8 Rules of Love: How to Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go

by Jay Shetty

With understanding, the intolerable issue hasn’t gone away, but it is no longer intolerable for either partner.

Start conversations about the behavior or issue that troubles you. Ask your partner: “Is this something you enjoy?” “Why do you like it?” “What makes you do it this way?” Ask your partner why they are struggling to make the changes you’ve asked them to make. Ask questions and take time to hear the answers.

To reach understanding, we not only have to see that there is a reason for the issue, but we have to appreciate that growth is hard.

Acceptance can also mean that we appreciate the work our partner is doing to make a change, or that we’re working on a compromise together, or that we realized we’re the ones who have to change.

But in reality, we usually keep secrets out of fear and shame. We don’t want to lose the other person. We don’t want them to lose respect for us.

This is so real

In accepting our partner, we learn to face hard truths with grace.

To address an intolerable issue with your partner is one of the greatest challenges love presents. But if you were to find someone “perfect,” you would never grow these skills.

This is the goal of the journey from intolerable to acceptance—we actually get to the heart of why our partner is the way they are.

is recognizing that the challenge might be connected to a quality that draws us to our partner. All parts of them are connected, and seeing that connection leads us to appreciation.

This isn’t homework—rather, it’s a clarifying question: Do you want to go on this journey with your partner? When differences arise, as they do time and time again in a long-term relationship, are you curious enough to explore and understand why the difference exists between you, how you each arrived at these islands so far apart from each other, and how to build a bridge between them?

It’s hard in a breakup to remember that we are still complete even though we’ve lost someone.

Acknowledge the pain, but understand where it resides and what has broken. What you created with your partner is being dismantled, but you are not being dismantled. Your life is not falling apart. You are not over.

You have to accept that what you say probably won’t go down well. But you can shape the conversation around the three key elements of a connection: You like their personality, respect their values, and want to help them toward their goals. Try to articulate where you’re different.

Don’t wait for an apology. Closure is something you give yourself.

People aren’t always aware of their mistakes.

It just doesn’t make sense to ask someone else to heal your wound, even if it’s their fault. If someone pushed you over and you scraped your knee, you wouldn’t wait for them to go get you a bandage. You would take care of yourself.

When we ruminate about a breakup, part of what we’re doing is searching for the story behind it and what we can learn from it.

Anying bener

We have to remember that these created stories are tools for healing rather than the ultimate truth, but once we have a narrative we can wrap our heads around, it’s easier for us to move on. (And we can always revise that story later if other information becomes available.)

If you don’t give an emotion the attention it deserves, it amplifies.

Now, next to each action that brought you pain, write down who was responsible for it. Who took the action? Who said things that shouldn’t have been said? Who did the things that shouldn’t be done? Sometimes the responsibility will lie with you. Realizing that allows you to take ownership, improve, and grow.

We accept less than we deserve in favor of security. We cling to familiar pain.

Honor your ex for the gifts they gave you.

Start by asking yourself: What did I do well in this relationship and what do I not want to repeat?

This story beautifully illustrates that we have different worth to different people. We are defined by what we accept.

If you have an intrusive thought, ask yourself, do I like this thought? Is this thought useful? Is this thought insightful? Is this thought helping me move forward?

If we spend all our time post-breakup analyzing the breakup, we’ll never move on. But we shouldn’t move on by hastily jumping into another romantic relationship.

No matter where you started or who you loved or how much money you made, you may get to a point of material dissatisfaction. You feel like there must be more. You don’t feel fully satisfied.

Noting this

The way you perfect love is not by waiting to find or have it, but by creating it with everyone, all the time.

It’s a misconception that life is meant to be a love story between you and one other person. That love is just a stepping-stone. Having a partner isn’t the end goal. It’s practice for something bigger, something life-changing, a form of love that is even more expansive and rewarding than romantic love.

Love means noticing that everyone is worthy of love and treating them with the respect and dignity their humanity automatically makes them deserve.

Sannyasis experience the depths and nuances of love that we can’t always find in any one person. We come to appreciate love in different forms. We no longer serve out of a sense of moral duty, but out of an understanding of our oneness with all that is. We are connected, and when we serve others, we are serving ourselves.

Loving those around us teaches us to love each living entity, and loving everyone teaches us to love the world around us—the place they call home. And if we love the environment, then we love its creator, the divine, a power beyond ourselves.

By gradually broadening our concept of love, we begin to see new ways to access it. Love is available whenever you want to feel it by giving it to others.

I like the Chinese proverb that advises, “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.”

Vedas say you can feel love anytime you want simply by connecting with the love that is always within you.

We are wired to love and be loving.

We don’t accept abuse, but we understand that a person causes pain because they’re in pain. They’re trying to offload their pain onto you.

A sannyasi offers love to everyone the same way a doctor tries to heal people on both sides of a fight, no matter who started it. Don’t compromise your values, and don’t accept abuse, but stretch your capacity to give love.

Try to love someone for the spark in them, not what surrounds them.

You can’t always be vulnerable. Sometimes it will be used against you.

We serve in ignorance when we don’t want to be left out. We serve out of passion when we want credit for what we’ve done, or we want the recipient to owe us a debt. We serve in goodness when we don’t want recognition or an outcome—we just want to show pure love.

What if, when you enter a room, you ask yourself, how can I love everyone here today? You tell yourself, I’m just going to give love.

You can seek love your whole life and never find it, or you can give love your whole life and experience joy.

No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done or haven’t done in your life, I offer you love. I promise you are worthy of receiving it. Please know that no matter what you’re going through, someone loves you. Without reservation. Without judgment. Fully and completely.

Indah bgt i wish someone said this to me