Handling Unrequited Love in Friendship.

You’ve been close friends for a while, and it’s never been a problem, until now. Suddenly, you find your feelings changing. You’re up all night wondering what exactly they meant in that conversation you had that afternoon. Your face flushes when they appear. Was s/he looking at me longingly when I entered the room today, or was it normal? What was that dream about her about, anyway? Reasons could be many, but if you feel your feelings for your friend changing, it’s time to dig deep for some self-reflection and get to the bottom of your relationship. Are you potential lovers, or just the best of friends? If you met each other in some type of monastic existence where you had taken vows of chastity, then you would have to accept loving each other spiritually instead of physically, but that is not the situation that unrequited lovers normally face.

The problem is that if you are really in love with your best friend, and you are withholding your feelings or desires, this withholding of physical love will eventually cause you pain to the point of an unrequited love obsession. In that case, you may need to let go of the friendship and cut the ties with your beloved, because you cannot go on hating being the best friend to the person you love.

I have met a lot of people who feel that this kind of feelings for their best friend greatly affect work, health and even friendship. If you agree to this and see this symptom in yourself, it is a warning sign. This has become obsessive and is now harming you. One of the reasons that you have the symptoms of an unrequited love obsession is because you are leaking power and giving power away to this person. When an individual’s relationship with self is dysfunctional, he gives power to other people by allowing cords of energy to tie him to those people. Similarly, when an unrequited lover madly pursues his beloved, he is actually giving the object of love the power to control him. Even if you realise this phenomenon and begin the process of cutting cords that are controlling you and draining your positive energy, the cords keep coming back unless you resolve the underlying reason for this cording with the specific individual. As I have mentioned in my blog Separation and Unrequited Love, when you start making a connection with yourself, you realise that there is much more to you than this relationship that is holding you back from discovering the actual you. If your beloved chooses to remain friends, you must decide if you value the friendship enough to honor it and remain friends, or if it is simply too painful for you. In either case, you will need to cut cords that are binding you to them, in order to release the unrequited love obsession and the pain it is causing you.

I have always emphasised on the power of meditation and self-realisation through introspection. I am now going to share my most preferred way of meditation get rid of the negative cords that, I sometimes feel, are pulling me down:

In your meditation, imagine that you are holding a sword of light. Know that this is the light of truth. Wield this sword all around your body, cutting all the cords between you and your beloved. Make sure you cut them from all sides, front and back.  Continue cutting until you feel that all of the cords have been cut – it’s okay if you feel somewhat saddened. Imagine yourself holding and comforting yourself, with your hands around your body to smooth out the ends of the cords that are still there, letting them fall away and dissolve; do this with a great deal of self-love and tenderness. Now release your beloved and let him go with love and forgiveness, by ending his contract with you.

Repeat this exercise several times, until you feel you are now able to handle the truth of the matter. The truth that the two of you can never be lovers. Once these obsessive cords are cut and you have realised and accepted the truth, you will know if you can love him as a friend in your life, or whether you will need to let him go completely for this lifetime, and wait to be reunited as soulmates in another life.