Are you secretly scared to feel your feelings—especially in the middle of setting boundaries?
Setting boundaries is essential, especially if you want to get your wants & needs to be heard.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- How a guest pushes back on MJ's 5 science-backed coping skills--making them even more usable.
- Real talk on emotional stamina—why feeling your feelings actually builds strength.
- A relatable metaphor (hello, emotional rollercoaster!) to help you move through discomfort with clarity and intention.
Listen now and start building coping skills that actually work for midlife anxiety—no perfection required.
****
About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.
Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (00:00):
In this episode, you'll discover how to
really feel good when settingboundaries.
Welcome to Creating MidlifeCalm, a podcast dedicated to
empowering midlife minds toovercome anxiety, stop feeling
like crap and become morepresent with your family, all
while achieving greater successat work.
I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensedclinical social worker with over
(00:23):
48, 000 hours of therapysessions and 31 years of
experience teaching mentalwellness.
Welcome to the podcast.
Today we're doing----something alittle different, and to be
honest, it's gonna take a bit ofbravery on my part.
This is the very first episodeof a new Thursday mini format
I'm calling it, but MJ, Really?
(00:44):
after decades of clinicalexperience, I wanted to put my
recommendations that I'm givingyou week in and week out on the
podcast to test, but I neededsomeone that I knew wouldn't be
afraid to push back and offerbetter suggestions, and who
would be better then mydaughter, Abby.
She's had a lifetime ofexperience pushing back on my,
(01:05):
oh, so helpful suggestions.
My hope is that this segmenthelps you see these tools in
action and maybe even take themto a whole new level in your own
life.
So Let me begin by welcomingAbby to the podcast.
Abby Murray Vachon (01:18):
Thank you for the welcome.
Proud to be a push backer of amom.
But she is the best.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (01:25):
Well, you can love me, but you can push
back because I've seen it foryears and years and, and I
really mean it seriously becauseit's so easy to sit behind a
microphone and give copingskills.
I love this idea of every sooften having you jump on to
listen to the episode as youdid, and then talk about one or
(01:45):
two of the things I said thatyou found difficult or not as
easy to do as I.
Sit and gracefully say them.
On Monday we looked atboundaries and how to set them
when your anxiety makes settingthem feel impossible.
if you haven't listened to it,just jump back it's about 10
minutes long.
And I talked about five copingskills.
My favorite, which is name tameand aim, whatever is the emotion
(02:09):
that you're feeling at the time,that science-based coping skill
that asks you to find theemotion, the sensation on your
body and just breathe through itfor 90 seconds.
Coping skill number two isbefriend your anxiety.
It's giving you some kind ofinformation, Coping skill number
three is once you've befriendedit and you've figured out the
(02:30):
information it's giving you,write it down and get it out of
your head and on a piece ofpaper or on your computer.
The next coping skill is alittle cheesy, but it works.
Create a script and rehearse itso you actually get it in your
body.
And if you understand what I'mtalking about, you're replacing
your anxiety with a sense ofempowerment that you know what
(02:53):
you're asking for.
And then coping skill numberfive is once you ask for what
you want, setting a boundary issometimes.
Asking for something.
Sometimes it's actually sayingyou don't wanna do something,
you let go.
All you can do is ask.
And then you have to let thepower to be, make the decision
that they have.
Sometimes that power to be is aboss or a spouse or a child.
(03:15):
Sometimes it's you.
That's a summary of Monday'sepisode.
Abby, what do you think would behelpful to focus on?
Abby Murray Vachon (03:22):
When I think about the boundaries in my own
life that I'd like to set, Ithink the most challenging part
is, having to actually feel thething what, whatever it is
around the boundary.
I'd say my pushback, is you haveto feel whatever that feeling
is.
We're moving really fast.
(03:44):
Time is of the essence.
Time is money, as people say,and I just think it might be
hard for people to feel thatfeeling.
Especially when there's ourphones and everything else that
we can get distracted by.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (04:00):
Part of what's helpful is to be told
that you really do need to feelthe feeling.
I think for most of my life Ididn't know that was important
and for most of the clients Iwork with, and so I'm saying to
you.
It's really part of the process.
If you want to have more of lifeyour way, which is basically
(04:22):
what boundaries are about, howcan I have what I want?
If you want it more of your way,is it helpful to be told, it
really does start with noticingand naming and taming that
feeling.
