We Need the R.A.I.N. (2/2)

Tara does this little trick that helped me see how my resistance to how I was feeling in fact locked-in the misery and the associated physical discomfort. This is how she did it.

Bring to mind, she says, a painful incident or memory. It could be an argument, a time you balled-out your kids, news of a death, or loss of a job.

Now, tune into the physical imprint of the emotion. Where do you feel the sorrow or rage or guilt? It’s there in your body somewhere and, just by remembering it, the emotion’s physical counterpart will crank up again, right here, right now.

Next, say ‘no’ to the feeling. Push away the anger, tense against the sorrow, close down the guilt, hide the anxiety. How does that feel in your body? For me, it felt far more unpleasant and intense. Does it feel familiar, Tara asks innocently? Hell yes.

Ok. Let’s try the opposite. Let’s do the absolute inverse of what we’ve been habitually doing. Instead of resisting the anxiety or depression as it arises, can you try to Allow it (The A of R.A.I.N)? How does saying ‘yes’ to the anxiety effect the quality of the felt experience? For me, I was hoping it would dissolve into a rainbow cloud of unicorns and magic dust. Emphatically, this did not happen. However, the anxiety or whatever did not intensify as you might expect when you invite something nasty into your experience. And, for as long as I kept allowing it, the anxiety, in impossibly tiny increments, began to ebb away.

But, here’s the thing. If you are allowing the emotional discomfort in order to get rid of it, it’s actually just resistance by another name.

In this internal movement, you’re simply paying lip-service to the idea of allowing for the purposes of getting rid of. And, sadly, that aint gunna cut the mustard.

You’ll most likely end up feeling worse.

And that this R.A.I.N. stuff doesn’t work for you.