Boundaries

Wellness Center
Sexual Well-Being
Boundaries

Boundaries

boundaries are an invitation to connect

This video is the first of many to come as part of the Whole Program, a mental wellness video program for St. Olaf students. Each week throughout the academic year, we will release one video on a specific topic related to mental wellness and our website will have additional resources. The whole idea is that students will review the video and resources and reflect on ONE strategy they’d like to focus on in their life each week.

This week, the focus is on BOUNDARIES. Many students come to college excited to make friends and find their place in the college community. This being said, relationships, be them friendships, romantic relationships, or even relationships with professors and other faculty, are difficult to navigate at times. In fact, one of the primary stressors for college students is making new friends and transforming existing friendships. Boundaries are a valuable but challenging aspect of relationships. Establishing healthy boundaries in relationships helps to create guidelines that are comfortable for you and will uphold your self-esteem and self-respect.

How will you try to build boundaries in the coming week?

1. Feel your feelings. To know what your boundaries are, you need to feel your feelings, trust them, and use them as a guide.

For example, anger indicates that a boundary has been crossed. Another example is anxiety, which indicates that you are not comfortable with something. Joy and love, for example, indicate that your boundaries are being respected. Strengthening your mind-body connection will support you in feeling your feelings, trusting them, and using them to guide you.

2. Take action. When you set a boundary, it should be clear that you’re communicating what you need in order to be in the relationship. You’re communicating that when the boundary is crossed, you no longer feel safe, loved, and respected, and you have to take action to take care of yourself.

This may mean taking time away from your partner, limiting the amount of time with them, lessening what topics you’re willing to engage in, or, at its most extreme, ending the relationship. What you need to do to take care of yourself depends on the boundary and its meaning for you.

3. Take ownership. Boundaries are yours to set and hold. You decide what you need and what you want to do if you’re not being treated the way you want to be.

No one else can decide what is acceptable to you besides you. If someone isn’t respecting your boundaries, you don’t have to wait helplessly until they do. You can take action to take care of yourself. You have more power than you realize, but you have to stop blaming others and start taking ownership of your life.

We, as humans, will do a lot to hold onto our attachments. It’s not easy to let people go. It’s scary to set boundaries and risk that people will leave.

Rather than accepting that someone doesn’t respect what you need and moving on, people will often soften their boundaries to stay in the relationship. This will allow the relationship to continue, but it will not be a fulfilling relationship. If you’ve set consequences for violating your boundaries and the behavior hasn’t stopped, you may have to accept that the relationship isn’t going to work for you.