February has been an interesting month for dealing with relationships issues in counselling and more interesting for me trying to find creative outlets for dealing with these issues.

Anniversaries around Valentine’s days are brutal and relationships are born and often put to death during this time leading to paradoxical emotional upheavals.

Working on using creativity to channelize the process of loss and grief has led me to plethora of resources, from journaling to using narratives to using music and drama to deal with these feelings.  While one client wanted to make a romantic musical out of his experience, another one did not know what to do with her ten years worth of stuff. While pondering whether to burn them or bury them, store them or donate them…I introduced her to  the museum of broken relationships where she could donate some of her belongings…..in order to honor that part of  her which   needed to be preserved and celebrated….

I think this is such a brilliant idea   where we are trying to forget those reminders of the failed love or the unthinkable gut wrenching emotions and what to do with them, this museum offers a brilliant alternative. You can in fact become a donor and the description goes like this:  Would you also like to become a donor? Recently ended a relationship? Wish to unburden the emotional load by erasing everything that reminds you of that painful experience? Don’t do it – one day you will be sorry.

Instead, donate the objects to the Museum while recovering and take part in the creation of collective emotional history. In order to protect your privacy all the exhibits are displayed anonymously…

I think as counsellors we face such situation where clients are not ready to let go but cannot live with   physical memories either-perhaps they can explore this alternative and that way keep their memories alive in some ways, if they choose to… We celebrate dinosaurs, historical figures and commemorate disengaged events so why not celebrate a part of us that perhaps heals the past, deal with the present and shapes the future in some way-emotionally, socially, spiritually and creatively..

More information: http://brokenships.com/en

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA