You Get What You Need

There is this thirst in our society to find the “perfect” something – whether it’s the perfect career, perfect relationship or perfect circumstances.  We want to know what we are supposed to be doing, and are convinced it will bring a lifetime of happiness and success.  And in our incessant search for all the right answers we miss what our life is trying to tell us – right now.  Embarrassingly, I found myself in this very position recently.  And, I thought you might want to know how to avoid similar circumstances. 

It all started a few months ago.  My practice was thriving, but I was asking the old question of, “What’s next?”  Therefore, I did what I tell all my clients to do whenever progress feels stalled: I revisited my long-term vision of success, declared three big goals, and prepared to watch things naturally unfold.

For the first time, I did my visioning work with the help of Patti Dobrowolski.  She specializes in visual mapping, meaning I talked about what I wanted and she gave visual representation to my words, ideas and dreams.  The process was incredibly inspiring.  I reconfirmed my long-term vision to help people to reconnect to their full potential through healing.  (Let’s be honest, we’re getting loud signals that the world needs healing right now.) And to further the mission, I committed three goals to paper – create a healing center, tell my own story of personal transformation, and build a robust on-line community for those interested in learning how to self-heal.

Since that time, I could give you a million little and a few big examples of coincidences that have unfolded effortlessly – like unexpectedly buying land for the healing center, miraculously finding financing in this economy, having a spectacular marketing team assembled on my behalf – but of course, nothing happens by accident. Nothing.  No, we all move closer to what we want when we learn to trust, pay attention and act definitively.  Oh, the decisions don’t always feel logical or rational at the time, but I’ve come to give greater value the unconscious mind and the collective wisdom of something greater than myself.  I just have faith in these pulling forces because they are always a few steps ahead of the limited conscious mind, which is where we tend to conjure up short-term goals anyway.  But when you get them on all the same page – magic happens, and it happens quickly.

That’s right.  When you declare a goal out loud, you have to be prepared as the universe rearranges itself on your behalf.   You might get the right email at the perfect time, read an article that answers an old nagging question or show up at the wrong appointment and meet the right person.  But what people don’t often tell you is that you also have to be prepared to get circumstances that you didn’t want, which is what happened when my writing coach almost fired me a month ago.

Fire me?  I’d just declared my recommitment to writing the book. I thought to myself, “I can’t write a book without my writing coach?!”  But of course, my coaches’ perspective was much more on target:  I can’t write a book if I don’t make time for writing the book.

Like I said, the universe will rearrange itself on your behalf.  And, you may not always get what you want, but you’ll get what you need.  You just have to trust that it’s all happening for the right reasons. Sometimes it’s a lesson cloaked as a diversion.  If you haven’t heeded the lesson in the past, it can easily look like a wake-up call.  My conversation with Kimberly was a wake-up call.  And the only way you’ll know the difference is to ask yourself what your life is telling you – right now.

When I asked myself that question, I noticed a convergence zone of sorts. My coach asking me to declare a specific writing goal, my breakthrough appointments uncharacteristically slowing, the all-star marketing team efforts that started to wane, the computer problems which cut me off from barrages of email, an invitation to writing time in the woods… and as a result, I’ve done lots of writing. Over 5,000 words, thank you very much. It’s not yet a chapter, but it’s a start – and a good start.

So today, I am humbly reminding you to stop, look and listen to what your life is telling you – right now.  Having a long-term vision and declaring goals tells the universe what you want, but you have to be prepared to listen even when you don’t like the answer.  Don’t take for granted the hidden meaning that arises from the circumstances of your everyday life.  If you’re not getting the perfection of what you want, it probably means you’re getting the perfection of what you need.  

Demystifying Emotional Triggers

Have you ever felt emotionally hijacked – held captive by some mysterious emotional trigger that you didn’t quite understand?  Who hasn’t, right?  You know the drill: a flood of unexplained and seemingly uncontrollable emotion races through your body and seizes your ability to behaving rationally.  An emotional trigger can be spurred on by something as simple as a distressing email or a customer service conversation gone wrong, but let’s not forget about the perky neighbor or co-worker that everyone seems to adore…everyone, but you.

When these reactions happen, it’s so easy to look outside of ourselves and blame the situation or person pushing our buttons.  But, what if I told you that every emotional hijack is actually a ransom note telling you there is something to heal?  I was abruptly reminded of this fact last week when I found myself in the midst of an unexpected emotional tailspin.

