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. 283 How To Decrease Anxiety & Stress While Pumping Gas in Midlife
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Could a routine stop at the gas station become an opportunity to feel calmer and more present?
If your mind automatically races toward worries, stressors, and endless to-do lists, you're not alone.
In this episode, you'll discover:
- How a simple 60-second mindfulness practice while pumping gas can help you train your attention and create a little more calm in the middle of a busy day.
🎧 Take 2 minutes to learn a simple way to bring your attention back to the present moment—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. Today, I wanna share with you an easy way to practice mindfulness in a very unlikely place i'm on my way to work, and I stop to get gas. Well, like most of you, the price of gas kinda made me feel a little anxious and overwhelmed. So while I'm pumping gas, I'm practicing this super easy mindfulness exercise called notice on the outside, where you choose something to look at. So I'm actually choosing my steering wheel, I ground my feet, feel my butt in the seat of my car, and I take about 60 seconds while my gas is going into my tank to refill my tank. All you have to do is stare at the object you choose and breathe I'm not gonna bore you with my 60 seconds of breathing. That could probably get a little creepy. But what I want to point out to you is how you can integrate mindfulness into your life while you're waiting for annoying things like your expensive gas to fill your car. If you're asking, "But MJ, why is mindfulness so important?" It's because your superpower these days is putting your attention to where you want it to go, not where all the stuff outside is grabbing it to go. So go ahead, try practicing this easy mindfulness exercise next time you fill your tank. After all, if you're gonna pay this much for gas, why not get your money's worth? Thanks for listening, and I hope you join me Monday on my full-length episode of Creating Midlife Calm.