Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #280| Why Waiting for Life to Slow Down Is Keeping You Overwhelmed — and How to Find Calm in the Wild in Under a Minute

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#280| Why Waiting for Life to Slow Down Is Keeping You Overwhelmed — and How to Find Calm in the Wild in Under a Minute · Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing

• 0:00
  Michelle Gauthier: When you'll listen today, you'll learn why waiting for life to slow down is keeping you overwhelmed and how to find calm in the wild in under a minute.
• 0:13
  Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
• 0:20
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
• 0:25
  Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
• 0:30
  Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
• 0:40
  Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
• 0:40
  Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining today.
• 0:42
  Michelle Gauthier: I have such a great guest for you today, my friend MJ Murray Vachon.
• 0:46
  Michelle Gauthier: She's a therapist with 41 years of experience, and she has her own podcast, which I love called Creating Midlife Calm.
• 0:54
  Michelle Gauthier: If you love the show, you're probably gonna love that one too.
• 0:57
  Michelle Gauthier: One of the things MJ talks about on her podcast is being calm in the wild.
• 1:02
  Michelle Gauthier: So out there in the world.
• 1:04
  Michelle Gauthier: And she has some great perspectives on how to do this.
• 1:07
  Michelle Gauthier: And when you listen to this episode today, you will learn why calm is actually your natural state.
• 1:14
  Michelle Gauthier: Why waiting for the world to settle down is never a good strategy and a simple, doable way to practice calm in your actual day in less than two minutes.
• 1:24
  Michelle Gauthier: Thank you, MJ, for being here with us today.
• 1:28
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm so happy to have you here.
• 1:30
  Michelle Gauthier: One of the reasons why I wanted to have you on today is because I love the way that you talk about creating calm in the wild, and I love the episodes that you do on that topic.
• 1:39
  Michelle Gauthier: So tell us a little bit about creating calm in the wild.
• 1:44
  KJ Murray Vachon: Oh, I'm really excited to be here.
• 1:46
  KJ Murray Vachon: Okay.
• 1:47
  KJ Murray Vachon: There's short mini episodes that drop on Friday, and I think they're really perfect for overwhelmed working women because they're never more than five minutes long.
• 1:56
  KJ Murray Vachon: It's just a little dose to get people to that last day of the week.
• 1:59
  KJ Murray Vachon: And they really started out of my two foundational beliefs.
• 2:03
  KJ Murray Vachon: I've been a therapist for 40 years and I've had a mental wellness program for 30.
• 2:07
  KJ Murray Vachon: And the Friday episodes really integrate what I've learned from being a therapist and what I've learned from teaching mental wellness.
• 2:13
  KJ Murray Vachon: And that is these two foundational beliefs.
• 2:15
  KJ Murray Vachon: One belief is that our natural state is calm.
• 2:19
  KJ Murray Vachon: When people start therapy or coaching, they usually start with, I don't want to be anxious, I don't want to be stressed, I don't want to be overwhelmed.
• 2:25
  KJ Murray Vachon: But then I ask them, well, then what do you want to be?
• 2:27
  KJ Murray Vachon: And there's usually a pause because they haven't really thought about that.
• 2:30
  KJ Murray Vachon: And the number one answer I get is I want to feel better.
• 2:33
  KJ Murray Vachon: And that's a really good place to start.
• 2:34
  KJ Murray Vachon: But then I say to them, if you want to feel better, you have to learn how to cultivate calm.
• 2:39
  KJ Murray Vachon: And most people are like, well, I'm not a calm person.
• 2:42
  KJ Murray Vachon: I was born anxious, I was born stressed, I'm always overwhelmed.
• 2:46
  KJ Murray Vachon: But if we look at a baby, a healthy baby, whose needs are met, we can see that our natural state is calm.
• 2:51
  KJ Murray Vachon: They sit on their parents' lap and they're calm.
• 2:53
  KJ Murray Vachon: They're just observing the world.
• 2:54
  KJ Murray Vachon: They're alert, they're calm, and they're peaceful.
• 2:56
  KJ Murray Vachon: And that is somewhere in each of us.
