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June 11, 2010

Losing Control

Posted by Steven Joiner under Gut, Head, Heart, Spirituality, Suffering | Tags: , , , , |
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What you cannot control will set you free.

The survival brain says that we need to be in control. Control means safety. Control means calling the shots. Control means that we can relax… but only just a bit. Don’t relax too much or you might lose control.

I had control issues. I still have control issues. But my control issues today are opposite from my control issues in the past.

Personal and Environmental Control

My old control issues were all about self-control and environmental control. I wanted to present a face to the world that was calm, collected, together, and otherwise stable. My goal was to compose the face I showed the world before stepping out and then not to let that face change. Call it my “game face” or maybe my “life face”. I know I was successful because friends said I was the “stable one”, “the calming influence”, “Steve the infinitely patient”. Ultimately, however, I was projecting a false self, not my authentic self.

I wanted to be in environments that I could control; this is why I naturally gravitated toward teaching, why I always preferred a party at my house to going out clubbing, and why I didn’t enjoy huge crowds. I never sought to control those around me (in fact, I loved the originality in my friends, loved ones, and students) but I wanted the space I inhabited to play by the rules… my rules. What a frightening way to live! (more…)

 

May 23, 2010

Having the conversation you expect to have

Posted by Steven Joiner under Head | Tags: |
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Don't speak, I know just what you're saying

My friend Molly recently told me a story that I found enlightening and very amusing.

She is standing outside her workplace–a veterinarian’s office–on break one day when a homeless gentleman spots her and walks her way. As he approaches, Molly goes through all the stock phrases most of us prepare in a situation like this (“Sorry, don’t have any change.” “This is my last cigarette.” “I left my wallet inside. Can’t help you today.”). He walks up and says, “Is there a veterinarian around here?” Molly (wearing her vet scrubs) smiles and nods to the building she is leaning against, “There’s one right here.” The man replies, while flexing and then tapping his biceps, “Good cuz these doggies are hurting!” Then he walks off.

Upon hearing this story, I asked myself: How often do we actually have the conversation we plan to have? How often do we end up having the conversation we expect to have with a waiter, a shop clerk, a cop? More importantly how often do we say to ourselves, “When I tell him/her about this, (s)he is going to be pissed off, complain that it isn’t fair, and then be grumpy for the rest of the evening. Why do they always act this way?!?” Then what happens? Exactly what you thought would happen! (more…)

 

April 27, 2010

The Lifelong Learner

Posted by Steven Joiner under Head | Tags: , |
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During the spring and summer of 2007 I wrote a series of articles for myRegence.com (Regence is the largest health insurer in the Northwest/Intermountain Region of the US including Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Utah). The series was entitled “The Lifelong Learner” and it covered a range of topics, most having to do with helping people understand learning styles, memory, and, at the end, perspectives on parents and endurance events. The latter two categories make sense to me inasmuch as I learned a lot from both subjects. These articles are meant to be easy to read and informative in an instantly applicable way. There were among my favorite writing projects from 2007. (more…)

 

April 2, 2010

“The Planet of the Apes” Rule

Posted by Steven Joiner under Film, Head | Tags: |
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I was talking to a friend yesterday about an old debate I continue to wage with several of my best friends. They have this unfortunate tendency to critique summer/winter blockbuster action films with the same eye as more “serious” film. While I agree that it is always nice to have a compelling story and well-developed characters, I also know that I don’t go to action films expecting any of this. I find the total lack of expectations extremely liberating. I also love it when a film packaged in the usual blockbuster-with-toys-in-a-happy-meal-and-enough-other-cross-promo-hype-to-completely-saturate-our-reality turns out to be quality cinema. That is a very nice surprise.

However, in order to apply some semblance of standards to a film genre bereft of anything but CGI, hot stars and starlets, and explosions a plenty, I developed what I used to call my 50/50 rule: an action film needs to take up 50% or more of the screen time with action–explosions, chases, fisticuffs, gunfights, etc.–and 50% or less dialogue, plot development, character development, and, well, anything that is not action. (more…)

 

March 12, 2010

Relationships

Posted by Steven Joiner under Gut, Head, Heart | Tags: , , |
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I am sitting in the same seat on the same porch at about the same time of day as I was last fall when I decided to move to Kansas City. I was journaling at the time and I wrote about the sunlight (which is shining today), the chickens wandering around my feet (they’ve since been eaten by a neighborhood dog), and, most importantly, reflecting on the relationships I have here in KC (which, like the sun, are still here and, unlike the chickens, were not eaten by a dog). That moment was the crystallization of an important thought: the community and the relationships here feed my soul. So why not make the move?

Relationships were on my mind a lot then as they are still today. While I was conscious of relationships during my married years, the end of my partnership obviously stirred up a lot more thoughts and emotions on the matter. As I was sitting on the porch here in KC thinking about the relationships around me I was also thinking about the lessons gleaned from my marriage and subsequent divorce. In other words, I was thinking about relationships of the romantic, platonic, friendship, professional, tangental, etc. variety.

I now offer up, for your consideration, those thoughts… which, admittedly, are largely in the context of romantic love though the lessons are applicable to all relationships. (more…)

 

March 10, 2010

When Coming Home Takes 23 Years

Posted by Steven Joiner under Head, Heart, Travel | Tags: , , |
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(I wrote this essay in the fall of 2006 and never sent it out to be published)

When Coming Home Takes 23 Years

Laying in my bed at 1:30 a.m., I hear the sound of home. From my apartment on Hawthorne Boulevard the train whistle is more distant than when I was a child in Aloha, but the feeling is the same.

Like most boys, I was fascinated by trains, particularly their mass and myriad of moving parts. The sight of one no longer impresses me but the idea of trains — running on America’s arteries feeding the capillaries of roads and the red blood cells of semis — still fascinates me. The tracks were not far from my home on Southwest 175th Avenue in Aloha 23 years ago and I can recall the typical Portland sight of a train snaking along with steady deliberation for what seemed like a hundred miles and, of course, waiting at the flashing gates for what seemed like an eternity.

The train whistle is part of what tells me I am home. (more…)

 

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