Man, relationships. They confuse everyone. You think you’re in the clear, everything’s smooth sailing, and then suddenly you realize you’re either stuck in neutral or, worse, sliding backward. That’s exactly where I found myself a few months back. Everything felt heavy. We were doing all the couple stuff—dinners, trips, late-night talks—but whenever I even hinted at real commitment, the air just went thick. It felt like I was talking to a wall built out of marshmallow. No traction, no movement, just a frustrating bounce-back.
I usually try to tackle life stuff logically, but when emotion messes with logic, you need an outside perspective. I needed a gut check, a hard, cold look at reality, and for me, sometimes that means cracking open the old books. I
pulled out my I Ching set, the one I keep hidden away on the top shelf. It’s not just a parlor trick; if you focus right, that old system cuts through the emotional noise like nothing else. I decided I wasn’t going to ask some vague, wishy-washy question. I needed specifics.
I
framed the question simply and directly: “Is the relationship between me and [partner’s name] currently progressing in a stable and beneficial manner, or is it stagnating?” I sat down in the quietest room in the house, cleared my head—you gotta get rid of the anxiety first, or the answer will just be what you fear, not what is true. I took my three copper coins, the ones worn smooth from years of use, and I
began the casting process.
I
shook the coins vigorously in my cupped hands, letting the metal rattle and click, and then
tossed them onto the bamboo mat. Six times I
repeated the ritual, carefully
recording the results on a notepad, drawing the solid lines (Yin) and the broken lines (Yang). I wasn’t just counting the numbers; I was feeling the weight of each throw, trying to maintain that laser focus on the question I had asked.
When I
finished drawing the last line, I
put the trigrams together. The result was Hexagram 35, Jin, which translates to “Progress.” No changing lines, just a straightforward message: Progress.
The Initial Gut Punch of Doubt
Honestly? I
stared at the hexagram number and
felt a total wave of skepticism wash over me. Progress? Are you kidding me? We had just had a fight two days prior about why we couldn’t define what we were doing, and I felt like I was actively losing ground! If this was progress, then I clearly had no idea what that word actually meant. I almost
slammed the book shut and
shoved the coins back into their box, thinking the whole thing was a waste of time.
But that’s where the real practice starts. You don’t ask the oracle a hard question just to ignore the answer because it doesn’t match your immediate emotional reaction. I
forced myself to slow down. I
re-read the judgment for Hexagram 35. The text talks about moving forward like the rising sun, gradually and visibly. The image is the Sun (Li) above the Earth (K’un). The light is advancing; it is recognized by all.
I
kept reading the commentary. It wasn’t talking about sudden, explosive forward motion—like a rocket launching—which is what my anxiety was demanding. It described slow, steady advance built on recognition and legitimacy. The progress in 35 relies on being seen, acknowledged, and supported. It’s not a secret movement; it’s visible movement.
The Realization That Changed Everything
This is where the practice truly
clicked into place and
slapped me across the face. My problem wasn’t that the relationship wasn’t progressing; it was that I was only valuing the verbal progress—the commitment talk, the defining of roles. I was forcing abstract language onto a situation that needed physical, visible manifestation.
I
realized I was hiding the relationship in a weird sort of bubble, mainly because I feared rejection if I made it public or official. I hadn’t formally
introduced my partner to my parents. We hadn’t
planned a joint vacation that required complex logistics. We were progressing internally, yes, but we weren’t progressing visibly or socially, which is exactly what Hexagram 35 demands.
I
immediately changed my approach. I
stopped badgering them about labels and
started building visible proof.
- I
invited them to a major family event and
introduced them clearly as my partner, no hedging.
- We
went through our finances together and
opened a shared travel account.
- I
integrated their friends into my social circle, and vice versa.
I
focused on making our shared life undeniable, something that everyone, including both of us, had to acknowledge was real and permanent. I stopped waiting for them to say the perfect words and
started acting out the reality of a committed relationship.
And you know what? Once I
put that effort into visible legitimacy, the relationship
started to flow. It wasn’t a sudden change; it was just steady, solid forward motion, exactly like the sun rising every damn morning. The commitment talk? It eventually happened naturally, without the pressure, because the foundation was already undeniably there. That old book didn’t tell me what to do; it
showed me where I was fundamentally misunderstanding the concept of ‘progress’ in my own life. That’s why I keep practicing this stuff—it forces you to look at reality, not just your fears.
