Spiritual Tests and Hardship, what can the members here help me understand, 41.1.5 to 59

[FoxChiron]

Hi folks, first of all I want to thank you for being here and persevering in this strange Work so well. This forum is very much like a good spirited temple, or ancient university. This is a long post, if you have the time to read and think about it please do but I understand if you can't.

I have posted on this forum a few times before in moments of desperation, but I don't think returned the gift properly in terms of thought, attention, and updates. I will do my best to do better this time.

My immediate situation is this: I went to HR at a new job after an older man started acting out the aggression typical of male hazing/initiation to me in subtle ways. I simply said I am sensitive to this sort of behavior, I understand it is mostly considered normal, but for me it is not.

In the blink of an eye I was moved to working under him, and get this: the supervisor between us is a transwoman who decided that I must be trans since I didn't want to play the game of masculine challenge with a coworker.

This transperson also embodies in many ways the devouring mother archetype: she has a huge need for control and attention, and she does not want to allow anyone outside of her control to work around her. She would rather eat "her babies" instead of letting them go!

Because she made constant remarks about coming out to me and around me to other coworkers while also refusing to teach me things and acting aggressive over mistakes as if to establish a certain certain kind of authority, I went to HR again and said that it was making me uncomfortable to work under her.

She denied everything, and HR and the company responded as if I'm some kind of reprobate who is lying to get money or to get out of working. They searched my things while I took a sick day to see if I had anything they could get me with, and left them tossed on my desk so I would know it. They also sent police to my home in what I believe was an attempt to get me committed involuntarily, as they claim I am crazy since I am sticking to the truth as best I know it.

After sleeping on it I had a dream involving an anima figure sitting in front of the holy grail, but she said she lost her cup. It was right there and she just wasn't looking at it.

For whatever reason when I woke up I felt certain I had to write an email stating my fundamental disagreement as an individual with the greedy spirit of the company and its people, telling then that I would just leave and ask for nothing even though I am legally protected.

Through all of these choices, almost every single time I have tried to ask someone close to me for advice or perspective they either ignore me or tell me they're too busy. I was even cut off on the phone in the middle of trying to tell someone that I seem magically blocked from getting support!

Right now everything is hanging in suspension. I am in more debt than it seems possible to ever pay off with the wages I am capable of making, and I can't stand most jobs as a matter of being sensitive to people's cruelty, and I am unemployed. Strange coincidences are happening all around me.

I asked the oracle what the members of this forum could help me understand about this situation that I don't see, I received Hexagram 41, "Decrease" according to Wilhelm, with changing lines 1 and 5 making 59, "Dispersion."

 

[FoxChiron]

My take on this reading is that somehow this situation is positive and exactly what I need, even though it seems awful and inescapable, and I see no way through.

The first line talks about making sure you aren't robbing someone of their power by helping them. I believe this is referring to the way the people around me, and whatever spirit protectors I may have, don't seem to be lending me support. They believe I can handle this.

The fifth line says to me that my fear is unnecessary, and that real cooperative and mutual help is coming because I honored myself and the truth throughout these situations without taking away too much from others or trying to intentionally hurt them.

Nonetheless I am afraid of what is coming next, and that I may not be ready to face the challenges ahead. Many times the oracle has told me I will have good fortune in the wry sort of way where misfortune teaches you and is therefore good.

Hex 53 is big for me throughout my I Ching practice, as are Hex 1, Hex 28, and Hex 44. I know this is a gradual process of unfolding. I just wish I could figure out what the heck I am involuntarily doing to challenge the universe in this way and constantly ask it to challenge me back. I would like to find harmony in a way that is healthy for me.

If you read all this thank you. I turned notifications on and I am happy to discuss this with you if you are interested.

 

[Trojina]

You were FoxChiron and changed your name to Snowgoose right?

 

[Trojina]

I'm confused as in some threads you seem to be male but here are female? No problem if you are non binary or whatever the appropriate term it's just in another thread you were loading lumber

Asked for my life’s purpose, received hexagram 53 changing to 39

Hello, long time listener first time caller. I understand that a question like this is highly personal, vague, and thereby probably difficult to provide enough context for, but I’ll do my best to do so as briefly as I can. Recently, after some synchronicities which led me to the book, I’ve...

www.onlineclarity.co.uk

.....you didn't return to respond to that for 8 months

and then

.....you often don't go back to threads like this one?