Abby Murray Vachon (04:34):
What if, even if you're not conscious of
it, you're scared to feel thatfeeling.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (04:39):
That's a great question.
What I like people to thinkabout is that feeling is already
in you.
You might be afraid of it, butit is not afraid of you.
It is a healthy, normal reactionthat you are having when you
think about setting a boundary.
Even if you're afraid to feelit, there is no emotion that is
(05:01):
afraid to be felt within you.
Do you see the nuance?
Abby Murray Vachon (05:06):
Yeah, the visual I think of is, you know,
there's fly tape where the flygets stuck on the tape and
you've gotta get off the tape.
I feel like having to feel thatfeeling is getting off of the
stuck tape.
And that is a huge distance.
Sorry for the grotesque example.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (05:26):
Well, it's not a grotesque example,
and I think it's actually whatpeople believe, but it's not
scientifically correct becausethere is no feeling that starts
and never transforms intosomething else.
Part of what I encourage peopleto do is to create an image in
(05:47):
their head that represents that.
The notice is, oh my God, thatfly inside of me is on the tape
and I feel trapped.
I feel stuck.
That's noticing and naming, butthe taming is actually
visualizing that 90 seconds.
Your mind, where your body isreleasing that uncomfortable
chemical that creates thatfeeling.
(06:09):
And what we know is it's about90 seconds.
Now we can carry it around withthis for five hours because we
don't move through it.
But if you can be brave enough,courageous enough, the shift is,
oh, that feeling isn't a fly,stuck on tape.
That feeling is actually areaction that creates a
neurochemical release within me,and I can partner with it to
(06:34):
move through it, which is why Italk about potty training your
emotions because nobody keepstheir bladder full forever.
Eventually you can't tolerate itand you go pee.
With emotions, what people oftendo is blame or unclaim instead
of tend and befriend.
Tending and befriending is thatemotion's in me.
(06:57):
I can empower myself to groundmy feet, notice it, name it, and
tame it through 90 seconds ofbreath work that I can do
anywhere, a grocery line inclass when I'm walking to my car
in bed.
Hmm.
Abby Murray Vachon (07:16):
That's all helpful.
I've got one more pushback.
if we think about this feelingas a, a parabola, right?
Thrown in a math term, I thinkthe part that's the most scary
is the top.
And I'm hearing you about theresolve, but what happens if
you're scared of that big, verytop of the parabola.
(07:38):
How do you have the courage andthe faith that you'll be able to
feel that thing and it willlessen.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (07:45):
Two practical tips.
One is what goes up comes down.
We're getting mathy and we'regetting physics on creating
midlife calm today.
The physics of emotion is, itwill come down how you get
yourself to do that because it'ssuch an astute point on your
part.
At the very top, that's whenpeople.
(08:08):
Reach for their phone, smoke ajoint, eat potato chips, hit
Netflix because there's thisbelief of I can't do this.
And what I like to say is, yesyou can.
You are not a teacup.
You can move through anydifficult emotion, and you
really empower yourself when youdo that without using substances
(08:31):
and without using avoidance.
The image that I use, and I wanteveryone to come up with their
own image is I put myself in achair and I put a couple
imaginary seat belts on me, andI say to myself in a nice way,
just sit and feel it.
you can't avoid it.
If you had to come up with animage that might help you move
(08:53):
from the fly paper to movingthrough the parabola, what could
be an image that you wouldrelate to?
Abby Murray Vachon (09:01):
Even though I'm not a lover of math, I
really think this image of theparabola is helpful for me
because, or even like arollercoaster, right?
at Six Flags, there's somethingcalled the dragster that goes
straight up and straight down.
It's a great visual for me.
I just wanna say one other thingtoo that kind of hit me in this.
(09:22):
So much of what you're talkingabout feels like a stamina that
you often can build like inathletics or something of that
nature.
I guess I just have this likevast disappointment in our
culture where I've just beengiven very few messages that you
have to build this and what I'mhearing from you is the more you
do this kind of thing, the moreyou can withstand it.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (09:46):
Yeah.
The student becomes the teacherbecause that is a super
insightful, terrific line thatyou do build emotional stamina,
and when your a infant you buildit because you co-regulate with
your parents.
Then you have to learn to dothat more and more on your own.
And it is a parabola, I oftencall it a bell curve.
