The RAIN Method is a valuable method to help practice mindfulness and develop both awareness and acceptance to your emotions.
Recognize when a strong emotion is present
Allow or acknowledge that it is there
Investigate the body, thoughts and emotions
Non-identify with whatever is there
Step out of denial and acknowledge what is present in your experience. When you identify the emotion, acknowledge it and name it, you invite it into awareness and the emotion loses some of its power over you. Recognizing what is happening, instead of automatically reacting to it, allows you to shift from a passive to an active stance.
Recognize when a strong emotion is present
Even though the emotion is recognized there might still be resistance to it. Accepting it will help you face the facts and take them on. When things are accepted, they become workable and genuine and change is possible. When you allow yourself to feel, you are allowing presence and being more open to feel what you are experiencing.
Allow or acknowledge that it is there
Once the emotion is acknowledged and accepted, you can then move on to investigating it more fully. There needs to be a will to inquire into what is going on inside you, instead of just assuming that you know what your experience signifies and reacting automatically. You need to be willing to ask yourself what is going on here? Really look within, with an open mind instead of assuming.
Investigate the body, thought and emotions
Inquire every thought or emotion that arises- is the experience really who you are or is it just an experience moving through you? Through paying attention and inquiring in this way, and through the previous stages of RAIN, there is a gradual dis-identification - it creates a spaciousness in the mind. Through this spaciousness the difficult emotion is able to unravel, work its way through you and change.
Non-identify
Put RAIN into practice next time you have an emotional experience that brings you discomfort. Walk through the steps with your health coach using a recent personal experience as an example
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