I work between 6 and 7 days a week.
Very busy.
Get up between 6 and 9 in the morning, depending on the morning,
either go to court or have clients, or working on documents
things of that nature all day
I'm in court a lot and doing different things like that
depending on the cases, it was a stressful day
Sometimes it was hard because i wasn't away from work very often
it's hard to shut it off, so it was hard to  
be focused on the conversation at hand, talking with friends or family
hard to connect because i was "still at work"
that was something that difficult
My health matters because if I'm not healthy, I can't help my clients
I can't be a good friend, I can't be a good partner
I can't be any of those things.  I have to be healthy, and be able to think,
be able to be on top of my game to be able to help the people that I'm helping.
I heard about RELAX from a friend of mine,
a good friend of ours, Gail Innes, was having some classes at MSU Extension
and one of those classes was RELAX
It wasn't just for somebody going through the criminal system,
everybody could benefit from it, she thought it could help me get some coping mechanisms to deal with stress.
I've never taken a class like RELAX,
anything at that point could probably help, and try to gain as much knowledge as I could.  
The most important thing I learned in RELAX is
about triggers for stress and coping mechanisms for stress
You can't avoid stress in your life, no matter what you do and no matter what your job is,
no matter if you're at work or on an island somewhere, you're going to have stress in your life
so what are those triggers and how to cope with them?
Those are the big things I learned from the RELAX class.
Gail would give me specific details on how to
If you have a client, maybe this is something you can say to them too,
not keep that stress going or try to equalize it,
to bring not only my stress level down but also my client's.
and to give me those words to use that I didn't have before.
It was a way of finding those words and trying to relate them to my every day life.
She gave me those tools that I didn't have before.
Everybody should take this program, no matter if you're a stay-at-home mom,
no matter if you're working 90 hours, if you're a factory worker,
no matter who you are you have stress in your life, and that's who needs this class.
At some point we don't get taught coping mechanisms to deal with life, and what it throws at you
Kids are sick or misbehaving, having a stressful employee
having a stressful co-worker - how do I deal with that?
No matter where you're at, no matter what age you are,
no matter what's going on in your life you can learn something,
and it's something you can use every day.
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