52. The #1 Tool for Dealing with Cravings and Urges In the Moment - The Mindfulness Practice of RAIN

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52. The #1 Tool for Dealing with Cravings and Urges In the Moment - The Mindfulness Practice of RAIN

 In today's episode, I introduce you to a powerful mindfulness practice called RAIN. RAIN is an acronym that stands for Recognize, Accept, Investigate, and Non-identify or Nurture.

Here's a quick rundown of each step:

1. Recognize: Begin by noticing and labeling the craving or emotion you're experiencing in the moment.
2. Accept or Allow: Instead of resisting or judging the emotion, embrace it and let it be without trying to push it away.
3. Investigate: Dive deeper by exploring how the emotion feels in your body, creating a helpful gap between you and the intense feeling.
4. Non-identify or Nurture: Choose between recognizing that you are not the emotion or offering yourself self-compassion and care.

You can use RAIN whenever you face a strong craving or urge. To make it a habit, jot down the acronym and place it in visible spots as a reminder. Challenge yourself to practice it for a week, especially when dealing with compulsive behaviors.

Don't forget to ask what the emotion truly needs in that moment, whether it's connection or rest.

Feel free to reach out to me with your experiences, questions, or feedback on how RAIN is working for you. Thanks for tuning in, and have a wonderful day and life!

Transcript

 You're listening to unhooked. On today's episode, the most effective mindfulness practice for dealing with cravings in the moment. So stay tuned. 

