A funny thing happened to me (and millions of others) in the past few years, I got “Professionally Ghosted.” Not just once and not solely tied to a job inquiry. It happened in a few work situations.
If you are unfamiliar with what “ghosting” means or feels like, please keep carrying around that lucky penny. Ghosting is the practice of disappearing while in the middle of a professional conversation or interaction without any explanation.
Sometimes it is innocent, an inbox casualty impacted by the recipient’s busy week. Other times the recipient may be struggling with and avoiding delivering bad news or feedback. And once in a blue moon, it’s personal.
No matter the reason, it leaves the recipient feeling disappointed, isolated and with a negative slime energy all over. The good news is you can remove that grossness right off of you in 4 easy steps. Let me show you how:
Do you remember in The Wizard of Oz when Glinda the Good Witch told the Wicked Witch of the East, “you have no powers here, be gone” and waves her away like an annoying mosquito? Do that.
Whatever emotion you just gave your power to (anger, anxiety, heartbreak), please let it know that you are in charge and you get to decide where your thoughts and energy will go today.
STEP 2: PHYSICALLY REMOVE THE SLIME
All conversations, experiences and relationships have energy. You know how it feels when you’re surrounded by good Glinda energy, the kind that feels powerful, protective and validates your confidence that you know what you are doing. On the flipside, negative energy has the consistency of a spider’s web. It’s a subtle stickiness that sometimes feels like it’s hard to find and remove.
You’ve heard the phrase “brush it off” right? Well this is physically brushing off the ghosted experience and it’s super easy to do.
Start with your right hand on top of your left shoulder and with pressure brush your hand down from shoulder to hand resulting in pushing that energy off that arm.
Do it again but with opposite hand and shoulder.
Return to right hand and left shoulder.
Then raise your hands over your head and throw your hands down to the ground with force.
Repeat this series two more times. Then take a moment to feel how that shook things up and off.
STEP 3: LET GO OF THE STORY
You cannot control what happens to you but you can control how you react.
Most of the damage we do to ourselves is through the stories in our head, the ones we then share out to others. If you don’t have actual facts about why you didn’t hear back and are fabricating a story arc complete with villain and victim then you are giving your power and your good Glinda energy right back to the situation.
Let’s assume innocent until proven guilty. We may never even know why it happened But attaching to the drama (whether it’s real or imagined) will not serve you well and will tangle you up in more spider’s webs vs allowing you to move forward towards something better.
Sometimes you have to rewrite or reimagine the story. “They had me jump through hoops going through several interviews and then radio silence” becomes “They juggled many schedules to get me in to meet as many decision makers as possible but it didn’t go further than that.”
Cliffhanger ending “but it didn’t go further than that” can mean you were not the best fit or headcount was killed or maybe they didn’t want someone who was smarter than them ; -)
Who knows? Who cares? Boi bye!
Take a beat and get some nourishment. Go read Dr Seuss’ Oh the Places You Will Go or listen to LL Cool J’s Mama Said Knock You Out Just spitballing here and giving you some ideas.
STEP 4: REFLECT
Final step in removing the slime is to hold your own post-mortem on how this all went.
First you were afraid, you were terrified (to lift from Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive) .
Then you put on your F.U. socks and reclaimed your power (these are my favorites, if you want a pair.
And then, you paid it forward and by helping others realize “you had the power all along my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.”
