The Reality Between Us

The Reality Between Us explores what happens underneath relationships.

Through the lens of trauma, nervous systems, self-awareness, and relational patterns, Aja Rutledge examines the forces quietly shaping how we connect, conflict, communicate, avoid, trust, and make meaning of our experiences. Most relationship advice focuses on behavior. This podcast explores what’s driving the behavior.

Rather than offering formulas or quick fixes, The Reality Between Us looks beneath the surface of our relationships, with partners, family, friends, coworkers, and most importantly, ourselves, to understand the hidden dynamics influencing how we show up and why we keep repeating the patterns we do. Because what happens between people rarely starts between people. Most relationship advice is looking in one place. We’re going to look somewhere else.

Latest Episodes:

The Less Obvious Side of Self Trust | #14 Sep 30, 2026

Show notes

Self-trust isn’t something we develop once and never have to think about again. It’s an ongoing practice, and sometimes the places where we aren’t trusting ourselves aren’t immediately obvious.

We can see what is happening clearly, know how something is affecting us, and still override what we know by searching for more information, more understanding, or another explanation. We can also practice self-trust in the smallest everyday moments by responding to what we know we need instead of continually ignoring or questioning ourselves.

The more we practice responding to what we know, the more self-trust becomes something we actually move from rather than something we simply believe we have.

In this episode, we explore:

Why self-trust is something we continue to practice, even after we’ve worked to develop it.
How a lack of self-trust can show up in ways we may not immediately recognize.
Why seeking more understanding can sometimes become a way of overriding what we already know.
How responding to small signals from ourselves can help us practice self-trust.
Why trusting ourselves includes being willing to act on what we know, even when other people see things differently.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

“Why do you need more information? Does it change how you’re being treated right now? Does it change how you feel about how you’re being treated right now? Does it alter the impact that it’s having on you?”

“I trust myself to understand my experience in the world, and I trust myself to know that my experience is just as relevant and deserving as the next person’s experience.”

“Self-trust is not a mind thing. It’s a body and mind thing. You have to get to a place of being embodied because a lot of the time self-trust is going to show up in your body.”

“There are opportunities presented to us daily to practice that self-trust muscle, and whether it’s the tiniest opportunity like I need to go to the bathroom so let me get up right now and go, or a big opportunity like this relationship is not for my highest good and I need to walk, it’s all still a practice.”

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I’m thinking about and exploring: The Better Question

To get in touch about the show: ajarutledgecoaching@gmail.com

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Under the Influence of Shame | #13 Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

Shame can be shaping our lives without us even realizing it’s there. Unlike feelings we can easily recognize, shame can sit underneath our reactions, our beliefs about ourselves, and the way we interpret what is happening around us.

It can turn a mistake into evidence that something is wrong with us. It can change what we hear when someone brings a problem to us. And it can influence our relationships, the things we allow ourselves to receive, and even the things we say we want.

In this episode, we explore:

Why shame can be difficult to recognize even when it is having a significant impact on our lives.
How shame can become connected to other emotions and experiences.
How shame can influence self-sabotage and the things we believe we deserve.
Why shame can change how we hear and respond to other people in our relationships.
How self-compassion and questioning our own perceptions can begin to interrupt shame.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

“Shame is like one of those emotions that you really don’t know it’s coming into play. You really don’t understand the impact that it’s having on you.”

“Shame is what creates this perception of all-encompassing versus this one little issue that somebody addressed.”

“When you can question what you perceive reality to be, to quote-unquote fact check your reality, you can see if what you’re perceiving is adding up to.”

“Shame can direct your whole life.”

Resources / Further Reading

Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw
Embracing Shame: How to Stop Resisting Shame and Turn It into a Powerful Ally by Bret Lyon & Sheila Rubin
Center for Healing Shame founded by Bret Lyon & Sheila Rubin

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I’m thinking about and exploring: The Better Question

To get in touch about the show: ajarutledgecoaching@gmail.com

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

What You Don't Feel, Someone Else Will | #12 Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

We can avoid our feelings, refuse to talk about them, or convince ourselves they aren't affecting us. But that doesn't mean they've disappeared. Our feelings are still showing up in how we behave, how we respond to other people, and what happens between us in our relationships.

