Man, I was in a total wreck a while back. Not just a little stressed, but full-blown ready-to-run mess. This relationship I was in—it was good, solid, comfortable, you know? But it had hit this massive, frustrating wall. We’d been together long enough that things should be moving, right? Like talking about moving in, maybe getting a dog, or even just planning a real future. Instead, it was like we were stuck on a Ferris wheel, just going around and around the same damn loop.
I was driving myself nuts trying to figure out what was broken. I tried talking. I tried pushing. I tried pulling back. Nothing worked. The more I pushed for progress, the more my partner pulled away, and the angrier I got. I felt like I was failing, which is why I was about to just pack it in and leave the whole sorry mess behind me. I didn’t see any way out of the stagnation.
Then I remembered this totally beat-up copy of the I Ching that was sitting in a box of junk I dragged over from my last move. My old man used to mess around with it for business decisions. I thought, what the hell, can’t hurt more than anything else I’ve tried. So I dug out three old copper coins, the most beat-up ones I could find, and I found a quiet spot in my tiny living room.
I did the whole ritual, all super serious and intense. I focused my question, which was basically: “What the hell is going on with this situation and how do I move it forward?” I shook those coins over and over, all tense, before letting them fly onto the wooden floor. I counted the results. I wrote down the lines. After the whole messy calculation, I landed squarely on Hexagram 35. Jìn. Progress.
I stared at the results and then I laughed. Progress? You kidding me? I snapped the book shut and threw the coins back into the box. The universe was clearly just screwing with me. It was the absolute opposite of progress! I spent a good day moping around, convinced that the relationship was dead and the book was useless garbage.
My Messy Process of Unlocking Hexagram 35
I couldn’t totally let it go though. That word, Progress, just stuck in my head. I pulled the book back out and started digging deeper into what the damn thing actually meant for love. I poked around online (didn’t save the sites, I just read the gist). I read different translations. I started realizing my mistake.
- The first thing I figured out was the image of the Hexagram: Fire above Earth. It’s like the sun rising out of the ground. It hit me that the sun doesn’t just jump from the bottom to the top of the sky in one go, does it? It’s consistent. It’s steady. It shows up every day.
- I wrote down this realization: Hexagram 35 in the context of love is not about the big, dramatic leap forward that I was pushing for. It’s about visible, steady movement, even if it feels agonizingly slow.
- I saw that I was acting like a lightning bolt, demanding a sudden change. Hexagram 35 demanded that I be a sunrise. I had to keep showing up, clearly and consistently, without forcing the pace.
I immediately changed my whole approach. I backed off the pressure I was putting on future conversations. I stopped trying to wrestle a long-term plan out of my partner every weekend. Instead, I redirected all that pushing energy into the “now.”
I focused on the boring, everyday stuff. I made their favorite dinner without being asked. I fixed that annoying squeaky door we always talked about. I listened—really listened—when they were stressed about their job instead of immediately jumping in with my own stress. I started stacking up small, consistent wins. I showed up fully in the relationship we had, not the one I was trying to force into existence.
And you know what? Things unlocked. Not with a bang, but with a quiet, solid click. We had a conversation about the future, but it felt natural, not forced. It advanced because I let it advance naturally, like the sun climbing the sky. The big secret of I Ching 35 in love, I discovered, is that you have to commit to the boring, mundane consistency. It’s the daily grunt work that builds the foundation. I learned that progress isn’t a miracle; it’s just never quitting the small, necessary steps.
