Recovering from ghosting

Recovering from ghosting

You’ve been on several dates with someone and they suddenly disappear from circulation or worse, you’ve started a relationship, their behaviour didn’t suggest anything negative and suddenly the person doesn’t show any signs of life.

You ask yourself what you did that could have caused this behaviour?

Why is this hard?

Not knowing why the other person stopped contacting you gives you that feeling of being on pause, can lead to deep inner questioning and prevent you from starting to grieve.

What did you do to generate this behaviour? The longer the relationship before the ghosting lasted, the more you will feel that it is what you did or did not do that is responsible for the ghosting.

No answer is also an answer

I know it can hurt, but a non-answer is also an answer.

What is difficult is the interpretation of this non-answer, i.e. what the person is saying no to:
• Is the person saying no because they can’t get into a relationship?
• Are they saying no because they don’t want a relationship?
• Or are they saying no because you are not what they are looking for?

In short, this non-response is simply telling you that they are saying no, but not to what.

Understanding the no

Ghosting does not necessarily mean the same thing depending on the stage of the relationship.
1. No news after a few chats
On dating apps, the involvement of a person is less and the use of dating sites can be used as a hobby. So as long as there are no encounters, it means nothing.
2. No news after a few dates
At this stage, there is already more investment on the part of each partner and it is normal to experience it more difficult. However, the phase of the first 3-4 dates is also a phase of choice (read The 6 stages of a love relationship) where you start to know the person. At this point, ghosting can mean several things:
• The person does not/can not actually be in a relationship
• The person has chosen someone else
• You are not a good fit and the person can’t express this

3. No more news after starting a relationship
When ghosting occurs at this stage of the relationship, it may signal fears that are rearing their ugly heads in the other partner in relation to attachment, or that the person is aware of an incompatibility and is unable to communicate this.

You can see that having a response from him/her or not doesn’t change the interpretation of the no’s. In any case, it means that the person doesn’t want to or didn’t feel ready to enter into a relationship or didn’t see a compatibility between you.

And you can ask yourself if you want to be with someone who can’t or doesn’t want to be in a relationship or who doesn’t see themselves as compatible with you, and then you have your answer.

Welcome your emotions and calm your monkey mind

Being ghosted is never pleasant.
The first step is to welcome your emotions.
You can practice this Kundalini Yoga meditation to get out of the sadness and negative circle.

Or this exercise for anger

If you feel that you can’t think of anything else, you can also do this Kundalini Yoga exercise for 40 days in a row to calm the obsessive thoughts. If you have been doing this for many years, you may need to go to 120 days.

Try these different methods and find the method that works best for you.

Understand what generates this “monkey mind”

It’s not the fact that the person stops checking in that makes you sad and prevents you from recovering, it’s the meaning you give to that ghosting.

And the good news is that you can consciously choose the meaning you give to it.

No one can make you feel bad.

To stop the monkey mind, every time you think about ghosting, try to spot the first judgment, the first thought, and allow yourself to choose a new, more positive thought that allows you to avoid this toxic thought spiral. This is Gabby Bernstein’s famous “Choose again” method.

For example, if you think, “He ghosted me because I must have done something wrong/I’m not good enough.
You might think “The fact that he ghosted me says more about him than it does about me.”
Or “Every ghosting saves me from wasting my time and brings me closer to the right partner for me”.

And if you don’t believe me, ask yourself “How come other people don’t feel anything about ghosting? It’s simply that they don’t take ghosting personally but take it more as information about the person who is behaving like this.

Take your power back

If they don’t give you an answer, you can also give your own answer in response to the ghosting.

Do you want to be with someone who does this?

If not, express it:
• By sending a message, if you can and feel the need
• By saying it out loud or by writing a letter if you can’t do otherwise or don’t feel like writing to the person

By doing so, you symbolically take back your power over the situation and can begin your grieving process.

You can’t control whether someone ghosts you, but you can control
• How you want to react to ghosting
• Not to let ghosting impact your search for a partner.

This overreaction does not happen by accident

If you feel that every ghosting or simply the fact that your partner is slow to respond to you makes you overreact, it simply means that this event reactivates a wound from the past related to the unknown or the uncontrolled.

In my experience with the people I have accompanied, people who are particularly sensitive to ghosting have experienced insecure situations in their past or have felt in danger when faced with the unknown (accident, shock), death (sudden death, a difficult birth) or illness (your illnesses or those of loved ones), so that they have developed a mistrust of what they cannot control and feel constantly threatened by life.

The body is in constant alarm and cannot really relax.

To free yourself from this feeling of insecurity, there are 3 steps:
• Understand the origin of this insecurity and deprogram this protective mechanism against the unknown
• Bring the body out of this constant state of alarm by eliminating the emotional surplus stored in the body as a result of this event, so that the body returns to its natural state of relaxation.
• Reclaim your power over ghosting by changing the meaning you give it and the impact it has on your life.
This work is done on the day of the past and is included in my Individual Coaching.