Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN

In contrast, trance encloses us in a virtual reality of thoughts and emotionally charged stories. We’re trying to solve problems, satisfy desires, get rid of discomfort, or make our way to a future when things might be better. We are at the mercy of unconscious beliefs, feelings, and memories that drive our decisions and reactions to life. Not only

whatever thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensations you are experiencing right now. The key question here is this: “What is happening inside me?” See if you can take the perspective of a non-judging witness, and be curious!

See if you can whisper yes to the experience . . . and pause, letting whatever is there be as it is. That doesn’t mean you’re saying these feelings and thoughts are okay. You’re just saying yes to the reality that they are here right now.”

RAIN provides a way out of trance through what I call a “U-turn” in attention. We are taking a U-turn whenever we shift our attention from an outward fixation—another person, our thoughts, or our emotionally driven stories about what’s going on—to the real, living experience in our body.

Thanks to current understandings of neuroplasticity, we now know that our brains can change throughout our lives. This means that even the most deeply rooted and harmful habits can be deconditioned.

You are in a state of presence (above the line) when you’re aware of the blaming thoughts and physical experience of anger. During these moments, in addition to the anger, there’s a sense of witnessing the anger and some choice in how you respond. In contrast, you’re in trance if you’re lost inside the cycling thoughts and feelings of blame, with n

Sense that you have the space of awareness to include everything you’ve discovered, that you can fully allow it to be as it is. You can even say yes to the parts of you that are saying no and resisting what’s happening.

This forgetting is a part of being in trance—a partially unconscious state that, like a dream, is disconnected from the whole of reality. When we’re in trance, our minds are narrowed, fixated, and usually immersed in thought. Our hearts are often defended, anxious, or numb. Once you recognize the signs of trance, you will begin to see it everywhere

Allowing expands us in a way that enables us to include, not fight, physical and emotional pain. Psychologists call this “affect tolerance.”