Hello,

After a relaxing weekend, I’d like to share a new-to-me resource from Tara Brach.  Her name might or might not have been mentioned before, but I can’t remember.  I really enjoyed her first book about incorporating Buddhist philosophy and meditation practices into coping strategies and techniques without practicing or following Buddhism.  She has many free resources on her website and Facebook feed that I view and look into with my current therapist/counselor.

One practice that caught my eye recently is the acronym RAIN

R = recognize
A = allow
I = investigate
N = non-identification (my therapist uses nurture)

The acronym is a process that helps me learn to identify and cope with any emotions I feel in the moment.  From there, I can learn to step back and accept them without feeling so overwhelmed or wanting to escape from them (good/bad/indifferent I always want to escape in some way).

In our last meeting, my new therapist walked me through the exercise a couple times so that I understood how the process worked.  To be honest, I struggled with it in session and kept forgetting what the acronym meant outside.  One of us would almost get it right.  Then another would try.  Finally, we searched “Tara Brach” and “RAIN” online to get the words right.

Monday and yesterday, I was overwhelmed with feelings.  Probably was not a good idea for me to go to knitting or allow a friend to come over on a holiday when I knew there was a lot of potential for emotional triggers.  But I did it.  And got triggered.  Using the RAIN method helped everyone in our system stay focused during the work day in spite of this sleepy, floating sensation (depression or insomnia) that permeated my mind.

But, instead of the depression and/or insomnia, the alters in trouble figured out the trigger.  Then we all worked together to understand how the trigger (and the sensations it brought up) affected us as individuals and as a whole.  Because we all felt it.  And we all were affected by it.

If you want to learn more about RAIN, I’d recommend starting with this link and then checking out the free audio and video resources on the website.

Thanks for reading.