The Space Between with Alyson Rixner

What if making room for someone who disagrees with you has become a revolutionary act?

In this episode, Alyson explores the power of AND: the ability to hold competing perspectives without surrendering discernment, and to question what you believe without losing yourself.

She reflects on polarization, the beliefs we attach to our identities, and the way constant conflict can keep us from asking bigger questions. Then she brings the AND into her own life, sharing the fear and excitement of change, the tenderness of watching her parents age, and the vulnerability of being seen. Holding space for a different belief is not the same as agreeing with it. It is an invitation to practice discernment, recognize what we do not know, and find a way forward without abandoning ourselves.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why opposing beliefs feel threatening when they become part of our identity
• The difference between considering another perspective and endorsing it
• How triggers and the "mirror" can reveal something about our own reactions
• What division can prevent us from noticing about systems, incentives, and shared concerns
• Questioning authority while recognizing the need for structure and personal responsibility
• Fear AND excitement, readiness AND resistance, confidence AND uncertainty
• How vulnerability and being seen are shaping Alyson's work and the podcast
• What might become possible when people with different views work toward common solutions
• "I believe X and I'm also willing to question that belief."
• "I can trust myself and recognize that there are so many things I don't know."

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

The Inner Compass, the app from numerologist and energetic strategist Jessica Cerato https://www.jessicacerato.com/app

CONNECT WITH THE SPACE BETWEEN

Website https://spacebetweenpod.com

Show Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tsb_alysonrixner/

Alyson's Instagram https://www.instagram.com/alysonrixner/

Substack https://substack.com/@alysonrixner

The Space Between Episode 44: Finding Safety Within with Dr. Talia Shafir, Somatic Psychologist

Safety is not just a feeling. It is a biological state, one the body decides before the mind ever gets a vote. In this episode, Alyson sits down with returning guest Dr. Talia Shafir, a somatic psychologist, to explore why so many of us feel unsteady right now, and what it actually takes to feel grounded again.

This conversation goes beneath the surface of anxiety and overwhelm to look at how the nervous system learns safety in the first place, why those early patterns can follow us for decades, and how the body itself, not just the mind, holds the key to changing them. Talia and Alyson talk through the difference between managing a crisis and actually healing the patterns underneath it, and why real safety is built in relationship, not in isolation.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why the body often knows we're unsafe before the mind does
• How early relationships teach the nervous system what safety feels like, and why those patterns are so hard to unlearn
• The difference between personal safety, bodily regulation, and real-world danger
• Why proximity, attunement, and emotional accessibility matter more than we realize
• How something as simple as a phone can keep the nervous system stuck in an external loop
• What the body remembers, and how physical tension can hold onto old experiences
• Practical, in-the-moment ways to return to the body when anxiety takes over
• Why reassurance and staying present with another person can be part of healing, not a workaround
• "You can earn your security."
• "Keep yourself in the frame."

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

BodyNamics, the body-oriented psychotherapy approach referenced in the conversation

CONNECT WITH DR. TALIA SHAFIR

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/talia-b-shafir-66174159

CONNECT WITH THE SPACE BETWEEN

Website

https://spacebetweenpod.com

Show Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/tsb_alysonrixner/

Alyson's Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/alysonrixner/

Substack

https://substack.com/@alysonrixner

What happens when something that once belonged in our life no longer fits who we are now?

In this episode, Alyson examines the quiet and sometimes sudden ways we outgrow identities, beliefs, habits, relationships, definitions of success, and former versions of ourselves. This isn't a story about rejecting the past. It's about recognizing when something has completed its role, allowing ourselves to grieve what mattered, and learning how to remain in the empty space before we know what comes next.

The discomfort isn't only in letting go. It's in knowing something no longer resonates while still feeling attached to what it once gave us: safety, identity, belonging, fun, certainty, accomplishment, connection, or familiarity. That gap is The Space Between in its clearest form. We can't fully return to what was, but the new thing hasn't yet arrived.

In This Episode

• Why growth creates moments when something can feel deeply woven into our identity while no longer feeling true
• Control as an illusion of safety, and what it means to finally trust herself to handle what comes
• Busyness and productivity as a measure of worth, and why exhaustion isn't proof of value
• The club kid she used to be, and why that version of fun no longer fits who she is today
• The cost of needing to be right, and what opened up when she chose curiosity instead
• How spiritual, religious, cultural, and political identities can stop aligning with who we've become
• Grieving things that aren't people: former selves, relationships, memories, and entire chapters of life
• The empty space that comes after letting go, before anything new has arrived
• Choosing what fits now instead of rushing to fill the gap
• Why self-trust, not certainty, is what carries us through transformation
• "Some things that no longer fit I actually miss."
• "That way of life doesn't fit the woman that I am today. It's still part of who I am, but it no longer resonates the way that it did."
• "Just because it's not a person doesn't mean that you can't grieve."
• "I keep becoming the woman that I came here to be, the person that I came here to be, the soul that I came here to be."
• "What feels like me now?"

