Coping With Ghosting

Ghosting, Love & Dating: How to Create Deeper Connections with Topaz Adizes

• Gretta • Season 1 • Episode 77

Share episode

In this engaging episode, Gretta speaks with Topaz Adizes—Emmy award-winning writer, director, experience design architect, and creator of The Skin Deep—as he shares his transformative journey through challenging relationships and his path to finding true love. Topaz opens up about his experience with ghosting and the valuable lessons he's learned along the way. He shares strategies for attracting real love and the profound impact of asking the right questions to deepen connections. Tune in for an insightful and heartfelt conversation emphasizing vulnerability, introspection, and the power of shared experiences.

Topaz is an Emmy award-winning writer, director, and experience design architect. He is an Edmund Hillary fellow and Sundance/Skoll stories of change fellow. His works have been selected to Cannes, Sundance, IDFA, and SXSW; featured in New Yorker magazine, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times; and have garnered an Emmy for new approaches to documentary and Two World Press photo awards for immersive storytelling and interactive documentary. He is the founder and executive director of the experience design studio The Skin Deep.

Connect With Gretta:  

Coping With Ghosting 101 | Coaching Sessions | Free and Private Facebook Support Group | Instagram | YouTube | copingwithghosting.com

Coping with Ghosting delivers evidence-based strategies that transform personal betrayal into a powerful catalyst for change.

Connect With Topaz Adizes and The Skin Deep:

topazadizes.com | TikTok | Instagram | YouTube 

Music: "Ghosted" by Gustavo Ramos

Disclaimer:  This information is designed to mentor and guide you to cope with Ghosting by cultivating a positive mindset and implementing self-care practices. It is for educational purposes only; it solely provides self-help tools for your use. Coping With Ghosting is not providing health care or psychological therapy services and is not diagnosing or treating any physical or mental ailment of the mind or body. The content is not a substitute for therapy or any advice given by a licensed psychologist or other licensed or other registered professionals.


Ready to heal, improve your confidence, and regain your power after being ghosted or betrayed? You don't have to heal alone. Book a coaching session with Gretta here.

Want to feel better after being ghosted? Coping With Ghosting 101 downloadable  workshop will help you take your power back today. 

Support the show

Note to All Listeners: Ghosting is defined as: The practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication (Oxford Languages). When you leave an abusive situation without saying "goodbye," it's not ghosting, it's "self-protection." When you quietly exit a relationship after a boundary has been violated, it's not ghosting, it's "self-respect."

Gretta Perlmutter:

Welcome to Coping with Ghosting, the podcast that provides hope, healing and understanding for anyone who's been ghosted. That provides hope, healing and understanding for anyone who's been ghosted. I'm your host, Gretta, and this show's all about opening up, connecting and deepening relationships after being ghosted. And my guest is Topaz Adizes, an Emmy award-winning writer, director and experience design architect. He is an Edmund Hillary Fellow and a Sundance School Stories of Change Fellow. His works have been selected to Cannes, Sundance, IDFA, and South by Southwest, featured in New Yorker Magazine Vanity Fair, and the New York Times, and have garnered an Emmy for New Approaches to Documentary and two World Press Photo Awards for immersive storytelling and interactive documentary. He is currently the founder and executive director of the Experience Design Studio, the Skin Deep. Topaz, I'm honored to have you on my show.

Topaz Adizes:

Oh, Gretta, thanks. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Gretta Perlmutter:

So I'm pretty sure many of my listeners are familiar with your work and I'd love for them to get to know you on a deeper level. And, as we know, being ghosted can take a huge toll on our mental health, so could you please share a little bit about your experiences with mental health challenges, how you've addressed them and how they've helped you improve your relationships?

Topaz Adizes:

Wow, that's a good one. That's a big one. So when you say mental health challenges, can you which you mean? How has my dating life affected my being, or other mental health issues like depression or which? Where would you? What type of mental health would you like to explore?

