Podcast Summary: Know Thyself – E156
Episode Title: Joe Hudson: How to Embrace the Emotions You Resist & Find Lasting Freedom
Date: July 29, 2025
Host: André Duqum
Guest: Joe Hudson – Business executive, coach, facilitator, and expert in integrative emotional intelligence
Overview
This deep and nuanced episode explores the central role of emotional experience in the human quest for freedom and wholeness. André Duqum and Joe Hudson discuss the vital importance of embracing, rather than resisting, “negative” emotions, and reveal how true transformation arises not from accumulating knowledge, but by “subtracting” layers that hide our innate wholeness. Joe shares practical frameworks, personal stories, childhood insights, and advanced perspectives on emotional intelligence, non-duality, and conscious leadership—offering a blueprint for authentic, embodied living in a rapidly changing world.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. The Intelligent Design Behind Emotions and Resistance
- We unconsciously avoid pain, but that avoidance actually perpetuates what we wish to escape.
- Joe’s Core Premise: The avoidance of emotion is what drives much of our behavior and ends up inviting the very experiences we’re trying to resist. As Joe puts it:
- “The emotions that we don't want to feel, we invite in the exact way we're trying not to feel them. But that's actually a really intelligent design because then it keeps on giving us a chance to see ourselves as whole again.” (00:27, 33:57)
- Embracing emotions leads to fluidity, clarity, and authenticity.
2. Subtractive Development: The Power of Letting Go
- Western culture overvalues intellectual accumulation and “adding”; Joe advocates for a balance:
- “If a hand is always like this, or if a hand is always like this, both are cripple. ... It’s really about the flexibility and knowing when to use and what to use, to get to a place of knowing there's no place to get to.” (02:30)
- True personal development comes from releasing, not adding, layers—returning to innate wholeness (04:06).
3. The Three Brains Framework: Head, Heart, and Gut
- Practical Model:
- Head/intellect — thoughts, logic
- Heart — emotions
- Gut — nervous system, instinct
- Real transformation requires addressing all three (“If you want transformation in your life, you need to address all three to get it consistently.” 00:56, 04:53, 05:36)
- “We have those three brains. If you want transformation in your life, you need to address all three to get it consistently. ... If that happens, then the change is just really natural.” (04:53)
4. Beyond Cognitive Knowing: Embodied Wisdom
- Information and understanding are not enough—wisdom is what you live and experience.
- “Teach experientially instead of teach intellectually ... Instead of saying, wonder is this thing that really helps you see through your fear, this is a great way to experience wonder. Let’s do that and see what happens to your fear. Let’s actually do the thing instead of talk about it.” (07:51-10:00)
5. The Myth of ‘Negative’ Emotions: Loving the Monster
- By rejecting emotions (sadness, fear, anger), we keep them in place.
- Joe’s story of his daughter’s monsters: “What are monsters really looking for? Hugs. And that was the last day she complained about monsters under the bed. And that’s basically what I do for a living now.” (12:30)
- Unwanted emotions are parts of us calling out for love, not elimination.
6. Childhood Roots of Emotional Resistance
- Most suppressed emotions trace to early childhood; kids learn which feelings are “not okay.”
- “At 0 to 8 years old, ... the intellect doesn’t even compute. Your sense of self isn’t even online yet. So you’re just being told you’re not okay, you’re not okay, you’re not okay.” (14:00)
- Parenting example: Allowing kids’ full emotional expression cultivates wholeness.
7. Triggers and Projections: The Path to Self-Knowledge
- Every time we’re triggered by judgment, it reveals a feeling we won’t allow in ourselves.
- Actionable Experiment: “Every time you judge somebody for a week, stop in the middle and say, what am I trying not to feel right now? And feel it, and notice what happens to your judgment.” (19:13, 19:58)
- Awareness, without story, dissolves triggers (20:39).
8. Somatic Awareness and the Cost of Suppression
- “Try to stop feeling every emotion you’re having: some muscles, if not all, constrict. If you did that for an extended period of time, we would call that stress.” (00:27, 21:50)
- Emotional suppression creates bodily tension; full allowance brings ease and creativity.
9. Joy as the Matriarch Emotion
- “Joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions, and she won’t come into a house where her children aren’t welcome.” (23:47)
10. Practical Outcomes of Emotional Fluidity
- Decision-making becomes clearer, relationships more authentic, leadership more effective:
- “If you actually fully love and accept the thing, it changes and it becomes very fluid, and you find pleasure and joy in so much stuff.” (23:47)
- “Our decision making gets clarified. ... Authenticity becomes a natural expression.” (25:08)
- “When you see a leader lean into an emotion that they haven’t been able to lean into before, a whole solution set opens up to them that they couldn’t see before.” (25:08)
11. Rewiring Emotional Hierarchies
- No emotion is “higher” or “lower”; each serves a critical signaling function:
- “If we don’t resist a certain emotion, it becomes a different emotion ... If I fully love and allow for an emotion, then the emotion transforms, but they’re the same emotion.” (30:33, 31:12)
12. Integration After Awakening: The Role of Non-Duality
- Awakening (non-dual realization) often leads to disengagement from emotion; true integration means embodying both peace and passionate humanity:
- “A lot of my experience in defining myself in that way and going to the great peaceful abyss was to avoid emotional experiences.” (48:35+)
- The real work is to “drag the monk back into hell,” i.e., bring awakening fully into feeling (54:45).
