Jay Shetty: Instead of expecting love, we can find ways of expressing love

The #1 New York Times best-selling author and former monk Jay Shetty is coming to Hyderabad to Shilpakala Vedika on May 5.

Hyderabad: A lot of us leaned into the book ‘Think Like a Monk’ during the Covid-19 lockdowns to understand how to have a positive perspective towards life. The #1 New York Times best-selling author, former monk, podcaster and purpose coach Jay Shetty has penned another book ‘8 Rules of Love’, and is coming to mana Hyderabad as part of his ‘Love Rules’ World Tour.

In an exclusive chat with ‘Telangana Today’, Shetty shared that the Indian audience can expect an interactive experience filled with insight, stories and wisdom. “I’ll be taking audience questions which I’m really excited about! India is my spiritual home so I feel honoured to be touring here to give back to a place that has given me so much,” he said.

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Giving an insight into his latest book and why people should read it, he said, “We often think that love is about romance, and we get fixated on this idea that there’s this one person out there who’s supposed to supply love for us. But there are so many ways to experience it. With friends and family, with colleagues, with animals, and nature. Even with strangers, through service. We focus on where we can get love, but the truth is that anytime you want to experience love, you can simply share it.”

One of the main reasons the author wrote the book is to break the prejudice that love is about meeting “the one” and that somehow things will just work out. “If you think about it, you wouldn’t approach your career with that mindset. You wouldn’t assume that you’ll just stumble on the right job, and if it’s meant to be it will just go well from there. We’re far more intentional than that, so why wouldn’t we be just as intentional about something as important as love? So, in this book I describe how we can be more thoughtful about love. It’s all about the habits and practices we want to cultivate and engage in if we want to create and sustain successful relationships,” Shetty shared.

On relationship advice to the present generation, he said, “One of the biggest misconceptions people have is that when you’re with the right person, or you’re in a healthy relationship, it means you won’t argue. The truth is that no matter how compatible a couple is, if you never fight, that’s not bliss, that’s avoidance. It’s all about learning how to fight effectively, in a way that’s healthy and where you both feel heard.”

Research shows that conflict actually leads to stronger relationships. “We often focus on all of the love we don’t feel we’re getting rather than the love we could be giving. The beautiful thing about love is that whether you’re receiving it or giving it, you’re still experiencing it. So, if you want to feel more connection, you don’t have to wait for someone to give it to you— you can choose to connect. So, instead of expecting love, we can find ways of expressing love,” he concluded.

‘Jay Shetty: Love Rules’ World Tour, produced by BookMyShow, will travel to Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru on May 2nd and 3rd, 5th and 6th 2023, respectively.