Gretta Perlmutter:

Depression is a really good place to start Any mental health issues related to or surrounding dating as well.

Topaz Adizes:

Well, I mean, I met my current partner who I have two children with my wife when I was 42. And that was after living in New York for 18 years, and the impetus for starting the Skin Deep really came out of dating. Came out of dating and living in New York and I had a brother who's 16 years younger than I and I saw how he was also single and how we just dated differently because his relationship to technology was so much different than mine and I don't know what the dating world is like now, because I've been with my partner for six years now. But starting the Skin Deep was really because I noticed how we were relating to one another, how we were finding the experience of love, of deeper intimacy with other people differently. My brother was 16 years old, he was doing it differently, so for me that's what started the skin deep. I just saw how we were dating differently or how we were engaging differently.

Topaz Adizes:

And I actually had a conversation which I think you'd find this interesting that really struck me. I was working on a script that I was writing and I happened to be in some cabin in Idaho and it was the wintertime and I just had been updating. I was dating a woman. She was in Brooklyn and we were texting each other and she said, topaz, when you Because I edit a lot of my texts with love, and she said so, when you say the word love, do you mean that in the English way, how they use that vernacular of love love you flippantly or do you really mean love?

Topaz Adizes:

And I read that and I said, okay, we need to have a conversation. I need to call this person. If it was, we need to have a conversation. We're dating for about six weeks at that point. So we called and I called her. I mean, if I was in Brooklyn at the time, I would have gone and we would have met, you know. But I called her up, we tried it for an hour about our relationships, our feelings, where we were at, what we you know. And at the end she just said you know, thank you so much for calling me up and conversing, because you know I had met her on a dating app.

Topaz Adizes:

She said all the other relationships I've been in recently, all the intimate conversations that we've been having, were over text if at all right, and what struck me the most about that was not that comment, but was the comment that we were only five years apart. I was 36,. But was the comment that we were only five years apart? I was 36. She was 31. And I thought, wow, because for me it felt like it's good to have conversations about this stuff. Now I'm not going to say that I haven't ghosted someone in my early twenties and you know, yes, I have. And it's great listening to some of your podcast episodes because it gave me greater clarity about possibly why I was ghosting. We could talk about that too, and obviously I've been ghosted, right. But I just saw, how you know, 11 years ago that's when we started the Skin Deep how our relationships were shifting in lieu of the technology that was in our fingertips, and how we were conversing with each other differently, how we were connecting with each other differently and, more importantly, how you're connecting with yourself differently. And that's really the impetus for creating the Experience Design Studio, the Skin Deep, which then, you know the end, is our most successful kind of flagship experience, which is the card games and questions and the video series. And so you know, in the dating world, like I've had the challenges. We can talk more about that.

Topaz Adizes:

I had one experience I remember where I got ghosted and I was sitting in the subway and I was really depressed. It was a Saturday morning and it was clear that I'd been ghosted and I was like, and I was in the subway and I was depressed, I was heading to Central Park to meet some friends and then this kind of voice came and said Topaz, you're going to be depressed, you're giving this other person so much power and it's going to ruin your day today and it's going to ruin your next week. What are you getting from it? And there's something that I got from being a victim. There was something I got victim I don't think that's the right word, but putting your own self-esteem. For many of my 20s I put my own self-esteem in someone else's hands and when they responded to me possibly I was like overjoyed and high.

Topaz Adizes:

I think I'm like the anxious attachment pattern. But I also had the avoidance one, because when they would stop, turn around and love on me, I would avoid and run away. And so there was that constant interplay. And I remember being on the subway. I said, topaz, what's the question you're going to ask yourself now Are you going to ask yourself why she ghosted you? Are you going to ask yourself what are you going to take away from this for the next relationship? And that immediately gave me a different answer, which put me in a more positive mindset, and it was like okay, I'm going to learn from that relationship, I'm going to move on to the next, to the next opportunity. There's one story.