• 2:58
  KJ Murray Vachon: So my Friday episodes start with that belief that if you don't want to be anxious, then the antidote is to cultivate calm.
• 3:07
  KJ Murray Vachon: The second belief in these episodes, and really my whole philosophy, is everyone, myself included, keeps waiting for the world outside to settle down and bring us calm.
• 3:16
  KJ Murray Vachon: But if we realize, oh, I just don't have that much control.
• 3:19
  KJ Murray Vachon: I can't get the stoplights to be green.
• 3:21
  KJ Murray Vachon: I can't get my spouse or my kids to do what I want.
• 3:24
  KJ Murray Vachon: I can't get my boss to stop sending emails at eight o'clock at night.
• 3:28
  KJ Murray Vachon: Then we realize, oh, I do have to create calm in the wild.
• 3:31
  KJ Murray Vachon: And when I say wild, I'm not talking about tragedy, though it's gonna be applied there.
• 3:36
  KJ Murray Vachon: I'm just talking about everyday normal life.
• 3:38
  KJ Murray Vachon: It feels pretty wild to me at this point.
• 3:40
  KJ Murray Vachon: And so that's, you know, that's the context of why I created these episodes.
• 3:46
  KJ Murray Vachon: Because I think, I don't know if you have this experience, Michelle.
• 3:49
  KJ Murray Vachon: Like sometimes I get done taping a podcast and I just roll my eyes.
• 3:52
  KJ Murray Vachon: I'm like, it all just sounds so easy on a podcast.
• 3:54
  KJ Murray Vachon: But out in the wild, it's not so easy.
• 3:58
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes, yes, it's not theoretical anymore.
• 4:00
  Michelle Gauthier: You're actually out there doing it.
• 4:03
  Michelle Gauthier: Well, I have to react first to your number one belief that calm is our natural state.
• 4:09
  Michelle Gauthier: I really need to borrow that from here on out because I do think that makes so much sense what you're saying.
• 4:16
  Michelle Gauthier: Your podcast is talking to people in midlife.
• 4:18
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm mostly talking to people in midlife.
• 4:20
  Michelle Gauthier: We get to a point where we change our identity and our belief about ourselves.
• 4:24
  Michelle Gauthier: I have so many people say, I am just anxious.
• 4:27
  Michelle Gauthier: Like it is a permanent, just it is who I am.
• 4:31
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm just anxious or I'm overwhelmed.
• 4:34
  Michelle Gauthier: And so to know that that is coming from things that have been piled up on top of our naturally calm state, and that we can get back to that naturally calm state, and that that's what our body and our brain want to be in is just an amazing thought in the first place.
• 4:50
  Michelle Gauthier: So I just had to say I love that.
• 4:51
  Michelle Gauthier: That is so great.
• 4:52
  Michelle Gauthier: Oh, and thanks.
• 4:54
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, and I think bringing to the forefront the second point, the idea that we keep waiting for the world to be calm.
• 5:01
  Michelle Gauthier: Everyone does it.
• 5:02
  Michelle Gauthier: You said you do it, I definitely do it.
• 5:04
  Michelle Gauthier: But I think bringing that to the forefront of our minds so we can recognize, oh, I'm just waiting for this to be calm when actually I have no control over X, Y, and Z.
• 5:14
  Michelle Gauthier: I love both of those, and I think they're both really great points for the listeners to think about twice.
• 5:19
  KJ Murray Vachon: I've done this for 41 years, over 52,000 therapy hours.
• 5:23
  KJ Murray Vachon: And I probably did 10,000 hours prior to that mindset shift, and it really is helpful.
• 5:29
  KJ Murray Vachon: It really sets people up for success.
• 5:31
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes, exactly.
• 5:32
  Michelle Gauthier: You've got so much experience, you don't need anybody to tell you that that's true.
• 5:36
  Michelle Gauthier: But if the listeners could take a second and think, if it's true that calm is my natural state, could that be the way that I think about myself, that I'm trying to get back to a calm state instead of just dealing with the fact that I'm anxious?
