70. How To Stop Letting Fear and Anxiety Run Your Midlife Decisions

Are you a woman over 40 feeling "sandwiched" between conflicting needs, stuck in analysis paralysis, or simply numbing out at the end of the day? You’re NOT alone. In this episode, I’m exploring the invisible force that might be sitting in the driver's seat of your life: Fear.

I’m breaking down the 4 subtle signs that fear is making your decisions for you, sharing my own vulnerable results from the Being Profile assessment, and giving you a strategy to tap into your true courage.

If you are tired of micromanaging the small stuff because the big stuff feels out of control — or if you’re ready to move from worry to resourcefulness — this episode is for you.

What You’ll Learn:

✔ The 4 silent signs that fear is running your life (including "buffering" and saying "yes" with resentment) 

✔ The critical difference between Fear (past threats) and Anxiety (future unknowns) and why it matters 

✔ How to use the Being Profile to measure your relationship with courage, vulnerability, and self-expression 

✔ A simple 2-step process to ask: "What would I do if I had no fear?" 

🎯 OMG Moment:

Courage in midlife is not the absence of anxiety, worry, or fear. It's being able to move through that anxiety, worry, and fear and make the decision that is absolutely the best decision for you... and take steps forward. 

Take Action Today:

• Book a Free Coaching Call: Grab one of the 6 spots this spring to review your Being Profile and uncover your blind spots at cherylpfischer.com/coaching
• Download the Resource: Get the free Story Cycle tool at cherylpfischer.com/storycycle to help process your thoughts.
• The "Pause" Check: When you catch yourself numbing or obsessing over small details, stop and ask: "What am I feeling right now, and what do I care about that is making me feel this way?" .

Why This Episode Matters

Midlife often feels like a balancing act where we question if we've made mistakes or if we're running out of time. By understanding our relationship with fear and anxiety, we can choose to be resourceful, responsible, and courageous instead.

Take a little bit better care of yourself in midlife.

Grab your Vitamin G pixie sticks for detoxification and wellness at cherylpfischer.com/vitaming.

Transcript

Midlife’s Balancing Act

Cheryl Fischer 0:00

Midlife often seems like quite the balancing act, doesn't it? We're sandwiched, the sandwiched generation, between a lot of conflicting needs and goals, and we're tired and our bodies are changing, and actually, maybe even we have more time now, but we don't know what to do with it, and we wonder if we made mistakes and so much stuff. And there's a lot of decisions that we have to make during this period of time. So are we letting fear and worry rule, run things, make those decisions, or are we really able to move forward in a way that's healthy? Let's talk about it. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies and, oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife. This is the Mind Your Midlife podcast.

Who’s Driving: Fear Or Purpose

Cheryl Fischer 1:24

So it looks very different to be allowing fear to make our decisions for us and to kind of control things from the control center. I'm imagining the movie Inside Out where the little characters were inside her brain and they were all kind of figuring out who was going to be in charge. It looks very different to let fear sort of run things than to let courage or responsibility or resourcefulness or a passion for something run things with just the appropriate amount of fear in being careful. And so what we want to do today is figure out what is the situation you're in right now. And I'm going to share with you what I learned about myself recently. And let's see what we can do with that to maybe make everything just a little bit better, make things run just a little bit more smoothly. All

