Da Vinci Decoded and 7 Steps to Genius

By Vanessa Van Edwards

What do geniuses do differently?
Do they have a unique morning routine? Interesting daily rituals?
To answer these questions, let us turn to one of the most brilliant minds in history: Leonardo da Vinci.
You might know Da Vinci as an artist, but he was also an architect, scientist, musician, mathematician, inventor, anatomist, geologist, astronomer, cartographer, botanist, historian and writer. He didn’t just excel in one area, but rather he flourished across disciplines and created concepts that have lasted for centuries. Da Vinci had a very specific approach to life that anyone can learn. In this post, I will show you how:

You can develop your essential elements of genius.

Michael J. Gelb excavated Da Vinci’s notebooks, writings and creations to figure out how he thought and lived differently. He found:

The 7 Da Vincian Principles

I chose How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci for our Science of People book club because I thought it was a fascinating look into the daily habits of a genius. Gelb explores how Da Vinci approached life and, most importantly, lays it out for readers in a practical framework for self-improvement.
If you didn’t get a chance to read the book–which I highly recommend since it is filled with Da Vinci’s original drawings and illustrations, I have outlined the 7 Da Vincian Principles for you here:

#1: Curiosità

Curiosita is an insatiably curious approach to life and unrelenting quest for continuous learning.
Da Vinci is not the only one who embodied a seemingly infinite supply of curiosity. Many of history’s great inventors and leaders had the desire to unlock the mysteries of life. If you’re like me, this one seems fairly obvious and something you already know is important. So, I think about curiosity in 2 basic questions:

1. What if?
2. How come?

I know I am embracing curiosity if I ask myself these 2 questions multiple times each day.
What If: Asks your brain to project into the future. It helps you see opportunities where you might have missed them, it helps you make connections and it is a sneaky way to get your brain more goal-oriented. What if I started a conversation with this person? What if I tried this new activity? What if I started that new workout program? What comes after ‘what if…’ is typically magical.
How Come: How come gets you into ‘why’. Instead of passively observing the world or going into automatic responses, ‘how come’ helps you question both your actions and other’s motives. I believe this question keeps me honest and alert. It forces me to live more purposefully. Da Vinci didn’t waste a second of his life. He was always creating and guessing and tinkering. ‘How come’ helps you use every second of your life with a mission.
Here are some ways you can capture more Curiosita:

• A Hundred Questions: Write down 100 questions that are important to you. These could be questions you wish to answer yourself such as, “What is my purpose?” or “What is the meaning of life?” or questions you want to know about everyone you meet like, “What is your passion? or “What makes you happy?” This is the ultimate ‘what if’ and ‘how come’ exercise.
• Ten Power Questions: After you have brainstormed a list of 100 questions, select the 10 that have the most powerful impact when you read them. Which ones spark a feeling of motivation or achievement? These are your catalyst questions. For example:
  • When am I most naturally myself?
  • What is my greatest talent?
  • What is my heart’s deepest desire?
• Daily Themes: Da Vinci was an avid writer and note taker. He had a journal everywhere he went. I have a journal at my desk AND at my bed to take notes when all kinds of ideas pop into my head. Carry a journal with you everywhere and write down your ideas and observations. Each day, choose a theme or word. You can do this at the beginning of the day to set the intention or at the end of the day as a cool down or wrap-up.

#2: Dimostrazione

Dimostrazione is a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
I love this principle, because it is empowering. Dimostrazione is the embodiment of taking your life into your own hands. This principle tells us:
Test every idea.
Don’t take anything for granted.
Experience life first hand.
I believe life should be an experiment. That we should have a series of amazing hypotheses every day, and we should be testing them. A hypothesis consists of a 2 part statement:
If…, then…
For example, if I take this personal development class, then I hope to be happier. Or as small as if I reorganize my closet, then it will be easier to get ready in the morning. The ‘If…, then…’ exercise puts you into opportunity-hunting mindset, so you are always looking for and testing solutions.
Here are some ways you can capture more Dimostrazione:

• Find Your Greats: You have probably heard of all the most popular artists and authors, but who are your favorites? Set out to find your greats. Don’t take anyone else’s word for it. Start your own search for the artists, classical musicians or writers that inspire you. Go to a museum and look at the paintings without glancing at the names.
• Be Devil’s Advocate: Try playing devil’s advocate against yourself. Try making the strongest possible argument against one of your own beliefs just for the mental exercise. Write at least 3 points against yourself.

