Ep. 148 How to Cope with Financial Anxiety During Trump Induced Tariffs, Market Stress and Economic Uncertainty

Feeling overwhelmed by the uncertainty of the  economy and unsure how to stay grounded?
Discover calming, practical strategies—whether you’re stressing about college costs, retirement, or just making it to next payday.
In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. Why your brain spirals into anxiety during economic uncertainty — and how to calm it
2. The unexpected power of nature-based meditation (even if you’re not into meditation)
3. Practical money moves to ease financial stress without feeding fear

Tune in to learn how to manage your anxiety before it manages you.

Try this meditation:

Our Mindful Nature: Nurture by Nature Meditation for Anxiety

https://www.merylarnett.com/podcast/nurtured-by-nature-meditation-for-anxiety

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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

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:00

In this episode, you'll discover how to calm financial anxiety. 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, episode 1 54, take two. Yep, that's right. I just finished taping an emergency episode about how to deal with your anxiety when the tariffs make the stock market go down. Only to come upstairs after taping to find out that once again, president Trump has put the tariffs on pause. Does that mean your mind and your anxiety are calm and peaceful? Probably not. What's a podcaster to do? Heck, forget me. What's the small business owner to do? Or the middle-aged couple helping your child figure out finances for college. It's all up in the air and it spikes your anxiety. Let's be honest. Few things spike our anxiety like money. In this episode, I'm gonna offer you a fresh way to think about money plus three coping skills to help your mind navigate this moment of economic chaos.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW: 1:22

As always, I'll end with an inner challenge, something you can start today to help ease your anxiety.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 1:29

