The RAIN method by Tara Brach
4th March 2022
Good morning everyone,
How are you today?
Ever felt like negative emotions and thoughts can take over and put you in a kind of trance like state? Today I wanted to share with you a method that I use when that happens to me.
The RAIN method is a method developed by Tara Brach, the famous psychologist and author. And it’s a method that can help us to get out of the trance that our old fears and trauma can put us in.
You may recognise how it goes, your day is going just fine and then suddenly something happens that makes your heart jump with fear, something touches and old insecurity or an old pattern of behaviour that you haven’t resolved and your consciousness is high jacked with your mind going into a trance like state starts in which thoughts and emotions swirl frantically around.
You’re stuck.
It can last anything from a few hours to a few days, sometimes I’m afraid to say, sometimes it can be months or years!
Luckily, this method is a way to help you wake up from the trance so that you don’t have to waste your precious time.
In my personal life, this kind of used to manifest itself when I thought someone was attractive. As soon as the thought entered my mind that someone I just met was more beautiful or cool that me (whatever that means!) I would go down a spiral of thoughts and emotions which made me believe that I was less than the other person. And so my mind would get itself hard at work to try and ‘think’ about how I was going to get rid of this person from my life. You can imagine, this would not end well, and it would definitely not make me more attractive!
The Rain method is part of a book called Radical Self acceptance, and it calls for us to pause and follow these steps, it goes like this:
- R is for Recognize: To recognize what is actually going on in our bodies and minds. To recognize the thoughts of unworthiness and the fear.
- A is for Allow: To allow those feelings to be there. To not try to get away from them.
- I is to investigate: With kindness and compassionate interest, to try and pinpoint where those feelings and fears are rooted on.
- N is for Not Identified: The last step is for us to see the thoughts and emotions as separate from whom we really are. As clouds that are just in the way of the light of the sun.
After you’ve followed this steps, the feelings of fear, anxiety and emotional turmoil will diminish, as rather than being stuck in the trance that those old patterns can put us under, you’ve managed to separate your conciousness from your mind and you’ll able to let go of the thoughts and emotions.
I hope this was helpful to you, and if it was, I would love to hear about it. Drop me a message on @energybubble on Twitter.
Namaste.