The Thinker: September 2026

Spotlight

Walking the Walk: When the Learning Experience Becomes the Lesson

- By Ariane Barton

Have you ever attended a workshop about wellbeing only to leave feeling mentally exhausted? Or sat through training on trauma-informed practice that expected people to remain seated for hours, absorb endless information and push through without much of a break?

It’s a paradox we see surprisingly often and, to be fair, one that can be hard to avoid in more traditional learning environments. However, when we talk about the importance of regulating our nervous systems, building safe relationships, respecting cognitive load and creating environments where people can learn and thrive, yet often design learning experiences that don’t reflect these principles, we think we’re missing a trick!

At ThinkWell, we often talk about the importance of the sequence of engagement -regulate, relate, then reason. We know that when people feel safe, connected and settled, they are better able to engage in reflection, problem-solving and new learning. If we genuinely believe that people learn and engage best when they feel regulated, connected and psychologically safe, then those principles should shape not only what we teach, but how we teach it. In other words, we need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Recently, we had the privilege of facilitating a professional development and team-building day with North Richmond Community Health, and it provided a wonderful opportunity to really practice what we preach. As we designed the day, we found ourselves intentionally centring the experience around the very things we were teaching: the importance of regulation, relationships and reward in building and sustaining healthy and functional workplaces.

We asked ourselves: How can we scaffold the day so that we pay attention to how people settle into the session and maintain their focus and attention throughout the whole day? How can we facilitate safe opportunities for connection and bonding?How can we intentionally create moments of reward, humour, joy and aspirational thinking, particularly given the often heavy and serious contexts in which the staff work? And how can we ensure the more conceptual and theoretical learning we wish to impart is consolidated and integrated through practical application, personal reflection and opportunities to connect new ideas with their own experiences?

The answers to these questions shaped everything from the room set-up to the learning activities. We made fidget tools available, encouraged movement, built in regular breaks and offered choice wherever possible. We intentionally alternated between short bursts of explicit teaching and opportunities for discussion, application and creativity, recognising that our brains benefit from variation, repetition and time to consolidate new learning. Rather than expecting connection to happen on demand, we scaffolded relational experiences throughout the day, beginning with simple, low-pressure activities before gradually inviting deeper conversations as familiarity and trust developed.

We also made space for something that is sometimes overlooked in professional learning: joy. Laughter, humour and moments of play weren’t included simply to make the day enjoyable - they were purposeful. Positive emotion and shared enjoyment can support regulation, strengthen relationships and engage the brain’s reward systems. When people feel safe enough to laugh together, they are often more willing to think together, reflect together and learn together.

Perhaps one of the greatest opportunities for those of us who design and facilitate learning is to remember that every workshop teaches two lessons. There is the content we intend to deliver, and there is the experience we create. Participants may not remember every framework or model we share, but they are far more likely to remember how the day made them feel. Did it leave them energised or depleted? Curious or overwhelmed? Connected or isolated?

For us, this is the real opportunity. When we design learning experiences that honour the very principles we’re asking others to embrace, the environment itself becomes part of the teaching. In those moments, we’re not just talking about neurobiology, trauma-informed practice or wellbeing. We’re inviting people to experience what those principles feel like in action.

And perhaps that’s what it really means to walk the walk: creating learning experiences that don’t simply tell people what supports wellbeing, connection and engagement, but give them an opportunity to experience it for themselves. Because it is from these foundations that meaningful learning can really happen.

Our impact in practice

What does your team need right now?

As described above, we recently had the opportunity to put our approach into practice with the AOD team at North Richmond Community Health, facilitating a professional development and team-building day designed to help the team step away from the day-to-day, reset, reconnect and have some fun together.

The feedback from their manager captured the impact beautifully:

Just a short note to let you know how energised the AOD team were when they came back to work after Wednesday. I walked into multiple conversations where the team were talking about the day and how much they enjoyed the time to bond, share and be creative.

We absolutely love developing and delivering these kinds of experiences. There is something incredibly rewarding about creating space for teams to pause, connect, learn and have some fun together - and seeing the impact that this can have on people when they return to their everyday work. It’s an important part of supporting healthy, connected and sustainable workplaces, and one we sometimes don’t give enough attention to.

If your team could benefit from time to pause, reflect, reconnect, learn, create and re-energise, we’d love to work with you to design an experience that meets their needs and the context in which they work.

The brain building bit

Free resources to facilitate great conversations

We’ve discovered some great free downloads that are generously made publicly available by internationally-recognised facilitators Kerri Price and Chad Littlefield.

Kerri’s resources include (above L-R) the I Am Being card set, Reflection Prompts (great for the end of a meeting/training/reflective session) and a Facilitate This! booklet with a whole range of facilitation activity ideas and guidance. To access these and more click here.

Chad’s resources (under the weand.me brandname) include the We! Connect cards and the We! Engage cards and can be accessed via this link.

The downloads come as PDF; we use the Officeworks online printing service and order them to be printed on 300 GSM paper (which is a good card quality) and then cut them up ourselves.

Kerri and Chad also have really helpful You Tube channels that support anyone facilitating group forums (whether it be regular meetings with a team, or training workshops or stakeholder consultations) - they both have philosophies focussing on “connection before content”, recognising the importance of relationships and encouraging people’s voice in any learning, reflective or decision-making experience.