Four Signs Fear Runs The Show

Cheryl Fischer 2:21

right. So I have a little checklist for you so that we can figure out right now, are you allowing inspiration and courage and having a purpose be in charge? Or is fear and anxiety and worry kind of running things? I'm gonna give you four items. So number one is saying yes. You would think saying yes is a good thing. Saying yes, it can be a good thing. What are we saying yes to? Are you saying yes to obligations that honestly you feel a little bit resentful about? You are not happy about having to do those things, and you're doing them because you don't want to disappoint other people or you're afraid of being judged for not doing them, and you're you're saying yes because of those reasons instead of what you really want. There's nothing wrong with saying yes, but it's safe because you're allowing other people's needs and wants to make the decision for you, and you're resenting that. I mean, hey, putting other people's needs and wants ahead of yours sometimes is appropriate as well, but you're resenting that. Second one, are you numbing yourself through problems? So I definitely am guilty of this one. I think we're all guilty of all of these occasionally. You might also call this buffering. So when you have a quiet minute and your thoughts go bl the time, are you scrolling through social media, just kind of numbing out? Are you snacking? Are you drinking? Are you numbing out with hours and hours of TV? None of those things are a problem in themselves. You can certainly snack, you can have a glass of wine, you can look at social media, you can watch TV. Nothing inherently wrong with any of those. It's when we use them to escape that maybe there's something going on. Number three, are you maybe hyper-controlling the small stuff because you are feeling out of control with the big stuff? And here's what I mean: maybe really micromanaging the little things in your house or in your job or in your schedule because there may be some underlying anxiety about the big things, about health and aging and parents and the future. If you can't control that, okay, we're gonna go really control the little stuff that we know we can control. That might be a sign that fear and anxiety are kind of running things. And then the fourth one is getting stuck in the analysis phase, getting stuck in the research phase. Uh, this one hits me sometimes too. So let's say you are wanting to make a change. Maybe you're starting a business or you want to change jobs or you're ready to retire, or a change has happened and you're trying to figure out how to manage it. You're researching and you're analyzing and you're thinking and you're planning. Those are all the words we use, right? And you're saying, This is my preparation, and this is really important. And that is true to a certain extent. But is it because you don't actually want to start because there's a lot of fear? Are we staying in that research and analyze phase just forever? Because it's too scary to start or too scary to do. So if you recognize right now any of those four things, one maybe, a few maybe, it might be that fear and anxiety are running your decision making and your feelings and your way of moving through life a little bit more than you might want them to.

Fear Versus Anxiety Explained

Cheryl Fischer 6:05

In themselves, fear is good, keeps you safe, keeps you from touching a hot stove or doing something that might put yourself in danger. Anxiety is also good for basically the same reason. There's a little difference between them, which I'll explain. And it's so easy to have an unhealthy relationship with those as well.

The Being Profile Framework

Cheryl Fischer 6:29

Now, where this topic came from is that I have started using with my coaching clients something called the Being Profile. This is created by a company called Ingenesis out of Australia, and it is an assessment to help us figure out how we are being in the world. And boy, did I learn something about myself when I did this. So let me explain to you a little bit what that is. This is actually not a personality test. Now, I am a big fan, big fan of pretty much any assessment that helps us learn more about ourselves. Enneagram, Strengths Finder, Myers Briggs, you know, there's so many different ones that can really help us to understand ourselves better, to understand what the heck, how are we, you know, how are we made up and put together and why are we the way we are? But what I wanted for my coaching clients was something that would show us where we can start to grow and where we can start to change if we decide that's what we want. So the being profile is an ontological assessment as opposed to a personality assessment. It's measuring, and this is what ontology is, our way of being in the world, the relationship we have with different aspects of life. And by ways of being or aspects of being, it's things you'll recognize: courage, responsibility, peace

How Moods Shape Our Choices

Cheryl Fischer 8:06

of mind, assertiveness, just all these things. How are we being in the world? Do we have a healthy relationship with those ways of being? Moods like vulnerability, fear, care, and then overall awareness, integrity, effectiveness. And this is measuring how we're being in the world now so that we can see is there something that we'd like to change? Is there something we'd like to grow with? It's not about fixing, it's about recognizing where do I have a healthy relationship with these ways I'm interacting in the world and where am I kind of sitting in what I'd call the shadow, the less healthy side. And then do I want to change that? Because we always can. And to me, that's just so empowering. So I'll explain, particularly for today's topic, the moods from the being profile, and then I'll share actually my results and how this was helpful for me. And maybe you'll see yourself in some of this as well. So the being profile includes four moods. And by moods, this is not exactly the same thing as emotions: happy, sad, mad. These are underlying sort of different colored glasses that we're looking through as we interact in the world. So you've heard the saying maybe rose-colored glasses. So we're gonna have four different colors with these moods, and it's gonna impact how we're being in the world. It's gonna maybe allow us to be bigger and more powerful and empowered, or it's gonna pull us back, depending on how we interact with each of these moods. And those are fear, anxiety, vulnerability, and care. Now, today's focus is fear and anxiety. So, just for the record, what do we mean by vulnerability and care? Vulnerability is not about being weak, it's about being okay to be emotionally exposed, show our real selves, to be with uncertainty and be okay with that. Care is about being able to prioritize what matters to you and valuing something, valuing someone. Those are powerful. You can imagine it, right? And then we have fear and anxiety. So these are somewhat similar, and the difference