• 5:50
  Michelle Gauthier: So I just love that.
• 5:51
  Michelle Gauthier: I had to pause and say that.
• 5:53
  KJ Murray Vachon: And it's totally fine if someone's listening and rolling their eyes and saying, I am the exception, because that is my normal experience with a client.
• 6:01
  KJ Murray Vachon: Most of my clients will say that's not me.
• 6:04
  KJ Murray Vachon: And what I encourage them to do is run the experiment.
• 6:07
  KJ Murray Vachon: If we're gonna cultivate calm, if we're gonna really teach our bodies and our mind to get back to our natural state, we have to look for those opportunities in our day to actually practice it.
• 6:18
  KJ Murray Vachon: All my clients come up with three ways that they can integrate cultivating calm during their day.
• 6:24
  KJ Murray Vachon: And one for me is when I make my morning coffee, is I have a courage.
• 6:29
  KJ Murray Vachon: Hats off to all the brewers out there who are spending a lot of time making coffee, but I have a courage.
• 6:33
  KJ Murray Vachon: And what I like to do during the courage is like three other things.
• 6:36
  KJ Murray Vachon: I put my coffee in, I press a button because I'm a doer and I'm intense.
• 6:40
  KJ Murray Vachon: And that is not being calm.
• 6:42
  KJ Murray Vachon: And so what I do 80% of the time now is I ground my feet and take a breath.
• 6:48
  KJ Murray Vachon: I can feel my shoulders relax and I just watch the coffee going into the cup.
• 6:53
  KJ Murray Vachon: It takes about 40 seconds to a minute.
• 6:55
  KJ Murray Vachon: And what I notice is my mind goes forward to what I have to do today, or it goes backwards to how crappy I slept.
• 7:02
  KJ Murray Vachon: And so I'm not in the present moment and I'm not calm.
• 7:07
  KJ Murray Vachon: But one of the things that really helps us practice calm is to see that we can pull our mind where we want it to go.
• 7:15
  KJ Murray Vachon: We don't have to let our minds run amok.
• 7:17
  KJ Murray Vachon: We actually have the power to be like, just look at the coffee, just notice the machine, and just be in the present.
• 7:23
  KJ Murray Vachon: Take some breaths.
• 7:24
  KJ Murray Vachon: And that is practicing calm in the midst of one's day.
• 7:28
  Michelle Gauthier: I love that.
• 7:29
  Michelle Gauthier: It's so accessible in theory to do that for 40 seconds, but I'm seriously even trying to picture myself doing that.
• 7:36
  Michelle Gauthier: And I'd be thinking I could have unloaded the top rack of the dishwasher while I was standing here, or I could check in on Instagram for 40 seconds or whatever.
• 7:44
  Michelle Gauthier: So I know you're practiced at this, but how much resistance do you feel when you do that?
• 7:50
  KJ Murray Vachon: I don't feel any resistance anymore.
• 7:52
  KJ Murray Vachon: It's for about 20 years, and I was a really anxious, stressed doer that pushed through.
• 7:58
  KJ Murray Vachon: So I'm kind of I'm in recovery.
• 8:00
  KJ Murray Vachon: And I do have moments where I like fall off the wagon, but it's like any habit.
• 8:04
  KJ Murray Vachon: It's like brushing your teeth.
• 8:06
  KJ Murray Vachon: I don't think intentionally about brushing my teeth anymore.
• 8:09
  KJ Murray Vachon: I just am getting ready for bed and something cues me to go brush my teeth.
• 8:13
  KJ Murray Vachon: And that's how this has become for me.
• 8:14
  KJ Murray Vachon: But more importantly, that's how this has become for the majority of the people that I've worked with over the years.
• 8:19
  KJ Murray Vachon: And everybody starts rolling their eyes and spending some time convincing me that this is not worth their 40 seconds.
• 8:28
  Michelle Gauthier: Interesting.
• 8:29
  KJ Murray Vachon: And what do you say to that?
• 8:30
  KJ Murray Vachon: Try it.
• 8:31
  KJ Murray Vachon: I say give it a shot for two weeks and see what happens.
