Wow it has been a minute, but hello again! I am excited to be back on your screens. This summer has been wild. In my last post I filled you all in on what was happening in my life, which included moving to Colorado, having some intense health issues, moving back home, and trying to navigate next steps. If you haven’t read “Moscato and Myopericarditis” jump on over to that link and get caught up. Moving on, today I want to chat about boundaries. To start, I would like to be upfront and say that I am not your poster child for setting boundaries. In fact, the whole reason I am writing this post is because I know what it’s like to be terrible at setting boundaries.

This summer has given me a lot of time to think, and most days I did NOT like it. Due to my health, I was ordered to ~relax~. I was not a fan. Unable to work, workout, travel, or do any of the things I so badly wanted to do, I sat. I sat and I thought. And then when I got bored, I left my bed and moved to the couch to do more sitting. Terrible, right? Well, with all of this sitting, came a lot of thinking.

This year has been a tough one in a lot of aspects. I struggled to juggle my academic schedule with sorority obligations, my job, leadership roles, and campus activities. I strongly believe that the stressors in my life had a lot to do with my health struggles this summer. This January, I was blessed with the opportunity to serve as the president of my sorority. While this has been an incredible learning experience, it hasn’t always felt like a blessing. I struggled to set boundaries in what I would consider my personal life and my professional life. So much so that I was working to solve problems, answer texts, come up with action plans sometimes until one in the morning. I felt like if anyone needed anything, I had to drop everything and solve their problems or questions right then and there. The stress of all the previously mentioned portions of my life had completely consumed my personal life as well. I was emotional, irritable, stressed, and overwhelmed.

As many of you know, I am NOT an emotional person. Most of my life I have been a concealer. I like to shove it down and deal with my problems later. 0/10 do not recommend. I repeat this is not a healthy coping mechanism. In fact, it has worked so poorly for me there will be a whole post on it soon. Anyway, I was so stressed that there was no way for me to shove all of my stressors and problems out of the way and deal later. This lead to some break downs, cry sessions, calls home, and struggles in my relationships. To put it simply, it was a mess. I knew I was overwhelmed and exhausted, but I just thought it came with the job of being a busy, involved student.

It wasn’t until Carlos, my boyfriend, sat me down one night and straight up told me that I needed to set some boundaries. There were so many times when I was on my phone answering emails and texts while we were supposed to be spending time together. When I wasn’t working on my phone or computer, I was only able to talk about how overwhelmed I was. I was completely consumed by it, so much so that the stress of my life was creeping into my temperament towards him. Looking back now, I am grateful for his grace, and I am glad he loved me enough to tell me that I needed to do a self-check on what I was letting consume me.

After hearing the same thing from many of the most important people in my life, I had to make some changes. I thought that if I wasn’t putting everybody else’s needs first, I was being selfish. However, I learned that I was being selfish by not putting myself first. I was selfish with my time, with my attention, and because I wasn’t making room to take care of myself, I was not the best friend, partner, leader, and student that I could be. What I learned is that I could not attempt to solve problems, take on responsibilities, and be productive, if I couldn’t take care of myself first. So, I set some boundaries. I was done answering emails, doing tasks, and being on my phone at 8 pm. If it came after 8, it could wait until tomorrow. Most of the time, you don’t have your best thinking cap on when you are exhausted from a long day. I made sure that I was taking time to take care of myself by getting to the gym, hanging out with my friends, and working on some of my exciting projects.

In several of my posts I have talked about giving yourself some grace. I am still learning how to do this. It’s amazing how many of my problems and struggles lead me back to this one topic – grace. Sometimes I can’t help but laugh. My middle name is Grace, this whole blog is named after Grace, and yet I struggle so much extending it towards myself. I have a feeling I am not the only one.

We live in a go go go world. We have developed into quick-moving creatures, operating on convenience and time constraints. I am all about efficiency, but not at the cost of your health.

I write this post now because this is when a lot of students are about to start school. I know that I am not the only student to struggle with boundaries. I am here just to serve as an example of someone who has struggled with this, but is doing the work to progress myself toward better outcomes in the future. Establish boundaries early and stick with them. If you need help on what that looks like go to the contact card of this website and shoot me an email. I’d love to help lay out tactics on how to effectively establish boundaries, while still allowing yourself to be productive and active in your leadership roles, work life, or extracurriculars. Once again, it all starts with offering yourself a little bit of grace.