What do I need to stop doubting myself and get in line with my Tao? 37.4 changing to 13 teice

I just received this reading twice in a row for two questions. I’ve posted twice before about what the situation in my life is, generally speaking I’ve been dealing with a lot of childhood trauma and it’s consequences, including a lot of the mistakes that my inability to see clearly has led me...

www.onlineclarity.co.uk

 

[Trojina]

My immediate situation is this: I went to HR at a new job after an older man started acting out the aggression typical of male hazing/initiation to me in subtle ways. I simply said I am sensitive to this sort of behavior, I understand it is mostly considered normal, but for me it is not.

In the blink of an eye I was moved to working under him, and get this: the supervisor between us is a transwoman who decided that I must be trans since I didn't want to play the game of masculine challenge with a coworker.

From the the other thread linked you sound male

I work a low paying job as someone who loads small lumber orders onto customer’s trucks. When I do a load for a contractor I am reminded that I haven’t committed to learning any skills in life that would make me valuable to society. When I do a load for a couple working on their own house I am reminded that I have not found material success nor romantic love. I don’t have close friends or family members that I can talk to or get ahold of except on a very inconsistent and unreliable basis, probably because that is the way in which I commit to personal relationships.

I made a lot of dumb choices when I was young and unconscious, specifically going AWOL from the army after three years and a combat deployment and robbing myself of any benefits my service would have given me, and I flunked out of school to the point that I owe thousands of dollars to a collection agency on top of student loans, with no degree to show for it. I feel like I have painted myself into a corner with no escape.I’d like to get a therapist or an analyst to help, but I can’t afford even the most basic health insurance plans.

It sounds in this current thread as if you are a woman being harassed by a male?

 

[SnowGoose]

It is so strange that I am getting this response, and yet I also see how I caused it.

I'm a man, being harassed by a person who transitioned from male to female. It's funny that this person mistook my gender and you did too, maybe I'm anima possessed? The Self is getting me good right now through everyone.

I changed my name to SnowGoose because I don't trust the fox spirit that I thought was guiding me. What I thought was a spirit guide seems to have been misleading me, or telling me I was misleading myself, I can't tell.

I didn't go back and update the old threads because I have no footing on which to explain how the situation has developed, other than to say both inwardly and outwardly it feels like things are getting worse. I added an update to one thread and I'm not even sure I could say that is what I think or how I feel about it.

I'm not trying to deceive I am just getting tossed around by unconscious complexes like crazy.

 

[SnowGoose]

I might as well tell more of the truth if I'm going to be accused of lying even here: on top of all of this I keep having dreams that indicate the pattern of events in my life before they happen, and I suddenly discovered that I can draw much better than I should be able to without practice.

I know this also sounds insane and impossible all to happen to a single person. That is why I am asking for help. I don't seem to be able to do literally anything, not doing anything is not an option, when I have something to say it is not believed, as you can see here.

Maybe I'm just an awful person and everyone can tell? I don't know how to fix it.

 

[Trojina]

Sorry, I wasn't intending to accuse you of lying exactly it's just I genuinely couldn't connect the dots between who you were in previous readings and I took it you were female here. It is quite a confusing post to follow.

I didn't go back and update the old threads because I have no footing on which to explain how the situation has developed, other than to say both inwardly and outwardly it feels like things are getting worse. I added an update to one thread and I'm not even sure I could say that is what I think or how I feel about it.

The problem is not that you don't go back to update old threads but that you often just don't come back to acknowledge them at all or you come back 8 months later when you want to post more readings.

Anyway you have said

I have posted on this forum a few times before in moments of desperation, but I don't think returned the gift properly in terms of thought, attention, and updates. I will do my best to do better this time.

...so you are aware of it.

 

[Trojina]

I asked the oracle what the members of this forum could help me understand about this situation that I don't see, I received Hexagram 41, "Decrease" according to Wilhelm, with changing lines 1 and 5 making 59, "Dispersion."

I think it's a very clear answer especially 41.1 which asks you not to linger to get on with work.

