RAIN for Intense Emotions

RAIN is a useful, mindfulness-based technique to deal with intense emotions. Tara Brach, one of the pioneers of this techniques, calls it a form of radical compassion. While I’m not sure about the word “radical”, I am sure that it is compassionate and an effective way to self-soothe in a healthy way and reduce one’s own suffering.

RAIN has four steps, as the acronym suggests:

R stands for recognize.

A stands for accept.

I stands for investigate.

N stands for nurture.

Let’s take a brief look at each of these steps so that you know how to apply them practically. Knowing how to practice mindfulness is not necessary but it will greatly help you apply RAIN in everyday life.

Step 1 – Recognize

The first step usually beings spontaneously once you recognize that you need self-soothing. It’s logical, isn’t it: if you’re going to self-soothe, you need to recognize that you’re somehow agitated. Once this recognition occurs, to fully complete this first step, it’s useful to put a word on the experience and to make a sentence out of it.

Imagine a hypothetical situation where I need to speak in front of a hundred people. Just before I go on stage, I may feel my breathing becoming shallow and irregular and I may feel like there’s a lot of energy in my feet that just wants to burst out and, let’s say I also feel a lump in my throat. I try to summarize my experience in the most specific way that’s possible in the moment: I am experiencing a fear of public speaking.

If at all possible, it’s useful to avoid general and vague definitions like “stress”, “discomfort”, “distress”, etc. as these quite literally mean nothing. If that’s as much as you can recognize in the moment, that’s OK, the more you’re mindful of your emotions, the more you will be able to recognize. You also don’t have to stick to any “official” label like fear, anxiety, threat, guilt, etc. Create your own, but make it specific and make it resonate with you, make it “click”.

Knowing how to practice mindfulness is very helpful in this stage, as well as in the “I” stage of RAIN as it allows you to observe with clarity and precision.

Step 2 – Accept

I call this step to accept, although other authors call it Allow. I find the difference to be miniscule and practically irrelevant. I choose the word accept because allow it or not, the experience is what it is, so while it seems poetic to say that you’re allowing an experience to be there, you actually have very little say in it. Accept seems more appropriate.

In this stage, we acknowledge that, while we may not have chosen our experience consciously, it is there and it’s a part of us. We do this in a gentle, compassionate way. What I usually say to myself is: “You’re feeling X right now, but you won’t feel it forever.” While recognizing impermanence may make us feel all kinds of ways, when it comes to difficult emotions it’s quite reassuring. Experiment with different sentences and see which ones work best for you.

The bottom line of this second stage is to stop fighting what you feel and embrace it. Not because it feels good but because it’s the reality of your experience. To change that reality, you have to accept it for what it is.

Step 3 – Investigate

Step 3 invites us to be curious. Yes, curious. Curious about what’s happening and observant of what makes this difficult experience so difficult.

·        What is calling your attention most loudly right now?

·        What part of your body is currently most active?

·        What thought is causing my suffering right now?

Obviously, different situations will call for investigation of different aspects of your experience. When in doubt, start with the body: be mindful of your shoulders, chest (breathing pattern, heartbeat), abdomen, hands, feet.

Investigation introduces clarity and reduces the experience to its fundamental components. At the same time, when properly done, Step 3 allows you to “unglue” yourself from whatever it is that you’re experiencing and while it doesn’t make the feeling go away, it takes some control away from it and gives it back to you. When you deconstruct an overwhelming experience by breaking it down to body sensations, you are taking power away from it because you’re bringing it down to more manageable level.

Step 4 – Nurture

You will find this stage names differently even by same authors. Non-identify is another name for it, although this is what you already partially do in Step 3: you are experiencing sensations but you are not those sensations.

In this post, I have chosen to name the last stage Nurture because this is a good opportunity to offer some self-compassion to yourself. You can do this verbally or non-verbally. I prefer the latter, but it is ultimately a matter of preference. What I will do is put my left hand on my belly and practice some diaphragmatic breathing while focusing on the sensation of warmth that emerges from skin-to-skin contact. This is a really powerful method and I find that it’s quite underrated.

If you prefer words, you may offer some consolation or comfort for yourself. You don’t need a recipe or a predefined phrase. Instead, ask yourself: what do I need to hear right now? See what arises spontaneously and then repeat that to yourself a few times, slowly. You may be surprised!

When you mindfully attend to your experience and notice suffering, self-compassion (in the form of a kind phrase or a gesture) comes about naturally. Some phrases and gestures that I often see my clients use are the following:

·        Placing their hand over the chest

·        Self-hug

·        Hand on cheek

·        Covering themselves with a blanked

·        Putting on another layer of clothes which provides comfort or a sense of being protected

·        “I love you. You’re doing OK.”

·        “This too shall pass.”

·        “I’m sorry this suck right now.”

·        “I’m here for myself.”