Of late, certainly since returning from Europe (what a superb occurrence was that trip!), I have been in turmoil about the Home Owners’ Assn., about being on the Executive Board. It is feeling like an increasingly draining experience. Frustrating. It constellates for me just about every negative feeling that I have known from family and every negative business experience that I’ve ever experienced. The Jaunarājs clan in all its neurotic controlling patterns. The ugliness of H&H. The utter incompetence and violence in mental health.
It feels like running the EB, trying to steer it to do what it should be doing, at least as it seems to me, should be quite easy. Yet it feels numbingly difficult. I have expended great amounts of time and energy in my role as president, and I feel increasingly resentful about this emotional and intellectual outlay. An outlay that seems to produce only small results in terms of creating smooth and efficient operational patterns, and also leaves numerous tasks undone.
I dread signing on to e-mail. The deluge of poorly written e-pistles daunts me. They feel like verbal sludge. I spend lots of time considering and formulating responses to them, writings that are frequently not responded to.
It feels very a-Sat. Anti-soul. And grossly inefficient, to boot.
I wake up in the middle of the night stewing about how tar-baby-like I feel regarding my stance, my relationship with this governing body. My challenge is to establish for myself, on a daily basis, the boundaries that I need for my sanity in terms of what I will and won’t do. My ego wants to assert Control, to Get Everything Done Right. It is a classic example of pushing water uphill: all that results from my efforts is that I become tired and frustrated. And I get wet.
In the language of Improv, the HOA keeps extending similar sorts of Offers to me, and I am increasingly not liking my Responses. They leave me tired, frustrated and tight. I must practice using different responses, ones that have Humor and feel Spacious. Ultimately, who cares about the HOA? It is not worth compromising my health for. It is not, for me, worth draining myself empty. I must practice Letting Go. Choosing battles wisely. Untrapping myself. I do not want to be who and how I’ve become, angry and frustrated, in my EB role.