直到現在，我有時都會覺得我似乎一不小心走進了《周六夜現場》的錄制外景地。就在這個情人節前的周末，我在哈德遜山谷的一座冬意盎然的農場里待了30多個小時。我將在這里遇見一位人生導師，在瑜伽室里唱贊美詩，寫“感恩日記”，吃的是藜麥和甘藍，喝的是自釀的康普茶。一位有三個碩士學位的女人會告訴我，如今的世界之所以變幻莫測，是由于“大地的振動”（顯然這種振動正在增多）。在一頓以酸奶黃瓜沙拉和味噌菜花湯為主食的午飯上，一位與前男友在火人節上認識的女病友十分嚴肅地告訴大家，她平時選擇哪天去理發是由月相決定的（滿月時理發頭發長得快，缺月時頭發長得慢）。大家聽罷都紛紛點頭，沒有人一個人表現得好像覺得她在說瘋話。

之所以會這樣，也是由于“分手訓練營”中的三名老師和五位病友都是非常注重靈性的人。類似“心靈查克拉”、“情感切割”、“控制自己的能量”、“向宇宙發問”這種詞兒，在這里都成了口頭禪了。不過我認為，大家之所以全都煞有介事地點頭，還因為我們來此最重要的任務之一，就是要對“分手訓練營”中的安排無條件地支持。我是其中唯一一個不是來治療分手后的心靈創傷的人。（不過訓練營的人告訴我，我可以利用這段學習經歷，打破我在戀愛和人生中的一些不良模式。）

At times, it will feel as if I’ve wandered into an SNL skit. Over the 30 hours that I spend on a wintery farm in Hudson Valley, New York at a breakup bootcamp—on Valentine’s Day weekend, no less—I will meet with a life coach, chant in a yoga yurt, write in a gratitude journal, and consume large amounts of quinoa, kale, and home-brewed kombucha. A woman with three master's degrees will tell me the world is such a volatile place right now because of “the earth’s vibrations” (apparently, they’re increasing). Over a lunch of cucumber yogurt salad and miso-cauliflower, a fellow attendee, who met her now ex at Burning Man, will gravely inform the group that she aligns her haircuts with the lunar cycle (a waning moon increases growth, while a waxing one reduces it.) Everyone will nod. No one will act like this is an objectively crazy statement.

In part, this is because the majority of the three teachers and five fellow attendees appear to be deeply spiritual people. Phrases such as “heart chakra,” “emotional cutting,” “take control of your energy,” and “asking the universe” are used casually. But I think everyone also nods because one of our most important jobs is to be unconditionally supportive; I am the only one here who did not come to learn how to heal after heartbreak. (I’m told I can use the experience to help break bad patterns in my relationship and life in general).

“分手訓練人”的創辦人兼總策劃師艾米?陳自稱是“科學家版的凱莉?布雷蕭（美劇《欲望都市》的女主角）”。艾米?陳擁有一個溝通學的學士學位，她也是連鎖乒乓球俱樂部SpiN的營銷總監。不過她真正熱衷的卻是研究婚姻與愛情，尤其是關于如何幫人度過失戀后的痛苦期。過去十年里，她寫了不少戀愛方面的文章，先是發表在溫哥華（她的老家）的一家報紙上，現在則主要通過她的博客發聲。她最常探討的話題就是分手后應該做些什么。五年前，她曾以為會牽手一生的那個男人劈腿了一名女同事，這次意外卻讓她發現了她的人生的真正意義。

“我之所以生在這個世界上，就是要幫助人們治愈他們的心靈創傷。”有一次我們正吃奇雅布丁和燕麥卷時，她這樣對我說。

分手那年她29歲，她陷入日益低落的情緒中長達幾個月之外，當時她也試過在網上搜一些解決方法。“我想找到什么東西來治愈我。”在谷歌上搜了一遍治療情傷的方法之后，艾米?陳發現，網上的方法“沒有什么特別的”。后來她又試了試其它方法，比如靈氣療法、理療、心理治療等等，還到墨西哥來了一次瑜伽之旅，但效果都不是特別滿意——畢竟，治愈情傷是需要時間的。

一顆種子就這樣萌發了。2015年夏天，“在和朋友喝了一頓酒之后”，她突然冒出了一個想法：她要為那些因失戀而傷心欲絕的人搭建一個“避難所”。

一年半以后，她的創意演變成了現在的這個“周末訓練營”。訓練營里的每個細節都很適合拍照發朋友圈——這里的食物是有機的，擺盤也十分精美，做菜的是一位年輕精壯的大廚；在農場外面還有四只呆萌的羊駝，仿佛剛從動畫片里走出來似的。訓練營里的各種活動也很適合拍照發圈，比如瑜伽、冥想、針炙等等，此外我們還會圍著火堆坐成一圈，學習“如何拿回我們的能量”之類的東西。訓練營里有三位老師，分別是艾米?陳、人生導師翠西?芭里拉斯、“正向心理顧問”諾艾米?拉?普特爾，她們會要求我們以有助于治愈的方式回首往事，用艾米?陳的話，就是“拿起劇本，翻開它”。這樣一來，一位薄情寡義的前男友就會被重新刻畫成一個可愛但殘缺的形象，他只是在情感上沒有做好與你廝守終生的準備。艾米?陳繼續說道：“我不相信任何對我沒好處的東西。”

