How To Use RAIN As a Mindfulness Tool

by Camille Bird
 

Rumination… defined as the tendency to repetitively think about the causes, situational factors, and consequences of one's negative emotional experience (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). During rumination, a person is continuously or obsessively thinking about the aspects of situations that are upsetting. The replay button leading up to or after a situation occurs. For me, I notice that rumination is of very little service to the present moment (if at all) and has a great capacity for creating undue stress and fantasy.

But what to do about it? It is quite natural for the brain to fall into a state of rumination or obsessive thinking. If I am ruminating leading into a situation like an employee review or an uncomfortable conversation regarding someone’s actions, I am setting the tone with which I arrive in the present moment. At times, my ruminations have allowed for conversations that never occurred creating emotional reactions to a fantasy. If I am ruminating after a situation, I am replaying the scenario over and over and over and over…again, striving to create a different outcome for s situation which is now in the past.

It is difficult to allow for growth or wisdom in either of these instances. One is a pre-fantasy and the other wallowing in what has already occurred. I need a tool…something to move through the muck on repeat to arrive gently to a moment of teaching.

RAIN is a mindfulness tool that creates space between situations, either fantasy or real, allowing relief from obsessive thinking and attachment to outcomes. In recalling an experience, again either fantasy or real, recognizing what arises during the process of recalling, acknowledging, allowing and accepting all that arises in a curious and engaging way to notice physical sensations or responses, and then investigating the emotions and sensations to allow us the ability to reach non-attachment or identity with the response. In short, to arrive to a space of “it is what it is.”

This skill can be accessed in a moment of pause or found useful as a deep dive into reactions to situations that are haunting.

I am quite skilled at responding with stinging whit and intelligent “bazing” moments when conversing situations in my head. I also have an audience in there and they’ve bought popcorn and candy, planning to stay for the whole show (this can last for hours upon days upon weeks…sometimes longer). In the end, though, these conversations are not useful. My general tactic upon recognition of the rumination show is to say aloud or to myself, “STOP.” At this point I can offer the conversation a trip through RAIN.

STOP.

…gently bring the interaction and details to the mind…

R. Recognize: What thoughts and emotions are there? Offer them names and specificity.

A. Acknowledge, Allow and Accept any thoughts or emotions as present. What is arriving physically, how is the body responding…turn toward the experience and arrive to observe genuinely.

I. Investigate. Explore with curiosity how all of the sensations and emotions are arriving as if walking on a trail for the first time. Is there wisdom available here? Gently noticing without attachment…just observing with interest. The attention to curiosity. What is being discovered now?

N. Non-identify. This generally arrives naturally as a result of wandering through the first three parts of this skill. It is the exhale. The change from “I am…” statements to the availability to say “I am noticing…”

RAIN is a mindfulness tool that offers space between events (real or imagined) and emotions, beckoning the present moment. When I attach to ruminations, I have difficulty finding wisdom from the situation. It is the Groundhog Day effect and the definition of insanity to repeat the emotions again and again expecting different results. This is especially true for conversations I am reliving in my mind because the people having the conversation are not there, it is just me…inside my mind…creating within a fantasy. Skillfully allowing this to stop, creating a path to the present moment, allowing the truth in…allowing the present moment and allowing the ruminations to pass. The power of pause…the skill of allowing. Inside this awareness is serenity.