41 just asks you to decrease your involvement in this so if you are seeing a co-worker like this

This transperson also embodies in many ways the devouring mother archetype: she has a huge need for control and attention, and she does not want to allow anyone outside of her control to work around her. She would rather eat "her babies" instead of letting them go!

....then I think Yi with 41, Decrease, is suggesting you reduce your emotional engagement with all these people and that would include investing them with archetypes and so on. 41 does say to 'reduce passions', to make offerings simple.

41.1 here is very direct

'Bringing [one's own] business to an end, going swiftly,
Not a mistake.
Considering decreasing it.'

Turn away from it all to complete your work swiftly

41.5 says there is great good fortune in decrease. If you can wind all this down a notch those who troubled you actually may benefit you perhaps. 59 also asks you to let much of this go, let it dissolve, let all the ideas about these strange people dissolve. You are there to work, that's all you need to do there.

Reading your first post it sounds less like a workplace and more like a Greek tragedy/drama with all these archetypes and wotnot. 41 asks you to drop that and just see them as people and get on with the work. Patience, just doing the job will get you through I think.


Also, as it does sound like you are struggling mentally take the advice of 41 and keep it really simple. You go to work to do your job that's all.

 

[SnowGoose]

Sorry, I wasn't intending to accuse you of lying exactly it's just I genuinely couldn't connect the dots between who you were in previous readings and I took it you were female here. It is quite a confusing post to follow.



The problem is not that you don't go back to update old threads but that you often just don't come back to acknowledge them at all or you come back 8 months later when you want to post more readings.

Anyway you have said

...so you are aware of it.

What do you want me to tell you in those posts that I have not said here? I can't even say that I still believe in the one update that I did post. How am I supposed to update a thread when I don't understand the situation I am in, and the bottom falls out on me every time I reach what I think might be a new stable base?

Honestly, if you're thoughtful enough to keep all of that in mind, I don't believe you managed to misinterpret this post when I mention very clearly and explicitly that I was harassed by a trans woman who misgendered me as also trans or non binary.

Why do you feel you need to attack that weakness right now? Is it to teach me a lesson or to to punish me for the ethic you feel I have violated?

I don't believe this post is confusing or hard to follow, it's just a strange situation. Why are you attempting to make me doubt my ability to communicate?

I'd like to believe that you are acting as a friendly adversary in the manner of a Tao teacher, as the alternative is frightening.

 

[Trojina]

Crossed posts. I have just written a post answering your actual reading.

Honestly, if you're thoughtful enough to keep all of that in mind, I don't believe you managed to misinterpret this post when I mention very clearly and explicitly that I was harassed by a trans woman who misgendered me as also trans or non binary.

Actually, no I don't fully understand your first post even after reading it several times. It is quite complicated, at least I find it so. There's a lot going on and to keep in my head who is who is quite hard. I don't even understand the above quote. You were '...harassed by a trans woman who misgendered me as also trans or non binary'.......for older people like me all this stuff is new, we have to think twice about it. In my world it's still relatively easy to spot who is male and who is female and 'misgendering' is something I have never encountered.

I don't believe this post is confusing or hard to follow, it's just a strange situation. Why are you attempting to make me doubt my ability to communicate?

So it's not about me not understanding it's all about me trying to make you doubt yourself? That's not true, I don't really understand your situation. If I sat and read it another 3 times I might but it's a nice day outside.

 

[SnowGoose]

Crossed posts. I have just written a post answering your actual reading.


Actually, no I don't fully understand your first post even after reading it several times. It is quite complicated, at least I find it so. There's a lot going on and to keep in my head who is who is quite hard. I don't even understand the above quote. You were '...harassed by a trans woman who misgendered me as also trans or non binary'.......for older people like me all this stuff is new, we have to think twice about it. In my world it's still relatively easy to spot who is male and who is female and 'misgendering' is something I have never encountered.

So it's not about me not understanding it's all about me trying to make you doubt yourself? That's not true, I don't really understand your situation. If I sat and read it another 3 times I might but it's a nice day outside.

I know why you are responding this way, I wish you understood the level of psychological distress I am under right now.

