The Human Experience · Episode
Episode 78 – Kelly Howell – Brain Sync
A conversation with Kelly Howell
Kelly Howell is the world’s leading pioneer in guided meditation and binaural beat frequency audio technology. She’s a 6-time National Bestselling Audio Author of the most advanced brainwave audio programs…
- Published
- November 12, 2016
- Runtime
- 47:12

The full conversation continues here.
Episode field notes
Show notes
Kelly Howell is the world’s leading pioneer in guided meditation and binaural beat frequency audio technology. She’s a 6-time National Bestselling Audio Author of the most advanced brainwave audio programs available in the world today. Some of her highly acclaimed best-selling programs include, The Secret Universal Mind Meditation, Guided Meditation, Attract Wealth, Healing Meditation and The Secret to Attracting Love. She brings more than thirty years experience to her work in personal transformation and mind expansion technology.
Kelly has taught meditation to thousands of individuals worldwide, at Fortune 500 Companies, and legendary retreat centers such as Esalen. She is author of Brain Power, Improve Your Mind As You Age, recommended by the Mayo Clinic and hailed by Daniel Amen as “A blueprint to optimize your life.” Her visionary healing techniques provide an elegant way to recalibrate brain patterns and reap the benefits of biofeedback training and long-term meditation. Kelly’s healing voice and groundbreaking brainwave music have inspired millions of people to achieve goals, heal their bodies and transform their lives. Read her article published in the Robb Report on the profound benefits of meditation in just 20 minutes a day.
The Evolution of Brain Sync
In the 1980’s Kelly began making personalized positive mental programing audio tapes for friends and clients. She went on to create a wildly successful series of Personal Development audio programs published by Bantam Books, and The SuperMind series through Random House. 1987 Kelly co-founded Neuro-Technologies Research Institute in San Francisco, a non-profit organization that studied the effects of brain technologies. Her work with researchers led to the creation of a series of clinical programs for medical professionals such as Harvard trained Neurosurgeon, Norman Shealy, M.D. Ph.D and Edward A. Taub, M.D. Their phenomenal success prompted her to launch Brain Sync in 1991. Kelly has worked with eminent scientists to develop meditation and brain optimization programs used in hospitals, biofeedback clinics and by hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide. Over the years, many of Kelly’s legendary self help classics have appeared on top of Publishers Weekly’s national bestseller lists.

Brainwave entrainment is a colloquialism for ‘neural entrainment’, which denotes how the aggregate oscillation frequency, resulting from synchronous electrical activity among ensembles of cortical neurons, can adjust to synchronize with the periodic vibration of an external stimulus, such as a sustained acoustic frequency perceived as pitch, a regularly repeating pattern of intermittent sounds perceived as rhythm, or a regularly intermittent flashing light.
In this episode we spoke to Kelly Howell on guided meditation and brainwave synchronization, it’s benefits and much more.
You will love this Episode!
Find Kelly and her work Visit brainsync.com.
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About the guest
Kelly Howell
Kelly Howell is the world’s leading pioneer in guided meditation and binaural beat frequency audio technology. She’s a 6-time National Bestselling Audio Author of the most advanced brainwave audio programs available in the world today. Some of her highly acclaimed best-selling programs include, The Secret Universal Mind Meditation, Guided Meditation, Attract Wealth, Healing Meditation and The Secret to Attracting Love. She brings more than thirty years experience to her work in personal transformation and mind expansion technology.
Beyond the conversation
Selected work
Official sites, books, research, and institutional pages verified for this guest.
The complete conversation
Transcript
554 timestamped passages · Speaker-labelled from local voice analysis
Speaker labels were identified locally using Xavier’s verified voice reference and episode-specific acoustic comparison. Mixed turns are labelled with both speakers. Automated transcripts and speaker identification may contain occasional errors. Select a timestamp to check the original conversation.
- HXP Announcer
Welcome to the Human Experience Podcast. The only podcast designed to fuse your left and right brain hemispheres and feed it the most entertaining and mentally engaging topics on the planet.
- HXP Announcer
As we approach our ascent, please make sure your frontal, temporal and occipital lobes are in their full upright position.
- HXP Announcer
As you take your seat of consciousness, relax your senses and allow us to take you on a journey.
- Xavier / HXP Announcer
We are the intimate strangers. Thank you for listening.
