Meditation meets Military Jargon: RAIN vs OODA Loop

When I first heard of Tara Brach and watched one of her talks, I was immediately turned off.  She seemed too airy and breathy, talking sooo slooowww and OH MY GOSH her “S’s” on her wordS were like a whiStle and I just couldn’t Stand it.  Give me a high energy, forceful, high impact motivator please!!

Then I read the book and heard Dan Harris on Ten Percent Happier podcast #224describe his first impressions of her as he interviewed her and he nailed it!!

“…She had pleasant submitting features.  She was holding forth in a creamy, cloying tone.  The style was astonishingly effective.  Artificially soft and slow as if she was trying to give you a reiki massage with her voice. She exhorted us to love ourselves, “invited us to close our yes and trust in the oceanness, in the vastness, in the mystery, in the awareness, in the love, so you could really sense nothing is wrong with me.”

I couldn’t bear to look over at Jason who I imagined must be silently cursing my name.  Brach closed with a poem, then a dramatic pause and finally a self serious sotto voce “thank you.”

BLECH.  But I continued to listen to the podcast and intermixed between the two of them she was much more tolerable.  She talked extensively about RAIN, which is akin to the military OODA loop.  These are strategies or tools to use in times of when multiple new inputs are coming at you and you need to deal with it and make a decision quickly.  In my work as an ER doctor however I do this all the time, so it is pretty easy to adapt to an introspective nature.

• R: Recognize emotions or body sensations rising up into your awareness
• A: Accept what’s happening as it is and lean into it
• I: Investigate pay attention to deepen your understanding of it
• N: Nurture (or Non-identification) realize freedom
• After RAIN:  rest in the awareness and realization

As compared to OODA Loop, where there is less surrendering to the inward and more outward action :

• O: Observe the data brought to your attention
• O: Orient what is meaningful and how does it apply to your situation
• D: Decide synthesize the information so the best goal is now clear
• A: Act make it happen
• Loop it back as needed and fine tune your process

OK easy enough.  At work I’ll see a patient, they describe their symptoms and I examine them, recognizing patterns of disease as I investigate and make a decision then act to diagnose or treat it.

Recognize and observe what the patient is saying.  Accept and orient by asking more questions which is an investigation that makes a decision to order certain tests which hopefully lead to a diagnosis and an action on a course of treatment that realizes how to help the patient.

This is sped up even faster when a patient arrives with ambulance sirens blaring, pulseless and not breathing while getting CPR.  I have to very very quickly Observe not only a life in danger, but what personnel are around to help me.  Sometimes I get some information about the circumstance and sometimes I don’t.  I need to rely on my knowledge of interpreting vitals, my clinical exam, suspicions based on patient age or clues on their body.  This is Orienting myself to the severity which funnels into the next step.  I have to use my training to Decide if X ray should be done now, or wait.  Prioritize compressions, or airway?  Once I have come up with the new goal I Act– quickly directing nurses to give life saving medications and securing the airway, directing CPR, etc.  All of the parts of the acronyms are happening simultaneously.  I rely on my training and my experience and have to constantly reassess the situation, keep situational awareness of my team, and reorient to outcomes that are working or not.  This is how lives are saved.

So how do I apply this to my own personal life?  I had to slow it down at first.  Recognize I get angry when I find yet another dirty plate on the table and not in the sink or dishwasher.  Accept that I’m angry yet again, which I know just increases my own stress.  Investigate how this anger makes me tense up and restricts my breathing, how I start pointing fingers at others but actually I’m guilty of leaving a stack of partially opened mail on the counter where it doesn’t belong (this loops back into recognizing and accepting).  Nurture that there’s no need to get angry about any of this, we’re all a family who just help each other out with household duties.  With time and practice, I’m able to use it more during toddler tantrums or when the inevitable miscommunication happens with my husband.

Anyone relate?  In the next post I’ll talk more about my immediate aversion to Tara Brach but again… how my judgments are so wrong and she is so, so right.