#3: Sensazione

Sensazione is the continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.
Fill in the blank:
___is so beautiful.
I love the way _____ smells.
What a lovely _____.
I adore the feeling of ____ on my skin.
The sound of ____ is music to my ears.
We forget to savor and sensualize our experiences. We have all heard ‘stop and smell the roses,’ but when was the last time you actually stopped and smelled the roses? Sure, literal roses, but also metaphorical roses. When was the last time you stopped to savor an experience? Da Vinci was incredibly inspired by the world around him and the more he honed his senses, the more heightened his genius became.
Here are some ways you can capture more Sensazione:

• A Sense a Day: Plan out 5 experiences in the next few months where you practice honoring each of your senses.
  • For smell, go to the local botanical gardens, make your own perfume or cologne and learn to recognize herbs by their scent at the local grocery store.
  • For taste, (this one is easy!) eat a bunch of your favorite foods and try one new cuisine. Figure out your favorite spice.
  • For sight, go to your local museum, then hike to a vista or view point and learn some new photography techniques.
  • For touch, go to your local animal shelter and volunteer petting pups and kitties. Go through your closet and organize it by fabric. Go shopping and try to buy one new fabric you have never owned before — suede? Velvet? Flannel?
  • For hearing, go to a concert, stop by your local music store and try to play an instrument you have never heard before. If you are really ambitious, try to learn bird mating calls or spend some time trying to draw sound. For example, if you had to draw the sound of a trumpet, how would you do it? (mine looks like a messy swirl).

#4: Sfumato

Sfumato is a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty. Da Vinci had a very unique ability to understand the extreme opposites of opinions and phenomenon. He was also able to explore unknowns and revel in the uncertainty. Most of us are uncomfortable with not knowing or unanswerable questions, so we avoid anything out of our control. We stick to what we know and immediately do a Google search the moment we don’t know something.
A Story:
The other day, I was hiking with some friends in Columbia Gorge (one of the most beautiful places in the world) and we began passing all of these old wagons–like really, really old wagons. Now, I live in Oregon very close to the end of the Oregon Trail where Lewis and Clark explored, so we started to wonder if the wagons were somehow connected to the Oregon Trail. The more wagons we passed, the more perplexed we got. We had no service where we were hiking, so we couldn’t just whip out our phones and consult Google. This began to drive us crazy. We are so used to knowing things or being able to figure things out almost instantly, that it was driving us nuts to not know. But a cool thing happened. We started to brainstorm all of the different reasons that all of these wagons were on the trail–a massive flood carried them across the plains, a wagon cult lived in the woods nearby, etc. And that was a really hilarious and fun exercise. It reminded me of the Sfumato principle that not knowing is actually the best mental activity. You search, you think, you create.
*We eventually Googled it and found out we had stumbled upon a 1900 wagon trail that used to transport apples.
Here are some ways you can capture more Sfumato:

• Stop Googling: For the next week, anytime you need to look up a word or trivia fact, try to guess the answer instead. You can phone a friend for help as well, as long as they brainstorm with you too!
• Embrace Your Ambiguity: List some situations from your life where you are confused or feel ambiguous about an outcome and explore the feelings that come up.
• Cultivate Confusion Endurance: Tap into your own paradoxes by asking questions like, “How are my strengths and weaknesses related?” or “What is the relationship between my saddest moments and the most joyful ones?”

