This is a meditation that is adapted from an inner compassion practice called RAIN by a well-known American meditation teacher Tara Brach.
So many of us on a daily basis are continually confronted and some may even call harassed by an inner critic who is merciless and nit-picking about anything and everything about ourselves,
From the way we look,
The quality of our interactions with others,
Our performance in school or in a sport or other areas of interest like music and art.
This inner critic can be our own worst enemy and can cause us to feel anxiety,
Stress,
Disappointment,
Unworthy,
Sadness,
Shame and even grief.
However,
We do not have to let this inner critic dominate our inner world of our thoughts,
Our feelings,
Emotions and perceptions.
We have the possibility to rewire our brain to awaken from this trance through cultivating a sense of inner compassion and care,
Which is a key inner resource for resilience.
In order to rewire our brains,
Inner compassion and care depends on honest,
Direct contact with our own vulnerability.
This compassion fully blossoms when we are actively offering care to ourselves.
Yet when we've gotten stuck in this trance of unworthiness,
It often feels impossible to arouse a sense of inner care and compassion.
To help address these feelings of insecurity and unworthiness,
We can practice the contemplative exercise called the RAIN of self-compassion.
The acronym RAIN is an easy to remember tool for practicing mindfulness and compassion using the following four steps.
Our signifies to simply recognize what is going on in our thoughts,
Feelings and behaviors and how they are affecting us.
A signifies allowing the experience to be there just as it is without trying to fix it or change anything.
I signifies to investigate our experience with interest and care,
With the desire to know the truth and to understand our experience more deeply.
RAIN signifies to nurture with inner compassion.
Inner compassion begins to naturally arise in the moments that we recognize we are suffering.
It comes into fullness as we intentionally nurture our inner life with self-care.
To do this,
Try to sense that the wounded,
Frightened or hurt place inside needs us most and needs our attention.
We will now begin the guided meditation.
Begin by finding a stable and comfortable position for your body.
If you are seated in a chair,
Sit upright with your back straight but not stiff and your feet planted on the ground underneath you.
If you are seated on a cushion,
Gently cross your ankles or place one foot in front of the other and allow your knees to rest gently as you sit towards the end of your cushion with your spine straight but not stiff.
No matter what position you are in,
Allow your shoulders to be at ease,
Relax the muscles in your face and rest your hands comfortably on your thighs or in the center of your lap.
Close your eyes and start by taking three deep breaths all the way up into the chest.
Feel the sensations of your breath with each inhale and exhale.
Now let your breath resume to its natural rhythm and feel your body breathing in and out.
Now take a few moments to consider in your life a situation or a circumstance where you are experiencing some struggle or challenge.
It doesn't have to be the most difficult challenge but something that you notice has contributed to your feeling bad about yourself or overwhelmed in some way.
Perhaps there is a conflict with someone and you feel bad about how you handled it.
Perhaps there are other regrets that come to mind.
Maybe it's circumstances in the world or in your own life that you wish were different than they are.
Just take a moment now and reflect.
Whatever it is that comes to mind,
Allow contact but that is you notice how it feels to bring awareness to this situation,
To this feeling.
Bring awareness to the struggle and bring awareness also to how you treat yourself about the struggle.
Recognizing not just the situation you find yourself in but how you are relating to it and to yourself through it.
Recognize directly your experience and notice your ability to be with it.
Allow your experience to be just as it is.
And it might be helpful to simply acknowledge the struggle saying to yourself,
This is a kind of suffering.
This is my inner struggle.
May I be kind and patient and have a sense of deeper understanding about myself amidst this difficulty.
You can use whatever phrases allow you to turn towards your experience with a sense of care and kindness.
Notice your body.
Often suffering and challenges can show up in our bodies.
What does it feel like in your body?
The most important part of investigation is to bring kind,
Curious attention to your experience.
Next,
Noticing if there is a sense of what the struggle or challenge or the part of you that struggles to relate to whatever is happening in your difficult circumstance.
Sensing if there is a one something you can offer the struggle,
This difficulty,
Perhaps some words of encouragement or simply an acknowledgement is enough.
Turn towards what might feel nourishing for allowing this difficulty to be there and recognizing your capacity to see it,
To be with it and to offer what's needed.
Notice the possibility,
The potential of offering kindness and care inward and holding your experience in a bigger container,
Letting it be with this sense of inner care and compassion.
Each time you offer inner compassion,
You may be creative in how you do so.
You really feel a genuine sense of caring about the struggle and difficulty you may be encountering in your life.
Perhaps now it could be helpful to visualize a sense of light or warmth coming into your body or the presence of another person giving this light or warmth to you.
Even just the intention to offer care inwardly begins to decondition that tendency to be at war with ourselves and our experience.
This investigation can offer the possibility to sense the tenderness,
The openness,
The spaciousness of being when we are not fighting with our experience.
We can breathe now into openness and to care and to goodness and love of what we are in this very moment.
Now we begin to open your eyes and bring some gentle movement back to your body.
Return to your daily activities,
This sense of inner compassion alive and vibrant in your body and mind.
