Battling “Spiderzilla”…the stress monster

I dealt with so much fear from a bully-plagued childhood that it took me seventeen years to earn my first black belt. The quest to deal with that fear led me down some unique paths.

Thirty (very) odd years ago, I attended the “Warrior Retreat,” a ten-day workshop in the Tehachapi Mountains, where, it was claimed, I would be taught martial arts combined with shamanic spiritual practices.

There, I met a woman named Dawn Callan, who was teaching the women’s track. She was about 4'10", a honey-blond with a wicked sense of humor and a…