23 Lessons For Being Kinder To Yourself - Joe Hudson

Here are 20 profound lessons from Joe Hudson on self-compassion and emotional intelligence that will transform how you relate to yourself and others.

1. Stress and lack of enjoyment are epidemic problems

Joe Hudson identifies a widespread epidemic of stress and lack of enjoyment in society. This is corrosive both individually and socially. On an individual level, stress prevents learning, leads to poor decisions, and contributes to shorter lifespans.

When we're stressed, we perceive the world as threatening. This defensive stance creates a cycle where treating others like threats eventually causes them to become threatening in return. This pattern appears across politics, marriages, and other relationships, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of hostility.

2. Three main causes of stress

Hudson identifies three primary causes of stress in our lives. First is repressed emotions that we don't process properly. Second is lack of connection with others, which leaves us feeling isolated. Third is negative self-talk, where we constantly criticize ourselves.

The internal critical voice creates a "war zone" in our heads. This constant self-criticism becomes a major source of stress as we're perpetually under attack from ourselves. Hudson suggests shifting from self-improvement to self-understanding as a solution.

3. Emotional clarity instead of emotional management

Many people try to control or be controlled by their emotions, but neither approach leads to emotional clarity. When we attempt to suppress or manage emotions, we create physical tension in our bodies, which itself is a form of stress. This tightening of our system prevents us from experiencing emotions healthily.

Hudson uses the metaphor of a tube of emotion. When we constrict it one way, anger becomes passive aggression. When constricted another way, it becomes destructive rage. But when allowed to flow freely, that same anger becomes clarity, boundaries, and productive energy like that of Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.

4. Connection is what humans actually want

Connection is fundamental to human happiness and effectiveness. The longest Harvard study ever conducted shows connection creates better health outcomes and greater happiness. When facing any human-related problem, focusing on connection often helps solve it.

Even in professional contexts like programming or sports, your level of self-connection influences performance. We call this "flow," but it's really just connection. Hudson notes that humans are inherently drawn to connection, as exemplified by his young daughter instinctively seeking emotional connection when he came home agitated.

5. The negative inner voice comes from childhood experiences

Our critical inner voice typically originates from people who raised us. When we're young, we internalize the criticisms of parents, teachers, or other authority figures. As children, we can't escape our environment, so we develop this voice as a way to navigate our world.

Children are neurologically prone to this programming. From ages zero to seven, kids are in a theta brainwave state that makes them highly receptive to suggestion. This "spongy" state is why children readily accept everything from fairy tales to critical messages about themselves, forming the foundation of their inner voice.

6. Stages of self-reliance

Self-reliance exists on a spectrum, and its value depends on your developmental stage. For someone who feels they have no control over their life, developing self-reliance is beneficial. It creates a sense of agency and capability.

However, too much self-reliance becomes problematic. When people become overly self-reliant, they feel burdened with responsibility for everything and unable to depend on others. This often stems from childhood experiences of feeling alone, creating a pattern where the person avoids vulnerability by refusing help.

7. Resentment in relationships comes from unspoken needs

Resentment often arises when we don't speak our truth because we fear conflict. When we compromise ourselves by not expressing our needs, we become angry. It's easier to direct this anger at others than acknowledge our own role in the dynamic.

Hudson suggests having difficult conversations to cure resentment. Setting boundaries and speaking your truth prevents the slow accumulation of unexpressed feelings. As Neil Strauss aptly put it, "unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments."

8. Defensiveness protects an unnecessary ego

People become defensive when protecting their ego, even though they often don't know what they're actually defending. Anything that makes you defensive likely resonates with something you believe about yourself. If someone's comment provokes defensiveness, it's triggering an insecurity you already hold.

Hudson notes that there's nothing to truly defend when you're centered in your heart rather than your head. When we're defensive, we're often ashamed about something, and our defensiveness is a way of avoiding that shame. Addressing the underlying shame rather than engaging with the defensiveness can resolve conflicts.

9. Opening your heart with VIEW

Hudson shares a practical framework called VIEW for opening your heart: Vulnerability, Impartiality, Empathy, and Wonder. Each component can independently open your heart, though using multiple elements works even better.

Vulnerability means saying the scary thing you might normally avoid. Impartiality means not trying to manage others. Empathy means emotionally being with someone without losing yourself in their story. Wonder is curiosity without seeking answers, like how we observe a sunset or how a child examines a frog with pure curiosity.

10. Fear restricts thinking into binary patterns

When fear dominates our thinking, it creates two problematic cognitive patterns. First, it produces binary thinking where we see only two options (like "leave the job or stay") rather than considering the full spectrum of possibilities. Second, fear creates a false end point where we catastrophize without considering what comes after.

These restricted thought patterns limit our creativity and problem-solving abilities. By recognizing when we're in binary thinking, we can identify fear's influence and open ourselves to more possibilities, leading to better decisions and less anxiety.