#5: Arte/Scienza

Arte/scienza is the development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination.
Although Da Vinci wasn’t around for the research on right and left brain thinking, this concept speaks directly to the idea of whole brain thinking. Mark the statements that sound like you:
Right Brained:
___ I like details
___ I am almost always on time
___ I rely on logic
___ I am skilled at math
___ I am organized and disciplined
___ I like lists
Left Brained:
___  I am highly imaginative
___ I am good at brainstorming
___ I love to doodle
___ I often say or do the unexpected
___ I rely on intuition
___I often lose track of time
Which one had more statements that you agreed with? Were you balanced? Da Vinci was a big believer in using both parts of your brain. He did this in his notebooks by tying ideas with drawings. Specifically, he was the original mind-mapper. Here is a cool overview on mindmapping:
Here are some ways you can capture more Arte/scienza:

• Warm-up by mind-mapping the main ideas in your favorite TED Talk. Here are my favorites:

Amy Cuddy:
Cameron Russel:

• Create a mind map of your life: Have you ever thought about how the different parts of your life are connected? Make a mind map of your major life moments and how they are connected.
• Here is a pretty cool mind map of the book:

#6: Corporalitá

Corporalita is the cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise. Da Vinci was incredibly athletic in addition to his mental prowess. From early on, he realized that if he wanted his mind to perform at optimal levels, his body also had to be in top shape.
I couldn’t agree with this more. If I have a bad night’s sleep, my work suffers. If I don’t eat well, my energy slows. If I don’t get enough movement, my back kills me.
Here are some ways you can capture more Corporalita:

• Learn the Science of Eating: I did a whole post on the science of eating on some really easy ways to make your food intake more purposeful.
• Get on a Sleep Schedule: Everyone has different sleep needs and different sleep rhythms. For the next week, track your sleep times and hours and see which days you have the most energy. Are you a night worker? A morning person? Learn your cycles and then honor them by building a sleep routine.
• Cultivate Ambidexterity: Da Vinci used both his right and left hands as he worked. You can do this by trying to brush your teeth with your non dominant hand or get a really patient person to play a game of pool, tennis or catch where you switch hands!

#7: Connessione

Connessione is a recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena.
I think this is one of the most complex and interesting Da Vincian principles. It has to do with something called ‘systems thinking’. Systems thinking is when you are able to take vast amounts of information and create routines, lists and organization. It also has to do with pattern recognition. I LOVE connessione. As many of you know, I have a number of courses and books–my favorite part of the curriculum creation process is taking huge amounts of research and condensing it down into an outline. I also love hunting for patterns. In our human behavior research lab, I am constantly looking for patterns in body language, thinking and relationships. For example:

• In my School of Happiness course, I had 128 pages of research and notes to condense into a 10 week program.
• For my Master Your People Skills course, we had over 7,000 people take our body language and personality surveys. We had to pour over the data to find patterns to make the course.
• For our next book, I will be using 9 years of research, over 2,400 studies and 356 in-depth interviews!

When you can create systems and recognize patterns in your life, you are able to cultivate true genius.
Here are some ways you can capture more Connessione:

• What’s Your Book Outline? If you had to create a table of contents for a book about your life, what would it be if you couldn’t make it chronological?
• 3 Objects: Pick 3 random objects in your house. If you had to find connections between them, what would they be? For example, I chose my blender, my garage clicker and a bottle of nail polish. Can you think of three connections? I thought: With all three of these things, the faster they work, the better. The faster the blender, the better the smoothie, the faster the garage door opens, the faster I get home and the faster my polish dries, the less risk there is of my mushing up my toe nails. This is a great one to play with kids!

