Managing the Toll of DEI Work: Setting Healthy Boundaries

Most of us in D&I can recall plenty of times we have felt overwhelmed by the work. For me, there were the times in college that I felt obligated to obsessively defend points I believed in via social media, and found myself shaking with anxiety as a result. There were the pleas from the intergroup dialogue office on the campus of my graduate school asking for volunteer facilitators for sessions; I consulted my already-full calendar, exhausted, but still felt obligated to say yes. There have been times when I’ve received emails after-hours, alerted by a ping on my phone and, with a sense of dread, swiped right to reply, thinking, “it must be urgent if it came this late.”  

Each of these experiences left me feeling drained, anxious, and uncertain on how long I could keep them up. The solution to each has been the same: establishing boundaries that serve my well-being and holding myself accountable to them. In today’s post in our feature series on the toll of D&I work, I’ll be focusing on the role of boundary-setting in maintaining the energy necessary to make progress in this work.  

In each of these cases, I could have continued to sacrifice my well-being… until I burned out and had to end my involvement entirely to practice overdue self-care. While there are often outside forces pressuring us to commit ourselves once again, I have learned that I am best served by setting a few simple boundaries and honoring them as necessary to my ability to continue the work I care deeply about. 

Boundaries represent an area that individuals have the potential to control, even when faced with otherwise overwhelming circumstances. While we may occasionally bend them out of guilt or necessity, even that is a decision that we make—and we can choose to make a different one in the future. I encourage everyone to reflect on boundaries that would serve them best in D&I roles, with their current and past experiences in mind. 

For me, boundaries have meant recognizing that the anxiety I felt defending points on social media simply wasn’t worth it and taking a step back to play a less active role, instead devoting my energy to real-life interactions. That isn’t the answer for everyone navigating similar challenges, but for me personally, this feels more sustainable. 

Boundaries in my facilitation meant recognizing the hours of work and emotional energy that went into preparing to facilitate a session, in addition to the time spent in the workshop. They meant deciding that I could facilitate the 2 sessions per month that I had committed to when I began my internship, and no more—because I also needed time to be a student… and rest. 

Boundaries meant noticing that with work-related email notifications activated on my phone, I felt like I was always “on call” even on my hours off. When a colleague encouraged me to turn the notifications off and I tried it, I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. My after-hours time felt like mine again, I felt more prepared to start work in the morning, and (shockingly!) nothing imploded as a result of this change.  

We have heard time and time again from individuals asked by their employers to take on D&I work in addition to their usual workload. It is usually in the best interest of management to get the most work possible out of employees, but many don’t realize what they are asking when they make these requests. For those not intimately familiar with the toll of D&I work, especially, this may seem like a small ask of someone interested in diversity, and an opportunity for that person to take on a project that would exemplify leadership. Whether or not you accept, if asked to take on an “intramural teaching” role around D&I topics, consider sharing with your supervisor the reality of what accepting would involve for you, and reflect on whether you have the capacity, with attention to your personal needs.  

While it may seem counterintuitive, boundaries are a must if we are to keep making progress in this work. Burnout is a real risk. Ask yourself: where do I risk burning out? How is my energy best applied? What can I say “no” to, so that next time, I’m ready to say “yes”?