After four weeks of group sessions with the Counseling Center’s Racer Life Revolution, the program has ended.
The goal of Racer Life Revolution was to help students talk about the challenges they face in everyday life.
Racer Life Revolution was a group meeting of students guided by counselors.
Each week a new set of topics was covered in two sessions.
The first session was from 5-5:45 p.m., and the second session was from 6-6:45 p.m., with snacks provided between sessions.
Within the first week, the counselors spoke to the students about how to manage stress through different skills, such as diet, sleep, exercise and time management.
During the second week, students examined the multiple connections between thoughts, feelings and behaviors and their association with destructive thought patterns.
Students also learned relaxation skills and were taught to correlate how the body feels with keeping their minds calm.
For the third week, the key topic was mindfulness and the different states of mind, such as the emotional and reasonable state of mind.
The second session was about staying emotionally grounded while using lessons from past sessions.
This week’s first session focused on decision-making and financial matters, and teaching people how to make a budget.
“People in general tend to struggle with managing their money, which is something a budget can help with,” said Counselor Allyson Taylor. “But not everyone knows how to do (it) effectively or even at all,”
The second and final session Tuesday was about relationships, where students practiced effective communication, listening skills and managing stress and emotion when communicating with others.
Another key topic from the session was boundaries, figuring out how to strengthen boundaries within a relationship, focusing on mutual respect and learning how to deal with conflict in healthy ways.
Each week, handouts and worksheets were provided that were tailored to the individual skills and ideas that were being taught.
Tuesday was the last Racer Life Revolution group meeting for the month.
However, due to an overwhelming reaction from the students, the Counseling Center decided to continue Racer Life Revolution sessions each month in the Oakley Applied Science Building.
Starting next Tuesday, Racer Life Revolution will start over with the first two sessions from the first week.
The new attendees will receive instruction to develop the proper skills to handle stress and time management.
Story by Brandon Cash, Staff writer