Ep. 272 Why Restlessnes in Midlife Is Triggering Your Anxiety & Stress And The Surprising Coping Skill That Can Help You Feel Content Again

What happens when your life still looks good from the outside… but something inside no longer fully fits who you’re becoming?
You’re not alone if midlife anxiety, restlessness, emotional flatness, or quiet disconnection have left you wondering why a life you’re still grateful for suddenly feels different.
In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. Why midlife anxiety can sometimes emerge when deeper parts of yourself begin signaling that something inside you is evolving
2. How the question “Who am I now?” quietly returns in midlife—and why that can feel unsettling, emotional, and confusing even inside a meaningful life
3. The coping skill of slowing down, listening inward honestly, and responding thoughtfully instead of impulsively when life no longer fully fits

 Take 15 minutes to reconnect with the deeper parts of yourself and become more fully who you already are—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 what happens when your life still looks good from the outside, but something inside doesn't quite feel right.

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. This week, we're gonna talk about something that can be very easy to avoid, a truth you may not want to hear. Because sometimes stress and anxiety in midlife are not only coming from pressure, overthinking, or exhaustion, but sometimes they emerge because something inside of you begins to send signals that a part of your life, your identity, or a way of living may no longer fully fit who you are becoming. So when a part of you begins feeling restless, emotionally flat, bored, disengaged, irritated, or disconnected from yourself, this can feel deeply unsettling. At first, your instinct might be, "What's wrong with me?" Instead of, "What might this feeling be trying to tell me?" Especially when your life appears to be stable, meaningful, and good from the outside. In this episode, you'll discover why stress and anxiety sometimes emerge when deeper parts of yourself begin sending signals that you might not really wanna face. Why listening inward in midlife can feel far more threatening than it did when you were younger, and how to begin approaching this inner restlessness with curiosity instead of panic, impulsive decision-making, or emotional avoidance. And we'll end with an inner challenge, to help you begin listening more honestly Sometimes one of the hardest truths in midlife is realizing that the life you built may be good, but part of you may no longer feel fully alive inside of it. Now, I wanna be careful here. This episode is not about blowing up your life. It's not about impulsively quitting your job, ending your relationship, moving across the country, or reinventing yourself overnight. Actually, this episode is almost the opposite of that. Real inner change is usually slower, quieter, and more complex than people often imagine. This episode is about learning how to listen inwardly carefully enough so you can understand what is really happening underneath your anxiety, your restlessness, your irritation, or emotional flatness. Not becoming a new you, but becoming more fully yourself. And many people quietly begin noticing this in midlife. Your routines begin feeling emotionally heavy. Parts of your life become strangely disengaging. You feel absent inside moments that used to matter to you. You hear an inner voice quietly saying, "I don't like this anymore," or, "I'd really love to..." And maybe you immediately push it away because another part of you says, "Hey, I should feel grateful. Nothing is objectively wrong here. Other people would love this life. Why am I feeling unsettled?" That inner conflict creates lots of anxiety because midlife often teaches you that stability is success. After all, you've spent years building relationships, routines, careers, responsibilities, community, identity, and many of those things are deeply meaningful. With a little bit of luck, as human beings, we live a long time, and we continue to evolve across our entire lifespan. And part of this evolving is recognizing when something inside of you has changed and realizing that growth across your entire life asks you to re-listen to yourself. In Erickson's stages of development, adolescence and young adulthood often revolve around the question, who am I? But I've come to believe that midlife quietly brings back another version of this question. Who am I now? And perhaps you're surprised by that because you assumed that you had answered that question many years ago. But think about it. Life changes you. Experiences deepen you. Loss makes you grow. Responsibilities make you sturdy. Parenting makes you wise. Work develops you. And aging, well, aging changes you. And sometimes stress and anxiety emerge because there's a growing gap between who you have become and the life structure you built years ago. What makes this even harder is that by midlife, you're often helping other people answer the question, who am I? You may be helping teenagers, college students, adult children figure out who they are becoming. So it can feel surprising, even destabilizing when that same question quietly re-emerges inside your own life again. Because when you're younger, that exploration is expected. Changing direction is normalized, and trying things on is culturally encouraged. But in midlife, stability, responsibility, and reliability often become deeply tied to your identity. And change often feels emotionally, relationally, financially, and energetically expensive. Sometimes just thinking about change feels exhausting before anything has even happened. And because of that, it becomes easy to suppress these inner signals. You wonder, "Is there enough room in my life for this question?" Not because you're weak, but