At the time, my husband and I were discussing our long-term financial plans.  The conversation included sobering topics like wills, life insurance, and retirement income; important issues, but not fun, right?  Well, in the middle of the conversation I found myself officially hijacked.  Hell, between us – it was like I had a case of undiagnosed Tourette’s syndrome.  On some level, I was aware that my response was totally out of proportion, but I just couldn’t stop myself.  My emotions were over-the-top, out-of-control and my body’s physiology kicked into high gear, which left nothing to bubble up to the rational brain but waves of desperation.  That’s how a hijack works, unfortunately.

And yet, we both know that these natural and automatic fight or flight responses are supposed to be reserved for the real thing – like an intruder in your home or ten foot waves at the bow of your boat.  Both, by the way, I’ve experienced. So, a few hours later I embarrassingly asked myself – “What was I thinking?” – knowing I wasn’t thinking at all.  So, I wondered, "What unconscious belief caused this response?"
     
As I’ve said before, the unconscious mind works on the premise of least effort.  It’s always on the lookout for seemingly similar circumstances and responses from the past in hopes of applying those old responses to present day situations.  It was clear I had a belief that had been running amuck for some time.  So, I went looking for the root cause.

Here is what I found:  “You are not capable of supporting yourself!”

This, of course, is a disempowering belief that is not true, so I let it go. In a matter of minutes, I could feel a sense of self-reliance, capability and focus being unleashed in my body.  These internal resources didn’t come from a protective “I’ll show you” mindset, but from a place of internal expansion.  In that moment, I knew the resources had already been there but it’s as if they were being held captive by a very old wound. 

In the days that passed, I reflected on how this belief has shaped my life.  If I’m honest, I’ve been waiting for someone to take care of me for most of my life.  Don’t get me wrong – I’ve worked hard and successfully over the years – but deep down at a unconscious level it appears I never believed it would be my financial success that would fuel my ability to be in service to more people.  Again, not flattering to say out loud, but I can see many decisions tied to this belief.  And, it explains a lot about my writing, as well.

As you know, I’ve been writing a book for the last couple of years.  It’s probably more accurate to say I’ve been thinking about writing a book more than writing a book.  In other words, my mental intentions haven’t been matched by the action of written word on the page.  I can see how this belief impacted this endeavor.  Consciously, I would say, “I am going to write a book and create a huge platform to help others to heal more quickly.”  And my unconscious mind whisper, “Oh, why bother?  You’re not capable of supporting the outcomes you want in life.”  I only know this because I have been supercharged for the last week, and not only in my writing.
 
I would have never recaptured these internal resources if I hadn’t followed the ransom note delivered by my emotions.  Every hijack – big or small – tells me there’s something to heal. And when I address the ransom, I reconnect to more of my potential and the resources that come along with greater wholeness.  And, the same is also true for you.  

I Don’t Like Spiders and Snakes

If you’ve had a critical conversation, first date, job interview or have ever spoken in front of a large group — you already know the connection between the mind and body.  Who hasn’t experienced these tell-tale  physiological symptoms in times of stress:  stomach butterflies, an embarrassing color shift or perspiration that appears at the most inopportune time?  But, what happens when these natural physiological responses are so exaggerated that they immobilize someone at the mere thought of something…whether it’s a small eight-legged critter, slimy reptile or confined space.  Most people know we call this phenomenon a phobia, but maybe you didn't know how easy it is to release these irrational fears.

The term irrational feels a little harsh, huh?  But, in this situation the term used by the field of psychology actually makes a lot sense, because the vast majority of phobias are created before our capacity for rational thought is fully developed.  In the absence of a logical counterbalance in someone’s youngest years, the seeds of phobias are planted through misconstrued experiences exaggerated by fear.
  
These misinterpretations are stored as unconscious memories.  And, all of our memories are stored as internal representations — collages of pictures, sounds, and feelings — which tell us how to respond to something in the future based on an experience in the past.  So, someone with arachnophobia can see a small spider and lose himself in a sea of anxiety. And yet, it's not the spider that scares the person, but the internal picture of how his unconscious thinks he's supposed to respond to spiders.  And, when you change that picture — you remove the phobia.  It's that simple.

