Man, I gotta tell you about Hexagram 23. “Stripping Away.” Sounds ominous, right? Like everything’s just gonna fall apart. And for a long time, that’s exactly how I felt. Like my life was just one big, messy pile of things getting stripped away, piece by painful piece. But stick with me here, because there’s a real nugget of wisdom in it, once you actually get it.
I first stumbled across the I Ching during a really chaotic period. My old gig had gone sideways, a relationship I’d poured years into was dissolving, and honestly, I just felt like I was walking through quicksand. Someone mentioned this old book, this I Ching thing, saying it had some ancient wisdom or something. I was desperate for any wisdom, so I grabbed a copy. It was one of those old, dusty ones, felt heavy in my hands, like it was full of secrets I probably wouldn’t understand.
I started messing around with it, doing the whole coin toss thing. And wouldn’t you know it, Hexagram 23, “Stripping Away” or sometimes “Splitting Apart,” kept showing up. The image described was this mountain, but with all the earth beneath it just eroding, crumbling away. It felt like it was screaming at me: “Dude, everything you thought was solid? It’s going. It’s all going.” I hated it. I didn’t want things to go. I wanted to hold on. To fix. To glue the pieces back together.
My Battle Against the Stripping Away
For what felt like ages, I fought it. I tried to salvage that dying job, pushing myself harder when it was clear the ship was sinking. I clung to the idea of fixing that relationship, even when it was just me doing all the pulling and pushing. I was just trying to keep all the plates spinning, ignoring the cracks forming everywhere. Every time Hexagram 23 popped up, I just got more frustrated. “Stripping Away,” I’d sneer to myself. What kind of wisdom is that? Just let things fall apart? No thanks, I wanted to build.
I was just exhausted from fighting. You ever get that feeling? Like you’re swimming upstream with concrete shoes on? That’s where I was. I remember standing in my garage one day, just looking at all the junk. Old projects I never finished, tools I never used, broken stuff I was “gonna fix someday.” It was a mess. A physical representation of my mental state, honestly. And it hit me: I couldn’t start anything new because there was no freaking space. It was all clogged up with old, broken, decaying stuff.
The Lightbulb Moment
That’s when it clicked. The wisdom of Hexagram 23 finally started to make sense, not as a curse, but as a necessary process. It wasn’t about total destruction for the sake of it. It was about clearing out the old, the weak, the things that were beyond repair, the things that were just taking up space and energy, so that something new and stronger could actually have room to grow. Like clearing dead leaves to make way for fresh shoots. Or tearing down a shaky old shed to build a solid new one. You can’t put a new roof on rotten beams, can you?
So, I started small. I finally let go of that failing work project. Not with a big dramatic resignation, but with a quiet, deliberate decision to just… stop. It was painful, like admitting defeat. I stopped forcing contact with people who clearly weren’t interested. I even started decluttering that damned garage, piece by piece. It felt counter-intuitive sometimes, like I was giving up, but there was also this weird sense of lightness, of freedom, growing with each thing I let go of.
What I Learned on the Other Side
- Letting go isn’t losing: Sometimes, letting go of a failing endeavor isn’t a loss; it’s an investment in your future energy.
- Space for the new: You absolutely need to clear out the old, decaying stuff to make room for anything fresh to come in.
- Accepting the inevitable: Some things are just meant to crumble. Fighting it only prolongs the pain.
- Inner strength emerges: When the external structures are stripped away, you find out what you’re truly made of.
And what happened? Space appeared. Not just physical space in my garage, but mental space. Emotional space. Opportunities that I couldn’t even see before, because my vision was obscured by all the “stuff” I was stubbornly clinging to, started showing up. I picked up a new side gig that actually sparked my interest. I reconnected with old friends and met new people who genuinely resonated with me, without the drama or effort that defined my old connections. My garage even became a place where I could actually work on new things again.
So, Hexagram 23, “Stripping Away,” became a tough but vital lesson. It’s not about being left with nothing. It’s about letting go of what needs to be stripped away – the parts that are weak, rotten, or simply no longer serving you – so that the core, the true self, can emerge stronger, ready to rebuild from a solid foundation. It taught me that sometimes, the best way forward is to accept, even embrace, the falling apart, because it’s often the only way to make way for what’s truly meant to be built.