Bonus: Felicità

Felicità is the cultivation of deep joy, happiness and life fulfillment.
Looking over Da Vinci’s masterpieces, inventions and works of genius, I couldn’t help but think about his happiness levels. Did his genius fulfill him? Does an active mind mean an active heart? I have been studying the science of happiness in our labs and I think joy is an essential part of genius.
Do you know what makes you happy? Science has a lot to tell us about how our happiness works. I want to teach you the science and psychology of happiness:

• Wake-up excited
• How to prevent funks and mood swings
• Leverage your unique talents and skills that drive you
• Implement an action plan for enduring happiness and fulfillment

Source: http://www.scienceofpeople.com/2015/09/7-steps-to-genius

DaVinci Decoded - Discovering the spiritual secrets of Leonardo's seven principles’ by Michael J. Gelb
Leonardo DaVinci was unquestionably a genius. In this book, Gelb captures the very essence of DaVinci’s life – the seemingly perfect integration of mind, body, spirit and soul. He characterizes the life of DaVinci in seven key spiritual principles. As I read these principles, they described to me the meta-program of DaVinci and provided an excellent insight into his work and his mind. In summary these principles are,

1. Seek the Truth An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning. DaVinci may have been the most curious person who ever lived.

2. Take Responsibility A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes. By rejecting dogma and superstition, DaVinci took responsibility for his own search, his own actions, his own growth, and well-being.

3. Sharpen Awareness the continuous refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience. He describes the five senses as the ‘ministers of the soul’.

4. Engage the Shadows A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty. To truly understand ‘good’, one must understand ‘evil’. This quest led him literally and figuratively to understand darkness.

5. Cultivate Balance The balance of left and right brain thinking, culminating in whole brain thinking. His persona and work express more than just a balance between logic and imagination, science and art; they represent the essential balance of the masculine and feminine principles in creation.

6. Nurture Integration The integration of mind and body through the cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise. His outstanding physical gifts and remarkable understanding of anatomy, healing, and wellness were an expression of his integration of body, energy, and spirit.

7. Practice Love The recognition of the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena; systems thinking. He knew that everything connected to everything else.

Even though the principles may not exactly fit into the meta model described within NLP, I think they clearly explain the patterns of the genius and provide a practical roadmap for all of us to discover the boundlessness of our own full human potential. The book provides explanations of the principles followed by self-assessments and practice suggestions to develop your potential. An excellent read and well worth the investment.

‘DaVinci Decoded, discovering the spiritual secrets of Leonardo’s seven principles’, is published by Delacorte Press, ISBN 0-385-33861-9
‘Reviewed by Finbarr Sheehy, Finbarr@finbarrsheehy.com

Source: http://www.nlp.ie/resources/book-reviews/davinci-decoded.html 

Cultivate What You Want by Loving What You Have

By Carley Hauck

The concept of a new year can bring promise and sometimes a sense of not being content with what we have. Our mind is naturally inclined toward the negative and as a result we may focus on what needs to be fixed or what isn’t going well in our lives. We can bring an energy of discontentment into the New Year and with it a feeling of pressure. Have you ever heard yourself think, “This is the year that I have to…exercise more, meet the man/woman of my dreams, land that dream job, etc.”

The New Year is an opportunity to grow and develop new qualities that will more closely align with the kind of person we want to be and the life we want to be living. But first, it’s important to acknowledge everything that we already have and bring into the New Year with us. If we forget this important step, we are setting too lofty of expectations for our year because we are coming from a sense of lack vs. a feeling of “I have enough.”

“Changing is like being in a ship on the sea. You must build a new boat with material from the old one you’re traveling in. You can’t go on shore to destroy the old one first and then build a new one, but you have to reconstruct while sailing.”
—Otto Neurath

As we move into 2016, I encourage the following steps to cultivate a contented New Year.

1. Acknowledge all the qualities you possess, your relationships, and experiences from the last year you are bringing with you into the New Year

When the New Year arrives, you don’t become a NEW you. You are the same person, but you have an opportunity for change and growth. You are bringing your compassion and your resiliency. You may bring your inner critic, your wisdom of the mind, body, and heart, and even your resistance to change. Make a list of what you are bringing with you.