Regardless of the ease, it’s always humbling to witness someone release a debilitating fear so quickly.  One time in particular stands out in my mind. I had just finished delivering a half-day workshop to a large group of Vistage CEOs.  We’d spent our time together discussing the topic of beliefs, performance and instant change.  At the end of the workshop, I quipped I could easily release a phobia for anyone who had an extra fifteen minutes to spare.  Because the group already had a deep understanding of how change happens instantly, I jokingly made the offer. And if I’m honest, I was surprised when someone took me up on it.
 
This person had a snake phobia.  At just the mere suggestion of having a slimy reptile caged in the front of the room, his physiology jumped into high alert: flushed face, heart racing, beads of sweat.  I quickly changed the subject to keep him in the room, until he was calm enough to discuss how old he might have been when he decided snakes were scary.  He remembered lots of memories from later in his life, but like most clients, he couldn’t consciously remember the first event.  Therefore, I guided him to identify the first seed that formed this irrational fear.

Within seconds, he entered the memory a very early childhood experience.  This recollection, in itself, will not undue a phobia but it offered a starting point for our work.  Instead, our job together was to change the earliest internal representation.  So for the next ten minutes, I lead him to replay and disconnect the fear from that memory using the NLP phobia model.  In the end, he realized the first memory never even included a real snake - but instead, was a stern warning from his mother about playing around snake holes.  Once he had this rational perspective, I asked him one final time how he’d respond to a caged snake in the front of the room.  When he ambivalently shrugged his shoulders, I knew our work was done.

Of course, not everyone has a full-blown phobia.  And yet, the same model that creates a phobia also creates the stress and anxiety we experience in every day situations — during a critical conversation, first date, job interview or speech before a large group.  Were my client had a belief that snakes are dangerous, many of us hold a set of limiting beliefs that send direct neurological commands to the body when our unconscious mind believes we are in danger.  They, too, are often created by misconstrued experiences. Though the physiological response from these beliefs may not be as overt, the unconscious signals are disempowering none-the-less.  And also like a phobia, these beliefs don't go away through awareness, but they can be released easily.  In fact, it's even quicker than letting go of a life-long phobia.    

Meditation Made Easy

I’ve tried mediation on and off throughout the years — mostly off.   Meditation has always felt difficult for me, and if you’ve read any of my blogs, you know I’ve spent most my life avoiding hard.  In fact, I suspect it’s my propensity to skirt the difficult that originally fueled my motivation to wake up through more unorthodox techniques.  And yet, I understand the benefits of meditation to consciousness-raising — I do.  In fact, with this understanding I’ve tried insight meditation, guided meditation, contemplation meditation, breath meditation, walking meditation and maybe a few more.  But it always felt hard, and in the end, my practice was always short-lived.   And then, I read about a different type of meditation that promised to be easy.

The book was Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation, which is currently a New York Times best seller, written by Dr. Norman Rosenthal.  Rosenthal is not a new aged prophet or a self-help guru, but a well known psychiatrist and researcher at the Institute of Mental Health.  In fact, he affectionately named the seasonal effectiveness disorder (SAD) that impacts many in the Pacific Northwest.

But anyway, Rosenthal makes a compelling case for the benefits of a specific type of meditation called transcendental meditation or TM.  In addition to the obvious health benefits of meditation, he talks at length about how the simple technique of TM can allow anyone to connect to the silent core of our being – in other words, reach pure consciousness.  In fact, he promised that TM would feel natural and easy and wouldn’t require lots of practice to be effective.  And finally, he said it didn’t require any specific belief system or religious context.  I was intrigued.

Now, for anyone who has tried other forms of meditation, like me, this declaration seemed way too good to be true.  I found myself succumbing to the same skepticism that surrounds the work that I do.  Just slightly ironic, I think.  But, I’d tried other types of meditation and still had vivid memories of time passing too slowly and watching thoughts run through my mind….and then, opening my eyes to realize only two minutes has passed.  UGH.  Could this technique really be easier?  I set out to find a qualified TM teacher in Seattle to learn more.

In early July I attended the information session.  I learned that the technique was created by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who reemerged this ancient technique as a way to offer western folks a technique to find inner peace.  For those who lived in the 60’s, it was actually Maharishi who introduced the Beatles to the benefits of meditation.  This specific type of meditation uses a personalized mantra — which has a certain vibrational sound and quality — that guides the psyche to what it does naturally:  moves toward happiness, stillness and peace.  This really interested me, because much of my work uses the same principle, but I was still skeptical how this would translate to meditation.  So, I decided to experience it for myself.

