Yesterday my daughter learned how to cycle.
She perched herself on the seat of red bicycle, put both her feet on the pedals, and then I slowly started pushing her forward till she could cycle on her own. She was pedalling and steering at the same time.
After a short while she started wobbling, started slowing down and was veering off course, clearly about to fall.
Instead of holding her or stopping her from falling, I pushed her forward to give her more speed. Once she had that momentum again, she could steer and continue peddling. It’s counterintuitive that you get steadiness by speeding up!
I think the role of a mentor is similar. Often we wobble, go off track and even ready ourselves to fall. Instinctively we slow down to steady ourselves, but sometimes it’s momentum we need. A good mentor can recognise this, and give us a push forward so that we can get our momentum back, get our direction back, and our confidence to keep going!