The Parent and Child Analogy for Mindfulness
Analogy★★★★I like to think of the limbic system as the child and the parent as the frontal lobe. And it’s almost like locking the frontal lobe up so it can only observe, but it can’t direct or help or support or redirect the child. So what happens if you leave a child in the house and the parents locked in another room, they have ability to see their child, but they can’t do anything to help or redirect the child. That’s frustrating. The child has free reign to eventually do whatever they want, which is dangerous, right? They could really get themselves and burn down the house, get themselves in trouble.
Anguish, Amanda; Binus, Daniel, “Meditation” (AudioVerse teaching 42875).
The point
Mindfulness meditation is compared to a parent locked in a room who can only observe a child but not intervene, illustrating the danger of non-judgmental observation without guidance.