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. 298 Anxiety Wants Answers—Calm Begins With One Breath
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What if the calm you’re searching for isn’t found in having the answers, but in taking one gentle breath?
If anxiety keeps pulling you into the future or back into the past, you’re not alone.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- How your breath can become a simple anchor that gently brings you back to the present—even during life’s most difficult moments.
Take 3 minutes to discover how one breath can help you return 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.
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 something you can create right in the middle of the wild. Today I wanna share a discovery that came while sitting beside my mother-in-law as she was dying. It taught me how easily anxiety can pull us away from the very moments we most want to remember. I've been there before. I was with my dad when he died. I was with my mom when she died, And recently, I sat with my mother-in-law during the final days of her life. The first time, when my dad was dying, I found myself asking the hospice nurse over and over, "Do you think it will be today?" Not because I wanted him to die, I most certainly didn't, but it was my first experience being with someone I loved as they were dying, and my anxiety wanted certainty. It somehow believed that if I knew when it would happen, it would make the waiting easier. When my mom was dying, I noticed I still wanted to know, but not as much. By the time I sat beside my mother-in-law, I understood something hospice had been teaching me all along. They can estimate, but they can't predict. The room was quiet, yet full. Her husband of nearly 70 years sat beside her. So did her son, daughter, granddaughter, and beloved nephew. There was nothing to do but be there. As I sat beside her, I found myself watching her breathing. It was shallow but steady. After a while, it almost felt like a meditation. Not strange or unsettling as you might imagine, but deeply comforting. Then I noticed something Without trying, my own breathing had quietly fallen into the same rhythm as hers. It wasn't intentional. It was simply what happened when I was fully present with another person. In that moment, something inside me quietly opened. The fear and anxiety I had always associated with death gave way to awe, gratitude, and calm. I realized my job was never to predict the moment. My job was to be present for the moments that were still here. I've thought about that often since, not just when someone is dying, but in so many moments of everyday life. Anxiety is always inviting us into the future, asking us to predict, prepare, and control what hasn't happened yet, or it pulls us into the past, filling us with regret over what we can't change. Calm invites us back to this moment. One of the simplest ways to return is through our breath. Every life begins and ends with a breath. No wonder our breath can become the anchor that gently brings us back to the present in all the moments in between. Thanks for listening. I hope you'll join me Monday for another episode of Creating Midlife Calm. Until then, keep creating calm in the wild.