Man, my love life was a proper mess for a long time. I’m not gonna lie. It felt like I was always running into walls, whether it was with a long-term partner or just trying to connect with new folks. Arguments would just erupt out of nowhere over the dumbest things, misunderstandings piled up higher than my laundry on a Sunday, and honestly, I was just drained from it all. Every relationship felt like a constant uphill battle, and I kept wondering what the heck I was doing wrong.
I tried all sorts of things, you know? Reading those self-help books, listening to podcasts, even just bugging my friends for advice. Some of it helped a little, for a bit, but then I’d always fall back into the same old patterns. My reactions were too quick, my opinions too strong, and I was always pushing too hard for things to go exactly my way. It was exhausting for everyone involved, especially me.
Then, one evening, I was just sitting around, feeling pretty down in the dumps, staring at my bookshelf. My eyes landed on this old book a buddy had given me years ago, the I Ching. I’d always dismissed it as some kind of hocus-pocus fortune-telling thing, not really my style. But that night, I was desperate. I just pulled it down, dusted it off, and cracked it open, thinking, “What’s the worst that can happen?”
My First Dive into the I Ching and Hexagram 9
I had no idea what I was doing, really. I just read the introduction, which was a bit dense, but I got the gist of asking a question and tossing some coins. I decided to make my question as simple and direct as possible: “How can I stop messing up my relationships and actually make them better?” I grabbed three coins, followed the instructions to let them fall a few times, recorded the lines, and then, after all the flipping and marking, Hexagram 9 popped up. It was called “Small Taming” or “Small Accumulation.”
I remember reading the bits about it, and it didn’t give me some grand, earth-shattering pronouncement. Instead, it was more like a gentle whisper. It talked about holding back a little, about not forcing things, about subtle and gentle influence, and about accumulating small things to achieve a larger goal. It was about patience and understanding that big changes often come from many tiny, consistent actions. It was like a light bulb went off in my head, but a very soft, warm one.
Putting “Small Taming” into Practice, Day by Day
This “Small Taming” idea really stuck with me. I started thinking about what it actually meant for my day-to-day interactions. It felt like a completely different approach from what I was used to.
- Holding Back My Tongue: The first thing I realized was how much I used to jump in with my opinions or try to be “right” in every conversation. Hexagram 9 suggested holding back. So, I started biting my tongue a bit more. Instead of immediately countering or correcting, I tried just listening. Really listening, I mean, letting the other person finish, trying to understand their perspective, even if I disagreed profoundly. It felt weird at first, like I was missing my chance to “win,” but it immediately made conversations less tense.
- Gentle Influence, Not Force: I used to think fixing problems meant a big talk, a dramatic confrontation, or laying down ultimatums. But “gentle influence” made me think differently. Instead of nagging my partner about leaving their stuff around, for example, I’d just quietly pick it up, or sometimes, without making a big deal, I’d suggest we tidy up together. No lectures, no accusations, just a quiet, consistent action.
- Accumulating Small Acts: This was probably the biggest takeaway for me. I always thought love and good relationships were about grand gestures. But the I Ching was talking about “small accumulation.” This meant focusing on tiny, everyday acts of kindness and consideration. Sending a quick, unexpected “thinking of you” text, making their morning coffee just how they liked it, remembering some small detail they’d mentioned weeks ago and bringing it up. These weren’t huge things, but doing them consistently started to build up a different kind of connection. It was about showing, not just telling.
Real-Life Shifts and Noticeable Changes
I remember one particular evening with my partner. We were having one of our usual disagreements, and normally, I would have gone full steam ahead, trying to logically prove my point, probably raising my voice. But this time, after having Hexagram 9 in my head for a few weeks, I just… paused. Took a deep breath. Instead of gearing up for a fight, I simply said, “Hey, I hear what you’re saying, and it sounds like you’re really upset. I don’t want us to just yell. Can we maybe just sit with this for a bit and talk when we’re both a little calmer?”
It was a small thing, a tiny shift in my usual reaction, but it changed the whole dynamic. The tension dissolved almost immediately. We still had the conversation, but it wasn’t a shouting match. It was a completely different vibe, and we actually worked through the issue instead of just adding it to the pile of unspoken resentments.
Slowly, very slowly, things started to shift. It wasn’t like magic overnight, no big, dramatic Hollywood montage. But the little things I was doing, the small bits of holding back my impulsive reactions, the gentle suggestions instead of demands – they started accumulating. My partner noticed. They started reacting differently too. Our arguments became fewer and far between, and when they did happen, they were less explosive, more like actual discussions.
It wasn’t just my main relationship either. Even with new people I was meeting, I found myself less eager to impress, less talkative about myself, more interested in genuinely hearing them out. And guess what? People seemed to open up more. They felt more comfortable around me, and I felt more genuinely connected to them.
It truly taught me that sometimes, the biggest, most impactful changes come from the smallest, most understated adjustments. It’s not about grand, dramatic overhauls, but about patiently, gently, and consistently guiding things in the right direction. It’s about understanding that love, and good relationships, aren’t a battle to be won or a puzzle to be solved in one go, but more like a garden that needs constant, careful tending with a whole lot of small, deliberate acts.
