FEELING STUCK ? TIMOTHY BUTLER

We all experience impasse, and we will experience impasse many times in our lives. The meaning of an impasse, although it's usually first expressed as a failure or an internalised notion of inadequacy, is a request for us to change our way of thinking about ourselves and our place in the world.Impasse means that we need to change our whole approach to the problem. We need to change our understanding of the problem. We have to change our repertoire of ways in which we we approach life's challanges.As to what sorts of experiences lead to impasse, they could be anything : perhaps a sudden , unanticipated change at work.There is much talk about change management, but the fact of the matter is, the "steady state" involves change as well. An impasse experience can unfold over a year or within twenty-four hours. Impasse is a psychological process:it is another word for a border taht is always there,beckoning.Our work at impasse helps us cross that border and live in a new territory. In this sense, impasse is the frontier of what needs to happen next for us if we are to live life as openly as possible. If we lived completely openly, we would probably not experience impasse, because we would face each moment without any evasions,excuses, or attatchment to old habits.Few of us are capable of living continually in such a fashion.An impasse crisis happens when we have been, for sometime, avoiding the work of living fully at our border.