Feelings also give us information. And when we don't take the time to understand what they're telling us, we can end up responding to the person in front of us for something that isn't entirely about them.

In this episode, we explore:

Why avoiding or denying our feelings doesn't stop them from affecting our relationships.
How feelings can give us information about what's happening within us.
Why being unable to sit with our own feelings can make it difficult to hold space for someone else's.
How trying to fix, minimize, or move someone through a feeling can sometimes be about our own discomfort with what they're feeling.
Why the person who triggers a feeling isn't always the person the feeling is actually about.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

“A person who cannot hold their own feelings cannot hold your feelings. And that is not a dig. That is not shaming anybody. That is the truth.”

“Instead of him sitting with his own discomfort around that, he kept trying to fix my quote unquote problem. But I didn't have a problem. I had a feeling and I was willing to feel the feeling.”

“Feelings are always giving us data. And when we refuse to look at the data, we can use what is coming at us and put it onto people around us when it really doesn't have anything to do with them.”

“Just because somebody did something that initiates a feeling within us, doesn't mean they're the problem all the time. So we have to be able to process the data so that we can be more accurate with ourselves and we can engage relationally with those around us in a more accurate, caring and kind way.”

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Join me over on Substack at The Better Question for more of what I’m thinking about and exploring. https://ajarutledge.substack.com/

To get in touch about the show: ajarutledgecoaching@gmail.com

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

What We’re Missing About Attachment | #11 Sep 09, 2026

Show notes

Attachment styles have become part of how we talk about relationships. We hear about anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, secure attachment, and often use those labels to explain why someone behaves the way they do.

But attachment is more complicated than a label or what happened between us and one primary caregiver. Our nervous systems learn how to find safety within much larger environments, and those adaptations can continue operating beneath our awareness, shaping not only how we move through relationships but what happens between us and the people we're in them with.

In this episode, we explore:

What attachment styles are and how they operate at a nervous-system level.
How our environments, experiences, social conditioning, and other influences can shape the way we learn to attach.
How different attachment styles develop around what our nervous systems have learned about safety and connection.
Why behaviors that look similar on the surface can come from very different places underneath.
How different attachment patterns can interact with one another and create relational cycles that are difficult to recognize when we don't know what's happening.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

“It's also about how the child receives it and what your nervous system learns is the easiest, fastest way to get to what feels safe for you. That doesn't mean that's what is safe. That is not the same thing as what, in a securely attached person, would deem as safe. It's saying what is safe for you.”

“There’s this really false binary narrative out there that says if your primary caregiver was horrible and critical and this and that, then you have this attachment style. And it’s not that simple. It’s not that black and white.”

“Many times what is happening is it's a cycle that something in their attachment style triggers something in your attachment style, which makes you escalate, which then makes them escalate to pulling back, and now it's this whole big thing where we just keep escalating. So it's playing off of each other.”

Resources / Further Reading

I don't usually include resources with episodes, but these are a few of the books that have informed some of the connections I'm making here. They explore different pieces of how our early experiences, environments, nervous systems, culture, shame, and other influences can shape us. They aren't necessarily talking about attachment in the same way I'm connecting these ideas here, but they offer more context for some of what I'm drawing from in this conversation.

Decolonizing Therapy by Jennifer Mullan, PsyD
The Orchid and the Dandelion by W. Thomas Boyce, MD
Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

To connect, ask a question, or share your thoughts, email: ajarutledgecoaching@gmail.com.

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

The Complexity of Feeling Safe | #10 Sep 02, 2026

Show notes

Safety is one of those things we think we understand. We know what it means to be physically safe, and we may even know what emotional or psychological safety is supposed to look like. But knowing what safety is and actually feeling safe aren't always the same thing.

Our experiences teach our nervous systems what to recognize as familiar, and sometimes what feels familiar isn't actually safe. Those experiences can shape the environments we're drawn to, how we respond to the people around us, and even which versions of ourselves are available in different relationships.

