Ep. 151 Practical Coping Skills to Ease Emotional and Physical Fatigue During a Crisis in Midlife

Are you blaming yourself for being too tired in a crisis?
Loss, illness, or major life upheaval can leave you emotionally raw and physically depleted. 

In this episode you’ll discover:

1. Why exhaustion hits so hard during crisis and doable ways to get more energy. 
2. Simple but effective coping skills to regulate your nervous system to improve your sleep and stay grounded. 
3. How to find strength in receiving care from others — even if that’s uncomfortable for you

This is your permission slip to stop pretending you’re fine.
Listen now to reclaim your energy, your mindset, and your midlife calm.

Resources Mentioned in Episode! (Enjoy!!) 

Andrew Huberman Meditation: Non Sleep Deep Rest  (NSDR)  Meditation: https://www.hubermanlab.com/nsdr#practice-nsdr

Tara Brach Meditation: Reducing Anxiety and Getting to Sleep

 https://www.tarabrach.com/meditation-anxiety-sleep-18min/

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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 how to cope with that soul crushing fatigue that comes with a crisis.

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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. If you listen to Monday's episode, you know, we explored how to ground yourself when life falls apart, how to anchor during emotional shock and begin tending to and befriending yourself through unimaginable pain and a new reality you never imagined you would face. Today, I wanna take the next step with you because once that first wave of crisis rolls through, after the shock, the phone calls the sleepless nights. You may find yourself facing a quieter but equally difficult companion: exhaustion. Not just being tired. I'm talking about a deep soul level, fatigue that comes from holding so much fear, grief decisions, uncertainty, all while trying to remember to take out the garbage, meet your family's needs and figure out your work life. In today's episode, I'm gonna talk about how crisis exhaustion is biological, not weakness. What you can do when you're running on empty, and why receiving, truly receiving is a courageous and vital part of healing. Before we dive into exhaustion. Let's reflect. How'd you do with Monday's inner challenge? I have to admit, when I was done taping Monday's episode, I had a bit of guilt. Why would I be asking you to take on an inner challenge when your life at this moment is in crisis? So if you didn't do it, no problem, but if you did take on Monday's challenge, I encourage you to notice your mindset in the storm. Are you raging, blaming, unclaiming? Is your mind too overwhelmed to even have a mindset and you're mostly just going through the motions. Maybe Monday's episodes stirred something deep within you that whispered as awful and scary as this is maybe you could soften a bit. Maybe you could tend to befriend yourself. Maybe you could show your heart a bit of care and compassion in this unimaginable situation. Your mindset is dynamic. Checking in with yourself might be a new coping skill as you learn to weather this difficult time. Remember, you're not expected to know how to navigate the unexpected until you're in the thick of it. Think about it. Who walks around acting like their house is burned down, if it hasn't. Give yourself the same grace. You're learning to move through a challenge that changed everything and your mindset is one of your new tools. Which brings me to one of the biggest obstacles in crisis: exhaustion. When a crisis hits, you're not just dealing with the event itself, you're also dealing with what your body is doing in response. Your nervous system jumps into full alert, fight, flight, or freeze, and that state burns you energy faster than you realize. Add to that, the emotional weight of sadness, fear, anger, or loss, and your entire system can feel completely overwhelmed. One of my clients whose spouse recently died, is facing a severe medical crisis. Last week, she said to me, I shouldn't be so tired. I can't even focus enough to get my taxes together, which was never a problem in her history because she worked in the financial industry. Many people I work with try to push through. Perhaps you find yourself saying, I shouldn't be this tired, or I have too much to do to rest. But here's the truth, being tired in a crisis isn't weakness. It's biology. It's your body saying, I need care too. This kind of weariness isn't solved by one good night of sleep. It takes tending, it takes compassion. So what can you do when you're completely depleted? First, give yourself permission to rest. Even small moments, a nap, five minutes of stillness, a walk around the block, or simply lying down and breathing slowly for two minutes. These aren't luxuries in a crisis. These are necessities for your nervous system to have a chance to recover. If you can't sleep, don't fight it. Shift to relaxing. Put on a comforting song. Let it wash over you. Make a playlist for this crisis. Have it be a companion for you in this crisis. Try NSDR, nons Sleep Deep Rest. A 10 minute meditation technique that's been used for centuries to restore the body. Or listen to Tara Brock's meditations. She got me through many sleepless nights. I learned that even when my sleep was severely compromised, just resting without reaching for my phone, offered a bit of restorative healing. In the show notes I'll link both of these meditations so you can easily find them. And of course, talk with your doctor about whether any over the counter or prescription sleep aids might be of help. This is also a great time to revisit the five sleep hacks I discussed in episode 95. And don't be afraid to say it out loud. I am so tired. Just naming your exhaustion can ease some of its weight. You don't have to pretend you're okay. You can tend to befriend your fatigue too. One of the biggest challenges in a crisis is the expectation that you can keep your life the same while also managing the crisis. I'm sick, but I won't miss a day of work. My child is suffering, but I can still volunteer. I lost my job, but I won't cut back on the kids' extracurriculars. This is common in the early stages of acclimating to a new and painful reality. When life changes in an instant, you don't fully understand what it means until you've lived with it for a while. Give yourself permission to consistently reassess what this crisis is asking of you. Think of your energy, like money. You may not have it to spend in the same way you used to. Pausing your volunteer work, lowering your standards at home and work. It's not failing it's wisdom, it's energy conservation. Now, what if your crisis has taken your job from you? Maybe you're too sick to work. Maybe you were laid off. Work grounds us. It gives us purpose, direction, and often a sense of worth. Losing that can be one of the greatest energy drains of all. I've worked with many people in this situation, and over the years I've seen two helpful paths emerge. The first is to lean into your painful journey with a new lens. One of my clients grieving the death of her child, told me that after nine months of despair, she had a small insight. What if I approached this the way I approached a promotion at work? What if I learned what this new job was asking of me? For her that tiny shift changed everything I. Can you gently and compassionately nudge your mindset to become a learner in the midst of this loss? There are countless online resources and support groups. If you like many think A group's, not for me, I totally get it, but just try two or three sessions at most. Doesn't matter if it's online or in person. Remember, you can't quit something you haven't started. The second path is spiritual. What does this crisis mean? How can you learn about yourself How can you find meaning in this terrible thing? How can this experience make you kinder, more compassionate? A dear friend of mine who has cancer wrote on her Caring Bridge page. My journey is not about being tough enough, it's about being present and in step with each stage, I've learned to give up control and let gratitude guide me. She told me that shifting from fighting cancer to surviving and being in the moment made her more tender, more grateful mostly with herself. Spiritual connection has no formula. It's the part of you that still feels love, compassion, and gratitude even in the storm. If you don't know how to access this, there are many wise professionals and perhaps some of your friends that would be more than willing to help you find it. Calming the storm is done best with others, and that's one of the secrets of surviving exhaustion. This brings me to another coping skill, one that feels surprisingly vulnerable for many in midlife: receiving. At this stage of life we're often the caregivers, the helpers, the fixers. Midlife is