- Xavier
medical professionals out of places like Harvard. She is a six-time national best-selling audio
- Xavier
author. She's been in this industry for at least three decades. So by all means, she has the
- Xavier
credential for the conversation you're about to hear. This was a phenomenal episode with Kelly
- Xavier
where we discussed the genesis of BrainSync. So I think you guys will really enjoy this one.
- Xavier
As always, guys, we survive on your support. If you enjoy the content we put out on a regular basis, get to thehumanexp.com slash donate and buy us a coffee, lunch, dinner. Otherwise, please find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, all at The Human XP. Thank you guys so much for listening.
- Xavier
the human experience is synchronizing your brainwaves as we welcome my guest
- Xavier
mrs kelly howell to the program kelly it's an honor welcome to hxp uh it's an honor to be here
- Xavier / Kelly Howell
xavier thank you so much for inviting me kelly you're you're known as a brainwave whisperer
- Xavier
You're considered a pioneer in the field of brainwave technology.
- Xavier
Where did you start this journey?
- Xavier
Where did this journey begin for you?
- Xavier
Because you've been doing this for a while.
- Kelly Howell
Yeah, I started in the mid-80s, 1980s, the last century.
- Kelly Howell
And it began for me in meditation.
- Kelly Howell
I had a time in my life where things just, everything fell apart.
- Kelly Howell
and I started searching for alternative ways to get my head on straight.
- Kelly Howell
I had been in a car accident and had a lot of personal problems,
- Kelly Howell
death of my mother, grandmother, divorce, all of that stuff.
- Kelly Howell
It was a big pile up.
- Kelly Howell
And I sought out a meditation teacher because I had no idea what to do.
- Kelly Howell
I just said, I have to, you know, I need help.
- Kelly Howell
So meditation seemed like the right thing to do.
- Kelly Howell
There weren't a lot of options back then.
- Kelly Howell
It was kind of a bizarre choice.
- Xavier
Probably my friends thought I was really just crazy.
- Kelly Howell
But I did get a meditation teacher, and she had me sit and meditate every day for an hour, which was really, really hard.
- Kelly Howell
No help.
- Xavier
and I grew to love meditation.
- Kelly Howell
It just became, in the beginning, I hated it.
- Kelly Howell
I thought it was terrible.
- Kelly Howell
I used to call her and complain
- Kelly Howell
and within a few months, six months or so,
- Kelly Howell
if I missed my meditation practice,
- Xavier
I started feeling, I could feel it.
- Kelly Howell
I didn't feel right.
- Kelly Howell
My creativity was off.
- Kelly Howell
I just didn't feel right.
- Kelly Howell
I was sitting in meditation, praying,
- Kelly Howell
I did my hour-long meditation, and then I would end the meditation with my prayers.
- Kelly Howell
And I asked for about two weeks, every day in meditation, what is my path?
- Kelly Howell
What is my purpose?
- Xavier
Show me.
- Kelly Howell
I know I have a mission.
- Xavier
I know I have a purpose.
- Kelly Howell
And show me the way.
- Kelly Howell
Just show me.
- Kelly Howell
I don't care what it is.
- Xavier
Just show me what to do.
- Kelly Howell
Honestly, the last thing on my mind was that I would start making audio programs.
- Kelly Howell
to help people or teach people how to meditate.
- Kelly Howell
It was just, it was so, this was the 1980s.
- Kelly Howell
I was in the film production business.
- Kelly Howell
It was completely off the charts for me to even imagine something like that.
- Kelly Howell
And this ball of light appeared above my head, a golden ball of light.
- Kelly Howell
And it just, you know, like the Times Square, you know, ball on New Year's Eve, it just
- Kelly Howell
slowly descended and it came down into my head and it exploded into a million sparks and it just
- Kelly Howell
showered me with light and it just it practically knocked me off the sofa and I was just electrified
- Kelly Howell
and this energy came in and there was a voice and it said you're going to make tapes and I'm like
- Kelly Howell
tapes. And then suddenly, you know, it wasn't just words, it was imagery, it was a plan,
- Kelly Howell
it was a vision, it was a knowing, it was absolute knowing that this was my path and purpose in life.
- Kelly Howell
And so that was the inception point for, you know, the work that I've been doing for the last 30
- Kelly Howell
years and it's been unfolding for me ever since. I've had a lot of grace and ease and support,
- Kelly Howell
universal support. I immediately got a partner. I immediately was given a lot of money to start
- Kelly Howell
making audio programs, which I had never done professionally.
