☰
乾
Qián
Moving into body and embodying spirit
Behaviour
Heaven types want to belong. Feeling like they are part of a group or part of a relationship is of primary importance. It leads them to either try to lead and gather followers or submit and follow the group.
When they submit they feel very disempowered. They can often get into situations that are very compromising to their sense of personal power – manipulated or abused or bullied.
This perception of the experience reinforces this sense of a lack of power, which is itself disempowering.
Even if they lead they are not empowered. Their focus is still on maintaining their group – and this total focus on the group means that they neglect themselves. By setting themselves as above the group they actually can never really feel part of the group.
These themes of being better than others and also not worthy are actually not contradictory. The root of them both is a belief that they are different from others, separate or alien.
This sense of separation is driven by the conception that spirit is outside of themselves – not part of their body or humanity. There is something fundamental about themselves that they don't value – usually their gender or their humanity. They often don't like humanity – seeing instead all the problems that humans cause. This is a major issue because by not valuing humanity they are not valuing their human self. The lack of acknowledgement of their humanity drives that alienation from others and the lack of worth.
This difficulty valuing the physical body and human self is seen in many ways. They try to be an image of what others will value – through appearance and/or success and/or the appearance of success. They may dress carefully and put effort into their appearance.
When they focus on success as a way of being valued they then are driven to perform. This can drive them to be a perfectionist, always needing to achieve and do.
These efforts to be valued never succeed because they feel that it is just a veneer – a mask over a void or emptiness inside that they need to ensure others don't see. They feel others just value the mask rather than what is inside.
The difficulty valuing the physical body extends to the animal self inside. This includes urges, cravings, lust or feelings of a deep nature. It often comes out as a revulsion or difficulty with the enjoyment of sex, and being comfortable about having their own sexual needs met.
In relationships they tend to get attached to their partner leading to power issues within the relationship. Being in an open hearted relationship is important to them but extremely difficult because the openness requires them to expose what is inside of them.
Loss, grief and guilt are commonly experienced. They all come from the same source - loss. Guilt is felt because of a sense of loss of value and respect for self. In response to loss they try to hang onto the past. They hang on by moving into their head (logic brain) and disconnecting from their heart (gestalt brain). The heart is always present in the moment. It moves on. We feel grief because, in response to an external event, we cut ourselves off from our heart in order to try to hang on to the past and not move on. The grief comes from the loss of self. We only overcome grief when we reconnect again.
Solutions
Belonging comes when a person drops their awareness into their bodies and has a sense of being part of something bigger than themselves. This requires them to be completely comfortable with their physical self and makeup – recognising it as part of the miracle of creation. It is a spiritual state but a very grounded state. Like the bushman that lives on the land and is in tune with the land.
Explore how you feel when your mind switches off and you become aware of all that is around you. This may be on top of a mountain or by a waterfall. In that moment do you get a sense that you belong there.
The key for heaven is for them to always live congruent with their deeper principles. This is a steadfast type of power. Not pushing, not yielding, but steadfast. It comes when a person honours their own deeper self. This in turn comes when they embody spirit and this spiritual connection drives those deeper values.
When that state is reached they have a sense of being part of creation, belonging to their humanity, gender, and family. Its an inherent state, that they deserve and respect.
Pattern
Heaven is composed of three yang lines. It is a symbol for creative and heaven. This is the most yang trigram. There is potentially strength and power here. It is also about adhering to the correct way, the right path to follow.
In harmony they will be very principled people that stand steadfastly for their principles. In disharmony they want to belong and in order to belong they compromise themselves and their principles.
It relates to creating and unifying their life. The energy of heaven can be misused if they get corrupted by the influences around them. They may do what is expected or what they are ‘forced’ to do instead of holding firm to their truth.
One theme with heaven is the confusion of internal strength for external power. In imbalance the energy of heaven may be misused to dominate those around them in order to obtain what their mind wants. These ‘wants’ are likely to be based on their ego and created self rather than their core values and the guidance of heaven. This misuse of power will ultimately be unfulfilling. Inner peace comes from living according to their principles.
They may look for guidance of those around them or a specific leader. Unless this person is a positive influence and inspires them to live more in alignment with their core principles they may stray further from what they value internally. There is only one true source of guidance – their internal sense of spirit.
Heaven unifies. If they are fighting them self then they are not unified. To be unified they must unify their core nature and their actions. If their actions are inconsistent with their core nature then they will not be unified.
Lesson
Heaven provides both inner and outer strength. If they hold to their values and their actions are an expression of these values they will feel at one with themselves and the universe. There will seem to be a natural order to life and the universe. Their life will feel like an expression of that natural order.
In this state of alignment they will have great power to fully manifest their destiny because they won’t hold themselves back. The full resources of their spirit and the spirit around them (heaven) will be available to help create their life.