RAIN

In today’s world, disheartening and unsettling news seems to be ever-present. We may even begin to wonder if there is any glimmer of hope for humanity and our planet in the face of such daunting challenges.

Fortunately, a pathway does exist for dealing with today’s daunting challenges; it starts with working with our own disturbing emotions like fear and anxiety. Conceived by Michele McDonald several decades ago, RAIN—an acronym that stands for Recognition, Acceptance, Investigation, and Non-Identification—is a straightforward and accessible tool and practice that can guide us through our emotional terrain—including our internal chatter and cyclical thinking. This practice can also aid us in identifying, connecting with, and relaxing into our fundamental basic goodness, which is our basic nature. Cultivating the connection to our basic nature is particularly vital in today’s complex world.

Practicing RAIN

The practice begins with Recognition—actually seeing what is going on right now. When you feel ensnared by fears, it is pivotal to pause and authentically acknowledge the reality of what you are experiencing. Denial of our experience only perpetuates our ordeal. Truthfully, I do this practice for every situation in my life that I do not want. I used to try and avoid situations that I didn’t want, but that didn’t work. What we resist persists. When we try to deny our experience, we bring more suffering because, on top of whatever difficulties we may be facing, we add the pain of wanting it not to be that way. But there is a powerful opening that comes whenever we truly recognize what is. To recognize means to remember. It’s checking for the canary in the coal mine; it lets us know what we are actually dealing with.

Next, Acceptance means that we relax with what we’ve recognized; we open to the facts before us. It is the next step because even once we recognize what is happening, we can still be resisting it, wishing it weren’t so, that what’s happening isn’t true; it’s a form of walking backward. But just now, this is what is so, this is what is happening. We stop running after what we prefer to be happening and face reality. I remember well when my younger brother Mark was dying from lung cancer. He said very matter-of-factly, “No more chasing butterflies.” It’s like that. No more confusion. He wasn’t being passive. He was actually being courageous in a simple straightforward way. Acceptance doesn’t mean we can’t work to improve things. We must improve those things we can improve.

The next step, Investigation, helps us see what we can do to bring benefit to our own situation and beyond. Investigation follows from recognition and acceptance. In Recognition and Acceptance, we accept what is going on for us. And then we investigate whatever it is. We actually become curious, as if we were holding what is going on for us in the palm of our hand, seeing it with new eyes, a beginner’s mind, and, at the same time, seeing clearly, without any delusion.

And this leads to the “n” in RAIN, Non-Identification. Non-identification means that we stop taking our storyline, our drama, about our experience as real and as true. We see how our identification with our story only makes things more difficult. Clinging to our story is like choosing to walk backward. We’ll end up tripping.

I encourage you to make RAIN a regular centering practice. It’s a straightforward technique, which, when done regularly, empowers you to walk forward irrespective of external circumstances. It can bring true transformation from the inside out.