- Kelly Howell
and within a few months they had a giant contract with Bantam.
- Kelly Howell
They were starting their audio division
- Kelly Howell
and they started it with me and my partner at the time, Allison.
- Kelly Howell
And we did 20 some odd audio programs with them
- Kelly Howell
and the first one we ever did with them was their best-selling audio of all time.
- Kelly Howell
So, you know, it just, that's how it started.
- Xavier
a lot of success for you in the very early stages?
- Kelly Howell
From the very beginning. Because it came from my
- Kelly Howell
path and purpose, I guess. There aren't really
- Kelly Howell
words to describe what happened, but it did change me.
- Kelly Howell
And it's an amazing experience to suddenly
- Kelly Howell
feel like you have a new brain.
- Kelly Howell
That suddenly you know things you didn't know before.
- Xavier
Yeah. That's interesting. Interesting. So, okay. So let's, we can dig further into this a bit more
- Xavier
later, but so for, for anyone who doesn't know what is going on when you're synchronizing,
- Xavier
I mean, I've been listening to the tapes for, I don't know, at least a decade and I mean,
- Xavier
I love it. So, so what is happening when you're synchronizing the hemispheres in your brain and,
- Xavier
and doing the guided meditation? What's, what's happening there?
- Kelly Howell
Okay, that's a great question. So, you know, meditation, if you do it, I call going bareback, you know, with no help, is it takes time, you know, everyone's like, what am I thinking? I'm thinking, you know, your mind runs away with you, all of that.
- Kelly Howell
I got into working with binaural beat frequencies because I knew from that meditation experience that there was going to be an easier way to learn how to meditate and I was going to find it.
- Kelly Howell
And so that set me off on research on binaural beat frequencies.
- Kelly Howell
I didn't know what they were called then, but I kept researching, you know, everywhere I could, you know, how can we make meditation easy for people.
- Kelly Howell
So I came across this research on binaural beat frequencies by biophysicist Gerald Oster at Mount Sinai.
- Kelly Howell
And he was working with sound and studying brain waves.
- Kelly Howell
So what happens is the two different, you know about binaural beats.
- Kelly Howell
So it's two different signals.
- Kelly Howell
Two different tones.
- Xavier
One tone sent in one ear, another tone sent in the other ear,
- Xavier
and then your brain kind of interprets it as a single tone.
- Xavier
A beat.
- Xavier
It sounds like a beat.
- Kelly Howell
And what it is is the differential.
- Kelly Howell
And you can relate the beat to certain brainwave frequencies.
- Kelly Howell
So theta, which is the deepest state of meditation, which is around four hertz, four cycles per second.
- Kelly Howell
We couldn't just deliver that tone to your ear.
- Kelly Howell
You wouldn't hear it because we don't hear in that range.
- Kelly Howell
So but we do hear a beat.
- Kelly Howell
So you do 100 hertz in the left ear, 104 hertz in the right ear.
- Kelly Howell
In the middle of the brain, your brain ends up kind of making up the difference.
- Kelly Howell
You hear a beat.
- Xavier
Four cycles per second.
- Kelly Howell
And what happens is your brain cells begin to resonate with the beat and it creates a whole brain synchronization.
- Kelly Howell
So
- Kelly Howell
So the right and left hemispheres are operating in synchrony,
- Kelly Howell
you get coherent brainwave activity as opposed to incoherent, which would be more,
- Kelly Howell
you know, static, kind of, you know, out of sync, out of phase. So when you are in whole brain
- Kelly Howell
thinking or in deep meditation, your brainwaves are moving synchronously. So you have more access
- Kelly Howell
your brain power, you know, to other levels of thought and vision and creativity, intelligence.
- Kelly Howell
It just turns your brain on to a higher level.
- Xavier
But there were, you know, there were other people doing the brainwave thing, but you
- Xavier
had kind of a different style with it.
- Xavier
You were doing specifically guided meditations, right?
- Kelly Howell
Yeah, I started off with subliminal.
- Kelly Howell
The only other person at the time, there was Brother Charles.
- Kelly Howell
I don't know what happened to him.
- Kelly Howell
And there was Robert Monroe.
- Xavier
Robert Monroe, yeah.
- Xavier
And that was it pretty much that I knew of.
- Xavier
Dick Sutphin as well has been doing it for a while.
- HXP Announcer
He was doing more hypnosis.
