In this solo lecture, behavioral scientist and human behavior expert Chase Hughes introduces the concept of 'emotional debt' — a neuroscience-backed framework explaining how unprocessed emotions don't disappear but compound in the nervous system like interest on a loan. Drawing on biology (amygdala hypersensitization, the HPA axis, prefrontal cortex degradation), somatic science, and psychology, Hughes argues that what we call 'personality' is often just a collection of unpaid emotional invoices from childhood. He outlines five steps to process emotional debt: see the payments, name your debt-servicing behavior, let the body finish incomplete responses, stop taking on new debt, and get a witness — all united by a single active ingredient: perspective shift.
Heather Havrilesky is an American advice columnist, culture writer, and author best known for her wildly popular 'Ask Polly' column, which began at The Awl in 2012, moved to New York magazine's The Cut in 2014, and migrated to Substack in 2021 where it has amassed over 100,000 subscribers. Writing with unflinching emotional honesty and a distinct all-caps intensity, she dismantles myths of American success, explores the paradoxes of modern love, and reassures readers that being a walking tangle of contradictions is not just acceptable but very human. She is also the author of four books, including the New York Times bestseller 'How to Be a Person in the World' and 'Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage,' named a Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker.