Ep. 206 Death Isn’t Creepy: How Reflecting on Mortality Calms Midlife Anxiety & Stress

Why does reflecting on death feel so uncomfortable, yet hold surprising value for our mental wellness?
You’re not alone if the thought makes you uneasy.
In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. Why most of us avoid thoughts of mortality—and the hidden costs of that avoidance.
2. How reflecting on death, even briefly, can shift daily stress and anxiety.
3. What hospice work and mindfulness practices reveal about living with greater calm and clarity.

 Take 20 minutes to see how reflecting on death can free you to live more fully—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

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (3): 0:00

In this episode, you'll discover how reflecting on death something we often avoid can actually reduce anxiety.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:08

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. Welcome to the podcast This time of year with Halloween, all Saints and all souls we're surrounded by reminders of death. It's a subject that we usually avoid because it creates so much anxiety, so much discomfort. Yet when we give it thoughtful attention, it can surprisingly help us live more fully. In today's episode, I sit down with my beloved cousin, Beth Cavanaugh RN, a hospice nurse with nearly two decades of experience for an honest and heartfelt conversation about death through the lens of mental wellness. What she has learned at the bedside isn't creepy, but profoundly human and it has the power to change how we live our everyday life. Welcome to the podcast, Beth. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you, and let's begin by having you introduce yourself to our listeners.

Guest: 1:27

Thank you MJ for having me. I'm a hospice nurse. I've been a hospice nurse for about 18 years and nurse for 28 years. Got a couple of kids live in Portland, Oregon.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 1:37

I don't know if we jump into the topic of death, but let's respectfully trod into the topic your experience of being a hospice nurse. Gives you a very unique perspective. Beth is in town. Because she was a guest lecturer at Notre Dame yesterday in a hospice course. And one of the. Students asked. A really good question of death is creepy. And how do you acclimate yourself? To this creepy thing. That's part of your everyday work life.

Guest: 2:08

It felt pretty heavy. Throughout that first year of being a hospice nurse. And then I had this conversation with one of my mentor nurses, Renee. And we had a discussion about our significance as a hospice nurse and our insignificance. And I think that really helped me because I can be an incredibly significant presence in my eight or 12 hour shift as a hospice nurse. And then at the end of my shift, I'm not really responsible for. How they got into this place. Who's here. Who's not here with them. So it relieved myself at the burden. That I felt on my shoulders about their death. When I got to work, I would just really focus on my eight hour shift. Do my best. And I think that really helped me deal with it on a day to day. And as far as the creepy factor goes, I feel like I'm in the presence of grace, 95% of the time when I'm with people who are dying. I don't view it as creepy at all. I feel it like it is an honor to be there.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 3:15

I'm pretty sure that our listeners can experience your presence, even though it's audio. Because what happened yesterday in class, Beth was here to talk. At a course, that's part of my husband's center. At Notre Dame, the Hildebrand center for compassionate care in medicine. He said to the students You can feel that best presence is medicinal. That it is healing. Our tendency as a culture. Is to avoid thinking about death. Until we know it's knocking on the door. And one of the things I've learned as a human, one of the things I've learned as a therapist is that there's some value in those of us who are still living. To think about. Def. Not how we want to die, but that's part of it for some people, for sure. But I just wonder if you could talk about how that can be valuable. Really to not only how we live our life, but also to our mental wellness.

Guest: 4:15

Yeah. I feel like it being in the presence of death, working in the presence of death. I feel like it is only had a positive impact on my life. But being in hospice care and being surrounded by. Death and the awareness that, oh, I might die soon. It happens all the time. And now at age 54, I. Worked with plenty of 54 year olds who are dying. And so I'm constantly reminded that this is my fate. This is all of our fates. And being with that awareness, I think it changes on a day-to-day level. Some days when I think, oh dear God, like I could die soon. I'll go home and I'll buy a ticket to Hawaii because I will say, this is what I want to do before I died. No matter what I have got to get to Hawaii. Also, I can be oftentimes a lot kinder to my husband because I think of. When I think of dying, I think I don't want to be that, Grumpy wife that comes in the door. I feel like I'm in this constant state of remembering how I want to be as a person when I'm around people who are dying. Again, I think there's a lot of grace at the bedside, which is pretty profound to witness People really sinking into the reality of their death and getting on board with it, which takes a long time for many people. I think the ones who have the easiest times are people who are religious and know exactly where they're going to go. And there is no. No question. They have a much easier time with dying. People who have less of an idea there's more process that has to happen. With where am I going next? What's happening? Is there a next so for me, it's also solidified my belief in God. But I feel like it's really powerful and it's really good. And it's full of love. I say that because. I've seen a lot of patients who are dying. And they will see deceased relatives. They will talk to deceased relatives. They will talk to Jesus. They will have these very comforting experiences with their baby who died. To be in that liminal space, which I feel like I can be a lot of times with people who are transitioning towards death. It makes me think there's gotta be something else. There's gotta be something cool on the other side. And it honestly makes living for me a little more enjoyable when I think that. It makes thinking of dying easier. I think a lot about my purpose and meaning and hospice care can easily do that for me.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 6:50

