Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a way of recognizing perspectives and thought patterns that don’t serve us, and developing new ones that do. In the workplace, you will encounter people who not only have, but seem to embody, perspectives and thought patterns that drive you crazy. How do you stay sane when everyone around you is acting bananas?

Most of us spend more time with our co-workers than we do with our nearest and dearest, so it’s in our best interest to maintain positive relationships even when our colleagues are…difficult. Techniques developed for use in CBT can help you navigate crazy-making interactions with difficult coworkers while respecting yourself and staying grounded.

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RAIN: Recognize, Allow, Investigate and Non Identification

RAIN is a CBT acronym designed to promote mindfulness, particularly in times of serious emotional distress. The workplace can certainly be the site and/or the cause of some very serious emotional distress. Whether you’re at your wit’s end over an overwhelming project, or thrust into an explosive confrontation with a colleague, RAIN is a strategy to stay grounded while processing intense emotions, particularly when emotional regulation is critical. 

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Recognize: What is it You’re Actually Feeling?

At work, a lot of us compartmentalize our emotions so that we can focus on being productive while we’re there and relax when we’re not. This can be a comfort: “I feel horrible about my breakup, but when I’m at work I forget about it for an hour or two.”  However, in some situations being present in our emotions is critical for avoiding a meltdown. If your body is processing the way you feel without any help from your mind to channel it, you are not going to feel good. Recognize means name your feelings, and be specific. 

Let’s say you’re running an event for your job. The name tags aren’t in alpha order and the catering company is late, but so far nothing terrible has happened and you feel like you can manage. The director of another department shows up, surveys the scene, and casts you a withering look as they ask, “this is what we paid for?” Despite the fact that this person has no hiring/firing power over you, you feel your face get hot and your palms start to sweat, and the first hints of insecurity arise. As you try to move forward from the interaction, your hands shake and you struggle to stay present, failing to properly order the nametags and missing a call from the absent caterer. Intellectually you know that the person who put you down has no business criticizing your work, but your body doesn’t seem to realize it. How do you get back in sync?

Call the caterer back and before you try the nametags again, take a deep breath and close your eyes. If possible, say aloud, “I am feeling…” and do your best to specifically name your feelings. Angry, sad, anxious, and happy are the standard go-tos, but they won’t work for this exercise. Language is powerful, and we have a lot of great words to describe complex emotional states. Your body produces a lot of the same signals for very different emotions, and needs help figuring out how you should react. Making this effort will slow your body down and give your mind a chance to recover. Maybe in this moment, you’re disappointed because you thought your efforts and the quality of your work were readily apparent to others. You could also be angry at this person for walking in without any skin in the game and flippantly judging you. You could also be a tiny bit annoyed with yourself for not being more prepared by the time this grumpy jerk arrived. Hopefully as you verbalize this to yourself, your body temp is lowering and the roaring in your ears has died down.

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Accept: Are You Allowing Your Feelings to Exist Without Judgment?

Many of us feel that openly baring our emotions is not work-appropriate. This can change depending on your office culture and how it intersects with your identity; for example, whether your industry is traditionally male or female dominated, and whether you are from a background that has been historically excluded from that industry. For example, in some corporate settings anger is not perceived as an emotion since it seems to establish leadership and dominance when expressed. However, if you are, for example, a female bodied person, a genderqueer person, or a person of color, your anger is likely reinterpreted as over-sensitive, hysterical, and unstable. It’s common to police your own emotions in this situation because you know or suspect that showing them at work is bad. It’s not ideal, but for many of us this is among the many deals with the devil we have to make just to pay rent.

Imagine your boss catches a small but glaring error on a report that reflects badly on your team. Their boss is now coming after them, so they’re coming after you. After they take out their frustration on you, your boss finally relaxes and admits they overreacted, and the two of you start preparing for your next meeting fifteen minutes from now. They seem to have recovered from the incident, but you’re shaken, like your heart dropped into your stomach. The incident is over but your body can’t recover that quickly, and you don’t have the ability, privilege, or desire to take your frustration out on a direct report the way your boss did. As you work to Recognize your emotions (fear, embarrassment, sadness, rage) the next step is to Accept them. That means don’t try to change them.