Connect with The Space Between

Website

https://spacebetweenpod.com

Show Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/tsb_alysonrixner/

Alyson's Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/alysonrixner/

Substack

https://substack.com/@alysonrixner

When did we start believing that someone else knows what is right for us better than we do?

In this episode, Alyson steps back to examine a thread that has quietly emerged throughout Season 3: the ways we outsource our authority and place other people, institutions, experts, mentors, celebrities, influencers, and spiritual leaders above ourselves.

Drawing from her own experiences with leadership, mentorship, social media, wellness culture, spirituality, business, and consumption, Alyson explores how easily guidance can become dependence and admiration can become a pedestal.

The answer isn't to stop learning from people, trusting expertise, or admiring others. It's to recognize the moment someone else's voice becomes louder than our own. Because underneath the conversation about authority is a much more personal question: when did we stop trusting ourselves?

In This Episode

• Why Alyson started questioning who and what she's placed above herself
• Growing up in a family that taught her to question authority
• Losing her own voice under militaristic management early in her sales career
• What abusive leadership in tech taught her about power and control
• The institutions we've trusted for generations, and why so many feel like they're cracking
• Realizing the mentors who once guided her couldn't chart the path for who she'd become
• How social media created an endless supply of experts, gurus, and people claiming to know best
• The pedestal of consumption, from influencer culture to a decade of dark wood furniture going in and out of style
• Watching spiritual leaders fall from the pedestals we built for them
• Learning to dismantle the pedestal without dismantling the person
• "I'm taking apart the pedestal, not the people."
• "My own intuition and my own inner compass are the only mentor I need in my life."
• "Who are you putting above yourself and why?"

Connect with The Space Between

Website

https://spacebetweenpod.com

Show Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/tsb_alysonrixner/

Alyson's Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/alysonrixner/

Substack

https://substack.com/@alysonrixner

How much power have we given to the wealthy? Danielle and James Styron, authors of The Mile High Club, join Alyson to go behind the curtain of the "elite" class and examine money, status, power, and how we unwittingly helped create this staggering concentration of wealth.

Danielle spent nearly eight years as a private flight attendant, serving billionaires, celebrities, and some of the wealthiest people in the world. What she witnessed challenged the mythology around wealth and success: people who had everything, yet could be deeply unhappy, entitled, and willing to dehumanize the people whose labor made their lives possible. This conversation goes beyond exposing bad behavior. It asks what happens when we finally see behind the curtain and realize the people standing on the pedestal may never have belonged there in the first place.

In This Episode

• Danielle's turn from a sudden job loss to nearly eight years as a private flight attendant
• Turning years of notes and stories into The Mile High Club
• What "having everything" really looks like behind closed doors
• The housekeeper who helped raise a family but was never treated as one of them
• How proximity to wealth can convince people to protect systems that don't serve them
• Why money becomes status, and status becomes power
• The unspoken social contract between the wealthy and the people who serve them
• Recognizing our own complicity in the systems we criticize
• What it actually takes to stop playing along
• Turning the mirror back on ourselves
• "Their system only works because we're complicit."

Mentioned in this episode

The Mile High Club: Confessions of a Private Jet Flight Attendant

https://www.the-mhc.com/

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Mile-High-Club/Danielle-Styron/9798895650189

Connect with Danielle & James Styron

Danielle's Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/daniellestyron/

James's Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/thejjbaberams/

Connect with The Space Between

Website

https://spacebetweenpod.com

Show Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/tsb_alysonrixner/

Alyson's Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/alysonrixner/

Substack

https://substack.com/@alysonrixner

Who are you when the roles you've built your life around begin to fall away? In this deeply personal conversation, astrologer and longtime friend Darryl Gaines joins Alyson to explore identity, belonging, spirituality, career, and the quiet process of coming home to yourself. They dig into why the most meaningful transformations often begin when we're willing to let go of who we thought we had to be.

• Why identity is always evolving throughout our lives
• Growing up in a strict Jehovah's Witness household
• Finding purpose through astrology without becoming defined by it
• Leaving successful careers behind and beginning again
• The rise and fall of boutique fitness and SoulCycle
• Why true power is quiet
• The difference between belonging and fitting in
• How discernment helps us navigate life's transitions
• Why service is often the path back to ourselves
• Learning to embrace uncertainty instead of fearing it
• "True power is always quiet."