Gretta Perlmutter:

Thank you for sharing that and, wow, I think a lot of listeners are probably really relating. I think most people who are listening to this have been ghosted and they're like, okay, now what? What am I going to do? How am I going to reflect on this relationship and learn from it?

Topaz Adizes:

I mean I have you know. Another big moment was I was a lot of my 20s and early 30s. I was definitely chasing, I won't say the wrong kind of partners, but the partners that gave me a lot of a high, a sense of love when they responded but were also avoided and I was always chasing them. And I had a neighbor who was an amazing older woman, slightly older than me but she was a mother of two and married, and she said very amazing, anitra, and she said Topaz, the reason that you're loving them while you chase them is because if they stopped, turned around and loved on you you'd run away.

Topaz Adizes:

So I'll say that again the reason you're loving chasing them is because you're scared if they stop and they love on you, you're going to run away. And that was such a clear hit for me that like, oh my God, I obviously have an issue with intimacy and that's where I need to focus my attention and obviously it comes from childhood and such. But that was a huge shift that I was like you know what? I'm not going to keep chasing this. I'm not going to continue this pattern, because I was very attracted to that partner who would reinforce that pattern, because that's a pattern I got high off of Chasing after for them to turn around, love on me and feel like I accomplished something, but then I would run away.

Topaz Adizes:

So I wasn't really finding that and it did take me a long time. Again, it said, meeting my partner at 42 is as much about me developing myself as it is about the luck and joy and coincidence of finally finding that person. And God knows I had met many partners before. That could have been great partners, but I wasn't really that partner, ready for that at that time, because I was, yeah, because of the patterns internally, of the way that I would attach myself, that I have and whatnot, or the way that I searched for intimacy and was fearful of intimacy.

Gretta Perlmutter:

And what did you do to make that shift within? Did you go seek external help like a therapist, coach, counselor, that type of thing?

Topaz Adizes:

Such a long story. I think I did a lot of everything. There was a quickening in the six months before I met my partner, and by that I mean it's almost like I went through a series of different experiences that were challenges for me, but I was in a space where I was conscientious of the challenges I was facing and how I was behaving and reacting to them. This goes from having an experience at Burning man to then going off to marrying your best friend and being the pastor at your best friend's wedding to his wife and seeing that love and being in the center of that vortex and holding that space, to then having an old lover come back who rejected you but now comes back and wants to be with you and how do you handle that to then facing almost my company dying and having to let people go to literally the next morning, facing my father being in the ER and it was a series of incredible rapid tests. But I was in a place and this is six months before I met my partner but I was in a play and this is six months before I met my partner but I was in a place of very much conscientiousness of how I was reacting and being in those spaces, and a key model that I was carrying in that time was, as a mass, if you believe in the polarity, if you buy into the masculine energy and feminine energy which for me was an artifice and architecture of understanding that works for me as a masculine energy was your job is not to search, it's to find yourself rooted in the earth. So don't go chasing out after these other energies. No, you ground yourself and then the feminine energy, which moves differently than masculine energy, will find itself on you. It's like pollen that flies through the, you know, in springtime and fall right. Springtime is the pollen is out and it lands on a stalk and then there's a connection that happens in okay, I'm the stalk, like the stalk of the tree, of the rose, of the flat right, ground myself and have the faith that the feminine energy will come along and will attach.

Topaz Adizes:

But the question is am I grounding myself and, more importantly, in the practice of getting to that place of relationship along the way? I mean, practice means you have a relationship with someone, you have another one, you have another one. How am I practicing the dance of that relationship? How am I showing up? Now, if they ghost me, they disappear. Okay, what can I learn from that? Not, why do they ghost me? What can I learn from that? Because, and so how am I showing up? How am I dancing in the space of relationships? Am I improving the way I dance? Am I improving the way I am being in the space of relationship? And at some point I'll get to a point where it's clear to me what my space is, what my boundaries are, what I'm looking for, how I'm being in it, and then the right person will enter that space and I'll have faith that that will happen. That's kind of been a little bit of my story.

