You may not want to get in touch with your messiest feelings—sadness, rage, resentment—but one way or another, they're going to get in touch with you. Martha Beck shows you how to defuse and deal.

"Of course I'm out of my mind," said one of my daughter's friends the other day. "It's dark and scary in there!"

I wish all of us were so honest. Freud's great contribution was the recognition that consciousness holds only a small fraction of the things we know and feel. Beneath this tidy space lie the subconscious and unconscious levels of thought—cavern systems containing hidden labyrinths and spooky creatures. It's a place most of us avoid, pushing away dark thoughts in a process known as repression.

The problem is that, as therapists like to say, "What we resist persists." The further we withdraw from difficult issues, the more likely they are to spill out. The only way to keep this from happening is to go spelunking in our own forbidden, forbidding depths.

The Things We Almost Know
Repression sometimes occurs involuntarily—for instance, when soldiers in battle experience so much pain and fear that they psychologically dissociate and later have a flat, emotionless memory (or no memory at all) of the event. Most repression, however, involves an element of choice. This is not the kind of explicit decision-making we use to solve intellectual problems but the conditioned avoidance of psychological pain.

This can be exhausting, because the mind doesn't like hiding things from itself. We often deal with this by keeping our attention riveted on other things: eating, shopping, work, television, alcohol—anything but quiet relaxation. The best long run result we can hope for is chronic stress; the worst, flat-out breakdown.

To figure out whether you may benefit from mental cave diving, take this quiz.

The antidote to repression is expression. Here's a five-step process to help your conscious mind tunnel through the walls of denial.

Step 1: Set up a buddy system
You wouldn't explore an uncharted cave alone, so start by making an appointment to go mind-spelunking with someone reliable. If your score on the quiz is high, this someone had better be a therapist. If your score is low or moderate, make plans to go through the steps below with a trustworthy friend or significant other.

Step 2: Dig for the truth
Now you're going to shine a light around your mental grottoes by answering the following questions. Be absolutely honest, but don't over think your answers.

• What do I almost know?
• What do I almost feel?
• What would I want to do if it weren't forbidden?
• What am I tired of hiding from myself?
• What really happened, though I act as if it never did?
• What is it that my family and I all know but no one ever talks about?

If you have very little repressed mind matter, your honest answer to each question might be "nothing." But you may uncover a shocker.

Step 3: Shine the light of words
The recipe for releasing buried demons is simple: Know what you really know, feel what you really feel and say what you really mean. It doesn't matter if the words you use to reveal the truth are written or spoken, poetic or clumsy. As long as they're utterly candid, they create a channel that opens what you know subconsciously to the luminous clarity of conscious thought.

Step 4: Master (non)reaction
Almost by definition, uncovering buried information will expose you to some uneasy sensations. Whatever the feeling, react by not reacting. Hold still and know your new truth. The ability to sit calmly at this crucial moment is your lifeline, your infallible guide back to the safe surface of consciousness. This can be a purely psychological process, or your discovery might require action. Either way, precipitous action will make things worse. For a few minutes, just absorb the truth. Emotion will crest and fade repeatedly, each wave leaving you less fearful and clearer about what to do next.

Step 5: Discover re-covery
Set a limit on your expression session. Less than half an hour usually isn't enough time; more than 90 minutes, too much. About 15 minutes before your time is up, rebury issues that don't require urgent action. That's right, re-repress what you've uncovered. You're not going to forget that it exists or fail to deal with it, but processing can—and usually must—happen gradually.

Tucking away a newly exposed truth is easier than you may expect—after all, you've been storing this knowledge out of consciousness all along, so you have a nice hidey-hole for it in your mind. Close your eyes and see the issue you've uncovered. Put it back into the nook it occupied until a few minutes ago. See yourself covering it with gravel, promising to come back later. Then go back to business as usual. Unless you're dealing with severe trauma—in which case, I repeat, you need professional help—you'll find it weirdly easy to behave as you always have, even if you've unearthed a real stunner.

It takes courage to explore the secret caverns in your mind, but if you do, allowing plenty of time and trusting the process, you'll discover that there is treasure hidden in them. Beneath consciousness lies repression, but beneath repression lies wisdom. The more you let yourself explore the truth about your inner world, mapping the channels your mind has created, the more you will find yourself making good judgment calls, knowing what to do next, feeling purposeful and peaceful. Your life will work more smoothly. You'll have a better effect on the world. And best of all, you'll never again be quite so afraid of the dark.