Sarah Curnoles shares her recent story of being ghosted and how it effected her. Get a pep talk so that you can be kinder to yourself after this happens and not take it personally. Learn to release the person and separate from their choices.
If this resonated with you head to www.forgetyourexnow.com to book a free consultation call. I am here to help you get over being ghosted and discern the good people from the good actors in the future.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi there friends, Sarah Curnoles here, and I am here to talk to you today about ghosting. So Valentine's Day isn't that far away when I'm recording this, and I feel like I've been hearing more stories about people getting ghosted and maybe it's that people don't want to have the uncomfortable conversation before Valentine's Day and they don't want to be in a relationship, but I'm seeing it a little bit more in the past few weeks. And I also wanted to share a recent personal story because even though I'm a life coach, even though I teach this stuff, I'm in the trenches right there with you, and this stuff still affects me too. I still learn and practice these tools and sometimes I forget to practice these tools. So I wanted to share this story about a guy I had been seeing for a little while. It wasn't too too long, and he just ghosted straight up ghosted.
(01:08)
We had a great date, we cooked together, we made out on the couch and I thought everything was moving forward. I was still making up my mind about how I felt about this person for the long term, but the dates were fun, so I figured the dates would continue and we had a lot in common and we even talked, we didn't make specific plans, but we did talk about a future activity that we could do together, and he just poof, just stopped texting and I was so mad. I was actually offended. I was outraged that he didn't ask me out again or that he didn't at least close the door with the polite, Hey, this has been fun, but I don't think we're right for each other. He could have sent something like that by text. We hadn't been dating so long that it needed to be a full-blown serious conversation, but he chose the route of never speaking to me again.
(02:26)
Look, I'm not scary. I don't bite. I don't hold a grudge. I would so much rather have the conversation. And I think we are seeing more ghosting happening now because we've become a culture that we run away from uncomfortable conversations. We're scared to hurt somebody's feelings, but when the shoe on the other foot, because I don't like these conversations either, I have them because I don't like being ghosted. So I do have the uncomfortable conversation, but I've definitely ghosted in the past and I can understand it to the degree that maybe somebody doesn't want to hurt someone's feelings or they just would rather avoid an uncomfortable conversation. It's silly, but we make these assumptions that people are so much more fragile than we really are. Most people I talk to would much rather have that conversation, even if it doesn't end up the way that they want it to.
(03:38)
They would rather have the conversation. And the reason why ghosting sucks is that it's like a sentence without an ending. You don't really know if it's over, how long do I wait and then I just write it off that, oh, I guess I'm not hearing from that person again. Should I reach out? There are so many questions when it comes to ghosting and there's no real definition of, well, I'll give it five days and then if I don't hear from the person in five days, then it's done. There isn't a rule here. I heard this story that Drew Barrymore told recently that she was ghosted and she shared that she remembers back in the day of sex in the city when Jack Berger left the post-it note and she wishes she had gotten a post-it note, even though that made Jack Berger the villain of that episode of How Dare He Leave a Post-It Note. That's just a rude way to break up with somebody. But in this day and age where people just ghost, she would appreciate that little yellow two inch square to never hearing from the person again. And I can really understand that.
(05:09)
And so I want to share with you that I went through this recently and like I said, I have all these tools. I teach all these tools. I talk about them all the time. It still didn't stop me from being so angry that it was like a distraction. I wasn't wasting any time thinking, oh, I wish he would call. He's going to call any minute now. He had such a great connection. I wasn't telling myself those things. It was more that I was just mad that this person didn't have the courage to have a conversation and that he just ditched. And in the past, I've probably gone the route of being more sad or extremely disappointed, but really all of these feelings are there in place because it's incredibly disorienting to not have an answer and our brain wants an answer. It does not like an open loop.
(06:28)
It does not like a sentence without an end. It doesn't like a story without a beginning, middle and ending. Our brains are going to fill in the blanks. And when somebody goes, it's really hard to do that. And what I see happen often and what I used to do is the brain will start to attack itself. It will turn on the person. So for me, what I did not do this time, I did not make myself wrong. What did I do wrong that he didn't want another date with me? What did I do wrong that he ghosted me?