(10:09):
It's all math and it's allscience.
That your body has this chemicalreaction.
It's all neutral.
It's what we do after it thatmatters.
If you move through theparabola.
Really understand, there will bea point with significant
emotional reactions where youthink, I cannot do this.
(10:29):
If you expect that you normalizeit.
Take a breath and think of itlike nobody gets off in the
middle of a rollercoaster.
No matter how bad it is.
The only way off is to jump.
That is incredibly dangerous.
So nobody does it, and I wouldwanna say the same thing.
It's as dangerous to not movethrough that feeling'cause one,
(10:52):
your body doesn't clear it, andthe real gold of a feeling is
aim.
Once you notice name and tame,that aim gives you really
important information that'smuch healthier than at the top
of their parabola.
Abby Murray Vachon (11:08):
Gosh, that's a great answer.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (11:10):
We have it on tape.
Abby Murray Vachon (11:12):
I know we have it on tape.
A daughter
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (11:14):
saying to a mother, I'm going to copy it
and I'm gonna play that amillion times.
Abby Murray Vachon (11:19):
Oh shit.
No, no, that's, that's reallyfair.
I, I really like the visual ofthe roller coaster.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (11:26):
In this episode, you were tasked in
listening to the podcast andthen helping through feet on the
ground real life experience.
Give my listeners more clarity.
What do you think are thetakeaways about this episode for
our listeners today?
Abby Murray Vachon (11:43):
One big takeaway is when you are feeling
an emotion, there is going to bea period of time where it feels
like too much and that isnormal.
We need to make that normal.
There's nothing you're doingwrong.
You shouldn't run away from it.
That is normal.
Which leads me to the secondbiggest takeaway is there's a
(12:06):
huge payoff from feeling that,which is aim.
We're a very results drivenculture, right?
When I am in that moment, Ican't take this anymore.
I'm gonna remember this will beworth it because it will give me
a clarity I do not have before.
I think another takeaway is.
(12:29):
The pre-work you do to set aboundary is almost more
important than the moment ofsetting the boundary.
So put that time and energy inbefore to set it in an
intentional, thoughtful way sothat it's in line with really
what you want and really whatyou're going through.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (12:51):
I could not have summed it up any
better.
Thank you so much for being onour pilot episode of this and I
hope you come back someday.
Abby Murray Vachon (13:00):
I'll think about it.
I'll think about it.
I like the host.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (13:03):
Thanks for listening to Creating
Midlife Calm.
In this episode, you'll discover how to
really feel good when settingboundaries.
Welcome to Creating MidlifeCalm, a podcast dedicated to
empowering midlife minds toovercome anxiety, stop feeling
like crap and become morepresent with your family, all
while achieving greater successat work.
I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensedclinical social worker with over
(00:23):
48, 000 hours of therapysessions and 31 years of
experience teaching mentalwellness.
Welcome to the podcast.
Today we're doing----something alittle different, and to be
honest, it's gonna take a bit ofbravery on my part.
This is the very first episodeof a new Thursday mini format
I'm calling it, but MJ, Really?
(00:44):
after decades of clinicalexperience, I wanted to put my
recommendations that I'm givingyou week in and week out on the
podcast to test, but I neededsomeone that I knew wouldn't be
afraid to push back and offerbetter suggestions, and who
would be better then mydaughter, Abby.
She's had a lifetime ofexperience pushing back on my,
(01:05):
oh, so helpful suggestions.
My hope is that this segmenthelps you see these tools in
action and maybe even take themto a whole new level in your own
life.
So Let me begin by welcomingAbby to the podcast.
Abby Murray Vachon (01:18):
Thank you for the welcome.
Proud to be a push backer of amom.
But she is the best.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (01:25):
Well, you can love me, but you can push
back because I've seen it foryears and years and, and I
really mean it seriously becauseit's so easy to sit behind a
microphone and give copingskills.
I love this idea of every sooften having you jump on to
listen to the episode as youdid, and then talk about one or
(01:45):
two of the things I said thatyou found difficult or not as
easy to do as I.
Sit and gracefully say them.
On Monday we looked atboundaries and how to set them
when your anxiety makes settingthem feel impossible.
if you haven't listened to it,just jump back it's about 10
minutes long.
And I talked about five copingskills.
