Ep. 164 What Every Graduate Should Hear From a Midlifer About Creating a Meaningful Life Without Letting Anxiety Hold You Back

Is someone you care about  graduating yet  feeling  anxious, uncertain, or overwhelmed?
This episode offers the two questions that can guide them through early adulthood with clarity and calm.
Here’s what you’ll take away from this episode:

1. Why anxiety after graduation is not failure—but a normal part of becoming yourself
2. Two foundational questions to keep you grounded: Who am I? and Can I love?
3. Simple, powerful coping skills to stay present while you grow through uncertainty

 Listen now to help the graduates you love feel seen, steady, and ready for the road ahead.

****

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 the two questions every graduate needs to ask.

Built-in Microphone: 0:05

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.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:29

Welcome to the podcast. It's graduation season, and earlier this week, I held the first midlife graduation ceremony. If you listen to that episode, congratulations. You deserve it. You're ready to carry the torch. As a midlifer, you probably know a high school or college senior who's graduating soon. Maybe you're searching for the perfect gift card or meme to send. Let me help. Today I'm creating an episode that you can pass on to them. I'm sharing what I would say if I could give them a commencement speech straight from the hearts of all the people I have worked with over the last 40 years. Please feel free to send this to those graduates who you love. Welcome to the podcast graduates of 2025. On this day, you're probably feeling a mix of emotions, pride, relief, excitement, and maybe even a little regret. You've completed high school or college. You know that part of your education is in the books, but deep down, you also know you're not finished, not by a long shot. There are so many paths, so many options, so much pressure. Every year I listen to the best of commencement speeches. I just love them. They're aspiring. But as a clinical social worker with almost 50,000 hours of client sessions, I have always wanted to send a different message. A message that reflects what so many of my clients have said to me about what they have learned in therapy. As treatment ends almost unanimously, people say to me, thanks, but I wish I knew this when I was younger, So I'm asking my listeners of this midlife podcast to listen to this commencement speech and forward it to you kind of like a card. My hope is that I can share information that not only meets you where you are today, but actually helps you understand where to point your energies for the next three to eight years. In this commencement episode, I wanna offer you something more than lasting advice I want to help you understand why your anxiety doesn't mean you're off track. How discovering who you are is a process, not a test. And why learning to love others well, not just romantically, but deeply and relationally is the real work of becoming an adult. You don't need to be perfect. You don't need to have everything figured out. At your age and stage. You just can't have it figured out, but you will be pointed in the right direction if you stay with these two questions. Who am I and can I love? And you bring your anxiety along with you. Whether you're 18 or 22, you're in the middle of one of the most profound stages of human development. Adolescence starts at 12, ends around 25. It's the stage of discovering who you are. Psychologist Eric Erickson called it the search for identity. It's the phase where your mind begins to ask one powerful and relentless question, who am I? And if you were to answer that question honestly today, I think many of you would say, I'm anxious. After all your generation has been dubbed the Anxious generation. What do I have to say about that? Congratulations. You are right on schedule. You are ready to graduate, and yes, you get to bring your anxiety with you. You've done nothing wrong. In fact, you're brave for being honest about how you feel. For 31 years. I've led a mental wellness program called Inner Challenge. It's been in schools, businesses, and even Notre Dame football. And for almost 40 years I've worked closely with people your same age, helping them explore this foundational question. Who am I? And this is what I've learned. You have gifts, you have talents, you have dreams as you go to the next place in your life. Perhaps you're off to college or trade school. Maybe you're off to a world of work. Maybe you don't know what you're off to. It doesn't matter where you're headed. Your job is the same. To work on answering the question, who am I? We need you to know who you are because we need you to contribute in your corner of the world. Yes, you can make your corner of the world a bit brighter, a bit more loving, a bit healthier, and a bit more fun. Let me be the first to assure you, you don't need to find the cure for cancer before you're 30 and you don't need to be like your favorite influencer with a million followers. You need to figure out your path. And the only way to do this is to march forward with your anxiety in tow. Over the past few years, maybe you've tried on labels, push back against expectations. Define yourself by GPA, your playlist, your sports, your activities, your friend group, and your story. That's all part of it. From 12 to 25, you're doing a heavy lifting of building your identity. And that kind of work naturally brings with it anxiety. It's hard not knowing who you are, and it's even harder pretending you do, while you're still figuring it out. But hear this, you are not supposed to have it all figured out. Did you catch that deep breath? You just took. The uncertainty you're feeling. It's not failure. It's the path. It's part of the process of answering the question, who am I in an authentic way that will guide you towards your future. Let me tell you a story. Years ago, a young woman was absolutely sure she wanted to be a veterinarian until she worked at a vet's office and fainted at the sight of blood. Next, she decided she'd be a lawyer, but eventually she realized that lawyering would only intensify her desire to always be right. Then one day a professor she really respected, suggested she become a clinical social worker, a therapist, ah. She thought this would be a way to help people heal without blood. A way to connect with others without needing to win. That woman was me. What's the point? Answering who I am isn't a solo project. People will offer guidance be wise and take it in. Some of it will come from people who love you and know you well. Some of it won't feel right and that can be helpful. I am not that. Some will come from algorithms and strangers online who will never meet you. Trust what makes your heart sing. Your brain. Stay engaged. Your heart feel filled with purpose. As you move through your days and night, take note of that which feels true inside of you. Those moments, those experiences shine a light on who you are. Think of them like little stars. One or two or three. Don't give you much to go on, but those one, two, and three eventually become. 