Blog: Turning Toward Fear with RAIN

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Turning Toward Fear with RAIN

Adapted from Tara’s new book –
Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of R.A.I.N.

In a far-off land, word spread far and wide of a holy man with magic so powerful it could relieve the most severe suffering. After seekers of healing traveled through the wilderness to reach him, he’d swear them to secrecy about what was next to pass between them. Once they took the vow, the holy man asked a single question: What are you unwilling to feel?

Learning to directly face anxiety and fear with the RAIN meditation—Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture—gives you a pathway to inner transformation and a fearless heart.

Recognizing the Trance

After a daylong seminar on RAIN and stress, Brianna came up to me and asked for some help with a personal situation. She’d recently been hired as a marketing vice-president in a large corporation, but she felt intimidated by the CEO, who was very quick to cut off anyone who he felt was wasting his time. He ruled over the weekly staff meetings, which Brianna described as “torture” that put her into a state of “brain freeze.”

“I shouldn’t be worried about my competence,” she said. “I was recruited because I got an industry award at my last job. But the atmosphere here is totally different—really corporate, and the other VPs pretty much ignore me. I just go back to my office with my stomach churning and wonder how long I’ll last.”

I suggested that Brianna practice RAIN for a few minutes right before each meeting and asked her what was going on for her at that time.

“On those mornings I can really feel the anxiety building, and it lands me in a frenzy of busyness . . . reviewing reports, marking what I might need to comment on . . . nothing really productive.”

I smiled because I recognized that feeling all too well. “Okay, so before you start RAIN, imagine you’re pressing the pause button on that frenzy.” Brianna closed her eyes and pictured herself at her desk, a half-hour before the weekly meeting.

“As you pause,” I said, “your first job is to Recognize (R) the anxiety and Allow (A) it to be there.” After she nodded, I added, “Now, what do you notice if you bring your attention and interest to how it feels in your body?”

Beginning to Investigate (I), she muttered, “dry mouth . . . really tight chest . . . heart hammering . . . and, oh yeah, my stomach’s in knots.” I suggested she place her hand on her abdomen and send her breath there with a long slow inflow and outflow. This would to help her steady her attention and stay in contact with the fear.

What Does this Most Need?

Now I guided her to ask the scared place inside her what it needed most, a key inquiry in Investigating. After a moment, she looked up, surprised. “It said, ‘let it be ok that I’m here.’”

The Nurturing (N) that scared place needed was to be accepted, not to be made wrong. I asked Brianna how the wisest, kindest part of her wanted to respond. Could she find a way to acknowledge this very vulnerable part of herself with compassion?

She sat quietly, still breathing slowly, her hand on her belly. Then she nodded. “I just sent the message—it’s ok, this belongs. And . . . it does feel more ok. I’m actually a bit more relaxed.”

This became Brianna’s RAIN practice each week before going to the staff meeting. And when she felt anxiety spiking during the meeting, she’d simply breathe into it and send the message—It’s ok.

The freedom of This Belongs

About three months later, Brianna updated me. Her tension around the CEO hadn’t disappeared, but her anxiety had lessened somewhat. More important, it didn’t feel like such a big deal: “I’m not so alarmed when I get anxious,” she told me. “I was fighting it so hard, but now it’s ok that it’s there. That really does free me up.” She also shared some real progress in making creative contributions and connecting with others.

Asking yourself, what am I unwilling to feel? can open you to deep spiritual healing. Fear is the feeling that something is wrong and that, rather than facing it, we need to act to protect ourselves. When, instead, we have the courage to pause and meet fear with the mindfulness and compassion of RAIN, our awareness and wisdom enlarges. If we need to respond to a threat, we’ll do so—with increased balance and presence. But often we’ll see: It’s just anxiety, it’s ok . . . this belongs—and begin to unhook from a lifetime pattern of reactivity. While fears continue to arise, we have access to a heart space that is open and free.

Adapted from Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Ourselves and Our World with the Practice of RAIN, Tara Brach (Viking, 2019).

Brach, T. (2019). Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of Rain. New York, NY: Viking Life.

More Resources on RAIN here.

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The Three Refuges – Gateways to Belonging and Freedom

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We all need ways to guide our attention that allow us to find wisdom, love and freedom in the midst of our lives. This talk reviews three archetypal gateways—Buddha/awareness, Dharma/truth, and Sangha/loving community. Through teachings, guided meditations and a traditional refuge ritual, we engage together in bringing alive these pathways to healing and peace. (Note: Includes Refuges string tying ceremony and chanting the Refuges at end)

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Can People Change?

Can people change? The question may sound overly dramatic or philosophical, but if we’re thinking about it, it tends to be very personal. We often ask ourselves this question when we’re in a strained relationship, whether it’s with a friend, family member, or partner, whose actions (or inactions) are continually causing pain—to you, or themself, or both.

