Ep. 263 The Coping Skill That Actually Reduces Stress & Anxiety When Talking About It Makes You Feel Worse In Midlife

What if talking about your anxiety is actually making your stress worse in midlife?
You’re not alone if you’ve tried to talk through anxiety and stress and still feel unsettled or stuck afterward.
In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. How to notice and name anxiety before it pulls you into unhelpful talking
2. Why calming your body first helps reduce stress and makes your thinking clearer
3. How to use a simple coping skill to stop anxiety and stress from building—and move toward clarity.

 Take 10 minutes to calm your body and clear your mind—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 0:17

In this episode, you'll discover a simple way to talk about anxiety, so it actually helps you feel better. Welcome to the podcast. For years, my natural way of managing anxiety for years, my natural way of managing anxiety was to talk about it. I would explain it, think through it out loud, try to get to the bottom of talking, try to get to the bottom of it by talking, figuring things or people out. And one day, my hu. And one day my husband, who's a psychologist, said to me, let's create the rule of one. And I said, what's that? He said, you say things one time and when you notice you're about to repeat yourself, you stop. Ooh. Now, that was a bit of an ouch moment because part of me thought, Hey, I'm just trying to figure this out. But another part of me could see I was going in circles. But another part of me could see I was going in circles. You may recognize this pattern in yourself that pull to say it again and again and again, just to feel a little more settled, a little more relaxed, a little more calm. But it made me think, but my husband's comment made me think what was behind my anxious talking. As I reflected on it, I realized something really important. I believed I could talk my anxiety away. I believed I could talk my anxiety away, and nothing could be further from the truth today. I understand what we talked about on Monday. Talking can sometimes reinforce anxiety. Talking can sometimes. Today, I understand what we talked about today. I understand what we talked about on Monday's episode. On Monday, I invited you to Monday's. On Monday's Inner Challenge. I invited you to notice your pattern around talking and anxiety, to simply observe when you felt the urge to talk, what it felt like in your body and how you felt after you may have started to see something, how quickly that urge comes and how talking doesn't always leave you feeling as settled as you hoped. Today we're gonna build on that awareness and give you a different way to work with anxiety before you talk about it. In Monday's episode, we looked at how talking can become repetitive, urgent, and focused on relief. So if talking isn't the first step, even though for many of us it feels like the most natural, what is. This is where a different sequence helps, and the operative word here is sequence. I'm not asking you to stop talking. I'm asking you to think about when is the best time for you to talk when it comes to moving through and transforming your anxiety. Yes. I want you to notice name. And tame before you aim your anxiety. It's not just what you do, it's the order you do it in. When talking comes first, it can reinforce anxiety. When talking comes after awareness and regulation, it can actually help resolve anxiety. It's not about talking less, it's about changing when and how you talk. So by noticing what's happening inside of you, this includes the urge to talk, the speed of your thoughts, the repetition you might notice, oh, I wanna call someone right now. I keep saying the same thing over and over in my head. This is awareness, not judgment. For example, in a meeting, your opinion in a, for example, in a meeting, your opinion doesn't match your bosses. You feel anxious and your thought is, I feel like wanting to explain my point again. Once you notice what's happening, the next step is to put gentle language around it. Instead of explaining yourself more often to someone else, you begin by explaining yourself to you. I feel anxious because. I have a different opinion. I'm running late. I don't feel understood or my favorite. I feel anxious. Sometimes it, sometimes it's enough just to name the feeling. This can help you shift from spinning to beginning to understand. When you name what you're feeling, you begin to shift out of the emotional part of the experience and into the part that can organize and make sense of things. You're not telling the whole story yet. You're just beginning to understand it, and this leads us to the second step. Tame. This is your most important step, and it's often the step that gets skipped, especially when you're used to talking first in tame. You're not trying to figure anything out. You're only help. You're. Only goal is to help your body settle anxiety lives in your body, and when your body is activated, your nervous system is on high alert. And when your body's activated, your nervous system is on alert mode and often high alert mode. And in that state, your thinking becomes let. And in that state, your thinking becomes more reactive and less clear. So when you calm your body, you're actually helping your brain think differently. A calm body supports a clear mind. What does this look like? Well, breathing slows down. Oh. What does tame, what does taming your body look like? Well, it looks like moving your awareness to your feet. It looks like grounding yourself by moving your awareness to the F. It looks like grounding yourself by moving your awareness to your feet. Taking a few breaths, perhaps you feel like you wanna walk a bit, swing your arms, maybe even sit down and journal. You're not taught? No. Yeah. Maybe go for a walk, swing your arms, or just sit quietly and let your body relax. You're not talking here. You're allowing your system to reset. You'll know this is working. You'll know this is working because your body will tell you, your shoulders will drop, your jaw softens, your breathing slows. You'll feel more connected to yourself, not like you're just a talking head. One of my clients said to me that she knows her body has settled when her hand automatically goes up to her heart and she often has the thought. Whew. That was a lot. And when your body settles, something important happens, you move to the next part that I call aim. You'll have more access to yourself, your whole self. You have more access to yourself, your whole self, not just a part of you that is anxious. Now you're ready to move forward to aim and take action. Journal, go now. You're ready to move forward. You can take action. Now you're, now you're ready to move forward with a clearer mind. The whole point of aim is to really close the emotional loop, and we do that in one of five ways. Journaling, taking a bit of a nap. Getting a hug, moving your body or reaching out to someone and talking to them about where you're at and what your experience is, and this is where talking can come back in. I want you to notice talking isn't being removed. It's being positioned now. When you talk, you're gonna feel more grounded. You're gonna feel clearer. You're gonna mo, you're gonna be more aware of the other person. You're not unloading, you're having a conversation. You're talking for resolution, not relief. And the beauty of this is you're not talking from a place of anxiety. You're not talking to get, you're not talking to get rid of anxiety. You're actually trying to understand what's actually true. And this is where something like the rule of one becomes easier because you're no longer driven to repeat. You're able to say what matters and it lands. You don't have to stop talking about your anxiety. You just have to change when and how you do it. When you begin with awareness and add some simple regulation. And add some simple regulation, breath work. You're no longer working against your anxiety. You're working with it. And that's, and that's what allows you to actually, and that's what allows you and that. And that's what allows talking to actually help you feel clearer and more. And that's what allows talking to actually help you feel clearer and not stuck. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Monday with more creating midlife calm.