Gretta Perlmutter:

Wow, I was getting chills from that. That was really powerful.

Topaz Adizes:

Thank you.

Gretta Perlmutter:

Yeah, and I just as a follow-up to that how did you end up meeting your wife?

Topaz Adizes:

In the most unexpected places. And that's what's, just a reminder that it's. You know, our brains try to. Our brains are built to protect, but your heart is built to connect. Your brain is built to protect. Your heart is built to connect. Your brain is built to protect. Your heart is built to connect. Faith is an empowerment vehicle for the heart, not for the brain, because the brain doesn't believe in faith. That's a leap of faith, are you crazy?

Topaz Adizes:

And for me, I had been looking with my brain for so many years for a partner, because I'm a romanticist. I mean, one of my earliest dreams as a child was loving my soulmate, and I would have dreams and feel it as a four, five, six-year-old. It would come in the form of a bee or a bird or a person. I couldn't see their face, but I knew what that love was like. And then I forgot about it and then I only started remembering in the last few years and I had always been looking for that subconsciously and for that partner. And you have that list. Do they hit the list? And da, da, da, whatever. But? But I also wanted a divine partnership, something that was really like in coherence with something that was beyond my mind. It was in my heart, and for that to happen, I had to have faith faith that the universe would present it when it was the right time. So the question wasn't what if I was going to meet them? The question is, how am I preparing myself and practicing so that I'm in a place to fully have this experience with the other soul that life will bring to me or present to me? And that, basically, was my growth pattern. So that was part of having the faith. I don't need to go out and look for it. I need to ground myself in the space as a masculine energy, as a feminine energy. Again, again, if you buy into that, that's a different. I think that's a different energy, right, and I'm not talking about men or women, talking about energies. Like you can be a gender, as a? Yeah, so I'll stop there.

Topaz Adizes:

But, um, look, I met her randomly in a place that I avoided, which was Guadalajara, mexico. I didn't like the name Guadalajara. I've lived in Mexico City. I traveled through Mexico. I never went to Guadalajara, mexico. I ended up going there. My friend said, oh, when you go there, you got to meet these three people. So I met the first two. I almost forgot about the third. Oh wait, there's this other third person. Let me go visit them. And that turned out to be my wife, and I never expected to meet her in that place, but the point was, I was prepared, that was well-practiced, and the universe presented itself to me.

Gretta Perlmutter:

That was such a beautiful story. I really love it and I know my listeners are going to get a lot out of that.

Topaz Adizes:

I haven't really addressed that on my podcast ever. So thank you. I mean, can I give one thing, which is the flip side of ghosting? We can go back to that, but you look, this has worked for me three times. And what has worked for me it's writing a list. And everyone now says oh yeah, I've heard about that writing a list.

Topaz Adizes:

The key is not about writing the list, although you have to do it. What's key is the emotional state you're in when you write the list, and that's what people miss the emotional state you're in when you write the list. Yes, you need to. This has happened for me three times. The first time, and what I mean by emotional state is it's not what you want, because what you want means you don't have it, it's what you see. It's like what you see with your you want means you don't have it. It's what you see. It's like what you see with your third eye. So when you're in that emotional state where you just know, you're like I know it, the vortex open, the space opens, whatever it is, and you just feel that confidence, you're like I see it and I know it my whole body. It's not like I want it to happen. And when you want it to happen or desire to happen. You're designing something that you don't have, right? It's like if I ask you to describe what you see behind me, you're going to be a lot more confident doing it, right? If I ask you to describe what's in, you know behind the camera that you have no idea, you're just going to guess and you're going to be in a different emotional state. So when you see a moment of clarity and you're like I see what it is, write the list in that space.

