Before I even get to the 300+ messages in the mailbox, I want to take some time to process, and I do that best by blogging.

I want to start by saying this site and it's members mean a lot to me, and it was hard to be away from it for a few days, but it was also good for me too. I can be very protective and I can also be a work-a-holic and tend to push myself on projects far more than I should. Like most people, in any state of health, if you push yourself too hard, you'll make yourself sick. This is a lesson I know well, however it seemed I needed a little reminder.

I've been doing over all not too bad in pacing myself, but under estimated how much emotional stress I was subjecting myself too. Cuz, I'm a neurotic over sensitive type, truth be told. I love everyone, and when people get upset at me and decide to dislike me, I get devastated. A little insane for a 41 years old woman, but there you have it, me in a nutshell.

It's particularly bad with other women, I have such a strong desire to have close and trusting friendships, and I find I have to keep myself in check from bending over backwards and letting myself get walked all over. I have a tendency to focus on women who hurt me and put way too much energy into trying to make it better, trying to regain friendship, love, and trust, and find myself bending over backwards. The problem is in the process I neglect myself, and my own needs, as well as many other people in my life that are as deserving, as all my energy gets focused on trying to mend fences with one or two people that in all odds, are just having a personality conflict with me.

Do I have a neurotic desire to be loved and admired by everyone, loved, maybe, admired, no... I prefer it when people see me as an equal to them, not place me on a pedestal and elevate me, or see me as a lesser person. I think it's just more that I take on a sense of responsibility for people, and I'm highly empathic. When people are hurt and upset, I feel it deeply. When they are hurt and upset at me... I feel it directed, and I feel it deeply. When they believe I deliberately meant for them to be hurt... or that I am the type of person that doesn't mind hurting others to benefit themselves. I become devastated. Hurting people hurts me so much, in so many ways, I can't understand how on earth anybody can think ultimately hurting someone else can benefit them. For me the psychic distress involved over rides anything else.

The biggest challenge I'm facing with running this site so far has been interpersonal conflicts with other site owners. Particularly women, and this follows a pattern for me in life, so I'm not surprised. I don't understand the competitive mind, and I have a hard time anticipating the reactions and feelings of people who think very differently than me. I inadvertently hurt people who are hurt by things that I'm not. I make the mistake most people make and assume people will tend to think, feel, and react like me in certain circumstances and not really anticipate that something I may see as a co-operative undertaking, and a win-win situation is going to be perceived as a competitive undertaking, and a win-lose scenario.

Many, if not most of us are brain washed by modern western culture to be highly competitive, and this should come as no surprise to me. We are taught constantly to measure and assess ourselves in thousands of ways and 'rate' this against others. The only purpose in this is to create a society of people who are in competition with one another... this literally sets everyone up as adversaries. In a world where everyone is a threat... everyone is constantly unable to trust anyone else... well, very easy to control by the powers that be.

We live in a world that does it's best to turn people against one another. Competing for resources. Making everything competition. I've always hated that. Maybe it comes from being one of those kids picked last.... I've always thought ranking and rating people against arbitrary classifications was not only stupid... but cruel, and we start with small children, turning them against one another in the school yard.

There I am still... 5 years old, shoved from behind, with a newly skinned knee.. wondering why we all can't play nice. Loving the kid that shoved me, knowing their just scared and angry, because I can feel it radiating off of them, and if I felt that way, I might do the same... Feeling their hurt and rage... at me... but knowing really, it doesn't have anything to do with me at all... the worst part. Is not that they hurt me, because I heal fast, but that they're hurting still, angry at me still, scared still, hating me still... and I can't help them. I can't make it better.

That's where I am again, struggling with myself, to 'just let it go'.... Send the love, send the forgiveness, and move on. If I stop and try to fix those situations, I end up shredding myself in the process, and often end up trying to 'help' people that really don't want my help, quite frankly don't like me, and don't trust me. I need to re-place my trust in the bigger picture, which is what articulating all of this is helping me do... writing for me is the best way to process, and open process is how I like to role... because I think we all need to process and share more together in this world.

I think because we're all ultimately more similar than we think in so many ways... really, don't most of us, except for perhaps a hand full of sociopaths.. just really want to be loved, and accepted? Live a happy peaceful loving caring life?

Anyways, I will likely come back to this again, in different forms and times. For now, it's time to give the fingers a break again.

I have a lot to do today... and in the week ahead. I'm going to have to focus on taking a little better care of my social/emotional resources. Which means I'm going to have to leave a lot of other sites I'm a part of, and focus on just a handful where I really feel I'm in a positive supportive environment to co-create with. Yes, I 'use' other social networks in part as marketing tools, but I do so in a non-exploitative manner that is open, transparent, and is designed to help drive as much as, if not more traffic, to those other sites, as well as maintain memberships on the other sites I'm on. 

I'm someone who believes very much that what you give you get back, in multiples. I worry more about helping others, on other peoples websites, than helping myself, knowing that in doing so, I AM helping myself. The most direct way to get ahead in this world... is to get behind other people, and help them. When you stop thinking about yourself and your own needs, and care about other peoples. People give back to you. When you let go of fear, let go of greed, and just trust in a universe where actions are returned, whether you think of it as karma, or the three fold law, or physics, or like me have your own unlabelled view... This is something I have experienced first hand in life. What you sow, you reep.

The big 'secret' to success is simply caring about others, and the successes of others, they in turn care about you... and everyone succeeds... this idea that we have to compete, and that resources are scarce... it's a social lie. Listen to your heart... and to your spirit. It knows better.