Working with Strong Emotions

One of the most profound tools that I have found for navigating difficult emotions, is a practice called RAIN. RAIN is an acronym that stands for Recognize, Allow (or accept), Investigate, and Not identify (or Nurture). Let’s go through the steps together.

Recognize: In this step, we simply stop and recognize what is actually happening, what is arising in the moment. It is as if we hit the pause button here. We take a break (a breath) and recognize the situation (or emotion) for what it is.

Allow (or accept): Here, we let the emotion be there. So often, when something difficult or painful arises, our instinct is to push it away, to get rid of it. This instinct is understandable but expanding our ability to be with what is uncomfortable, is invaluable. This “allowing” does not mean that we have to like what we are feeling or experiencing. It is just a recognition of what is actually present, and a willingness to be with it as it is.

Investigate: When we investigate, it is not in the mind as most investigations are. We avoid the story the mind will certainly try to tell us about what we are experiencing and stay with the direct experience in the body. We explore how the body reacts and responds when the emotion is present. Get specific here. How does the chest feel? What happens in the jaw… the belly? Name what you feel, wherever you feel it.

Not identify (and nurture): The N of RAIN was traditionally taught as no self. That can sound like a far away concept but it can be quite simple. Emotions have a way of seeming very personal, they get embedded in our sense of who we are and can create pain and confusion. The N here reminds us that emotions are energy, passing sensory input. Emotions are universal. When we hold them in this way, there is more ease and freedom. They hook us less.

I have also been taught the N as Nurture. We sense into the hurt place within us and ask what this vulnerable place most needs? How this place wants us to be with it? We allow our own kindness and care to meet those needs. I have found time and time again that what my own pain most often wants from me is respect. The hurt place deserves to be heard and held. You deserve your own compassion. Once you drop the judgement (which arises because of identification!), you are free to tend what needs tending. First for yourself, then for another.

Wholeheartedly,

Kim

The Flow of Emotion

In just the same way we watch thoughts come and go in practice, we can begin to open to emotions. It can be useful to feel the movement of emotional energy before we get specific about a particular emotion. When we sense into them in this way, we are less likely to get hooked by a story about what we are feeling. We have some space to see that emotion is natural to human experience.

This sounds simple, but the truth is that most of us have very strong ideas about what we should feel, what we are allowed to feel and what is off limits. We might have absorbed these hidden beliefs from our families, friends, the culture at large. All of that is worth holding in awareness. The good news is that once we are aware, we can begin to change our way of relating to emotion.

Emotions can feel so personal but the truth is that every human will experience their share of joy and of sorrow. Emotions are universal. Emotions just are. Sensing them as energy, can help us see them as natural. We fight less. The less we fight, the less they hurt. We cannot avoid pain in life. We can (and should) avoid adding to that pain by judging ourselves, pushing away what is happening, and creating stories about what any given emotion might mean about us.

We come back again and again to curiosity and kindness. When these are the foundations of our practice, of our lives, we can begin to welcome what moves through as another part of the dance of what it means to be alive.

Wholeheartedly,

kim

How It is Right Now

How many moments of our lives pass by without us really being aware of them? Without us really showing up in them? We are so often caught in past or future thinking, senses drawn away from the present.

A simple way to bring awareness back is the question, how is it right now? How does the body feel right now? What are the sensations, textures that are here? Get specific and curious. Really explore.

What is it like in the mind right now? What is the level of activity? Are thoughts moving quickly or slowly? What is the mood of the mind?

What feeling tone is present as you tune in right now? What emotions can you feel coming and going? Does the heart feel open or closed. Can you sense what is alive for you with kindness and care?

How does the body respond to these thoughts and emotions? Can you allow your experience to be, just as it is without any judgement or need for it to be any other way. This is how it is now. Be with it. Be here. Here is where the moments of your life unfold. Don’t miss them.

Wholeheartedly,

Kim

Opening to Emotion

When we first begin to open to emotion, it is important that we go gently, with great care and patience. We can begin in the body, noticing the movement of emotional energy. In much the same way we notice the coming and going of thoughts, emotions come and go- most lasting no more than a few seconds. We can begin to notice and explore the manifestation of emotion in the body as sensation. How does the body feel when fear is present? or joy? or boredom? Whatever the emotion might be, feel how the body responds. Get curious and specific, name what you find as you tune in. Watch how the emotion is there for a time, and then passes out of awareness, dissolves. As we watch this arising and passing, we have a direct experience of emotion that is disentangled from our story of self. We so often identify with an emotional state in a very personal way- adding an extra (and unnecessary) layer of suffering when a difficult emotion is present. How often have you said, “I am so angry” or “I am sad”. Can you feel the weight of that statement? Now hear the statement, “Anger is present” or “this is what sadness feels like in the body”. There is a space to the later way of relating. That space has the capacity to hold the experience in a way that is less activating, more compassionate, more clear.

Learning to relate to emotion as energy and sensation in the body, gives us the space to care for our experience with skill and kindness. Unexamined emotion has a way of solidifying into action, so this is important work. We can avoid a lot of pain, personal and relational by cultivating that space between who we imagine we are and what we feel.

Wholeheartedly,

kim

Who are you?

If you close your eyes and ask the question ‘who am I” you will likely be met with a flurry of images, impressions, feelings, likes and dislikes- the flavor, if you will, of your personality. Your “suchness” as it is sometimes called. The “suchness” of the individual can be a place to celebrate and delight in as long as we don’t get stuck there and forget that we are all so much more.

If you drop that same inquiry in during meditation and wait for the settling, you can begin to connect to a deeper way of knowing yourself. Feeling for your “self” in the spaciousness of awareness can help you to experience the formless, unbounded, sweet quality of your essential nature. In this space, we can more easily see that we are not our thoughts and feelings, not the things that happen to us, or the things that don’t happen to us. We are not our circumstances, our social economic location, We are something else all together, something mysterious and whole. We can begin to see that the wholeness we find when we tune in, lives at the center of everyone we meet and those we will never meet. We begin to feel our interdependence in this space. Once we feel it, the path of compassion can really begin.

Wholeheartedly,

Kim

Energy of the body

We often begin meditation by bringing our awareness into the body in some way. The body is the perfect place to begin practice, because it always exists in the present moment. The body has so much to teach us if we learn to listen. Tuning into the mystery of the body can make our practice interesting and exciting as well as give us so much information about how we are in any given moment.

Body and mind are connected, dependent on one another as our practice teaches us. Senses synthesize into thought, thought creates reactions, emotions, sensations in the body. Unexamined stories that we have attached to, create an energy, a mood, a set point within us.

We have talked about sensing into feeling tone as pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. We can go a little deeper energetically in sensing the quality of energy in the body. Is the energy really active, ungrounded, anxious (in yoga we call this rajas guna), or does the energy feel slow, heavy, stuck (in yoga we call this tamas guna)? Is there balanced, steady, easeful energy (In yoga we call this the sattvic state)? When we sense into the quality of energy present (without judgement, with kindness!), we better know how to bring balance to our systems. We cannot meet the needs have not noticed!

Take time to really feel into the body, to sense what is there, to feel the mystery of the body, to experience the body beyond the material. Make time to revel in the energy body and let it bring you a little closer to your essential nature.

Check out this incredible article on the body written by Zen teacher, Norman Fischer

Wholeheartedly,

Kim