This isn’t about forgetting to load the dishwasher, but rather things like substance use, or dishonesty, or behavior that’s detached or cruel. Even when we come to terms with the fact that change is needed, and we communicate clearly with our person about it, actually achieving change can be much more complicated. In the midst of our frustration, a deeper question bubbles up:

Are people capable of real change?

In this video, philosopher Alain de Botton explains some of the barriers we should be prepared to face during these sorts of crises of relationship. 

The Four Barriers to Change

1) It’s really hard, for any of us, to achieve significant change in our lives.

First of all, one thing is clear: Even if human nature makes us capable of change, we don’t get there easily. 

Your person may overreact negatively to being asked to do something differently. Or, they might say they understand and will make an effort to change, which raises your hopes—but then they don’t follow up with meaningful action. In fact, says de Botton, it’s likely that they already knew there was a problem even before you brought it up: “We can, at best, conclude that by the time we’ve had to raise the question of change in our minds, someone around us has managed not to change either very straightforwardly or very gracefully,” he says. 

2) Wanting someone to change can lead to resentment—on both sides. 

You might hear, “Why should I change? You should love me for who I am!” So is it wrong to ask somebody to change? What’s often happening here is that, in making you feel like you are the one to blame here, your person avoids engaging with their own flaws. It can make you feel like you’re talking to a brick wall. 

Within a truly caring relationship, both people are open to, at the very least, considering the possibility of change in order to meet each other’s needs—and those who resist even a gentle, caring suggestion for change are most likely the same people who really do need to examine their behavior. But trying to push them to do so can lead to an impasse and a souring of communication. 

3. There can be bigger reasons why someone won’t change. 

So why is it so hard for someone to change, even in small steps? “A person’s entire character may be structured around an active aspiration not to know, and not to feel, particular things,” de Botton explains. To some extent, we all have painful experiences in our past—or even in the present—that we bury deep down. “The possibility of insight will be aggressively warded off through drink, compulsive work routines, or offended irritation,” says de Botton. In some cases, the deeper issue may be that we’re dealing not with someone who refuses to change, but with someone who is traumatized. 

When we can realize this, there may be space for us to feel compassion for the dear one who refuses to attempt change. But that doesn’t mean you should be patient with them forever. 

4. Maybe, it’s not them…it’s you.

If someone keeps on doing things that they know hurt us, or themselves, it’s hard to say how long we should keep on hoping for the light to go on—especially when our sincere efforts to help seem unappreciated. 

Then we need to ask ourselves a harder question: Why am I still here? Why do I come back over and over, only to meet more frustration, worry, and sadness?  Often, we’re too emotionally or practically invested in the relationship to give up. It’s not just the other person, but ourselves, who is hard-pressed to grow beyond where we currently are. “Might we, one day,” asks de Botton, “change into characters who don’t sit around waiting without end for other people to change?” 

There is no obligation to stay forever with people who are not willing to enact reasonable changes that meet our needs. That’s a one-sided relationship, and it won’t be viable for the long haul. No matter how much you still care about someone, you need to prioritize your own well-being. It’s important to think things through, get the advice of outside people whom we can trust, and, perhaps, initiate change ourselves by leaving an unhealthy situation.

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How the Body Scan Meditation Practice Reduces Biological Stress

We know that chronic stress can negatively impact our health. Now, a new study finds that doing a mindful body scan each day may reduce biological and psychological stress.

Stress among adults is rising at an alarming rate, according to the 2019 Stress in America Survey. This means that more Americans are walking around with high levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, which is linked to most diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and depression.

Cortisol is one of a number of biological measures of psychological stress.  Psychological stress occurs when the demands of our lives are greater than what we feel we can manage. Can practicing a simple, 20-minute recorded body scan help to ease both forms of stress? A team of German researchers decided to find out.

Researchers assigned 47 healthy young adults to either a body scan group, or an audio book control group. People in the body scan group were given an Android phone loaded with a 20-minute guided body scan adapted from the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. The body scan involved paying attention to momentary physical sensations beginning with the feet and ending at the head. Although MBSR also includes meditation and yoga, researchers wanted to see if the body scan portion alone might help reduce stress. Book group members were given an audio book of “The Madman’s Tale” by John Katzenbach. Both groups were asked to listen to their recordings for 20 minutes per day, each day, for eight weeks.

Mindfulness and Stress Hormones

Before and after the intervention, researchers took two strands of participants’ hair, and asked them to complete a questionnaire about their stress level. Hair samples were used to measure cortisol and DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), both biomarkers of stress.