Mentioned in this episode

Spin Wars (Tribeca Film Festival)

https://tribecafilm.com/films/spin-wars-2026

Connect with Darryl Gaines

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/guidingplanet/

Website

https://www.guidingplanet.co/

Connect with The Space Between

Website

https://spacebetweenpod.com

Show Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/tsb_alysonrixner/

Alyson's Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/alysonrixner/

Substack

https://substack.com/@alysonrixner

There are moments in history when everything begins to shift beneath our feet. The stories we've believed, the systems we've trusted, even the identities we've built. In this episode, Alyson explores what she believes is a collective awakening already underway, using the rare astrological alignment of July 29, 2026 as a backdrop for a much bigger question: not what's coming next, but what we actually believe now that the old stories are starting to crack.

This isn't an astrology episode. It's an invitation to examine the invisible operating system. The beliefs about success, productivity, leadership, and identity that we inherited from family, culture, and institutions and rarely think to question.

Alyson walks through the systems she sees cracking (healthcare, education, politics, consumerism, corporate culture) and gets personal about how she's rewriting her own definitions of success, leadership, and rest, including which businesses she builds, who gets her attention, and what she chooses to financially support.

In this episode:

• What "awakening" actually means: becoming conscious of reality, not escaping it
• The invisible operating system shaping how we think, work, and live
• Why so many systems no longer feel like they serve humanity
• Rest as resistance to a culture built on constant productivity
• How to tell the difference between what's true for you and what you were conditioned to believe
• "Before we can even start thinking about what is true, we have to look at what is no longer true."

Mentioned in this episode:

Steve Judd's Aquarius Full Moon analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJDyzDXtxyE

Episode on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/i5KF31N10lk

Connect with The Space Between:

Website

https://spacebetweenpod.com

Show Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/tsb_alysonrixner/

Alyson's Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/alysonrixner/

Substack

https://substack.com/@alysonrixner

Have you ever known something before you could explain it?

In this episode of The Space Between, Alyson sits down with retired Army Colonel, registered nurse, author, and psychic medium Catherine Nadal for a conversation about intuition, grief, spirituality, and learning to trust the quiet voice within ourselves.

Rather than asking you to believe in psychic abilities or mediumship, this conversation invites you to stay curious. Catherine shares how intuitive experiences first appeared during childhood, the challenges of growing up in a strict Roman Catholic family, and the unlikely path that led her to serve as both an Army Colonel and a psychic medium. Together, Alyson and Catherine explore grief, the lasting impact of COVID, past life regression, and why our deepest knowing often exists beyond logic.

Whether you're navigating loss, questioning old beliefs, or simply wondering if there's more to this human experience than we can explain, this episode offers space for curiosity, reflection, and connection.

• Catherine shares the childhood experience that awakened her intuitive gifts.
• The remarkable blue crab story that taught her to trust her inner knowing.
• Growing up in a strict Roman Catholic household while experiencing psychic phenomena.
• Balancing a career as a registered nurse, Army Colonel, and psychic medium.
• Why Catherine's father insisted she pursue formal certification before working publicly.
• The difference between psychic readings and mediumship.
• Alyson shares her own experience with past life regression.
• How COVID reshaped our relationship with grief and spirituality.
• Catherine's unforgettable "wheat field" story and what it taught her about death.
• Why curiosity may be more valuable than certainty.

Catherine Nadal is a retired Army Colonel, registered nurse, psychic medium, coffee reader, author, and radio host. After decades of serving others through healthcare and military leadership, she now helps people navigate grief, intuition, and spiritual connection through readings, education, books, and speaking.

Website

https://dreamcentralstation.com

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/catwitchnyc/

Books

• Seeing More Than Clouds in Your Coffee
• She Danced by the Light of the Moon

• Arthur Findlay College
• Forever Family Foundation
• Grief.com
• Past Life Regression

Website

https://spacebetweenpod.com

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/alysonrixner

Substack

https://substack.com/@alysonrixner

00:00 Introduction

01:22 Catherine's first psychic experience

04:45 Living two very different lives

07:50 Why her father demanded validation

14:15 Intuition, family, and spiritual lineage

18:35 Past lives and soul memory

20:20 Grief, mediumship, and the pandemic

29:15 Why COVID changed everything

40:05 Rethinking death and the afterlife

44:10 The wheat field story

52:30 Trusting what you've always known

56:00 Where to find Catherine

Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-space-between/id1717249058

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/0LQ9kLQqR9h6rW4VQmX5mW

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@tsb_alysonrixner

If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who might need it today.

What happens when the people who have shaped your thinking no longer align with your values?

There comes a moment when the mentors, celebrities, teachers, and public figures we've admired begin to look different. Sometimes it's because new information comes to light. Sometimes it's because we've changed. Either way, the pedestal begins to crack.

In this deeply personal episode, Alyson reflects on her relationship with music producer Rick Rubin after discovering information that challenged the way she had viewed his work and influence. Rather than focusing on one person, she explores the deeper invitation this moment offers all of us: learning to discern who and what we give our power to.

