Hi everyone,

Just for those who followed I was the one who initiated recently a long thread who came to host a lot of turmoil just before Willowfox left. It was about a disappearing and silent boyfriend, (who by the way remains disappearing and silent).
This space he left me in has brought to the surface many wounds and long-forgotten issues I thought belonged to a bumpy road as an adolescent.

But as I linger in his silence I seem to go deeper and deeper in this pain, so it became obvious the wounds are still there - I had found merely superficial ways of coping. They have to do with self-image and how I think others perceive me, specially men. I am not exactly ugly but I am very odd looking. Which has even proved to be exotic and thrilling for some men, but no, there is no way you can call me beautiful. As I said, this was catastrophic as a teenager but become quite amusing as a young woman. In my best days I even felt... "unique"

Last couple of weeks my self-estime went down the drain, its like I comprehend why he never came, its like I think it makes sense he doesnt even drop me a line - I mean, why should he, just look at me...

Funny enough, I had to go through some stage/performance acts and had to face some photo shoots for professional reasons, so the topic was everyday hiting me in the face. Feeling inadequate, inferior, ugly - basically being 14 again.

Some night I was really torn I asked the Y how do people perceive me physically - and got blown away by a very wise 15 unchanging. I really felt the Y was trying to wake me up to the superficiality of my anguish, and how I have to come to terms that I can't excel in every single area of my life.

The photo shooting was a long draining and frustrating endeavor, the photographers' lack of empathy and sensibility - and how she was getting frustrated - were just touching really deep spots of pain, so I changed angle and asked the Y again:

How could I TRULY learn to accept the fact I am not physically beautiful?
13 unchanging.

Hummmm....


I did take something out of it but feels far-fetched: It feels like the Y is telling me that in true friendships physical appearance doesnt matter, "but rather the goals of humanity." That I shouldn' just allow any person to throw judgements on me but that I should choose my crowd right, that in that true (deeper?) fellowship there will be success. (i.e, i wont feel inferior)

Which feels like a great wise answer (as often) but doesnt really tell me HOW to start this healing process... or does it?

(note: This is the ONE question I want to share, but there is something I find meaningful:
in this one year with the Y I never got 13 before and now in the space of two weeks I got concerning this but also twice concerning the missing BF > "Will we meet again physically in December?" 13.1.3.6 > 45 and also about my meditation practices "Should I persevere with all the exercises of dream yoga and sleep lucidity?" 13 unchanging)

Just to say that it feels this hexagram really contains something I need to get at this moment...

Thank you in advance for your time and concern,
Yo*

I did take something out of it but feels far-fetched: It feels like the Y is telling me that in true friendships physical appearance doesnt matter, "but rather the goals of humanity." That I shouldn' just allow any person to throw judgements on me but that I should choose my crowd right, that in that true (deeper?) fellowship there will be success. (i.e, i wont feel inferior)

Which feels like a great wise answer (as often) but doesnt really tell me HOW to start this healing process... or does it?

Click to expand...

Yoana
What a brave thread to have posted here. Your beauty is truly shining out through you words and courage. Perhaps just by posting this, which many people would have hidden away from doing, IS the start of the healing process for you.

Hex 13 - Is about how you TRULY walk your life and the acceptance and clarity that you gain through understanding the richness of diversity. In many ways it's about seeing the beauty in everything and everyone. It also reflects that how you see things on the inside is how things are manifest on the outside.

In your question you show that on the inside you consider that IT IS A FACT THAT YOU ARE NOT PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL. Perhaps because you "see" it as a FACT on the inside that this is what reflects into your outside world.

To my mind there is nothing factual in this. Once upon a time it was a fact that the world was flat...... now we believe different. Believe different and perhaps that is the start of your healing process.
Love and hugs


Mike

my_key said:

Yoana
What a brave thread to have posted here. Your beauty is truly shining out through you words and courage. Perhaps just by posting this, which many people would have hidden away from doing, IS the start of the healing process for you.

Hex 13 - Is about how you TRULY walk your life and the acceptance and clarity that you gain through understanding the richness of diversity. In many ways it's about seeing the beauty in everything and everyone. It also reflects that how you see things on the inside is how things are manifest on the outside.

In your question you show that on the inside you consider that IT IS A FACT THAT YOU ARE NOT PHYSICALLY BEAUTIFUL. Perhaps because you "see" it as a FACT on the inside that this is what reflects into your outside world.