• 8:35
  KJ Murray Vachon: And nobody comes back cured, but they do come back feeling like, wow, I didn't understand how often my mind was running away from me.
• 8:44
  KJ Murray Vachon: And that running away because anxiety is going to something in the future that has usually not happened.
• 8:51
  KJ Murray Vachon: Stress is that to-do list, and overwhelmed is when they both come together.
• 8:55
  KJ Murray Vachon: And so it becomes kind of a relief for people to be like, wow, I can stand in line at a store.
• 9:02
  KJ Murray Vachon: That's another example, ground my feet instead of pulling my phone and scrolling, which much of the time makes us more anxious, totally.
• 9:10
  KJ Murray Vachon: I just start to breathe.
• 9:12
  KJ Murray Vachon: And if you look for those natural pauses, because my experience with especially women, we are such badasses.
• 9:19
  KJ Murray Vachon: We are caring so much and doing so much.
• 9:23
  KJ Murray Vachon: I have almost zero success in saying to someone, I'd love for you to get up and meditate in the mornings.
• 9:29
  KJ Murray Vachon: The research on meditation and what it does for stress and anxiety is profound.
• 9:33
  KJ Murray Vachon: It's effective.
• 9:34
  KJ Murray Vachon: It's just that realistic for most Western minds and most women.
• 9:38
  KJ Murray Vachon: I'm just super practical.
• 9:40
  KJ Murray Vachon: How do I incorporate these practices of cultivating calm in someone's day where they don't have to do one more thing?
• 9:48
  KJ Murray Vachon: One of my least favorite things to do is fill my car up with gas.
• 9:51
  KJ Murray Vachon: But a couple of years ago, I started doing this when I filled my car up for gas.
• 9:56
  KJ Murray Vachon: I put in the little gas nozzle.
• 9:58
  KJ Murray Vachon: If you live in New Jersey, I think they're still filling it up for you.
• 10:01
  KJ Murray Vachon: So that's awesome.
• 10:02
  KJ Murray Vachon: Then you really have calm.
• 10:03
  KJ Murray Vachon: Then you could just watch the person doing it.
• 10:05
  KJ Murray Vachon: Yeah.
• 10:05
  KJ Murray Vachon: But I grab my feet and I lean against my car and I just relax.
• 10:10
  KJ Murray Vachon: And what you're really doing in cultivating calm is you're getting yourself in a relaxed state for a short period of time.
• 10:19
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
• 10:19
  Michelle Gauthier: And I think that's just something that we women, to your point, are not very apt to do.
• 10:26
  Michelle Gauthier: Because if I'm putting gas in my car, well, let me clean the trash out of my car or let me send a quick text to someone.
• 10:34
  Michelle Gauthier: And to your point, I think there's just a moment when you really learn how to be in the present that feels a certain way.
• 10:41
  Michelle Gauthier: And once you've done it and you felt it, even if it's for 30 seconds, it's like, oh, that's what they're talking about with being in the present.
• 10:49
  Michelle Gauthier: I really think your average woman could go through the whole day without being fully present anywhere.
• 10:55
  Michelle Gauthier: Right.
• 10:55
  Michelle Gauthier: Because you're always thinking about what do I have to do next?
• 10:57
  Michelle Gauthier: What did I forget to do?
• 10:59
  Michelle Gauthier: What can I get accomplished in this 30 seconds?
• 11:02
  Michelle Gauthier: I was actually thinking about you.
• 11:03
  Michelle Gauthier: I was just on vacation in Montana and I was truly in the wild, actually in the wild.
• 11:08
  Michelle Gauthier: Wow.
• 11:09
  Michelle Gauthier: And just taking a little walk.
• 11:11
  Michelle Gauthier: And I found myself really wanting to get out my phone and take a video and maybe post something.
• 11:17
  Michelle Gauthier: And I thought, oh my gosh, if I'm truly being calm in the wild, I don't have to share this with anyone.
• 11:23
  Michelle Gauthier: I don't have to take a picture to remember.
• 11:25
  Michelle Gauthier: I can just be here.