That may be all you want to do at the moment - stop feeling all these negative feelings so you can shake off the stress and shine in this meeting. That’s not possible unless you Accept how you are feeling and engage in a bit of improv. Instead of “I feel anxious but I want to feel confident,” try “I feel anxious and I will channel that energy into confidence.” Instead of “I feel sad but I want to feel upbeat,” say “I feel sad and that will ground me through a solid presentation.” Every emotion has side effects that are positive or negative depending how we feel about them. The adrenaline from anger can feel empowering and energizing, and it can also cloud your judgment and wear out your nervous system. The way your emotions affect you is tied to the way you feel about them. Recognize how you’re feeling and Accept the aspects of your emotions that will let you process them healthily while not derailing you completely. 

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Investigate: What Can You Learn About Your Emotions If You Stay Curious?

When we’re disturbed and agitated, we’re less likely to express ourselves in productive ways, and when we’re repressing difficult emotions, we may become passive aggressive or get into other behavior that ultimately detracts from our mental health. Once you’ve Recognized what you’re feeling and have Accepted that it’s ok to feel that way, it’s time to Investigate with kindness. 

This is not a deep self-analysis; rather, it’s a strategy to enhance emotional processing by taking feelings apart into pieces and making them more digestible. The kindness part is key. Don’t interrogate yourself. Be compassionate, as if a younger or more vulnerable person in your life. “What’s making you so upset right now? Have you felt this way before? How is your body feeling? Is there anything we can do to make you feel a little better?” This process can serve as a meditation that grounds you in your body while engaging your mind in a gentle self-care exercise. By addressing each element of your experience with kind curiosity, you create a lower pressure system and identify actionable steps to make yourself feel better and move through this crisis. 

Control over your own schedule is a privilege in the workplace, and if you have the ability to postpone a meeting for 15 minutes or duck into a restroom, now is the time to do so. It might make you anxious to step away from your post when you’re feeling that your performance is being judged, but you’re just gathering fuel to fire your engine through the rest of the workday. Realistically we all take breaks for other random things throughout the day - restrooms, coffee runs, water breaks - all of these are acceptable reasons to leave the workplace. Give your emotional stability the same attention you would give your bodily functions. 

If you work in an environment that doesn’t accommodate unplanned breaks - emergency services, hospital staff, customer service, live performance, or teaching in the classroom, for example - use the first two parts of RAIN to relieve the tension between your body and mind. If possible, enlist the help of a coworker to let them know how you’re feeling or get some coverage while you take a break. Even five minutes not speaking to or listening to anyone, just letting your mind wander with kind curiosity, can keep the momentum going in processing how you’re feeling and figuring out how you can help yourself in the short and long term.

Investigating your emotions can be both freeing and alarming, depending how things are going. In a workplace that doesn’t support a culture of care, you can repress and harbor a lot of resentments, which is almost guaranteed to lead to some kind of meltdown later on. Unpack the amount that feels right with the space and resources you have now, and what you anticipate having later (a comfy place to relax, a friendly pet to play with, a supportive friend or partner to confide in).

In the event planning example, you Recognized and Accepted that you felt angry, embarrassed, and disappointed, even though you initially couldn’t admit to yourself that this person you barely know affected you so deeply. You assign a greeter to watch the registration table and take a minute in the coatroom to regulate yourself a little and Investigate your emotions with kind curiosity. Some things you might discover:

