God wants you to rest
in Him
He wants you to come to Him
with your troubles
your worries and your weariness
He wants you to find comfort
in His embrace
and peace
in His ways
but He wants you to want this
He will never impose His will
or force Himself upon you
it has to be your choice
to choose Him
TO CHOOSE HIM
By Robert Van Valkenburgh
Meditations of a Gentle Warrior
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It is up to us to decide how we process the information we receive from the outside world.
Regardless of what others do and say, we are responsible for what we think, how we communicate, and how we behave.
There is no way to abdicate this responsibility.
There are no excuses, justifications, or explanations that will suffice if we try.
Our mind and our will belong to us and us alone to do with as we choose.
If we allow the words and actions of others to dictate our thoughts and behavior, whether by self-destructively internalizing them or by turning them destructively outward onto others, we are no longer in control of ourselves and our lives.
Even this is a choice, however.
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 Kogen Dojo Self Defense Academy where he teaches Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.*
*Robert Van Valkenburgh’s black and white photography can be seen at My Darkness To Light
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A bully is a person who pushes another person into a corner against their will, and then keeps pushing, and pushing, and pushing.
We often think about bullying as a physical altercation wherein a bigger, stronger, or more powerful person is abusive of a smaller, weaker, or less powerful person. Physical abuse, however, is just one way that bullying manifests. Most of the time, bullying is more subtle and more psychological or emotional than it is physical.
Simply put, bullying is the act of forcing another person into a state of fight or flight against their will. Bullying is any forceful imposition of will against another person wherein that person is put into a position from which they feel the need to defend themselves. This does not mean they have the ability or desire to defend themselves, but that they are forcefully placed into a position from which they feel the need to do so.
As we see more and more these days, bullying does not even have to take place in person in order to have severe, negative emotional and psychological effects on the bullied. Bullying can be as subtle as a forced argument or debate on social media, in an email chain, on text messages, over the phone, or face to face, or it can be as blatant as a person in a position of greater power physically abusing, assaulting, or even killing a person in a position of lesser power.
While most outcry and outrage for the victims of bullying only comes out when tragedy strikes, we should be forever mindful of the fact that bullying usually starts small. It starts with a word, a posture, or a tone of aggression intended to back another person into the corner, into a place where they either fight back, freeze, or run. Sadly, many people never make it out of that corner.
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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Contentment begins with aligning our desires with our needs.
Often, what we want and what we need are quite different from one another. Part of maturing as a human being is developing the ability to look beyond the former and embrace the latter, ideally to the point where they eventually converge such that what we need is actually what we want. The level of contentment we experience in our lives is directly related to our ability to do this willingly, intentionally, and successfully.
It should be mentioned that contentment is a distinctly different measure of our internal state from happiness. One does not guarantee the other. That said, while contentment may not always result in happiness, it is doubtful that a true state of happiness can be achieved without first acquiring some degree of contentment.
Our desires are rooted in some combination of hope and fear related to what we will or will not experience, acquire, and become in some imaginary future. Our needs, on the other hand, exist in the present moment as a matter of fact, separate from and independent of any feelings we may have about them. By realigning our attention and our will toward necessity, by accepting and addressing what we need to be, to do, and to have, by wanting this for ourselves before and above all else, we give ourselves a platform of truth off of which to grow, thrive, and to be content with our progress.
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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Positive change begins with positive expression.
The ideas we put into the world shape our reality and the reality of others. The way we express ourselves, in word and deed, has the power to change our attitudes, perceptions, and the attitudes and perceptions of others. By changing the way we express ourselves, we empower ourselves to make a positive impact on our own life and the lives around us.
What think, what we say, either out loud or in writing, and what we do affects us all in a very real way. It affects the way we think, the way we behave, and the future we create for ourselves and for others. We get to decide, in every moment, and every expression, whether we want to create a world that is more positive and harmonious or more negative and discordant.
Obviously, we are not alone in this, as there are many other forces acting on us and the world around us that we cannot control. Empowerment begins not with focusing on the aspects of our lives over which we are powerless, however, but with focusing on and leveraging what we do have control over. Empowerment begins with focusing on ourselves and how we express ourselves, our ideas, and our will.
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.
Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.
If you found this post helpful or meaningful in some way, please feel free to Share, Comment, and Subscribe below.
Meditations on God 