Rain: for self-compassion and emotional difficulty

I saw the above on a friend's page, and it hit home with me. I am a sensitive person (highly sensitive). Yes, I can also be an uncaring jerk sometimes. That's often because of how I make myself feel about who I am though - which is usually worse. My own self-talk is almost always critical or negative ("Why can't I be better?!?").

What if I could change that? What if I could actually learn to work through my emotions and better be able to deal with them? I bet most anyone who knows me thinks that would be great and really wishes I would!! :)

I first discovered the teachings of Tara Brach - the meditation teacher, psychologist and author - several years ago through a Udemy course on mindfulness. I was recently reminded of her RAIN acronym for practicing radical compassion.

RAIN is an easy-to-remember tool for bringing mindfulness and compassion to emotional difficulty.

I'm not much into the Buddhist side of mindfulness, but I have found using RAIN useful for my moments of self-loathing (you know, most of the time).

You can find some of her resources regarding RAIN HERE, and there's also this one-page pdf explaining the concept HERE. 

Basically it is:

Recognizing difficult emotions

Allowing them to be there

Investigating them with curiosity

Nurturing them with love

Rather than try to stifle or ignore our emotions, we should actually accept that we're feeling them, and try to work through them. Sometimes we feel bad - not because we ARE bad, but because something bad has happened!

So, I've been thinking about this some. It is pretty radical for me. I have never had much compassion for myself. Mostly I've just wanted to be different, to change. But what if who each of us is, is not all that bad?

This is the kind of rain I'd like to have on my parade. I need to remind myself of the pictured statement often. Be patient, my friends. It may take awhile....

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"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." -Psalm 139:13-15