The Wired for Well-Being Podcast

Dr. Jeffrey Rutstein
  • 4.9 (19)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Daily

Wired for Well-Being is a podcast devoted to viewing our lives through a nervous system perspective—so we can better understand what’s really happening inside us and how to shift it. Hosted by Dr. Jeffrey Rutstein, a clinical psychologist with over 40 years of experience treating trauma, dissociation, chronic pain, and chronic illness, the podcast takes you beyond theory and into real-life application. Each episode includes listener questions about the struggles we all face—relationships, healing journeys, fear, overwhelm, or anger—and offers fresh insights from the science of the nervous system. With warmth and clarity, Jeffrey unpacks what’s going on beneath the surface: why certain situations trigger us, how old patterns linger in the body, and what it actually takes to move toward healing and connection.  Joined by producer and friend Steve Lessard, Jeffrey brings compassion, practical tools, and decades of clinical wisdom to every conversation. The goal is simple but profound: to help you stop seeing yourself as broken, and instead discover how you are inherently wired for well-being, resilience, and deeper connection.

  1. 8h ago

    They're Not Checked Out. They Don't Feel Safe

    Join Jeffrey’s free live webinar, “The Disguises of Shame,” Tuesday, October 20 at 8 p.m. ET. Register at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. What do you do when someone you love is sitting right in front of you, and somehow isn’t there? In this episode, Jeffrey and Steve answer a voicemail from Christy. Someone in her life seems far away from themselves. Cut off from their feelings. Cut off from their body. She wants to know how to invite them back. Jeffrey explains how dissociating isn’t indifference, and it isn’t a choice. It’s our nervous system telling us something doesn’t feel safe. For most of us it’s been doing that job since childhood, quietly enough that we stopped noticing. It shows up in the memory that’s simply gone, and in the Friday night that disappears into the TV. This episode is about what that distance is asking for, and why pulling harder almost never brings anyone closer, including ourselves. Learn how shame shapes more of your life than you realize. Join Jeffrey’s free live webinar, “The Disguises of Shame: Hidden Ways That Are Holding You Back,” on Tuesday, October 20 at 8 p.m. Eastern. Register at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. Have a question you’d like answered on the podcast? Call (866) 357-5156 or email hello@drjeffreyrutstein.com — we would love to feature it in a future episode. This podcast is for informational purposes only and isn’t a substitute for professional mental or physical health care. If you’re struggling, please reach out to a qualified healthcare provider.

  2. Oct 10

    You Call It Regret — It’s Shame Hiding the Good

    Join Jeffrey’s free webinar, “The Many Disguises of Shame,” at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. In this episode, Jeffrey and Steve answer an email from an anonymous listener. The writer has a wonderful life: retired, a great marriage, close to the kids. But at bedtime the old mistakes line up. A rude remark to a classmate, nearly fifty years ago. The kind things never make the list. Most of us take that nightly review at its word. It feels like proof of who we are. Jeffrey names what’s actually running it: shame. And shame plays by its own rules. It doesn’t care that we were a kid, or tired, or that the other person forgot within a week. This episode is about what our nervous system is trying to protect when it does this, and why answering it with evidence never works. If you’ve ever winced at something you said decades ago, this conversation is for you. Want to go deeper? Join Jeffrey’s free live webinar, “The Many Disguises of Shame: The Hidden Ways You’re Being Held Back.” Sign up at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. Have a question you’d like answered on the podcast? Call (866) 357-5156 or email hello@drjeffreyrutstein.com — we would love to feature it in a future episode. This podcast is for informational purposes only and isn’t a substitute for professional mental or physical health care. If you’re struggling, please reach out to a qualified healthcare provider.

