Ep. 204 Feeling Anxious and Stressed? Your Best Midlife Coping Skill Is Already Inside You

What if your calm hasn’t disappeared — you’ve just stopped practicing how to return to it?
Stress and anxiety in midlife don’t require more control — they require better connection with what’s already inside you.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
1.    How to reconnect with natural calm using everyday moments
2.    Why giving anxiety too much attention increases suffering
3.    Simple coping skills to reset your nervous system in real time
Take 10 minutes to listen  and begin practicing calm, not chasing it.

Send us a text

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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 that
calm is something already insideof you.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (00:06):
Welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, the
podcast where you and I tacklestress and anxiety in midlife so
you can stop feeling like crap,feel more present at home, and
thrive at work.
I'm MJ Murray Vachon a LicensedClinical Social Worker with over
50,000 hours of therapy sessionsand 32 years of teaching

(00:26):
practical science-backed mentalwellness.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW (00:30):
Welcome to the podcast.
This week I unexpectedly went onretreat, not the kind with yoga
mats or meditation bills.
My retreat teacher was my2-year-old grandson, Neil, and
he reminded me that calm isn'tsomething you chase.
It's actually something you canreturn to because it's already

(00:51):
inside of you.
In this episode, you'll discoverwhat I learned on Retreat That
Calm is a natural state that youcan reconnect with through
practice.
And that.
No matter how crazy our worldis, you can stop giving your
anxiety inappropriate attention.
And I'll close with a simpleInner Challenge that you can use

(01:13):
today to steady your mind.
Let's face it, if you're livingin the world right now, you know
that calm is not going to comefrom the outside.
The world is unpredictable, evenif you like myself and many of
my clients, limit your newsintake every week seems to bring
something heartbreaking orviolent.

(01:35):
And of course you feel anxious,but here's the key.
If you wait for the outsideworld to calm down, you'll never
feel peace inside.
And that's where Neil, my tinyretreat master, reminded me of
something essential.
I took the week off to babysithim.
His parents came to our home inIndiana.

(01:57):
And I just spent hour after hourwith this adorable 2-year-old,
and the first lesson I learnedis this calm is contagious.
When practiced in the present,spending eight to 10 hours a day
with Neil was really like acrash course in mindfulness.
He tattled over to books andflipped through them like they

(02:18):
were treasures.
He played with the wind chimesand sang country roads.
A hundred, no.
A thousand times he failed everysingle day to win my cat over,
but his mood never changed.
By day three, I noticedsomething shocking.
My mind was calm, completelypresent, deeply.

(02:40):
Content.
Neil's calm was contagious.
And that's the first big insightI offer you today.
Calm is already within you, butyou have to practice
reconnecting to it.
Science backs this up.
Neuroscience shows us thatrepeated habits create new
pathways in your brain.

(03:01):
The more you bring yourattention back to the present,
the more your brain wires itselffor calm, because in the
present.
we are paying attention towhatever we're doing.
Maybe your eating, maybe yourdriving, maybe your working on a
podcast.
Whatever your doing in thepresent, when your bring your

(03:21):
mind there actually brings youto your natural state of calm.
So don't just think I want to beless anxious.
Practice presence.
Cook dinner and pay attention tothe smells.
Take a walk and notice the sky.
Read a book without checkingyour phone.

(03:42):
These simple practices bring youback to what's already there,
which leads me to the secondinsight I wanna share with you,
because I have a feeling thatyou're listening to this and
thinking, MJ, that all soundsnice.
But first of all, I don't haveaccess to a 2-year-old retreat
director, or I can't take theweek off work.

(04:02):
And also what do I do whensomething terrible happens?
And you're right, life doesbring pain.
Life does bring suffering.
And Neil reminded me of this.
Neil has a severe milk allergy.
Let me tell you, it's actuallyterrifying.
And I have great respect for hisparents as I've watched them

(04:23):
learn to accept and work withthis allergy without being in a
state of constant anxiety orpanic.
But with this allergy comesblood draws.
During his week here, he had togo to a lab.
To get his blood drawn.
This turned into 25 minutes ofawful poking, prodding and

(04:46):
tears.
Let me tell you, as I watchedhim sit on his mother's lap.
It was awful.
He was crying so hard.
The two phlebotomists.
Were doing their best, butthere's no way to really make a
blood draw enjoyable through allhis tears and his crying, he

(05:06):
said, I want Vivaldi.
His mother instructed me to turnon the music, so I pulled out my
phone, went to Spotify, andVivaldi began to play.
Neil was still crying.
but his body softened, themusic, gave him a foothold back

(05:27):
into calm.
He grounded himself without evenever being taught to do this,
because within him and withineach of us is a knowing, a deep
knowing that we can make itthrough hard things by calming
ourself with comfort, and forNeil, music is comfort.

(05:52):
As we left the lab, we wereheading to his other
grandmother's for dinner, andthen off to my sister's house
for his first pony ride.
The lab experience was sodistressing.
I had the thought.
I bet the rest of the day isruined, this is where he taught
me lesson number two.
Don't give distressinappropriate attention.

(06:15):
When Neil left the lab, when theblood draw was over.
It was over.
Neil never replayed it.
There was no blaming.
There was no complaining.
He went right back to enjoyinghis grandmother's delicious
green beans and his first ponyride.
The Buddhists have a phrase forthis.

(06:35):
They say, don't give yoursuffering, don't give your
anxiety inappropriate attention.
If you keep giving your mind tothe pain, it grows bigger.
But if you let your attentionmove on to whatever you're doing
in the present, your nervoussystem resets faster and science
agrees with this.

(06:56):
Research shows ruminationreplaying your stress.
In your mind, talking about theterrible thing that happened.
It keeps your cortisol high, butshifting your focus helps your
body settle back into balance.
I saw that with my grandson.
I practiced that.

(07:17):
And from watching him, I learnedwhen my mind this week would go
to the horrible things that havehappened.
I brought my mind to the presentto whatever I was doing.
I tried to be more like this2-year-old guru of mine where my
mind wasn't focusing on theworries and the concerns of the

(07:39):
world.
and that's where I offer youthis week's Inner Challenge.
Try to reconnect with the calmalready inside of you.
When your thoughts begin tospiral, ground your feet.
Take three slow breaths.
Gently bring your focus back towhat you're doing.
Washing dishes, driving, eating,or talking with someone you

(08:04):
love.
Try to do this three times a dayand you'll rediscover that
2-year-old ability, the naturalcalm you were born with.
In today's episode, I sharedwith you two insights from my
unexpected retreat.
First calm is already within youand practicing presence helps
you return to it.

(08:26):
And second, anxiety grows whenyou give it too much attention,
but you can choose to shift yourfocus back to now.
I hope you'll join me onThursday for a follow-up episode
where I'm gonna share with yousome practical coping skills
that will help you reconnectfurther with the calm that is

(08:47):
naturally inside of you.
Thanks for listening, and I'llbe back on Thursday with more
creating midlife comb.