- How can you recover
and how can you trust again when you have been ghosted,
maybe even more than once?
When you feel you have a connection with someone,
when you've let someone in
and you've been talking to them for a while,
you've been seeing them for a while,
then all of a sudden, they ghost you.
They disappear.
They stop communicating.
You don't have a way to contact them.
No text, no calls, no contact.
They haven't concluded a relationship,
"I'm really sorry,
"but after a few dates, no," they've just disappeared.
They haven't passed away.
They haven't moved away.
They have removed themselves from your orbit.
You can't reach them,
and they've made it clear they do not want you
to reach them.
They have simply ended a relationship
without your cooperation,
without your consent,
without you even knowing what's happening.
And when this happens, we feel awful.
So I want you to watch more
as I explain what ghosting is,
what it does to us,
and how we can overcome it.
How we can overcome it with confidence
and make it never about us.
You know, recently, I was doing a show with Matthew Hussey,
and we talked a lot about ghosting,
and he had a very different perspective on ghosting to me,
but I love that.
But let's talk about what ghosting is.
It's when someone abruptly cuts off contact,
removes themselves from your feed,
your social media,
disconnects their phone,
stops answering their phone.
They end contact with you without giving you any reason
or any warning or any explanation for doing so.
They simply disappear from your life
and they remove any ability for you to contact them
or reach them or connect to them.
And ghosting can happen to anyone,
it happens to smart people, beautiful people,
interesting and fascinating people.
Because someone who ghosts you,
that is never about you.
It's about them.
And you see, it so painful,
because we think,
"Oh, they don't want me anymore.
"They don't like me anymore.
"They're bored with me."
So we tend to blame ourselves for ghosting.
"What did I do wrong?
"What did I do to make them disappear?"
Ghosting is confusing.
We don't have closure.
We are not allowed to process what's happened.
We can't have a dialogue to say, "What's gone on?"
And instead, we start overthinking,
"What did I do?
"What did I say?
"What is lacking in me?"
When we are ghosted,
it often leaves us with huge self-doubt.
It leaves us with so many unanswered questions,
"What's wrong with me?
"How could someone do that to me?
"Why did they do that to me?"
And the classic,
"Why am I not enough?
"What did I do to deserve that?"
So how do you handle ghosting?
Well, the big thing is to understand none
of this is about you.
If someone is prepared to just cut themselves
out of your life with no explanation at all,
that is telling you who they are.
Someone has shown you who they are.
And I want you to count yourself lucky
that they showed you earlier.
You had four dates, three dates, five dates.
And all of a sudden,
they are like a ghost.
They've gone.
They're just gone and you can't find them.
But if anyone would do that to you,
if anyone would do that to anyone,
they are weak, they are a coward.
And they have done you a favor.
When someone ghosts you,
they're not telling you anything about you.
They are telling you everything about themselves.
Many people who ghost pretend to be someone else,
they pretend to be wealthy or fascinating,
or live in an amazing house,
or drive an amazing car,
have all these powerful friends.
And of course, when you start a relationship on a lie,
you become unable to keep that lie going.
It's like, "Oh, I lied.
"I said I came from Italy.
"I said I spoke fluent French.
"I said I lived in a mansion
"and I've got a vintage car.
"And now going to have to invite you to the mansion,
"show you the vintage car.
"I said I was a supermodel.
"You've asked to see all the pictures.
"It's easier just to ghost you,
"because I can't come up with the goods.
"I've elaborated, enhanced who I am.
"I can't back it up.
"So I'm just going to skulk away
"and disappear to save face,
"pretend it's your fault."
I know somebody who went across the world
to find someone who had ghosted her.
She went to Australia,
turned up to his place of work.
And he said,
"Go away. Don't come here.
"I don't want to talk to you."
He'd already told her that in ghosting.
I said, "If someone ghosts you,
"do not track them down.
"Don't call them.
"Don't call their friends.
"Understand they have their own issues.
"They're behaving in a horrible way.
"They do not deserve to be tracked down."
If you want closure and you can't say to them,
"Why did you do that?
What's wrong with you? What happened?"
give yourself closure,
have an imaginary conversation.
"Why did you do that?"
The answer will always be the same,
"I felt bad about myself.
"I couldn't justify who I am
"or what I am or what I'd done.
"So I was a coward and I just snuck away."
Draw a line under that behavior.
I've met many people who told me how badly they behaved,
and they said, "But you know, I just drew a line.
"I just thought I wouldn't allow myself to think about it."
Men are much better at ghosting than women,
because men have an ability to shut down.
Imagine you're a soldier going into battle,
you're going to have to kill some people.
Men can shut down.
They can compartmentalize.
It doesn't mean they're bad people.
It's how they existed on the planet for years,
they can shut down.
And men can ghost better than women
because of that ability to shut down.
It doesn't mean they're bad people,
but it does mean that you shouldn't chase them,
you shouldn't try and speak to them.
This is not about anything you have done wrong.
It's about someone else feeling so unworthy of you,
so unable to look at you and be honest and say,
"It's not working.
"I don't feel the same.
"I want something different.
"I've led you down the garden path on a tissue of lies.
"And I can't really back that up now.
"So I'm just going to disappear."
The most important relationship you will ever have is
the relationship you have with yourself.
The most important words you will ever hear are
the words you say to yourself.
And if someone has ghosted you early on,
count yourself lucky they didn't ghost you
a year in, two years in, three years in.
I've met people who spent five years
in a relationship with someone they never met.
"Oh, I believe they're in the military.
"There were some overseas emergency doctor.
"They were traveling the world,
"doing something for ecology."
And they have wasted years and years
and years investing in someone who didn't really exist.
Be happy it happened early,
because it's over
and you can move on.
Try to understand that anyone who participates
in ghosting anyone else is weak.
They're acting out of fear.
They're acting out of not-enoughness.
An adult will call you and say,
"I'm so sorry. You're a great person.
"You're just not my great person.
"I wish you every success in finding love.
"I'm so sorry
"it's not going to work out,
"but you're an amazing person.
"You deserve someone amazing."
That's a brave, strong person.
Someone who disappears is weak,
is cowardly,
is sad.
They deserve your pity.
Give them space, let them go,
and focus on you.
Do not put your energy into what happened,
"I need to find them. I need to track them down."
Don't put your energy into working them out.
Work out you,
you deserve better.
And you'll find better.
And you'll find better
when you really narrow down your thoughts
and decide you are worth being with,
worth committing to, deserving
of love, respect, appreciation.
When you know that you deserve
a wonderful relationship that will go the distance
based on respect,
that's what you'll have.
If you have red flags,
if this person doesn't give you their phone number,
doesn't tell you where they work,
doesn't tell you where they live,
if all they do is text you
or WhatsApp you
and they tell you nothing about them,
and they are very secretive,
that's a red flag.
That's what Matthew Hussey and I talked about,
the red flags that we ignore.
"Well, yes, they seem to disappear.
"They were very cagey.
"They had two phones and couldn't explain why they had that.
"They'd never had a credit card.
"I didn't know anything about them."
These are red flags.
Notice them, because if you notice them,
you probably will never get ghosted.
But if you do, it's not your fault.
Ghosting can affect your confidence.
And if you feel like you need some extra help,
if ghosting has hurt you, wounded you,
click on the link below
to access my 'Ultimate Confidence' bundle and get better.
Remember, when you don't heal your wounds,
you bleed on people that never cut you.
And none of us want to do that.
So take my 'Ultimate Confidence' bundle,
heal your wounds, and go out and have a wonderful life.
Thanks for tuning in.
I'll see you very soon.