Amy Chan, the weekend’s creator and mastermind, describes herself as a “scientific Carrie Bradshaw.” Chan has a bachelor’s in communications and is the chief marketing officer of SpiN, a chain of ping pong bars backed by actress Susan Sarandon. Chan's real passion, however, is relationships—specifically, navigating the choppy waters after one has ended badly. She’s written relationship advice for the past decade, first for a daily paper in Vancouver (her hometown) and now on her blog. A common theme is what to do after a breakup. But it wasn’t until five years ago, when the man she thought she was going to marry cheated with a coworker, that she discovered her life’s true purpose.

“I know I’m on this earth to help people heal their heart wounds,” she tells me over a bowl of homemade chia pudding and granola.

Twenty-nine at the time, the breakup set her into a spiraling depression that lasted for months, despite her efforts to find a solution online: “I wanted something where I could go there and come out healed,” she remembers. After googling heartbreak retreats and finding “nothing specific,” she experimented with other options: reiki, therapists, psychics, a yoga vacation in Mexico. None were particularly satisfying —in the end, healing required time.

But a seed was planted. In the summer of 2015, over “drinks with a friend at the SoHo house,” the idea came to her: She would create a retreat designed specifically for the broken-hearted.

A year and a half later, her idea has materialized as a weekend in which every detail feels custom-made for Instagram. Meals are organic and beautifully plated, prepared by a strapping, young on-site chef. Outside the farm, four cartoonish alpacas wait to be petted. Activities are universally photogenic: yoga, meditation, acupuncture, and group talks where we sit in a circle by the fire and learn how to do things like “take back our energy.” We are urged by Chan, along with Trish Barillas, a life coach, and Noémie Le Pertel, a “positive psychology consultant,” to look at the past in ways that help us heal—to, in Chan's words, “take the script, and flip it.” In this way, a callous ex-boyfriend can be redrawn as a loving but damaged figure who wasn’t emotionally equipped to commit. “I’m not going to believe anything that doesn’t serve me,” she continues.

在這里，扭曲現實以滿足人的情感需求，是一個會被反復強化的主題。對于這里的人所說的相當一部分的話，我甚至不知道該作何解讀。比如艾米?陳提到她的前男友們時，不但毫無恨意，反而流下了感激的淚水，因為他們讓她學會了愛情和戀愛的真諦。她究竟是認真的，還是只是想給她的“精神勝利法”舉個例子呢？“正向心理顧問”普特爾經常會在她的課上提到多巴胺、應激激素、腦觸突等科學術語，她還說就算你跟某人離得很遠，你也有可能“感受到他的能量”。她究竟是在打比方，還是認真的呢？

整個周末的經歷讓我不時會想起最近在推特上甚火的一個熱詞——“替代事實”（Alternativefacts）——語出特朗普團隊。艾米?陳對我說，她真心相信人的表現的力量。她認為，如果她向宇宙要求什么東西，宇宙就會讓事物朝著這個方向發展。她六個月前才開始實踐這種療法，但現在她的生活已經有了很大的不同（她表示她能得到現在的工作也是歸功于此。）“這種方法要比《秘密》這本書久遠得多。”正是她提到的這本書（以及同名電影），才讓“積極的思維可以導致真實世界的結果”這一理念廣為流傳。

這樣的談話經常讓我一臉懵逼。我要再次強調，我并不是一個心碎的女人，而且在我內心深處，我還是一個玩世不恭的人，對任何鼓吹能夠“治愈”的套路都抱有一絲懷疑。

整整一個周末，訓練營都在強化“宇宙對我們每個人自有安排”的理念，經過這樣一番正能量的灌輸，病友們的情緒似乎確有好轉。其中一名病友是一個非常害羞的女人，她是從洛杉磯大老遠地飛過來參加訓練營的，她尋找類似這樣能夠治愈的地方已經有很長時間了。她是一年前與未婚夫分手的，直至今天仍然覺得心如刀割。她對我說，來這里與這些女性朋友一起，聽聽她們的故事，感覺挺好的。

The idea of taking reality and distorting it to fit one’s emotional needs is a recurrent theme. I’m not sure how to interpret a large percentage of what people are saying. When Chan tells us that instead of being mad at her exes, she cries tears of gratitude because she is so thankful for what they’ve taught her about love and relationships, is she serious, or is this another example of reframing the narrative? When Pertel, who litters her sessions with scientific references to dopamine, stress hormones, and brain synapses, tells us it's possible to “feel someone’s energy" even when they aren’t nearby, is she speaking metaphorically or literally?

