Modern Wisdom #1045 — Joe Hudson: How to Take Control of Your Emotions

Host: Chris Williamson
Guest: Joe Hudson
Date: January 12, 2026

Episode Overview

In this engaging and vulnerable conversation, Chris Williamson sits down with Joe Hudson—executive coach, emotional intelligence teacher, and founder of Art of Accomplishment—to explore the profound challenges and liberating truths of living with an open heart. Together, they dig into the mechanics of emotional patterns, the “vulnerability hangover” after transformation, the role of boundaries and shame, and how to navigate real-world interactions after deep inner work. Packed with practical insights and memorable anecdotes, this episode is a guide and a gentle prod toward emotional mastery, self-acceptance, and authentic action—even (or especially) when it feels scary.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Psychological Transformation and “Living With an Open Heart”

• Chris’ Experience at Joe’s Retreat
  Chris reflects on attending Joe’s weeklong intensive, describing the environment as “gentle and understanding” but also “intense, like hard core.”
  “It must be like being a...mistreated puppy or something…this puppy has been taught that every time somebody raises a hand at it, it should cower away...It needs to learn. Over time, it cowers less and less and less. And then it actually learns to love the hand that comes down toward it.”
  — Chris (05:16)

• Is it Hard to Live With an Open Heart in the Real World?
  Joe says:
  “It’s hard not to [live with an open heart] is my experience. I don’t know anything that feels better with a closed heart...Anytime my heart starts closing down, it hurts.” (01:53)

• Why We Close Off
  Joe explains that people become scared of love because, earlier in life, love may have been paired with guilt, criticism, obligation, or manipulation.
  “So now they’re scared of it. So, like, love came with guilt, and therefore love isn’t safe, or love came with getting smothered...But at the same time, we definitely want love. We’re born wanting love.” (03:04)

2. Emotional Patterning & Integration

• Attracting, Manipulating & Proving Patterns
  Joe outlines three ways we reinforce old emotional patterns:

  1. Attracting similar situations/people.
  2. Manipulating people to act out our pattern.
  3. Interpreting neutral actions as reflections of the pattern.
     “You’re manipulating people to do it, you’re attracting it, and you are proving it because you’re looking at the cases where it’s true...” (08:25)

• Feeling Alien After Transformation
  Post-retreat, people can feel unmoored—akin to “shaking the Etch a Sketch” (09:23). Joe adds,
  “We’ve had people come out and literally call us from a grocery store and say, I don’t know what to buy anymore.” (08:25)

• The Challenge of Integration
  Chris compares it to a “religious experience” or “transformational experience” that can be hard to explain to others (09:58).

3. Heartbreak, Resistance, & Going Into Pain

• On Heartbreak and Openness
  Chris shares song lyrics reflecting the fear of heartbreak, prompting Joe’s view:
  “Heartbreak is something I look forward to...every time your heart breaks open, it increases your capacity to love.” (14:42)
  “When it’s accepted and loved, [pain] is the most direct path to your freedom. When it’s avoided, it’s absolute hell.” (15:11)

• Entering Rather Than Avoiding Pain
  Joe:
  “We’re wired to find awakening or peace through going into the pain. If you look at what we did at the weeklong, we’re constantly going into the thing that we think we’re scared of.” (15:16)

4. Depression, Fear, & Leaning In

• The Nature of Depression
  Depression is described as extreme negative self-talk, repression of anger & sadness, and lack of connection.
  “The symptoms are: This is never gonna go away, I’m horrible, there’s all this doom and gloom. And so what some people do is, they’re like, How do I avoid myself?” (19:24)

• Going Into vs. Resisting
  Rather than pushing depression away, healing is found in investigating what hurts and what hasn’t been safe to feel or express.
  “The best gift we can give to our kids is making them feel like it’s safe to be themselves. The depression is all the places you weren’t safe to be yourself that you are currently judging.” (19:24)

