dealing with pain

You know when you go to the dentist and they want to do some awful procedure? The give you something to numb the area. When it is as drastic as wisdom teeth removal, they give you enough to put you under. Why is that? So you don't feel the pain! They don't want you to react to the procedure. They don't want you to pass out from the pain. I am sure there are other reasons as well.

So my thought this morning is, why then do I have to bring up all of this pain from my past in order to deal with it all? Why do I have to feel it all? I learned when I was young to put the pain somewhere were it did not affect me. Why is it that I have to bring it all back out and walk through it now? I like when things are neatly packed away and the thought of opening up all of those things in order to sort through them all is exhausting! I want to leave them packed away in their nicely marked boxes.

At the same I see people with pain packed away inside and I know that is not what I want to live like either. I am caught in between. I want to get it all out, yet I want to keep it all in. I feel almost frozen in that stage and don't know where to go from here.