Everyday Mindfulness: RAIN Tool

R.A.I.N Mindfulness

This is an everyday mindfulness tool I really like.

Its called RAIN, which stands for

R Recognize what is happening
A Allow life to be just as it is
I Investigate inner experience with an Intimate attention
N Non-Identification; rest in Natural awareness.

The tool is explained here by Clinical psychology PhD Dr Tara Brach. I won’t paraphrase it because you can just read what Tara has written. To understand the model, you’ll need to read the full descriptions of what each letter refers to, but it’ll only take you a few minutes to read it.

Sometimes media descriptions of mindfulness can lead people to think it’s just about living in the moment, which is a bit misleading. It’s much more than that, and the RAIN model is a good example of that.

If you like podcasts, here are a couple of mindfulness-related podcast episodes you might like (both free)

– Dr Tara Brach talking about the RAIN tool, mindfulness, self-acceptance, and relationships

– Geneen Roth (covering similar themes of mindfulness and acceptance, and how she coped when she lost all her money to Bernie Madoff).

“Will I be able to relate to this if I’m not a Buddhist?”

You’ll notice that the RAIN tool is derived from Buddhism but you can ignore the Buddhist wrapper if you want (I’m atheist and the Buddhist elements of it don’t bother me).