Ep. 106 Transform Holiday Stress & Anxiety to Midlife Calm Using This Easy 4 Minute Meditation Artwork

Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships

Coping Skills for Midlife Stress and Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships

Forget the midlife crisis—how about creating midlife calm? The anxiety and stress of this life stage can drain your energy, fuel overthinking, and make it hard to enjoy what should be the best years of your life. This podcast offers practical coping skills to help you reduce anxiety, manage stress, and rediscover a calmer, more confident version of yourself.

In Creating Midlife Calm, you’ll discover how to:

Be happier, more present, and more effective at home and work.
Transform stress and anxiety into powerful tools that boost your clarity, energy, and confidence.
Cultivate calm and joy through practical, affordable coping skills that help you handle life’s daily challenges.

Join MJ Murray Vachon, LCSW, a seasoned therapist with over 50,000 hours of clinical experience and 32 years teaching mental wellness, as she guides you to reclaim your inner calm. Learn to stay grounded in the present, navigate midlife transitions with clarity, and build emotional resilience using proven coping tools.

Every Monday, MJ dives into real stories and science-backed insights to help you shift from anxious to centered—ending each episode with an “Inner Challenge” you can practice right away. Then, on Thursdays, she shares a brief follow-up episode that connects, deepens, or expands the week’s topic, helping you apply these skills in real life.

Let’s evolve from crisis to calm—and make midlife your most balanced and fulfilling chapter yet.
🎧 Start with listener favorite Ep. 138 to feel the difference calm can make.

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Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships

Ep. 106 Transform Holiday Stress & Anxiety to Midlife Calm Using This Easy 4 Minute Meditation

November 28, 2024 • MJ Murray Vachon LCSW • Season 4 • Episode 106

0:00 | 8:24

How can a quick and easy four-minute meditation help you truly enjoy the holiday season? (Even if you hate to meditate?)

You've stuffed the turkey, cleaned the house, now prepare your mind for the day. Take four minutes to do for your mind what you have done for the holiday. Why shouldn't you enjoy this day!

In this episode you’ll:

1. Learn a simple, four-minute technique to mentally prepare for the holidays.

2. Discover how a quick mindset shift can make your holiday experience more fulfilling.

3. Take away a powerful tool to stay grounded, calm, and connected through the busy season.

Give yourself four minutes to set a calm, joyful tone for the holidays by listening to this episode!

During the hustle and bustle listen to Fan Favorite:

Ep. 99 How Transforming Shoulds Can Instantly Decrease Anxiety & Boost Midlife Calm

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About the Host:

MJ Murray Vachon, LCSW, is a seasoned clinician, educator, and host of the podcast Creating Midlife Calm, recognized by Maria Shriver as a “Listen of the Week.” Over the past 40 years, MJ has led more than 50,000 therapy sessions and developed the Inner Challenge mental wellness program and the Inner Challenge Master Class, practical tools for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and resilience taught for more than 30 years in junior high schools and at the University of Notre Dame for freshman football players. Through her podcast, teaching, and coaching, MJ helps people build calmer lives, stronger relationships, and healthier communities.

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.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW 0:00

In this episode, I invite you to step away from your holiday preparations and take four minutes to prep your mind. Welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, a podcast dedicated to empowering midlife minds to overcome anxiety, stop feeling like crap and become more present with your family, all while achieving greater success at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon, a licensed clinical social worker with over 48, 000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching mental wellness. Welcome to the podcast. In this episode, I'm going to share with you my four minute holiday meditation. By the end of the podcast, you'll have a four minute meditation that I invite you to use on those special days in your life. Holidays. birthdays, or those days where you're just so busy that you can't do a longer meditation. On a holiday, where there's a lot that must be done, I want to give you as my gift, this four minute meditation. And guess what? Science has shown that it will reduce your stress. It helps to improve your focus and attention, and more importantly, your intention for the day. Lastly, it increases your mood boost. and enhances your emotional awareness. So think about it. When we have special days in our life, we tend to spend a lot of attention on our clothing, on the food, on the important outside things. So settle back, sit in a chair, and join me for this inside thing, a four minute meditation. Find a comfortable place to sit Sit fairly straight up, ground your feet on the floor, and put your hands in your lap, if you're comfortable, close your eyes, and just follow your breath for about 30 seconds. If your mind drifts off, just bring it gently back to your breath. That is completely normal. Next, I want you to think about the day ahead, and choose a part of the day that you're looking forward to, and I invite you to run a movie of that part of the day in your mind. Try leaning into the positive feeling state associated to the part of the day that you are looking forward to. Next, I invite you to run the movie one more time, but this time, add a little more detail, a little more color, maybe a scented candle, whatever would bring you a sense of pleasure, happiness, and calm. Stay with the movie and make it more vivid for about 30 seconds. For the last time, I invite you to run the movie. Pay special attention to the feelings connected to what your mind is imagining and try to grow them and spread them throughout your whole body. Next, put your hands over your heart, your feet are still grounded on the floor, and for one last round, move your awareness to the pleasurable and good feeling that you have created within you. Breathe into that feeling and allow it to fill your entire heart space and body. As you end the meditation, follow your breath again and just allow your entire body to relax. If your mind drifts off, just bring it gently back to your breath. That is completely normal. Take a cleansing breath and try to anchor yourself in this feeling as you move in to this special day. Thank you so much for having the courage to try this four minute meditation. I wish you the best day. And don't forget, you've probably done a beautiful job figuring out what to cook, what to wear, and cleaning your house. And now you've paid attention to your mind. As the day unfolds, of course it won't match your movie exactly. But what a meditation like this does is it clears out a few things, and it helps us to set an intention for what is the feeling that we want to bring into the day. Have a great holiday, thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Monday with more Creating Midlife Calm.