In this episode, we explore:

The difference between external safety and the safety we create within ourselves.
How our early environments shape what our nervous systems learn to recognize as safety.
Why calm and steadiness can feel unsafe when we're accustomed to chaos or intensity.
How our own nervous system state can shape the environment we create for our children and other people around us.
Why the same person can show up very differently depending on how safe they feel in a relationship.
How we can mistake someone's protective behavior for simply being who they are.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

“Your brain is always going to find what it knows. That doesn’t mean it’s what’s best. It’s just what it knows. And your nervous system is going to attune to what it knows until you do the work to teach it something new.”

“It’s wild how we perceive safety on a level that we are not even fully aware of. And how much that if we are in an environment that is quote-unquote not safe to us, we will go recreate our safety, or we will leave that environment to go find what is comfortable.”

“Safety dictates how you show up. And so sometimes, you know, we want to be quick to be like, ‘Oh, this person has the attitude’ or ‘Every time they come over here, they’re super closed off.’ And we think that’s them. And sometimes it is, but also there’s times where it’s you. It’s you who has created an environment where they don’t feel safe. And so they show up in a way that’s protective. That’s not who they are all the time. That’s not how they move through the world. That’s not how they are when they feel safe.”

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

To connect, ask a question, or share your thoughts, email: ajarutledgecoaching@gmail.com.

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

What Hope Won't Let You See | #9 Aug 26, 2026

Show notes

Hope is usually seen as a good thing. It keeps us going. It gives us something to believe in. But sometimes hope can also keep us in situations when everything happening right now is telling us something different.

Sometimes we see people's behavior clearly and still hold onto who we know they could be. We explain things away, focus on the good moments, and keep hoping that eventually those moments will become the norm. But at some point, we have to be willing to look at the actual data.

In this episode, we explore:

Why some of us struggle to believe people's behavior over their potential.
What happens when hope starts overriding the actual data in a relationship.
The difference between someone's potential and their willingness to actually live up to it.
How familiar relationship dynamics can keep us from seeing what's actually happening.
Why radical acceptance can help us make decisions based on what is happening now, not what we hope will happen.
How ignoring or filtering out information keeps us from making truly informed decisions about our relationships.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

"Hope can become dangerous because hope will keep you there when there's no evidence telling you that you should be staying there."

"Some people might have potential, but that doesn't mean they want to exercise the ability to get there."

"Your toxic hope overrides the data that's telling you whether they want to do that work or not."

"Sometimes the behaviors or the data tells us a story we really don't want to see. Sometimes it tells us a story that's really hard to sit with but that doesn't mean that it's not happening anyway."

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

To connect, ask a question, or share your thoughts, email: ajarutledgecoaching@gmail.com.

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Wanting the Relationship Is the Easy Part | #8 Aug 19, 2026

Show notes

Wanting a relationship doesn't mean you're equipped to have one.

We spend a lot of time thinking about the relationships we want, the kind of people we want in our lives, and what we want those relationships to give us. But how often do we stop and consider what we're bringing into them? Wanting the thing is the easy part. Being able to create and sustain it is something else.

In this episode, we explore:

Why wanting a relationship doesn't automatically mean you're ready for one.
The difference between deserving healthy relationships and being equipped to participate in them.
Why relationships require us to consider the impact we're having on other people.
What it means to consider the experience of being in relationship with you.
Whether you're the person the person you want would actually want.
Why it's worth questioning what we're asking relationships to fulfill for us.
How entering relationships without considering our readiness can leave real damage behind.
The skills and maturity it takes to create and sustain healthy relationships.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

"Just because you want a thing doesn't mean you are equipped to have the thing."

"Do you consider what the experience of you is to others? Like do you ever sit and ask, hey, what's it like to be my friend? What's it like to be in a relationship with me? What's it like to be my child?"

"I think everybody deserves healthy relationships. I think everybody wants them and that's fair and everybody deserves them and that's fair but everybody is not ready."

"Relationships are major decisions and we don't treat them as if they are. We treat them as if they're experiences we get to jump into and jump out of when it's convenient for us."

