Ep. 150 Coping Skills to Ease Anxiety When a Crisis Shakes Your Midlife Calm

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What do you do when everything falls apart?
Shifting from a reactive to a reflective mindset can make all the difference.

 In this episode, you’ll discover:

1.    A step-by-step process to ground yourself during emotional shock using body-based coping skills

2.    The “tend and befriend” mindset that helps you move through pain and anger with compassion

3.    Real-life stories showing how vulnerability—not anger—builds lasting strength in midlife

Feeling like everything is crumbling?
Tune in now to learn how to hold yourself with care, calm, and clarity when life hits hardest.

 

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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.

Episode Transcript

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW (00:00):
In this episode, you'll discover how to

(00:02):
stay grounded when life fallsapart.
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

(00:22):
48, 000 hours of therapysessions and 31 years of
experience teaching mentalwellness.
Welcome to the podcast.
Have you ever gotten a phonecall, email, or text that
changed everything in aninstant?
Maybe it was bad news about yourhealth.
Maybe you lost your job.
Maybe you found out somethingabout your partner that broke
your heart, or maybe your childis struggling in a way you never

(00:45):
imagined.
When life falls apart like this,it can feel like the ground
disappears beneath you.
In an instant, the stability youcounted on is gone.
At best you feel desperate.
At worst, you're completelylost.
You aren't alone.
These are hard times.
And when the unexpected strikes,it can be especially difficult

(01:08):
to find your footing and figureout how to move forward in a
healthy way.
I've sat with many people in acrisis.
In today's episode, I wannaoffer you practical coping
skills that can help you findcalm, stability, and a way
forward.
Let me begin with the obvious.
If you're listening to this, I'mso sorry.

(01:29):
I really am, but I'm glad you'vereached out.
And I hope this episode can benot only a bit of calm in this
storm that you're going through,but offer you a bit of support.
and at the end of the episode,I'll give you an inner challenge
that you can begin to work onimmediately to help you ground
yourself as you move throughthis difficult time.

(02:30):
As you move forward.
When life hits you hard, yourbody can feel like it's been
dropped into cold water.
You go numb, everything slowsdown.
That's emotional shock.
In that moment, the best thingyou can do is find an anchor,
your breath, the feeling of yourfeet on the floor, or even the

(02:50):
sound of your own voice saying,this is hard, but I'm still
here.
A few months ago, I was at afootball game when one of my
dearest friends texted me thatshe had cancer.
I left the game with my headspinning.
As I walked to my car, I justkept saying to myself, breathe.
Feel your feet.

(03:11):
Breathe.
Feel your feet.
I was literally walking down thesidewalk saying that out loud.
Why?
Because I knew that doing thiswould help my body begin to
metabolize the stress hormonesflooding my system.
When you name tame and aim,you're not just calming your
mind, you're helping your bodyprocess stress hormones like

(03:34):
cortisol, so anxiety and fearcan move through you instead of
getting stuck.
And every time you do this,you're building real emotional
resilience.
This isn't a one and done copingskill.
It's something you can return toagain and again, helping your
mind, body, and heart workthrough the shock in a healthy

(03:55):
way.
This is the first place whereyou begin to tend and befriend,
but then comes the next part.
What will your mindset be towardthis awful and unexpected life
event?
At first, you'll have your raw,immediate reaction.
That's normal.
I want you to notice withoutjudgment whether your mindset

(04:18):
leans externally towards blamingand unclaiming, or internally
toward tending and befriending,you might remember these ideas
from episode six and seven onemotional regulation because
when terrible things happen inyour life, you still get to
choose what your mindset is,where you put your energy and

(04:40):
how you move through thisterrible thing.
Will you tend and befriendyourself?
Or blame and unclaim.
Let me share a story.
Years ago, a lawyer referred aclient to me who'd been unjustly
fired.
The firing came out of nowhereand he was devastated.
His anger was a 15 out of 10.

(05:03):
He came into session full ofrage and revenge.
I listened and I trulyempathized.
His anger was completelyunderstandable, but even after
trying to help him regulate, hestayed stuck.
Three days later, he called meand said his lawyer thought he
had a strong case, but his angerwas so intense that the lawyer

(05:25):
wasn't sure he wanted torepresent him.
That was a turning point.
My client came back to sessionand said, this is totally
unfair, but what else can I beexcept angry?
I looked at him and gently said.
Maybe scared, sad, and what hesaid next is something I'll

(05:46):
never forget.
If I get scared or sad, I won'tknow what to do.
How the hell do I move forwardif I'm scared or sad?
This is one of the most profoundquestions we face when life
deals as a blow.
Anger feels powerful.
Fear and sadness feelvulnerable.
Depending on your personality,anger may be your starting

(06:09):
place, but it can't be yourending place because while anger
gives you energy to go forward,it can also be rooted in poor
judgment.
so again, you return to the workof tending and befriending.
Your anger may be real andjustified, but it can block your
access to the deeper emotionsunderneath.

