RAINing on My Worry
A New Year's Experiment in Awareness
This week, as I prepare to begin a new year of mindfulness practice, I’ve been reflecting on something simple — and surprisingly freeing.
I have a worrying nature.
I’ve known this for a long time, but have often been at odds with it. Treating it as something primitive, unnecessary, even a sign that I should “know better by now.” Without realizing it, I’ve been trying to push it out of awareness.
So this morning, while preparing to teach RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) as part of a mindfulness class later this week, I decided to work with worry directly in my own RAIN practice. Instead of tightening around the worry or trying to replace it with something more “enlightened,” I simply recognized it — and allowed it to be there during my meditation.
What emerged surprised me.
I realized that when I wake up, just coming out of sleep — one of our most restorative and most vulnerable states — a low level of worry may simply be part of my nervous system checking in: Is everything okay? Are we safe?
Nothing pathological. Nothing to fix. Just human biology doing its job.
As I began to investigate, something softened. I didn’t need to eliminate the worry — only to notice its actual size. It was low-level. Manageable. And not the whole story. Getting more curious, I also noticed other qualities that were there alongside it: calm, creativity, steadiness, and connection.
So I breathed with all of it.
- Breathing in a sense of nurturing peace
- Breathing out the excess worry — not to banish it, but to release what wasn’t needed in this moment.
And with that, I felt more aligned with what was actually here — no immediate threats, a generally warm and pleasant environment, and a day ahead that held some creative endeavors.
As we begin this new year, maybe awareness doesn’t ask us to eliminate anything right away. Maybe it simply invites us to see all of what’s present — and let that larger awareness naturally initiate change.
Here’s to meeting ourselves with curiosity instead of correction, and letting awareness do what it does best — grow!
