Dealing with shame by embracing a vulnerability, fear of vulnerability and letting that shame be

I feel full of shame which I can’t explain. I feel that it is linked to my gender identity, sexuality and/or body.

why

When I asked Google why I feel this shame with search terms linked to the above suspicions, I landed on a page suggesting that shame in adult males is linked to child abuse. The point that really hit home was the comment: ‘’Males are not supposed to feel vulnerable or fearful about sex.’’ Was I sexually abused as a child? I didn’t think so. Though, one link on the page, hyperlinked as ‘sorting it out for yourself’appealed to my confusion. I clicked on it and reconsidered. There are some circumstances from my childhood that I had not considered child abuse that I can reframe as child abuse. The article disclaims that fussng over labelling is not particularly helpful. But is thist a healthy reframe or experience to identify with? That remains unclear to me. Those articles were not so helpful other than to indicate a dead end.

how

Rather than ask why, I reckoned it may be more prudent to ask how. How can I overcome these feelings. My line of questioning was influence by the memory of a friend who once mused that she is grateful for all the relationships that didn’t work out, because there was something good in all of them, something to learn from, and something which helped her grow...or something like that. I supposed that my feelings of inadequacy may relate to my past relationship experiences...and lack thereof. Another Google search yielded neat articles about learning from relationships that didn’t work and healing past relationships. I particularly like the way the latter article summarised it’s key points visually at the start. So, I looked for other articles in the same category on that website and found two articles that I reckon will be useful guides. The first is about survivng bad dates and healing childhood scars that create bad adultrelationships. I feel good about what I have seen here. So, I hope it will be useful to ya’ll.

The key points for me in this research experience are the points given for what not to do in one (but not the other) expert beacon articles. The what todos are fairly available knowledge. I reckon people are less likely to condemn poor ways of doing things in real life. So, the article was relatively valuable, and invoked a stopping rule by cutting off the reason I was searching for an answer in the first place - the drive to* *suppress these feeling of vulnerability, that I feel, while focussing on the negative**

DON’T

• dwell on the past
• play the blame game
• suppress your feelings
• fear vulnerability
• focus on the negative