In my very first official training session, I was sitting in an unassuming house in the middle of suburbia Kirkland.  Somehow, I’d always envisioned this would happen in an Ashram.  I was guided into a very small room simply decorated with two chairs and a make-shift ceremonial shrine that adorned a picture of Maharishi.  After a very brief ceremony in Sanskrit, I was left to meditate with my very own secret mantra.  I didn’t need to sit in the lotus position or put an uncomfortable pillow below my butt, but encouraged to make myself comfortable in what appeared to be an old dining room chair.  Apparently, there is no suffering necessary with TM.

And in fact, the theme of no suffering actually continued through the meditation technique, as well.  Unlike other types of mediation I’d tried, I was encouraged to allow my thoughts to rise and meet them with my mantra.  Over time, the mantra was more present than the thoughts.  And then, the mantra left and I found silence.  Until the cycle started again, slowing down a little each time.  Before you know it, the teacher said, “Okay, you can come out of the meditation now slowly.”  What appeared to be five minutes — tops — had actually been twenty.

It’s funny really.  I’ve had an appointment on my schedule for the last two years for daily meditation.  Every day it pops up on my calendar reminder, and I turn it off.  I’ve never allowed myself to remove the appointment because I knew I wanted meditation as part of my daily self-care.  And today my reminder popped up and I just smiled.  I’d already done my morning 20 minute mediation.  That’s right; with TM you only meditate for 20 minutes twice a day.  And, as Rosenthal says in his book, he used to want a place in the country or in the mountains.  Now, he just looks forward to his mediation.  I couldn’t agree more.  I’m already looking forward to tonight’s sitting.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s easy?

Consciousness Continuum

Until recently, I’ve stayed away from using the word “consciousness” in my practice.  I don’t know, maybe I wondered if people would want to debate what consciousness is or isn’t – and I felt inept to convey my lay viewpoint while some of our best philosophers and scientists continue to debate the issue:  is it neurological, quantum or spiritual?  I’m still not prepared to answer that complicated question, but it’s clear we need a little common sense on the topic.  More important, people need to understand how — in the simplest of terms — one’s level of consciousness dictates how we respond to the circumstances of life.

First and foremost, let’s make it simple — consciousness is nothing more than describing how awake you are to yourself, and to the world around you.  You can be awake a little, or a lot.  If you are only slightly awake, the world is a subjective place where you are thrown about by circumstances, emotions and safe choices.  For these folks, the world can easily become a platform of doing in the name of self-interest and ego.

Conversely, if you are fully awake, the world is a vast and interconnected plateau where your personal contribution makes an investment to the greater whole.  As a result, you more easily transcend the grip of circumstances and emotions and make conscious choices aligned with the highest good.  These folks are more interested in the art of being, meaning they do as well, but from a place of clarity, love, expansiveness and service.

And of course, it’s a continuum and most of us live somewhere along this spectrum.   David Hawkins in his book on consciousness, Power vs. Force, says one in fifteen million people live at the far right of the continuum and experience what we’ve come to call enlightenment.  

I suppose you might be curious about where you sit on this continuum, right?  Well, it’s actually fairly easy to discern.  Just notice if you have a stronger propensity to operate from a place of ego and negative emotions, such as guilt, fear, hopelessness or pride…or whether if you’re more apt to be carried by a sense of love, faith or deep inner peace even during challenging times.

In short, consciousness allows you to transcend circumstances, which is what transcendence means in Latin:  beyond this.  And the more you wake up, the more you’re able to get out of your head and untether yourself from the exaggerated emotions that plague many of our lives today.  It doesn’t mean you don’t feel anything, but you can put things in greater perspective because your heart is open.  This expansiveness became increasingly evident to me when my husband suffered a stroke late last year. As you can imagine, I was certainly concerned and felt emotionally jostled occasionally.  And yet, I also felt incredibly strong.  Not because I emotionally disconnected or retreated for survival purposes, but because a sense of faith was palpable whenever I found myself being fully present.  In fact, I would also experience moments of deep appreciation in this presence – for the lessons, technology, staff and the loving support that seemed to be all around us.  But it wasn’t until the crisis passed that I realized that this uncanny sense of presence was new to my life.
 