Topaz Adizes:

And when you write the list, you want to write three things down One, how you feel. Sorry, that's the last thing. First one is what is present, what is present in the relationship, what is present in the other person, right? What is not present? What is not present? And the third thing is how do you feel in the relationship? And you write as clearly. You're not saying what you want or what you don't, you're saying what do you see? What do you see with your full intuition, with your full knowledge, with your third eye, if you will, and you write that long list, just describe it and then you put it aside and you relax and you be present at the moment and the universe will bring it to you.

Topaz Adizes:

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it happened to me three times. The first time I wrote what is present, boom, and the person showed up and it was amazing. But what I did not write? What was not present. And then I wrote the list, what is present and what's not present. And then the person showed up and it was amazing, but then I forgot to write how do I feel, and I felt like I was walking on eggshells. So then, the third time, I wrote what is present, what's not present and how do I feel. And three months later, boom.

Gretta Perlmutter:

I'm telling you, I met my partner. That's such a great exercise and I wonder how, when you met your partner, how asking the right questions helped you deepen your relationship.

Topaz Adizes:

Okay, so for the last 11 years if you know the and, which is this video series that we've been doing for 11 years now over 1,250 pairs have come into a room of all kinds of relationships not just romantic or dating, but also best friends and family and they'll sit across from each other and they'll ask each other questions that we give them and we film with three cameras and then we present to the audience, where you can always see both people talking, and what it basically does is it illuminates the space between. It illuminates the and the and is, you know, a relationship, is you and I, us and them. It's the and that connects us, so it illuminates that. For doing that for 11 years and witnessing so many conversations, you get to learn how to create the space to have a cathartic conversation and how to construct really good questions, and so that's why you're asking me that, right, like, what questions did I ask my partner? That partner, which was, regardless of how this ends or doesn't end, or whatever it is, or wherever it goes, I'm ready and down to learn the lesson. Like, I don't know where this script was go, I don't know how this script is written, but I'm so intrigued and I'm so ready to learn the lesson, even if this thing crashes and burns, because I've never been on this roller coaster before and I'm going to discover different parts of myself on this roller coaster, because there's other roller coasters that I've been on all the time and you know what I'm. Sometimes you meet someone and you're like I know exactly how this is going to go. You have a sense like I know this pattern. This pattern is there's a seduction, there's this and that, and then there's avoidance or there's anxiety or this and it's over and it's like, and I know what that rollercoaster is like, and when I met my partner, this was a rollercoaster I'd never been on. And even though it was a rollercoaster and sometimes it's up and down and da dada, it's like this one. I don't know where it ends and I'm really excited to be on one that I don't know how it goes, because I know I'm going to learn from it.

Topaz Adizes:

What's the take-home lesson Is don't confound safety with comfort. Okay, safety and comfort are not necessarily the same thing. Safety is essential, but you can be uncomfortable and still be safe if you're on a roller coaster. In theory, you are safe because they've tested that thing out, engineers have looked at it. They've had thousands of people run. You know, be on it, it's checked all the time. So you're safe, you're not going to fly out, but you're uncomfortable because you're going up and down and flipping around. So in theory, let's just not confuse Just because you're uncomfortable does not mean you're not safe. And I mean let me be clear like there are toxic relationships, sometimes people think they're safe but they're not. So being clear what safety means to you and what that is is essential, but not always to confuse comfort safety. Sometimes and oftentimes safety is essential, but being uncomfortable in a safe place is excellent, because that means you're growing.

Gretta Perlmutter:

Yeah, and that goes back to the list of how do you want to feel, what feels good to you, what do you need? What are your desires?

Topaz Adizes:

Yeah, Most of that's just not forever, because forever is a long time and we change a lot, they change a lot, the world changes a lot and you have a right to change your mind, right? We're like oftentimes, this forever thing is almost is antithetical to what is real about life, which is things change. So this is, you know, so giving things kind of like a frame of mind of yeah, this is my partner for this journey that we're on and it's either going to end in us separating. It's either going to end in one of us dying, or maybe not, or who knows. But this, I'm invested in this journey as it is now and I don't know where it's going to go per se, but I know what I'm invested in and I know the direction that I'm investing in.

