Ep. 278 How Leaning into Summer Can Naturally Calm Your Midlife Anxiety & Stress

Have you become so distracted by life that you’ve stopped fully experiencing the calming moments summer naturally offers?
You’re not alone. Many people move through summer physically present but mentally somewhere else.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
1.    How reconnecting to your senses can naturally calm anxiety, stress, and nervous system overload in midlife
2.    Why mindfulness doesn’t have to be complicated — and how simple summer experiences can help you feel more grounded and present
3.    Free and easy coping skills that help you slow down, reconnect to your body, and rediscover calm in everyday life
 Take 10 minutes to let summer slow your mind and reconnect you to calm—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 leaning into summer can naturally calm your anxiety and stress 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 three decades of teaching practical science-backed mental wellness Welcome to the podcast. Here in the United States, you're heading into a holiday week right in the heart of summer. And because of that, I wanted to do something a little different today. Not a heavy episode, not a deep dive into anxiety, but something gentler, something calming. Because summer naturally offers something many of us are starving for right now: a chance to slow down and actually experience your life again. In this episode, you'll discover how summer can naturally calm anxiety and stress, especially when you reconnect to your senses. One of the things I've noticed over the years is that people often think mindfulness has to be complicated, like you need a meditation cushion, complete silence, an app, a spiritual guru at your convenience, a perfectly clear mind. But mindfulness is actually much simpler than that. Mindfulness is simply learning to keep your mind where you want it to be instead of letting your attention constantly get pulled somewhere else. And honestly, summer may be one of the easiest times of year to practice this Because summer naturally pulls you toward your senses. The smell of grass, warm air on your skin, flowers blooming, food on the grill, ice cream melting faster than you can eat it. The problem is you can be physically present for summer while mentally somewhere else entirely. Outside scrolling, walking while thinking, eating while distracted, driving while replaying conversations. And over time, that constant mental jumping revs up the nervous system. It creates stress, anxiety, restlessness, exhaustion. But when you gently bring your attention back to what's actually happening around you, your body often begins to settle, too. I think many of us are exhausted not only because life is busy, but because our attention is constantly being pulled away from the present moment. Years ago, people didn't have to intentionally practice sensory awareness the way we often do now. Life naturally slowed people down more. People walked places, sat outside more, waited more, talked on porches, watched storms come in, watched storms go out. People naturally paid attention to seasons because they shaped their daily life. Now you can walk past flowers while staring at your phone. You can miss entire sunsets while checking email. And slowly, you stop fully experiencing the world around you. You stop understanding how calming and natural that experience is for your body. So today, I wanna invite you back into summer through your senses, not as a thing to master, but as a very natural way to calm your nervous system and reconnect to your life. A few days ago, I was outside after mowing the lawn. I noticed deer in our front yard eating fresh grass clippings. I stood there watching them for a minute, and while I was standing there, I suddenly became aware of the smell of the lily of the valley growing right at my feet. The smell became almost overwhelmingly beautiful. I picked one, sat on my steps, and for a moment just smelled this beautiful fragrance. I just encouraged myself to stay with the smell, not to be distracted by the deer, not to pull out my phone, but simply to smell. I remember thinking, Oh, this must be where the idea for perfume came from." And as simple as that moment was, I could literally feel my body relax. Nothing dramatic happened. I had stayed with the experience long enough to fully receive it, to take it in. Summer is full of moments like that. Even taste can become grounding when you actually let yourself experience it. For me, it's corn dogs at the 4H Fair. I don't really eat corn dogs except once a year at the fair, but when I do, I fully enjoy it. I don't let my inner critic come to the fair with me, thinking, "Oh, this is so unhealthy. There must be tons of sodium in this." I just enjoy the whole experience: the fair, the people, waiting in line, my childhood memories connected to this place. And the result is a lot more than a good corn dog. The result is a sense of joy, and I think often we forget that joy can be very calming One of the simplest mindfulness practices in summer is walking barefoot on grass, on a beach, on a dock, even through the cool morning dew. But instead of walking while your mind races somewhere else, actually feel it, the softness, the temperature, the uneven ground beneath your feet. This is what mindfulness really is. You don't need to go to Nepal. It's in your front yard. It's not emptying your mind, but gently bringing your attention back to the experience you're already having. And when your attention settles, your nervous system settles with it. At first, this might feel clunky. You might feel the grass under your feet and stay with it for 10 or 15 seconds and think, "This is just weird." Yes and no. Bring your attention back for another 30, 40, 50 seconds, and you'll see that your body knows what to do. It will relax, it will settle, and you'll probably have a calming breath that goes along with this simple experience. I also love the sounds of summer. One of the easiest mindfulness exercise you can practice is simply sitting outside for two minutes and listening. Following the sounds of birds or crickets or the wind moving through the trees, and when your mind wanders, because it will, gently bring it back again. A client shared with me last week that he was sitting outside doing this when suddenly their neighbor started to mow the lawn. He immediately moved from calm to irritated, but instead of letting the irritation take over, he decided to really listen to the mower, not fight it, just listen. And within a minute or two, the irritation softened, and then something unexpected happened. He started thinking about all the people it took to make that mower work, the engineers, the factory workers, the people who transported it, the people who designed it, and of course, his neighbor that was beautifying his lawn, not just for his neighbor's pleasure, but for his as well. And suddenly what first felt irritating became strangely grounding and even gratitude-filling. But my favorite summer mindfulness practice is something I've shared with people for years, mindful driving. In fact, I left a meeting this morning rather irritated, and I put this simple mindfulness exercise into practice. I got in my car, slammed my door 'cause I was a little irritated, rolled down the windows, opened my roof, and made sure that the radio wasn't on. I moved my attention from irritation, from replaying conversations, from wondering if I should have said this or that, to all that was in front of me. As I drove through my city, I noticed the lawns. I heard the children running up and down the sidewalks And I started to pay attention, really pay attention. I could smell summer in the air. At a stop sign, sprinklers were running nearby, and some of the water lightly hit me through the open window And my first thought was, "Ooh, that actually feels good." Something had shifted. The outside world hadn't changed. The crummy meeting was still crummy, but my attention had changed, and because my attention changed, my nervous system changed, too. Being present to that which was around me slowly transformed my stress to calm, my irritation to gratitude So here's your inner challenge for this week. Pick one sense each day, sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch, and for two minutes, practice keeping your mind where you want it to be. Not multitasking, not scrolling, not rushing past the moment, just noticing. Because summer doesn't last forever, but maybe that's part of what summer is really inviting you back into. Not just relaxation, but presence, and learning how to reconnect to that presence you carry with you long after summer ends. And if you want to carry a little bit of summer in your pocket, shoot me an email at mj@mjmurrayvachon.com, and I'll send you my MP3, From Crickets to Calm. You can also check out episode 189 where I go into this deeper. I'll put both in the show notes Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Thursday with a special holiday edition of Creating Midlife Calm