Hi,
And welcome to this RAIN meditation for dealing with fear and anxiety.
As you might know,
RAIN is an acronym for Recognize,
Accept or Acknowledge,
Investigate and Not Identify or Nurture.
If you are not familiar with RAIN and want to know more,
Start by listening to my introduction to RAIN meditation first.
Otherwise,
Please get to a comfortable position with your back straight and close your eyes or soften your gaze.
If you are here,
You probably already have a level of awareness about the fear feeling you want to overcome or deal with.
Let's start by guiding your awareness to locate this feeling in time and space.
We can start with time.
Think of the main event that triggers your fear.
Identify the spark at the very beginning of it that causes you to feel fear.
It's important that you identify this because sometimes,
When a strong emotion pops up,
We take in everything that's around us and could misattribute the cause of it to something else other than the true cause that acts as a trigger.
Think of the triggering factor.
Good.
Now,
Think for a moment of the space you were in when you started to feel fearful.
No need to overthink it.
Just let your mind offer you the first image available.
Very good.
And now that you have time and space,
I want you to be fully aware of your feeling.
Find the main place in your body where the feeling lives.
Is it in the back of your neck?
Or in your eyes wanting to close?
Or your heart racing?
Or your hands sweating?
Or your legs feeling weak?
Well done.
Now that you're aware of this feeling,
I would ask you to acknowledge it.
Acknowledging means you know it's there without judging it.
You recognize and accept its presence.
You are in control.
The feeling is there for a reason.
But you are in control.
It's your mind and body talking to you in a language you are about to understand.
To do so,
You just need to accept the message being there first.
Observe it and label it.
Call it by its name.
Notice that now you are the observer and fear is the observed feeling.
Now that you see the feeling from the outside of it,
We can start investigating it.
There is something really important I want to share with you first.
A moment ago,
I asked you to call the feeling by name.
And you might have chosen to call it fear.
Fear is possibly the generic name we often give to a variety of feelings.
And bucketing them into fear is an easy way to describe it.
To others and ourselves.
But now we will do something very powerful.
We will unpack fear in all of its shades.
And you will be able to understand exactly which one of them is the one that resonates most with how you feel.
This will help you relabel it,
Understand it and put into perspective the feeling as well as your reaction to it.
Let's start our investigation.
I will offer you five levels of fear intensity,
Starting from the mildest one.
Each with their own name and an example to help you decide which one is the one that you recognize yourself the most with.
You can remember the one that you think represents your state the most and switch it with the new one only if you feel that the new one is a better fit.
This way you will get to the end knowing which one is your new label that will substitute the generic fear one.
The first one is apprehension.
A mild sense of uneasiness about a situation.
Like when you are about to meet someone new and you feel noticeable nervousness about how the interaction will go.
Do you feel apprehension?
The second one is worry.
A persistent concern about something negative that could happen.
Imagine you sent an important message and you are constantly fretted about whether you made a mistake.
Do you feel worry?
The third one is anxiety.
Coming from uncertainty,
The unknown of what may happen in the future.
Imagine having a big delivery coming up that makes you anxious about how it's going to be evaluated.
Do you feel anxiety?
The fourth one is panic.
An immediate and intense reaction to a situation.
Imagine you realize you have lost your wallet or phone and a sudden surge of dread makes it hard for you to think straight.
Do you feel panic?
Finally,
The fifth one is terror.
A profound and paralyzing sense of imminent danger or threat.
Imagine walking in a dark alley and hearing footsteps behind you.
Do you feel terror?
Now that you have investigated your feeling and compared it with all these ones,
You have a much better understanding and context about it,
Don't you?
So which one of the prior labels is the one that you chose to substitute the generic fear one?
This is a very powerful way to get in touch with yourself.
And if you're still unsure,
You can listen to the list again until you feel satisfied with your understanding.
Maybe you realized that putting things into perspective,
The intensity feels already milder than before.
You're doing great.
We have reached our last step of our RAIN journey.
The non-identify or nurture.
This is a key step to separate you from the feeling.
If done right,
It will be the key to giving you the calm,
Peace or sense of control you are looking for.
Especially if during the investigation you realized that fear had mostly to do with your own expectations.
I want you to now go back with your mind to the acceptance phase,
When you identified the part of your body that was most affected or representative of your feeling.
I would then ask you to recall the word for the new label you gave to fear from the ones we investigated together.
And once you have the word,
You should mentally place it on the part of your body affected by it.
Use your imagination to visualize it now.
Perfect.
Now take a long deep breath through your nose.
Hold it.
And when you exhale through your mouth,
You will feel the label slowly detaching from your body,
Like the air flowing away from your mouth,
Carrying with it the heaviness of the feeling it represents.
And as it does,
You feel that area of your body changing.
It feels better in every possible way.
Do it again.
Inhale deeply.
Hold it.
And as you exhale,
The label moves even further away from your body part,
Which feels restored.
One last time.
Inhale deeply.
Hold it.
And now,
As you slowly exhale,
The label is gone far away from you.
Repeat in your mind.
I am not my feelings.
I am not my feelings.
I am only me.
And that's enough.
Remember this.
As we get closer to the end of this journey,
You can nurture this sense of freedom you have just created.
Be thankful to yourself for having taken the time to heal your mind and body today.
RAIN is a process.
And it might not be as easy or straightforward to complete it in a few minutes.
The more frequently you practice it,
The more you will discover and harness its power.
I hope you are feeling better already.
And I am looking forward to meeting with you tomorrow to continue your journey into a better you.
Free of the burden of unwanted emotions.
All the best.
Till next time.