2. Reflect on what you are grateful for

I notice for myself that when I dream of living a different life than what I am living, wanting something else, someone else, striving for something that isn’t right here, I suffer and I am not content with what I have. I take a lot of comfort in knowing how the simple act of bringing gratitude to the moment I am in shifts my mind from a sense of lack to contentment. If I can be happy now, under these circumstances and conditions (which are always changing and different than I sometimes wish them to be) then I can be happy anywhere, at any time. Allow yourself to feel the abundance in your life and then see how this impacts your hopes and wishes for the New Year.
I feel grateful for:

• my health
• my professional opportunities
• my friends and family
• living in a place where I can access nature easily
• my meditation practice

3. Cultivate an intention vs. a goal

 In the New Year, we often set very specific goals with a short timeline. This creates a feeling of striving for the unachievable and instead of succeeding, we fail. Meaningful change happens on a continuum over time.

An intention is something we build and cultivate over time. It grows by watering it with attention, patience, and wise effort. A goal tends to have a specific result and is time oriented.

Goal Example: I must find the love of my life in the next two months.

Intention Example: My intention is to cultivate more love in my life. I know that by aligning my actions with this intention, I will be more loving and will attract more love in my life.

4. Share your intention with friends, family, and your greater community

When we share what we want in life and are witnessed in this, we have more power to manifest our greater potential. Here are some intentions I have heard this year.

• I want to cultivate more compassion toward myself and others.
• I want to become more generous.
• I want to develop more patience.
• I want to feel more proud of the person I am.
• I want to feel more comfortable with uncertainty.

5. Identify what actions are in alignment with this intention

Using the example above, if I am committed to bringing love into my life I will:

• Spend time nourishing my mind, body, and heart so that I can love all parts of myself.
• I will choose love over fear and dare to trust.
• I give the benefit of the doubt to other person and trust in their goodness.
• I will be more open to new people, no matter how they appear in my life.
• I will share with those around me, my intention for love in my life.

6. Be 100% committed to your intention for change

With repeated effort and staying true to your intention you will create what you seek. Be open to the surprise of how and when it occurs.

7. Review your progress over the year

I have been setting intentions for my life for several years and I find that checking in on my progress 3 times a year is really helpful. Identify a time when you will reflect on your progress with kindness and acceptance. Compassion vs. criticism is the greatest motivator toward change.

8. Let go so that you can bring in the new

In order to grow something new in your life you must make space for it. For example, if you are cultivating more patience then you must start to let go of impatience. By letting go of a certain way of being or a pattern in your life, you can manifest something different.
What do you want to let go of in 2015?
What do you want to bring in?
May your New Year be full of light, love, and peace. If you want to cultivate greater mindfulness and well-being, sign up for the free Mindful Training workbook.

Carley Hauck

Carley Hauck works as an educator, life coach, writer, mindful researcher, and change cheerleader with corporate organizations. Carley has had a long-standing meditation practice and teaches mindfulness as the first step toward well-being. She teaches on a variety of subjects related to greater happiness, health, and wisdom in worksites such as Pixar & LinkedIn and with her students at Stanford University.

Greater Good in Action

Greater Good in Action is a one-stop-shop for mindfulness-based and research-backed practices that can help you build essential skills for navigating challenges and living a more fulfilling, rewarding, and enjoyable life.

From building empathy to learning gratitude for the little things in life, Greater Good in Action has you covered. This simple website from the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley is teeming with new practices for you to try, from mindful breathing to giving yourself a self-compassion break. The website is designed to help you find practices that can make a difference in your life with easy filters to find the practice specifically for your needs. The site is interactive and easy to integrate it into your life. You can save practices that interest you, mark ones you’ve completed, take quizzes, comment on how the practice worked for you, and read how it’s worked for others.

