Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships
Coping Skills for Midlife Stress and Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships
Forget the midlife crisis—how about creating midlife calm? The anxiety and stress of this life stage can drain your energy, fuel overthinking, and make it hard to enjoy what should be the best years of your life. This podcast offers practical coping skills to help you reduce anxiety, manage stress, and rediscover a calmer, more confident version of yourself.
In Creating Midlife Calm, you’ll discover how to:
- Be happier, more present, and more effective at home and work.
- Transform stress and anxiety into powerful tools that boost your clarity, energy, and confidence.
- Cultivate calm and joy through practical, affordable coping skills that help you handle life’s daily challenges.
Join MJ Murray Vachon, LCSW, a seasoned therapist with over 50,000 hours of clinical experience and 32 years teaching mental wellness, as she guides you to reclaim your inner calm. Learn to stay grounded in the present, navigate midlife transitions with clarity, and build emotional resilience using proven coping tools.
Every Monday, MJ dives into real stories and science-backed insights to help you shift from anxious to centered—ending each episode with an “Inner Challenge” you can practice right away. Then, on Thursdays, she shares a brief follow-up episode that connects, deepens, or expands the week’s topic, helping you apply these skills in real life.
Let’s evolve from crisis to calm—and make midlife your most balanced and fulfilling chapter yet.
🎧 Start with listener favorite Ep. 138 to feel the difference calm can make.
Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships
Ep. 214 Forget Gratitude Lists - This 1 Midlife Coping Skill Will Instantly Add Connection & Zap Holiday Stress and Anxiety
What if the secret to a calmer, happier holiday isn't what you add—but what you leave out?
You’re not alone if holiday gatherings bring stress, distraction, and midlife anxiety instead of the peace you crave.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
1. The one “ingredient” that quietly steals connection at the holiday table
2. Why small boundaries create huge relief for midlife stress and anxiety
3. A simple, science-backed coping skill that restores laughter, calm, and presence
Take four minutes to reclaim calm, connection, and joy this holiday—you’re worth it.
****
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.
In this episode, you'll discover the one ingredient to leave out of your Thanksgiving feast.
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW: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:Welcome to the podcast. For many of you listening, it's Thanksgiving week at this busy time of year, I hope you'll give me just four minutes to share One thing. I'm certain can make your holiday feel more peaceful and connected. This week's episode is a little different. It's short, lighthearted, and meant to be shared. My mom was a poet, not Mary Oliver, but the kind who wrote Simple Witty four stands up poems for special occasions. My sisters and I have carried on her tradition writing our own over the years for birthdays, holidays, and family gatherings. So Today I'm sharing that tradition with you, a short poem I wrote to help you with one of the biggest challenges your holidays face. Whether you're hosting Thanksgiving, eating out, or joining someone else's table, you can play this before dinner or send it ahead as kind of an invitation for connection and calm. You don't even have to say what it's about. Just tell people, it's a general reminder to bring their presence to the table. And I don't mean the kinds of wrap sometimes the smallest shifts make the biggest difference in how the day feels. So here it is from my family tradition to yours. The one ingredient to leave out the table is ready. The candle's a glow and everyone's finding their place. But one small distraction can steal the show and dim the warmth on each face. It's not the dry Turkey or pies that are burnt that keep this holiday from cheer. It's that uninvited guest we seldom confront. The phone that's always near. So on this day of Gratitude's Grace, as you gather with those you adore, the first act of thanks is a sacred space where your phone stays by the door, leave them in coats or a basket near. Invite your guests to join into the world can wait. Be fully here. Let presence be what you do for the children, teens and young adults, you'll give them a gift that will last a taste of the joy we once all knew. When families gathered not scrolled in the past, You won't miss a thing. Real laughter will thrill. No buzz, no beep, no ping. You'll taste the food more deeply still and hear every story they bring. Because calm is found where connection begins, not in a phone's blue light. So pass the rolls, the love, the grins, and stay unplugged tonight. So that's your reminder from my family to yours. Phones down, eyes up, and hearts open wide. Let Thanksgiving be the feast that fills you. Not your newsfeed on the side. So your Inner Challenge this week is simple. Uninvite your phone to Thanksgiving and share this episode with the people you'll be celebrating with because calm, laughter, and connection tastes better when everyone is fully at the table. And if you'd like more calm this week, you can revisit my holiday episodes from last year episodes 1 0 1 through 1 0 6. They'll help you with stress, anxiety. And those tricky family moments that tend to show up with the stuffing. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Thursday with another mini episode to help you Have a wonderful holiday. I.