I want to be clear that being present is not something I learned how to do consciously.  In fact, I can remember reading both of Eckhart Tolle’s books, The Power of Now and A New Earth, and thinking that this way of being, as he described it, was more easily said than done.  After all, he had the benefit of enlightenment to guide his thoughts, behaviors and emotions.  As one of the 14,999,999 million other people who haven’t experienced spontaneous enlightenment, I remember being frustrated that I couldn’t create a bridge from his lovely words and experiences straight to my heart.  I had an intellectual understanding of being and presence, but that didn't help me avoid being flung about my life’s little circumstances.  Until, that is, I started to work on my level of consciousness through blind ignorance.
      
You see, I’ve lived my work over the last few years.  Meaning, I created a practice of releasing old beliefs or healing old wounds using the restorative techniques I use with my clients.  During the process, it’s natural to connect momentarily to the state of being – a place that feels objective and neutral.  When I first started releasing, I’d receive moments of what felt like common sense or clarity.  But as my practice continued, however, I started to connect more often to a sense of joy or peace or contentment, until the feelings finally progressed to a state of pure bliss.  And what I now understand – is that with every beautiful encounter – I would bring a little bit of those emotional states back to expand my conscious awareness.   In the end, it was this regimen that allowed me to transcend the storm of natural emotions, worries and fears that come along with any medical crisis.
     
Maybe you’re still curious about your own level of consciousness, but it feels too unfair to think about life’s big challenges.  If so, just reflect on how you respond to the little things in life.  What happens when someone accidentally butts in front of you in the line at the grocery store or cuts you off on the highway?  What do you say to yourself, or to them?  What feelings run through your body?  How do you behave?  Can you distance yourself from the emotions and ask yourself what might be happening for them?  Can you be curious even in the face of a potential affront?  Do you feel the propensity to do something to prove you’re right, or can you be with the moment and respond from a place of clarity, expansiveness and love?  It’s these everyday moments that often cause me to ask myself:  Is it time to wake up some more?

Can People Change?

I used to wonder if people could change.  At the time, it was easy to chalk up my own cynicism to two decades in human resources in which I had witnessed the masses struggling to adapt to constructive feedback — even when it held the promise of greater success. And yet today, this very question of whether people can change seems incredibly naïve and shallow. As I work with clients, I want them to understand there is nothing about who they are that needs to change.  Changing people isn’t the answer.  Instead, we need to help people discover more of who they really are.  I know, this declaration might sound a little contradictory, so let me tell you a little more.

Remember, we were born whole, perfect and full of perfection.  We were flexible, creative, adaptable, resourceful, innovative and loving.  We were brimming with possibilities, innate interests and natural inclinations.  And then, life happened.  Our little minds received clear messages that in order to be loved, worthy, maybe even safe, we needed to act or do things in a certain way.  By adulthood, some strategies work.  Others don’t.
  
And yet, we don’t change or transform by “fixing” what’s not working.  This is why training, performance reviews, new years’ resolutions and ultimatums have a short shelf-life.  Take my client who is wicked smart, driven and a deeply committed consultant.  She is already incredibly successful in her own right, but work feels hard and monopolizes her life.  She’s all or nothing when it comes to pleasing her customers — mostly all, which is starting to take a toll on her health.  Our job is not to change or fix who she is, but to help her rediscover those aspects of herself that were hidden away by the message she had to please others, at all costs.

And yet, we’ve become such a doing society that we’ve lost sight of the benefits that come with a sense of being or wholeness.  Which is why this client’s homework assignment was getting more comfortable with the notion that she could be worthy without doing anything.  So in preparation for our next session, her assignment was to relearn how to waste time — her words — which for her included sitting uncomfortably on a park bench without a purpose, attempting small bites of meditation and walking a labyrinth in the middle of the workday.  All of these activities allowed her to address her  unconscious fear of being useless.

As you can see, this is a very different strategy than telling people what’s not working, which happens all the time, right?  Instead of encouraging individuals to transform through wholeness, we encourage people to change by throwing out the comfortable parts of who they are already.  In fact, I can remember being told in one of my annual performance reviews that I sounded like a consultant.  It was implied, “Work on changing that.”  What does one do with that type of feedback?  Without any outside direction, I heightened my self-awareness and questioned my motivations.  In turn, I became paranoid and self-conscious in an environment already wrought with ego, educational pedigree and unrelenting excellence.  I was clearly overcompensating, but I needed someone to guide me.  I didn’t need less of whatever I was exuding, but the counterbalance of something that was clearly missing from within.  I didn’t need to change, but find more of myself.

