balance depends on the peaceful presence of all things—even spiders.

What I Tell My Students Now

I’ve taught filmmaking and storytelling for many years. My students often wrestle with fear—fear 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.

I tell them about the spider.

I tell them about the time I shared a hut with something I was afraid of—and how, by coexisting with it, I changed more than it did. The fear didn’t go away. But it stopped running the show.

So the next time something in your life scares you—not because it’s harmful, but because it’s unfamiliar—see if you can let it stay in the corner a little while longer. Don’t push it away. Don’t judge yourself for feeling it. Just breathe.

Let it be there.

You might discover, like I did, that peaceful coexistence is possible—even with the things you never thought you could accept.

And once you learn that, there’s very little left to fear.