Unless you're extremely wealthy, you're probably feeling scared, uncertain, and probably a little pissed off. Let's start with the obvious. What is money? Every one of you listening has your own history and your own experience with money. Over the years, I've come to think of money as energy. It's kind of like sleep, especially in midlife. If you get enough sleep, it's easier to feel happy, but if you wake up at 2:00 AM and can't fall back asleep and anxiety creeps in because you know the next day is gonna be harder. Money is similar. When you have enough, you have energy not just to pay your bills, but to enjoy some of the finer things in life. A latte, a couple times a week, planning a vacation, helping your kids, or easing some of your parents' financial stress. When tariffs rise and markets fall, your energy around money probably plummets too. Especially if you're in this stage of getting ready to send kids to college or planning for retirement. You might be like the couple sitting next to me at the airport, all tanned and regretting their Florida vacation. Or like a friend of mine who's selling her house feeling pressured to accept a low ball offer because what if it all gets worse? I am certainly not here to give you financial advice. Hopefully you have your own financial planner that can help you in that department. But what I wanna talk about today is how you can manage your mind when it starts to run amuck because of all the uncertainty. A mind left unmanaged will go to negative thinking at best or catastrophic thinking at worse. And that's because your brain doesn't like uncertainty or perceived threats. And economic turmoil checks both of those boxes. If you think of money as energy and economic uncertainty as a threat, then of course you're feeling overwhelmed these days. So the first step isn't to make a financial decision. It's actually to tend and befriend your energy in the middle of all this chaos. And let me be honest, for many of you the usual tools I talk about on this podcast, name Tame, a name may not be the right tools for you at this moment. If fear is running your show, it's time to reach for the coping skill. Some people love to hate. But it does work. Meditation. Stay with me here. In the show notes. I'm gonna share a link to a wonderful podcast called Our Mindful Nature. The reason I am recommending this podcast at this time is because the creator of this podcast, Meryl Arnett, offers short guided meditations that include gentle nature sounds. Think about it. Your mind sees your 401k shrinking, but you soothe it with the sound of soft breeze, flowing water, birds chirping. And the best part, you don't have to be a meditator. You just have to be a listener. All you have to do is turn on the podcast and let her guide you and your mind to a bit of a calmer place. Why am I recommending that you do meditations that are infused with nature sounds at this time? The reason is that when anxiety takes over, science tells us that guided meditations with nature sound can gently bring your nervous system back to calm. Science shows that the rhythm of waves, rain or birdsong helps quiet your stress response and ease your body into a sense of safety. If you can get out into nature when your mind is running wild, that's great. Do it. But if not, let nature come to you. Coping skill number one, listen to our mindful nature, and let me give you an insider's tip. Sometimes when your mind is really running amuck with fear, listen to the podcast with earbuds on. There's something about listening with earbuds that really allows your mind to take in the meditation more fully. Some of these meditations are 20 minutes long, and let me tell you from my own experience, you don't need to do all 20 minutes. Science tells us seven minutes, 11 minutes can really help you reset your central nervous system and that can really be calming for your mind at a time like this. Once you've brought your mind from overwhelm to calm, or at least calmer, you're ready for coping. Skill number two, prepare for the possible and hope for the best. what does that mean? It means it's time to put our big girl and big guy pants on and face this financial uncertainty. I'm not saying run around like a chicken with your head cut off and scream. It's all over. Not at all. I'm recommending. Grab a piece of paper and write down the expenses that you could pause or cut just for the next two weeks. Yes, two weeks. Skip the daily coffee run, pack lunch. Cancel the unused streaming subscriptions. Grocery shop with intention. Avoid mindless Amazon browsing. This isn't about restriction forever. It's about building the muscle of economic restraint without panic. Two weeks from now, reassess and repeat. Let me give you examples From the 2008 financial crisis, one of my clients took a 30% pay cut, and he did two things. He figured out what he could cut from his spending, but he was still 10% short. He then asked people like me if I could give him a 10% cut, which I was happy to give him$3 off his$30 copay. And then he and his family continued to sell things here and there to make up the difference. Another client of mine whose father was laid off soon after the October crash had been accepted into her dream school. He still had not found a job in April when she needed to make the decision. She really wanted to go to this school and she was just crushed. Her and her family talked about it, but they just felt unable to commit. They went to the school and they asked for a one year deferment, which the school happily gave. She took a year off and she worked. A year later, the dad was back fully employed and she went into college not only with a pretty healthy bank account but she felt wiser and more mature for what turned out to be a great college experience. In both of these cases, my clients and their families planned for the possible and hoped for the best. This is not easy to do when your brain wants to make everything catastrophic. What if my retirement doesn't bounce back? Prepare for the possible and hope for the best. And now coping skill number three, be a helper. Yes, help others. When you're wrapped in worry about your own finances, step outside of yourself. It'll be a really nice little trip. Open a door for someone. Help a stranger with their groceries. Offer to babysit for a friend so they can take a break. Do you know someone who has lost their job? Perhaps you have a connection to a new job, or you can send them a bit of money. This really doesn't cost us anything. They don't need to be big, dramatic acts. Community has always pulled us through. Give your phone a little break, tuck it away, and go find a moment and a person to help. It will lift your spirits, ease your anxiety, and brighten someone else's day. I do this every day. It's really fun. I have met so many fascinating people. One thing I've really noticed in the last six months is people seem to be talking to each other again, reaching out. Maybe we just innately know that we're going to get through this, so we might as well get through it together. I do understand that we still have a big political divide. If you have friends and loved ones that you have a hard time reaching across that divide, please check out episode 108 Where I offer some ideas and strategies to bridge the difference. And finally, coping skill number four. Limit your financial news and don't check your accounts constantly. Every financial planner is saying it. Every mental health expert is saying it. So yes, I'm saying it too. Your inner challenge for this week is to pick one of these coping skills and just give it a try, whether it's listening to seven minutes of the nature-based meditation, trimming a few expenses, helping someone out, or stepping away from the financial headlines, give it a try for your own mental health. I do understand that everything outside of you feels out of control, feels chaotic, but you actually have the superpower of managing your mind. Notice how your mind goes to the future. The goal of getting through this is trying to keep your mind engaged in healthy ways in the present. As you do this, see what shifts inside when you reclaim even a little bit of control. In this episode, you've discovered why your brain reacts so strongly to financial uncertainty and why that's normal. How nature-based meditation can help restore a sense of safety and calm and science-backed coping skills to ease anxiety when the market feels out of control. I'm really sorry that once again, our country is going through this type of chaos. Remember, you don't have to do everything, but a little bit goes a long way. I'll be back on Thursday with, But MJ really? My mini format where a listener pushes back against this week's suggestions. Will my strategy survive her pushback, or will I have to rethink them? I hope you tune in to see how this goes. Thanks for listening to creating Midlife Calm.