It took me a while to muster up the courage but with therapy I made myself a rule: If I am intentionally avoiding a subject, that probably means it's important for me to talk about regardless of how she reacts. Usually I will even state that whatever I am feeling or doing has feelings of shame/embarrassment attached to it and discuss that feeling first. That doesn't make it easy but it helps and talking about this stuff has relieved some of the stress and taken some of the guesswork out of my relationship with her which has helped me put the focus on my actual issues instead of on what is going on in that room. I started with little things and she handled them beautifully, she was kind and patient and normalized everything I was feeling.That has made it a lot easier to come to her with the bigger things.