Who hasn’t seen the old Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles?”  These little creatures are interesting and cute at first but they begin to multiply at an alarming rate, all but taking over the star ship Enterprise endangering the crew and ship.  Captain Kirk!  Bones!  Mr. Spock!  What can be done to save the ship from this takeover??  Self-destruct?? 

Sometimes my thoughts are like the tribbles.  One interesting thought leads to another that leads to another and soon I can find my mind being overrun.  It’s maddening.  And since I rarely take the time and put forth a real effort to chronicle them in my journal, they continue.  Then I get to a place, be it physically, mentally, spiritually, that I am able to tell these stories and I find myself so overwhelmed I don’t know what write.  More often than not my mind accumulates thoughts faster than I can even process them.

There is vast overcrowding in my mind.  Maybe like a prison?  Some get set free.  Some are paroled but wind up coming back.  Some are there for life. 

So with all of these tribbles when did Captain Kirk find some quiet time to sort through them and deal with them?  Quiet time?  What the hell is that?  Be still?  Excuse me?  After three and a half decades of avoiding any way I could, I now find myself overrun with so many thoughts and feelings I wonder some days if I can get them under control.  Maybe I’ve had all of this going on but I just ignored it which automatically set me on self-destruct?  Imagine what would have happened to the Enterprise and her crew had Kirk just avoided and ignored the tribbles.

Oh the lessons we can learn from the valiant crew of the starship Enterprise!  Who knew?!

So understanding now that avoiding and ignoring these things only lead to self destruction, I can slowly begin to confront and address.  Set free.  Validate.  Possibly even nurture.