Remember that when overcoming bashful bladder you can choose to give yourself positive messages. That’s what affirmations are about. Affirmations are positive statements we tell ourselves about future behaviors, events, and feelings.
They are a step forward to changing how we think of ourselves and of beating avoidant paruresis. They are not magic bullets but another tool to use to change your behavior.
To learn to do so effectively will take a while–even perhaps a long while–but it can be done. Create affirmations for yourself to counter your negative feeling from the past. Repeat your affirmations even if you don’t believe them.
1) “Urination is a normal function I engage in with increasing ease.”
2) “Men are beautiful and how they urinate is beautiful.”
3) “I am a healthy man, engaging in a healthy function.”
4) “The men’s room is a safe environment.”
5) “My body is fine with all its imperfections.”
These affirmations counter negative signals it is likely you were given for a long time about private or public urination. When the outside stimulus stopped, you probably began to give them to yourself. It is even possible that you were given negative messages about something else and you have transferred those messages to urinating.
The source of your paruresis is perhaps not crucially important. What is very important is that you end the trash talk you speak to yourself and learn to be more kind to yourself. Do not let the past occupy the present.
An example of the power of affirmations occurred when I quit smoking many years ago. I hoped to support my goal to do so by changing the way I thought of myself. As we all have, I had been subjected to countless advertisements in which a smoker is portrayed as attractive, “cool,” or special in some way that was associated with smoking. Knowing this to be the case, I knew I had to change the way I thought of myself if I were to quit smoking.
I kept affirming, “I am a person who does not smoke.” (An unusual instance when an affirmation is stated in the negative.) I also said things to myself like, “I enjoy having healthy lungs,” and “I enjoy smelling fresh and clean.” I repeated this even when I was smoking and surrounded in a cloud of stench!
One day, perhaps a month after I had begun this behavior modification process, I felt very deeply that something had shifted. I said to myself, “What am I doing! I’m smoking and polluting my lungs! I am a person who does not smoke!” From then on, I was well on my way to becoming a person who does not smoke. (That was almost thirty-five years ago, and I have not smoked in all that while.)
After hearing yourself repeating an affirmation 100 times, 1,000 times, you will begin to believe its message. And that belief will be a tool to change your behavior.
If negative messages from the past could have changed your behavior for the worse, why can’t positive, life-enhancing messages from the present change them for the better and help you beat avoidant paruresis?
Good Luck!
I am a man who was once badly afflicted by avoidant paruresis. My “bashful bladder” was a serious inconvenience that hindered my ability to go out in public or to take long road trips. My fear of public restrooms–and of the men in them–was so bad that I found myself severely restricted.
One day I decided that enough was enough, I was going to overcome this “bashful bladder” no matter what! It took time–and alot of practice–but I finally am to the point where I am consistently comfortable “going” in public restrooms in the presence other men. I wrote my book, Pee Shy to Pee Free, so that other men can benefit from my success and overcome their “bashful bladders” just as I have.