To my mind there is nothing factual in this. Once upon a time it was a fact that the world was flat...... now we believe different. Believe different and perhaps that is the start of your healing process.
Love and hugs


Mike

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Yes, this is a difficult one to answer but Mykey hit the nail on the head there . Of course there is no fact that you are not physically beautiful...no fact at all. 13 unchanging is a hard one to fathom IMO, but I've been told its not about everyone getting along and being 'brotherly' its actually all about making space for differences between groups of people. I'm sure every woman knows that to some men she is highly desirable and to some men she isn't...no matter how good looking she is by magazine model standards. And i do truly believe it a myth that physical beauty brings you real love. I think in love all things are equal (oooh sorry gone a bit cosmic lol) hmmm feels a bit 15ish to me. Hx 15 is about being authentic..., if you are who you are how can you not be beautiful...really it is not a fact that you are not beautiful, it is a fantasy of your own making that you are not beautiful !...well to be fair not entirely of your own making as the media fuels it constantly dictating that only certain types are attractive

Re your 13.1.3.6 >45 re your man, well to me that looks like meeting up in a fairly public way, in a gathering of friends or something. When and if you do its possible it may be rather superficial if both of you have your defences up (13.3) so maybe make yourself more ready to let those defences down., but also be aware it might be a situation that doesn't allow either of you to get too intimate. 13.1 and 13.6 hmm its like meeting someone on your way in to somewhere and on your way out...and feeling rather nervous in the in between time (13.3)

I think when you received the unchanging 15 you got your answer however it is not the answer that your (please don't be offended) insecurity wanted. I have also asked the Yi this very same question because I receive a very wide range of opinions( that I don't even ask for) about my appearance. I sympathize because I know how confusing this can be. I think hexagram 15 was telling you that in addition to your actual physical beauty, it would help to cultivate an amazing persona( minus the doubt about your beauty) that would enhance how you already appear physically. In my opinion, line 5 shows how even though your beauty may not be conventional, it definitely is there, and you have the ability to physically attract others. Have you ever met someone that some people may classify as unattractive, but when you get to know them, their personality is so attractive that it overrides how he/she originally appeared to you? I'm sure you're beautiful...just too hard on yourself. Btw, I believe the photographer may have gotten frustrated with you because when someone is obviously attractive, but he/she doesn't believe it, it becomes very frustrating to others, because they cannot make you see what they do.

Yo, I love your post. Your authenticity shines through.

Hi Yoana,

To me, 13 is telling you to look at all the people around you, literally and figuratively. It's such a big world, so many faces! all of them different, perfect in their uniqueness.

So many cultures, environments and individual minds. Myriads of standards of beauty under which we could all be classified.

By any standard you choose there will always be people that are more beautiful than you and there will always be people that are less beautiful than you.

No need to try to be at the top. Blend in, into this mass of colors, shapes and essences. Just be your own piece of the puzzle, your own little part of this wonderful whole.

Fellowship with People

yoana said:

How could I TRULY learn to accept the fact I am not physically beautiful?
13 unchanging.

Hummmm....

I did take something out of it but feels far-fetched: It feels like the Y is telling me that in true friendships physical appearance doesnt matter,...

Which feels like a great wise answer (as often) but doesnt really tell me HOW to start this healing process... or does it?

Click to expand...

Yoana,

You asked "how" and Yi answered, quite flatly, make "fellowship with people." If instead of focusing on your looks, you concentrated on be-friending people and creating community, then in that community you would have much love and caring coming back from you, and you might put your looks in the proper place.

So I interpret this not as that someone else should befriend you, and shouldn't care about what you look like, but that you must go out and provide for others. You must be the active force! The world is full of needy people (men as well as women) who will be grateful to find someone helping them, caring about them, giving to them.

When you start with giving, the energy will come back and you will no longer feel the need to look any different than you do.

Tiger

P.S. Have you seen the movie Groundhog Day? Bill Murray had to completely transform his character into one of giving and value for the community at large before he could attract the love of a wonderful woman. It is rarely about looks in a meaningful relationship.

I must confess I'm astounded. Thank you all!
I follow the forum and other people's entries and I knew already there is so much generosity available - but I guess it's always different when one experiences it first-person.

I grew much calmer about it all since the day I posted, which allows me now to read your interpretations with a clearer heart. And they're powerful advises.

My_Key,
thanks, I love the way you read the Y (it was very helpful in October when BF first disappeared) and you are right, coming to the forum for help was one of the ways I thought the Y could be telling me to get closer to the "community", but my first reaction was obviously no, I wouldn't want to expose myself like that…! And then I felt that exposing myself like that made me walk the extra mile of actually embracing my limitations and not keeping them in the shadow and feeling ashamed.
I also believe that "how you see things on the inside is how things are manifest on the outside" - totally. I mean, choosing as a life-partner a man who disappears should ring some bells…
Change my believes - there is a good down-to-earth "how" to start with.