As old systems continue to unravel, this conversation asks us to reconsider where we've outsourced our authority, what happens when those we admire disappoint us, and why coming home to ourselves may be the greatest act of sovereignty in these transformational times.

• Why we place people on pedestals
• Discernment in an age of constant information
• Holding two truths at the same time
• Processing grief when our perspective changes
• Outsourcing our power to experts, celebrities, and institutions
• Why this moment is inviting us back to ourselves
• The difference between inspiration and idolization
• Finding your own inner authority

• Rick Rubin
• Peter Thiel
• Russell Simmons
• Jay-Z

• The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

• Discernment
• Sovereignty
• Projection
• Creator consciousness
• Pedestals
• Collective awakening
• Astrology and collective cycles
• Power and influence

"What do we do when the people that we put up on pedestals fall?"

"Two things are true."

"You are the guide. You are the guru. You are the leader."

• You're questioning who or what you've given your authority to.
• You're learning to trust your own discernment.
• You've experienced disappointment with someone you once admired.
• You're navigating the tension between gratitude and truth.
• You're exploring what it means to come home to yourself.

Website

https://www.spacebetweenpod.com

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/alysonrixner/

The Space Between Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/tsb_alysonrixner/

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@TSB_AlysonRixner

Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-space-between-with-alyson-rixner/id1717520952

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/7mhCNPVCOwnfw1IA3VvGXZ

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@TSB_AlysonRixner

If this conversation resonated with you, follow The Space Between wherever you listen to podcasts and consider sharing this episode with someone navigating their own season of change. Every conversation helps us make sense of the world and our place within it.

https://youtu.be/_95ZydCasIc

What if the uncertainty so many of us are feeling isn't the end of something, but the beginning of something new?

In this conversation, Alyson sits down with astrologer Victoria Kray to explore the larger cycles shaping our world and why so many of the systems we've relied on no longer feel stable. Rather than predicting the future, Victoria offers a perspective on this moment in history through the lens of astrology, inviting us to see today's challenges as part of a much larger transformation.

Power. Institutions. Community. Personal responsibility. These ideas sit at the heart of this conversation as Alyson and Victoria examine what it means to navigate uncertainty without losing ourselves in it. They challenge the extraction, fear, and disconnection that have defined so many of our systems and ask a different question: What becomes possible when we reclaim our own authority?

Whether you're deeply familiar with astrology or simply trying to make sense of the world around you, this conversation offers a hopeful framework for understanding change and remembering that every great transition invites us to build something new.

• Why so many of our institutions no longer feel trustworthy
• How astrology helps us understand larger collective cycles
• The relationship between money, status, and power
• How patriarchy and late-stage capitalism shape modern life
• Why community may become our greatest source of resilience
• The difference between fear, awareness, and discernment
• How to reclaim your own authority during uncertain times
• Why the crumbling may be making way for something new

Victoria Kray is an astrologer, educator, and the founder of Victory Astrology and Vega Jewelry. Her work blends astrology, history, psychology, and cultural observation to help people understand the larger cycles shaping both their personal lives and the collective.

Known for her direct and deeply researched perspective, Victoria isn't interested in bypassing reality or offering easy answers. She challenges people to question the systems they've inherited, examine the relationship between money, status, and power, and recognize the ways extraction, patriarchy, and late-stage capitalism have shaped the world around us. Through that awareness, she believes we can begin building something different.

Victoria Kray, Victory Astrology

Website: https://www.victoryastrology.com

Instagram: @victoryastrology

Vega Jewelry

Website: https://www.vegajewelry.com

Instagram: @vegajewelry

People

• Richard Tarnas
• Carl Jung
• Peter Thiel

Concepts

• Pluto in Aquarius
• The Age of Aquarius
• Collective consciousness
• Personal sovereignty
• Community resilience
• Patriarchy
• Late-stage capitalism
• Conscious evolution

Books

• Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas

"Evolution cannot be stopped."

"This is the most exciting and scary time to be alive."

"How can you take back some of your power that you feel has slipped away in these crumbling systems?"

• You're questioning the systems you've always trusted.
• You're curious about astrology as a framework for understanding change.
• You're looking for language to make sense of the world we're living in.
• You're interested in power, consciousness, and collective transformation.
• You're wondering what becomes possible when old structures begin to fall away.

Website: www.spacebetweenpod.com

Instagram: @alysonrixner

The Space Between: @tsb_alysonrixner

YouTube: @TSB_AlysonRixner

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

YouTube

https://youtu.be/Ykhc10RxiZk

If this conversation resonated with you, follow The Space Between wherever you listen to podcasts and consider sharing this episode with someone navigating their own season of change. Every conversation helps us make sense of the world and our place within it.