Ep. 219 — Stop People-Pleasing: Coping Skills for Midlife Anxiety & Stress to Help You Set Boundaries and Stand in Your Authentic Self

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck saying yes when every part of you wants to say no?
People-pleasing may look helpful on the outside, but it fuels midlife anxiety and stress while leaving you disconnected from what you really want.
In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. How to notice the wave of feelings that trigger people-pleasing.
2. Why anchoring in your breath helps break the fawning cycle.
3. How the FAWN steps—Feel, Anchor, Watch, Name—move you from automatic yes to standing strong.

 Take 11 minutes to stop people-pleasing and start standing steady in your truthIn Appreciation of Episode 200!  Join me for a free workshop:

****

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 move from fawn to strong, calming your anxiety and standing firm in your truth.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:09

Welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, the podcast where you and I tackle stress and anxiety in midlife so you can stop feeling like crap, feel more present at home, and thrive at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 50,000 hours of therapy sessions and 32 years of teaching practical science-backed mental wellness.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:33

Welcome to the podcast. Have you ever said yes when you really wanted to scream? No. Only to lie awake later feeling anxious and resentful. Let's be honest, most of us have been here today. We're following up on Monday's episode where we talked about people pleasing or fawning and how it fuels midlife anxiety, stress, and anger while silencing your truth. Today I'm gonna help you begin the process of moving from fawn to strong. In this episode, you'll discover how to notice when you're fawning and connect with the feelings underneath why anchoring in your breath is foundational for breaking the cycle of people pleasing. How to use a mental movie to practice saying what you really mean, or even figure out what you really wanna do, and the power of naming your truth out loud even when you feel uncomfortable. On Monday, I gave you an Inner Challenge. Notice the moments when you silence your truth. Write them down, or just say them to yourself. Oops, I did it again. No judgment, just awareness. If you tried it, you may have noticed how often it happens. That can feel so discouraging, but actually it's progress. Because awareness means you're waking up to a pattern that you are finally ready to change. Today I want to share with you my four step acronym for moving from Fawn to Strong. I first created it with a client who felt trapped caring for her aging parent. Her mom would text her all day long complaining about the food in her retirement community. Sharing her frustrations, reminding her how lonely she felt. My client was completely overwhelmed and didn't know how to respond without losing herself. That's when we built Fawn for simple steps to help her. And now you stand strong in your truth. the first step is F, feel your feelings. Remember from Monday's episode that you people please, because your whole body feels threatened when you are about to people, please notice that wave within your body, the rush in your chest, the knot in your stomach, the urge to fix, to make everything okay instead of ignoring it. Pause and name it. I feel anxious. I feel pressured. I see how this person I care about is struggling. I must help them naming the feeling, pulls it out of autopilot and gives you back a little choice. A client I was working with realized that she said yes to watching her grandkids every time her daughter asked, noticing the wave of resentment was her first clue that she wasn't just being kind, she was fawning. Next is a anchor. Your breath. Your nervous system needs a signal that you're safe. Take one slow. Inhale through your nose, one steady exhale out your mouth. Practice. This right now. Inhale. Exhale. This doesn't solve the problem, but it buys you space. Space to think, space to respond instead of react. This is one of the secrets of moving from Fawn to strong. You are actually moving from reacting to reflecting, and in order to do this, you need to slow things down and help your mind move from threat to clarity. One of my clients worked for a boss who emailed her 24 hours a day. She would often ground her feet and take a breath before answering her boss's late night emails. That tiny pause gave her enough calm to type. I'll get to this in the morning. W stands for Watch a mental movie Again, if you wanna stop people pleasing, you'll want to slow everything down. Make a deal with yourself for one month. You will not say yes on the spot. Pick a phrase like, I need to check my calendar. I'll get back to you and use it every time you feel pressured. Then watch a mental movie. Your boss asks you to join another committee. You freeze in the moment. Later you run a mental movie of what you wished you had said, like a kicker visualizing a field goal before the play. You run the movie three times each time your body learns what it feels like to stand in your truth. Check out episode 180 6 to review this coping skill. It's easy. Just sit and let your mind imagine what you wish you could say, what you wish you could do, and do it three times. One