Hi,
And welcome to this RAIN meditation session.
Today's practice is for dealing with sadness.
As you might know,
RAIN is an acronym for Recognize,
Accept or Acknowledge,
Investigate and Not Identify or Nurture.
If you are not familiar with RAIN and want to know more,
Start by listening to my introduction to RAIN meditation first.
Otherwise,
Please find a comfortable position with your back straight and gently close your eyes or soften your gaze.
The fact that you are here is already a good sign that you are aware of the sadness you want to overcome or deal with.
Let's guide your awareness by locating this feeling in time and space.
Starting with time,
Think of the main event that triggered your sadness to start building up.
Go back to the very beginning of it.
It's important that you identify this,
Because sometimes,
When a strong emotion arises,
We absorb everything around us and might end up misattributing the cause to something other than the true trigger.
Focus on the timing.
Very good.
Now,
Think for a moment of the space you were in when you started to feel sadness.
Let your mind offer you the first image available without overthinking.
Perfect.
Now that you have both time and space,
I want you to be fully aware of the feeling.
Find the main place in your body where the feeling lives.
Is it a heaviness in your chest,
A lump in your throat,
A weight on your shoulders,
Or perhaps a tiredness in your eyes?
Notice it and stay present with it.
Well done.
Now that you are aware of this feeling,
I would ask you to acknowledge it.
Acknowledging means you know it's there without judging it.
You recognize and accept its presence.
The feeling is there for a reason.
It's your mind and body talking to you in a language you are about to understand.
To do so,
You just need to accept that the message is there first.
Observe it and label it.
Call it by its name.
Notice that now you are the observer and sadness is the observed feeling.
Now that you see the feeling from the outside,
We can start investigating.
There is something really important I want to share with you.
A moment ago,
I asked you to call the feeling by name and you might have chosen sadness.
Sadness is possibly the generic name we often give to a variety of feelings.
And putting them all under sadness is an easy way to describe them to others and ourselves.
But now we will do something very powerful.
We will unpack sadness in all its shades.
And you will be able to understand exactly which one resonates more with how you feel.
This will help you relabel it,
Understand it and put into perspective the feeling as well as your reaction to it.
Let's start our investigation.
I will offer you five forms of sadness,
Each with its name and an example to help you decide which one you recognize yourself with the most.
You can keep in mind the one label that represents your state best and switch it with another only if it feels more accurate.
This way you will get to the end knowing which one is your new label that will substitute the generic sadness one.
The first one is melancholy.
A lingering reflective sadness without a clear cause.
Like when you reminisce about your childhood and feel a soft lingering sadness without any particular reason for it.
The second one is disappointment.
Sadness due to unmet expectations.
Imagine you are looking forward to spending time with friends but they cancel at the last minute leaving you feeling deflated.
Do you feel disappointment?
The third one is loneliness.
A sadness from isolation or lack of meaningful connections.
Like moving to a new city and,
Despite being surrounded by people,
Feeling isolated and disconnected from meaningful relationships.
The fourth one is despair.
A deep sadness connected to hopelessness.
One could experience it,
For instance,
After months of unsuccessful job hunting making you feel powerless and as if there's no hope left.
Do you feel despair?
The fifth one is grief.
This is the deepest sorrow,
Usually after a significant loss.
Like losing a loved one and feeling a profound all-encompassing sorrow that lingers for a long time.
Do you feel grief?
Now that you have investigated your feelings to find the right label,
You have a much better understanding and context about it,
Don't you?
So what is your new label to substitute the generic sadness one?
This is a very powerful way to get in touch with yourself.
And if you are still unsure,
You can listen to the list again until you feel satisfied with your understanding.
Maybe you realized that by putting things into perspective,
The intensity already feels a little lighter than before.
You are doing great.
We have reached the last step of our RAIN journey.
The non-identify or nurture.
This is a key step that,
If done right,
Will give you the comfort,
Peace or sense of release you are looking for.
Especially if in the investigation step you realized that sadness has to do with the way you related to your own expectations or how you carried the weight of loss.
To do so,
I want you to go back with your mind to the acceptance phase,
When you identified the part of your body that was mostly affected or representative of your feeling.
I would then like you to recall the new label you gave to sadness from the ones we investigated together.
And once you have the word,
You should mentally place it on the part of your body affected by it.
Use your imagination to visualize it now.
Perfect.
Now take a long deep breath through your nose.
Hold it.
And when you exhale through your mouth,
See the label slowly detaching from your body.
Like the air flowing away from you carrying the heaviness of the feeling it represents.
And as it does,
You feel that area of your body changing.
It feels better.
Do it again.
Inhale deeply.
Hold it.
And as you exhale,
See the label move even further away from your body part.
Which now feels restored.
One last time.
Inhale deeply.
Hold it.
And now,
As you exhale slowly,
See the label far away from you.
Mentally repeat,
I am not my feelings.
I am not my feelings.
I am only me.
And that's enough.
Remember this as we get closer to the end of this journey.
You can nurture this sense of freedom you have just created.
Be thankful to yourself for having taken the time to heal your mind today.
RAIN is a process.
And it might not always be easy or straightforward to complete it in just a few minutes.
The more frequently you practice,
The more you will discover and harness its power.
And if you feel grief,
You might want to listen to the special RAIN meditation I made for grief to help you get back to a place of acceptance and serenity,
Given the right time to process your loss.
I trust you're feeling better already.
And I hope to meet you tomorrow to continue your journey into a better you,
Free of the burden of unwanted emotions.
All the best.
Till next time.
