The RAIN Technique
The RAIN mindfulness technique is one of my favourite tools to share with clients. Whether someone is feeling overwhelmed, anxious, irritable, or out of sorts, RAIN offers a gentle yet structured way to reconnect with themselves in the moment. It’s a practice that brings together presence, curiosity, and compassion, qualities that often get lost when emotions run high.
RAIN is an acronym that stands for:
Recognise – Notice what is happening. This means identifying the presence of a particular emotion, thought, or physical sensation and naming it with honesty. For example, “I’m feeling anxious,” or “I’m carrying a lot of tension.”
Allow – Let the experience be there, just as it is. This step invites you to soften around the emotion, rather than pushing it away, analysing it, or rushing to make it disappear. Allowing doesn’t mean you like the feeling, it simply means you’re no longer fighting it.
Investigate – Explore the experience with curiosity and care. You might ask yourself: What am I noticing in my body? What thoughts are looping through my mind? What does this emotion need right now? The aim isn’t to fix, but to understand.
Nurture – Offer yourself kindness. This could be a soothing phrase, a supportive inner voice, or a small physical gesture like placing a hand on your chest. The focus is on responding to your own pain or distress the way you would to a friend, in a tone of warmth, not judgement.
This four-step process becomes a kind of internal refuge, especially in moments when emotions feel too much or too fast. What makes RAIN so effective is the way it interrupts our default reactions those moments where we might otherwise shut down, lash out, or spiral into rumination. Instead of reacting automatically, RAIN creates space to pause, reflect, and choose a response grounded in awareness.
Over time, this simple practice helps to reduce emotional reactivity and build self-compassion. It trains the mind to meet discomfort with curiosity instead of fear, and helps soften the inner critic that so often shows up during periods of distress. Each step in the RAIN sequence helps reframe your experience: rather than being swept away by emotion, you begin to observe it, understand it, and care for yourself through it. This shift in relationship, from judgement to care, is a key mechanism in building emotional resilience.
RAIN has been widely used in mindfulness teaching and therapy because it adapts so well to different situations. I’ve found it especially useful in supporting clients with:
Anxiety, where RAIN helps to name and soothe spiralling thoughts and physical symptoms.
ADHD, as it encourages a moment of pause before reacting impulsively or becoming emotionally flooded.
General emotional overwhelm, including grief, anger, shame, and frustration. Emotions that often benefit from being gently held, not hurried away.
What’s especially valuable about RAIN is that it’s accessible, it can be practised by beginners and seasoned mindfulness practitioners alike, and it doesn’t require a lot of time. You can use it formally, sitting down for a short reflective practice, or informally in the middle of a stressful moment.
Like any helpful technique, RAIN is most effective when used consistently. One-off use can be grounding in a crisis, but the real strength of the practice comes from building it into daily life. Repetition helps rewire the brain, shifting your default from reactivity to awareness, and from harsh self-talk to self-kindness.
To support this shift, it can be helpful to stack the practice with something you already do each day. For instance, you might try a brief RAIN reflection after brushing your teeth, before getting into bed, or during a quiet moment in your lunch break. By linking the practice to a familiar routine, you’re more likely to remember it and integrate it long-term.
Journalling can also support this process. Writing down your RAIN experiences, even briefly, reinforces insight and helps track emotional patterns over time. Some people prefer to keep the acronym visible, on a sticky note, phone background, or journal page, so it’s easy to access when needed.
You don’t need a perfectly quiet setting or long window of time. Just a few minutes of turning inward, recognising what’s happening, allowing it, exploring it, and offering yourself a moment of kindness can be enough to shift your internal state and reconnect with your values.
RAIN is a practice of mindful awareness that brings structure to emotional moments that might otherwise feel chaotic. It helps people recognise what they’re feeling, make space for it, understand it with care, and respond with self-compassion. This not only de-escalates emotional intensity, but also builds long-term resilience by creating new patterns of self-support.
For anyone navigating anxiety, ADHD, BPD, or the general ups and downs of life, RAIN is a versatile and powerful tool, one that helps transform emotional challenge into an opportunity for insight, care, and growth.
Guided RAIN Practice (4:49)
This short audio guides you through the RAIN mindfulness technique: Recognise, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture. Designed to support emotional awareness and self-compassion, it can be used any time you're feeling overwhelmed or disconnected. No prior experience with mindfulness is needed, just a quiet moment and a willingness to check in with yourself.
Additional audio recordings available on this page - coming soon.
A Note on RAIN’s Origins
The RAIN technique has its roots in Buddhist mindfulness traditions and was first articulated in this form by meditation teacher Michele McDonald in the early 2000s. It was later popularised by psychologist and mindfulness teacher Dr Tara Brach, who expanded the “Nurture” step to emphasise self-compassion more explicitly. While RAIN is now widely used in therapeutic and secular settings, its foundation lies in longstanding contemplative practices that support presence, non-reactivity, and compassion. Whether approached from a spiritual or psychological lens, RAIN remains a simple yet profound tool for meeting life’s challenges with care and awareness.