(06:31):
Fear.
Sadness and vulnerability.
Find a safe way to let thoseemotions live and move through
you.
If you are not sure how episode145 is a great place to start
where we talk about how to feela really hard emotion, You can
try journaling.

(06:52):
You can write a poem.
But it really helps the most totalk to someone you trust,
whether it's a friend,therapist, or spiritual guide.
The first steps in tending andbefriending yourself when life
falls apart is to groundyourself in the emotional shock
name and tame the difficultfeelings underneath the anger

(07:13):
and choosing an internal,self-compassionate mindset so
you move through this crisis ina loving, healthy way.
This doesn't mean you won't havetimes of anger or blame, but it
does mean that you are committedto moving through this in a way
that they don't take overblocking mental clarity, which
will help you make them manyhard choices in front of you.

(07:41):
While these are the first stepsintending a befriending yourself
when your life falls apart, itis also helpful to find people
outside of your situation thatcan help you put words to all of
this.
Hospice programs, churches, andcommunity centers often have
trained listeners and griefcounselors who can sit with you

(08:02):
as you make meaning from thismess.
Let's go back to the client wholost his job.
Eventually we explored thedifference between an external
and an internal mindset.
An external mindset would keephim stuck, blaming his boss.
An internal mindset wouldreconnect him to his values,
reminding him that he had donegood work and could still move

(08:25):
forward.
I've seen cancer patients makethe same shift.
They start out blamingthemselves, I should have eaten
better.
I should have quit smoking.
But self-compassion leads to adeeper truth, that illness often
has no logic.
Their choices weren't made toharm themselves.
There's a randomness to lifethat none of us can control, and

(08:47):
in making meaning we tend andbefriend again.
This is how we acknowledge thedeep vulnerability of being
human.
Something we all carry, butrarely confront until life
brings it right to our doorstep.
Often uninvited.
That same client, the one whonever thought he'd be in

(09:07):
therapy, said to me at the endof treatment, I wish I had never
met you, but if I hadn't, Imight have become an old bitter
alcoholic.
Yes.
When you blame and unclaim, it'sso easy to turn to substances
for companionship and to numbyour complex and difficult

(09:28):
feelings.
But this angry man turned into awise, middle-aged man.
And how wise he was.
Because the biggest challengewhen life is unfair is to not
let bitterness take over.
And it will, unless you gentlyconnect to who you are.
A person who intentionallychooses to handle whatever life

(09:50):
gives you in a healthy and way.
And that's what this episode isabout.
Should you be going through acrisis?
Continue to ground yourself.
Name and tame what you feel.
Let others help you make senseof the senseless, and choose to
tend and befriend wheneverything in you wants to shut

(10:13):
down.
The people I've worked with overthe years have shown me this
truth that the antidote tobitterness.
Is resilience, not the buzzyoverused kind of resilience, but
the real kind.
The kind that's built when lifetakes you somewhere you never
wanted to go, and you chooseoften, minute by minute.

(10:36):
Not to give in, but to gothrough one breath, one step,
one brave act at a time.
From wrestling with life in thisway, you'll find a strength you
didn't know you had and agratitude for things you once
took for granted.
You are stronger than yourealize, but don't try to do it

(10:58):
alone.
Your phone can be a distraction.
Don't let it become your bestfriend.
Let people care about you.
Let them show up.
Let them bring you casserolesyou don't really like, and when
you make it through to the otherside, you'll have something
powerful to give back.

(11:19):
In this episode, I tried toshare the healing wisdom so many
people I have worked with overthe years have demonstrated to
me as they have coped with theirlife falling apart.
Grounding yourself, naming andtaming, letting others help you
and making sense of thesenseless, all while choosing a

(11:39):
mindset that allows you to learnto tend to befriend something
you never wanted to go through.
Your inner challenge this weekis to think about your mindset
and contemplate if you aretending and befriending.
If you are in the middle of astorm right now.
Thank you for listening.
This takes courage.

(12:00):
If you know someone in a crisis,please send them this episode.
I hope this episode feels morelike a companion than a
prescription.
I'll be back on Thursday to talkabout how to cope with the deep
exhaustion inherent in this typeof crisis, as well as a gentle
practice of receiving fromothers.

(12:20):
Thanks for listening to creatingMidlife Calm.