Managing Difficult Emotions
Use the acronym RAIN to help you when dealing with difficult emotions
Recognize
Recognizing means consciously acknowledging, in any given moment, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are affecting us.
Allow
Allowing means letting the thoughts, emotions, sensations we have recognized simply be there, without trying to fix or avoid anything.
We often have the impulse to fix or ignore difficult emotions. Doing so causes more internal stress, and leads to negative behaviors like arguing more with others, binge eating, binge drinking, etc. Allowing yourself to recognize emotions and accepting them can interrupt this negative cycle. It can be hard at first but gets easier with practice!
Investigate
To investigate call on your natural curiosity - the desire to know what's happening with this present feeling - direct a more focused attention to your present experience.
Try to sit with the experience, notice what you feel physically as you acknowledge your emotions. Take a few deep breaths.
Nurture
Nurture by sensing what the hurting place inside of you most needs, and then offering some gesture of active care that might address this need.
After the rain
When you've completed the active steps of RAIN, it's important to just notice your own presence and rest in that wakeful, tender space of awareness. You may not notice feeling better right away- don't worry, that's normal! In time, you may notice feeling relieved and less anxious or irritable.
© Desiree R. Azizoddin, Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 2022.