Dealing With Challenging Emotions During Challenging Times: The Powerful Mindfulness RAIN Practice Explained

This is a talk and brief RAIN practice. It first appeared as an article that I wrote on Medium, March 30, 2020. By intention, there is no music in the background, so you can focus on the words. It was recorded sitting at my dining table because that is what I have available to me. Please forgive any audio imperfections. I hope you will consider the content over anything else. The light in me sees the light in you.

Transcript

Hello,

Maria Baltazi here to share a talk and brief practice that will help you to deal with challenging emotions during challenging times.

Several years ago,

When I was supposedly already well on my path to a more conscious way of living,

I was visiting my parents in Cleveland.

Toward the end of my stay,

My father and I got into a huge argument.

Candidly,

I do not remember what the argument was over,

Just that I exploded and it shocked me.

I was stunned by the visceral intensity of my outburst.

My father is now no longer of this realm,

Though when he was around we had a very loving,

However volatile relationship.

He could get me madder quicker than anyone else.

Perhaps it was because the apple did not fall too far from the tree.

That day,

When I was so angry that I was slamming doors and seeing red,

It also happened to be the day I was returning to my home in Los Angeles.

So I had to flight back to think about what had happened and why my emotions raged so fiercely.

What kept playing over in my head was the fact that I had gotten so uncontrollably mad at my father.

For all the inner work I had already done,

Spending years studying the art and science of happiness and mindfulness,

It genuinely surprised me that I could get still so triggered.

I remember at the time deciding that I was never going to allow myself to get that mad again.

I was taking a vow of non-anger behavior.

Considering that I am of Greek ethnicity,

Where we live at the top of our lungs and the end of our nerves,

That was a big ask of myself.

The point is that I did not want to level that kind of hostility on my father or toward anyone for that matter,

Including myself.

So I made another decision.

I decided that until I stop being mad at my dad,

Every day I would send an email about why I loved him.

The result of this exercise?

Eventually I did indeed stop being mad at my dad.

The pain healed and brought us even closer.

What I discovered in noticing and allowing the anger and pain and committing to writing a daily love note to my dad is that in an unexpected way,

It opened me to seeing his goodness to really absorb why I loved him.

It also enabled me to get in touch with what I genuinely wanted from him.

What I wanted was for him once in his life to take emotional responsibility and to simply say I'm sorry with no story,

No caveats,

No telling me that I misunderstood things,

Just I'm sorry.

I tell you this story because even when you are already on an awakened path,

You can still get triggered.

This is important to know.

However,

This is where mindfulness can help.

In the mindfulness practice,

You come to understand that your emotions can still and likely will get triggered.

What mindfulness does is it teaches you how to navigate challenging emotions more productively in a way that is more compassionate to both that other person as well as yourself.

To understand this better,

Emotions can be triggered by thoughts that are then felt in your body or the other way around.

You feel sensations in your body that trigger thoughts.

Either way,

You have to figure out how to navigate emotions as they come up,

Especially the challenging ones.

From a brain reactivity perspective,

It takes 90 seconds for the neurochemical reaction of a thought to go through your body.

That is it,

90 seconds.

What happens after that 90 seconds is on you.

Your reactions that drive your actions are being fueled by you reliving what happened,

What did not happen,

What should have happened.

It is your recapitulation that keeps an emotion alive.

Therefore,

It's sensations in your body.

In these moments of recapitulation,

Mindfulness can come into play in a significant way by using the RAIN practice.

A practice that I learned from my teacher,

Bestselling author and psychologist,

Tara Brock.

RAIN helps you to explore with non-judgmental curiosity your emotions.

Where do you feel your emotions in your body?

In your stomach?

In your heart?

What do these sensations feel like in your body?

Is there tightness?

An ache?

A dull pain?

The word RAIN is an acronym for the process that you go through to navigate your feelings.

Briefly,

I will explain RAIN.

The R in RAIN stands for recognizing that you are having the emotion.

In the story of my father,

I realized that I was harboring anger toward him that I was not aware of until they were triggered.

