Buddha The Conquerer - Estonian Roerich Society (Image via Wikipedia)

{being in} love requires *elasticity. love may conquer all, but don’t let it conquer then crush. one must be flexible and autonomous with oneself in order to be good with another. here are some excellent excerpts from a bittersweet and touching article by Kelly Reynolds from Tiny Buddha 2011/10/26 ~ snb

P.S. In physics, *elasticity (or stretchiness) is “the physical property of a material that returns to its original shape after the stress (e.g. external forces) that made it deform or distort is removed. The relative amount of deformation is called the strain.” 

Tiny Buddha ARTICLE: Knowing When to Walk Away from Unrequited Love.

{excellent excerpts from article & notes to oneself}

“Love does not obey our expectations; it obeys our intentions.” ~Lloyd Strom

• I have not been lucky in love. I’ve been blessed with some amazing moments over the years, but somehow have managed to choose partners who did not want what I wanted, did not feel what I felt, and did not want to walk beside me into a future together.
• Love is a blessing, this we know. Unrequited love is toxic, and it can eat you alive.
• Falling in love can be a slippery slope, regardless of any protective barriers we may have built. It can ease in like a light a mist that settles itself beautifully over your life, or it can blindside you.
• Often we fall in love with a person before we have fully gotten to know them. By this point it’s too late—you’ve already stretched your heart for someone capable of bruising it. This is what love requires: utmost vulnerability and trust. Hopes and expectations rise along with the awareness that it can slip away.
• do our best to live in the moment. Love is elastic. It stretches and retracts and changes shape constantly. It is very uncertain. One day you are over the moon and the next disillusioned.
• The elastic can break. You can re-tie it, but there is now a knot. Suddenly that perfect perception of the other person is a little bit tainted. Something rocked the pedestal. Sometimes we can recover from this, sometimes we can’t.
• Loyalty and commitment teach us that we are not to walk away from people that we love. Buddhism teaches us to love without expectation. There are a lot of belief systems about love and I question them often. If your love is shared and you are both happy I assume you wouldn’t have to question love at all.
• But if your relationship, be it friendship or romantic love, is unbalanced and one person is hurting, how much is enough? How many pieces are supposed to break and how damaged can we allow ourselves to get before we throw these belief systems out the window and accept that this type of love isn’t healthy?
• How do we do what is best for ourselves without damaging the heart and mind of someone else in the process?
• I now know what I would like my relationship with my future partner to feel like, and that is the first step towards being open to receiving this gift. Love is a gift.
• Enjoy the good times together as they are happening and be grateful for them.
• Stay out of the future and in the moment. Now is certain.
• Protect both your heart and your partner’s, whether the love is still there or not. We are human and we deserve kindness. We don’t need to add to the burdens we already carry by hurting others. Trust me, it doesn’t make thing better.
• If your relationship starts to crumble, know when to put it down and let it be. Don’t grind it into dust.
• Some things just won’t work, no matter how badly we wish they would.
• It is okay to walk away from something that hurts you.
• Surround yourself with loving relationships. Something beautiful is out there waiting for you. If you feel it on the inside, you’ll find it out there.

~ Kelly Reynolds via Tiny Buddha 2011/10/26 
[read MORE] Knowing When to Walk Away from Unrequited Love | Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In.

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