Personal Findings And Surprises

Cheryl Fischer 10:39

is that fear is focused on being afraid because of something that has actually happened in the past. It's focused on a threat from something you experienced, saw, heard, whatever, some unpleasant experience from the past, we're projecting it onto the future, or maybe it's an immediate danger that's happening right now. And if we have an unhealthy relationship with fear, it's gonna cause us maybe to not want to make decisions or avoid taking action when we run into something that reminds us of that object of our fear. A healthy relationship doesn't mean we never have fear. It means that when we perceive discomfort, we we can move through it. We can make a decision that is appropriate and we can take action. Now, anxiety, quite similar in terms of a healthy or an unhealthy relationship. And this is not talking about anxiety as an as in anxiety disorder. This is talking about worry, unease about the future and how it impacts us. So fear, remember, was more about something from the past. And now that's resonating with me because I'm in a situation that reminds me of that thing. Anxiety is about the future, about worrying about what's unknowable, what could happen. These are both things that we have to keep us safe. And yet when we have an unhealthy relationship with them, anxiety, for example, then maybe we freeze or our judgment kind of gets clouded. Maybe we, again, defer making decisions. These look very similar. Or maybe we're always anticipating what the worst outcome would be, and we're like super skeptical and we're focusing always on what could go wrong. That might show us there's a little bit of unhealthy anxiety happening there. Now, what I learned about this, and our focus, of course, is to find out whether fear is running things. What I learned about this was how is my relationship with fear? Is it healthy or unhealthy? Mine was sitting a little bit in the middle of that scale, a little bit less healthy than I would have liked to see. And then I was able to see how is that affecting the way I'm being in the world? And what I found was it's it's affecting my courage. It's affecting presence for me, it's affecting self-expression, it's affecting contribution, and it's affecting peace of mind. And by affecting, I mean pulling my relationship with those ways of being a little bit less healthy, a little bit more on the shadow side. So maybe courage seems like an obvious one. If I've if I'm dealing with fear that's kind of holding me back and making it harder to make decisions, then courage being the ability to move forward, take action, and make decisions even when we're uncomfortable, worried, or concerned. Okay, this one makes sense. Maybe, maybe I'm freezing or withdrawing a little bit more when I'm challenged or afraid. But this one did surprise me because here I am talking to you on a podcast, putting

Courage, Self-Expression, Assertiveness

Cheryl Fischer 14:07

things out there, and that feels a little bit like courage to me anyway. Maybe you agree with me, maybe you don't, but I feel like that takes courage. But what this is showing me is that there are situations where I don't have a super healthy relationship with courage, and it does hold me back. And that's true. That's true. Now, what about self-expression? Again, expressing myself, here's what I found that was interesting. If we have a less healthy relationship with self-expression, then it might make us kind of restrict or suppress or pull back how we interact with other people, meaning less satisfaction, less fulfillment. And others might see us as reserved or shy, maybe didn't know, you know, think we had hidden talents they never saw. Or maybe we might hide our passions and our beliefs and our interests from others because of fear of judgment or fear of ridicule. Uh, hello. That's true. I have said before that I have this interesting combination of loving speaking on a stage, speaking to groups, training, podcasting, and in a one-on-one situation, I do get shy. I do often end up sort of being reserved. And now I understand better why that is. It's fear. It's fear of looking silly, it's fear of being embarrassed. And it probably comes from being a little bit nerdy when I was growing up, you know, feeling a little bit dorky sometimes. I don't want to be in those situations again. Now I'm understanding that. Now I'm understanding that it would be a powerful thing to really show who I am, which is what self-expression is all about. My point of view, my beliefs, my values, my feelings, my emotions, really show them in a really straightforward, honest, vulnerable way. And I don't know if I do that as much as I would like to. I don't think I do. So really powerful learning there. So I share that with you just to say that there are a lot of ways that fear and anxiety, if we're not able to process them and move through them, can really hold us back. Maybe they keep us from being as authentic as we'd like to be. Maybe they keep us from even being as forgiving as we'd like to be. Forgiveness is one of these ways of being as well. Maybe they keep us from being assertive. Now, I'll tell you, assertiveness is an interesting one. My assertiveness score was leaning on the unhealthy side. And I realized when talking to my coach about it, that I was interpreting assertiveness as kind of a negative thing. Like you gotta be bossy and you gotta be annoying and obnoxious, and you know, just well, that's not a healthy relationship with assertiveness, is it? Big learning right there for me as well. Because assertiveness is not about being a jerk and bossing people around. It's about standing up for your point of view while also being respectful of others. Powerful. So, all of that put together, I'm I'm paying attention to what's going on in my head. I'm paying attention to how I'm reacting in scenarios, and I'm figuring out how I would want these things to look. So let me give you some tips that maybe you