13. On Ego: Owning Both Importance & Insignificance
- Ego isn’t just self-importance; it’s also self-deprecation. Fully owning both power and frailty brings authentic humility.
- “The way I define ego now is just more of your self definition. As it turns out, you can’t really do work in the world without some self definition ... but again, it’s about the flexibility.” (60:42)
14. Leadership: Love, Boundaries, and Owning Power
- The best leaders recognize the two-way nature of power and model conscious use of it.
- “If they can actually feel and allow that in—yes, I am powerful—then they are far less dangerous as a CEO than somebody who’s not owning their power.” (64:53)
15. Forgiveness, Heartbreak, and Growth
- True forgiveness is not obligation-based; it’s rooted in honest heartbreak, which increases our capacity for love.
- “Every time you allow your heart to break, it increases your capacity to love ... if you’re forgiving out of obligation instead of from that heartbreak, then you miss that whole step in the transformation process.” (82:53)
16. The Non-Personal Dynamic of Relationships
- Emotional “hot potatos”—groups unconsciously distribute feelings like shame, anxiety, etc.
- “If one person’s holding that emotional experience, then the other people don’t have to hold that emotional experience ... It’s an amazing phenomenon.” (87:11)
17. The ‘View’ Framework for Transforming Communication
- Vulnerability, Impartiality, Empathy, Wonder:
- “How do you be with somebody in a vulnerable, impartial, empathetic and full-of-wonder way? ... That’s what we actually most want.” (90:00, 90:06)
18. Wisdom Work in an AI-Driven World
- AI will outcompete knowledge and skill; only wisdom, emotional clarity, and connection remain uniquely human and valuable:
- “Knowledge work is dead. Skill work is dead. Wisdom work is what’s left.” (121:13)
- “Do you make decisions based on fear, or are you making decisions based on aliveness? These are the things that are going to make a difference.” (121:13, 122:36)
Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)
-
On the design of emotional patterns:
“The emotions that we don't want to feel, we invite in the exact way we're trying not to feel them. But that's actually a really intelligent design because then it keeps on giving us a chance to see ourselves as whole again.” – Joe Hudson (00:27) -
On subtractive development:
“If a hand is always like this, or if a hand is always like this, both are cripple. ... It’s about the flexibility and knowing when to use and what to use, to get to a place of knowing there's no place to get to.” – Joe Hudson (02:30) -
On the three brains:
“If you want transformation in your life, you need to address all three to get it consistently.” – Joe Hudson (04:53) -
On moving from theory to experience:
“Let’s actually do the thing instead of talk about it.” – Joe Hudson (08:00) -
On loving our inner monsters:
“Do you know what monsters really want? They really want hugs.” – Joe Hudson (12:30) -
On emotional triggers:
“Every place that we’re triggered, to me is ... a direct experience of an emotion you’re not allowing that you’re not okay with.” – Joe Hudson (19:13) -
On the importance of parental mirroring:
“At 0 to 8 years old ... you’re just being told, you’re not okay, you’re not okay, you’re not okay. ... That comes, I think, directly from that experience.” – Joe Hudson (14:00) -
On moving beyond duality:
“At the beginning of the path you think other people are responsible. In the middle ... you think you’re responsible. At the end ... there’s no responsibility.” (35:49) -
On welcoming all emotions:
“Joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions, and she won’t come into a house where her children aren’t welcome.” (23:47)
“What we call negative emotions are just amazing signals.” (30:33) -
On forgiveness:
“Most people, unfortunately, apologize with shame, and they forgive from obligation. ... But if it’s not obligation, if it’s actually a heartbreak, then there’s not only forgiveness for you, there’s forgiveness in yourself.” (82:53) -
On AI and the future of wisdom:
“Knowledge work is dead. Skill work is dead. Wisdom work is what’s left.” (121:13)
Timestamps for Key Segments
- 00:27: Joe introduces the central paradox—resisting emotion perpetuates it
- 04:53: Three brains: head, heart, gut explained
- 14:00: Early childhood as the root of emotional suppression
- 19:13: Triggers and the revealing of suppressed feelings
- 23:47: Loving emotions as the only way for joy
- 25:08: Real-life outcomes of emotional allowance
- 33:57: Golden algorithm—emotional patterns as invitations to wholeness
- 48:35: Non-duality, avoidance, and integrating awakening
- 60:42: On the true nature of ego
- 82:53: Transformational potential of true forgiveness
- 87:11: Emotional dynamics in groups
- 90:06: Introduction to the ‘View’ framework
- 121:13: The coming age of wisdom and emotional clarity
- 134:09: Joe’s closing invitation: receive life fully
Final Insights & Closing Invitation
-
On Receiving Life:
“Lie down, sit down and see what it is just to receive life ... It’s always there. All it requires is for us to receive, which is not a doing, it’s not particularly an undoing either—it’s just an allowing.” – Joe Hudson (135:24) -
Joe recommends experimenting directly with “just receiving” to touch the essence of his teaching.
Further Resources
- Joe Hudson’s Newsletter & Courses: For those wanting to go deeper, Joe recommends signing up for his newsletter for access to free workshops, coaching, and information about his full offerings.
This episode bridges advanced inner work and practical life, offering rare clarity on how to navigate our humanity—personally and collectively—in an era of ever-accelerating change.