I think I am one of those cases that Carl Jung and Marie Louise Von Franz talked about where I made some kind of error in the past and now whatever connection I had to the Self and the Work is twisted and corrupted to the point that my options are lead a life of irrational suffering that people willfully misunderstand in order to add to the pile I am under.

My choices right now are between totally abandoning myself and my own life to wander around as a schizophrenic homeless person, institutionalizing myself, and ending my life prematurely.

It's a nice day out here too, I recognize the lesson you are trying to teach me, and I recognize my own inability to integrate that lesson in time to save myself or anyone else.

I feel that I agreed to do this Work when I was very young and did not understand what I was asking for. It was a grave mistake that is visited on me daily.

I think the unconscious is going to completely take over my brain soon. I wish I knew what it was asking me for so that I didn't have to lose myself and my life in order to stop this

 

[Trojina]

I looked at your readings here in post 9 if you have seen that.

I recognize the lesson you are trying to teach me, and I recognize my own inability to integrate that lesson in time to save myself or anyone else.

I'm not consciously trying to teach you anything.

My choices right now are between totally abandoning myself and my own life to wander around as a schizophrenic homeless person, institutionalizing myself, and ending my life prematurely.

If you are schizophrenic your best option as you know is to make sure you take/continue the medication as without that life is indeed hellish. I see that in those I have known with this affliction.

But you are working, you have a job so that means you've been functioning very well on your medication presumably. You've become sidetracked with concerns about other staff there. Yi advises you keep it really simple. You just go and do your work, take the medication and recognise when, as I'm sure you do sometimes, there's some paranoia happening. I'm not saying your current issues are paranoia as I really wouldn't know but if that's an aspect of your illness that crops up you can't really be dealing with extra interpersonal stress - though yes I know we've had that here.

I feel that I agreed to do this Work when I was very young and did not understand what I was asking for. It was a grave mistake that is visited on me daily.

But you have gotten this far successfully so you have achieved a great deal more than many. I don't think I'd agree you agreed to have schizophrenia but I guess some people do think it's some kind of spiritual agreement.

Thanks for explaining the situation with your mental health.

 

[SnowGoose]

I looked at your readings here in post 9 if you have seen that.


I'm not consciously trying to teach you anything.


If you are schizophrenic your best option as you know is to make sure you take/continue the medication as without that life is indeed hellish. I see that in those I have known with this affliction.

But you are working, you have a job so that means you've been functioning very well on your medication presumably. You've become sidetracked with concerns about other staff there. Yi advises you keep it really simple. You just go and do your work, take the medication and recognise when, as I'm sure you do sometimes, there's some paranoia happening. I'm not saying your current issues are paranoia as I really wouldn't know but if that's an aspect of your illness that crops up you can't really be dealing with extra interpersonal stress - though yes I know we've had that here.

But you have gotten this far successfully so you have achieved a great deal more than many. I don't think I'd agree you agreed to have schizophrenia but I guess some people do think it's some kind of spiritual agreement.

Thanks for explaining the situation with your mental health.

I am not diagnosed with schizophrenia, because I am not able to get mental health help. Something blocks me every time I try.

I no longer have a job. They treated me as crazy after I went to HR, they searched my belongings and left them tossed on the desk to send the message that they did not believe me and that they would do anything and everything to intimidate me out of working there.

The next day I sent them an email saying I quit voluntarily and I don't want anything from them. I don't really know why I did that, it was like a compulsion and didn't fit with what I had said I was going to do the next day.

Because of this I am going to lose my health insurance, and any claim I had against these people for their abusive treatment.

The next day the psychiatrist I had made an appointment with for August to finally get help called me and said they could move me up to Friday.

I'm not being melodramatic when I say that I am attacked from within and without, and that the universe is out to get me in a way that I can't understand or mitigate.

I would take any pills made available to me. It's like I have been marked to somehow become enlightened about all of this and because I can't the attacks and misfortune are relentless. I missed a chance earlier in life to get on medicine when I didn't know any better and thought I could learn to handle myself.

All the oracle ever tells me to do anymore is sit in it. It hints all the time that I'm supposed to do something and I don't know what it is.

I promise you personally that if this ever makes sense to me I will update you and explain it to you, if I can find you. My promises aren't worth much because of the way I get possessed but if I manage to get to that level of clarity that probably won't be an issue anymore.

