RAIN is a four-step process.

It stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Non-identification. Mindfulness teacher Michele McDonald is popularly credited for creating RAIN as a meditation, and several psychologists have since adapted and expanded on it, including Tara Brach, Ph.D., in her book Radical Compassion. In Brach’s take on RAIN, the N stands for Nurture.

Like many therapeutic tools, there are many uses of the various iterations of the RAIN meditation, whether you’re using it to battle negative self-talk or calm anxious thoughts. In general, though, most versions of RAIN are based on mindfulness, which basically means it’s about taking the time to pause and pay attention to what you’re experiencing. In this case, certain thoughts or emotions.

For the purposes of this article, I’m talking about how I learned RAIN from my therapist: as a mindful self-compassion tool. Here’s how the RAIN meditation breaks down.

Recognize: The first step here is about getting in the habit of putting words to thoughts and feelings as they’re happening. That could be anything from “Ah, I’m worrying that my friends hate me because they ignored my contribution in the group chat” to “Oh, I’m feeling like a failure after getting feedback on that presentation.” Sometimes it’s difficult to do at first, given how emotions can roll over us as physical, difficult-to-name sensations, but you can get better with practice.

Allow: As in, allow the thought and emotion to exist without immediately trying to push it away, change it, or judge it. This is an easy step to skip, especially if you’re in the practice of pushing against your negative voice. And while it might sound like the right call not to engage when your inner monologue is being a dick, oftentimes that just shoves the feelings down deeper. Giving yourself a moment to feel your feelings and allow the thought in without jumping to correct it or judge yourself is a necessary step, even if it can feel raw or uncomfortable.

Investigate: Your thoughts and feelings may seem obvious at the Recognize step, but some intentional investigation might reveal something you didn’t know or deepen your understanding of yourself. Ask: Why do I feel this way? What might this emotion be trying to tell me? What does it feel like physically? What else might be influencing how I feel? What started as “I’m mad at myself for not being productive today” might turn into “I’m frustrated and stressed because I have a lot to do, but need to remind myself I didn’t get a great night’s sleep last night and haven’t paused for lunch yet.” Which, look! Some self-compassion.

Non-identification: A common refrain in self-compassion work like this is you are more than your thoughts and feelings. That’s because it’s so damn important to remind yourself. Too often we focus on what our thoughts and feelings mean about us. For example, when we feel angry, we can be quick to feel guilty about feeling angry because we don’t want to be an Angry Person. Or we feel insecure and self-hating and we rationalize that those feelings be true or that we must deserve them. The non-identification step helps us start to untangle our feelings and thoughts from our sense of self-worth and identity—and start making it easy to reach compassionate conclusions.