Cortisol is a primary stress hormone that is produced in the adrenal glands. One of its primary roles is to suppress immune function and reduce inflammation. DHEA is also a stress hormone, but it has the opposite effect of cortisol. This means that a balance of the two is important to maintain health. When the ratio of cortisol to DHEA is elevated (more cortisol, less DHEA), the body is less able to effectively handle stress and is more prone to disease. So researchers also looked at the ratio of cortisol to DHEA when examining biological stress.

These hormones are typically measured by taking samples of blood or saliva, which provide readings of acute, or momentary, stress. For this study, researchers chose hair samples because cortisol and DHEA values found in hair reflect more long-term patterns of stress, and are much less invasive to collect.

How a Body Scan Practice Reduces Stress

At the end of eight weeks, cortisol levels declined in the body scan group, but went up in the book group. Both groups showed increases in DHEA; their levels of the hormone were about the same. The body scan group also showed a greater decrease in the ratio of cortisol to DHEA than the control group. This means that the body scan group, as a whole, showed less biological stress at the end of the study than did the control group. Interestingly, both groups reported less psychological stress at the end of the study regardless of these biological changes.

“Many people are confronted with a high stress load, resulting in the onset and progress of mental and physical problems,” says lead author of the study, Dana Schultchen of the Institute of Psychology and Education at Ulm University in Germany. She believes that we need “a practical and suitable approach” to reduce stress quickly. “Findings of the study showed a decreased stress level after an eight-week body scan training, especially for biological markers,” Schultchen explains. She adds that “a daily effort of a 20-minute body scan training is enough to reduce the stress level.” This study is one of the first to tease apart the ways in which a singular component of a mindfulness intervention, the body scan, might directly reduce biological stress. As such, it makes an important contribution to a new generation of research that will allow us to better understand why and how mindfulness works, and for whom individual practices may be of greatest benefit.

Practice a Simple Body Scan Meditation

As we begin the body scan, guided by Dr. Mark Bertin, we’ll be slowly and systematically moving attention through the various regions of the body, from the feet to the top of the head, noting any physical sensations as we go along. Remember that, as always, there’s no need to strive to make anything happen. Simply observe what you find and practice letting things be for a while.

20-Minute Body-Scan Meditation

• 20:00

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Meditation: Relaxed and Awake (17:14 min.)

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This guided meditation helps us find ease and wakefulness in our body and mind. With the breath as our home base, we offer a gentle and full attention to the changing waves. We close with a beautiful poem, “Walk Slowly,” by Danna Faulds.

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A Mindfulness Practice for Forgiving Your Imperfections

Giving is part of forgiveness. When we give, we make an offering to ourselves and others, creating a willingness to make peace with the conflict and pain that fuel our anger, resentment, and bitterness.

Although it feels easier to be critical―“I hate my body,” “She makes fun of my efforts to eat mindfully”―in fact, it’s actually easier to forgive. A form of letting go, forgiving creates a space to establish skillful habits and mind states that are in harmony with the desire to change. Forgiveness also diminishes the stress that comes from judging ourselves and others.

Just the willingness to be mindful of what is calling for forgiveness is a radical step.

The process begins by forgiving ourselves: our mistakes, feelings, and habits. From this perspective, everything is equally forgivable, whether it’s our laziness, self-hatred, impatience, large thighs, or tendency to overeat. Just the willingness to be mindful of what is calling for forgiveness is a radical step.

A Mindfulness Practice for Forgiving Your Imperfections

It’s helpful to do a forgiveness practice every day, including any aspect of ourselves or our experience that could benefit from this practice.

• First, make a list of the things you find hardest to forgive yourself for. You’ll use the list in the following exercise.

• Sit in a quiet and comfortable place, in a relaxed sitting position.

• Consider each item on your list and repeat the following phrase: To the extent that I am able, I forgive myself for any hurt or harm I have caused myself intentionally or unintentionally.

• Begin with smaller things like “not getting enough exercise” and build up to bigger issues such as “the habit of beating myself up for not being perfect.”

• Go through your list repeat these phrases: To the extent that I am able, I forgive myself for not getting enough exercise. Even if I can’t forgive myself, I forgive myself for that. For as long as it takes, I will continue to offer myself the priceless gift of forgiveness.

• Next, we focus on forgiving others. Make a list of the things you find hardest to forgive others for.

• Consider each item on your list and repeat the following phrase:To the extent that I am able, I forgive my friend Mary for the hurt or harm I’ve experienced. Even if I can’t fully forgive her, I forgive myself for that.
• Again, begin with small issues and build up to bigger ones.For as long as it takes, I will make the effort to offer Mary the priceless gift of forgiveness.

With diligent practice, we begin to realize that forgiveness is a unique form of nourishment, a way of providing ourselves and others a spaciousness around our conflicts and difficulties.

We no longer feel as alone, stuck, or doomed to fail and the resulting peace of mind provides an inner fullness.

