Learn to be comfortable in boredom.
Life does not exist for your entertainment.
You do not need, nor should you want, to be in a constant state of stimulation.
The quiet is there to heal you, to allow you to reflect and to rest.
Do not rush through these moments looking for something to do, to say, to hear, touch, taste, or see.
Lean into the quiet.
Let the stillness envelop you, allow it to teach you, and feel it unfold from within you.
Become the quiet.
For those of us driven by creativity, by innovation, and progress, the idea of being still can feel threatening, sometimes even life-threatening.
Some of us need to stay in motion in order to feel alive.
We need to be doing something, to be working on something, or to be making something in order to feel useful, purposeful, and productive.
Stillness is terrifying.
It feels like time wasted, like opportunity lost, and like progress stifled.
What we find, if we give ourselves the opportunity to be still, however, if we sit through the fear it imposes and the pain it threatens, is that stillness itself was never really the problem.
Stillness is necessary, not only for our mental, physical, and emotional health, but also for our work.
Stillness is a tool.
It is a mechanism of empowerment.
Without stillness, all we have is motion, but motion alone will not take us where we want to or need to go.
Stillness helps to give us clarity, focus, and perspective so that our motion has guidance, direction, and purpose.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
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The number of hours in the day do not change for us, so we must change to make the most of them.
As we get older, time feels like it flies by faster and faster. The days feel too short for all that we need to accomplish. The weeks blur into months and the years just seem to disappear behind us. All too often, we find ourselves saying that life is too short, that we have too much to do and not enough time, and that, if only there were more hours in the day, we could accomplish more.
When we have free time, however, especially an abundance of it, our tendency is not to start doing all of the things we have been putting off or claim to not have had time for. Instead, we distract ourselves with more, often aimless and purposeless, busyness. When our schedules clear up, if we take a moment to step back, reflect, and be honest with ourselves, we may actually see that our problem was not really a lack of time, but an inability to prioritize our time effectively and purposefully.
Prioritization begins by first establishing and understanding our personal values, and determining, of all of the things we have going on in our lives that are vying for our attention, what is truly most important based on those values. Establishing our values should not be seen as another busy task, however, but something we do with deep reflection and intention, focusing on uncovering who we are and what in our lives is essential to who we want to be. In order to know ourselves, we must first be still.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh (artist unknown, unless otherwise noted).
If you found this post helpful or meaningful in some way, please feel free to Share, Comment, and Subscribe below.
Meditations on God 