40, 50, 60, 70, and that night's sky of yours becomes clearer, There's no deadline. You'll know when you know. It's your ability to stay with the question, who am I? That builds self-awareness, perseverance, fortitude, clarity, and a strong sense of right and wrong. All Inner strengths you'll need as life takes you to new and unfamiliar places, but sometimes your desire to avoid anxiety can stop you from trying things that would teach you the most. A client once said to me, I'm so nervous to audition for this play. I wish I could just record it and send it in. Sound familiar. Here's what I told her and what I'll tell you tend and befriend your anxiety. Don't ignore it. Don't eat a gummy. Don't scroll on your phone. When your anxiety rises, try this. Take 90 seconds, move your attention to your feet. Place your hands over the part of your body where you feel the anxiety. Breathe gently. You don't have to get rid of your anxiety. You just have to calm it enough to move forward. Of course, you'll feel anxious doing hard things. Of course, you'll feel anxious doing new things. You'll feel anxious when you fail. You'll feel anxious after you succeed. Anxiety isn't always a terrible thing to get rid of. Sometimes it just means that you really care about whatever's going on. Now, let's go deeper. Answering who I am isn't just about your talents or test scores. It's also about your values. Another story I once worked with a student who got caught cheating on a test. He was smart, active in sports, involved in clubs. At first, he denied it. Then he blamed the system. Then he ended up in my office, he said to me, MJ, I already had an A in that class. Cheating, didn't change anything. What do they expect of me? I asked him one simple question. When you ask yourself, who am I? Do you answer? I'm a cheater. He paused, then said. No, not really, but sometimes I cheat when I feel like I can't get everything done. That moment of reflection, it became a gift. It allowed him to explore on a deep level, his relationship between ambition and integrity. When you ask yourself the question, who am I? Some of the most important answers will be, what are my values? You will act out of alignment with your values. Sometimes. That's not the real problem. The problem is when you become numb to it, when you stop noticing the cost, when you stop telling yourself the truth, because over time that misalignment quietly begins to answer the question, who am I in ways that don't reflect who you truly want to be. This brings us to the next big question in your development, Erickson's model of human development says that around 18 or 19. Another question emerges. Can I love? In my career, I have easily asked more than 10,000 people what Erickson meant by this, and the number one answer is always the same. Can I find my soulmate, my life partner? That is not what Erickson meant. Erickson is challenging you to become someone who can love well. Isn't that a bit mind blowingly obvious? If someday you hope to find someone who will love you. You'll also want to be a person who can love them. As you keep growing, you'll feel a deeper desire to connect, to find your people, to relate, to belong, to matter to others. But don't let your anxiety or your phone get in the way. What does this powerful identity question can I love? Mean? To love well means being curious and caring about others, and really listening to their life story, listening to opinions that challenge yours. Holding space for someone else's emotions, sharing your own emotions gently and honestly. Trying to understand what matters to someone else. Accepting the fragileness and limitations of being human and giving others the benefit of the doubt before you rush into judgment. As you learn to love well, you understand that this is the moment where your capital I, the strong, solid self, that at times can become self-centered, is transformed into a lowercase italicized i let yourself see that in your mind, that beautiful, lowercase, italicized i still grounded, but more flexible, more open, more connected. You'll practice this italicized i in small ways. On a project with someone who's difficult. In a dorm room with a person from a different culture. With a friend where everything is easy peasy, hopefully on a date with someone who takes your breath away for dating and falling in love is the greatest act of courage. And yes, it will come with anxiety, but guess what? They feel it too. And just like yours, theirs is invisible. Be anxious and connect anyways. Be anxious and learn to answer the question. Can I love? Look at these next years in your life and understand you have time, you have an infrastructure that you may never have for the rest of your life to meet people from all over. You have opportunities to build real meaningful connections. Step into your agency and make the most of it. Not everyone will do this, but if you want to look for friends who want to create a life that is grounded full of meaning and purpose, who are not swimming in the competition and materialism that our culture is drowning in. How do you find such like-hearted friends? Look for them at your part-time job. Join a club. Take a class that leans into self-reflection and personal discovery. Do service work where people are drawn to helping others. And then when you're at those things, put your phone in your pocket and have a conversation with those who are with you. Look them in the eye. Ask them a question about themselves. Listen. Be curious. Don't let first impressions close the door. They are rarely the whole story. I know many of you are more comfortable texting than talking, but love is built in conversation, in presence, in connection. And when the world feels overwhelming, when the 24 7 media cycle makes you question whether life is worth investing in. Pause, take a step back. Yes, the world is messy, but it has always been. Now it's your turn. You are human and that is more than enough. if you wanna work on your mental wellness, I invite you to listen to episodes one through 13. Congratulations class of 2025. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to know exactly who you are. You just have to stay with the questions. Who am I? Can I love? Bring your anxiety, stay curious, and keep growing. You are human and that is more than enough. Happy graduation class of 2025. We need you. Thanks for listening to creating Midlife Calm.