Freedom lies in the space between stimuli and response.
“Joe Hudson made me disappear.”
“I’m on the bleeding edge of existence.”
“Is this real change? I think this is real change.”
These were comments from participants in Art of Accomplishment’s Great Decisions Course.
In January, I saw Joe Hudson, founder of Art of Accomplishment (AoA) on
’s Pathless Path Podcast. Inspired, I joined the info session for Joe’s Great Decisions course. It blew my mind. My eyeballs were pinned to the screen for 90 minutes. I cried.There were 100 people on the call. Joe selected volunteers for coaching sessions in front of the audience. They call it Rapid Fire Coaching. I’d never seen anything else like it. For each session, things were emotional within 15 minutes. It was clear to me that Joe was fluent in the language of emotions, and I was not.
At the end of every value delivery chain is desired feelings. Improving our ability to feel emotions expands our ability to receive value. Savoring all emotions, looking forward to them, and flowing with them, to me, sounded like the ultimate skill. The man who loves all emotions can’t lose.
Joe calls it emotional fluidity. When I first heard the phrase, I knew I didn’t have it but would like to experience it. Many times in my life, I have felt emotionally illiterate. I might be too emotionally retarded to take this course, I thought. Then I realized, that is the reason I need to take this course.
The 5-week course began in January. I was both sick and traveling but they only run it once a year so I bit off more than I could chew. There were partner sessions, small group sessions, large group sessions, and solo work. I can talk about the intellectual lessons, but most of what I learned is nontransmissible because it was at the emotional level in the form of somatic experience.
Overall, the course was high quality, impactful, and useful. It’s the first course I’d buy for my children. Our decisions, our behavior, determines a large part of our life experience.
Simplicity is powerful
Exercise:
“I feel _____ and that’s okay.”
Other person: “You feel _____ and that’s okay.”
Everything powerful is simple. And that’s okay has echoed in thoughts for weeks.
I feel love and that’s okay.
I feel scared and that’s okay.
I feel helpless and that’s okay.
I feel confused and that’s okay.
I feel stupid and that’s okay.
I feel wonder and that’s okay.
This activity validates feelings as acceptable and helps to neutralize resistance/self-conflict.
I didn’t think this is what we’d be doing in the Great Decisions Course. I thought we’d learn a formula for decision-making. But the key insight is that our decisions, our behavior, is driven by the emotional part of our system. By working with emotions we can improve decision-making.
Head Heart Gut
A revelation for me was that my neural network is not just my brain. I knew this at an intellectual level but the course helped me tune into my heart and gut. My gut especially was being neglected. I had no idea how much I was clenching my gut.
We did an exercise where we spoke from each neural network. What does your head say about that? What does heart say? And what does gut say? I learned my gut doesn’t speak good English. Some people spoke from their gut with animal noises.
At the beginning of each of the many course exercises, Joe states the purpose of the exercise. An aim of the head-heart-gut exercises is “to access many forms of our intelligence and integrate them together.”
VIEW
Vulnerability
Impartiality
Empathy
Wonder
This framework is the foundation that AoA is built on; and for me, VIEW is a good answer to the question, What is love?
The AoA podcast is part of the course content. Here’s Joe in episode 70:
“Meeting emotions with VIEW: Vulnerability, allowing it. Impartiality, being neutral. Empathy, keeping yourself company. Wonder, looking at the emotion as if you’re kid finding a turtle for the first time.”
“Emotional expression and moving emotions is great, but the most important thing is, how do I look at this with some curiosity, wonder, vulnerability, impartiality.”
Emotional Inquiry
This is the backbone of the course and a potent source of transformation.
EI is like an audio-guided meditation where you conjure an emotional experience, listen to the audio, and see what happens.
From AoA podcast #96 (highly recommend)
“This is a tool for when you resist an emotional experience. It’s basically looking at the emotional experiences through the eyes of VIEW. It’s vulnerable, you’re actually feeling it, it’s impartial, you’re not trying to change it, you’re full of wonder, and having empathy for yourself. You’re not lost in the emotional experience but you’re not dismissing it. We teach it as a guided meditation but it can soon become automatic.”
“This is one of the most powerful tools if it’s applied. Most people will slow down on the application of it or find distraction because it can create so much transformation so quickly”
This was my experience. Lots of sadness came up. And one time, an anger, fear, sadness sandwich. It helped me to speak about things that were previously avoided.
Says Joe: “The typical question: Why would I ever want to invite anxiety, welcome anxiety? I’ve spent my whole life trying to fucking get rid of that. And that’s the answer. You’ve spent your whole life trying to get rid of it and it hasn’t fucking worked. That’s the reason you go to welcome it. Because each one of these emotions was a rejected part of you.”
From podcast episode 70:
“Emotional inquiry: it’s an undoing not a doing. Doing is in the resistance to the emotions. That’s what takes energy, effort. Not resisting and welcoming takes less effort. It might take a little activation energy. I have more energy if I experience an emotion unresisted. How to drop a hot frying? It’s an undoing.”