Trojan,
thank you also. Funny enough, my "lack of looks" were never an impediment in my love life. And I don't see my beautiful friends (in a canon like sense) having an easier life in they're love life because they look the way they do. But its true, as I shared, it was this rejection-abandonment situation (I don't even know if this is the case, how absurd!) that brought to light these old fears of not being "princess enough" - because I really was looking at this one last guy as "the prince". As my-key said above, I manifested this guy in my life, and perhaps this dialogue we are now having here was the Why that has been haunting me in the past weeks. I need to come to terms with my lack of self-approval on a deeper level.
I reckon the Y as told me in different answers we are going to meet soon again (hard to imagine, after 4 weeks of silence) and that will be a beautiful chance for me to practice my love for myself… I read 13.1.3.6 >45 not as meeting in public but meeting as friends. But I like the way you look at it. For sure there will be hidden weapons and closed hearts, as the changing lines say…
From this and other posts - I like it when you "go cosmic"

Chacha1,
No offence taken, you are right, I agree. It hurts the ego but it's true. It's strong that you got the same answer to the same question. Going back to what Trojan says above, I do agree that the media feeds us not only with the image that we have to look great all the time, but also that we have to excel in everything we do. We have to look great, while being successful, while reading Nietzsche, while ending our fifth triathlon, while while while and for this 15 was a call for humility also in the sense that our limitations are also our gifts. We work in what we might be frail at (higher the low) and don't boost on the natural talents we all have (lower the high) so all things become equal, i.e., we are all human.
Makes sense?


Meng,
=D
Thank you! I was in need of that exactly…!

Lightangel,
Thank you. It sounds very much like what I said above for 15, and makes perfect sense. In a way, by answering 15 at first the Y was telling me this on an individual level, and as I insisted and asked again (and asked HOW) I got the same answer, on a larger context. It's so much more clear now…!

last-but-not-least-tiger,
thank you also. You got it how I'm a action driven person and that small steps and "How's" are important to me, thanks. You know what's even nicer? What I do in life, my "job" (gives me so much pleasure I don't even like to call it that) is all around… building community…!!! funny hen?
It's like the Y is telling me just do what you do best, and love most, and give yourself to doing it, and all those issues won't be so relevant anymore.

I have seen that film too many years ago, perhaps I was too young to get that strong "moral", I'm gonna go and fetch it again soon. Thanks!



To all of you,
Know that I am deeply thankful for the support and all the different views, they come together in me quite harmoniously, and I feel empowered and centred now, able to bring my beauty into the overall natural beauty of fellowship with men.

**Be Well**

Trojan,

I reckon the Y as told me in different answers we are going to meet soon again (hard to imagine, after 4 weeks of silence) and that will be a beautiful chance for me to practice my love for myself… I read 13.1.3.6 >45 not as meeting in public but meeting as friends. But I like the way you look at it. For sure there will be hidden weapons and closed hearts, as the changing lines say…
From this and other posts - I like it when you "go cosmic"

Click to expand...

Yes your interpretation is probably more fitting, i guess mine is pretty situation specific ..not sure why i saw it like that, probably because for me 45 is so often referring to actual gatherings of a group of people...

To all of you,
Know that I am deeply thankful for the support and all the different views, they come together in me quite harmoniously, and I feel empowered and centred now, able to bring my beauty into the overall natural beauty of fellowship with men.

**Be Well**

Click to expand...

yes i liked the way everyone had another facet of 13 to share..all seeming to complement each other ...which is, when you come to think of it, perfect 13 work in action

hi yoana!
i add a few ideas here because i have reflected myself about this subject this week and your gotten answer hex.13 is fitting very well

maybe it's important to understand what 's all about this physically beauty (beneath the fact that its criterias are very changeable in time...); i think that's only a concept without real substance, i mean a lively, nurturant substance; some kind of money , an exchange to buy something else (worthier, really necessary to be happy or satisfied...ot to buy some object anyway- the publicity business!!! ); it doesn't have any worth in itself
being physically beautiful doesn't mean even being more sexual appealing , not at all but it's very risky for someone to get mudded and stiffened in such physical icon (if one uses too much or exclusively of his appearance to open doors ),cutted from all the riches that make life and human relationships pleasureble and creative and potentially infinite in their forms

look at all the persons you love or had loved or admired in all your life! look at the reasons you love them for! is it their physically beauty among these reasons? i guess not

that's the way all humans love (exactly like you), that's the way you are loved by the others!

yoana said:

We have to look great, while being successful, while reading Nietzsche, while ending our fifth triathlon, while while while and for this 15 was a call for humility also in the sense that our limitations are also our gifts. We work in what we might be frail at (higher the low) and don't boost on the natural talents we all have (lower the high) so all things become equal, i.e., we are all human.
Makes sense?

