The Kabbalah teaches that the traits of Netzach and Hod, two of the seven core emotional aspects of being, map to our physical body as the right and left leg.
Netzach, is our drive, persistence, and endurance. It is our ability to overcome the obstacles in our path to claim victory.
Hod is gratitude, humility, splendor and majesty. It is our ability to see the good in every situation, to celebrate the wins along the journey.
Netzach drives us forward while Hod encourages us to pause and appreciate where we are.
We need both to drive us forward.
When we are all Netzach, we can become bullies, steamrolling through people in an attempt to get to where we’re going faster. When we are too dominant in our Netzach we forget to listen to others; we ignore the signs around us and the messages arising within us. In our Netzach state we are focused on arriving at our destination.
This is the concept of the “goal tunnel,” the phenomenon that happens when we get so focused on a goal that we ignore everything around us.
As with driving through a tunnel, we block out distractions, but also we block the majesty and wonders of life.
The irony of drive is that when we are so fixated on getting to where we are going, we never truly arrive.
Hod takes us out of the goal tunnel and lets us travel along the open road, where we can see the miracles and magic of all that surrounds us and attune to the larger forces at play.
As we look around and see the majesty of what is here, we realize that life is not on the “other side” of anything. It is happening here and now, in each moment.
Hod tempers our drive to the future by reminding us of the splendor of the present.
For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond. You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, “Now, I’ve arrived!” Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now. — Alan Watts
Appreciation of the good that is here isn’t just a reframe exercise for us to do when things don’t go as planned. When we cultivate this mindset as a way of being, regardless of the outcome, we guarantee that even when things don’t go as planned, all is well.
Forget about next
Celebrate where you are now
That’s how you’ll arrive