  3. Oct 3

    Catching the Shame That's Been Running Your Life

    Join Jeffrey and Steve for a free live webinar on shame, Tuesday, October 20, at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. What if some of the things you've always called your personality are really ways you learned to make yourself small? In this episode, Jeffrey and Steve get into shame. Steve brings his own story: one offhand comment from Jeffrey that showed him something he'd been doing his whole life, something he'd always thought was just who he was. Shame rarely feels like shame. It feels like being easy-going. Not needing much. Getting everything just right. Saying yes before anyone finishes asking. For most of us it has worked for years, so well that we'd call it one of our better qualities. Jeffrey says it plainly about his own people-pleasing: it was nice for everyone else. It wasn't so nice for him. This episode is about what shame looks like when it's hiding in plain sight, and why trying harder on ourselves never quite gets us out of it.  Want to go deeper? Join Jeffrey and Steve for a free live webinar on how shame hides and how it shapes us across a lifetime. Tuesday, October 20, 8 pm Eastern / 5 pm Pacific. Register at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. Have a question you'd like answered on the podcast? Call (866) 357-5156 or email hello@drjeffreyrutstein.com — we would love to feature it in a future episode. This podcast is for informational purposes only and isn't a substitute for professional mental or physical health care. If you're struggling, please reach out to a qualified healthcare provider.

  4. Sep 26

    Self-Compassion: The Key That Unlocks Our Healing

    Get Jeffrey's free 20-minute video, "Why Do I Feel Stuck?" at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. What if being hard on yourself has never once made you better at anything? In this episode, Jeffrey and Steve get into self-compassion. Steve brought the question himself. Editing the last few episodes, he kept hearing the same answer sitting underneath Jeffrey's other answers, and he wanted to know what's actually happening in the nervous system when we turn on ourselves. Most of us are running on an idea we never chose: that being hard on ourselves is what keeps us honest. It has a logic to it. Get there first, and nobody else can get there before us. And it doesn't always sound like a voice — for a lot of us it's quieter than that. The break we don't take. The rest we don't allow. Jeffrey says something here worth sitting with: we'll call ourselves flexible people, and be completely rigid about the one relationship we can never leave. This episode is about what that rigidity costs us, and why saying kinder things to ourselves usually isn't what changes it. If you've ever gotten to the end of a long day and still couldn't let yourself stop, this conversation is for you. Want tools to help you move from dysregulation toward regulation? Grab Jeffrey's free 20-minute video, "Why Do I Feel Stuck?" at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. Have a question you'd like answered on the podcast? Call (866) 357-5156 or email hello@drjeffreyrutstein.com — we would love to feature it in a future episode. This podcast is for informational purposes only and isn't a substitute for professional mental or physical health care. If you're struggling, please reach out to a qualified healthcare provider.

  5. Sep 19

    Get Out of the Worry Loop by Getting Into Your Body

    Get Jeffrey's free 20-minute video, "Why Do I Feel Stuck?" at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. Have you ever tried to talk yourself out of worrying, and ended up worrying about why you can't stop? In this episode, Jeffrey and Steve answer a voicemail from Jasmine. She's losing her housing, may lose her small business, and is living with long COVID. She ruminates day and night, even during guided meditations. She's asking for more profound tools to make it stop. When the problem is real, rumination feels like the responsible thing to do. Something this big deserves our attention, right? But the loop keeps checking the same few places for an answer that isn't there yet. This episode is about what our nervous system is really trying to do when it won't let go, and why fighting the thoughts rarely quiets them. If you've ever lain awake with a problem you can't think your way out of, this conversation is for you. Want tools to help you move from dysregulation toward regulation? Grab Jeffrey's free 20-minute video, "Why Do I Feel Stuck?" at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. Have a question you'd like answered on the podcast? Call (866) 357-5156 or email hello@drjeffreyrutstein.com — we would love to feature it in a future episode. This podcast is for informational purposes only and isn't a substitute for professional mental or physical health care. If you're struggling, please reach out to a qualified healthcare provider.

  6. Sep 12

    The Way Out When You Just Can't Move Forward

    Get your free gift on the nervous system at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links Want to leave a question? Call 866-357-5156 You already know what would help. Move your body. Get outside. Do the practice. But when you're deep in nervous system shutdown, the energy all of that requires is exactly the thing you don't have — and pushing harder only drives you further down. That's the trap of dorsal collapse: it takes away the very resource you'd need to climb out of it. In this episode of Wired for Well-Being, Dr. Jeffrey Rutstein — psychologist, trauma expert, and nervous system specialist — responds to a listener navigating complex PTSD who describes episodes of severe fatigue that flatten him for up to three weeks at a time, and asks how to mobilize when his body simply won't come with him. Drawing on polyvagal theory, nervous system science, and decades of trauma-informed clinical work, Jeffrey explains why trauma recovery so often includes long stretches of shutdown and collapse, when persistent exhaustion deserves a medical workup for chronic fatigue syndrome or inflammation, and why the "second arrow" — the self-blame that lands on top of the state — is what deepens the collapse and lengthens our stay in it. He then walks through what actually raises our energy so we can move from "I can't" to "I can.  Have a question for Jeffrey? Leave a voicemail at 866-357-5156. If you can't reach that number, record a voice memo or email hello@drjeffreyrutstein.com. Claim your free 20-minute video on the three nervous system states and practices for moving from dysregulation back to regulation at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. The content in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as professional mental health advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider for medical or mental health concerns.