My favorite, which is name tameand aim, whatever is the emotion
(02:09):
that you're feeling at the time,that science-based coping skill
that asks you to find theemotion, the sensation on your
body and just breathe through itfor 90 seconds.
Coping skill number two isbefriend your anxiety.
It's giving you some kind ofinformation, Coping skill number
three is once you've befriendedit and you've figured out the
(02:30):
information it's giving you,write it down and get it out of
your head and on a piece ofpaper or on your computer.
The next coping skill is alittle cheesy, but it works.
Create a script and rehearse itso you actually get it in your
body.
And if you understand what I'mtalking about, you're replacing
your anxiety with a sense ofempowerment that you know what
(02:53):
you're asking for.
And then coping skill numberfive is once you ask for what
you want, setting a boundary issometimes.
Asking for something.
Sometimes it's actually sayingyou don't wanna do something,
you let go.
All you can do is ask.
And then you have to let thepower to be, make the decision
that they have.
Sometimes that power to be is aboss or a spouse or a child.
(03:15):
Sometimes it's you.
That's a summary of Monday'sepisode.
Abby, what do you think would behelpful to focus on?
Abby Murray Vachon (03:22):
When I think about the boundaries in my own
life that I'd like to set, Ithink the most challenging part
is, having to actually feel thething what, whatever it is
around the boundary.
I'd say my pushback, is you haveto feel whatever that feeling
is.
We're moving really fast.
(03:44):
Time is of the essence.
Time is money, as people say,and I just think it might be
hard for people to feel thatfeeling.
Especially when there's ourphones and everything else that
we can get distracted by.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (04:00):
Part of what's helpful is to be told
that you really do need to feelthe feeling.
I think for most of my life Ididn't know that was important
and for most of the clients Iwork with, and so I'm saying to
you.
It's really part of the process.
If you want to have more of lifeyour way, which is basically
(04:22):
what boundaries are about, howcan I have what I want?
If you want it more of your way,is it helpful to be told, it
really does start with noticingand naming and taming that
feeling.
Abby Murray Vachon (04:34):
What if, even if you're not conscious of
it, you're scared to feel thatfeeling.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (04:39):
That's a great question.
What I like people to thinkabout is that feeling is already
in you.
You might be afraid of it, butit is not afraid of you.
It is a healthy, normal reactionthat you are having when you
think about setting a boundary.
Even if you're afraid to feelit, there is no emotion that is
(05:01):
afraid to be felt within you.
Do you see the nuance?
Abby Murray Vachon (05:06):
Yeah, the visual I think of is, you know,
there's fly tape where the flygets stuck on the tape and
you've gotta get off the tape.
I feel like having to feel thatfeeling is getting off of the
stuck tape.
And that is a huge distance.
Sorry for the grotesque example.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (05:26):
Well, it's not a grotesque example,
and I think it's actually whatpeople believe, but it's not
scientifically correct becausethere is no feeling that starts
and never transforms intosomething else.
Part of what I encourage peopleto do is to create an image in
(05:47):
their head that represents that.
The notice is, oh my God, thatfly inside of me is on the tape
and I feel trapped.
I feel stuck.
That's noticing and naming, butthe taming is actually
visualizing that 90 seconds.
Your mind, where your body isreleasing that uncomfortable
chemical that creates thatfeeling.
(06:09):
And what we know is it's about90 seconds.
Now we can carry it around withthis for five hours because we
don't move through it.
But if you can be brave enough,courageous enough, the shift is,
oh, that feeling isn't a fly,stuck on tape.
That feeling is actually areaction that creates a
neurochemical release within me,and I can partner with it to
(06:34):
move through it, which is why Italk about potty training your
emotions because nobody keepstheir bladder full forever.
Eventually you can't tolerate itand you go pee.
With emotions, what people oftendo is blame or unclaim instead
of tend and befriend.
Tending and befriending is thatemotion's in me.
(06:57):
I can empower myself to groundmy feet, notice it, name it, and
tame it through 90 seconds ofbreath work that I can do
anywhere, a grocery line inclass when I'm walking to my car
in bed.
Hmm.
Abby Murray Vachon (07:16):
That's all helpful.
I've got one more pushback.
if we think about this feelingas a, a parabola, right?
Thrown in a math term, I thinkthe part that's the most scary
is the top.
And I'm hearing you about theresolve, but what happens if
you're scared of that big, verytop of the parabola.
