Ep. 130 1 Simple Coping Skill To Stop Anxiety From Spiraling Out Of Control & Derailing Midlife Calm

Have you ever felt like anxiety hijacks your day, leaving you overwhelmed and disconnected from peace?

Anxiety can strike at any moment—whether it’s an email, a text, or an unexpected life challenge—and derail your calm. 

In this episode you’ll discover: 

1. The transformative practice of noticing, naming, and taming anxiety to break free from overwhelming thoughts.
2. How to harness the power of your breath to reset your nervous system and restore clarity.
3. The "river of wellness" metaphor to understand your mind’s natural flow and navigate challenges with confidence.

Listen now to unlock the tools you need to calm your anxiety and create a more peaceful, focused state of mind.

Check out my one pager for this episode: https://mjmurrayvachon.com/podcast-1

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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.

Transcript

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:00

In this episode, you'll discover a simple method to slow your anxiety down and bring your mind to a more peaceful and clear state. 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. Let me ask you, have you ever felt like anxiety has taken over your day? If so, this episode is for you. By the end of this episode, you'll learn how to use your power of observation to calm anxiety and reset your nervous system. I'll also share a powerful image to guide your mind back to peace and calm. Together, these tools are game changers for your anxiety. You know the drill. You're busy living your life when, wham, something happens that spikes your anxiety. An email from your boss, a social media post, or a text from one of your kids that says, I feel like crap. Your calm goes out the window and anxiety takes over. Or does it? Remember, your body is wired to protect you. When you feel threatened, your mind and body jump into action to ensure your safety. Now, pause and think back to the last time you felt this way. How did your body respond? Did you hold your breath? Did your shoulders tighten? Did your stomach clench? And what about your mind? Did your thoughts catastrophize? Did you think, ugh, no one likes me? Or did you go into fix it mode? The power of noticing is key to managing your anxiety. Noticing when your mind and body are dysregulated is the first step towards calm. It might be hard to believe, but you can face challenging situations. without being overwhelmed. The first step is to notice and name what's happening. Think of it like a reset. If you're alone, you can just say out loud, I feel so overwhelmed or I'm so anxious. This is so uncomfortable. You can also write it down. Naming what's happening brings your mind back to the present. In that moment of naming, you are stopping your anxiety from running away with your thoughts and body. After you notice and name, the next step is to is to tame. So often when you feel anxious, you want to just get going and fix something. This process of noticing, naming, and taming asks you to pause, asks you to slow down, before you can tame. You get going. How do you tame your anxiety? You tame it by grounding your body and regulating your breath. It sounds simple, but it can be really hard to do in the moment. Anxiety makes you busy. Busy in your mind, but Busy in your body and often busy with your words. Let me share the story of a client who came to me deeply anxious about her partner's recent medical diagnosis. She came into my office, sat on the couch, and began to speak rapidly. Her fists were clenched and her thoughts were catastrophizing. It was overwhelming. I asked her to pause ground her feet. and regulate her breathing. It took her a few minutes because stopping felt so hard, but as she calmed, she looked at me and she asked, how am I ever going to get through this? I responded, how do you want to get through this? Anxiety often feels like it takes away your agency. Something uninvited comes into your life and takes over your mind, your body, not to mention what you had planned on doing that very day. Your brain goes into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode, giving you tunnel vision. This is really important to remember. When you're in a heightened state of anxiety, you don't see the whole playing field. You just see a very narrow part of it in front of you. in a heightened emotional state, your mind lacks the clarity needed for sound decision making. That's why your first goal must be to take back your power by breathing. Yes, breathing. Breathing is your superpower. It's free, it's always available, and it's incredibly effective. Notice the next time you feel anxious how you tend to hold your breath. All you need to do is is ground your feet, take a minute or so to calm and re regulate your breath. You'll see that you'll begin to feel more in control. Naming and taming anxiety sounds simple, but it takes practice. yourself, I'm learning to regulate my mind and body when I'm anxious. Notice how I phrase that. You're not an anxious person. You're a person whose mind and body responded to some situation with anxiety. If you feel anxious often, it might be because you grew up in an environment where calming skills weren't effectively taught. When we're children, the adults around us often jump in to fix it mode. Years ago, when my son was two, we were on a walk and he tripped and fell. I immediately picked him up and said, you are okay. My husband, who isn't really a fixer, said to me, Hey, let him have his experience, then respond to that. That's the wisdom we can all use, no matter what age we are. Think about the messages you received in childhood about anxiety. Was it something to be fixed, something you caused, or something to hide? Whatever your history, you're here now, learning to build a healthier relationship with anxiety. Good for you. This brings me to the image I want to share, which I think is a game changer when it comes to managing anxiety and cultivating mental wellness. am borrowing this image from Dr. Dan Siegel. a renowned psychiatrist. This is his metaphor. Our minds are designed to be calm, flowing like a river, responding to whatever happens in a way where you have the confidence that you can navigate the waves of life. Now add to that river two banks. One on either side. One bank represents chaos. The other, rigidity. When your mind is on the bank of chaos, you feel overwhelmed. Your thoughts spiral and your emotions are unpredictable. This might look like panic attacks, constant worry, or an inability to focus. When your mind is on the bank of rigidity, you lean into over controlling tendencies. Avoidance and control. or perfectionism. This might mean seeking excessive reassurance, sticking to strict routines, or procrastinating out of fear of failure. Let me share an example. A number of years ago, I worked with a mom whose son was experiencing extreme test anxiety. He was refusing to go to school. She was so overwhelmed by his anxiety that she began to consider homeschooling him, even though she had never considered it before. Her intention was good, but the unintended message to her son was, I don't think you can handle this challenge. Anxiety often pushes us to find quick solutions, But those solutions often reinforce avoidance and rigidity. Another common example is people using exercise as a healthy coping mechanism, which is great, but becoming so rigid about it that missing a workout dominates their thoughts with fear of weight gain or loss of fitness, isn't so great. The beauty of naming and taming anxiety is that it gives you clarity. The river metaphor can help guide you as to what's going on in your mind. In order to manage your anxiety, this skill of understanding what's going on in your mind, is essential. This week, your inner challenge is to pay close attention to your mind. When does it feel peaceful, like a flowing river? Observe. Is your mind on the bank of chaos or rigidity? Practice observing with curiosity and without judgment. This is a critical skill for creating midlife calm. When you're going through your day and anxiety strikes, I invite you to notice, name, and tame it. This episode, I've shared with you how noticing, naming, and taming can slow down your anxiety and bring your mind to a more peaceful and clear state. I've also shared with you Dr. Siegel's image of the river of wellness. It's helpful to be reminded that your natural state of your mind is to be peaceful and calm. But of course, life happens, and when it does, you can go on the bank of rigidity and chaos. In the show notes, I've attached my one pager to give you the visual of this image, which can be so helpful as you continue to work on calming your anxiety. I'll be back on Thursday with a follow up episode where I give you five words that will help you move from the banks of rigidity and chaos to the River of Peace and Calm. Thanks for listening to Creating Midlife Calm.