“3 Major mechanisms that transform our lives because we’re embracing, welcoming emotions:
Decision making
Stopping the patterns
Increase of connection”
A note on trauma:
“When we experience a trauma, we weren’t allowed or didn’t feel something because it was too intense at the moment, so we keep repeating patterns to get back to homeostasis and feel it.”
“If a mouse is being shocked and can’t run away, it will numb itself.”
Emotion Inquiry Audio on SoundCloud
The Ironic Algorithm
We create the feeling we’re trying to avoid in the way we’re trying to avoid it.
To know what emotion you’re trying to avoid, look at the one you’re inadvertently creating.
I was scared to feel like a failure so I didn’t try, then felt like a failure.
I tried to avoid feeling lonely by traveling, then felt lonely while traveling.
I didn’t want to feel angry so I suppressed my anger, then acted passive-aggressive.
I didn’t want to feel out of control so I flailed and felt out of control.
It can be horrifying to see the matrix that’s been driving your behavior for decades.
Principles
Behaving from principles automates decision-making. What are the five principles that would ensure success and make decision-making easier?
Principles I’m experimenting with:
Go outside
Embrace intensity
Think long term
Be in my power
Don’t do what I don’t actually want to do
Set my frequency
If I live by these principles am I guaranteed success? The only way to know for sure is to go find out and adjust accordingly.
Clarity Hacks for Decision-Making
“Find the right problem statement: the right question to make the decision around. Then find the criteria to let you know you’ve found the solution”
Exercises:
“What’s the next most obvious thing?” … “Then what’s the next most obvious thing?”
“What do you know about this decision?”... “What don’t you know about this decision?”
“What’s the next thing you need to know?” … “And after that?”
Speaking from empowerment exercise: “access the part of you that’s not afraid” and “understand the somatic state that has an increased likelihood to make good decisions”
Wisdom Nuggets from Joe
“How" or “What” questions are more useful than “Why” questions—which often sound accusatory.
Why did you do that? → How did that benefit you?
Aren’t I right? → How much does that feel true?
Joe once suggested that when you’re talking to someone, keep fifty percent of your attention one inch below your belly button. I tried it. It helps reduce the friction I’ve felt in interacting with other humans. It helps you stay grounded in your body. Joe also said that keeping 10% of your attention in your body at all times yields profound change. I tried that too. Keeping some attention on my body lets me see when I’m clenching my gut. It helps me breathe deeper and relax into the moment.
A “should” is two desires in competition. “I want to follow my passion and I want to please my parents” becomes “I should become an accountant.”
“I should get out of bed” is “I want to stay in bed and I want to get up.” It feels good to acknowledge reality.
Joe said on an RFC call: “Just admit to the reality of the situation.” That line still echos in my head. “Admitting to Reality” could be a book or blog.
Anger Pop-Ups
This is one of the crazier parts of the course. People gather in a small group on a zoom call and take turns screaming while the others observe. The rules are no hitting and no directing anger toward someone on the call other than the facilitator. The facilitator’s job is to help the participant be angry in a safe way.
The lesson for the mindbody system is that anger can be safe.
There was a person in my group who had done this before. He went first, moving his anger. He began screaming. Almost immediately, my hands covered my face. Someone else on the call did the same.
I felt even more uncomfortable around an angry female. I know the reasons why. How much of my behavior has been driven by avoidance of this discomfort? The way to change is to embrace the discomfort.
I took my turn. It was difficult. In the past, I’ve been afraid of my own anger. Afraid of my rage. It was a new experience for me to experience it safely with others. The lesson for my system was that anger can be safe. It’s difficult to know how much it changed me. I do know I’d like to do it again.
People will take the same AoA course multiple times because the course is less about data/algorithms and more about experiencing emotions and participating in exercises that teach something new each time.
It’s an emotion gym.
Every now and then I feel like My life just changed. I got that feeling when I committed to doing this course. I was right. Sometimes I think of my life as pre-AoA and post-AoA. It feels like jumped from one branch to a larger one in the tree of possible outcomes.
Congratulations! You made it to the end! Hit the heart to let me know you made it (:
Schedule a curiosity call on Calendly.
Watch my videos and podcasts on YouTube.
My first book, All Outcome Are Acceptable is now available on Amazon. It’s filled with stories from my life and my best photography. One reader described it as “Absurd. Blatant. Truth 1 millimeter from your face. I feel like I’ve been slapped around a bit.”
Thanks guys. Have a great rest of your day.
Music
Photos
Joe Hudson's work is something I definitely want to dig deeper into (when I have the budget haha)
Do you have a favourite blog post/video you go back to as his pillar content?
This is amazing. Thanks for writing this. Like others, I’ve learnt so much from just consuming Joes online material and already experience the improvements from a day to day experience point of view. Was interested in the course and your article provides a fantastic overview. Learning a lot from just reading this.