• How is your body feeling?
  Initially your face was red,  there was a roaring in your ears, and your hands were shaking. The roaring has subsided and the other symptoms are responding to just being alone for a second, but you still feel a little hot and shaky.
• Have you felt this way before?
  Yes, you feel this way at some point during nearly every event, not just this one. Normally you can prepare well enough to avoid mistakes, but when they happen it feels like the world is ending.
• What’s making you feel this way right now?
  One person who does not have direct influence over your career commented sarcastically about your work product. You’re aware that things aren’t going to plan but you didn’t expect anyone to be so insensitive as to point it out. You notice that you also feel frustrated and surprised. This person arrived early which is technically against event protocol. Considering everything you’re juggling, this event is actually going really well, and all the hiccups have been fixed. You’ve given yourself the option to be compassionate with yourself, which will ultimately contribute to calming you down.
• Is there anything we can do right now to make you feel a little better?
  Now that you took some time alone to breathe and practice some self soothing techniques, you might feel less shaky but you’re probably a little worn out from the internal roller coaster, and tbh a little sweaty. You can head to the restroom or the kitchen to get yourself a wet paper towel to apply to your wrists and neck, and maybe behind your knees and elbows as well. Grab a piece of fruit from the cheese plate as a pick me up and get yourself some ice water. All these small physical interventions will help you recover the resources you lost in emotional distress, and interrupt the feedback loop that your physical symptoms of stress can begin initiating in your mind.

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Non-Identification: Can You Accept That These Emotions Came From You, But That They’re Not You?

When you have an emotional tidal wave or outburst at work, your self esteem can take a hit. Having our emotions under wraps makes us feel like we’re in control, and the more we try to control them the more unruly they may become. Even after you’ve Recognized, Accepted, and Investigated your emotions, you may still be insecure or embarrassed about having them in the first place. “I’m glad I feel better now, but I can’t believe I let myself get so worked up. I must be a really sensitive negative person.”

In moments of high stress, we tend to over identify with whatever emotion we’re feeling at the time. We start to think, “this is just the way I am,” which can slow our progress considerably if we hope to protect ourselves from this kind of vulnerability in the future. Non-identification gives us the opportunity to recognize that our emotions are not who we are, and that we have the ability to channel and process difficult emotions to compensate for how they might affect our judgment. Your emotions are guests in your body, and just like a pet that needs training, your body might have some misaligned responses to emotions that make them seem more important than they really are. Just like you train a dog to stop barking at the vacuum cleaner, you can start training your body and mind to change the way your body reacts to negative emotions. 

This isn’t to say you need to become an emotionless worker drone; rather, you can feel many different emotions throughout the day, welcome them without judgment, and let them go to varying degrees. In the example of the pre-meeting post-boss-yelling recovery, you’ve Recognized, Accepted, and Investigated your feelings around an explosive encounter with your boss. As you prepare for your next meeting, you’ve been able to recognize and accept your feelings of fear, inadequacy, and indignation, and upon further thought accepted your feelings were in part due to the honest mistake you made, and to your usually well-tempered boss blowing up at you. After Investigation you find that you can learn from your mistake and move on, and are willing to accept your boss’s apology (eventually). As you prepare for your upcoming meeting, you wonder if you’re overly sensitive to criticism, and if you’re really cut out for this industry, or for the work world in general. You don’t like feeling this way in front of other people, and you’re sure they think you’re crazy.

Non-identification offers a different conclusion. You are not inherently fearful, inadequate, or overly-defensive, and it’s ok to feel all of these emotions at home, at work, or anywhere. Every time you reset your body’s vital signs through patient self care and kind curiosity, you’re giving yourself another chance to react and emote in the way you want to. This meeting in fifteen minutes is a chance to share the great work that your team is doing and to show your boss that you can accept criticism constructively. People will remember how you’re making them feel right now, and every moment is another chance to create a new impression. If you’re struggling to let something go, or if your difficult emotions recur in a way that worries you or your colleagues, share with a friend, family member, spiritual counselor, or therapist. The more you share the more you will externalize these experiences so that they don’t feel so embedded in you.

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Conclusion

RAIN can be both an immediate intervention and a longer term meditation technique that gives you perspective on and ownership of your emotional state. If it’s not clear by now, emotions are more than ok in the workplace - they’re essential. They send us messages we need to hear about how our environment and interactions affect us. Sometimes we need to protect ourselves by masking how we feel in front of certain people, and that is not always a bad thing. Just remember that whenever you have the physical or emotional space to do so, RAIN and other CBT techniques are available to help you support yourself at difficult times. Curious how this and other CBT techniques can support your mental health journey? Meet Sage Therapy therapists who use CBT in their practice.