 

[SnowGoose]

I am honestly thinking of committing myself and letting go of what will come of the medical bills in the future, but my gut tells me that somehow this too will snap back on me and be punished to an irrational degree.

Either the doctors won't believe me, they'll misunderstand me, or the pills will have some unforseen consequence.

The last dream I remember having night before last, an anima figure sat in front of the holy grail saying she had lost her cup.

If the answer to this is right in front of me like the dream seems to indicate, I don't believe I'll ever find it.

 

[Trojina]

Right now everything is hanging in suspension. I am in more debt than it seems possible to ever pay off with the wages I am capable of making, and I can't stand most jobs as a matter of being sensitive to people's cruelty, and I am unemployed. Strange coincidences are happening all around me.

In the UK if you have debts you cannot pay off there are debt relief charities that can advise you so you could actually just write off your debts possibly with a 'debt relief order'.

I mean if you are ill and in debt then of course you need support and that will vary according to the country you are in. You don't need to lose hope you will get help from some source.

The next day the psychiatrist I had made an appointment with for August to finally get help called me and said they could move me up to Friday.

That's good news if they can see you this Friday and get you the right medication which should make life a lot less traumatic for you. Once you have the right medication it should be easier for other things to fall into place.

I asked the oracle what the members of this forum could help me understand about this situation that I don't see, I received Hexagram 41, "Decrease" according to Wilhelm, with changing lines 1 and 5 making 59, "Dispersion."

I thought the above question was about the work situation but you've left

I no longer have a job. They treated me as crazy after I went to HR, they searched my belongings and left them tossed on the desk to send the message that they did not believe me and that they would do anything and everything to intimidate me out of working there.

The next day I sent them an email saying I quit voluntarily and I don't want anything from them. I don't really know why I did that, it was like a compulsion and didn't fit with what I had said I was going to do the next day.

Well regarding the reading I still think it asks you to keep things as simple as you can for yourself. Your meeting with the psychiatrist is very important to get you those meds and more support

All the oracle ever tells me to do anymore is sit in it. It hints all the time that I'm supposed to do something and I don't know what it is.

Perhaps it would be better not to consult the I Ching at the moment. More engagement with oracles and spirituality may not be the best thing right now if you are already struggling to get a grip on reality

 

[SnowGoose]

I think you're probably right that I need to take a step back from spirituality, it was just all I had to keep me going through the many dark situations I have been through. The last reading I just did was 50.6 changing to 32. It's a good reading that doesn't feel good.

I hope it's true that I can finally get on the right medicine. In America when people are in dire circumstances and a lot of debt, we have contempt for them.

Not your fault that you didn't understand and thought I just needed to lighten up and not take ridiculous things so seriously, it's a weird thing about me that I draw that kind of reaction out of people even if I really need help. The lines set it up that way too, in hindsight.

I appreciate the help you have been able to give me, thank you.

 

[Liselle]

Re: updating threads and so on - what you're doing right now in this thread is good. As Trojina said, we know some threads won't have tidy outcomes right away (maybe not ever, sometimes), but we appreciate when people acknowledge replies and engage with the thread and the reading and us as best we can considering it's an internet forum. We just don't like to feel as if we're talking into a vacuum.

Also agree with Trojina that there's a line between having a vibrant connection to spirit (good), and being consumed by it. Maybe that's part of the point of your reading. 41 pours out, but 59 is a huge flood where boundaries and landmarks are lost. You are very spiritual which is fine, but you do still have to live in the ordinary mundane world unfortunately. Spirituality can help you deal with that as you said, give you a way to put things in a bigger context, but maybe it's going too far in the 59 direction and is causing you extra problems. (Which is sad when you think about it.)

I don't feel I'm explaining this well. Just that there's a line between helpful and too much, which can be hard to find.

For instance it's fine to see an archetype in your former boss, but then you probably have to take a step back and deal with her in a more prosaic way. Has she actually done things that most humans would agree are bad in the legal / HR sense (41.5)? Maybe, but maybe she's just a difficult person of the sort the world is full of. I wasn't there and don't know, but I wonder if the reading suggests you over-mythologized (59).