RAIN Meditation Berlin — Learning to Sit With What Is

Most of us have been told at some point to sit with our feelings.

But nobody really explains what that means.

Do you just… wait? Does it hurt? How long? What if the feeling gets bigger instead of smaller? What if you can’t even find the feeling in the first place — you just know something is off, something is heavy, but it won’t quite come into focus?

This is where RAIN comes in.

RAIN is a meditation technique developed in the mindfulness community and deeply shaped by the teachings of Tara Brach, whose work has been a profound influence on my own practice. It offers something rare — not just a way to observe your inner world, but a gentle structure for actually moving through it.

The four steps are simple:

R — Recognise what is happening

A — Allow it to be there, without pushing it away

I — Investigate with kindness and curiosity

N — Nurture yourself through it

Simple to describe. Not always easy to do alone.


What happens in a session

A private RAIN session with me lasts around 20 minutes of actual meditation, but we don’t just jump in. We begin with a gentle conversation — you can say as much or as little as you like about what’s present for you. There is no pressure to explain yourself or to arrive with everything figured out. Sometimes the most honest thing you can say is I don’t know, something just feels stuck.

From there I guide you through the meditation, step by step, at your pace. My role is to accompany you — to help you find the feeling if it’s hiding, to stay with you as you move through it, and to make sure the Nurture part, which people so often skip, actually lands.

After the meditation we take time to digest. Sometimes something unexpected surfaces. Sometimes there’s just a quiet. Both are welcome.


What RAIN is — and what it isn’t

RAIN meditation is not therapy. I am not a therapist and I don’t work as one. What I offer is companionship and structure — a safe, unhurried space in which to meet yourself a little more honestly.

For that reason I gently ask that you don’t bring your most acute or traumatic material to these sessions. RAIN works beautifully with the everyday emotional weather — anxiety, sadness, self-criticism, grief, frustration, the unnamed heaviness of a difficult season. For deeper trauma, a trained therapist is the right support.


Going deeper — the RAIN course

For those who want to learn the technique properly and make it their own, I also offer RAIN meditation courses where we take each step slowly, building understanding and practice week by week.

And if you’d like to introduce RAIN to a younger person in your life — I wrote the first children’s book on RAIN meditation, with a foreword by Tara Brach herself. You can find it at www.magicofrain.com 🌧️


A private RAIN session is offered as part of my private practice alongside Alexander Technique, Yoga and Mindful Touch. If something is stirring and you’re not sure where to start, just write to me. Sometimes that first email is the hardest part — and after that, it gets gentler.

👉 [Book a private session or get in touch here]

About:

Pinelopi began her yoga journey in 1999 and founded English Yoga Berlin in 2010. She holds a 600-hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training and completed a 1,600-hour Alexander Technique Teacher Training in 2023 under Jörg Aßhoff — one of the most intensive trainings of its kind.

She has studied Yoga Anatomy with Leslie Kaminoff, trauma-informed practice with Legacy Motion and Linda Thai, and ways of applying Internal Family Systems for Social Transformation with Steffi Bednarek. Her meditation work is deeply inspired by Tara Brach and the RAIN technique, which she brought to life in Magic of Rain — the first children’s book on RAIN meditation, with a foreword by Tara Brach herself, to be published in 2026 by Books That Save Lives.

She teaches because she believes it is not what you do in life, but how you do it that matters.

Mindful Touch — When the Body Needs to Be Met

Some days words are not enough.

You can talk about what’s happening, you can understand it intellectually, you can even meditate on it — and still something remains. Something held in the shoulders, the chest, the belly. Something that thinking hasn’t quite reached.

This is where Mindful Touch begins.

What is Mindful Touch?

Mindful Touch is a gentle, hands-on session that I offer as part of my private practice. It emerged not from a training manual or a certification course, but from necessity — from moments with students where I could feel that what they needed wasn’t another instruction or cue, but simply to be met. With presence. With care. With aware, unhurried hands.

It draws naturally from my Alexander Technique training, which is at its heart a hands-on practice — using touch to invite the nervous system to let go of patterns it has been holding, sometimes for years. But Mindful Touch is softer than a lesson. There is no agenda, no correction, no goal. There is only attention and response.

Sessions take place fully clothed, on a massage table or sitting — whatever feels right for you.

Each session is different because each person is different. I follow what the body is asking for rather than what I think it needs. Sometimes music accompanies us. Sometimes silence does. Sometimes a session begins one way and becomes something else entirely — and that is exactly right.

People who have found their way to Mindful Touch have often arrived at a moment of transition, exhaustion, or quiet overwhelm. Not crisis, but the particular tiredness that comes from carrying too much for too long. From not having been held, in the broadest sense of that word, for a while.

You don’t need to explain what you’re going through before you come. You don’t need to know what you need. You just need to be willing to arrive, and to let the session find its own shape.


Details

Mindful Touch sessions last 50 minutes and are offered as part of my private session practice alongside Alexander Technique, Yoga and RAIN Meditation. If you’re curious and not sure if it’s right for you, just write to me — I’m happy to have that conversation.

👉 [Book a private session or get in touch here]

About the Teacher

Pinelopi began her yoga journey in 1999 and founded English Yoga Berlin in 2010. She holds a 600-hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training and completed a 1,600-hour Alexander Technique Teacher Training in 2023 under Jörg Aßhoff — one of the most intensive trainings of its kind.

She has studied Yoga Anatomy with Leslie Kaminoff, trauma-informed practice with Legacy Motion and Linda Thai, and ways of applying Internal Family Systems for Social Transformation with Steffi Bednarek. Her meditation work is deeply inspired by Tara Brach and the RAIN technique, which she brought to life in Magic of Rain — the first children’s book on RAIN meditation, with a foreword by Tara Brach herself, to be published in 2026 by Books That Save Lives.

She teaches because she believes it is not what you do in life, but how you do it that matters.