That's a really beautiful perspective and I feel like I'm on the opposite. End of the continuum I was death avoidant. And I took this course how to understand the mind it was from a Buddhist perspective. A good number of years ago. And in one of the classes they were teaching a meditation on death. The teacher who was this Buddhist monk who was adorable. Is instructing the 40 people in this class about this meditation. And we're supposed to read this and do this, and then also do this meditation during that week. And I was creeped out. I just didn't think about death. I'm a good student and I'm going to read all the stuff and do all the homework. And I tried to do the death meditation. And I lasted like two seconds. I came back to class the next week and the teacher said, how'd you do? And I said, Not very good. And he goes, what do you mean. I said I could only really stay with that meditation for two seconds. I was creeped out and he goes, oh, that's really good. And I said, really? He goes, yeah, most people won't have even done it. Then we have this beautiful discussion about this is the culture that we grow up and that we're so busy living life. That we don't want to think about death, even if we are people filled with faith. And what we believe we're going to go to is really positive. One of the things I committed to myself that day was to get really familiar with this meditation. So I wouldn't be so afraid. And that has been very powerful for me. Again, I'm not at your level. But it's really helped me. In a lot of ways, such as not avoiding checking things out, medically. I see this with a lot of clients. I had a man in my office who was having left arm pain. I had a woman online who was having all these symptoms. You don't need a therapy session. You need the ER. In both. I had to talk them in. They did go, things were fine. But when they came back the next week, I said, I want us to talk about your death, because one of the things that I learned is in being death avoidant. I would not always take my symptoms seriously. And one of the commitments I made in thinking about death while I was very busy living fully, I'm not going to be a person who avoids my medical symptom, And so I want you to think about from your experience as a nurse. How you see. People. Avoiding death.

Guest: 9:16

Oh yeah. People avoid it until the minute they die. That happens all the time. So there's this gal and she was incredibly angry when she was. Dying she was tiny. Full of muscle and strength and sinew and feistiness and I felt like that was the only thing holding her together was her spirit and her anger. And it was pretty impressive. She would not allow us to get her pain managed because. Her husband. Was very angry. That she was dying too. So these are two people who are incredibly angry. And not dealing with the death thing and pushing it off. And not having any conversations about it, but being really angry at the healthcare professionals. It was a really intense three months with this patient who I loved. Because I found her Persistence to be so heartwarming. And her avoidance of really getting on board with her death. feel like if she would've gotten on board with her death, Her pain could have been better manage. Maybe she and her husband would have been open to having a chaplain or social worker come in and really talk to them about. Death. Her death and how it's going to impact them. They avoided it. Until she died. Her husband. Was just angry. I came in and he was I hate this facility, blamed it all on us. That's why she died. In spite of stage four cancer metastasized everywhere. I sat with him for a little bit. I had some trust with him, but not a lot. He ended up. Sitting with this gal who was probably in her seventies or eighties and she and her husband had a. Positivity course, they had developed in their life. And this gal was positive. And just everything was good and everything was bright. He sat down with this gal. Who is the wife of another patient? And within that 15 minutes, I felt kind of a transformation. And this is after his wife had died. So we're waiting for the funeral home to come pick up his wife. I see him. Walk into the room with a Bible. And he read to his wife, his dead wife. From the Bible. And he sobbed at the bedside. He caressed her arm. And it was the first time I had seen any physical love between the two of them. It made me really sad. That this couldn't have happened before. His wife died so she could experience it also. So I feel like it's just a missed opportunity. To clean up some things. Mostly your relationship with yourself. Maybe your relationship with God, the define, However you define it. And relationships with your closest people in your life.

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 12:11

That story. Goes to the bottom of my soul because it's my experience for many people that. The blame and unclaimed that we do emotionally. Is what we do with illness and death. That it's big right often, because we don't think about it directly. Even if we know. Someone is aging. Even if we know someone is sick. We don't directly do the inner work. Connected to it. So we use whatever is our normal way of processing emotion.

Guest: 12:43

Which,

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 12:44

as I've said on this podcast, many times is to use an external mindset. Blame and unclaimed.

MJ Murray Vachon LCSW (2): 12:50

Which often leans us away from really facing death more directly, something that is inevitable. But so uncomfortable, and that was my reason for wanting to do this podcast. And I'm so glad, Beth, that you could share with us how working with the dying has reshaped your outlook. And I hope that my reflections on my own journey from death avoidance to learning how to think about it in a more direct and healthy way can help our listeners begin to think about this really difficult topic that we are going to continue on Thursday with part two of our conversation. Beth is going to share a moving bedside story and explain something that I had never heard before, that our bodies actually know how to die. And we're gonna look at some really practical ways that you can begin to practice letting go in small, daily, not scary or creepy steps, because both of us believe doing small daily steps can really help you when big moments come because you'll be more prepared. So I hope you'll join us for Thursday's episode. It's one you won't want to miss. Thanks for listening to creating Midlife Calm.