Ep. 193 Break Free From Stress & Anxiety For GOOD Using This Science Backed Midlife Coping Skill

What if science could show you a way to finally get free from anxiety in midlife?
You’re not alone—so many believe anxiety is something they just have to manage, but research and real-life practice prove otherwise.
In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. Why your amygdala often misfires and fuels unnecessary anxiety
2. How blame and avoidance quietly keep you stuck in midlife stress
3. The one science-backed coping skill that retrains your brain and helps you move beyond anxiety for good

 Take 13 minutes to learn the coping skill science shows can free you from anxiety—you’re worth it.

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About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

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 the one thing you must do to reduce your anxiety forever.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:07

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: 0:31

Welcome to the podcast. One of the biggest changes I've seen in my nearly 40 years as a therapist is how people talk about anxiety today. It can sound like part of identity. I have anxiety, so I can't fly, or I'd love to join you, but my anxiety won't let me drive at night. I even have the occasional referral that says I'd love to do therapy, but my anxiety won't let me see you in person. Many of my clients introduce themselves in couples mode. Hi, I'm Sue, and this is my spouse. Anxiety. He's making my life miserable, but I don't want a divorce. Back in the eighties, the goal wasn't to work around anxiety, or simply learn to tolerate it. It was to get rid of it. And while we understand anxiety as part of being human, and we do actually need some of it, I also know that many situations that trigger anxiety can be overcome. In this episode, you'll discover why your amygdala, the root of your anxiety, often gets it wrong, and how blame and unclaim keep you stuck in anxiety. How tending and befriending your anxiety rewires your brain for lasting calm and helps you meet your goals and do what matters most. But first, how'd you do on Monday's Inner Challenge? On Monday, I invited you to practice one calming skill three times a day. Maybe you grounded your feet, practiced slowing down your breath, or reminded yourself that feelings aren't facts. If you did this, you are already laying the foundation for today's work. If you didn't, today's episode will probably be a real motivator because you, like many are probably sitting with the belief that you have to learn to tolerate. Your anxiety and nothing could be further from the truth. These small things, grounding breath work and really understanding that feelings aren't facts you can use to train your brain to slow down, to pause. Now what we're going to do today is use that pause to create long-term change. Let me begin with a review of what is your amygdala. The amygdala is a small, almond shaped part of your brain that's always scanning for threats. Its job is to keep you safe. The problem is it's fast and it's not always accurate. That means it often overreacts as if you're in danger when really you're just facing an everyday challenge. A challenge you might not like, but one that is not dangerous. And science backs this up. Neuroscience research shows how the amygdala can misfire and fuel anxiety even when there's no real danger. A client of mine shared a travel story that illustrates this. Her suitcase was pulled aside for inspection, something that had never happened to her. Her anxiety went from zero to 10. In about 10 seconds, she instinctively grabbed her phone to text her husband that she might not be allowed on the flight. A few minutes later, her bag was returned. The culprit, a large bottle of shampoo that violated carry on regulations. The point is, your amygdala isn't a flawless security system. Just like your home security system, it can sometimes sound false alarms, and it is your job to navigate what is true and what isn't Just like your home alarm, when your amygdala misfires, it will fuel your anxiety, it is really common to respond in one of two ways. The first is blame. You tell yourself, this shouldn't have happened. That person shouldn't have said that. This situation is awful. You might spend hours rehashing it. Overtalking it with friends or replaying it in your mind instead of helping blame actually keeps your amygdala revved up. One of my clients was very anxious about her boyfriend's ex-wife before they went to his son's games, she'd spend lots of time telling friends and coworkers how cold this woman was and how she would ruin the night. By the time she arrived, she was exhausted and so focused on the ex-wife that she couldn't enjoy the outing with her boyfriend. The second reaction you may have when your amygdala sounds, the alarm is unclaim. This means staying away from what makes you anxious. You avoid the hard conversation, skip the social event, or put off the flight. Avoidance feels like relief in the moment, but it quietly and slowly shrinks your world. You stop doing things you actually want to do and your amygdala never learns that those things aren't truly dangerous. I had a client who was invited to give a prestigious talk in another country. He turned it down because he knew that one of his old bosses who had fired him was going to be there. In his mind, all he could think about was the experience of being let go by his other boss. Not the fact that in this current job he had been chosen to give this prestigious talk. Blame and unclaim are both common. They're also both traps. So what's the alternative? Tend and befriend the one thing you must do to reduce anxiety long-term is tend and befriend. And this isn't just a therapy trick. It's supported by research