"The thing is you can leave some relationships but what trail are you leaving behind you?"

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

To connect, ask a question, or share your thoughts, email: ajarutledgecoaching@gmail.com.

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Validation Isn't the Problem. You Are. | #7 Aug 12, 2026

Show notes

Validation and agreement are not the same thing.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that if we acknowledge another person's experience, we're saying they're right. But what if validation simply means making room for their reality without abandoning your own?

In this episode, we explore:

Why validation and agreement are not the same thing.
Why validation is often the first step toward repair.
What gets in the way of validating another person's experience.
Why conflict continues when both people are only fighting to be understood.
How making room for another person's reality doesn't require abandoning your own.
Why repair requires both people to feel heard and received.
The role validation plays both inside and outside of conflict.
Why some people seem to experience validation as something threatening.
The questions to ask yourself when validation feels difficult.
How slowing down creates space for different responses in moments of conflict.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

"Validation absolutely does not mean I agree with what you're saying. But it does mean I hear you. I get that's where you are."

"I do think people are protecting something...and it's getting in the way of mutual relationship and being able to repair and move forward."

"The way forward is through repair."

"Challenge yourself to see the situation from the other person's experience, not through your lens, because those are not the same things."

The Reality You're Responding To | #6 Aug 05, 2026

Show notes

How many times have you been absolutely certain you knew what someone meant...only to find out later that's not what was happening at all?

In this episode, we're exploring how the state we're in changes what we think we're seeing. Because sometimes we're responding to what's actually happening. And sometimes we're responding to the lens we're looking through. Learning the difference can change our relationships...and ourselves.

In this episode

Why two people can experience the same interaction and walk away with completely different realities.
How the state you're in changes what you think is happening.
Why slowing down before reacting matters.
What it looks like to recognize when someone else's state is driving the interaction.
Simple ways to start noticing the state you're bringing into your day.

Episode Thoughts To Sit With

"You and the person are literally in two different realities thinking you're in the same reality."

"The state is the way you perceive the world."

"Don't observe yourself and then chastise yourself or criticize yourself. We're literally just observing."

"Sometimes they are too activated in their own stuff...that doesn't mean you have to be."

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

To connect, ask a question, or share your thoughts, email: ajarutledgecoaching@gmail.com.

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.

Seeing What’s There | #5 Jul 29, 2026

Show notes

People often ask whether someone is the right person for them. But we don't spend nearly enough time asking whether that person has the capacity to meet us where we are.

In this episode, we explore why understanding another person's relationship with themselves tells us more about the relationship that's possible than what they say they want. We look at how to recognize emotional capacity, why people can't meet us in places they can't meet themselves, and why accepting where someone actually is can be one of the kindest things we do, for them and for ourselves.

We explore:

Why the depth of a relationship is shaped by each person's relationship with themselves.
What it means to assess someone's capacity instead of judging them.
How to recognize when someone can, or can't, meet you where you are.
Why emotional intimacy begins with intimacy with yourself.
The difference between accepting where someone is and trying to change them.
Why forcing people beyond their capacity creates suffering for both people.
How self-awareness helps us communicate honestly about what we can and cannot give.
Why understanding another person's capacity helps us build healthier relationships.
How compassion and discernment can exist at the same time.

Episode Thoughts to Sit With

"We need to understand where other people are so we can understand what type of dynamic we can have with them, so that we're not beating our own heads up against the wall. So we're not trying to create something that's not creatable."

"It's important to know where you are with that because it is also unkind for somebody else to be looking for depth from you. And if you can't give it, it's unkind for you to act like you can... We have to have the self-awareness to assess where we are, assess what our capabilities are, and be honest."

"It is unkind of us to expect someone to be able to meet us in a place where they can't meet themselves."

"Sometimes in relationships, no one is to blame. People are just where they are."

"It's kinder to say, 'I see where you are. This is where I am. These places just don't align at this time in our lives.' I respect that, and I hope you can respect that too."

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it.

To connect, ask a question, or share your thoughts, email: ajarutledgecoaching@gmail.com.

Thank you for listening to The Reality Between Us.