Recognise,
Allow,
Investigate,
Nourish.
This is RAIN.
It's steps that we can take to use with any experience.
We can make it stand alone as a type of mindfulness practice,
Or we can return to it with ease in daily life.
It's especially helpful with difficult emotions and thoughts that we may be experiencing.
So in this practice we're going to start by sitting comfortably and just begin to bring your awareness to your present time experience.
So let's begin by taking a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
And as we continue to orient ourselves around the breath,
Just gradually close your eyes.
So with your eyes closed if you just notice what you hear,
Notice what you feel in the body.
Notice what is occurring in the mind.
Now there's no need to judge at this point,
Just be curious in what is arising.
You may be bringing up maybe a difficult experience or emotion,
But for now let's start with recognition.
So just recognise the thoughts that are coming up,
The sensations within the body and that critical inner voice that you so often hear.
Spend a few minutes just acknowledging the presence of whatever difficulty may have been arising.
Just tuning into the different ways that it manifests in your experience.
So in this you may feel different sensations within the body depending on the nature of the situation.
You may feel a warmth in the belly,
Or maybe a tightness in the shoulders.
Your mind may be racing about certain parts of the experience.
So just be curious,
Just let things flow,
Just recognise what is going on.
So now we're going to move into the next phase,
Which is the allow phase.
It may also be termed acceptance.
With emotions,
Particularly the unpleasant ones,
The habit of the mind is to try to get rid of these experiences,
But instead just allow it to be present within yourself.
You may try offering this simple phrase of equanimity and acceptance.
Right now it's like this and that's okay.
So continue to work on this for a minute or so,
Just exploring maybe a situation or an experience.
Just continuing to work around the allowing or the acceptance.
And whenever the mind does wander,
Just bringing it back to what the original thought was.
Now we're going to begin to investigate a little more deeply.
So in the first step you recognised what the feeling was,
What the emotion was within the body.
In investigation we then allowed curiosity to take over.
So now ask yourself where you feel vulnerable.
How is this experience,
This emotion,
How is it serving you?
And if you believe that you yourself can be free from this pain.
So if you just explore this for the next minute or so,
Just turn towards the investigation,
The understanding of what is going on.
Okay?
Richard.
Now the final stage of the RAIN practice is to look towards nourishing yourself with self-compassion.
So just take a moment now to explore the previous three areas,
So where you've recognised,
Where you've allowed,
Accepted,
And then moved to investigate the particular experience,
Emotion,
Feeling,
And just move forward into that kind of self-care,
That self-love.
You know,
Knowing that in that given experience,
In that given situation,
That you did the best possible thing that you could do under the circumstance.
So if you just take a moment to just reflect,
And then we'll bring it together towards the end.
.
So this whole exercise,
This whole exercise in itself has been a practice of that self-compassion.
So we may have reflected on the situation to recognise that,
You know,
We did do the best that we possibly could do within a given experience,
Situation.
But in taking the time to do this practice,
To recognise,
To allow,
To accept,
To investigate,
To nourish ourselves,
That in itself is our practice of self-compassion.
And as you are tending to the pain,
You're doing it with awareness,
Rather than denying it,
Rather than denying that that pain exists.
So if we now move to close this practice,
And let's do so by taking a deep breath in through the nose,
And out through the mouth.
And as we open our eyes,
Just recognise that compassion,
That nourishment,
That recognition that we did the best possible thing that we could do in that given experience.