Gretta Perlmutter:

What is the difference between just feeling connected to someone and having a deeper, more meaningful connection?

Topaz Adizes:

What is the difference between feeling connected to someone and having more deeper connection?

Topaz Adizes:

Wow, that's really good. Thank you for that question. Thank you for that beautiful opportunity to share that. That's really nice because I haven't. Oh, thank you so much.

Topaz Adizes:

We hear so much about connection. It's like, it's like out there. It's almost as used as love. I mean love is, but love is not the same emotion as it used to be. And just think about technology. I mean our parents or grandparents used to call each other or write letters to each other and they would wait three weeks after they sent the letter to get a response if their partner was away or at war or who knows what. Right Now you send a message and it's like instantaneous.

Topaz Adizes:

Right when you're dating back in the day, you would meet your partner in physical proximity. It had to be physical proximity. You would meet your partner or you would be dating on people that either you met through friends, you met at church, you met at work, you met at the supermarket. You had to physically run into them. Now you can explore digitally and the physical proximity is not as necessary as it used to be. You could find other people and other experiences and other explorations and that's almost a superpower that makes us feel connected, but does it give us deeper connection? And deeper connection is not necessary to physical proximity, but it's the way that we engage with each other when we are in conversation, when we are in connection, and bottom line is are you sitting in the space of discomfort so that you can explore one another? Right, it's not about the answers, it's about sitting in the questions. Okay, I just threw two things. I didn't really connect them, but I just want to give that take home. It's like a calculation.

Topaz Adizes:

You hear Esther Perel, which I'm sure a lot of your audience knows because she's incredible, does great work, written wonderful books and does great things and a leader in the space. She says the quality of your life is commensurate to the quality of your relationships. Okay, so the quality of relationships, the better relationships, the better my quality of life. I believe that it makes sense to me, great. Well, how do we have quality relationships? Well, believe that makes sense to me, great. Well, how do we have quality relationships? Well, one way is quality conversations. Right, there's a few other ways of access, but one way, as humans, is we have this ability to put words to ideas and emotions and have conversations okay, great. So then how do you have quality conversations? And that's where we come in, because we've been having over 1,250 of them in the last 11 years in 10 countries of all kinds, and it's about creating the space and well-constructed questions. So if you create the space, you have well-constructed questions, you will have these incredible conversations. If you have these incredible conversations, you have deeper relationships. If you have deeper relationships, you'll amplify and have a deeper quality of life.

Topaz Adizes:

Okay, so you're asking about connection and deeper relationships, conversations. What are the conversations you're having? Now? If you're asking the same question over and over again with when you're dating, you're going to get the same answers. It's almost like a rhythm. Here's a very simple take home. Watch this You're on a date and you have your go to question, or they have their go-to question Like what are you looking for in your next relationship?

Topaz Adizes:

Okay, so you go on five dates and the five people ask you what are you looking for in your next relationship? You're going to answer the same thing, right? If your mom asks you what do you want? Look at your next relationship. I just want to look at the same thing. So that question does not acknowledge the person who you're in conversation with. If you just tweak it and make it a connective question, connective question means that it acknowledges who's in the conversation. So you'd say what do you think we're both looking for in our next relationship? What do you think is the common thing that you and I both are looking for, that we share what we're looking for in the next relationship? You go on five dates. You're going to get five different answers because I have to take you into account for the person asking the question and giving you the answer. If your mom asks you that you're like oh well, I have to think about what are my mom and I both looking for? What value do we both share when we're looking at our next relationship? So, just making the question connected, what acknowledges the unique moment, the unique conversation that you're having with the other person, just that little tweak means you're not giving the same routine scripted answer. Now, that's because again, let's focus on the question you create a well-constructed question that's unique because you're acknowledging the people in the conversation. It's going to lead you into a new place. It's going to lead you to a place that you're having a conversation by virtue of the fact of the synergy of what's there and that leads you into a place of somewhat deeper connection, because you're acknowledging this is not just like every other conversation. When you give the same answer every time. It basically says the other person in front of you doesn't matter because you're giving the same answer. So if you ask more well-concepted questions that acknowledge the people in the conversation, you're going to have a unique conversation every time.

