What is really keeping you from going to therapy? part ii

So if price is not really a valid prohibitive when you think of therapy in terms of an investment in the happiness, health, and wholeness of the rest of your entire life then fear must be the real issue here.  I've had friends that have said that they were afraid to go to therapy because they were afraid of having to bring up the wounds and shadows that they have spent so much of their lives avoiding, stuffing down, and trying to ignore.  The irony of the sentiment that "I don't want to have to deal with my stuff" is that you're already always dealing with it.  You're dealing with it in every relationship, every interaction.  "Your stuff" undealt with, colors the lens through which you look your entire world.  You keep sabotaging relationships because of the "stuff I'm afraid to deal with".  You're already dealing with it!!! It's just that you're trying to shut the lid, which A. takes a ton of energy that you don't even realize you're expending and B. by avoiding bringing the dark matter of your wounds out into the light and trying to force it down into your emotional container and shut the lid tight you end up with a slow-motion mess as the dark matter always finds a place to ooze out and make itself known, typically at the most inopportune times.  So whether or not you're ready to confront it, you're still dealing with it, you're just dealing with it by cleaning up the messes your shadow is making around you.  Put in those terms, which are you more afraid of? Doing the hard scary work of facing your shadow in a therapists office with the likelihood of finding healing and relief, or doing the exhausting work of picking up after your shadow for the rest of your life?