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prime. So when crisis hits, your instinct may be to isolate, to keep it all in. To not be a burden, but healing doesn't happen in isolation. You were never meant to face the hardest moments of your life alone. One of the trickiest parts of a crisis is that at first you may need to be alone. People reach out and you don't have the energy to respond. They ask you how they can help and you have no idea, that's okay. That phase is natural. But when the time comes, when you catch your breath, don't be afraid to reach out. Text a friend and say, I've caught my breath. Things are still awful. But I could use your help. Letting others care for you, even in small ways, is one of the bravest things you can do. Coach yourself through the discomfort. When someone brings a meal, pause, let their kindness sink in. Instead of staying armored up and saying you shouldn't have. Allow yourself to feel their generosity. If you struggle to receive, ask yourself. Would you want a stranger in this same situation to receive this gift? It can be helpful to reflect on where your beliefs around receiving were shaped. Were you praised for being self-sufficient as a child shamed for having needs? This type of awareness often spurred on by a crisis can help you transform those old patterns into healthier ways of adapting and coping. Give yourself permission to grow even if it feels awkward and uncomfortable. Start where you are with the shame, fear, anxiety, but gently move your mind toward gratitude. In 2008, one of my midlife clients lost his job in the housing crash. He resisted using food stamps and visiting the food bank out of shame, but desperation eventually led him there. Two years later, as his family regained stability, he said to me. I used to judge people who needed help, but one day at the food bank, a woman working the shelves looked at him and said, I'm so glad you're here when you're back on your feet. I hope you volunteer. That's what I did. Her words changed him. Receiving, truly receiving plant seeds of gratitude that grow into generosity. Receiving is not weakness. It's how we connect with the truth that we are loved, even when we're struggling, even when we're not at our best. In this episode, we explored how exhaustion in the midst of a crisis isn't a weakness, it's just simply biological. We also looked at what you can do when you're running on empty and why receiving, truly learning to receive is a courageous and vital part of healing. You're not alone in your exhaustion, and you don't have to walk this road by yourself. Let rest in, let love in, let care in. If someone in your life is going through a hard time, send them this episode. Sometimes the most healing words we can hear are, I'm thinking of you. Thanks for listening. I'll be back on Monday with more Creating Midlife Calm.