Rain On Being Stuck

This version of the famous "RAIN" practice is intended to help practitioners to work with feelings of stuckness. It helps you reconnect with your deep emotions and needs to find back into the flow of life.
It was recorded during a weeklong transformational mindfulness and yoga retreat with the theme of "finding flow in difficult times".

Transcript

So finding a comfortable pose in which you can be both concentrated and relaxed and connecting with your breath for a few moments, Inhaling, Feeling the body and with the exhale maybe relaxing any obvious areas of tension. Inhaling, Feeling the body and with the exhale maybe letting go of any mental fixations. Feeling your body breathe in this moment. And then bringing to mind a situation in which you feel stuck. Situation which keeps you a little bit out of the flow of life. Which you feel is holding you back from being fully present with life. And start by acknowledging that this is what's happening. Acknowledging the situation. Maybe it's a one-off event. And maybe it's a recurring situation that you've experienced in a different form many different times. See if you can find a specific experience, A specific moment that you can start to picture before your inner eye. Seeing the people, The person, If there's another person who is or who are involved. Yeah, Maybe feeling the body posture. Yeah, Maybe feeling the body posture you have in that pose, In that situation. Maybe your facial expression. And then connecting with your physical experience. How do you feel or how did you feel in this specific situation? See if you can locate the feelings in your body. Maybe in your belly or your chest or your throat, Your head or anywhere in the body. Just try to look at them. And just allowing these feelings to be here, These sensations to be here. Just for now. You don't have to want them to stay or come back or something. Just for now, For this practice. Allowing your physical sensations to be present. And then starting to investigate, Not overly intellectually, What's underneath those physical sensations. What are the emotions that are present? The feelings. Feelings maybe of fear or anger or helplessness or loneliness. Knowing that if ever it gets too much, You can leave the situation and think of something that's making you happy, That feels safe. Just be very, Very, Very kind with yourself. If you can stay here, Just really feeling what you're feeling in this moment. Allowing your feelings to be here. See if you can meet them with this deep, Unconditional inner friendship. With this opening of heart. You can investigate what are you believing in this moment? What are you believing about yourself? What are you believing about the other person? If there's a person involved or many people involved, What are you believing about them? And what are you believing about the world? And again, You can connect with your body and just feel, What does it feel like to be believing these things about yourself and others in the world? How do you feel? Again, Connecting with your body. Locating this experience in your body and just noticing what's there. The tightness, The pressure, The emptiness, The burning. The welling, I don't know. Whatever comes up for you, Just be with it, If you can. Knowing that you can always leave this experience if it's necessary for you. And really see if you can bring this kind, Loving awareness to this experience, To these sensations in your body. Noticing what happens when you believe these things about yourself. About the world. About another person. And then you can ask, Is it true? Is it true what I'm believing? And in case it is true, You can wonder whether it's helpful. Is it helpful if I believe something like that about myself or the world? You can also imagine, Who would you be if you weren't having these thoughts? It could be recurrent thoughts, Recurrent beliefs. It could just be a thought that's bothering you at the moment. Who would you be if you weren't believing that about yourself or somebody else or life? Who would you be if you weren't having these thoughts? Who would you be if you were free of these thoughts? And then you may also ask, What is it that I don't want to feel? Is there any feeling underneath? And see if you can be with it, Locate it again in your body. Just feel that feeling, Visceral, Embodied. Where is it? What does it feel like? If there's a place in your body where you can feel it, Maybe you want to put a hand there. And see if you can be with it right now, With that kind, Compassionate awareness. Knowing that if ever necessary, You can leave this experience and think of something that makes you feel safe or happy. And then turning your attention to that part of you that feels particularly vulnerable at this moment. Just really acknowledging, Accepting that vulnerability. And asking, What do you need right now? What do you need? And as I was saying, It's sometimes very difficult to find out what we need. So take your time. You may have to ask a few times. And maybe you get a first glimpse of it. Again, Feel in your body, What do you need? It's like turning your loving, Compassionate attention to a child you love and asking them, What do you need? With that true willingness to hear what they really need from you. What they really would like from life. And maybe there's a phrase that's coming up for you. And allow the phrase that helps you to feel what you need and to feel that that need is being met. Allowing that phrase, Those words, Or that feeling, Or that image to come up for you. It could be a phrase like, I love you. I love you the way you are. You're lovable. You're safe. I'm here for you. Just take your time. And then feel in your body what happens when you found the phrase that really resonates with you. Feel that too in your body. And then you can shift your awareness. Imagining that you're standing on the top of a mountain. And you're looking out over the landscape. Onto the horizon. And you notice your mind getting wide, As wide as the sky. Your thoughts, Your emotions. As heavy and as powerful and as real as they may be. Seem to be clouds in the sky. Notice how you have all these feelings and all these emotions. But you are so much more. So much more. You're resting for a moment in a spacious awareness. And I'll read to you a part from Letters to a Young Poet. By Rainer Maria Rilke. He says, How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples. The myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that once helped from us. So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen. If a restlessness like light and cloud shadows passes over your hands and all over you. You must think that something is happening with you. That life has not forgotten you. That it holds you in its hand. It will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, Any miseries and any depressions? For after all, You do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.