Ghostbusting: how Coaching can help reduce the impact of ghosting

LinkedIn is haunted with stories of ghosting, particularly amongst the freelance community. In a business context ghosting is when two parties engage in relationship, discuss work to be done, submitted a proposal but at the point of starting work one party stops all communication and doesn’t reply to further messages.

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Ghosting has an economic impact as people have invested time and resources in developing proposals.? And it has an emotional impact because a relationship has come to a sudden end and there is no reason or explanation for that ending. Because there is no response other, not always helpful, thoughts fill that space and a sense of incompleteness weighs on the mind.

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Gareth Turner Matthew Knight and others are doing a great job of trying to reduce the incidence of ghosting by raising awareness of it and the issues it causes.? ?I wanted to focus on what happens when you have been ghosted and how you can reduce its impact. More specifically how can Coaching and a coaching perspective help reduce the impact of being ghosted?

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So how can you exorcise a ghost and free yourself from being haunted by an unwanted memory?? Let’s start by exploring why ghosting creates an impact before we discuss how we can mitigate that impact.

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There is a school of psychology called Gestalt which provides a useful lens with which to view ghosting.? Gestalt loosely means the whole or the complete.? A Gestalt approach looks at the complete picture of an experience and how we respond and interact with that experience through our body, our feelings our intellect and our imagination.

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In Gestalt terms ghosting is an interruption to a cycle of experience.? An experience follows an 8 stage cycle called the flow of continuous experience. The stages are:

1.??????? Sensation – you notice the emergence of a figure of interest and focus

2.??????? Awareness – you become more aware of a need and what is going on

3.??????? Mobilisation – your motivation increases, you mobilise energy & consider options

4.??????? Action – you commit and initiate action

5.??????? Contact – you fully engage and are in the flow of an experience

6.??????? Resolution & satisfaction – you reflect and review after the experience

7.??????? Completion & closure – you let go of interest in the experience

8.??????? Withdrawal – the interaction is complete, and you withdraw

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In any experience we need closure in that interaction for it to be satisfying and complete.?? Ghosting interrupts that flow and blocks the experience.? That unfinished business causes residual tension.?? If we unblock that flow, then we release the tension.

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So how might that look like on a work project?? With ghosting you have gone through the Sensation and Awareness stages.? You have thought about, planned, and understood what you client wants.

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You have also gone through the Mobilistion and Action stages.? You have discussed the scope of work to be done, created a plan and you are prepared to act.? Everything is poised and ready…

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But you have been interrupted at the Contact stage this means you haven’t been able to engage and follow through on your plans.? You have been left hanging.

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And you haven’t been able to move through the Resolution, Completion and Withdrawal stage to complete the cycle.? You haven’t been able to reflect, review and integrate the learnings from the experience into a broader context.? You haven’t been able to say goodbye and wrap that project up.?

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There is a sense of unfinished business and that incompleteness causes tension.

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So how can you resolve an incomplete experience?? How can you complete the cycle of an experience and reduce the emotional weight and tension so that you can move on from that experience and create space for other things to grow and develop?

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A useful exercise if called ‘The Empty Chair’. The basic pemise is you complete the experience with an empty chair replacing the person who ghosted you.

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You then explore that interaction from 3 different persepectives:

1.??????? Your own perspective

2.??????? The perspective of your ghoster ?– or what you believe their perspective of you is

3.??????? The perspective of a detached observer – someone viewing your interaction

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In this exercise people find the simple act of voicing and completing their experience is powerful.? They also gain additional insight by ‘inhabiting’ the other perspectives.

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This is how you can run the exercise.? Start by sitting in your own chair and speak aloud to the person who ghosted you as if they were sitting in the chair in front of you.? Notice what you are saying and how you are saying it? How does it feels saying those words?? What do you notice as you were speaking?? Was there anything that surprised you??

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You can run through this exercise a few times trying out different approaches.? If you were expressing a particular emotion the first time – for example anger - try again with a different approach the next time.? If you had been holding back an emotion explore, what would it feel to turn that emotion up a bit – a simple experiment is imagining turning the volume up on that emotion from a 5 to an 8.? Again, reflect on how you felt and what you noticed.

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Now swap places and sit in the chair where your ghoster was sitting.? Imagine you are them and try to speak from this chair as if you were them. What do you think they are thinking and feeling about the situation in that moment? How would you respond to the points that you previously shared from the other chairs?? What words might they be using and what is their tone and overall manner?

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As you explore their perspective notice how you are feeling, what you are thinking. ?And what new insights and observations spring to mind as you explore this different perspective.

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Now move to the chair of a detached observer – What does the world look like from this position?? What do you notice about the conversation and what has been said?? What are you feeling?? Is there anything that surprises you?? If you could give the two parties any advice to what would it be?

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Finally return to your starting position.? From this perspective review what have you learned from the exercise?? What new insight and perspective have you gained? What will you do now with that learning?? Is there anything else you need to be able to move on from the experience?

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You can try that exercise on your own. But it is more powerful with a coach.? A Coach can help facilitate the conversation and they can help you notice not just what you say but how you say it – your tone and your body language.

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They can also help you shine a spot light on areas to explore more. They can also hold up a mirror to your behaviours and challenge your patterns of thought.? And they can also help make the experience of talking to an empty chair slightly less awkward and a little more fun!

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Give it a go it might help exorcise your ghost and open up space for more productive relationships.

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Is Coaching something you want to explore? I'm a qualified ICF level 2 Coach and I'm currently finishing my hours to qualify as an Associate Coach.

As result I can offer 5 coaching slots at discounted rate as I complete my hours... after that my rate will increase. Think of it like the soft opening of a new restaurant - you get to eat great food at a reduced price.

Send me a DM if you are interested in a free 1 hour intro session to discuss ghosting and to see if coaching is right for you.? ?Please quote the discount code #IWantToTalkAboutGhostingAndPromiseNotToGhostYou