because you can be a little bit scared. Because often the first thoughts that arise are, "Ugh, this'll hurt people. This will destabilize my life. What if this is a mistake? What if I discover something I cannot unhear? And I think this is why many people stay chronically busy, chronically productive, chronically distracted, because silence can allow deeper truths to surface. But there's also something important I want you to think about. In midlife, you have much greater access to your deeper self than you did at 20. You have more lived experience, more emotional insight, more wisdom, more skills, and often a much clearer sense of the values you want to live from. So while this process can feel frightening, it can also be a goldmine of self-understanding I experienced this personally 10 years ago when I left a school I deeply loved. It was at this school that I developed my mental wellness program, Inner Challenge. And what made it confusing was that I loved the work, I loved the place and the people, and I was deeply grateful for the opportunity and support that community gave me and my work. So this wasn't about resentment or failure or dramatic unhappiness. It was subtler than that. Something inside of me had begun shifting, and honestly, I didn't fully want to face it. It began so gradually. I noticed that on mornings I was supposed to go to the school, I felt flat instead of energized. I remembered one day being in class, and one of the students did what junior high students normally do, and I rolled my eyes, something I had never done before. It was small, but I noticed it. Part of me tried to explain it away as burnout, stress, or even menopause. But little moments like that kept happening until I went on my annual January retreat, and then the quiet truth I'd been avoiding finally emerged. In the silence, I suddenly heard inside myself, It's time to go." And I literally said out loud, "No, no, no." Because once I allowed myself to hear it, it could no longer be unheard. And honestly, it felt scary, destabilizing, sad, freeing, and exciting all at the same time. Because leaving meant disappointing people I cared deeply about, people who genuinely wanted me to stay, and I didn't fully know what was next. I have never had a career plan. I just knew something inside me needed to evolve. Part of me wanted to walk in the next day and immediately quit, and I probably would have done something like that when I was younger. But in midlife, there was simply too much at stake. So instead, I intentionally slowed myself down. I kept listening to myself on a deeper level I became more patient with myself because I knew slowing down would help me become more certain, would help me understand what this realization actually meant, and would help me proceed thoughtfully instead of impulsively. And I think this distinction matters enormously in midlife because inner work is not impulsively changing your life. It's not about escaping discomfort. It's not about chasing emotional highs. Inner work is developing enough internal steadiness and self-awareness to honestly hear what your deeper self may be trying to communicate. And what's interesting is that leaving didn't immediately come with some grand master plan. I didn't know exactly what was next. I just kept moving slowly toward what felt more aligned. I kept reaching out. And honestly, what surprised me was how many people reached out to me. Eventually, I began teaching Inner Challenge to Notre Dame football. Then some of my students encouraged me to start a podcast. And I remember thinking, "No way. I'm terrible at technology." But what surprised me was that the excitement of the idea slowly became bigger than my fear of figuring out technology. And eventually, that path led to creating the Inner Challenge Masterclass. It's been a tremendous amount of work, but it has also felt more fully aligned with who I am. Not becoming a new person, but updating my life, becoming more fully myself,, and hopefully sharing what I can to help make this world a bit better. I think this is important for you to hear because listening inward does not automatically destroy your life. Sometimes it helps you slowly build a life that feels more congruent with who you are becoming. Not instantly, not easily, but honestly. And many people avoid this process entirely, not because of lack of insight, but because the feelings themselves are so uncomfortable. Because once you begin honestly listening inward, you may uncover exhaustion, grief, loneliness, or a quiet longing to feel more connected, alive, and fully yourself again. And that can feel frightening. But avoiding inner truth rarely eliminates anxiety. Often, it deepens emotional flatness, chronic tension, quiet resentment, numbness, restlessness, and a gradual loss of vitality. Because some part of you knows you are no longer fully listening to yourself. So this week's Inner Challenge anything. Actually, I want you to do the opposite. Slow down and simply notice. Notice any recurring restlessness, boredom, emotional flatness, irritability, resentment, longing, quiet sadness, moments where you feel absent from your life. And equally important, notice any quiet longings, things you hope for, what you wish was going on in your life. And instead of immediately dismissing these feelings, gently ask yourself, what might this feeling be trying to communicate? Not what drastic things should I do, but just what might I need to understand more honestly about who I am now? And on Thursday, we're going to dive deeper into this, exploring how to hold these feelings without either ignoring them to them. And how to move through a process that helps you reconnect with the deeper truth inside yourself. So the next stage of your life becomes grounded, not in panic or escape, but in answering the question, who am I now? Thanks for listening to Creating Midlife Calm.