Loving Attention: Supporting Someone Without Fixing Them
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Hudson's protocol for being with another person's distress, built on the claim that fixing is usually about your own discomfort rather than their need. Reassurance, he argues, invalidates: telling someone it will be okay communicates that their emotion is making you uncomfortable and should stop, which often leaves them feeling unseen. The alternative is empathetic presence with no agenda for them to change — 'I'm so sorry, I'm right here with you.' The protocol extends to conflict, where he prescribes dropping the defence and inviting the whole complaint, and to the polarity trap, where one partner's optimism forces the other into doubt. Hudson calls this a superpower inside a marriage, and notes that men in Western cultures are trained toward the opposite reflex.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Drop the defence before you say anything
Hudson's model of a typical fight: both people believe they are defending themselves and both feel attacked by the other's defence. The defence is the resistance, and what we resist persists. Dropping it ends the loop unilaterally.
Pro tip His test for whether a defence is needed: if you don't secretly believe the accusation, there is nothing to defend.
- 2
Say the empathetic sentence and stop
Hudson models it back to Ali from an earlier conversation: 'I'm so sorry. I'm right here with you.' No 'I'm sure the book is actually good.' In his words, empathetically being with somebody is all that's really required.
Watch out Adding a silver lining converts empathy into a fix and cancels it.
- 3
Refuse the reassurance reflex
If your partner thinks their work is bad and you think it's good, Hudson allows saying your opinion once. Chasing them into happiness after that is counterproductive, because it is an expression of your own unwillingness to sit with the uncertainty.
Pro tip Try mirroring instead: 'yeah, you feel like you didn't do good enough — that sucks.'
Watch out Persistent reassurance forces them to argue the opposite case and dig further into the negative position.
- 4
When the upset is about you, invite all of it
Hudson's harder version: 'I hear that you're really upset with me. I want to hear all about it. Tell me what's bothering you. What do you want from me?' — while being explicit that you are not pre-agreeing to whatever they want. Given that space, people typically explain, move the stuck emotion, and arrive somewhere better.
- 5
Drop your pole so they can drop theirs
Hudson observes in couples and companies that people split emotional roles: one worries about money, so the other stops. If you hold the optimist role there is nowhere left for your partner to stand except doubt. Vacating your pole invites them to vacate theirs.
Pro tip Ali's version from customer support: there are two chips — 'this is a big deal' and 'this is not a big deal' — and the customer always takes the one you don't.
- 6
Apologise upright when you owe one
Hudson calls the apology one of the most successful transformational tools available. An upright apology means not leaving yourself and not feeling bad about yourself — simply that you don't want to be like this in future. He says if he apologises for yelling three or four times without shame, he stops yelling.
Pro tip You can apologise for the pain without accepting the demand: 'I'm sorry that my choices are hurting you. I really do not want you to hurt.'
Watch out The moment it tips into shame you get stagnation, and the behaviour repeats over and over.
In the wild
Hudson tells the story of a Quaker man in a deep depression, surrounded by a strong community. Everyone showed up with advice on what he should do to stop being depressed. One person came every Tuesday and simply washed his feet. He later said that did more for him than anything else — because everyone else was agreeing with him that he was broken, while the person washing his feet was the only one telling him he was complete exactly as he was. Hudson uses it as the cleanest illustration that chasing someone toward feeling better is an expression of your own discomfort, not their need.
→ Wordless presence outperformed an entire community's advice, because it was the only intervention that did not confirm he was broken.
Hudson had an employee who insisted their work was terrible. He chased for a while — no, this is good, this is what I want from you — and it did not work. So he ran the opposite experiment: when they said the work was bad, he agreed. The employee immediately started defending themselves and explaining why it was actually good, and Hudson said: yeah, see, you knew it was good. He offers it as a demonstration of the polarity mechanic rather than a recommended manipulation, noting Ali's identical dynamic when reassuring his partner about her perfectionism and imposter syndrome.
→ Vacating the optimist pole freed the other person to argue for their own work, which no amount of reassurance had achieved.
Common mistakes
Saying 'it's okay, it's going to be all right'
Hudson is explicit that this invalidates: what you are actually communicating is that their emotions are making you uncomfortable and should stop. It is the reflex he says Western men in particular have to unlearn.
Chasing them into happiness
Repeated reassurance is about your unwillingness to feel the uncertainty. Say your opinion once if you must, then sit in it. Chasing makes it about you and often makes them defend the negative view harder.
Defending yourself when accused
Both people in a fight feel they are defending and both feel attacked by the other's defence. Hudson's deeper point is that defending means you believe there is something bad in you — and the non-defence itself is what dissolved his own behaviour when a friend called him a dick.
From the transcript
“just like yeah I'm just just empathetically being with somebody is all that's really required”
“not wanting them them to change it's just literally I can sit in loving attention of you and your emotional experience”
“everybody else was agreeing with me that I was broken the person who was washing my feet was the only person who was saying to…”
From the episode
Success Beyond Money: Joe Hudson
Success Beyond Money