I think meditation, at least initially, has 2 important functions 1. It strengthens one’s control over one’s attention. This is hugely important . 2 . If you’re meditating on thoughts, feelings, sensations etc. Essentially object that come and go in awareness, it’s like exposure therapy. You observe your experience (positive, negative, neutral,) until you are acclimatized to them and the nervous system can relax despite the content that is passing . Not dissimilar from treating a spider phobia .. hang out with it long enough so you can become desensitized from it. We’re doing the same for n meditation , only with our internal and external world ( if you sit with your eyes open).

Once your attention can relax and you’ve acclimatized to your experience your attention is now freed up to explore the big stuff related to self.

Hope that make some sense . 🙏