When you find your own weak points, rank them by how damaging they are, not by how bad they made you feel to find.
These are two completely different lists, and people confuse them constantly.
The trap
The thing you're most ashamed of is often minor to anyone else.
The genuinely dangerous one is often something you've never felt anything about at all.
Shame is a terrible prioritiser. It makes you spend weeks worrying about something no one will raise, while the actual problem sits unexamined because it never made you feel anything.
The sorting question
Not "how does this look?" but "what would someone do with this?"
That needs you to think like the person using it, not the person who did it.
Then treat them differently
- Minor ones: have an honest, calm answer ready.
- Serious ones: take them to your lawyer early. Not the week before.
Get a second opinion
If you can, ask someone you trust to sort the list. They'll rank it completely differently from you, and they'll usually be right, because they don't carry the feelings attached to each item.
Shame is not a severity rating. It's just the loudest one.
General information, not legal advice. Court process differs between countries and regions; check anything that matters to your case with a qualified lawyer where you live.
Chapter 11 of the workbook covers ranking what you find. Worksheet H, the self red-team checklist, has a severity column and a planned honest response for each point, and tracks which ones have gone to your lawyer.
See the workbook & spreadsheet