British Psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott wrote about the importance of a holding environment for the person when she or he is an infant. This is the psychical and physical space where the infant is protected without knowing he or she is protected. This creates a sense of stability and safety. At that early age the relationship between the infant and its environment (caregiver) is the primary and most important reality. Within the context of this relationship, Winnicott spoke of potential space which serves as a bridge between interior experience and external reality. The function of this space is to be a bridge between the multi faceted realm of interior, or unconscious, experience and the time-and space-bound realm of external, or conscious, experience.
Some studies of the effects of meditation are focusing on its effects on those parts of the brain which are laid down in those crucial early attachment experiences between the child and the caregiver. It may be that sitting in silence revisits and nourishes neural patterns related to a sense of stability and attunement.
"Sitting in meditation is essentially simplifying space. Our daily lives are in constant movement: lots of things going on, lots of people talking, lots of events taking place. In the middle of that, it’s very difficult to sense what we are in our life.
When we simplify the situation, when we take away the externals and remove ourselves from the ringing phone, the television,the people who visit us, the dog who needs a walk, we get a chance to face ourselves…"
Charlotte Joko Beck