Greater Good in Action’s practices range from casual to intensive. You can choose one that’s five minutes or one that’s a whole day. Each practice has all the information you need to understand it, in straightforward language. When you find a practice you’re interested in, you can view and save it and read why you should try it, how to do it, and scientific evidence that the practice works. Greater Good Science Center revolves around using science to create a more compassionate society and giving you the tools to help. The science and research-backed approach used to create Greater Good in Action means you can see the evidence behind each practice that shows that it works and how.

Easy to use, interactive, and extensive: Greater Good in Action is filled with powerful practices you’ll love and are simple enough that you can start them today.

 

Source: http://ggia.berkeley.edu/
 http://www.mindful.org/news/this-new-website-turned-hundreds-of-scientific-studies-into-meditation-practices-you-can-try

Mindfulness and Compassion

Compassion is the feeling of concern that arises when we encounter pain and suffering, our own as well as others. It involves the motivation to relieve this suffering and is natural in everyone but for many reasons often not cultivated. One can feel compassion without acting on it.

While cynics may dismiss compassion as touchy-feely or illogical, scientists are now mapping the biological basis of compassion, suggesting its deep evolutionary purpose. Research shows that when we feel compassion, our heart rate slows down, we secrete the “bonding hormone” oxytocin, and regions of our brain linked to empathy, caregiving, and feelings of pleasure light up, which can result in our wanting to approach and care for other people.

Does research supports the value of practicing Compassion?

Scientific research shows that being compassionate can improve health, well-being, and relationships as well as being crucial to our survival. Compassion can be cultivated by meditation practice and offers many benefits:

• Strengthens brain circuits for pleasure and reward and leads to lasting increases in self-reported happiness
• Reduces risk of heart disease by boosting the positive effects of the vagus nerve
• Makes people more resilient to stress; lowers stress hormones in the blood and saliva
• Boosts the immune response
• Increases Positive emotion, decreases rumination
• Decreases negative emotions such as: hatred, jealousy, anger
• Enhances communication and connection with others so better relationships
• More compassionate people / parents / workers / societies have better social skills, take care of their most vulnerable members, assist other nations in need, and perform more acts of kindness.

Source: http://www.mindfulnessandcompassion.ie/what-is-compassion/

Feeling Overwhelmed? Remember "RAIN"

Four steps to stop being so hard on ourselves.

Illustrations by Michael Woloschinow

By Tara Brach

When I was in college, I went off to the mountains for a weekend of hiking with an older, wiser friend of twenty-two. After setting up our tent, we sat by a stream, watching the water swirl around rocks, talking about our lives. At one point she described how she was learning to be “her own best friend.” A wave of sadness came over me, and I broke down sobbing. I was the furthest thing from my own best friend. I was continually harassed by an inner judge who was merciless, nit-picking, demanding, always on the job. My guiding assumption was, “Something is fundamentally wrong with me,” as I struggled to control and fix what felt like a basically flawed self.

Over the last several decades, through my work with tens of thousands of clients and meditation students, I’ve come to see the pain of perceived deficiency as epidemic. It’s like we’re in a trance that causes us to see ourselves as unworthy. Yet, I have seen in my own life, and with countless others, that we can awaken from this trance through practicing mindfulness and self-compassion. We can come to trust the goodness and purity of our hearts.

In order to flower, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. Compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves. To help people address feelings of insecurity and unworthiness, I often introduce mindfulness and compassion through a meditation I call the RAIN of Self-Compassion. The acronym RAIN, first coined about 20 years ago by Michele McDonald, is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness. It has four steps:

Recognize what is going on;
Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;
Investigate with kindness;
Natural awareness, which comes from not identifying
with the experience.

You can take your time and explore RAIN as a stand-alone meditation or move through the steps in a more abbreviated way whenever challenging feelings arise.

R—Recognize What's Going On

Recognizing means consciously acknowledging, in any given moment, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are affecting us. Like awakening from a dream, the first step out of the trance of unworthiness is simply to recognize that we are stuck, subject to painfully constricting beliefs, emotions, and physical sensations. Common signs of the trance include a critical inner voice, feelings of shame or fear, the squeeze of anxiety or the weight of depression in the body.

