I had thought that once I decided to make the career change that my stress level would go down, but it�s actually gone up. Now, I feel overwhelmed with work, plus filled with worry over the future and how to make it happen.

My brain has been entering another phase, and at first, thought it was changing because I was allowing my �right brain� out of its cage. Most of my adult life I�ve tried to repress those functions that are typically associated with the right side of the brain. If I allow it to do too much, then it tends to take over all decision-making and starts ordering the left side around.

I haven�t been wholly on top of things, lately. My brain is normally an analytical octopus that can keep track of an insane number of things at once. Now, when I try to utilize the octopus, I find half of the arms playing cards and the other half throwing a Frisbee around. I�d been attributing this to my healing and intuitive exercises, thinking that, in an effort to balance out, I�m over-compensating in the other direction.

I�m beginning to think that maybe this is just me being me. Yes, there are times when I�m highly functional, almost super-humanly functional. Then, I�ll go into a phase where I can�t do much more than coast. I spend most of my functional times preparing for the non-functional times. I�ve behaved this way for so much of my life that I don�t even think about it most of the time.

During the past few months, my job has been demanding that I keep up that high level of function all of the time. There�s no time for coasting. I�ve been forced to delegate all my mindless busy-work, which means, I don�t get to retreat into my head for a couple of days while I do something that doesn�t require much mental effort.

My body has been a wreck, lately. I haven�t been able to keep up my usual workout routine, so my general stress level has been higher than usual. Since I�m not so young, anymore, when I am not physically active (getting regular stretching and strengthening), I start getting aches and pains, probably from beating the crap out of my body, for years, in karate.

My neck and upper back somehow got twisted up into a pretzel. I went to the chiropractor. Instead of a usual visit, where they are able to miraculously snap me back in place like a row of legos, my spine was stubborn. It usually makes them really happy to see how quickly and easily my bones will move. I tend to be very responsive to any kind of body work, and it usually excites people to see the fruits of their labor immediately.

Unfortunately, because I am so easily moveable, I can literally bend myself out of shape easily, too. It�s the stress that does it.

I can bounce down an icy slope with a snowboard attached to my feet and find myself mostly in-tact at the bottom. One stressful day at work and I�ll come home a complete mess.

I do feel a better after seeing the chiropractor last night, but I�m not totally straightened out, yet. I made another appointment for next week.

I wrote that earlier in the day, and then I had an attitude shift�

I really do feel like this year is truly going to be an auspicious year. I was born under a lot of auspicious signs, and while it does seem silly to categorize people that way, I have always been a fairly lucky person.

It�s true, I did have a crappy life growing up, but that�s how it is. There are always people being born into crappy lives, and in a sense, even that is lucky. It teaches lots and lots of survival skills. I�m not saying that I�ve had an insane amount of good fortune. At least, I don�t feel like that�s the case. When it comes to being in the right place at the right time, some weird coincidence erasing one of my major screw-ups, or even winning raffles, I tend to be better than average.

This past Christmas was actually the first year that I ended up not winning one of the holiday raffles, at work. I felt quite ripped off that I didn�t get to go home with some kind of gift-card in hand.

I have no idea what it means that I didn�t win this year, but when I look at the odds, it doesn�t even make sense that I would have won all previous years, so it�s hard to complain about it.

Things at work turned around this week. The evil client that has been giving me grief finally decided to change their services, so I won�t be involved, anymore. With them leaving, that means I can concentrate on training others. I want my remaining clients to have good contacts that will continue to provide them good services. As luck/fate would have it, this whole upheaval at work has made it so I can actually give people really good, solid training, without it seeming suspicious that I suddenly want people to know my stuff. Also, of the three new hires, I ended up with the best and smartest as my helper (and person that I�m training).

Also, as luck/faith would have it, Adam�s mentor previously mentored the guy who is the dean for the program I�m planning to attend. At the moment, this doesn�t affect me directly, but weird, eh? Also, there is a slight possibility that Adam�s mentor is going to put him on a research project working with the dean guy.

Hmmmm. I think things are going to be better going forward. It has been stressful. Much of that stress was caused by my evil client (seriously, these people will not pass up an opportunity to be as evil as possible), but there�s an end in sight (one more month). Also, a lot of it was just self-inflicted. When I start feeling anxious, it tends to spiral and get worse.

If I can just get a foothold on it, I think things will improve.

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Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 at 4:20 PM