When we learn something new, we can attend to three core layers. There’s the what – the knowledge. This is a car. There’s the how – the skills. This is how to drive a car. And there’s the when – the application. This is how to drive a car in unpredictable traffic and changing weather and should we even be on the road right now? 

All three are important, all three can be extended and grow over time. And each comes with the discomfort of not yet being where we hope to be when we stretch beyond what we currently know.

But it’s the last layer that requires us reflect and respond to what is going on around us the most. We constantly find ourselves in the space between different choices, directions and timings. The right thing too soon may set us backward. The right thing too late might leave us scrambling to catch up.

We’re trying to find a balance between trying and trusting, acting and accepting. If we stand still for too long we might get stuck. If we strive too hard we might burn ourselves out. In the tension between what we know and what we are yet to learn, we might be tempted to fill the gap with self-criticism, impatience or despair.

We won’t always get the timing right and we have to be in the messiness of it all to learn. It takes practice to shift our awareness from what we are doing in the moment to step back and notice how we are being in the moment, to reflect and adjust, and return to the doing with more focus. Often that reflection happens after the event but maybe, over time, it starts to happen sooner, more readily, and more in the moment. And then we’re ready for the next level of learning that kicks us right back into the messiness.

Any craft or profession requires a lot of learning and for some of us that’s half the fun. We’re curious to know more, and when we care about our field the subtleties and nuances are endless.

The risk is we end up taking in a lot of information without giving ourselves the opportunity to process it. Going to a workshop without building in time to integrate the content afterwards is like filling up on Christmas lunch and expecting to go back to work that afternoon.

There’s a risk of constantly seeking new insights only to forget most of them. Output-driven systems also encourage us to see open space in our calendar as dead time to be filled with something else. And when we constantly tell ourselves we need more, we may be rehearsing a fear that we are not enough.

We need to create and protect time to reflect on new learning to find its place within our existing practice. We may need to play with specific skills or concepts away from the complexity of real-world conversations where there is too much going on and it’s easy to default back to what we normally do. When we take time to share learning with others we can consolidate it more deeply for ourselves.

We can make mindful choices about what we learn, who from and how much. And consuming the information is only half of the learning. We can also cultivate a practice of building in time to digest what is most helpful, so it becomes available when we most need it.

I’ve asked thousands of workshop participants what qualities they would want in a helper. While there’s a list of common responses, being nonjudgmental would usually make the top three.

Yet humans tend to make a lot of judgements. Go on social media and you’d maybe think that’s all we do. And one of our favourite pastimes seems to be judging other people for appearing to judge other people.

We can all benefit from reviewing the judgements we make, through self reflection, guidance or feedback. We can question the assumptions behind them and own them as ours rather than universal truths. We could all expand our capacity for understanding and acceptance.

And maybe that starts with just not being so surprised we, or someone else, was a bit judgy. And perhaps the end game isn’t to stop the judging altogether, but more to make room for a more considered, less reactive response when it happens.

We work so hard to develop skills and processes that guide our day to day practice. When we have ways of working we know so well that we don’t have to think so much about them, we can free up our attention for the person in front of us. But the familiar can become fossilised if we’re not careful. When we slip into habitual grooves we may miss opportunities to tune into individual needs or discover unexpected avenues to explore.

Like travelling to a country with a culture very different from our own, it can help to shake up our professional snow dome from time to time and immerse ourselves in new ways of thinking and working. We don’t necessarily have to go on to practice it ourselves – indeed, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing – for it to help to loosen up assumptions, discover blind spots and find fresh perspectives.

If our main mode is talking, we may explore body, arts or action based approaches. If we’re academically minded, we might seek frameworks grounded in spiritual or indigenous wisdom. If we work with adults, we can find out what youth workers can teach us. Instead of asking “where’s the evidence?” we can ask “where’s the learning?”

I had a long overdue deep tissue massage the other day. You know the kind – like a meal with just the right amount of chilli, it’s verging on painful without being punishing and you don’t want it to stop.

The parallel with a therapeutic conversation was striking, where touch and pressure replaced words. Even if we prefer a particular style, the actual experience is a unique blend of what both practitioner and client bring in a dynamic interaction of mutual adjustment and flow.

The practitioner’s skill set will be informed by a range of influences in and out of the massage world. They have the body they have – they can’t switch up to a larger pair of hands just because a bigger person walks in. They will vary in what they pay most attention to, and how responsive they are to what each body tells them. Likewise, each client responds differently, as do different muscles, resisting, yielding and everything between. The tolerance for pain or challenge can fluctuate from session to session, from moment to moment.

The best massage therapists I’ve met have all had their own style, there was a clear sense of flow from beginning to end, and no two massages have been the same. And each incorporated gentle check-ins – they clarified expectations at the outset, asked if the level of pressure was OK as we went, particularly in more intense moments, and there was full permission to stop or change the approach if it got too much.

In conversation there is so much room for assumptions to creep in and words to take on a momentum where these opportunities for recalibration can get lost. Like a good massage therapist, we can tune into the rhythms of interaction and intensity running beneath the surface to foster a deeper experience of partnership.