In order to flower, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. Compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves.

Different people respond to the sense of unworthiness in different ways. Some might stay busy, trying to prove themselves valuable; others, fearful of failure, may become discouraged or even paralyzed. Still others may resort to addictive behaviors to avoid facing their shame and fear. Any of these strategies can lead to either defensive or aggressive behavior with others, or unhealthy attachment.

Some of us are at war with ourselves for decades, never realizing how our self-judgment and self-aversion keep us from finding genuine intimacy with others or enjoying our lives. One palliative caregiver reports that a key regret of the dying is not having been true to themselves. Rather than listening to and trusting our inner life, most of us try to live according to the expectations of others, which we internalize. When we inevitably fall short of the mark, we condemn ourselves.

Though it may sound depressing or overwhelming, learning to recognize that we are at war with ourselves is quite empowering. One meditation student described the trance of unworthiness as “…the invisible and toxic gas I am always breathing.” As he became increasingly mindful of his incessant self-judgment and feelings of inadequacy, his aspiration to free himself from his painful inner prison grew.

A—Allowing: Taking a Life-Giving Pause

Allowing means letting the thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensations we have recognized simply be there. Typically when we have an unpleasant experience, we react in one of three ways: by piling on the judgment; by numbing ourselves to our feelings; or by focusing our attention elsewhere. For example, we might have the sinking, shameful feeling of having been too harsh in correcting our child. But rather than allowing that feeling, we might blame our partner for not doing his or her part, worry about something completely different, or decide it’s time for a nap. We’re resisting the rawness and unpleasantness of the feeling by withdrawing from the present moment.

We allow by simply pausing with the intention to relax our resistance and let the experience be just as it is. Allowing our thoughts, emotions, or bodily sensations simply to be doesn’t mean we agree with our conviction that we’re unworthy. Rather, we honestly acknowledge the presence of our judgment, as well as the painful feelings underneath. Many students I work with support their resolve to let it be by silently offering an encouraging word or phrase to themselves. For instance, you might feel the grip of fear and mentally whisper yes in order to acknowledge and accept the reality of your experience in this moment.

Victor Frankel writes, “Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in this space lies our power and our freedom.” Allowing creates a space that enables us to see more deeply into our own being, which, in turn, awakens our caring and helps us make wiser choices in life. For one student, the space of allowing gave her more freedom in the face of urges to binge eat. In the past, whenever she felt restless or anxious at night, she’d start thinking of her favorite food—trail mix—then mindlessly consume a half pound of it before going to bed, disgusted with herself.

Learning to recognize the cues and taking a pause interrupted the pattern. While pausing, she would allow herself to feel the tension in her body, her racing heart, the craving. Soon, she began to contact a poignant sense of loneliness buried beneath her anxiety. She found that if she could stay with the loneliness and be gentle with herself, the craving passed.

I—Investigating with Kindness

Investigating means calling on our natural curiosity—the desire to know truth—and directing a more focused attention to our present experience. Simply pausing to ask, what is happening inside me?, can initiate recognition, but investigation adds a more active and pointed kind of inquiry. You might ask yourself: What most wants attention? How am I experiencing this in my body? Or What am I believing? What does this feeling want from me? You might notice hollowness or shakiness, then discover a sense of unworthiness and shame masked by those feelings. Unless you bring them into awareness, your unconscious beliefs and emotions will control your experience and perpetuate your identification with a limited, deficient self.

Poet Dorothy Hunt says that we need a “...heartspace where everything that is, is welcome.” Without such an attitude of unconditional care, there isn’t enough safety and openness for real investigation to take place. About ten years ago I entered a period of chronic illness. During one particularly challenging period of pain and fatigue, I became discouraged and unhappy. In my view I was terrible to be around—impatient, self-absorbed, irritable, gloomy. I began working with RAIN to recognize these feelings and judgments and to consciously allow the unpleasantness in my body and emotions to just be there. As I began to investigate, I heard an embittered voice: “I hate living like this.” And then a moment later, “I hate myself!” The full toxicity of self-aversion filled me.