  7. Sep 5

    Your Burdens Are Stealing Your Joy — Here's Why

    Get Jeffrey's free 20-minute video, "Why Do I Feel Stuck?" at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. In this episode, Jeffrey and Steve answer a voicemail from Peter, who's lived with chronic low-level depression most of his life. He's found something that works — a slow breathing practice that shifts his whole state in under two minutes. But, somehow it never lasts. Jeffrey and Steve get into what's actually happening when something works and still doesn't hold. Feeling weighed down isn't a personal failing — it's often a nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do to keep you safe. The harder question isn't why the calm works. It's why we keep leaving it. If you've ever found the thing that helps and still can't hang onto it, this conversation is for you. Want tools to help you move from dysregulation toward regulation? Grab Jeffrey's free 20-minute video, "Why Do I Feel Stuck?" at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. Have a question you'd like answered on the podcast? Call (866) 357-5156 or email hello@drjeffreyrutstein.com — we might feature it in a future episode. This podcast is for informational purposes only and isn't a substitute for professional mental or physical health care. If you're struggling, please reach out to a qualified healthcare provider.

  8. Aug 29

    Moving from Resentment to the Grief Underneath

    Get Jeffrey's free 20-minute video, "Why Do I Feel Stuck?" at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. What do you do when you can see exactly what your resentment is costing you — and still can't put it down? In this episode, Jeffrey and Steve answer a voicemail about resentment. The caller is in her 70s, the oldest of eleven. The younger kids got what she didn't. Fifty years later she still resents them, and she knows what it does to her — it closes her heart. Jeffrey helps us ask what resentment has been protecting us from. Because it is protecting something. Staying angry is cheaper than feeling what sits underneath it, and for most of us that has worked — for years. But a closed heart doesn't only keep other people out. It keeps us out too. This episode is about what opens up when we stop fighting the resentment and get curious about what it's guarding. Not forgiving anyone. Not letting anyone off the hook. Just looking. If you've carried something long enough that it now feels like part of your personality, this conversation is for you. Want tools to help you move from dysregulation toward regulation? Grab Jeffrey's free 20-minute video, "Why Do I Feel Stuck?" at drjeffreyrutstein.com/links. Have a question you'd like answered on the podcast? Call (866) 357-5156 or email hello@drjeffreyrutstein.com — we might feature it in a future episode. This podcast is for informational purposes only and isn't a substitute for professional mental or physical health care. If you're struggling, please reach out to a qualified healthcare provider.

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About

Wired for Well-Being is a podcast devoted to viewing our lives through a nervous system perspective—so we can better understand what’s really happening inside us and how to shift it. Hosted by Dr. Jeffrey Rutstein, a clinical psychologist with over 40 years of experience treating trauma, dissociation, chronic pain, and chronic illness, the podcast takes you beyond theory and into real-life application. Each episode includes listener questions about the struggles we all face—relationships, healing journeys, fear, overwhelm, or anger—and offers fresh insights from the science of the nervous system. With warmth and clarity, Jeffrey unpacks what’s going on beneath the surface: why certain situations trigger us, how old patterns linger in the body, and what it actually takes to move toward healing and connection.  Joined by producer and friend Steve Lessard, Jeffrey brings compassion, practical tools, and decades of clinical wisdom to every conversation. The goal is simple but profound: to help you stop seeing yourself as broken, and instead discover how you are inherently wired for well-being, resilience, and deeper connection.

Information

  • Creator
    Dr. Jeffrey Rutstein
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    55
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Wired for Well-Being Podcast

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