Walk Through the RAIN
Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Non-identify. Walk through it.
When a difficult emotion persists, walk through four steps: Recognise what's happening ("I'm angry"). Allow it to exist without fighting it ("This is here"). Investigate with curiosity ("Where do I feel it? What triggered it?"). Non-identification ("This is an emotion passing through me, not who I am"). Write a one-line summary after.
A difficult emotion keeps returning despite your attempts to move past it, or you feel stuck in a reactive loop.
You're in a time-critical situation that requires immediate action rather than processing.
Why it works
RAIN provides a structured path through a difficult emotion instead of around it. Processing the emotion fully is what allows it to resolve — avoidance keeps it circling.
People often have two modes for difficult emotions: fight them or be overwhelmed by them. RAIN creates a third path — structured processing. Recognition breaks autopilot. Allowing removes internal resistance that amplifies intensity. Investigation shifts you from victim to researcher — ‘where is this in my body?’ is a fundamentally different relationship to the emotion than ‘make this stop.’ Non-identification is the final move: this emotion is happening to you, but it is not you. You’ve felt it before and it passed. It will pass again. Without structure, ‘processing an emotion’ becomes rumination. RAIN gives the process clear steps and a clear exit.