Topaz Adizes:

Deeper relationship why? Because you're exploring new space. And the other thing is in a relationship any relationship when we say deeper to me, I see the roots of a tree are deeper, say deeper to me, I see the roots of a tree are deeper, which means the tree that stands on that deeper connection to earth, the deeper relationship, the stronger connection you have to another can weather the storm, can weather more discomfort. And that's why I say sit in the discomfort of the question. That's more important than finding the answer, because the answer can be generic and scripted that you give to everybody. But if you ask quality questions and you sit in the discomfort of asking those questions, you don't necessarily have to answer them. You're building a deeper relationship.

Gretta Perlmutter:

So smart. Can you share a little bit about your book and how that can help?

Topaz Adizes:

Yeah. So 12 Questions for Love. It's a guide to intimate conversations and deeper relationships, and it's basically what my team and I have learned from witnessing all these conversations and how to create the space, how to ask well-constructed questions, and gives you the tools and what we've learned of how to do it. Because, think about it, where do we learn how to have quality conversations? I don't know where you learn. You learn basically by doing so.

Topaz Adizes:

You either model it from your family right, or you model in your fan group and you model in your fan group and that's in your model, in your culture and, and, frankly, our culture just feeds us now, with you know, short dopamine hits, whether it's short texts or short tiktok video, whatever it's like we're being trained for short instead of depth and long. So how do we? Where do we learn from? And so for me and my team's offering is well, we've been learning from just watching for the last 11 years. People do it and this is what we've learned. This is what we've distilled down and that's what's in the book, and we can go deep into what's in the book, but the book is basically an opportunity for you to to learn how to ride the bike of how to have deeper conversations, how to sit in the space, how to ask stronger questions, more exploratory questions that lead you into different places and basically reflect your experience of living, in a way that you don't get because we're not asking the same old questions.

Gretta Perlmutter:

I think this is so important for people who have been ghosted, because they're on high alert.

Topaz Adizes:

We're on high alert of who are we dating.

Gretta Perlmutter:

What do they want? Who are they really and truly? Are they going to ghost me? And by listening with deep curiosity and asking the important questions, you can learn a lot about a person and their character.

Topaz Adizes:

Look what I've learned from doing this, from just witnessing. It's just the power of questions, which is a cliche, but it is so true we don't realize. It's not about the answer, it's about the question you ask. And oftentimes we are not asking our own questions, we're asking questions that society gives you, that you think is normal that your parents give you, that your friends give you. The more unique question you ask yourself, the more helpful and unique of a life you're going to have, because you're asking yourself different questions. And so when you wake up in the morning and you say, oh shit, I have to do that, or whatever first thought you have, you don't realize that you're actually answering a question. We are answering questions with every thought. We speak in our heads or out loud. We're answering a question, but we're so good at focusing on answers and saying these things that we're not realizing we're actually answering a question. So when I wake up in the morning, oh shit, should I have to do that? The question was what should he think? Do I have to do today? What's going to be the hard part of the day? How do I feel about today? Oh, that shitty thing I have to do If instead, you say wait, wait, wait, stop, I'm going to change it. I know I have a tough day today. I know I going to learn from today's challenges Because the mind is built to protect you. So it's a faithful dog, it's a faithful servant. It will find the answer to any question you ask it, but ask it really good questions that it fetches you quality answers. So if you're asking, why do they ghost me? That faithful dog is going to chase down that stick and bring you 30 sticks each, with the possibility because they don't like me, because I'm not good enough, because they have this, because this da-da-da, how many of those sticks? How many of those answers will be constructive for you, will give you a sense of agency and empowerment. Instead, if you ask a different question, don't focus on the answers. Change focus the question. You go. You know what. I'm not going to ask that question because it's going to fetch me all these sticks that are not helpful. I'm going to change the question.