- Xavier
Okay.
- Kelly Howell
I don't think he was doing binaural beats at the time.
- Kelly Howell
He might have been, but I'm not sure.
- Kelly Howell
Okay.
- Kelly Howell
But yeah, Robert Monroe was kind of the grandfather.
- Kelly Howell
But he was doing it more of a technical level in a way, I guess you could say.
- Kelly Howell
Whereas I approached it more combining guided meditation, affirmations, hypnotic induction.
- Kelly Howell
So kind of just putting other modalities together.
- Xavier
Yeah, I found myself switching between kind of listening to the Hemisync tapes, Robert Monroe, and then switching to yours. Like I would go back and forth. When I wanted to hear sort of the guided stuff, I would listen to your tapes. And when I didn't, I would listen to the Robert Monroe tapes.
- Xavier
So, I mean, what was a guided meditation that, I don't know, was the best selling for you or kind of reached the most people?
- Kelly Howell
I've had a number of bestsellers over the years.
- Kelly Howell
The very first binaural beat guided meditation program that was on the bestseller list was called Guided Meditation.
- Kelly Howell
Of course, this was in the 90s and there weren't a lot of guided meditation programs then.
- Kelly Howell
those silly, stupid titles, but it was, we sold many, many, many of those. And then
- Kelly Howell
in recent years, the secret universal mind meditation.
- Kelly Howell
That's a great meditation, yeah.
- Kelly Howell
Yeah, and that sold millions and millions. And it's just, and it's modeled after the very first
- Kelly Howell
audio program I made for myself that I listened to when I was going through the hardest time of
- Kelly Howell
my life when my mother died and I was in a car crash and all of that. So I contacted the publisher,
- Kelly Howell
the author of those meditations had passed, but I contacted the author and said, hey,
- Kelly Howell
could I buy the rights to record these meditations and update them a little? And
- Xavier
So what do you think is happening? Because I mean, like you, like you just said, in the in the 90s, no one was really talking about meditation. Now it seems almost trendy.
- Kelly Howell
Oh, it's totally trendy. It's really amazing. This summer I was teaching the Rob Report. You know, the Rob Report, they do the best of best of everything. Well, they're now doing these health and wellness summits and they asked me to come and teach meditation.
- Kelly Howell
and they had very high-heeled people there.
- Kelly Howell
It was a wonderful group of people,
- Kelly Howell
doctors, scientists, researchers,
- Kelly Howell
people that make wine and cars
- Kelly Howell
and just a wide range of people.
- Kelly Howell
And what struck me is that
- Kelly Howell
everyone is very confused about meditation
- Kelly Howell
because there are so many choices right now.
- Kelly Howell
It's like, oh, should I do mindfulness?
- HXP Announcer
Should I do this?
- Kelly Howell
Should I do that?
- Kelly Howell
So it is trendy and people have a lot of options and there's still a lot of confusion around, you know, what kind of path to take with meditation.
- Kelly Howell
When I began meditating, there weren't that many options.
- Kelly Howell
I just found a meditation teacher and I just did what she told me to do.
- Kelly Howell
It wasn't like I had like a whole Chinese menu of different types.
- Kelly Howell
I'm sure they were out there, but it was pre-internet.
- Kelly Howell
We didn't have a zillion teachers and we didn't have the widespread knowledge.
- Xavier
No, no one was talking about this.
- Xavier
And when I would tell them about it, they thought it was crazy.
- Xavier
And now they're all using it.
- Xavier
Oh, yeah.
- Kelly Howell
I mean, you could do mantra meditation, Zen meditation, mindfulness meditation.
- Kelly Howell
And now there are, I don't know how many companies are doing binaural beat frequency programs.
- Kelly Howell
you know, there is a lot to choose from. So I think it's actually harder to choose
- Kelly Howell
what kind of meditation you want to do. When you have so many choices, it's kind of like, boy,
- Kelly Howell
okay, well, try mantra meditation for months. And then maybe I'll try mindfulness. Maybe I'll try,
- Kelly Howell
you know what I mean? It's kind of like, wow. So what I tell people is to try different types of
- Kelly Howell
meditation and see what resonates for you. Right. This question kind of goes in line with
- Xavier
the question that I just asked. What were some of the core affirmations that you've found people
- Xavier
connecting with the most? What was something that you resonated with? What was something that you
- Kelly Howell
were saying that people were resonating with? Oh, gee, I don't know. I mean, I have 50 programs,
- Kelly Howell
So I'm not, I don't know.