• On the Fear of Facing Ourselves
  “Of course you’re scared. It’s okay. I’m right here with you...The journey is going from ‘I have to do something to be worthy and lovable’ to ‘I am worthy and lovable.’” (22:35)

5. Compensatory Patterns & “Unteachable Lessons”

• Becoming What You Lack
  Chris observes that high achievers are often “the inversion of what they fear they’re not”:
  “Look at how beautiful this person is? They feel so ugly on the inside...what you are is this huge, big compensatory mechanism for the lack that you feel on the inside.” (25:17)

• Unteachable Lessons
  “Fame won’t fix your self-worth. Money won’t make you happy...All of these insights are cliche...but that doesn’t explain why anybody who’s recently realized them proclaims them with...the renewed grandiose ceremony of someone who’s gone through religious revelation.” —Chris (26:10)

• Can You “Speedrun” Growth?
  Joe:
  “There are lessons you just have to learn yourself...But if you feel deeply loved and accepted...you don’t have so many mines in the minefield.” (27:26)

6. Boundaries, Anger, and Vulnerability

• Boundaries Done Right
  “You’re not ever telling somebody else what they’re supposed to do...you’re telling them what you’re going to do.” —Joe (40:27)
  e.g. Rather than “You need to stop yelling,” say, “If you yell at me, I will leave.”
  “A great boundary opens my heart to you because it’s very, very hard for us to love anything that we think oppresses us.” (42:31)

• Why Some Boundaries Fail
  When boundaries are enforced harshly, it often signals fear of losing connection.
  “The reason that I'm not going to draw the boundary is because I think you won't love me if I hold the boundary.” (43:38)

• Anger Transmuted to Sadness
  Joe recounts a story of his daughter, explaining why kids (and adults) sometimes shift from anger to sadness to gain care rather than face confrontation:
  “Because if I get pissed, she just hits me. But if I get sad, she does what I want her to do.” (36:58)

7. Self-Judgment, Overthinking, and Emotional Expression

• Indicators You’re Avoiding Emotion

  1. Looping thoughts / rumination
  2. Binary, “can only choose this or that” thinking
  3. Harsh judgment of others
     “If I couldn't feel that judgment, what would I have to feel? And what I might feel is jealousy...or shame.” (49:39)

• The Cure: Express, Don’t Suppress
  “Express emotions. Don’t express them at people...If you’re overthinking...somebody has an emotional expression and [gets] immediate clarity on the other side.” (50:15)

8. Decisions, Success, and Emotional Congruence

• Decisions Are Always Emotional
  “We are making decisions to feel a certain way...If you start to learn to fall in love with all the emotions...decisions are just automatic, simple.” (53:32)

• Congruence and the Journey
  Chris and Joe discuss the difficulty of integrating open-heartedness with previous patterns of “effectiveness” (e.g. being hard-charging/action-oriented):
  “Whatever you were getting wasn’t good enough or you wouldn’t fucking be on the journey.” —Joe (58:27)
  “How do I get things done in the world and not be at war with myself?” —Joe (58:57)

• Navigating Social Environments as a Sensitive or Open-Hearted Person
  “There’s always going to be some people who judge you...And so the question is, how do you handle that?...If you’re not judging yourself...there’s no sting.” (65:35)

  Joe introduces the idea of “vagal authority”:
  “The calmness of my nervous system is going to have authority in the room.” (65:49)

• Every Trigger Points the Way to Greater Freedom
  “Every judgment, every time we’re triggered, every time we get defensive, it is a direct pointer for where we can get more freedom in our life.” (67:39)

9. Intuition vs. Instinct and Action

• Distinguishing Between Instinctual Reactivity & Deep Intuition
  “If you are triggered or in judgment, then it’s not the intuition. If it’s a little bit scary, then it’s far more likely to be the intuition, because if it’s a little scary, it’s out of your pattern.” (73:46)

• Making Change: Action as Integration
  “What are those scary actions that I’m not taking? I’m going to go take them, and if I just line those up and do those reps, that transition is much shorter.” (76:16)

• The “Lonely Chapter” of Reinvention
  Chris describes the social pain and object relations that come with growth and changing personal identity (77:53–79:24). Joe suggests that context-sharing and openness with those close to you can ease the transition (79:24).

