Managing anxiety through RAIN
Recognise, allow, investigate and nurture
So what?
Managing anxiety can be stressful and anxious in and of itself. And there are countless number of ways that you can manage anxiety. There are hundreds if not thousands of books that you can read to learn about anxiety and how to manage it. Why RAIN? Popularised by Tara Brach, the following are the reasons why RAIN is our go-to method for managing our anxiousness:
- It’s simple and easy to remember;
- It’s adaptable to different events and situations;
- It’s flexible in a way that you can take one, a couple or all of the steps to your liking; and
- It works (at least for us).
We give you practical steps that you can take to implement RAIN when anxiety flares up. The number of steps you take will depend on the effectiveness of the steps, the severity of your anxiety and the cause of your anxiousness. You don’t have to take all of the steps below or even do them in order. Be creative by mixing and matching to find what works best for you given your event or situation.
Recognise what you are feeling and anxious about
- Acknowledge what is happening to you
- Feel the emotions and sensations that arise
- Realise your feelings and anxiousness
Allow your feelings and anxiety to be as it is
- Accept that you are feeling anxious
- Give yourself permission to feel what you’re feeling
- Enable those feelings to continue
Investigate why you are feeling those feelings
- Explore your emotions and the reason why you are feeling anxious
- Identify the most painful or difficult thing you are facing
- Examine your body and your strongest feelings
Nurture yourself and your feelings
- Tend to your feelings and emotions like a mother tending to her crying child
- Embrace the emotional pain that you are feeling and suffering from
- Touch the part where you are hurting the most
My experience
I recently started practicing RAIN. I had been working on practicing mindfulness and being present by meditating which was comprised of applying one of the RAIN steps at a time. It wasn’t that I was not practicing RAIN but I was only doing one of these steps on the occasions where my anxiety flared up. It felt as though there was something more that I could be doing. Since practicing RAIN, I could continue managing my anxiety whenever it flared up by taking as little or many steps I needed to take until my anxiety subsided.
What now?
- Are you already taking one or more of the RAIN steps when faced with anxiety or other unwanted feelings and emotions?
- Put those steps together by practicing RAIN and taking a systematic approach to managing those feelings and emotions.
- Radical Acceptance: Awakening The Love That Heals Fear and Shame by Tara Brach is a must read if you’re inspired by her and RAIN.