Click to expand...

This is an interesting collective statement. I'm with you on the first part, but not so sure about the second. How does not boosting on the natural talents make things equal?

For 15, I go with authentic more than modesty or humility. Things which are self evident, speak for themselves, with no need of promotional words to make it what it is. It does not mean lowly or lessor, nor a pious face. True greatness shines through of it's own, and does far more than does not. This business of holding back because of a 15 reading is way off the mark, imo. Balance is not necessarily achieved by bringing what is high lower, it can also be bringing what is low higher.

movablue,
I totally agree with you in your wonderings, and the proposal to think of my own loved-ones and how that ultimately doesn't come down to physical beauty is an excellent one. Nevertheless I do think the pursue of beauty is a major source of inspiration, whether you consider love, mathematics, painting or cosmology - we strive for that sense of the Beautiful, it's a yearning in our souls. (I believe)...
Of course that the people I truly love and were with me through the years are much more than pretty. But it was in fact amazing, when you turned the question back to me, it did make me think of all the love-affairs that started out merely on a physical attraction basis (because he looks so nice...!) and wouldn't take long before I was either bored or unfulfilled. Or both...
Which informs me of something important that My-Key already pointed out - there is something distorted in the filter I am perceiving my reality with (i.e., my beliefs). At some level it's true, I have touched it these last days, there is a level where I believe one is less worthy if not beautiful.
So, I'm gonna start there! ;-) (to unravel the knot, I mean...)

Meng,
I often find that there is some distance between my personal understanding of a concept (such as being humble) and the wisdom the Y proposes. So in some hexagrams like the 15 I find myself trying to actualize my sense of "humility"...
This to say that by bringing what is high lower I dont read one should neglect ones gifts, not at all. But not boasting on them either... it's like you say "True greatness shines through of it's own, and does far more than does not."
It's likely that this does not come across right because english is not my territory, but I just feel more and more that the Y is calling me to address my megalomanic energy (I do have it, its a fact) and acknowledge - like everyone, my frail aspects. So it's about leveling the peaks, you see what I mean?
No, its not about holding back, definitely not, but perhaps being more equanimous? In the end, that you hold inferior and superior aspects of you just makes you all the more human, or as you suggest (?) - authentic?



Y*

Hi Yo, (always wanted to say that)

I'm overcompensating here for a common tendency to interpret 15 as meaning to become or to appear as less. I agree with what you've said.

edit..

On the megalomania thing, that too is a question of balance. Is it always better to lower that, or might it be better to find a play and way to express it, as the voice of your superego? But knowing it's that, you don't mistake yourself for it. I believe that keeps a large dimension alive in ones person. It enables someone to have conversations with a god; and the god tempers you and you also temper the god.

Hi Meng,

In the end we have similar takes on the 15th, the only thing me being more reactive to it as my ego is involved.
I really am grateful for what I chose to call "megalomania" - what I could also call as my ability to "dream high and go for it" or often my inability to see any boundaries, and go for it all the same! And, a couple of times in life - succeed.

But as lately I have been getting the 15 quite often, i do feel when it comes that is somehow a call to ground myself more, accept my vulnerability, accept defeat, accept my flaws, my weaknesses - being more human. I don't say that is what 15 means, but lately that is how I tend to read it... how it resonates within (which is one important level of the interpretation process, wouldn't you agree?)

Again, I'm talking to the I Ching for one year now, I'm a total beginner, and every experience just counts as learning...

Thanks!

yoana said:

wouldn't you agree?)

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Yup!

Hex 18 to 13 relationship

Hi!

I am new hier. I was reading previous posts - they were really so nice and warm. And cast myself hex 18.1.2.4.5. My question was about relationship. What kind of intention he has about me? I got so stuck and tired of way things were. Playing cat and dog....Alots of pain and love and jeleousy. Alots of everything and so little conversations about our thing. Also new thing for him on screen...about my disease. I sent him e-mail about 10 days ago that i have bipolar disorder which he didnt knew before. Well maybe it wasnt such wize way but it was my way protecting him for schok. Anyway havnt heard anything about him. So...what can i expect? Nothing? - just my own part with healing my own wounds? Is there a way to cooperate and work things out...to create more balanced and secure foundation?

Could anyone help me with those hexagrams?
I hope you undrestand my english
Thanks

Hi si11,

Would you like to start a new thread of your own? People might see this thread and not click in as it's an old one, cheers.

meng you have shared precious liberating insights here... thank you!