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Why Mindfulness Meditation Begins with the Breath

There are a lot of useful mindfulness practices offered out there—like savoring a snack or the walk home. But, cultivating the foundational attention practice of resting your mind on an anchor is the most important. This involves learning a basic mindfulness meditation—such as following the breath—and practicing it on a regular, preferably daily, schedule.

“My breath is boring—just the same thing over and over again! Surely there must be something more interesting to watch?” This kind of comment comes up quite often when people start mindfulness training.

It’s good to be curious about why we practice mindfulness of breathing, but just because we experience some discomfort during the practice doesn’t mean it’s not helpful. In fact, perhaps it’s helpful partly because the breath shows us our discomfort and the patterns of relationship that perpetuate it. Rather than immediately looking for a more exciting mindfulness practice, let’s consider the possible benefits of staying with the breath. Here are a few to ponder.

Why Mindfulness Meditation Begins with the Breath

1. The breath doesn’t try to get anywhere

In and out. In and out. The breath isn’t focused on improving style, becoming more efficient, or rushing to reach the end of some daily respiration quota in order to take a break. As long as we let it, the breath mostly just does what it does. Of course, there is something very vital happening when we breathe—without it we die—but trying to speed it up, force it, grasp it, push it away or control it tends to get in the way. As in breathing, so in life—we can learn a lot from the natural rhythm, pace, and un-fussiness of the way breath continues its work, without making a big deal out of it.

2. The breath teaches us steadfastness

Much of the time our minds wander, either drawn to focus, ruminate, or push away unpleasant experiences, or chasing after stuff we like. But if we don’t practice being still, we are prone to get blown about by every wind, buffeted by the ups and downs of life. By training to pay attention precisely and gently to the breath, coming back again and again, we cultivate a resilience that allows us to be present when difficulty and temptation arises. Distractions still come, but we don’t get so lost in them. This is a master key to well-being, and the boring old breath offers a simple, regular, and available tool to practice with and learn from.

3. The breath happens in the body

For those of us accustomed to experiencing everything from our heads, the breath invites us to a lower center of gravity. We let go of thinking for a time and come down to the belly. We feel the texture of the breath, its rising and falling, and the physical sensations of movement that accompany it. This helps synchronize body and mind, bringing us more into a mode of present-moment sensing. When we feel the breath, we feel the essence of being alive. This often feels good, even if we’re having a hard time. As Jon Kabat-Zinn says: “If you’re breathing, there’s more right with you than wrong.”

The stillness and space of mindfulness of breathing allows us to move into recovery mode, as we take some time out from the frenetic pace of activity or worry that many of us live with.

4. The breath isn’t really that boring

Are you paying attention to the breath, or just your idea of how it is, should or shouldn’t be? Is this breath really the same as the last one, or subtly different, in duration, texture, and intensity? When you open to the actual sensations of breathing, is it really so tedious? Isn’t it rather remarkable and wonderful that we are kept alive in each moment through this mysterious process of inhalation and exhalation, of oxygenation and blood pumping, of the air reaching all the cells of the body? Isn’t it amazing that there’s air to breathe, a body to take it in, and a mind to watch it? Each moment we’re interested in the process of breathing, we are training ourselves in curiosity. Maybe other so-called boring aspects of life contain jewels that we miss and dismiss too hastily?

5. You don’t breathe. The breath breathes

You are not in charge of your breathing, or at least, not so much. Yes, you could hold your breath (for a while) and you could choose to breathe deliberately fast and shallow for a time, but fairly soon any attempt to force the breath will produce counter-measures from within. At the same time, with practice, it’s possible to learn to align with the breath, gently moving with it, while allowing space for it to come into its own natural depth, pace, and flow. Things seem to go best when we co-operate with the breath, rather than resisting or clinging to it. This is good training for the rest of life, over which we also have only partial control.

6. The breath invites us to rest and recuperate

When early humans faced a predator attack, the breath would quicken and the muscles would tense in preparation for fight or flight. If they survived the attack, there would follow a period of rest and recuperation, as the breath slowed down and the body returned to balance. The same reactions occur in us today, except many threats we face are chronic and ongoing (stressful jobs, noisy neighbors, long-term illness, etc) and our bodies may not get much chance to come back to balance. The stillness and space of mindfulness of breathing allows us to move into recovery mode, as we take some time out from the frenetic pace of activity or worry that many of us live with. Regular attention to the breath could save us from overheating and breakdown.

Try this 5-Minute Breathing Meditation to Cultivate Mindfulness

The most basic way to do mindful breathing is simply to focus your attention on your breath, the inhale and exhale. You can do this while standing, but ideally, you’ll be sitting or even lying in a comfortable position. Try this simple guided practice with Diana Winston, Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center:

A 5-Minute Breathing Meditation

• 5:00

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