Dhru Purohit Show
How to Rewire a Fearful, Judgmental, and Stressed-Out Mind into One Rooted in Freedom and Presence with Joe Hudson
04 Jun 2025
This episode is brought to you by Bon Charge, LMNT, and BiOptimizers. Did you know that your judgmental thoughts—about both yourself and others—could be contributing to unhappiness, blocking joy, and even affecting your health? Most people don’t realize that these thoughts often stem from a fear of fully feeling and embracing the emotions that arise in certain situations. When we avoid those emotions, we remain stuck in patterns of judgment and disconnection. Today’s guest is here to help us break free. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Joe Hudson to explore how judgment, whether directed outward or inward, influences our thoughts, relationships, and overall well-being. Joe shares what leads us to have judgmental thoughts, the initial high it brings, and the vulnerable feelings that it covers up. Joe also shares the roadblocks that hold us back from being exactly who we want to be, as well as the common pattern of self-reliance, abandonment, and shame. It’s time to drop the judgment and reclaim your freedom. Dubbed “the coach behind Silicon Valley’s unicorn CEOs,” Joe Hudson is one of the most in-demand mentors to top leaders at OpenAI, Apple, Alphabet, and beyond. With a background in venture capital and over 25 years of deep work across psychology, neuroscience, and contemplative traditions, Joe has crafted a radically different path to personal growth—one that goes far beyond traditional self-help. His approach rewires how people relate to themselves, dissolving internal blocks and unlocking sustainable high performance rooted in ease, clarity, and joy. In this episode, Dhru and Joe dive into: How self-judgment impacts our well-being and emotional regulation (00:15) Why judging others feels good, the inner voice, and the impact of negative self-talk (5:16) Are our judgmental thoughts contributing to physical disease in the body? (14:58) Joe's personal journey and what he internalized from childhood (18:18) Why the inner voice in your head is often wrong (24:13) Judgment, shame, and guilt as key drivers of stress (30:51) How do you want to be right now? (35:07) How to deal with internal resistance (42:57) The connection between abandonment and self-reliance (44:35) Understanding the pattern of abandonment and how to address it (51:95) Receiving unconditional love and building unconditional relationships (56:40) An introduction to The Matrix Protocol (1:08:15) What it means to live in the compassionate truth (1:20:12) The hidden “protocol” of unhappiness (1:24:47) Gratitude moments and shifting from lack to love (1:33:04) How stress, lack of enjoyment, and negative self-talk threaten our well-being (1:43:31) Where to find Joe’s work and resources (1:49:57) For more on Joe, follow him on Twitter, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and his Website. This episode is brought to you by Bon Charge, LMNT, and BiOptimizers. Right now, Bon Charge is offering my community 15% off; just go to boncharge.com/DHRU and use coupon code DHRU to save 15%. Right now, LMNT is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any purchase. Head over to drinkLMNT.com/dhru today. Go to bioptimizers.com/dhru now and enter promo code DHRU10 to get 10% off any order of Sleep Breakthrough and find out this month’s gift with purchase. Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Joe, welcome to the podcast. I've so enjoyed diving deep into your work over these last couple of months. Shout out to Tom. And I'd love to start off on the topic of judgment. You know, most people have no idea that their thoughts about judgment towards themselves or others is driving a huge part and one of the biggest contributors of unhappiness, stress, disease, that they feel on a daily basis.
Yeah.
In fact, you've shared, I'd love to share a little quote from you.
Please, yeah.
One of the things you'll notice is that the more judgmental a person is, the less they feel good about themselves. So the big question is, if the judgmental voice inside of all our heads, I'm guilty of it as well too, is such a driver of stress and lack of enjoyment, why are we all so addicted to it? Yeah.
So the way I look at the mind is that I see three minds. Not that there are, but because I find it useful. So we have the prefrontal cortex, which is the human intellectual mind. Then there's the emotional center, which is the mammalian mind. And there's the nervous system, more reptilian mind. And so... You're talking about the prefrontal cortex, but they all dance together.
And so I think one of the main reasons outside of it was really useful to be able to check ourselves for mistakes when we were hunting and gathering. But one of the main reasons is to not feel emotions. So every time that you're judging yourself or somebody else, there's an emotion underneath that you don't want to feel.
And so if you say to yourself in that moment, oh, if I couldn't feel this judgment, if I couldn't be judgmental, what would I have to feel at this moment? There's always an emotion underneath there that your body is trying to push against. And so the reason that the judgment makes you miserable is because you're pushing down emotional experiences.
And I was saying that is joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions, and she won't come into a house if her children aren't welcome. And so that joy comes from being able to feel and love all of your emotional experiences. That doesn't mean being taken by them, but it means love and feel them. And there's a ton of science behind the stress and the pain of not feeling into your emotions.
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