Two-Step Reset For Fear

Cheryl Fischer 17:56

can use as well. First of all, if you are intrigued by this idea of the being profile, figuring out how you're being in the world, figuring out how you're being in the world and where you can grow, go to CherylPFisher.com slash coaching, set up a free quick call with me. I'll explain it to you. I have six spots this spring for a discount coupon for you to do the profile with me and see what you can learn. Definitely grab them. Next, let me give you a little sort of two-step process where you can kind of check and see what's running in my head right now. So fear and anxiety run the show a little bit more than it would be ideal for them to do if we are suppressing care and vulnerability. We're we're kind of not paying enough attention to what is really important, and we're we're not being our real true selves as much as maybe we could. We're letting fear and worry run the show. We're trying to outthink the risks and outplan as opposed to focusing on just letting ourselves be human and just moving forward and seeing what happens. So what can you do? First of all, when you feel yourself being stuck or feel yourself, remember the four things we talked about at the beginning: buffering, hiding, saying yes to things you don't want to say yes to, micromanaging the small stuff. When you feel yourself doing any of those four things, I want you to pause and I want you to ask yourself, what is this feeling I have right now? Like am I frustrated? Am I embarrassed? Am I worried? Can you put a word to it? And and what do I care about in this situation that's making me feel this way? So is it that I'm really caring about somebody else's opinion? Is it I'm really caring that there's too many unknowns? Is it what is it that matters to me right now? And what am I telling myself in my head? Am I telling myself, well, there's nothing you can do, forget it, give up, or they can't stand me, or that was so embarrassing, or you know, there's something in your head, there's something running around in your head. What would it look like if I had no fear about this situation? So step one is that first analysis. What am I feeling? What am I caring about that's making me feel like this? What's all that stuff in my head? And then step two if I put the fear aside and I did like what my most amazing

Resources, Coaching, Next Steps

Cheryl Fischer 21:05

self would do in this scenario, what would that look like? And let me tell you, you don't have to do that. The exercise is to imagine what it would look like. What would you do? What would you want things to, how would you want things to turn out? It doesn't have to be reality. But when we give our brains that little seed of an idea, sometimes it changes things. That's a great first step to start kind of moving forward through some of these concerns that we have. Now, this is ongoing work. And you might have heard me say before, my success coach from many years ago said to me when you learn mindset and you learn how to move through challenges, this is this is the work forever because our brains are always wanting to keep us safe. They're always potentially pulling us back more than would be. ideal. And as long as we learn how to adjust and we keep doing it, we keep doing it and we keep doing it and we keep doing it and we keep doing it, two thumbs up, all good. This is the work. And if you don't have the story cycle resource to help you with this process or at least that first part of the process that I just described, go grab it. It's free, Cherylpfisher.com/slash story cycle. It will help you get started. And then book a free call with me and let's talk about it. Because to understand these ways of being and then see the ones that we really want to change and get healthier with and then figure out with a coach how to do that. Ugh, so powerful, let me tell you amazing. So here's the thing courage in midlife is not the absence of anxiety worry fear. It's being able to move through that anxiety worry fear and make the decision that is absolutely the best decision for you in that scenario and take steps forward. That's courage. And that will serve you so well in midlife when we're all going through all these challenges.

Redefining Courage In Midlife

Cheryl Fischer 23:25

And make sure you hit the follow button because while that wraps up our episode for today next week we have a very cool episode coming about acupuncture and you might be surprised what acupuncture can do for us in midlife as women. And in the meantime keep remembering midlife is your time to take just a little bit better care of yourself on the outside and on the inside. Just a little bit better care makes a big difference