Let It Rain!

Aside from audio-guided mindful meditation, here’s another excellent way to use mindful meditation as a means to relax and reboot. This one’s for non-ADHD adults and ADHD adults alike.

RAIN is an extremely effective technique you can try every day. Our daily lives are a fair mix of emotions: happiness, sadness, disappointment, anger, and excitement, to name just a few. Being able to roll with the punches and to switch from emotion to emotion can be exhausting. Practicing this mindfulness technique is particularly helpful for those who find emotions taxing (among a host of other benefits).

This method has been accredited to meditation teacher Tara Brach, who has been practicing mindful meditation for over 40 years. Here’s a brief roundup.

R: Recognize what’s happening. Simply notice the emotion is there.

A: Allow it to be just as is.

That means you don’t have to fix the emotion immediately.

I: Investigate.

And I don’t mean the probing “Where did this emotion come from? Why am I feeling this way?” Instead, look at the sensation. Pay attention to it in a curious way. How is my body feeling with this emotion? What associations are coming up? What images and what thoughts surround it? Any memories being triggered?

N: Non-identification, or rest in natural awareness.

This means not taking the emotion personally. Neutralize the emotion by thinking of it as “the anger, the sadness, the fear” instead of “my anger, my sadness, my fear.” By not identifying with these emotions so personally, we can be present and investigate them better.

Mindfulness for the ADHD Parts in a NonADHD Adult

While ADHD is considered an official diagnosis, the truth is that all of us have some ADHD parts within. These are the parts that have a hard time being still and are generally more anxious, often due to emotions that haven’t been processed properly (which is why meditation and inner work is so helpful to everyone, especially individuals with ADHD).

In preparation for installment 2 of this Sample, I sent two mindfulness audio tracks to five non-ADHD adults to try for a couple of days. The results? Those Samples who took it seriously absolutely loved this experiment.

One of the members said it was too hard to focus and let go during a busy day, but she could tell that had she been more cooperative and focused, it would have been incredibly rejuvenating in the middle of the day.

Another participant also used the word “rejuvenating” in her report, describing how listening to the mindfulness was a sort of reset button to her day. It slowed her breathing—“We don’t even realize how we hold our breath on stressful days,” she shared—and helped her relax and reboot.

Two participants mentioned energy and relaxation.

Four out of five totally loved the experience but most of them were doubtful they would maintain it long term, “just because I don’t know if I’ll make the time when no one is pushing me for it.”

The general consensus was that yes, this works. It helps the ADHD parts in every individual relax, focus, reenergize, and feel better.