Topaz Adizes:

How did I show up in this last relationship that I really enjoyed and want to carry into the next one? Bring back all these sticks. You did this great. You did this great. I did this great bringing back all these sticks. You did this great. You did this great. I did this great, great. I'm going to kick those sticks into the next relationship. I'm not even concerned about why they ghosted me, even though I'm not saying that's easy. I'm just saying that's when we started this thing about stepping in the train and ask myself a different question. The question shapes the answer. So if you're finding answers that are not making you feel good, that are not empowering you and not constructive and not giving you things to move forward, don't keep asking the same question. Change the question. Change the question.

Gretta Perlmutter:

One question that I had to answer myself was why do I want to be with somebody? Why am I pining after, longing for, fantasizing, romanticizing about somebody who ghosted me? That's so hard because I still wanted them back. I still miss them. I had to get to the root of that question.

Topaz Adizes:

Yeah, that's. It's a big question. You know it's a, it's a, it's a big one. And what is empty in me that they, I allow them to fill, and how can I fill it myself?

Gretta Perlmutter:

Right.

Topaz Adizes:

You know, tweaking it at into that question, because then it the second part how can I fill it myself? Then your, your mind is searching the sticks that, teaching you how to fill it yourself and giving you the power right, giving you the agency. And so I find that most of my conversations, every time I talk to people, I anything, we're trying to look for an answer. I'm always like let's go back to the question, just make, let's construct a better question. Let's construct a better question so that the answers will be more constructive for us.

Topaz Adizes:

Because a race is shaped by the course it's on. If it's got a lot of curves, the race is going to have a lot's on. If it's got a lot of curves, the race is going to have a lot of curves. If it's a straight line, it's going to have a straight line. So, like you know, a simple example if I ask my kids do you want to go to sleep, do you want to go to sleep, the answer is the other, yes or no. But if I say, do you want to sleep on the couch or on the bed, the option to stay up is not an option. The only option is you're on the bed or on the couch. So the question shapes the answer. Focus more on the question, find really good questions to ask yourself that are going to fetch you the answers, the sticks that are going to be helpful. But I, yeah, I mean, I feel you.

Gretta Perlmutter:

Yeah, is there anything else you'd like to share with listeners about ghosting or being ghosted in general?

Topaz Adizes:

I don't know if this is going to sound trivial or something, but the the pain you sense, the pain you feel, first of all it's not you, it's just something you're feeling. So know that. So know it's not you, it's something you're feeling, it's something that you can pass through and also it is the fodder from which you will blossom. And also it is the fodder from which you will blossom.

Gretta Perlmutter:

That energy of the pain and the hurt means that if you go into it and explore it, there are so many seeds that are yet to blossom to construct the love that you're yearning for and that you will have. That's beautifully said. Thank you, I love that. How can?

Topaz Adizes:

listeners, connect with you and dive into your work On social media with the Skin Deep. Just look up the Skin Deep on all the social media channels. We're particularly present on TikTok, instagram and YouTube, and to buy our products is on Amazon or theskindeepcom slash shop. And, yeah, that's basically the best way. I mean, I have my own personal website, but all my work and all our products and all our experiences and all our content is theskindeepcom.

Gretta Perlmutter:

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Topaz Adizes:

Oh, thank you, Greta, thank you so much.

Gretta Perlmutter:

And listeners. Please follow me at Coping With Ghosting on social media. Join my free and private Facebook support group called Coping with Ghosting and leave a rating for this show. And remember when you're ghosted, you have more time to connect with yourself and people who have stellar communication skills. You deserve the best.