Not only was I struggling with illness, I was at war with the self-centered, irritable person I believed I had become. Unknowingly, I had turned on myself and was held captive by the trance of unworthiness. But in that moment of recognizing and allowing the suffering of self-hatred, my heart began to soften with compassion.

Here’s a story that helps to describe the process I went through. Imagine while walking in the woods you see a small dog sitting by a tree. You bend down to pet it and it suddenly lunges at you, teeth bared. Initially you might be frightened and angry. But then you notice one of its legs is caught in a trap, buried under some leaves. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern. You see that the dog’s aggression sprang from vulnerability and pain.

This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful, reactive ways, it’s because we’re caught in some kind of painful trap. The more we investigate the source of our suffering, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart toward ourselves and others.

When I recognized how my leg was in a trap—sickness compounded with self aversion— my heart filled with sorrow and genuine self-care. The investigating deepened as I gently put my hand over my heart—a gesture of kindness— and invited whatever other feelings were there to surface. A swell of fear (uncertainty for my future) spread through my chest, followed by an upwelling of grief at losing my health. The sense of self-compassion unfurled fully as I mentally whispered, It’s all right, sweetheart, and consciously offered care to the depths of my vulnerability, just as I would to a dear friend.

Compassion arises naturally when we mindfully contact our suffering and respond with care. As you practice the RAIN of Self-Compassion, experiment and see which intentional gesture of kindness most helps to soften or open your heart. Many people find healing by gently placing a hand on the heart or cheek; others, in a whispered message of care, or by envisioning being bathed in warm, radiant light. What matters is that once you have investigated and connected with your suffering, respond by offering care to your own heart. When the intention to awaken self love and compassion is sincere, the smallest gesture—even if, initially, it feels awkward— will serve you well.

N—Natural Loving Awareness

Natural loving awareness occurs when identification with the small self is loosened. This practice of non-identification means that our sense of who we are is not fused with any limiting emotions, sensations, or stories. We begin to intuit and live from the openness and love that express our natural awareness.

Though the first three steps of RAIN require some intentional activity, the N is the treasure: A liberating homecoming to our true nature. There’s nothing to do for this last part of RAIN; we simply rest in natural awareness.

The RAIN of Self-Compassion is not a one-shot meditation, nor is the realization of our natural awareness necessarily full, stable, or enduring. Rather, as you practice you may experience a sense of warmth and openness, a shift in perspective. You can trust this! RAIN is a practice for life—meeting our doubts and fears with a healing presence. Each time you are willing to slow down and recognize, oh, this is the trance of unworthiness… this is fear… this is hurt…this is judgment…, you are poised to de-condition the old habits and limiting self-beliefs that imprison your heart. Gradually, you’ll experience natural loving awareness as the truth of who you are, more than any story you ever told yourself about being “not good enough” or “basically flawed.”

A friend of mine was sitting with her dying mother while she was in a coma. At one point the mother opened her eyes, looked at her daughter with great lucidity, and said “You know, all my life I thought something was wrong with me.” She closed her eyes, sank back into a coma and died shortly thereafter. For my friend, her mother’s words were a parting gift. They inspired her to dedicate herself to the mindfulness and self-compassion that frees us.

We each have the conditioning to live for long stretches of time imprisoned by a sense of deficiency, cut off from realizing our intrinsic intelligence, aliveness, and love. The greatest blessing we can give ourselves is to recognize the pain of this trance, and regularly offer a cleansing rain of self-compassion to our awakening hearts.

Clinical psychologist Tara Brach is the author of True Refuge: Finding Peace & Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart. For guided meditations and talks, visit Tara Brach's website. 

This article also appeared in the August 2014 issue of Mindful magazine.

Source: http://www.mindful.org/mindful-magazine/tara-brach-rain-mindfulness-practice