Counting of the Omer: Week 4 Netzach – Overcoming Obstacles

Week 4 Netzach: Overcoming Obstacles

Your blueprint is set down on paper, and you have “signed off.”

A blueprint or plan though is a map, an outline for growth. You may have started down a path of change already and encountered obstacles.This week look at those obstacles and see how you can overcome them.

Questions that often arise when looking at change are:

Am I really ready?

Am I capable of sticking to the change or will I revert to old patterns?

What will others think about my blueprint for change?

Netzach is usually translated as victory—a sense of personal efficacy in one’s capacities to overcome and persevere. Your task each day for this week of Netzach is to reflect on the obstacles (both internal and external) that could derail your plan for change. Loyalty plays a major role in both holding us back (loyalty to the status quo or who I have been) and helping us move forward (loyalty to who I am capable of being).

In the corresponding journey of the former slaves from Egypt, they are once again in the midst of the desert—refreshed from the oasis with more obstacles to overcome. The “plan” is there—moving toward the goal of Sinai and the transformation that can bring to their identity.

Applying the concept of loyalty to the former slaves their task was to be loyal to a future independent “self” and not succumb to regressive pull back to the “comforts” of the old self—the dependent slave.

Day 22: Chesed in Netzach
On the day of Chesed, we return to the feeling of self-love and the love of others. An interesting way of looking at loyalty is to not only look at it from a perspective of loyalty to someone or something outside of you but rather to yourself; an aspect of self-love. An obstacle to change is loyalty—to old patterns (outside and inside you), to people or a community who are not ready to ‘release you. Loyalty is a very powerful emotion, an obstacle to overcome if it holds you back from moving forward

Day 23: Gevurah in Netzach
Gevurah is self-determination, and therefore we set aside loyalty to others and commit to ‘loyalty to self.’ The obstacle to overcome today is the sense of isolation-loneliness and the sense of selfishness. Change as self-expression may feel disloyal and threaten your sense of connectedness to others and to yourself.

Day 24: Tiferet in Netzach
Today take out the blueprint to look at it in light of the obstacles you anticipate or are confronting. How do you transform your relationship to obstacles and see them now as part of a reformulation of your blueprint? In a general sense, the obstacles are there to help crystallize a plan that will work. Tomorrow you can look more specifically at the actual obstacles and see how they will help you realize your goals.

Day 25: Netzach in Netzach
Overcoming the obstacle to overcoming obstacles! This paradox is simply resolved in seeing that obstacles are really there to help you in your plan for growth. “The greater the obstacle, the greater the reward.”

Day 26: Hod in Netzach
What are your limits in overcoming obstacles? The best approach at times is not to meet the force head on, just move to the side. This requires not only humility but also determination to seek a way around obstacle or yield to it.

Day 27: Yesod in Netzach
Yesod is the filter by which you measure your integrity. Obstacles are the greatest challenge and the greatest surety to measuring your integrity. On that basis, you create a foundation for change. The changes you commit to remain important and will be a measure of your integrity to the process of change.

Day 28: Malchut in Netzach
This week is still not action but contemplating those obstacles that need to be released or removed. It is now a day to rest assured in your own capacity to move forward, to overcome obstacles. The vision of freedom has been strengthened by the need to confront impediments to growth, recognize the stumbling blocks and move past them.