Dealing with life-narrative issues, a.k.a., "my personal crap"

I just finished reading the thread on dukkha. My take on it is that when "The Question" arose, front and center, seemingly in a brief flash of clarity, attention was diverted back to noticing and dwelling upon mental thought-forms. So every time this happens, an opportunity to break free is apparently wasted. And the cycle of ignorant fondness of mental phenomena continues, along with the concomitant suffering. Dukkha. I do strongly suspect that development of concentration and insight will catalyze a state of being prone to realization. Of not being able, or willing, to run away from, you know, That Question.

Still, though, I also have read material on the readiness of the practitioner to do the training. And part of that seems to be having the house in order. Having my sh*t together. No big unstable things going on in the life narrative. On one hand, I don't think it's possible to clear out everything or just "get over" things before committing to practice. On the other hand, I find it frustrating that material that is either repeating like a broken record (or being processed, I can't tell which yet) still feels so... overwhelming and potentially threatening to sustained practice. Any thoughts? Thank you so much!!!

I've found that in the past year of really doing vipassana that there has been a combination of:
1. More insight causing me to create less crap.
2. A natural tendancy to WANT to create less crap so my practice will be more steady.

I'm not sure if there is more of one or two or if they are actually the same thing, but, the more I practice the more my life (at least the stuff that I create) seems to calm down and straigthen out.
It's great.

Kenneth mentioned the transition between 1st and 2nd Jhana, when you are in the cause/effect stratum, is one place where your personal stuff starts to come up. You'll see how your past behaviors lead to the present. A lot of A-ha moments that are great at grabbing the attention. I'm watching out for that myself as that's kind of where I seem to be at at this point.

Two observations form personal experience:

1. It's just better overall to be fair, nice, honest, and so on. This is helpful for practice in that the mind is that much less cluttered and busy, but that's a side note, IMHO.

2. My practice always seemed to sort of thrive on some amount of crap in my life, usually work related. This is sort of like being made to eat lima beans when you're a kid - unpleasant but ultimately good for you, mainly to learn how to just observe it and not get stuck in it, and how to let go of that stuff when you sit.

If you want to start or continue your practice just do it, and at the same time live your life as skillfully as you can.