Recurrent negative readings

[HelenBrun]

Hi everyone, for over a year now I've been getting mixed readings about my situation (how to find the right partner for me). I tried to religiously follow the advice - mostly when casting negative readings that would urge me to wait, hold back, and retreat. It's gotten to a point where I retreated from most attempts, and when I attempted to address things with someone I love, it led to conflict and sorrow. Some readings seem to indicate that the person I still love is my long-term partner, but it can't possibly be so because they have consistently hurt me.
Today I was in a positive mindset but received 3 negative readings - like 18 unchanging, 47, 39 - about what I can do to be closer to my true partner.
I am disheartened and tired. I feel this practice of asking the iChing is leading to a decline in my mental health. I expressed this thought to iChing and received 29.4. This reads to me that I am trapped in a hopeless situation, with no hope to find a partner.
I then expressed that I need to step away from iChing as recurrent negative answers, daily, simply destroy any sense of optimism I muster. I got 40.4. It's almost like the confirmation that yeah maybe iChing isn't my companion.
I'm not able to comprehend why I get so many negative readings when I simply ask for ways to improve my wellbeing.

Any thoughts? Has your practice ever turned to be so consistently negative that it affects your desire to take any action whatsoever?

 

[Trojina]

I'm not able to comprehend why I get so many negative readings when I simply ask for ways to improve my wellbeing.

They aren't just 'negative readings' though, they are saying something about your situation. It might be the idea of 'negative' is swamping all else the casts might be saying possibly?

I am disheartened and tired. I feel this practice of asking the iChing is leading to a decline in my mental health. I expressed this thought to iChing and received 29.4. This reads to me that I am trapped in a hopeless situation, with no hope to find a partner.

It might well contribute to a decline in one's mental health if for example one's own hopelessness or fear or whatever negative emotion 'harnesses' the answers into their own likenesses. In other words answers as continuations of our own self appraisal etc etc, ie projection, more or less. I mean I think that is inevitable as we can only 'hear' answers often in shades of our own inner voices which may be critics, cheerleaders or anything in between. I think there are times it's helpful to put Yi away especially if it is making you feel less positive than you would have otherwise when answers seem to amplify self doubt or even self hatred and so on.

I don't see 29.4 as being trapped in a hopeless situation. It speaks of succour arriving within what feels like a trapped situation. It says

'A cup of wine, a pair of dishes,
Use earthenware.
Let in with ropes from the window.
In the end, no mistake.'

Hmm I don't see hopeless situation there? The image I have of this is of someone cloistered away, possibly isolated or unseeing and then just enough arriving to keep them going, to give them hope. This is a picture of someone sending in food and drink through a window, like they did in lockdown. In lockdown neighbours handed the elderly and vulnerable food and drink through their windows. Not a hopeless situation but one where help, strength and support arrive. It's not massive, it's simple but it's enough. I tend to see this line occurring often when one feels quite abandoned or in the dark. Emotionally 29 is often a time of being in the dark, not knowing where one is, being tossed and turned by emotion.

Also it says 'In the end no mistake' and so how is that you being trapped in a hopeless situation?

Today I was in a positive mindset but received 3 negative readings - like 18 unchanging, 47, 39 - about what I can do to be closer to my true partner.

When you say your 'true partner' do you mean the one you are with or another you've not met ?

I'd say Yi is calling your attention to your whole orientation to this issue perhaps. You are speaking almost in life and death terms as not finding the one = utter hopelessness and actually 29.4 does give that sense someone locked away with nothing, yet there is something, there's a window, an opening, a hand sharing sustenance enough to give strength for better days. You don't have to read these as predictions of doom you could look at them differently or you could have a Yi break just so you have a space where it's just you not Yi. I think it can be very important to remember we can live without Yi and the vast majority of people do perfectly well making decisions by themselves every day and it's good to remember that to avoid Yi dependence sometimes. It can be refreshing and means that one returns with a new perspective when and if one comes back to consult the oracle.

I personally do recall times years ago being in the place you are with it and it really just not being the best thing, not helping me mentally, particularly increasing anxiety. It did help to just put it away for some time and it does look different on return. Often what's happened is one has recruited Yi into a whole maelstrom of troubling complexes and such and one needs just to let it go a while. This leads well into 40.4

I then expressed that I need to step away from iChing as recurrent negative answers, daily, simply destroy any sense of optimism I muster. I got 40.4. It's almost like the confirmation that yeah maybe iChing isn't my companion.

'Releasing the thumbs also.
Partners arrive, hence truth and confidence.'

Ah so someone arrived in 29.4 and now you have another line 4 with partners arriving when you let go.

Bradford wrote about how this line describes how in archery one's own thumbs can get in the way of the release (40) of the arrow. There's plenty of arrows in 40, the thing that shoots down foxes, hawks and obstacles. The release of tension and knots and the release of tension involved in shooting an arrow from a bow are all in 40. I think Yi is saying 'yes, you are holding on just a bit too tight and a bit skewiff to me........ you're squashing my elbow, now if you just let go a minute things can work better in a while and then the understandings you seek from me can more easily come'.

It could be you developed an orientation to Yi's answers that is sort of making you 'all fingers and thumbs' get in your own way of really hearing it. It is possibly a good idea then just to chill a bit with it or even stick to asking light question for a while to change your relationship with it. Daily readings for example are both light and also sometimes instructive and fun.

Both 39uc and 47uc describe hardships you are labouring under and then you get 40.4 regarding losing optimism I wonder if overall this is a time to be trying less hard to make things work and focus more on the immediate small pleasures in life ? 29.4 can for example be a small pleasure that saves one from going under mentally.

