# Let it RAIN

The acronym stands for Recognize, Accept, Interpret, Non-identification. Depending on which book or website you check out, the words can be subject to change, but the method behind remains the same.

While the pseudo-nap helps to discard and refocus, this one can be good to make recurring, specific thoughts less impactful by analyzing them and differentiate between their perceived importance and their actual importance.

The first sessions are ideally started like a pseudo-nap, sitting or lying on your back, taking deep breaths and with eyes closed to focus fully on the exercise. Afterwards, it’s possible to practice while walking or when working on a task requiring little brainpower. Once you’ve started, merely follow the letters.

* **R**ecognize the thought that’s plaguing you. Give it a name. Is it loneliness, anger, stress or fear? Recognizing it helps putting distance between yourself and the thought. In time, it becomes easier to spot them from afar and thus nip them in the bud.
* **A**ccept the thought. Don’t struggle against it. It’s there, and it’s okay to feel it, it’s human. Picture the sensation in your head and look at it from afar. You do not have to agree with these feelings, simply acknowledge they are there. Allow your thoughts to come and go.
* **I**nterpret. Now that you know and accept it’s there, time to take it under scrutiny. Why do you feel this way? Is it an event that just happened? Is there a trigger? Is it tiredness or the time of day? Once you’ve found the source, how does this emotion affect you? Does your body feel tense, do you have a hard time finding your breath, does it make you angry? Finally, what can you do to help yourself through it? If you know the specific trigger, you can avoid it. If you understand the exact effect it has on you, it’s easier to work through to make it disappear faster.
* **N**on-identification: Picture the thought in your head. Now picture yourself, looking at the thought from afar. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it has to be you. thoughts are only thoughts; they are not always based on reality. They do not have to define you. If a thought or sensation does you more harm than good, you can let go of it. Look at the feeling or emotion from afar, and tell yourself it’s natural to feel them, but you are not your emotions. You can detach yourself from the sensation.

Easier said than done, I know, you won’t fully detach from the thoughts right away. But training to process and distance yourself will eventually get you there.

You can see the different logic between the two previous methods. One is meant to blow all thoughts away, the other delves deeper into a specific sensation to take away its strength. They are not mutually exclusive. It can be much easier to discard recurring thoughts like crumbled paper once you’ve made the effort to deflate them and look at them for what they are with the RAIN method.

*Relevant short-term goals*:

* Start practicing when you’re at home with a dozen minutes to yourself. Even if the current emotion you have is nothing particular and not what you’d like to be rid of, go through the letters all the same as training.
* If you had a bad period at work or someplace you can’t take the time to use the rain technique, wait until you are home to process it. Doing so will make it easier to see coming next time, and easier to get rid of.

*Relevant long-term goals*:

* Use it in combination with the paper-crumbling technique. If one thought is hard to throw into the mental bin, use the rain method over several days or weeks and then try to crumble it again. If one method makes the other easier, you’re making good progress.

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RAIN and the pseudo-nap are discussed in greater depths in *Real Happiness by Sharon Salzberg.*

It does tend to have some ‘self-helpy’ moments where you’d like to skip ahead and get to the meat of it, but the meat itself is remarkably clear though. Several simple exercises, well explained, a plan to follow over a few weeks which makes for an excellent introduction to meditation. You’ll find:

* More tips to reach peace of mind.
* Help to handle anxiety and similar feelings.
* Ways to put distance between what you feel and yourself, but in a different way than the stoic book mentioned above.

There are plenty of other schools of meditations. Guided meditation with a teacher, mantra meditation will focus on a word or a phrase, spiritual meditation will be about the connection to something greater, and so on. There’s a method for everyone; I can only encourage you to seek out the one that suits you best if the first attempts don’t pan out.
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