Let It R.A.I.N. – Dr. Rick Hanson

How?

R.A.I.N. is an acronym originally created by Michelle McDonald, a senior mindfulness teacher, to summarize a powerful way to expand self-awareness. Tara Brach has developed this approach further, including in her highly recommended book Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN. (I’ve adapted their approaches below, and any flaws are my own, not Michelle’s or Tara’s.)

R = Recognize: Notice that you are experiencing something, such as irritation at the tone of voice used by your partner, child, or co-worker. Step back into observation rather than reaction. Without getting into the story, simply name what is present, such as “annoyance,” “thoughts of being mistreated,” “body firing up,” “hurt,” and “wanting to cry.”

A = Accept (Allow): Acknowledge that your experience is what it is, even if it’s unpleasant. Be with it without attempting to change it. Try to have self-compassion instead of self-criticism. Don’t add to the difficulty by being hard on yourself.

I = Investigate (Inquire): Try to find an attitude of interest, curiosity, and openness. Not a detached intellectual analysis but a gently engaged exploration, often with a sense of tenderness or friendliness toward what it finds. Open to other aspects of the experience, such as softer feelings of hurt under the brittle armor of anger. It’s OK for your inquiry to be guided by a bit of insight into your own history and personality, but try to stay close to the raw experience and out of psychoanalyzing yourself.

N = Not-identify (Not-self): Have a feeling/thought/etc., instead of being it. Disentangle yourself from the various parts of the experience, knowing that they are small, fleeting aspects of the totality you are. See the streaming nature of sights, sounds, thoughts, and other contents of the mind, arising and passing away due mainly to causes that have nothing to do with you that is impersonal. Feel the contraction, stress, and pain that comes from claiming any part of this stream as “I,” or “me,” or “mine” – and sense the spaciousness and peace that comes when experiences simply flow.

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R.A.I.N. and related practices of spacious awareness are fundamental to mental health and always worth doing in their own right. Additionally, sometimes they alone enable painful or challenging contents of the mind to dissipate and pass away.

But often, it is not enough to simply be with the mind, even in as profound a way as R.A.I.N. Then we need to work with the mind by reducing what’s negative and increasing what’s positive. (It’s also necessary to work with the mind to build up the inner resources needed to be with it; being with and working with the mind are not at odds with each other, as some say, but in fact, support each other.)

And whatever ways we work with the garden of the mind – pulling weeds and planting flowers – will be more successful after it R.A.I.N.s.