Verified by 
Relationships
A Simple Tool for Welcoming Our Feelings
Healing R.A.I.N. can be a gentle path toward self-love no matter what happens.
Posted August 29, 2022 Reviewed by Davia Sills
Key points
- We're often overwhelmed when we don't take the time—or don't know how—to be with our feelings.
- A process known as R.A.I.N offers a tool for being with our feelings so that we don't feel overwhelmed or debilitated by them.
- As we recognize and allow our feelings and experience to be just as they are, we move toward a greater sense of freedom and inner peace.
We often hear it’s important to love ourselves. But the key question is, what does that look like? Loving ourselves is more than soaking in a hot tub or chasing after a new shiny object. Self-love is not something we do but something we are. Deeper self-love means embracing and being friendly toward feelings that arise in us as a result of being alive—tapping inner resources to deal with life on life’s terms.
The stressful pace of modern-day life can keep us dazed and disoriented. We’re bombarded by experiences—often unpleasant ones—that disturb and overwhelm us. Stuff happens at work and in relationships that we don’t have time—or take time—to process. By the end of the day or on weekends, we may feel exhausted and end up grasping for ways to soothe ourselves that don’t offer real relief or lasting peace.
We can take better care of ourselves emotionally as we find a simple structure or tool to help us face uncomfortable feelings, so they don’t accumulate and wear us out. Enter Healing R.A.I.N.
Healing R.A.I.N.
R.A.I.N is an acronym coined by mindfulness teacher Michele McDonald. It has been adapted and popularized by many teachers of mindfulness, including Tara Brach and Rick Hanson. I find it to be a helpful complement to my work as a psychotherapist and coach, often applying Eugene Gendlin’s somatic approach of Focusing. The central attitude of Focusing is having a gentle, caring presence toward our feelings and uncovering important meanings they may hold for us.
I have adapted R.A.I.N in a way that dovetails with the Focusing attitude, so any flaws in my adaptation are my own and not those of its creator, Michelle McDonald.
R = Recognize
When something arises that is difficult, challenging, or confusing, the first step is to pause. Taking a conscious pause allows us to get a handle on what’s happening inside us. It’s a way to bring our executive functioning to our experience, rather than being hijacked by our instinctual fight, flight, or freeze response.
Recognizing our experience means being mindful of what’s arising inside us—and being with it just as it is. When we’re triggered, we bring our attention to ourselves and notice what we’re experiencing right now. Are we noticing anger or shame when someone speaks to us in a critical, accusatory way? Or perhaps we recognize sadness or hurt when a friend doesn’t return our phone call. If we risk reaching out to someone we like, we may notice our stomach getting tight, which connects with a fear of rejection.
This simple (though not always easy!) practice is to recognize what we’re noticing inside apart from our thoughts about it. Is our stomach tight or queasy? Is our chest or throat constricted? Can we be curious about what we’re experiencing without judging ourselves or trying to bypass our feelings? Such gentle attention and curiosity toward our felt experience is an overlooked way to love ourselves.
A = Accepting and Allowing
After we recognize what we’re experiencing, the next step is allowing it to be just as it is. This means accepting our feelings as they are without trying to change them or fix ourselves. We honor our feelings without allowing our inner critic to tell us some scary story about what our feelings mean, such as that we’re defective or flawed or that we’ll never be happy.
Being gently accepting of whatever feelings we’re noticing is a powerful way to love ourselves—having compassion toward ourselves instead of being self-critical or ashamed of what we’re feeling. Having feelings means we’re human; it doesn’t mean we’re weak or that something’s wrong with us. It means something is right with us for having the courage and awareness to be kindly disposed toward the full range of our feelings in life.
Feelings are simply how life speaks to us; we allow the life inside us to be as it is right now.
Often the two steps above—recognizing and allowing our experience—are enough for the feeling to shift or release. But sometimes, the next two steps are helpful.
I = Inquire or Investigate
Inquiring into our experience is not an intellectual analysis but rather a gentle exploration of what we’re noticing inside. As our attention gently rests inside our body, we might get a sense of what this anger or frustration is about. Something deeper may emerge as we gently hold this inside us. If nothing comes, that’s fine too. There’s no way to do this wrong.
Perhaps a person we wanted to befriend is not reciprocating our interest. Beneath our anger or frustration, there might lie vulnerable feelings of sadness, hurt, or loss. Or we might feel shame—imagining there’s something wrong with us. As we notice this, we might have the realization that they may have reasons for their actions that have nothing to do with us!
Bringing loving-kindness toward ourselves, we might realize that the relationship wasn’t meant to be and that we don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with us. Or we might realize it’s OK to allow ourselves to feel sad—finding some relief and freedom to realize we don’t need to criticize ourselves for something that’s outside of our control.
N = Not-identify
According to Buddhist psychology, if we cling too tightly to anything, we create suffering. Can we make room for our feelings without getting too identified with them? Sadness, shame, fear, and anger are like clouds passing in the sky.
Who we are—our True Self—is larger than our problems and emotions. Feelings, thoughts, and sensations come and go; they don’t define who we are. Non-identification means finding the “right” distance from feelings—not so close that we merge with them and not so far away that we dissociate from them.
Meditation teacher Tara Brach defines the “N” in R.A.I.N as Nurturing. As she puts it:
“Try to sense what the wounded, frightened or hurting place inside you most needs, and then offer some gesture of active care that might address this need. Does it need a message of reassurance? Of forgiveness? Of companionship? Of love?...Experiment and see which intentional gesture of kindness most helps to comfort, soften or open your heart. It might be the mental whisper, I’m here with you…I’m listening. It’s not your fault. Trust in your goodness.”
As you come to a completion, bring a nurturing sense of appreciation to yourself for having taken the time to be with your feelings in this gentle way. Take whatever time you want to dwell in the quality of tender awakeness or spacious presence that might have opened for you.
Life happens. R.A.I.N offers a structure to be with what happens in a mindful way. The next time you notice difficult feelings, you might want to experiment with allowing R.A.I.N to wash over you and notice if it brings some peace into your heart.
© John Amodeo
