The Golden Algorithm
Trace avoided emotions to the patterns that recreate them
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 99%
The Golden Algorithm treats a recurring painful pattern as the downstream effect of emotional avoidance. First identify the feeling you most do not want—such as abandonment, shame, anger, fear, or anxiety. Then list the behaviours used to prevent that feeling and examine how each behaviour makes the feared outcome more likely. Hardening against abandonment, for example, can provoke distance; caretaking to prevent abandonment can create resentment. The intervention is not merely to understand the loop intellectually, but to reverse the emotional stance: welcome the feeling, look for its gifts, and stop organising behaviour around escape. With avoidance no longer driving action, the self-reinforcing pattern can dissolve.
Origin
Joe Hudson developed the idea by tracing how his attempts to avoid childhood abandonment repeatedly recreated abandonment in adult relationships.
Core principles
- 01Resisting an emotion helps it persist
- 02Avoidance strategies can recreate the feared outcome
- 03Welcoming an emotion removes the pattern's fuel
- 04Painful patterns can be reverse-engineered
How to run it
- 1
Name the emotion
Identify the emotional experience you most want to prevent. Use a specific feeling such as shame, abandonment, fear, anger, or anxiety.
Pro tip Start with a recurring area of pain and work backwards from it.
Watch out Do not substitute an external event for the emotion beneath it.
- 2
List avoidance strategies
Write down every behaviour, defence, or management tactic you use to avoid feeling that emotion.
Pro tip Include socially rewarded strategies such as caretaking, overworking, or controlling.
- 3
Trace the recreation loop
For each strategy, identify how it increases the likelihood of the feared experience. Look for effects on other people's responses and on your own perception.
Pro tip Examine both direct effects and resentment or withdrawal created over time.
Watch out Intellectual agreement alone does not interrupt the loop.
- 4
Welcome the feeling
Replace resistance with willingness to experience the emotion. Let the feeling be present without using the old avoidance behaviour.
Pro tip Use language such as welcoming rather than merely accepting the emotion.
Watch out Welcoming an emotion does not mean seeking unsafe circumstances.
- 5
Observe the new pattern
Notice what changes when the emotion is no longer driving avoidance. Repeat the inquiry wherever the same pain appears.
In the wild
Hudson expected emotional abandonment and hardened or became angry when he thought it was coming. That response increased the likelihood that the other person would withdraw, reproducing the experience he was trying not to feel.
→ He could trace the recurring abandonment pattern back to his attempts to prevent it.
Hudson also tried to prevent abandonment by caretaking another person. The caretaking created resentment, which then increased the likelihood of abandonment.
→ A seemingly caring avoidance strategy was revealed as part of the same loop.
Common mistakes
Stopping at intellectual insight
Understanding the loop conceptually is not the same as changing the emotional stance that powers it.
Calling avoidance preference
Simply preferring that an event not happen is different from organising behaviour around refusing to feel its emotional consequence.
Is it for you?
Best for
People who keep encountering the same painful emotional pattern across situations.
Not ideal for
Immediate physical danger or situations where practical protection matters more than emotional inquiry.
From the transcript
“name an unwanted emotion in your life two list the ways you try to avoid it three notice that every way you try to avoid…”
“the emotion that we don't want to feel is the emotion that we invite invite in the exact way that we try to avoid it”
“what am I trying to avoid how am I avoiding it how that's how I'm creating it”
From the episode
The Art Of Mastering Your Emotions - Joe Hudson - #813
Joe Hudson