(07:38):
How do you have the courage andthe faith that you'll be able to
feel that thing and it willlessen.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (07:45):
Two practical tips.
One is what goes up comes down.
We're getting mathy and we'regetting physics on creating
midlife calm today.
The physics of emotion is, itwill come down how you get
yourself to do that because it'ssuch an astute point on your
part.
At the very top, that's whenpeople.
(08:08):
Reach for their phone, smoke ajoint, eat potato chips, hit
Netflix because there's thisbelief of I can't do this.
And what I like to say is, yesyou can.
You are not a teacup.
You can move through anydifficult emotion, and you
really empower yourself when youdo that without using substances
(08:31):
and without using avoidance.
The image that I use, and I wanteveryone to come up with their
own image is I put myself in achair and I put a couple
imaginary seat belts on me, andI say to myself in a nice way,
just sit and feel it.
you can't avoid it.
If you had to come up with animage that might help you move
(08:53):
from the fly paper to movingthrough the parabola, what could
be an image that you wouldrelate to?
Abby Murray Vachon (09:01):
Even though I'm not a lover of math, I
really think this image of theparabola is helpful for me
because, or even like arollercoaster, right?
at Six Flags, there's somethingcalled the dragster that goes
straight up and straight down.
It's a great visual for me.
I just wanna say one other thingtoo that kind of hit me in this.
(09:22):
So much of what you're talkingabout feels like a stamina that
you often can build like inathletics or something of that
nature.
I guess I just have this likevast disappointment in our
culture where I've just beengiven very few messages that you
have to build this and what I'mhearing from you is the more you
do this kind of thing, the moreyou can withstand it.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (09:46):
Yeah.
The student becomes the teacherbecause that is a super
insightful, terrific line thatyou do build emotional stamina,
and when your a infant you buildit because you co-regulate with
your parents.
Then you have to learn to dothat more and more on your own.
And it is a parabola, I oftencall it a bell curve.
(10:09):
It's all math and it's allscience.
That your body has this chemicalreaction.
It's all neutral.
It's what we do after it thatmatters.
If you move through theparabola.
Really understand, there will bea point with significant
emotional reactions where youthink, I cannot do this.
(10:29):
If you expect that you normalizeit.
Take a breath and think of itlike nobody gets off in the
middle of a rollercoaster.
No matter how bad it is.
The only way off is to jump.
That is incredibly dangerous.
So nobody does it, and I wouldwanna say the same thing.
It's as dangerous to not movethrough that feeling'cause one,
(10:52):
your body doesn't clear it, andthe real gold of a feeling is
aim.
Once you notice name and tame,that aim gives you really
important information that'smuch healthier than at the top
of their parabola.
Abby Murray Vachon (11:08):
Gosh, that's a great answer.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (11:10):
We have it on tape.
Abby Murray Vachon (11:12):
I know we have it on tape.
A daughter
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (11:14):
saying to a mother, I'm going to copy it
and I'm gonna play that amillion times.
Abby Murray Vachon (11:19):
Oh shit.
No, no, that's, that's reallyfair.
I, I really like the visual ofthe roller coaster.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (11:26):
In this episode, you were tasked in
listening to the podcast andthen helping through feet on the
ground real life experience.
Give my listeners more clarity.
What do you think are thetakeaways about this episode for
our listeners today?
Abby Murray Vachon (11:43):
One big takeaway is when you are feeling
an emotion, there is going to bea period of time where it feels
like too much and that isnormal.
We need to make that normal.
There's nothing you're doingwrong.
You shouldn't run away from it.
That is normal.
Which leads me to the secondbiggest takeaway is there's a
(12:06):
huge payoff from feeling that,which is aim.
We're a very results drivenculture, right?
When I am in that moment, Ican't take this anymore.
I'm gonna remember this will beworth it because it will give me
a clarity I do not have before.
I think another takeaway is.
(12:29):
The pre-work you do to set aboundary is almost more
important than the moment ofsetting the boundary.
So put that time and energy inbefore to set it in an
intentional, thoughtful way sothat it's in line with really
what you want and really whatyou're going through.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (12:51):
I could not have summed it up any
better.
Thank you so much for being onour pilot episode of this and I
hope you come back someday.
Abby Murray Vachon (13:00):
I'll think about it.
I'll think about it.
I like the host.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (13:03):
Thanks for listening to Creating
Midlife Calm.
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