Ep. 257 How to Stay Grounded as Springtime Busyness Increases Anxiety and Stress in Midlife

Is springtime busyness increasing your anxiety and stress in midlife more than you expected?
There is a way to move through this season feeling more grounded, clear, and present without doing more.
In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. How to tell the difference between stress and anxiety so you can respond more effectively in midlife
2. How simplifying and working from calm can reduce stress during spring’s increased demands
3. How shifting from fear to values can ease anxiety and help you make clearer decisions

 Take 11 minutes to feel more grounded and clear as you navigate spring’s demands—you’re worth it.

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About the Host: 

MJ Murray Vachon, LCSW, is a seasoned clinician, educator, and host of the podcast Creating Midlife Calm, recognized by Maria Shriver as a “Listen of the Week.” Over the past 40 years, MJ has led more than 50,000 therapy sessions and developed the Inner Challenge mental wellness program and the Inner Challenge Master Class, practical tools for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and resilience taught for more than 30 years in junior high schools and at the University of Notre Dame for freshman football players. Through her podcast, teaching, and coaching, MJ helps people build calmer lives, stronger relationships, and healthier communities.

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 navigate the stress and anxiety of spring busyness.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW 0:05

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 0:30

Welcome to the podcast. Earlier this week, we talked about leaning into spring, slowing down, noticing what's around you, and letting the natural rhythms of this season calm your mind and body. Ugh, the tulips, the daffodils, the blooming trees. I hope you're taking it in because it is such a natural way to help you feel better today we're gonna take on another truth of spring for many of you, it is also one of the most demanding times of the year. This is the last stretch of school. There's sports, big projects, graduations, recitals, and there's a lot of meaningful moments. Yep. Spring can be a lot. You can find yourself pulled in many directions at once and your stress starts to rise. Letting spring in can calm you, but navigating its demands is what will help you truly bloom. A little corny, but trust me on this one. In this episode, you'll discover the difference between stress and anxiety and why knowing this can be so helpful in busy seasons like Spring, how to respond to stress by simplifying and working from a place of calm, and how to respond to anxiety by moving from fear into your values so you can make clear decisions. I wanna encourage you in this season to set an intention, to thoroughly enjoy not just the flowers of the season, but the special life events that you and your loved ones may be going through. If that seems impossible, this podcast episode is for you. On Monday, you practiced letting spring in, slowing down enough to notice what's around you. Today we're gonna build on that because once you slow down, you can start to see more clearly what's actually happening inside of you. One of the most helpful ways to do this is to understand how you're reacting to the demands of this season with one simple question, am I feeling stress or anxiety? Let's start with stress. Stress is usually a reaction to something outside of you, A deadline, a family demand, a decision that needs to be made. Tasks on your to-do list. Stress has a clear source, and when you take action, you often feel relief. The stress eases. Now anxiety is different. Anxiety is more internal. It's that lingering sense of unease. Your body's saying this might happen, so start worrying now. Or your mind is looping. I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have done that. What are they thinking? Anxiety often shows up even when there's no immediate problem to solve, and that's why it's so uncomfortable let me share with you an example from the couch. A client came in last May, completely overwhelmed by the demands of her life. She had one child graduating from high school, another from college, and her very elderly parents coming for three weeks to be part of all these precious celebrations. I asked her on a scale of one to 10 how stressed she felt, her response, 20. She then said, I don't have time to do any of this the way I want. I don't have time to meet all of these people's needs so much for those blooming tulips. I asked her to take a pause and just start with something simple. Ground her feet on the floor and follow her breath for 90 seconds. After a few moments, she looked up at me and she said, my problem is this. I imagine what I ideally want these moments to look like, and I don't have the time or money to make it happen. And then I'm not just stressed, I'm disappointed. This is such a common problem. You see so many cool ideas, especially on social media, about how things should look and two things happen inside of you. You put all this energy into creating something, and by the time it arrives, you're so exhausted, stressed, and resentful, you can't really enjoy it. Or you might be like my client who sees these awesome, cool ideas, but doesn't have the time or money to execute them, and she feels disappointed and a bit of a failure. In session. I asked this client to try something different. I asked her to consider that if her priority was to feel calm and present and really enjoy the significant life moment with her loved one, what would she actually do? I gave her a piece of paper and I asked her to write. After a few minutes, she looked up at me and she said, if I accepted these extra demands of this season. I would give myself permission to skip some of my youngest child's sporting events to compensate time-wise. And then she said I could also make my child's graduation party an ice cream Sunday bar instead of a dinner that we really can't afford, and I could take my mom up on her offer to help me. As she said this, her shoulders dropped and she literally took a big breath. I asked her what she was noticing and she said, I don't need to make this a huge event. This is a family celebration. I wanna show up for my family. And more than anything, I don't want there to be so much stress that I lose it the day of the party. That's stress. And stress often softens when you simplify, prioritize, and align your expectations with reality. Now let's look at anxiety, because spring doesn't just bring more to do. It brings harder choices, and those choices can stir up a lot of uncertainty. Here's another example from the couch. Another mom I was working with was struggling with a decision. Her daughter's school had an annual end of the year trip to an amusement park the same weekend as her new travel softball team had their first turn, her daughter wanted to go to the tournament, not because she didn't love the class trip. She really loved it, but because she was worried her new coach would see her as disloyal. My client came to the session ruminating and very anxious about this decision. She said to me, do I let my 10-year-old make this decision? Will she regret not being part of the end of the year trip? Will the coach think she isn't serious if she chooses an amusement park trip? When you find yourself ruminating like this, sometimes the most helpful thing is to go all in, ground your feet, take a few breaths, and lean in to being your own novelist. Yep. Write out the worst case scenario. I gave my client a piece of paper and pen and she wrote. Our daughter goes to the school trip the coach calls her disloyal. He benches her for four games. She is incredibly mad at me. Something shifts when you do this because you are facing fear head on. You are facing the catastrophe that you are creating in your head, and you then begin to look at it very differently. You're making it concrete and instead of looping, your mind actually moves to thinking. And when that real shift happens, the question often changes from what will they think to what are my values? What do I think? Not the coach, not your child, but you. This mom looked up and said. I am giving in to my daughter's anxiety about travel softball. My daughter knows she's accepted at school, so she's willing to miss something she loves, but her uncertainty about this new team is not only making her anxious, but me anxious, I need to be the adult. She decided to let the coach know about the conflict to support her daughter in going on the school trip, and to help her daughter tolerate the uncertainty, you know, build that muscle that says you can handle distress, you can handle uncertainty, and to model something even more important. School before sports. That's anxiety. And anxiety often softens when you move from fear into your values. When you ask yourself to hold and tolerate uncertainty, and you stop trying to eliminate. Every possible risk. Let's face it. Spring pulls you in many directions and how you respond matters. Stress asks you to simplify and prioritize anxiety. Asks you to get clear about what matters and tolerate uncertainty. This is how you'll bloom this season, not by doing more, but by getting clear. In this episode, you discovered how Spring's demands can increase both stress and anxiety, and how responding to each differently helps you feel more grounded and clear. If you're going through this season with a good friend, forward them this episode. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Monday with more creating midlife calm.