Coaching practices for Rain Step One

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Rain Step One, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • When I finally work through a hard feeling I rush straight back into doing and it all snaps shut again
  • Something just got to me in the middle of my day and I can feel myself reacting, but I’ve only got a couple of minutes before I have to keep going
  • I’m flooded with something big and shapeless and I can’t even say what it is
  • When I’m this far gone no single trick is enough
  • I can tell I’m off — short with people, tight, reactive — but if you asked me what I’m actually feeling I couldn’t say, and I want to slow down enough to even know what’s going on in me.

Practices that may help

  1. RAIN Meditation: Tara Brach’s Four-Step Practice
    RAIN is a four-step mindfulness practice developed by Tara Brach that stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture. It is designed to meet difficult emotions — fear, shame, grief, anger — with mindful awareness rather than avoidance or overwhelm. The steps draw on mechanisms shared with acceptance-based therapies (ACT, MSC, MBCT); the RAIN sequence itself is practitioner-developed and not yet independently trialed as a protocol.
  2. After RAIN: resting in natural, open awareness
    After the four steps, rest in the open awareness that remains — not returning immediately to doing.
    RAIN Meditation: Tara Brach’s Four-Step Practice
  3. Mini-RAIN: a 2-minute version for mid-day use
    Apply the four steps rapidly in 2 minutes to break emotional reactivity in the middle of a difficult moment.
    RAIN Meditation: Tara Brach’s Four-Step Practice
  4. RAIN — Recognize what is happening
    Pause and name the emotion or experience present right now, without editing it.
    Radical Acceptance, Made Practical
  5. Combine TIPP components into a crisis sequence
    For very high arousal, run TIPP as a full sequence — temperature first, then exercise, then breathing, then relaxation.
    TIPP: DBT’s Crisis Skill for Rapidly Lowering Emotional Intensity
  6. R — Recognize what is happening
    Pause and name what is actually present: "Fear is here," "Anger is here," "Shame is here."
    RAIN Meditation: Tara Brach’s Four-Step Practice
  7. Leaves on a stream: visualizing thoughts as passing objects
    Imagine sitting by a stream and placing each thought on a leaf, watching it float away.
    Cognitive Defusion (ACT), Made Practical
  8. Capture ideas and commitments in an RPM format
    When a new commitment lands, immediately ask: result, purpose, first MAP action — before adding it to any list.
    Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method (RPM), Made Practical
  9. Build the capture habit before anything else
    Install one habit at a time — start with ubiquitous capture — before adding other ZTD practices.
    Zen To Done (ZTD), Made Practical
  10. Leaves on a stream visualisation
    Picture each thought as a leaf floating downstream — watch it pass without grabbing it.
    Detached Mindfulness, Made Practical

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