The terror that is the “Daddy Long Legs”

The three words that can strike fear, horror even terror into some people.

This eight-legged creature with a body no bigger than a couple of grains of rice can cause absolutely no harm, but to some when spotted it is like they are immediately transported into a 70’s horror movie.

This has to beg a question why?

Why would somebody logically, rationally know that in Ireland at least, a spider can cause no harm but upon seeing one go straight into panic mode fearing for their very existence?

The answer though is in fact quite straight forward.

The part of our mind that protects us from perceived threat is neither logical nor rational. It is our subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind is our protector and if programmed to perceive threat it will do its job and manifest to protect us from what it perceives to be this threat.

Now, the word perceived is very important as the subconscious does not differentiate between threat imagined or real and the subconscious is very resistant to change. Once programmed the perception tends to stick.

But where, when, why, how?

None of us is born with a fear of spiders, so obviously, sometime in our life’s experiences, we must have had a negative interaction with one. In the vast majority of cases, this interaction takes place in our younger years, prior development of our conscious judgement.

This interaction may have been with somebody else or by ourselves as we also in our younger years learn from the reaction of others also.

If eg. as a child I am in the bathroom and Mum grabs me and runs out the door screaming there is a spider, my protective mechanism will kick in to teach me threat from a spider. Whether it be a spider or a tiger does not matter, if mum perceives a threat from it there must be a threat. If I am playing in a hayshed with siblings and friends and come out and we are all covered and can’t get them off, if some others are panicking then I may also feel out of control and panic also. Once the perceived threat has been programmed, the subconscious is resistant to change, not logical or rational and as such the programming sticks.

However, the good news is that it is possible to reprogramme the subconscious. By establishing the events that are causing the fear we can reprogramme with logical experience negating the perceived threat.

In a nutshell, by reprogramming the subconscious mind’s perception of situations or types of the situation causing the fear, the subconscious no longer perceives a threat, no longer manifests to protect and as such we don’t react the same way.