Changing your mindset starts with paying attention. I'll use exercises and approaches to work on building up the internal muscle for mindful attention.
Sometimes it's using the breath - taking a pause, breathing then examining whatever is in your sight. Perhaps its noticing the sounds you hear or what your hand rests on. It's the open door to noticing what's going on inside. And there is no better technique for this than RAIN
R-A-I-N.
This acronym helps remember the four steps to paying attention to what we are experiencing inside. It's a way to change how you relate to your feelings and your thoughts.
RAIN stands for recognize, allow, investigate, and non-identification. Sometimes there is a second “N” that stands for nurture.
Let's start with the "R" - or recognize - is simply to see the thoughts, feelings and emotions. When we're in the middle of the day, we can miss the anxiety or the sadness or the stress. It can take us over. So putting your finger on it first matters. That's the process of naming the experience.
Then we move to the “A”, which is for allowing. And that's simply to be willing to allow it to be there without judgment, without trying to fix it, which can be uncomfortable, but is necessary. It's going to initially feel like you are observing and allowing a barking dog to be nearby, but that's okay.
Because then we have that ability to step back and move to the ”I” or investigate, which means looking at what this thought or feeling might be doing to you physically. Think of anxiety as tightening up your shoulders or feeling a fluttering in your chest.
And you can also see, “what is this trying to tell me?”
It's being curious about the experience.
Then comes the “N”, non-identification. This is about not falling into a place where you identify yourself with the anxiousness or the sadness or the grief.
Not that this is going to go away, but it is not you. You are you, right? You are feeling anxious. You are feeling sad.
So non-identification is actually a skill. In fact, all of these steps really are skills, to be intentional about, to be mindful about.
And, by the way, we can talk about that second “N” that sometimes I'll use?
That's nurture.
And nurture is about giving yourself a break, knowing that you aren't flawed because you feel difficult stuff or think troubling thoughts.
You're human.
So next time you feel that itchiness of annoyance or the heaviness of sadness, the jangling from anxiety, think of RAIN and then travel just for a few moments through these four steps.