11. You're already experiencing what you fear

Hudson explains that when we're afraid of feeling an emotion, we're already experiencing it on some level. The fear itself is a form of resistance to an emotion we've already tasted. This resistance, not the emotion itself, causes our suffering.

People who live with high levels of fear are often disconnected from their emotional experience. If you were told emotions weren't acceptable as a child, you may have learned to stop feeling them. The fear of abandonment, for example, indicates you're already abandoning yourself by not honoring your own needs and truth.

12. Enjoyment is efficiency

Hudson reframes productivity through the lens of enjoyment rather than speed. An efficient car isn't necessarily fast—it's one that uses less fuel. Similarly, doing work with enjoyment requires less energy than forcing yourself through it, leaving more energy for other pursuits.

This perspective challenges the common belief that productivity must involve struggle. When we enjoy what we're doing, we work more efficiently. This applies not just to selecting enjoyable activities but learning to enjoy necessary tasks we might initially resist, like taking out the trash.

13. It's near impossible to love what you think oppresses you

When we feel oppressed or controlled by someone or something, it becomes extremely difficult to feel love toward it. This applies to relationships, political divides, and even our relationship with our inner voice. If we perceive our inner critic as controlling us, we can't develop a loving relationship with ourselves.

Hudson gives examples of historical figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., who accomplished change precisely because they did not feel oppressed, even when facing systems of oppression. Their ability to maintain an open heart came from a place of inner freedom that external circumstances couldn't diminish.

14. Speaking your truth deepens connection

Hudson argues that saying difficult truths actually strengthens relationships rather than harming them. When something feels scary to say, that's usually a sign it's important. Not saying it prioritizes your fear of the other person's reaction over your own truth and ultimately hurts your connection.

In both personal and professional settings, speaking difficult truths prevents resentment and builds trust. Hudson starts business meetings by asking, "What's the scary thing you're not saying?" This practice keeps relationships clean and problems manageable by addressing issues before they fester.

15. Compliments can destroy ego

Surprisingly, compliments can be more threatening to our ego than criticisms. When someone compliments us in a way that contradicts our self-image, it challenges our identity. If we've decided we're "not good at something" and someone praises us for exactly that quality, accepting the compliment requires dismantling our established self-concept.

Many people deflect compliments because fully receiving them would require changing how they see themselves. When Hudson conducts exercises where people receive compliments for ten minutes, participants often experience physical reactions like crying or shaking as their self-limiting beliefs are challenged.

16. People want connection, not perfection

Hudson shares a powerful insight: people don't want you to be perfect; they want to feel connected to you. He describes spending hours just listening to someone on a plane, asking only one question. Afterward, the person called it one of the most meaningful conversations they'd ever had.

We often idolize "perfect" people from a distance but don't actually want them as friends. Showing vulnerability and authenticity creates much stronger bonds than displaying flawlessness. This relates to the "Pratfall effect" mentioned in the conversation, where people become more likeable when they show minor imperfections.

17. Most of our fears are about emotional results, not actual outcomes

We often think we fear specific outcomes, like becoming homeless or failing professionally. However, Hudson suggests what we actually fear is the emotional experience associated with these outcomes. If homelessness somehow brought happiness (which it doesn't), would we still fear it?

This insight helps explain why we avoid vulnerable situations. We're not actually afraid of the situation itself but of the potential emotional discomfort it might cause. Recognizing this distinction allows us to face our fears more directly by addressing the underlying emotional resistance.

18. We cannot be split into parts we accept and parts we reject

Hudson emphasizes that humans cannot be meaningfully divided into acceptable and unacceptable parts. When someone criticizes even a small aspect of us, we tend to experience it as a criticism of our entire being. Similarly, when we reject parts of ourselves, we create internal division and stress.

In relationships, loving someone means accepting them as a whole person. Trying to love certain parts while rejecting others creates tension and signals that something is fundamentally wrong with them. True love and acceptance require embracing both the comfortable and uncomfortable aspects of ourselves and others.

19. There is no way of getting it perfect

Hudson challenges the notion that there's a "perfect" way to live or a perfect end state to achieve. He uses the metaphor of an oak tree—when is it perfect? As an acorn? A sapling? At 100 years old? Evolution has no endpoint; it's a continuous process.

The idea that we must achieve perfection is an ego-driven concept that justifies self-criticism. Abandoning the search for perfection and instead viewing life as a series of experiments relieves pressure and allows for more authentic growth. What matters is the next step, not some imagined perfect destination.

20. Understanding yourself leads to unexpected gifts

Instead of pursuing specific goals, Hudson advocates living by principles like speaking truth, maintaining an open heart, and honoring your values. When you understand yourself and live according to these principles, life often delivers experiences far better than what you could have imagined or planned.

Hudson shares a personal example of realizing during Christmas that he had created the family experience he always wanted but never knew to ask for. By staying true to himself despite consequences, he found that what he received far exceeded anything he might have hoped for through deliberate planning.