• 11:27
  Michelle Gauthier: And nobody wants to meditate.
• 11:29
  Michelle Gauthier: I don't know if I've ever successfully converted a client to be a meditator.
• 11:33
  Michelle Gauthier: I love meditation.
• 11:35
  Michelle Gauthier: I agree with you.
• 11:35
  Michelle Gauthier: It's so amazing.
• 11:36
  Michelle Gauthier: But watching your coffee for 40 seconds feels to me like you're accomplishing the same goal of meditation, which is to just only be present and see what you're seeing and not be thinking about before or after and just staying in the moment.
• 11:50
  Michelle Gauthier: So I just love your idea of being calm in the wild and just bringing presence to an ordinary everyday moment to calm the brain down.
• 11:59
  KJ Murray Vachon: And just to do the science behind it, we're integrating the mind and the nervous system.
• 12:04
  KJ Murray Vachon: And I think we've come a long way.
• 12:05
  KJ Murray Vachon: People know that it's our central nervous system that often gets dysregulated, but it's actually the mind that often is leading it.
• 12:13
  KJ Murray Vachon: Not always.
• 12:14
  KJ Murray Vachon: I mean, you can hear a big explosion and everything gets dysregulated, but it's the stories that we tell ourselves that I don't have 40 seconds to practice calm.
• 12:24
  KJ Murray Vachon: And the truth is, calm is something if we don't practice it when we don't need it, we won't have access to it when we do need it.
• 12:32
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
• 12:32
  KJ Murray Vachon: Like when our kid is pushing us over the edge.
• 12:34
  KJ Murray Vachon: And so it is really an intention.
• 12:38
  KJ Murray Vachon: And I don't mean that in a wee way.
• 12:40
  KJ Murray Vachon: I mean it that anything we do well in life, somewhere we've set the intention out.
• 12:45
  KJ Murray Vachon: I want to be a good parent.
• 12:46
  KJ Murray Vachon: I want to do my job well.
• 12:48
  KJ Murray Vachon: I want to be a good cook, whatever it is.
• 12:50
  KJ Murray Vachon: People have to begin to say to themselves, I want to be calmer.
• 12:54
  KJ Murray Vachon: We're not going for being Buddhist monks.
• 12:56
  KJ Murray Vachon: That's a whole different lifestyle.
• 12:58
  KJ Murray Vachon: But we are just realizing that in the past, 100 years ago, the lifestyle that people led made calm absolutely part of their day.
• 13:07
  KJ Murray Vachon: They walked places, the pace of life was slow.
• 13:10
  KJ Murray Vachon: There was no technology, which we know revs up our central nervous system.
• 13:14
  KJ Murray Vachon: And so I think we just have to do an update and outsmart a lifestyle that's making us sick.
• 13:20
  KJ Murray Vachon: And it doesn't cost anything.
• 13:22
  KJ Murray Vachon: I try to ask people to do it three times a day.
• 13:25
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
• 13:26
  Michelle Gauthier: No, I love it.
• 13:27
  KJ Murray Vachon: I probably do it five because I probably needed five.
• 13:29
  KJ Murray Vachon: But once people say, I'm going to try to do it three times a day for 30 or 40 seconds, and they do that for two or three weeks, it's just not that hard to do.
• 13:39
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
• 13:39
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
• 13:40
  Michelle Gauthier: If you think about the amount of time that you're asking for, that's like watching one dumb reel on Instagram.
• 13:47
  Michelle Gauthier: That's right.
• 13:47
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
• 13:48
  Michelle Gauthier: It's not, it's not committing a lot of time.
• 13:51
  Michelle Gauthier: I love this.
• 13:52
  Michelle Gauthier: I love this concept.
• 13:53
  Michelle Gauthier: I feel like this is an amazing addition to overwhelmed working women.
• 13:58
  Michelle Gauthier: And I totally encourage people to listen to your calm in midlife podcast as well.
• 14:04
  KJ Murray Vachon: Well, thank you.
• 14:08
  Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
• 14:11
  Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
• 14:17
  Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.