Man, lemme tell ya, there are times in life when things just feel like they’re falling apart. You try to hold onto every little bit, but it just keeps slipping through your fingers. I went through a big one a few years back, and that’s when Hexagram 23 kinda hit me in the face.
I was running this little side gig, a passion project, really. Had put a lot of sweat and tears into it. For a while, it was humming along. Felt great. Then, slowly, things started to go south. First, a supplier got flaky, then a customer dropped out, then another. I was pushing, pulling, doing everything I could think of to keep it afloat. But the energy was just draining from it, and from me.
I remember one night, I was just staring at the wall, completely fried. My buddy, Mark, bless his soul, saw me struggling. He’s always been into these old wisdom traditions. He comes over, just sits down, and kinda pushes this old, worn book towards me. “Check this out,” he says. It was the I Ching. I’d heard of it, but never really bothered with it, thought it was all just mystic mumbo jumbo.
He explained how to cast a hexagram. It felt a bit silly at first, tossing those coins. But I was desperate, so I went for it. Three coins, six times. And what popped out? Hexagram 23. It looked… stark. Like a mountain over the earth, with the top bits eroding.
When I looked up the meaning, it was called ‘Stripping Away’ or ‘Splitting Apart’. My first thought was, “Great. Just what I needed. More bad news.” It felt like the universe was just confirming everything I already felt – that my whole project was doomed, coming apart at the seams.
But Mark, he made me read it again, slowly. He pointed out something crucial. It wasn’t just about things falling apart; it was about the natural process of it. Think about a mountain – the wind, the rain, they slowly strip away the top layers. But the base, the foundation, it stays strong. And what’s left after the stripping is often a stronger, more resilient core.
That really clicked for me. I had been frantically trying to preserve every single little twig and leaf on my “mountain.” But the hexagram was saying, “Hey, some stuff needs to go. Let it. Don’t fight the inevitable decline of what’s no longer viable.” It was a tough pill to swallow, you know?
Understanding the Strip Down
- Identifying the Core: I started looking at my project not as a whole, but asking myself, “What’s the absolute, bare-bones essential part of this that still works, that still has value?”
- Letting Go of the Dead Weight: This was hard. I had to consciously decide which parts to stop investing my time and dwindling resources into. Those aspects that were bleeding me dry, that constantly failed, even if I loved the idea of them. I had to strip them away.
- Strengthening the Foundation: Instead of chasing new leads or trying desperate new angles for struggling components, I shifted my focus entirely to what was still solid. I put my energy into perfecting the core service that still had traction, no matter how small.
It felt counter-intuitive. I was always taught to fight, to persevere, never give up. But this was different. This was about intelligent retreat, about clearing out the old wood so new growth could happen later. I saw it less as failure and more as a natural pruning process.
So, I started to strip away. I cut ties with those unreliable suppliers. I stopped chasing the kinds of customers who demanded too much for too little. I even pared down the services I offered, focusing only on the one or two things I could do exceptionally well and that still brought in some positive feedback.
The initial feeling was one of loss, like I was dismantling something I had built. And in a way, I was. But as I kept at it, a strange sense of clarity emerged. The clutter was gone. The frantic energy disappeared. What was left was lean, focused, and surprisingly robust.
It didn’t happen overnight, of course. This whole stripping process took months. I had to face the reality of my situation head-on, accept that some things just weren’t meant to be, at least not in their current form.
After a while, with just the essential core of my project remaining, I found I had more energy. More mental space. I wasn’t constantly putting out fires. This new, smaller, more defined thing started to pick up a little bit of momentum on its own. It wasn’t the roaring success I’d dreamed of initially, but it was stable. It was solid.
And then, slowly, new opportunities started to present themselves. Not directly related to the parts I stripped away, but building upon the strong foundation I had deliberately preserved and nurtured. It was like new sprouts appearing after the dead leaves had fallen. That’s the real kicker of Hexagram 23, man. It teaches you that sometimes, to survive and thrive, you gotta let go. You gotta let things get stripped away so that what truly matters can stand strong and eventually, grow anew. It’s not about ending; it’s about a necessary transformation. Trust the process, even when it feels like everything’s falling apart. Because sometimes, it’s just making room for something better.
