Over the last year in our online mindfulness & meditation class, we have been practising the Tara Brach RAIN meditation as a technique for dealing with difficult emotions. Tara Brach is one of the core practitioners of this approach.

Uncomfortable feelings like anger, despair, fear, shame, or hopelessness can make us feel alone. It’s hard to know what to do when we experience these emotions, and many of us try to distance ourselves from the behaviours that don’t benefit us such as avoidance, suppression or projection.

In doing so we miss a trick. Sitting with the difficult feelings often means they dissipate sooner. From my work with life coaching clients, this quote by psychiatrist Carl Jung rings true:

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

Awareness, mindfulness, and compassion are at the heart of the RAIN technique. Therefore, we don’t judge our emotions and we explore the reasons why they might be there. By practising the RAIN meditation, we are looking at the darker parts of ourselves and allowing them to be there – kindly, with curiosity, and without judgement.

What does RAIN stand for?

The acronym RAIN is an easy-to-remember tool for practising conscious awareness and understanding of our emotional landscape using the following four steps:

1. Recognise
2. Allow
3. Investigate
4. Nurture

For me, and for my mindfulness students, it’s become a useful way of learning how to ‘sit’ with a feeling without rushing to change it, suppress it, or deny it.

These common responses don’t work – what you resist tends to persist, and often comes back stronger.

Let’s go through each of the RAIN steps:

Recognise what is happening

Notice the sensations you are feeling. What story is playing in your mind? Bring awareness to it. What’s the real feeling here? It’s common for anger to mask hurt, sadness or fear.

Allow the experience to be there

Know that nothing needs to change. Allow this situation to be just as it is. Let yourself feel the difficult emotions. You are safe. Be gentle with yourself.

Investigate with interest and care

How did this feeling arrive? What was the trigger in this moment? Kindness is important.

Nurture with self-compassion

Give yourself what you know you intuitively need. A hug? A hand on the heart? An image of someone you love? An empowering phrase? Trust that your inner wisdom will guide you. By taking action to love the hurt part of you, you accelerate your healing.

Why the Tara Brach RAIN meditation is helpful for difficult emotions

By using RAIN you can begin to get better at recognising what your feelings are, accepting that they exist without trying to change them, and investigating them gently.

This third step is vital – as we identify our triggers we begin to be able to process and lessen them. If we can do it with complete self acceptance then they really diminish in power.

Finally, the brilliant part, how can you nurture that feeling? If you feel fearful, how can you soothe that fear?

I find reminding myself of my current age is really helpful – so much fear stems from difficult situations our younger selves faced that simply stating to myself “I am a xx year old woman” begins to calm me down.

If you feel sad, how can you offer yourself comfort? If disappointed, how can you seek solace in a healthy way, perhaps expressing a need that wasn’t met this time and how it could be better met in future.

The RAIN technique

The RAIN technique can be used during a beautiful meditation that teacher Tara Brach initiated.

Find a private, comfortable and quiet space. Take a seat, close your eyes and breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth. Think about the situation that is playing in your mind and causing you distress. Perhaps it’s a mistake you feel you’ve made, an argument with a friend or family member, trouble at work, or issues with ill health. Whatever it is, bring it to mind and allow yourself to gently remember the experience itself using visualisation. Now, go through each letter of RAIN one by one – Recognise, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture – before calmly completing the meditation by softly opening your eyes and returning to the present moment.

This is your invitation to feel better, in the way that feels just right for you – book a free call here with Joanne Sumner to discover how.