- Kelly Howell
A lot of the programs that I've made are metaphorical.
- Kelly Howell
So I think people really resonate with that.
- Kelly Howell
Like retrieve your destiny takes you on a journey.
- Kelly Howell
I don't even know if the word destiny is used in the program, but it's a metaphor for finding your destiny.
- Kelly Howell
You know, I would say people that listen to my audio programs would be better to answer that. I do get little emails going, oh, I love that line. I love, you know, but I don't, I, you know, I kind of do what I do and then I move on to the next thing. So, um, I don't, you know what I mean?
- Xavier
so you said you said that you know this all came this all was birthed sort of through the
- Xavier
the problems that you were having and you know the death of your mother the passing of your mother and
- Kelly Howell
the things that you were going through right yeah grandmother dying a car accident I broke my neck
- Xavier / Kelly Howell
so you wanted you wanted to create something that uh would help people as much as it it helped you
- Kelly Howell
initial impetus or ambition I had was to help myself. Basically, I was a wreck. So I was not
- Kelly Howell
at the point of wanting to help anybody. I was very depressed and very, very, very deeply depressed
- Kelly Howell
and thinking about killing myself. And so I was not thinking about helping other people when I
- Kelly Howell
started on my spiritual path. I just really needed help myself. And, you know, it took maybe about a
- Kelly Howell
year of practice. And, you know, and then I started helping friends, actually, I was like, you know,
- Kelly Howell
let me I started making tapes for people, personalized audio programs to help them with
- Kelly Howell
whatever they wanted to achieve in their lives. And I was having great success that way. But again,
- Kelly Howell
it was not something I ever imagined would be a career. You know, it was more like a hobby.
- Kelly Howell
Like I'd say, hey, you know, why don't we make a tape for you?
- Xavier
Yeah. At what point did it, did you feel like, okay, this is, you know, this is something I'm
- Xavier
moving into a career with and I'm going to do this for the masses and people?
- Kelly Howell
Oh, after the meditation, immediately. In that moment, I knew it was going to be for the masses,
- Kelly Howell
for millions of people. And I had no doubt in my mind. And that experience of having absolutely
- Kelly Howell
no doubt is very unusual. I mean, it's, you know, we always have like another voice in our heads.
- Kelly Howell
I had no other voice.
- Kelly Howell
It was just, this is what I'm doing.
- Kelly Howell
I have no doubt.
- Kelly Howell
It was like, I know this is going to happen.
- Xavier
It was an absolute for me.
- Kelly Howell
So that was the point where it all began.
- Kelly Howell
And it was almost like the universe was conspiring with me from that point to make it all happen.
- Kelly Howell
I was in New York doing the subliminal programs and affirmations with Bantam.
- Kelly Howell
And then when I wanted to go into binaural beats, excuse me, they thought it was crazy.
- Kelly Howell
They thought I was out of my mind.
- Kelly Howell
They couldn't figure out how to sell it, market it, whatever.
- Kelly Howell
So I went out to California and that was like in the late 80s
- Kelly Howell
to San Francisco and started a nonprofit research foundation with Michael Hutchison, who was the author of Mega Brain, New Tools and Techniques for Brain Growth and Mind Expansion.
- Kelly Howell
And we had quite a nonprofit going there in San Francisco. We had all these scientists coming in with amazing technology and brain machines.
- Kelly Howell
I mean, this was like goggles and beds and float tanks and everything and biofeedback therapy.
- Kelly Howell
And so we got to start testing the effectiveness of different techniques.
- Kelly Howell
And one company called The Other 90% was really intrigued with what would get people into the theta state, which is pretty much the heart.
- Kelly Howell
It's a very hard, difficult state of consciousness to enter into without practice.
- Xavier
It takes discipline.
- Kelly Howell
It's tough because it borders right.
- Kelly Howell
It's right between waking and sleep, and people will either drift off to sleep or they can't even get to that state.
- Kelly Howell
So it's a very finely balanced brain state.
- Kelly Howell
And so their agenda was what can get people into the theta state the most quickly, effectively.
- Kelly Howell
And so we had a PhD biofeedback therapist.
- Kelly Howell
We had 24 electrode machine.
- Kelly Howell
We had people, subjects that signed up to be part of the study.
- Kelly Howell
I think we had like 100 people and tried everything.
