By Kelly Seal
When someone leaves us broken-hearted, our natural reaction is to find love again as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, healing a broken heart takes time and patience. It’s necessary to spend some time alone so you can build your own strength and move on to a happier, healthier relationship in the future.
Like us, many celebrities move from one relationship to the next, hoping that this will ease their pain and help make the transition easier. Eva Longoria started dating Penelope Cruz’s brother Eduardo shortly after her split with Tony Parker. Jake Gyllenhaal quickly started dating after breaking up with Reese Witherspoon, leaving a trail of girlfriends behind including Taylor Swift, Carey Mulligan and Jennifer Aniston. While romance creates a sense of happiness and excitement for a brief time, eventually old pain can start to resurface.
If you’ve recently endured a break-up, try giving yourself some time off and do the following before rushing back in to the dating pool:
Allow yourself to grieve: A break-up is a huge transition.  When you’ve been with someone you love, it’s natural to feel pain and anger. Allowing yourself to grieve over the relationship is part of letting go.
Hang with uplifting friends: We all have friends who can lift our spirits, be supportive and are just fun to be around. If you spend time around people with positive energy, it has an affect on your mood and can help lift your depression. Avoid friends who would rather complain about exes; this won’t help you move on.
Do things that make you happy: Maybe you haven’t been surfing in a few years, but have always enjoyed it. Or perhaps you put off taking those cooking classes because you didn’t have time. Now is the perfect opportunity to do things you enjoy, and remember why you liked them in the first place.
Get to know yourself again: Sometimes, we feel so lost after a break-up we don’t even know who we are without our exes. If you feel adrift, try doing something new, whether it’s going to a new restaurant or paragliding on a Saturday afternoon. Trying new things lifts our spirits and puts us back in touch with the part of ourselves that is willing to take risks and grow.
When you’ve gone through these steps and feel like it’s time to start meeting people again, go for it.  Just be sure to take your time and keep living your own life. Look at dating as a chance to meet many different kinds of people, rather than a way to get back into a relationship. The right man or woman will come into your life when you’re ready to move on.
