Psychological Bubbles

• on meditation, holding space, and making kids fall asleep

In short, these are all the same thing. Or more precisely, require the same underlying skill.

Two years ago, when i was organizing a birthday picnic with a contact improv jam, a friend of mine told me how well i was holding space for others. Initially i wasn't sure what she meant by it, but as she went on and started describing what it was like to attend my events, i was clearly recognizing that it was me doing the things. At that time i was doing them subconsciously. But when described in hindsight it was clear that i did them on purpose.

Like noticing someone from the group has been silent for a longer time and checking with them how they are doing, drawing them more in if they felt cut off. Making more hot water before we run out of tea. Introducing late comers and making literal space so it's easier to join us. Summing up context of the current discussion if a new person changes groups. Or talking to the noisy neighbors before it can escalate into a direct conflict.

I could go on and on, it's hundreds of little moves per minute that together have the effect of free flowing activity where bottlenecks that would break the flow are magically disappearing before they could have negative impact. They have the effect that people feel safe to be themselves in an authentic way without that disturbing the rest of the group.

The weeks after the friend reflected back to me what i was doing i focused on noticing these little moves as i was doing them. I was also inquiring a lot into why this skill is so unusual.

I came to the conclusion that the micromoves i am doing when holding space for others are exactly the same i'm doing when holding the space for myself, when meditating. I'm deeply attuning to myself, or the group so that i can notice the subtlest needs. And then addressing them. After all, if you are into internal family systems, you're already a group of internal parts which have their own needs and intentions and these don't differ much at least in the abstract from other people's needs and intentions and desires. Aside from the deep attunement, this requires a good amount of empathy and quite precise models of other people (or your own parts) so that you can figure out how they are going to be impacted by stuff you or others do. But ofc, there'll be something you can't predict going on all the time, so the core of this skill is in improvisation. Altogether, this is far from having control over what's happening. In fact, dropping control is required for getting into this state of attuned flow with the group. This enables steering if the group's incentives are aligned, but it's closer to the wu-wei, non-action or effortless action.

My preferred type of meditation, open awareness, or tibetan mahamudra, feels exactly the same as how my friend described she felt when i was holding space for them. Free flowing stream of awareness with all bottlenecks proactively removed, being with and feeling fully whatever arises.

One interesting application of this skill is falling asleep. I didn't know how to fall asleep for my first 30 years. I had different strategies around it, the most prominent being that i was staying up till late, until i became really sleep deprived and exhausted at which point I'd fall asleep immediately after laying down. This was not a healthy strategy 😅

Falling asleep is not something usually trained by meditation. But the creation of psychological safety and calming down my running thoughts turn out to be very useful for making oneself fall asleep.

And not just oneself - i can make my 2yo fall asleep better than anyone. For his first year, I'd be putting him to sleep 5-6x a day. Nowadays, it's only twice. But still something not even my wife can do. A side note for non-parents: what often happens is that a kid is tired but a part of them doesn't want to or doesn't feel safe enough to go to sleep. The effect is that they are grumpy because they're tired, or outright cry, but they just can't fall asleep even though their eyes are almost closing.

This holding space, or creating of psychological safety can be extended to other people. And it turns out it can help them fall asleep.

The area you're holding space around is naturally limited. There is only so much you can productively notice and influence. In effect, this creates almost tangible boundary (which sensitive people can really feel because of the difference how it feels from within vs. without). Hence i like to imagine it and think of as psychological bubbles. This feels almost like a protective shield from a fantasy game or book.

During my meditation i sometimes like to expand the bubble as much as i can, maybe include the whole of Earth, or even the whole universe. If the motivation is right, namely there's compassion, this practice is not much different from the metta meditation.