 In this episode I'm including you again in my monthly mentorship group session. In this session I spoke with a mentorship group about ghosting, you probably heard of it, perhaps you haven't, it has certainly gone vital as a new human relationship behaviour where we suddenly cut someone off or we are cut off by someone that was quite involved in our lives and they disappear without a trace, i.e. that's why it's called ghosting and ghosting has become a massive human default behaviour that's gone vital since social media where doing it has far less consequences than if you are in the same space physically with someone. Ghosting is fascinating to me, I have been ghosted several times in my life, got quite upset by it and I decided to become a student of ghosting so that I could learn something to pass on to others that are suffering ghosting. It's estimated that 80 plus percent of us have been ghosted, let alone how many of us are doing the ghosting. So I hope you enjoy this podcast episode, please let me know if you're enjoying this visit, encouraging you, strengthening you, leave a comment for me through a DM at postcam in UK, thanks for listening, enjoy. Ghosting at different levels, apparently, there's what's called micro-ghosting which is when someone just kind of doesn't text back anymore or texts back randomly or occasionally, there's lightweight ghosting which is when someone kind of deliberately reduces contact with you, I'm in heavyweight ghosting where they delete you, they block you, and they stop you from getting access to them ever again. One of the people I was speaking to a while back was really suffering from being ghosted by prospective employers because he wasn't getting any response to his job applications and he felt ghosted by potential employers because they did not knowledge his job application and that was really hurting him. So I know this can be done at a corporate level, at a business work level, not just a one-on-one relationship level. Come to decide having been a student of this for a while now that ghosting is ultimately about control, it's a form of control, it is a form of digital silent treatment that if I can go quiet on you and not speak to you and block you and remove you from my world then I don't have to deal with any emotional discomfort that explaining myself to you may involve. So I avoid and bypass emotional discomfort yours or mine and just cut you off that's the essence of ghosting it is a form of ultimately emotional control and manipulation when people do that and the thing about ghosting is it's worse because if I ghost you and cut you off with no explanation I leave you to try and invent an explanation and I don't care what that might be whether it's accurate or not whether it's the truth or it's worse than the truth and your invented idea is more damaging actually than what I did do it for it is no care about what you put into that space so what happens with ghosting is it feels like deliberate emotional cruelty because I leave you to figure it out so that social rejection of any kind activates the same pain pathways in the brain as physical pain does so there's a biological link between rejection and physical pain and emotional pain it's the same pain that we feel whether it's physical or emotional it's like the body can't tell the difference emotionally we go into the same pain rejection response that might as well be a broken leg as it were the difference is between emotional pain and physical pain is that as I said emotional pain needs a narrative physical pain has a narrative you did this so that happened this so that happened it's fixed by doing this take this medication get this surgery these are the symptoms this is how we treat it so physical pain has a clear explanation to it under clear treatment emotional pain doesn't so emotional pain needs some kind of narrative and if the ghost doesn't give you one you are left to try to create one that's what makes it more emotionally sensitive territory for us we hope you've been enjoying the episode so far we just wanted to let you know about the mentorship group which Paul has been referring to this is a tribe of people from all over the world all different professions and walks of life that come together each month to discuss with Paul on different topics as well as q&a and so much more is included in this and we'd love to invite you to find out more about it visit the mentorship group dot com or click the link in the show notes thank you and enjoy the rest of the episode being vulnerable is the number one thing that creates intimacy in relationships so if we constantly worry about being hurt then we find ourselves unable to be vulnerable anymore in the relationships that matter to us who don't know why they're on the receiving end of an unwillingness of us to be vulnerable when they weren't the ones that ghosted us so when you're ghosted and it affects you in a significant way the people that love us and do life with us suffer and new relationships suffer not knowing that you bring to that new relationship this sense of gardeners and unwillingness to be vulnerable so what you do is you are unable to be intimate where you want to be because the ghosting has damaged you once bitten twice shy and now you are not good at intimacy and this happens in people in serial relationships where they travel into new relationships with a hangover of previous hurt that makes them less willing to be vulnerable so ghosting is not neutral it's not funny it's not some digital thing that's interesting it is a new dynamic in social relationships that's killing us and I've spoken to too many people that are really hurt really damaged and struggling and not recovering at all from the ghosting situation that went on because the opposite of love as you all know is not hate it's indifference and ghosting feels like massive indifference it's like I don't care about you I don't care how this makes you feel so the indifference with which I treat you creates this massive sense I think for us of emotional withdrawal and abandonment when you feel emotionally abandoned by someone's withdrawal from your emotion that was there then suddenly is not there with no explanation it feels like a form of abandonment of being dumped as it were and it's more damaging because we have to assign some meaning to it to make peace with it and when you assign meaning to it out of your sense of abandonment and disappointment and hurt the meanings going to by definition be ego driven and by definition is going to be an outcome that puts you down puts them in a bad light puts you on the receiving end of their clumsiness and their indifference so if no meaning is given by the ghoster then you have to speculate and if that comes to you as a person that's riddled already will self-esteem and self-doubt issues that space in which you feel there indifference and abandonment then your mind and emotions are ahead and the ambiguity that's left by them abandoning and ghosting you with no explanation that ambiguity of what that means I think is part of the real pain that happens in ghosting part of the knife edge and the dagger of it is that complexity I just gave language to thank you for listening to this episode by Paul Scanlon why not share with him your thoughts on this particular episode at Paul Scanlon UK by sending him a DM or tagging him in a post and don't forget to check out the mentorship group dot com to find out how you can be a part of this global community thank you again for listening