(Note: This article is from the archive and was written c. 2022.)
One of the most useful techniques in the mindfulness arsenal is the exercise called RAIN. This English acronym was created in the late 90s by Michele McDonald, an insight meditator who I believe is currently teaching in Burma. It takes a core mindfulness concept of gently exploring feelings in a way that is self-compassionate and non-identifying, as opposed to fighting them and trying to suppress them. It has been successfully used to deal with negative thoughts and emotions, and addictions such as smoking and overeating. It is also a technique suggested by the SMART Recovery (Self-Management and Recovery Training) organization.
So this is a tool to use when you are dealing with cravings and difficult emotions. Maybe you are irritable or angry. Maybe you are sliding into sadness and despair. Maybe you just really want that cigarette or drink or some other unhealthy craving. Generally in these times, people will indulge the feeling. They may fixate on it, and amplify it. (“Heck yeah I’m angry!”) Or, they may try to push the feelings down, try to ignore them. They may punish themselves, as if they are a poor human being for having these feelings. That is of course very far from the truth.
The first thing to recognize is that you are not your thoughts, and you are not your feelings. Our minds are hard-wired to think about and anticipate problems. When a thought pops in your head, that does not mean “you” are doing it. Instead, you are experiencing your mind automatically generating this thought. When a feeling suddenly comes to you, that does not mean “you” are doing it. Your body will remember stressors, maybe trauma, and autogenerate feelings. You are experiencing your body and mind generating these feelings. Your biology is designed to do these things, largely as antiquated defense mechanisms. They do not define you.
Similarly with addictions, our minds are wired to avoid pain (a defense!) and seek things that are pleasing. Many things exist around us that reinforce these pleasure centers, creating stronger and stronger pathways until the point that we may find ourselves automatically reaching for these pleasing things without even thinking about what we are doing. We become automata ruled by an addiction. Some chemicals are incredibly powerful in this regard, quickly building addictive pathways in the mind–especially nicotine and many illegal substances.
RAIN asks you to take a pause when these feelings and cravings come, to investigate them gently and be self-compassionate.
R stands for recognize. This is the first step. You recognize what you are feeling, and step outside of that automatic mind. This is happening. This is how I am feeling.
A stands for accept and allow. Let the feeling be. Accept that it is there, gently. Don’t worry about how you “should” be feeling, which can be a rabbit hole-like ruse. Instead, allow the experience to come, to be. Accept it as it is.
I stands for investigate. Explore the feeling. Experience it. Where is it in your body? Do you feel tension? Where? Is the feeling moving around? What other feelings are behind it? Just like a cloud is more than the color white (also containing for example gray, blue, yellow), our emotions tend to have other emotions inside them, mixing together. Is this feeling trying to teach you something? You are an investigator and an observer. You are the experiencer. Allow yourself to feel, to experience, without fixating, without indulging, and without judging. You are not your thoughts. You are not your feelings. You are the one experiencing these thoughts and feelings.
N stands for non-identification, for natural awareness, and for nurturing. Allow yourself to rest here, gently feeling the emotion, gently experiencing it, with recognition that it is not you. This is a place of self-compassion. You have recognized these automatic emotions. You have accepted them as a part of being human. You have investigated what is in them, what they want and are teaching, where they are and what they truly feel like. And now you apply self-compassion as you gently experience the feeling. Dr. Judson Brewer talks about RAIN as a technique to surf feelings and cravings, to experience them as they are and ride them to shore. The source of this idea may come from Dr. John Kabat-Zinn, who said, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Some people tack on an S here for self-compassion, but others see self-compassion as part of the N stage.
I want you to recognize again that emotions and thoughts many times just come. Rumi spoke of them as guests arriving. They are not you, they are not the house. They are guests that will come. Open the door, let them in, and let them pass:
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
— Jalaluddin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks
And from Victor Frankl:
“Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in this space lies our power and our freedom.”