 So welcome ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the unhooked podcast. I'm your host, Jeremy Lipkowitz. Excited to be with you here today for another solo episode, the last few episodes have been some guest interviews, but I'm back at it alone today in the studio. This time in the wonderful studio of my room in Bali. Back here for a few months and just really enjoying life. You know, things out here are. Are so attuned to my lifestyle in the sense that I get to run around and have fun. I'm playing tons of paddle going to the gym. Eating good food being in the sunshine and connecting with really good people. It's one of the things I love most about Bali. Is that I get to be surrounded by really inspiring people. People who are. Living their truth, following their dreams and connecting to their purpose. And I really love just being around that energy. You know, it's so inspiring and uplifting to surround yourself with. With good people. So I'm here for the next few months. And then in mid November, I'm heading off to Cape town. So those are just some life updates from me. I want to mention also another update of something coming up, which is a little teaser for the fact that I will be reopening the doors to my signature group coaching program unhooked in a few weeks. This is something that I've done a couple of times in the past a group coaching program around helping you break free from porn. And I am deciding to reopen the doors to that program. So I just wanted to give you a little heads up to know that it's coming. And what I want you to do is if you are interested in this program, Because spots are going to be limited. What I want you to do is send me a DM. So go to Instagram. Find my profile and send me a DM and just let me know if you are interested. In the group coaching program. If you do this, then I will make sure to put you on their priority, wait list so that when we open the doors, you will get first access. So if you're interested, go ahead, send me a DM and just let me know and say, you're interested in the program and then details about that will be following. So, what I want to talk about today is a practice that is very helpful in dealing with any kind of difficulty, discomfort and particular, the difficulties or discomforts of dealing with. Cravings or urges in the moment. This is a practice that many of you will have heard about. Some of you will have practice. And this is a practice called rain. Rain is an acronym for a particular set of things to do in the moment of difficulty. It's kind of a meditation, but it's meant to be done in the moment. It's more of an integrated practice rather than, you know, it's not a five minute or 10 minute practice. It's in the moment of. A moment of distress or difficulty, you can implement this rain practice. A little background about rain. Rain was actually developed by a teacher named Michelle McDonald. She's been teaching insight meditation or. The Pasana meditation for. Over four decades now. So she's a, an old school, you know, the original gangster teacher who developed this acronym of rain. It was later popularized by the, uh, the teachings of Tara Brock who was a very famous meditation teacher. She's the author of radical acceptance. And she helped bring this practice to the mainstream. So I want to talk a little bit about what this rain practice is. So it stands for these four different steps. The first is the R stands for recognize the, a stands for accept or allow. The I stands for investigate. And the N stands for. Non identification or nurturing. So we'll talk a little bit about these two options at the end. And again, what you do is in the moment of an intense craving. A strong urge. Uh, sadness, you know, an anxiety, whatever it is, that's coming up for you in that moment to go through these four steps. So I'm going to talk through each of the steps individually, and then we'll see how to put it all together. So the first step to recognize this is really about bringing mindfulness to the present moment and simply noticing what's actually going on. So, for example, if I'm feeling a strong urge to look at porn, if I'm feeling a craving to act out. Can I. Recognize what's happening. Can I label it or identify it? So I might be there. And when I noticed this urge, I might just say, oh, okay. An urge is arising or craving or desire, you know, whatever it is, I give it a label. I give it a name. I'm recognizing it and identifying it. This is that practice of mindful awareness noticing what's happening in the moment. So that's the first step simply to recognize what's happening. This is important because a lot of addiction happens on the subconscious or unconscious level. A lot of times with addiction, people are, aren't even aware that they're acting out or that they're reaching for their phone or reaching for the candy bar, whatever it is. It's a subconscious thing. So here, we're bringing it into the light. We're bringing awareness to what's happening. The second step is accept or allow. And this is about. It's beyond just noticing what's there. It's about your relationship to what's happening. And can you orient yourself to this space of acceptance or allowing what's happening rather than pushing it away or judging it or suppressing it? So with an urge or a craving, what this might look like is first I noticed the urge. Oh, okay. An urge is here. Craving is here. In this next step, what we're doing is allowing it to be there, accepting it, saying it's okay. Like there's nothing wrong with this feeling. I don't need to suppress it or push it away. And understand. There's a difference here. We're not condoning it or giving into it. We're not feeding the fire and saying, okay, well I'm, I need to now act out on it. But you're just giving space for that emotion to be there. Giving space for the urge giving space for the desire and saying, oh, okay. Craving is here. And that's okay. I don't need to push this away. I don't need to suppress it. And this is very important because it avoids the trap of suppression and amplification. Because what we know is that what we resist persists. If you try to suppress an emotions, press an urge. What happens is it grows stronger. So time and time again, the science has shown that one of the most skillful ways to work with cravings. Is mindfulness. Really tuning in and making space for this emotion rather than trying to suppress it or push it down. So that is the second step. The third step is to investigate. And this is to get really curious. What does this feel like in your body? What does craving feel like? You know, are your shoulders tight and clenched or your fingers clenching? Is your heart beating faster? Does it feel heavy? Does it feel light just to investigate what's going on in the body? What this does is it gives you a little bit of space between yourself and this strong emotion, which might otherwise hijack your brain. And make you do things you're not proud of. But by investigating where it gives us that space, it's like a pattern disruptor, a pattern, a disconnect. And so we pause, we investigate what's going on in the body. Oh, okay. I'm feeling. I'm feeling hot. I'm feeling tense. I'm feeling tight. My heart's beating gives you that space. Now the fourth step there's two options. The original N you know, the, the last letter in the acronym was non identification. Tara Brock has changed. A bit and, and changed it to nurturing. And so we'll talk about both of those and, and what they do. But the non identification, what this is, is to recognize that you are not this emotion. So if lust is arising, You know, a lot of times, if we're not aware, we might identify with the last, oh no, lust is arising. And ah, and we become the lust. And we almost think it's who we are. But instead this non identification is just to recognize this is an emotion that's passing through me. It's not who I am. It's a temporary fleeting experience that is impermanent. One of the things that I like to tell my clients here is that every emotion only lasts 90 seconds, unless you feed it. So, if you can simply be there and witness this emotion and not grasp onto it. Eventually the emotion will pass. So that's the non identification. The other thing you can do with it is this nurturing step. And particularly if this is a difficult emotion, craving aversion, sadness, anger, anxiety, whatever it is. To send yourself some compassion in this moment. To put a hand on your heart and say, wow, this is a difficult experience. This is a difficult emotion. This is painful. And I care about myself in this moment, you know, the same way you would treat a friend who's in pain. And just say, Hey man, I'm here for you. I know this is a difficult thing that you're going through. Can you give yourself that same kind of compassion that CA. That same kind of nurturing. So those are the four steps of rain. Again, you can do them in any moment. Recognize accept, investigate, and non identify or nurture. The choice is up to you. You can do both. You can say, oh, this is not me. This is a passing emotion. And then nurture it. So, this is how we do it. And again, in any moment, just drop into this space. Some tips on how to do this. If it's helpful for you, you can write this acronym down, put it on a post-it note, a sticky note and put it in different places to remind yourself to practice. I think a really good way of practicing this. Is to give yourself a challenge for one week to implement it as many times as possible. You know, whenever you're feeling an urge to do something that is unskillful, that you know is not in alignment with your highest intentions, your, your highest self. To do this practice. Okay. I'm recognizing a strong emotion. I'm accepting it, allowing it, not pushing it away. I'm investigating how it feels in the body. And then I'm not identifying it with it, but I'm nurturing it. So that's a little bit about how you can do it. And again, this is so helpful, particularly for dealing with urges around porn addiction or compulsive behaviors, you know, things that are. Just the second nature compulsive, you want to act out. This gives you a pattern disruptor. One of the things that some of my clients find helpful for adding on top of this. Is when you notice something like lust and when you can recognize it and allow it. To ask, what is it needing in that moment? You know, if lust is passing through you. Oh, okay. Lust is here. I'm not going to push it away. It's here right now and that's okay. I recognize and investigate how it feels in my body. What is this actually need in this moment? And maybe it just needs. Like, what is really being needed by you is a moment of connection. Or a moment of rest. You know, so just to ask you, like, what do you need in this moment? That can be another helpful step. For dealing with strong emotions or difficulties. So that is a short little masterclass, a mini masterclass on the rain technique, the rain meditation. What I would love to hear from you is how has that going for you? Have you tried it out? What are the questions you have about it? Is it working for you? Are there any difficulties you're having with it? So go ahead and. Send me a message. I would love to hear from you. Just log on to Instagram or you can send me an email. We're giving touch with me through my contact page online. There are many ways to reach out to me. I would love to hear from you about how this is going. So that's it for today. I am signing off from the wonderful, beautiful Bali. I'm going to go head out and get myself some lunch. I hope you all are having a wonderful day. And a wonderful life. And that's it for today. Catch you guys on the next episode.