 

[Cometta]

I observed that when I am stressed and impatient to find a way out I don't understand the answers Yi gives me, and I tend to take it negatively as not helpful and accuse it of being uncaring. So I just go away frustrated or sad and try to do something else to forget the mood I was in or I surrender completly 40.4, then in a moment of complete detachement, when my mind has forgotten and it doesn't resist, dots start to connect, or I get a sign or remember a detail that links to what the reading said, small openings as in 29.4. Sometimes just when walking down the stairs things start to move differently. I think some empty space is needed to form a meaning.

 

[HelenBrun]

Hi Trojina, thank you. I shed a few tears reading your answers, and it was good.

They aren't just 'negative readings' though, they are saying something about your situation.

Indeed, my deeper (nearly) subconscious stream of fear and grief colors both the cast and the interpretation. I often try to think of reading as a diagnosis. Eg: "right now you're feeling this way and acting from this perspective brings misfortune or further mental turmoil."

In other words answers as continuations of our own self appraisal etc etc, ie projection, more or less.

Hmm I don't see hopeless situation there? The image I have of this is of someone cloistered away, possibly isolated or unseeing and then just enough arriving to keep them going, to give them hope.

I tend to see this line occurring often when one feels quite abandoned or in the dark. Emotionally 29 is often a time of being in the dark, not knowing where one is, being tossed and turned by emotion.

That's precisely why I reached a breaking point with the answers. I've been in this space and worse for more than a year. I've tried very hard to get by on a metaphorical 'just enough'. When I try hard get to a more optimistic state, I hope it's reflected in a reading, and if it's not, all that optimism is slashed.

When you say your 'true partner' do you mean the one you are with or another you've not met ?

I always take care to mean 'the one who is or will be willing to be my partner long term, happy to share, love, do the work, etc". The one I loved and still do wants nothing to do with me. Yet, I feel like various casts refer to him, such as 38.1.2, 53.3.5. More so, when I asked 'Who is my true partner?', got 56 UC. I riled myself up because this man I love is 'busy traveling'.

the vast majority of people do perfectly well making decisions by themselves every day and it's good to remember that to avoid Yi dependence sometimes.

That's very true.

I think Yi is saying 'yes, you are holding on just a bit too tight and a bit skewiff to me........

That's very well put and it almost feels like a pun, because I use yarrow sticks, which are like the arrows.

Both 39uc and 47uc describe hardships you are labouring under and then you get 40.4 regarding losing optimism I wonder if overall this is a time to be trying less hard to make things work

I am giving it a break and asking for forgiveness from myself for the pain I have experienced while in the grip of archetypes, complexes and emotions that are too big to sim through without a safe vessel or even a small crew of solid supporters.

 

[HelenBrun]

Yes, that's also true. 'Our karma is our mind' as Ram Das says.
I believe that the answers I seek are within me, whether in my private section of the unconscious or in the collective part - in the human legacy of symbols, instincts, and wisdom. I trust in that part when I ask with great sincerity for a way through. It's disheartening not to receive a positive reading.

I observed that when I am stressed and impatient to find a way out I don't understand the answers Yi gives me, and I tend to take it negatively as not helpful and accuse it of being uncaring. So I just go away frustrated or sad and try to do something else to forget the mood I was in or I surrender completly 40.4, then in a moment of complete detachement, when my mind has forgotten and it doesn't resist, dots start to connect, or I get a sign or remember a detail that links to what the reading said, small openings as in 29.4. Sometimes just when walking down the stairs things start to move differently. I think some empty space is needed to form a meaning.

 

[HelenBrun]

UPDATE
After two months of taking a break from my daily readings, I came back to the IChing. I didn’t ask a question to start with.

What I did is I set an intention to see what the response is to me coming back. Although I don’t remember the exact hexagram, and I promised some will go back to my journals to find it, I remember vividly that I was struck by the lovely answer I have received.

It was one moving line in the 40th hexagram. Remember the original hexagram of this thread is 40.

I received a moving line I don’t remember. The immediate association that I had with it was that I am okay to come back and I’m also free to continue.

I have had plenty readings since then and although my relationship with the IChing has improved, I still have days when I am completely wiped energetically by a hexagram I receive.

One must be careful it’s not an external personified “master” one is connecting to upon asking. I am connected at times to my Shadow, at other times to my inner council. And at times the response is silly literal description of my situation.

All in all, the reset was good, as the original hexagram described. 40.4. Release the grip on the yarrow sticks and friends will come. The same friend came back, the iching. And you - those who responded - also came to help.

 

[IrfanK]

Hi Helen, I wonder if you have any friends in real life who are interested in the Yi too? Friends who are supportive and positive? I thought Trojina's response was excellent. If you had someone in real life who could encourage to look at these so-called "negative readings" in a more positive light, that would be excellent.

If you're in the mood for it, have a look on the Exploring Divination section and check out the late Bradford Hatcher's post about "negative" hexagrams. It was so good that Hilary made it a sticky, I think.

Yi is sometimes sharp-tongued, but never cruel.

 

[HelenBrun]

No, none of my friends have an interest. I’m the only one who has an openness to the transpersonal and mysticism.
I think my own psyche is sharp tongued.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious you are bound to repeat experiences and call it fate”

 

[Cometta]

One must be careful it’s not an external personified “master” one is connecting to upon asking. I am connected at times to my Shadow, at other times to my inner council. And at times the response is silly literal description of my situation.

Helen
Like you I started thinking the answers are all and definite solutions to my general situation (bigger than the question I asked). But I learned from talking to yi to recognize the differents parts of me where the movement is happening, once they are identified it becomes clearer to scale the answer to the question and organize myself as to let that identified part move with the change.
I think the overall structure of the oracle is the same in our inner world but as it considers everything changing it is more a matter of knowing what part it is talking to so the change can operate toward a better position.