10. Self-Motivation, Wants vs. Shoulds, and True Change

• Fight Dynamics: “The Shame Hot Potato”
  “I don’t feel good about myself, so I’m gonna throw shame at you...and we’re just, like, passing the shame back and forth.” (97:37)

• Real Change Comes from Wants, Not Shoulds
  “The same place [change] comes from when a little kid goes from crawling to walking. It’s our wants...Wants are far more efficient fuel than shoulds. Shoulds is a very dirty fuel.” (101:21) When you “should,” you sap the love from your pursuits.

• How To Turn Shoulds Into Wants
  “Inside of a should, you can look and find the want in it.” (103:16) — Trace “I should go to the gym” to “I want to feel healthy,” opening options for action.

11. Efficiency, Overwhelm, and Mastery

• Efficiency is Not Just Speed
  “Efficiency without awareness is just a faster way to burn out...Competence is I can get it done effectively. Mastery is I can get it done with very little effort effectively.” (105:07)

• Overwhelm Explained
  Overwhelm usually signals emotions not moved and actions you know you need to take being avoided.
  “A lot of people, typically, it just means emotions haven’t moved. Oftentimes it also means that there’s something that you know needs to be done that you’re not doing.” (107:24)
  “One of the things that I’ve noticed of super hyper successful CEOs is that they are really good at focusing on the two or three most important things and letting chaos reign everywhere else, if necessary.” (110:07)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Heartbreak is something I look forward to...every time your heart breaks open, it increases your capacity to love.”
  — Joe (14:42)

• “It hurts when I work out. Why work out at all?...Once you realize that pain is the most direct path to your freedom...when it’s avoided, it’s absolute hell.”
  — Joe (15:11)

• “Most inner work fails because it’s done from the same self-rejection it’s trying to heal.”
  — Joe (47:32)

• “If I couldn’t feel that judgment, what would I have to feel?”
  — Joe (49:39)

• “You’re not ever telling somebody else what they’re supposed to do...you’re telling them what you’re going to do.”
  — Joe (40:27)

• “Wants are far more efficient fuel than shoulds. Shoulds is a very dirty fuel.”
  — Joe (101:21)

• “Every judgment, every time we’re triggered, every time we get defensive...is a direct pointer for where we can get more freedom in our life.”
  — Joe (67:39)

• “If you close your heart down, it hurts. It just hurts.”
  — Joe (01:53)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:53] Is it possible to live with an open heart in the “real world”?
• [03:04] Message about the root of emotional patterns and fear of love
• [08:25] Three ways we reinforce emotional patterns
• [14:42] Heartbreak expands our capacity to love
• [19:24] Depression: Going into vs. avoiding your pain
• [22:35] Talking to those paralyzed by fear of self-confrontation
• [25:16] Compensatory mechanisms and high performance
• [40:27] Boundaries: How to set them and why most go wrong
• [50:15] Rumination and the power of emotional expression
• [53:32] Decisions: always emotional, never just rational
• [73:46] Differentiating fear/pattern vs. true intuition
• [76:16] The power of taking hard actions for real change
• [97:37] The “shame hot potato” in relationship conflict
• [101:21] Motivation by want vs. “should”—the key to lasting change
• [105:07] The trap of efficiency and real mastery
• [107:24] Overwhelm and the two things that typically trigger it

Final Thoughts

This episode is a masterclass in emotional awareness, practical growth, and compassionate self-understanding. Chris and Joe’s rapport allows for deep vulnerability, moments of humor, and actionable wisdom that listeners can bring into their own lives—especially when facing fear, shame, the urge to protect, or the call to step into greater emotional openness.

For more from Joe Hudson:

• Art of Accomplishment (courses, podcast, YouTube)
• Twitter: @FUJoHudson

Host: Chris Williamson – Modern Wisdom