Sometimes the entire weekend feels like an extended exercise in a shimmering version of #alternativefacts. Chan tells me she genuinely believes in the power of manifestation. If she asks the universe for something, she says, the universe makes it so. She started this practice a mere six months ago, and already has noticed a huge difference (it’s how she got her current job, she says). “This goes way back long before The Secret,” she says, referencing the book (and movie) that popularized the idea that positive thinking can lead to real-world results.

Talk like this usually puts me on edge. But then again, my heart isn’t broken; part of me feels cynical and a little gross questioning any tactic that encourages healing.

Because it does seem as if the weekend’s rosy cocoon of uplifting positivity, which reinforces the message that the universe has a plan for each of us—provided we open ourselves up enough to receive it—is helping. One attendee, a shy woman who flew from Los Angeles to attend, tells me she’s been looking for something like this for a long time. She broke up with her fiancé a year ago, and the heartbreak still feels raw. It’s good, she says, to be here with these women, and to hear their stories.

艾米?陳的終極目標是將治療分手情傷當成一項全職工作來做。她的這種想法也并非空中樓閣。上周末的“分手訓練營”只是她的一次概念驗證性質的試驗，但它也并不是免費的，每名“病友”要住單間，需要繳納1500美元的費用；雙人間稍便宜些，每張床位也要1000美元。不過還有幾個位置是免費贈送給朋友的。從今年五月到夏天，艾米?陳還策劃了另外兩批規模更大的“分手訓練營”。如果時機成熟了，她可能最終還會建立自己的“情傷治療中心”，這樣一來，她每年都能教幾百人通過這種“精神勝利法”來解開心結。

我問她，如果這種“精神勝利法”修煉到一定程度，到了無法分清哪些是真的、哪些是假的的地步，豈不是很危險？她表示，無論是在愛情還是在生活中，事實是很難界定的，人生最重要的其實是選擇。

“我選擇將世界看作一個美麗的地方。我選擇認為人人都有最善良的意愿，認為他們并不想傷害你。我選擇在每件事中看到感恩、學到經驗，哪怕是在那些壞的事情中。”她說。

“你可能會說：‘艾米，你肯定是瘋了，你完全活在自己的想象中。’當然了，你可以認為我瘋了，但你可以看看我的生活，我的生活好得難以置信，我的人生是如此豐富多彩，充滿了幸福與愛。”

對于這一點，我無法反駁——雖然我也無法分辨出她說的究竟是真的，還是只不過是另一次“精神勝利法”。不過在這個周末，“分手訓練營”的新潮、性靈和以瑜伽為核心的一系列活動，還是給人留下了非常專業的感覺。但當我踏上回紐約市的火車時，我還是很高興能回到這個政治氣候變幻莫測，但至少你能根據自己的工作安排（而不是月相）去理發的世界中。

我只希望能回到事實還是事實的世界中。或許我應該向宇宙要求這一點。 （財富中文網）

譯者：樸成奎

Chan’s ultimate goal is to help women share their stories year-round, and to turn healing heartbreak into a full-time job. She’s has a ways to go: This weekend was put together at-cost (admittance cost $1,500 for a single room, $1,000 for a double, although a few spots were comped for friends), as a proof-of-concept. Already, however, there is a larger retreat scheduled for May, and another tentatively slated for later in the summer. If everything goes as planned, she will eventually open her own retreat space where, in any given year, she can teach hundreds of people how to reframe their romantic narratives.

When I ask her if it’s dangerous to reconjure your life to the point where you can’t distinguish between what’s true and what isn’t, she says that in love—and often, life in general—facts are hard to pin down. Instead, life is about choices.

“I choose to see the world is a beautiful place. I choose that people have the best intentions and don’t want to hurt you. I choose to see the gratitude and lesson in everything, even the things that go wrong,” she says.

“You can say, ‘Well Amy, you’re just loony, you are living in your own fiction.' Well, sure! Think that I’m crazy, but look at my life. My life is unbelievable. I have such a rich abundant life full of happiness and love.”

I can’t really argue with that—even if it’s impossible to tell whether it's true, or simply another reframed narrative. And the weekend, in all it’s hipster, spiritual, yoga-centric glory, is an expertly orchestrated experience. Still, as I board the train back to New York City, I’m relieved to be returning to a world where volatility is prescribed to the political climate (not vibrations), and haircuts can be planned around one’s work schedule (not the phase of the moon).

If only I was returning to a world where facts were—well, facts. I should probably try asking the universe for that.