The RAIN Practice For Working With Challenging Emotions

This practice is a wonderful way to be with what is and to learn how to turn toward challenging feelings or experiences with an open heart.

R- Recognize, A - Allow, I - Investigate, and N - Nurture

Transcript

So,

You know,

I said,

If you go to war with an experience,

You'll be at war forever.

And that's easy to say,

Right?

But if something comes up that's hard,

It's really hard.

I don't want to feel this way.

I don't like it.

So what do you mean?

Like,

What do I do?

What do I do?

This is a practice that helps with that.

This is a way to navigate that terrain.

That's what we're doing.

Okay,

So just feeling your body again.

Coming into yourself as you are right now.

Allowing yourself to be as you are.

Just taking a few breaths.

Letting yourself settle.

So we're going to go through this sequentially as a practice that helps you ride the waves.

And I'm also invoking that part of you that's aware that you're doing this practice the whole time.

The part of you that's lovingly holding yourself throughout this whole process we're about to go through.

We're working on a part of your personality or part of your experience or an emotion that you're having.

And arising in the space of you.

But we're also invoking and inviting that space that's holding you all the time.

We're going to invite your brain to show you a movie of a situation that's hard for you.

A moment.

And as we all know,

A movie is made up of frames that string together so quickly they look like they're happening.

And that feels very real when we're tied into a movie,

Right?

We feel all sorts of things.

But you're also the light that's shining through those frames.

You're also the movie projector.

I'm inviting you to weave that in.

If that makes some sense to you,

Just let it go.

We're going to hold that both and as we do this work.

Okay.

So,

Bringing to mind a situation in your life.

Ideally,

Kind of a recent one that was stressful for you.

It could be from today.

It could be about tomorrow.

Something you have to do.

Something that you're not sure about.

Taking a moment and trusting what comes.

If all sorts of things come,

Just pick one.

And we're just going to kind of let the movie play for a minute and really notice how you feel.

What your body does.

The reaction you're having.

Just really kind of let it brew in you a little bit here.

What happens to your breathing?

Your heart rate?

What happens to the skin in your forehead?

What happens to the thoughts and the speed of thoughts in your mind?

Just really getting a sense of that moment.

That reaction.

And we're going to start with our,

Which is recognize what's happening.

Recognizing that you're triggered or you're in pain or you're having an emotion.

Often when we're having an experience,

We also jump right away into shame about having it.

And I invite you to recognize that as well if that's happening for you.

Or it's a problem and you don't know what to do about it and how you shame yourself about that.

Notice that might immediately happen.

It's like second nature for many of us.

So we're recognizing.

The next step is to allow.

Allow it to be here.

Allow your wish that it wasn't here to be here.

Allow yourself to not know what to do.

Allow your body to be having the reaction it's having.

Allowing your brain to be making up the stories that it's making.

Allowing yourself to be as you are.

You might be saying to yourself,

Wow,

This situation just gets me tied up in knots.

I can't even think straight.

Allow that.

Wow,

When I think about this,

I just freeze and want to shut down and go away.

Allow that.

I don't want to feel this feeling.

Allow that.

There's another A option,

Which is to appreciate.

You can appreciate the fact that you're getting to see this.

It's actually such a gift to see what's going on inside of us.

That our body,

Our spirit is being willing to show us all this reactivity,

This confusion,

This pain.

You may be able to find actually some appreciation.

That this is showing itself to you.

To be healed.

To be loved.

You can get a little closer to it,

Whatever it is.

In your allowing,

Get right into it with your breath,

With your awareness.

Breathing into it.

Closer to it.

If you lose it,

Just have the trigger come to mind again.

Let it come again.

And now we're going to drop into the I part of the practice,

Which is to investigate.

What's happening here?

What am I believing?

About myself?

About the situation?

What does this remind me of?

Get as curious as you can.

What else does my body do when I have this thought or I relate to this person?

Or see that news?

Get curious.

Investigate.

Inquire.

And now I invite you to bring in the N,

Which is to nurture.

Navigate what's happening.

What does this part of you or this experience need?

What would be the most loving thing you could do for yourself as you're having this experience,

This feeling,

This memory?

Perhaps it's lovingly allowing all this resistance you're feeling to be there.

Perhaps it's a warm,

Kind hug to the anxious feelings.

Perhaps it's not allowing your mind to run away with you and to just stay with the experience in your body and not the scary movie that your mind makes up.

About what this means about you.

Nurture.

Nurture this part of you you want to get rid of.

Give it the love that it needs to find a new way to navigate your reality.

When we are able to notice what we are doing,

What's happening,

Without judgment,

Without pushing away,

Without making up more stories about it.

Old patterns can fall away and something new can come.

Perhaps you notice in this practice that something that felt kind of intolerable has actually become something different.

You've survived feeling this for quite a few minutes.

And you're actually more settled than you were when you first came.

If that's your reality,

Perhaps something else is happening.

Just noticing what it's like to actually let yourself be with something that you used to run away from or used to shut down to.

We're going to come out of this practice,

But I invite you to first just take a moment to celebrate how brave you were and what you were willing to do,

Even if it felt difficult.

To celebrate the changes you actually just made in your brain by turning towards something instead of running away from.

It changes your brain in a very deep way.

Over time,

Our hippocampus shrinks,

Which is a good thing.

Our amygdala calms down.

And that fight or flight energy that courses through our body when hard moments come doesn't have to be firing the same level it was before.

Take a moment,

Just come back into the room,

Orient.

Take a deep breath.

Reviews

Beautifully held and guided RAIN practice that really helped my nervous system settle, in the face of an overwhelming and frightening situation. Thank you so much Elizabeth 🙏🏻

(By the way, I went to look at your website, as I'd like to discover more about what you offer, but it looks like it's been hacked? 😥)