Most of us in the West have been brought up to believe in life as somehow linear, and that we must progress along a path to a specific destination – one possibly prescribed for us by our parents or mentors. But for many of us, there comes a point when that path is no longer achievable or desirable and yet we may still feel programmed to follow it – sometimes at the expense of our core selves. This can happen at various stages in our lives when our structure falls apart in some way. 

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Such a breakdown in the structure or habitual patterns of our lives can happen in our twenties or early thirties - as we engage with possible career dilemmas and our first long term relationships, half way through our lives when our work or a key relationship no longer serve us, or later on in life, when we suddenly find ourselves redundant in the work place and need to restructure our sense of self and revise our life plans. Suddenly we are in crisis, and the linear model doesn’t help us to resolve it; we don’t know how to step away from the work goals or relationships we no longer desire but can no longer take a step forwards, so we become paralysed.