I know the exact moment when this aspect of who I am was gifted with greater equilibrium.   I was in Southern California and experiencing my very first breakthrough session as the crescendo to my master’s training.  In a crowed hotel conference room filled with thirty other practitioners, I’d spent my morning in a corner with another practitioner sharing the beliefs I had about myself:  I’m not smart enough, good enough, you fill in the blank.  Once I released those old beliefs, there was an invitation to be unapologetically me.  It no longer seemed necessary — consciously or unconsciously — to project something I wasn’t.  I could embrace all aspects of myself. And let’s be clear: these elements of who I am most authentically weren’t willing to come out just because someone suggested I change.

In retrospect, if I would have changed there is the chance I could have let go of what I do well — communicate.   That would be equivalent to throwing out the baby with the bath water.  In fact, my client doesn’t need to change either.  Can you see that?  What we both required was a repertoire of behaviors that come from a greater sense of internal equilibrium, which only emerges when we revive the young character virtues, values and beliefs that were present before we looked at life through the lens of fear.  We didn’t need to change — you don’t need to change — but instead, tap into a pool of internal resources that come along when we embrace more of who we are.  

The Three Culprits of Unhappiness

If there’s anything I’ve learned in my lifetime, it’s that too many people are unhappy.  This first came to light for me in the workplace where so many people are working in jobs they find unfulfilling; literally millions of folks fit in this category.  But I’ve come to witness a level of dissatisfaction and unhappiness that’s almost unexplainable, which made me think recently about what stops people from living more joyous and bliss-filled lives.  From the inspiration of a ten second Twitter post, here are the three most common culprits, I believe, that stop us from achieving greater happiness.

Not knowing what you want:
At the simplest level, too many of us don’t know what’s important to us — meaning what we want to accomplish or do in our lifetime.  Also, I see an absence of intention behind who we want to be or how we want people to remember us.  Even while the research is very clear: it’s not arriving at the destination, but the journey of traveling to achieving our aspirations that brings us joy.  However, with the void of being clear about what we want and the character and values that will help us to get there — happiness alludes even the most talented.

This particular culprit shows up for many reasons, but it’s a protective mindset that dupes most.  Meaning, these folks spend their time trying to avoid something — being broke, unloved, criticized, vulnerable, disappointing others, failure — so much so, they’re often playing defense.  This causes them to spend too much time talking about what they don’t want…and as a result, they’ve forgotten to ask themselves what might be possible on the horizon.  In the worse-case scenario, they’re so stuck that they’ve given up dreaming all together.      

Not wanting what you have:
This nasty culprit creates unhappiness for a couple of reasons.  First, there’s the simple reality that many of us don’t know why we want something in the first place.  Why do so many want power, possessions or unending wealth?  Is it about impact, contribution or service to humanity?  Or, is it about feeling in control, worthy, good enough or smart enough?  If driven by the latter and unaware, these poor folks find themselves chasing happiness on the hedonic treadmill and external circumstances to quench their thirst.
   
Also, this is an absence of gratitude for what we have.  I know this statement might sounds trite, but it’s true.  In the constant striving for what’s next, we’ve forget that many of the experiences, possessions or privileges we once valued or wanted are the things we now take for granted.  Even in scenarios that aren’t ideal, we can still feel gratitude for our freedom of conscious choice.  Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor who went on to write A Man’s Search for Meaning exemplified this by highlighting that we can always choose the attitude and perspective we bring to a situation.  Frankl found gratitude in the fact that no one could take away his inner most thoughts.

Wanting more than you have:
I’m not sure I have to say much about this one.  As a society we love big, more and bigger.  Overconsumption and envy is at a pandemic.  The famous director, Tom Shadyac, who made films like Ace Ventura and Pet Detective, highlights how he came to terms with his own consumption indulgence in the recently released documentary I AM.  In other words, Shadyac points out the lines between what we want and what we really need have become blurred. 

We don’t often receive lessons from looking at other people’s lives.  So, the thoughts I share today don’t come from a place of platitude or judgment, but from living my own life.  My hope for you is that the questions that now guide me can also help you:  is what I need really important or what is my real intention; why do I want this or what will it say about me as a person if I don’t have/do this; and, do I really need more?  I believe that, in those questions, you’ll find the answers to true happiness.