Boundaries Workshop for Females Hosted by Office of Community Life
What does it mean to have boundaries in life? Students can find out during a six-week workshop series held by the Office of Community Life. The event will help educate females about the importance of having healthy boundaries in life.
According to Leanne Gifford, the director of educational programming and assessment for the Office of Community Life, it means understanding that God “has created us to carry our own load.”
“While we are designed to help others carry their burden, rather than always taking on what other people are throwing at us … we have to learn how to say no in a healthy way,” Gifford said. “(Yet we still need) those relationships and also to make sure we are able to be fully responsible to ourselves and what is ours.”
The workshops will be from 10:15 to 11:45 a.m. on Mondays in the Freedom Tower, beginning on Sept. 19 and ending on Oct. 24. The series will be working through the book “Boundaries” by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.
Half of the workshop time will be a teaching from the book before students break out into two groups. After that, a peer facilitator will lead their group in a discussion time where they can talk about the material they learned and how they can apply it to their daily lives.
The book “Boundaries” will be available to buy for $5 at the workshops, but the book is not required for participation.
According to Gifford, students have a lot to gain by attending these workshops, such as “an opportunity to gain practical skills to help them take back control of their lives by being able to identify what they’re responsible for and release them from some of the pressure that may have been put on them.”
By the end of the workshop, students will be able to articulate what it means to have their own boundaries in their lives.
“(The series) was designed three years ago because our office offered a lot for male students at the time, and we were trying to find a way that we could educate our female students as well,” Gifford said. “(A lot of students we worked with) were coming to our office because they were struggling in relationships, and they weren’t setting healthy boundaries for themselves and with other people.”
To fix this problem, Gifford said that she and her fellow female associate directors “put together some type of program we could proactively engage our female student body and help them to grow in their relationships.”
The Office of Community Life is working on creating a boundaries program for male students as well.
Other upcoming workshops offered by the Office of Community Life include THRIVE: Teaching holistic resilience-informed versatility and engagement, which starts Sept. 14, and the Life + Godliness workshop beginning Oct. 17.
Students can learn more about what the Office of Community Life offers by visiting CLICKING HERE.
Perez is a news reporter for the Liberty Champion