The A stands for allowing the emotion without judgment.

I let the anger toward my father be there without trying to reason why,

Nor make myself wrong.

By the time I got back to Los Angeles,

I was able to accept my feelings.

It was a prolonged 90 seconds,

Though finally I stopped reliving my anger.

The I is for inquiry or investigation into what you are feeling.

I felt this anger in my face,

Tightness around my mouth,

And in between my eyebrows,

Heat radiated from my heart.

My stomach was clenched as well.

Then,

Thank God for the last part of the RAIN process.

The N for nurturing.

For giving that emotion the attention it needs by asking what does this part of me want right now.

I wanted,

I needed my father to say,

I'm sorry without turning the table on me.

You know what?

The emotional RAIN finally stopped.

Eventually,

My anger dissolved into forgiveness,

Gratitude,

A deeper love,

And greater respect for my dad.

This can work for you as well if you commit to doing it.

You can do RAIN as a formal sitting practice,

And once you get comfortable with this,

You can do it as an informal practice,

An in the moment shot of mindfulness that you can do when you recognize something or someone is bringing up a challenging emotion.

In these moments,

You can quickly check in with each step of RAIN.

Recognize,

Allow,

Inquire,

And nurture to help you modulate your reaction to a situation.

I have found the RAIN practice to be super helpful when I feel that I am getting triggered.

So now,

Let's try a brief practice.

Start by settling into a comfortable meditation position,

Whatever that,

Whatever that is for you.

Take some deep breaths in,

And as you're breathing in,

I want to tell you that when you do this practice on your own,

Go through each step and make sure to take time to absorb it.

So we begin.

First with R.

Recognize by thinking of something that is emotionally challenging you right now,

Though go for something that is not an overwhelming issue.

My suggestion is to start easy and build your practice before tackling emotions that are really charge.

So take a moment to recognize what is coming up for you.

Then A.

Allow that emotion to be,

To exist without any attachment to a story.

Now I,

For investigate where you feel this emotion in your body.

And finally N.

For nurture,

Nurture this emotion by asking what it needs.

Take a few relaxed breaths and come back to this present moment and continue listening to me as I finish this talk.

In closing,

Know that even for an experienced mindfulness practitioner,

Challenging emotions will come and go.

It is what you do with those negative emotions that matter.

Just because you are angry,

Hurt,

Resentful,

Does not mean that you are defined by that negativity nor have to stay in it any longer than you choose to do so.

So ultimately,

The choice is yours.

How do you want to deal with challenging emotions when they come up in life?

Two months before my dad passed away,

I received an email from him.

The only thing it said in all caps was,

I am sorry.

That was it.

That was all I needed.

That and a good cry.

I finally had closure on my anger toward him.

When he passed away,

I was at his bedside and the last words he heard from me were,

You are a good father.

I love you very much.

He looked into my eyes and there was a flicker,

A sparkle,

A sparkle of recognition that he heard my words.

More importantly,

That he felt them.

Then he closed his eyes and drifted away.

I will leave you with this quote from Maya Angelou.

You may not control all the events that happen to you,

But you can decide not to be reduced by them.

This is Maria Baltazzi.

Thank you for sharing your time with me.

You can listen to other talks of mine and guided meditations here on Insight Timer.

The light in me sees the light in you.

Reviews

Very sad and yet encouraging the recognition of both sides has a brilliant end😢😇🤍

Thank you. Grateful. Sending good wishes for your happiness and wellbeing.

Very helpful. Thanks

Very insightful & self-reflective. That level of self disclosure really helped bring the point home and inspired me to dive deeper into RAIN practice.

Insightful and inspiring - thank you 🙏

Very powerful and useful, Thank you for sharing 🙏

Right on, especially now with COVID 19, and all the challenges we individually face. Thank you.

Thank you with all my heart. This talk and meditation is very powerful and will help me to deal with extreme emotions in a reasoned way. I'm grateful to you for sharing your story and for letting me know that I am not defined by any extreme emotions I may feel. Thanks again