(07:12)
I knew this was a him problem, not a me problem, but my brain still wanted an answer even though I knew not to turn this on myself because that is something I've done a lot of work on to not beat myself up when things don't go the way I want them to. I'm trying to practice more compassion and kindness towards myself. And if you are the person who finds that they're turning this on themselves wondering, what did I do wrong? What should I have done differently? How did I cause this? I want you to know that their behavior, that person's choices is not a reflection on you. It is not anything that you did. This is about them. We really have to practice not taking it personally. When somebody makes a choice based on who knows what, really in a ghosting situation, we don't know what their decision is based on, but it's all inside of them and we can't know what that is.
(08:30)
And we have to practice being kind to ourself first so that we feel safe to practice letting this go. And I am really sorry that person didn't have the courage and the decency to be honest and upfront with you. I know you're stronger than maybe you even know, but probably, definitely stronger than they know. And I know you can handle the truth. I want you to know that you did nothing wrong. You did not deserve to be left with an unanswered question. The truth is, the person didn't have the courage to say that this relationship wasn't a fit or that the timing wasn't right. You deserve someone who fits with you and who wants what you want and they want to celebrate you and they want to be with you even when times are hard. That person took the easy way out by disappearing from your life instead of having a conversation.
(09:46)
And their behavior speaks volumes even when their words don't. A person who leaves without a conversation is a person who can't have a conversation. What makes you think they'd be able to handle it? When things in life got tough, if this relationship did continue, or if you did reconnect with this person, what makes you think that they'd be able to handle those bumpy parts of the roads of life? Because we all know life gets hard. Sometimes a family member dies, somebody loses their job or say you get married and you have a family and you lose a lot of sleep because you, you're handling a newborn life is hard. And if this person can't have a simple conversation that's just a tiny bit hard because it might hurt your feelings, how do you think they're going to handle it when they come across really hard things?
(10:53)
Don't let this one person's bad behavior ruin all other people for you. There are good people in the world, people who are willing to have the difficult conversation and build on the relationship and learn more about you and understand you better, and hopefully you understand them better and you can grow together. Those people you want to look for are the ones that will stay by your side during the hard times and people who do the kind thing, even when it is hard, it is a skill for you to learn how to discern these people from the ones that are just really good actors. Part of that is going to be learning how to trust your intuition. It's going to also involve you initiating hard conversations. And also you are going to have to be really true and honest with yourself about who you are and be unafraid to fully express that with the people that you're dating. You're going to let people be who they are and they're going to show you who you are and you're going to do the same. You're going to be who you are and you're going to show who you are. And if somebody shows you who they are, believe them.
(12:22)
It's not your job to try to change anybody to make them something or behave in a way that they're not. That's why people hire coaches and therapists because they want to change for themselves. If you are not being paid, it's not your job to change someone. If they cannot be with you, all of you for who you are, it is never going to be a fit. Hold out for the person who is a fit for you. So eventually I sort of burn myself out on my own anger. I had to give myself this very same pep talk of this person couldn't have a simple conversation with me and they don't deserve me thinking about them or even being angry about them. And I vented to my sister. I wrote in my journal and I really had to do a lot of practicing of letting it go because I knew it wasn't worth my time or attention.
(13:41)
I had to refocus myself to think about myself or someone else that I had a date with or something else that was exciting in my life that I could look forward to. I didn't want to waste any more time being angry about something from my past because somebody behaved in a way that I didn't agree with. I knew that if I spent a lot of time being angry about it, it was just going to be a waste of my time. So I had to practice letting go. This is exactly the kind of thing that I help people with all of the time because it is redirecting your brain and taking charge and deciding who am I? Who do I want in my life, and how do I want to be showing up? And when you go from a change of being a certain way, I used to be of a bit obsessive about these situations to make the change so that you can create some freedom and some emotional regulation in your life.
(14:49)
It does take focus practice, and as a coach, that's exactly what I do, and I help hold you accountable to the person that you say that you want to become. Because as you become more and more of that person, you become more and more ready for attracting real love in your life and being ready to recognize it when it's right in front of you. If this resonates with you, I want to talk to you. I would love to talk to you about potentially coaching with me. Head over to the website, www.forgetyourexnow.com and book yourself a free consultation call where we can talk about what's going on for you, what are the struggles you're having and how I can help, because I'm here for you and I want you to not get stuck in the mess of someone else's bad choices and the emotions that it might be bringing up for you. I want you to take this as the opportunity for you to evolve into the best version of yourself where you quickly get over the person who ghosted you, you quickly move on to the next person, and it doesn't get in your way. It doesn't hold you down for a minute longer than it needs to. Let's have that conversation together. Book your call now, and I cannot wait to talk to you more. That's all for this time, friends. Have a great day.