Last October I have broken up with someone whom I have dated for five months. The connection we had was difficult to name a "relationship." I have been ambivalent about being with that person from day two, yet, I decided to overcome my fear and stifle what the so called inner voice was telling me, and tried to make it work, as if there were no past - his, or mine. It only got worse after a while, and, three months after our first encounter, I have found myself pondering whether to keep what we had, or let it go. (In retrospect: since neither one of us was fully invested in taking the "connection" into the future, although we did not discuss that subject of "investment", no wonder it would all unravel eventually). One sunny day, on a beach in Malibu, it became clear to me that we could not go on, and later, in a wine bar, I told him that it was over. Our respective responses to that sudden resolution were devastating. Although our time spent together was not long, the bond that had formed between us was so powerful that, when I have severed it by force, before the quasi-relationship collapsed onto itself, the wound left in my heart had turned out deeper than any other traumas inflicted by my past experiences. I cried every day, and every night. I became listless and stopped eating. When sadness established itself as a permanent state, a month later, I went to a therapist.

The next sub-chapters speak of some experiences with therapy and the ways of finding one's own path to sanity.

My therapist appeared to be a good match. We shared certain core values, and our interests were similar, too. We both liked dabbling in astrology, numerology, and Tarot, and, although I have always tended to take various New Age doctrines with a dose of benevolent skepticism, when she compared my former partner's chart with mine, startlingly accurate discoveries were made. It transpired that my now "ex" had excited certain deep early traumas of which I was not aware.

Therapy was going well, I was beginning to feel better and more sane, and the crying spells gradually stopped. I was still carrying the wound, and my heart chakra, according to a healer that my therapist recommended, was not open yet. A couple of months had passed. I thought I had grieved for the failed relationship, and for my old childhood hurts enough, yet, I still felt as if in a fog, being unable to fully engage in life, in things I had once loved, in passions I had used to indulge - such as making jewelry and writing.  I called my therapist and made an appointment for the next day. Then I realized that I was already beginning to come out of the shadows. I was making plans for moves and projects.

When I arrived with a list of plans, the conversation had somehow slipped into the past, and we started discussing the formerly stirred up "issues" which, the therapist thought, needed further healing. The healing was supposed to come from more grieving, and when I told her that I have grieved enough and was ready to move on, she disagreed with me. At that point, the question, "Why Do We Need Therapy?", became insistent in my mind. I did not believe in perpetual grieving, nor did I want to think of myself as somehow "flawed" because my heart chakra was not sufficiently open yet. Of course, how could it be? I have just come out of a painful breakup, and was not ready for other people in my life. However, the chakras cannot be open at will.  The eternal grieving may just prolong the numbness and closedness to new life.

My current mantra : when the time is right, the heart will be ready for a new person whom one can trust. Prolonged grieving would only elicit self-pity and sadness. Once all the darkness and hopelessness have been felt, a shift in one's state must be made - an emotional shift that would propel one towards positive feelings and optimism, and confidence in one's ability to move forward and attract loving and trustworthy people into one's life.

The therapist does not seem to agree with me. She thinks I have trouble feeling "all the way through." She does not know (even though I told her) that I have been crying almost every day and night for at least three months after the breakup.  It was not only the loss of that person - it felt like the loss of an entire world to me. Even two worlds - the world of the man who is no longer with me, and our mutual world, the paradigm we have unconsciously created together.

It is OK to disagree with your therapist. He or she often assumes in our minds the position of authority, and that can alter our perception of our own capabilities. By accepting someone else's greater competence, we can start minimizing our own and undermine our efforts to move forward. None of that is done consciously on the part of a therapist, if he or she has integrity - and mine does, I trust her. It does, however, make us question our own competence in handling our own lives and relationships. Questioning and new perspectives afforded by good therapy can do wonders, and then there comes a moment when the client is ready to take off on his own wheels, or wings! I feel that I am ready to do that, and if the therapist doesn't, it only means that she is akin to a mother who is surprised and not ready for her toddler to suddenly start walking. The mother usually catches on, but, even if, at the moment, she is still used to her baby only crawling, the child cannot be stopped from taking the first steps.

Much has been said in the past about how one deals with a breakup. There are certain common "prescriptions" that work, however, I have found out that TIME does heal all.

Everyone is different. If you are sensitive to places, objects, words, and music, as I am, then speedy removal of all the memory triggers is the first thing to do after the breakup. But - and here is when my therapist's advice is very helpful - not until you have felt all the way through how much you still love and are attached to those objects and places, and music, and what it all means, or meant to you - and then go ahead and discard them ruthlessly!

Before I discarded the mixed CD-s he made for me, I have listened to them all, and understood, for the first time, what he was trying to tell me through music - things I didn't understand while we were together.

Before deleting our entire e-mail correspondence (hundreds of e-mails), I have re-read them all, then collected them in one folder, then deleted them from my e-mail program, and re-read the folder twice. Only then have I discarded the entire folder.

The road I used to drive to his place, and the movie theaters and other sites we visited together - I couldn't "delete" them:) I drove many times down that road, and visited a few places that were memory triggers, with every drive and visit watching the feelings of loss, grief, sadness and despair gradually fade and almost disappear.

Then there are things you want to keep - things that don't make you sad, perhaps - but that will happen once you recover from the initial pain, and everyone's timeline for suffering is different:)...

And, finally, the best "cure" of all - even though Leonard Cohen says that "There Ain't No Cure for Love," - convert your grief into creativity: write a book, a song, a poem, or simply write in your diary; make something pretty; take a trip to a winery, or to another country!

What had helped me the most was writing. After the breakup, I wrote little poems, and even  a song - something I've never done before.

I also think of the event as an enriching experience; its challenges have made me look at the "gaps" within and reassess what's been going on before the current catastrophe happened. It has shed light on the past and illumined the future.