Through Heart Awake Mindfulness, Raine Brown offers support and practices to individuals and groups seeking to awaken their hearts and minds for a more fulfilling life.

Raine Brown is a long-time meditator, a mindfulness & spiritual teacher, writer, explorer of the human experience, grant manager and Holistic Counselor. Raine has lived a life of deep inquiry and self-reflection; this experience has fostered in her the ability to be in companionship with the joy and sorrow of life as known by herself and others and to turn towards, not away. Raine is a receptive and compassionate listener. She holds a Master's in Holistic Counseling from Salve Regina University, has been certified in cranio-sacral therapy, trained in Integrative Acupressure, and is a master program manager. Raine’s approach is informed by deep wisdom traditions of contemplative practices such as Vipassana and Shambala, counseling and somatic therapies, and new information about the nature of our brains and minds provided through scientific research such as inter-personal neurobiology, neurosciences, self-compassion, and social psychology. Raine lives in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

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My deepest heart aspiration is to serve the blossoming and deepening of self-love in all people, for when we hold ourselves in love, we organically love others and the world.

I have come to this aspiration through my own journey with self-love. I have always lived a deeply spiritual life, even as a child, and feel it is the spiritual path, my life as pilgrim, which has been the main impetus in my life. I was raised Christian, New England Baptist with a strong dose of very strict, punitive Calvinist Christianity. This structure left me very little room to be true to myself, especially as I emerged into my sexuality/sexual orientation in my early 20's. The religion of my youth was ripped out from under me because it literally rejected who I knew myself to be. I entered a long search for a new spiritual home. I discovered Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chodron. Her teachings became a lifeline for me and lead me to discover, read and practice with other, mostly Buddhist influenced teachers, including Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Adyashanti, Sylvia Bornstein and others. I don't consider myself a Buddhist, but I do believe in past lives and feel quite strongly that I have taken the Bodhisattva vow (to liberate all sentient beings) in a previous lifetime, if not lifetimes, and that vow greatly influences me in this life, both consciously & unconsciously. 
 
It is a result of a main Buddhist teaching that all humans have "inherent goodness" which brings me to my deepest aspiration as a teacher. The belief that I am inherently good was a radical concept for me. I had been taught to believe that all humans are, that I am, inherently sinful, that we all carry "original sin" and only by the grace of God, a very wrathful God at that, can we hope for redemption. Switching my view of my core self from one of being bad and condemned, to being inherently good was and is quite a journey, one that still surprises me in its unfolding.

The intention to support the wakening of self-love in all people inspires my teachings and being with others. If you'd like to learn more about working with me contact me.

Self love is the source of all our other love - Pierre Coneille