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. 277 How Running Errands Can Decrease Your Stress & Anxiety in Midlife
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What if some of the calm you're looking for is hiding inside the ordinary moments you're rushing through?
You're not alone if errands feel like one more thing to check off an already full list.
In this episode, you'll discover:
- How choosing presence over scrolling can turn everyday errands into small moments of calm, connection, and renewal.
🎧 Take 3 minutes to rediscover the simple joy of being present in your own life—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.
Welcome to Creating Calm in the Wild. I'm MJ Murray Vachon, and this is your reminder that calm isn't always found when life settles down. It's actually something you can create right in the middle of the wild. I am currently standing outside the Post Office in Mishawaka, Indiana. And I wanna share with you an idea that you can implement when you go on those errand runs in the wild This is one of those days. I needed to go to the bank, the grocery, and the post office. Oh my God, I sound just like my mother's life. Even with The onset of all those online shopping opportunities, sometimes you just gotta go out in the wild. Today when I was doing my errands, something surprising happened that turned this just from a to-do list, get this done, to a rather enjoyable grounding experience that I wanna share with you. I go to the bank to pick up some euros that I ordered a week or two ago, and the teller said to me, "I'll be right back. I have to get them in the back." I immediately and reflexively pulled out my phone to fill the downtime with scrolling, but something inside me said, "Stop." So I did. I put the phone in my pocket and I turned around and I just observed my surroundings and I noticed for the first time I am the only one in the bank And I settled in and enjoyed this quiet, contemplative banking experience. Go figure. My next stop was the grocery store I only had two or three items to pick up, and instead of doing the typical American 2026 habit of not looking, talking, or speaking to the person in front of you, I decided to greet Dawson, this lovely young checker. I said, "Hi, Dawson. How are you?" And he was a little surprised I was talking to him. We had a really nice little chat about the blueberries that I was buying that he said are exceptionally good. I noticed as I left the store a little spring in my step from that unexpected connection. Lastly was the post office. Who knew that the Mishawaka Post Office is hopping eight deep with customers on a Monday morning? I stood there and waited, and again, instead of filling the time with my phone, I just waited, kind of like the old days. You might be asking me, "MJ, so what's the big deal?" Big deal is this. You can be present or you can be somewhere else. Sometimes it's great to be somewhere else, but sometimes it's really lovely to be present to your life, to notice that you are the only one in the bank, to chat with the checker, and to listen to all the conversations that surround you at the post office I noticed when I got back from my errands that I felt not only accomplished, but kind of revived in an unexpected, fun way. So the next time you're in the wild doing your errands, consider adding being present to the list. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me Monday on my full-length episode of Creating Midlife Calm.