showing that changing how you respond to anxiety can literally rewire your brain. Yes. The more you overcome your anxiety, the more you teach your amygdala to not overreact. I know this sounds unusual, especially if you spend a lot of time being mad and judgmental toward your anxiety. But stay with me because what I'm going to share has worked for hundreds of my clients. Instead of criticizing your anxiety, and avoiding the fear, you become a good friend to it. Think about your closest relationships. Good friends don't lie to each other. They don't let one another. Stay stuck in false stories. They tell the truth, but with kindness, that's exactly how you need to treat your amygdala. When it tells you you can't fly or you'll embarrass yourself. If you ask for a raise, you don't attack it, but you also don't believe the lie. You respond like a good friend. I know you're scared, but this isn't dangerous. I can handle this. I had a client who worked remotely. She was very social and extroverted, but by early afternoon, she felt lonely. She wanted desperately to work from a coffee shop just to be around other people, but her anxiety about going there by herself kept her locked in her house and feeling awful by the end of the day. She chose to tend and befriend her anxiety. This is what it looks like. Step one, she chose to expose herself to the fear instead of running from it, she took a small, intentional step toward it. First by running a mental movie. A mental movie is rehearsing in your mind three times the thing that makes you anxious. You can expect to feel discomfort And because you expect the discomfort, you can choose to sit with it to tend it. As it rises, you meet it with breath work and self-kindness. Step three, tell yourself the truth. Remind yourself, my amygdala is wrong on this one. I can go to the coffee shop and work just like other remote workers, actually see yourself doing it. Repeat this sequence of the mental movie three times in attending and befriending spirit and notice the small ideas that come to mind that make this more possible. for my remote work client, the mental movie surfaced a helpful idea. Go to a coffee shop a bit farther from her home where many remote workers gathered. She hadn't thought of that. Until the rehearsal, the beauty of the mental movie is that it increases your self trust because it often gives you ideas that really work for you, unlike your amygdala, which sometimes tells you things that aren't true. Here's the most important part of tending and befriending. When you soften your fear, you accept that it doesn't vanish. You choose to do what you really want and you bring your fear with you, but you also bring coping skills that allow you to manage that fear. This is what courage actually looks like. It is not the absence of fear. It's moving forward despite it, but not forward in a way that isn't prepared forward, where you bring your coping skills and you're ready to tend and befriend. so what's the best way to start? I encourage you to make a list of your top three fears. Maybe it's asking to be put on a project you're interested in inviting a new friend to dinner or flying. Start with the easiest one. Let's say inviting a new friend to dinner this week. Not next, but this week. Set a date before you do it. Rehearse with the mental movie. Check out episode 180 6. If you want more information about this before you do it, rehearse with the mental movie play the movie in your mind three times. Imagine yourself typing the text, pressing, send, breathing through the discomfort, and moving through the waiting period for their response. Imagine a yes response and a no response. You can handle whatever it is, then do it. Push send. Your amygdala will sound the alarm that's expected. Your job is to tend and befriend. Breathe. Stay kind and remind yourself I can do this. I've worked with many people who fear flying. They move from blame and unclaim to tend and befriend, and it's still hard. At first. One client in her mental movie came up with the idea of creating a flying playlist, not with songs, but with breath work to help her reregulate her nervous system as she sat in the plane waiting for takeoff, she also created a mantra. Flying is the safest mode of travel. Flying is the safest mode of travel. She worked this fear so successfully that now she mentions flying as if she never had any fear about it. She also shared with me one of the little disgust benefits of working through anxiety, when she said, I am so glad I got over my fear of flying before I had kids. I would hate to have passed that on to them. Every time you face a fear and come through safely, you're teaching your amygdala something new That means you are rewiring it, you're reducing its false alarms, and that's the only way to truly reduce anxiety forever. Life is long and it's short. Depending on your perspective, it's long enough that you don't have to work on all your anxiety at once. Make a list of your top three and over the next months systematically use the tendon befriend method, so the mistruth your amygdala is telling you. Don't run the show. Once you've made good progress, create another list of three. Remember, you don't need to get your anxiety down to zero. You need to move through it so it doesn't stop you from doing what you want and meeting your goals. In this episode, you've discovered why your amygdala often gets it wrong when trying to keep you safe. How blame and avoidance keep you stuck in midlife anxiety and the one practice tend to befriend that rewires your brain and helps you move towards your goal. If you would like my free one pager that walks you, step by step through the 10 to be friend process, send me an email at MJ at MJ Murray von.com. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Monday with more creating midlife calm.