“If you’re prepared to take a look at one other particular person’s conduct towards you as a mirrored image of their relationship with themselves quite 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 pay attention—to watch every day life, report sounds, and study what I might. What I didn’t know was that one in all my deepest classes would come not from the forest or the folks, however from a spider.

A really massive spider. Furry. Large and spidery.

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

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

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

That was it. No concern. No plan to catch it in a cup and carry it away. The spider wasn’t an issue. The truth is, to intrude might 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 reside in concern.

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; no less than I used to be not conscious of any main roaming round by the beast. And slowly, I started to marvel—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 will not be 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 concern is really harmful—or whether or not it’s simply unfamiliar.

That spider grew to become a mirror.

Worry Isn’t At all times a Downside to Remedy

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 attempting 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 unique means: you don’t at all times want to resolve the concern. Generally, you simply want to sit down with it. Let it keep within the nook.

And over time, your relationship to the concern modifications. You develop bigger round it.

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

That is echoed in lots of traditions. In Buddhism, the follow of metta encourages us to increase loving-kindness not solely to pals however to enemies, strangers, and even issues that scare us. In fashionable 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 various, 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 typically wrestle with concern—concern of being seen, of not being ok, of constructing errors. Earlier than, I attempted to educate them out of it. Now, I train 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 concern didn’t go away. However it stopped operating the present.

So the following 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 may uncover, like I did, that peaceable coexistence is feasible—even with the stuff you by no means thought you possibly can settle for.

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

About Tony Collins

Tony Collins, EdD, MFA is a documentary filmmaker, instructor, musician, author, and advisor with forty years of expertise. His work explores artistic expression, scholarly rigor, and nonfiction storytelling throughout the USA, Central America, Asia, and the UAE. In 2025, he’s self-publishing Inventive Scholarship: Rethinking Analysis in Movie and New Media on Amazon, difficult conventional tutorial evaluation in movie and new media. Web site: anthonycollinsfilm.com

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