client worked in a nonprofit and was constantly being asked to lead just one more fundraiser. She froze the moment. Never knowing how to say no. Later she practiced a mental movie, imagine herself saying, I need to check my calendar. And after a few days of rehearsal, she sent an email that said, thank you so much for asking me to lead the fundraiser. But after checking my calendar, it just isn't realistic with all the other obligations I have. And here's the midlife twist. After decades of automatic yeses, slowing down is your reset button. Practicing in your head makes it easier for your body to follow through when the moment is real. What you can't imagine, you can't do the reverse. What you can imagine you can do. Finally, N. Name your truth. This is the hardest and the most freeing. Do it privately. At first, write it down. Say it out loud. Notice how you feel empowered, scared, or maybe both. This is your midlife update moving from Fawn. Too strong. It's not easy, but it's worth it because it's time. You be. You remember, you don't need to stop people pleasing overnight. None of us do. It's more like training for a 10 K. It takes practice training and pushing through comfort. my client, whose mother was overwhelming her with texts, guess what her solution was? She would respond one time a day. She moved from reacting. I need to respond to this text immediately to once a day, sending her mother a text, At some point, you'll need to go beyond naming your truth privately. You'll need to say it out loud, send it in a text or an email. This is the most vulnerable part of moving from fond to strong. The first time your voice may shake, you may feel terrified. You may lose sleep, but the moment you hear your own true spoken out loud, you'll feel something shift. Even if the other person doesn't like it, you will know that you stood strong. So that's Fawn. Feel, anchor, watch, name four simple steps to help you. Pause, notice what's happening, and choose a stronger response. Each time you practice, you'll move a little closer from Fawn. To strong and remember, strength here doesn't mean harshness. It doesn't mean that you won't want to be helpful or do things for other people. It means standing steady in your truth without abandoning yourself. Let me share with you some of the common insights my clients have discovered. Number one, people pleasing often means you're doing other people's work. They know it and now you know it. Giving it back can cause tension, but honesty matters. A client in her forties was always covering for her coworkers who missed deadlines. She realized she was doing his work on top of hers when she gave the work back. The coworker was angry, but for the first time she felt. Honest and free insight. Number two, fawning and people pleasing often comes with rewards. People view you as the one who can do it all, but only you can decide if that reward outweighs the cost of abandoning yourself. And lastly, to move from fawn to strong is a slow process. You're not just changing a habit, you're changing how you see yourself. One midlife mom told me she'd always done all the holiday preparations. At first it was fun, but now heading into the holiday season, she was dreading it, her gift to herself, a conversation with her husband, where she finally said. No more. He was shocked. He thought she loved it. Her response I did in my thirties, but now with teenagers and aging parents, it is just too much. His solution surprised her. Let's downsize and share. That holiday season went so much better. Yes. She missed a few traditions that they let go of, but she was so much happier it was worth it. As you're listening right now, can you think of the last time you said yes, but wanted to say no? Imagine how using the coping skill, fawn feelings, anchoring, watching, or naming would've changed that moment. If you're realizing how deeply this shows up, please know you are not broken. You've simply been overtrained to abandon yourself, and these skills are your way back home. In this episode, you've discovered how to notice the feelings behind Fawn, anchoring in your breath, to reset your nervous system, watching a mental movie to rehearse your truth and naming your truth out loud as a step towards strength. I am not sure that there is any coping skill that has made a bigger difference in my client's life than learning to move from Fawn to strong. No one is more amazed than me that I am over the 200th episode mark here at Creating Midlife Calm. As a thank you, I am offering a free workshop called The Good Life Versus The Abundant Life. We all know the pull of the good life checking boxes, proving yourself, achieving, but midlife stirs up a different longing, what I call the abundant life. It's about living from your worth, slowing down and letting challenges deep. You rather than harden you. In this workshop, I'll share five simple anchors to help you move from proving to becoming more fully yourself. If you'll want to go deeper into moving from the good life to the abundant life, please join me on Monday evening, October 13th from seven to 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. If interested, send me an email at MJ. MJ Murray von.com. I'll include information in the show notes. Again, thanks for listening and I hope that you've enjoyed some of these 200 episodes. I'll be back on Monday with more creating Midlife Calm.