Creating Midlife Calm: Coping Skills for Stress & Anxiety in Family, Work & Relationships Ep. 213 — When Midlife Disappointment Turns to Anger or Self-Pity: Coping Skills for Stress and Anxiety
Have you ever felt that mix of anger and self-pity when life—or family—doesn’t go the way you hoped?
You’re not alone. Those emotions you try to hide aren’t weakness—they’re signals that something inside you needs care.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
1. Why anger and self-pity are your nervous system’s natural way of asking for protection and calm.
2. How to recognize when these emotions become traps that feed midlife stress, anxiety, and disconnection.
3. A science-backed way to pivot from hurt to healing—without guilt, blame, or forced positivity.
Take 10 minutes to transform hurt into calm—because understanding your emotions is the first step to midlife wisdom. 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.