- Kelly Howell
hypnosis, different audio programs, all the different, you know, Robert Monroe, blah,
- Kelly Howell
blah, everybody. And my first binaural beat program, which was then called High Coherence,
- Kelly Howell
was also thrown in the mix. And that one came out the best. And like 87% of people were able to get
- Kelly Howell
to the theta state who had never meditated before.
- Kelly Howell
So that's when, you know, at that point, I started making programs for doctors and researchers
- Kelly Howell
and biofeedback therapists.
- Kelly Howell
I made programs for Norman Shealy.
- Kelly Howell
I don't know if you know him.
- Xavier
He's a scientist.
- Kelly Howell
And, you know, so I was sort of working behind the scenes making programs.
- Kelly Howell
And then after that research study came out, I just thought, you know, I should just make this available to people, to everybody.
- Kelly Howell
So that was sort of the second generation of what I was doing.
- Kelly Howell
And I started BrainSync, my own publishing company at that point.
- Xavier
Well, you definitely have the voice for it.
- Kelly Howell
Oh, well, thank you.
- Kelly Howell
You have a good voice.
- Kelly Howell
You have a great voice.
- Kelly Howell
Thank you.
- Xavier
way too young to be listening to audio tape. I appreciate that. Okay. So Kelly, it's amazing
- Xavier
because you talk, you know, you talk in your, in the tapes, you talk about, um, you know,
- Xavier
consciousness and what was, what was the goal for you? Were you simply accelerating? Was it just to
- Xavier
get people into this sort of theta state or accelerate human performance? Or was it,
- Xavier
Oh, I love your question. A spiritual journey as well. I mean, cause it seems like it was a
- Kelly Howell
both of those things? I love your questions. They're just great. Thank you. You know, I think
- Kelly Howell
my inspiration and drive to do this work has changed as I've grown and evolved.
- Kelly Howell
In the very beginning, the very beginning, my main core of inspiration and need,
- Kelly Howell
actual need to do this work was to help other people and to help other people that were suffering.
- Kelly Howell
So my very first line of audio programs with Bantam was called Subliminal Self-Help.
- Kelly Howell
So I was very committed to helping people through their suffering.
- Kelly Howell
And, you know, you can't do that until you've had your own suffering.
- Kelly Howell
And I think that that crisis point that I went through, it was the first time in my life that I had experienced real suffering.
- HXP Announcer
And it's, you know, you're alone.
- Kelly Howell
Nobody was there with me.
- Kelly Howell
I was alone in it, and it was a dark, dark, dark place.
- Kelly Howell
And so for me, that is one level of it, you know, a real need to help people out of those dark places.
- Xavier
Very important, you know.
- Kelly Howell
So that's where it began.
- Kelly Howell
And then, of course, as I continue to grow and evolve and learn and study, you know, that stays there as a foundation.
- Kelly Howell
But it's also, oh, you know, how about we learn about prayer and the power of the mind?
- Kelly Howell
And, you know, what can you accomplish and create through using your mental powers and manifestation?
- Kelly Howell
manifestation and, you know, to me to be able to manifest and the way we are so capable of
- Kelly Howell
manifesting and we don't even know it, that became a big impetus for me. So it was like, okay,
- Xavier / Kelly Howell
we have to do that now. The really amazing thing is that it was clinically proven and the research
- Xavier
was backing up everything that you were doing. I mean, it was, you guys were doing the research
- Xavier
as well as putting out these tapes.
- Xavier
It wasn't just like, here's a tape with some audio in it, enjoy.
- Xavier
You know, you guys were bringing in scientists and researchers
- Xavier
to back up your claims and your statements.
- HXP Announcer
Yeah, well, nobody would believe me otherwise.
- Kelly Howell
You know, it was very important at the time.
- Kelly Howell
That's why, in a way, it was like being a trailblazer.
- Kelly Howell
Now there's a lot of research.
- Kelly Howell
Now people know what binaural beats are.
- Kelly Howell
Scientists accept it as, you know, a viable way.
- Kelly Howell
You know, biofeedback therapists accept it and know it works because they can see what happens to the brain.
- Kelly Howell
So, but, you know, 25 years ago, it was a new technology.
- Kelly Howell
People, we had to prove, we had to prove that it actually worked.
- Kelly Howell
Yeah.
- Xavier
So, yeah.
- Xavier
So how, so then what did you find out about the power of self-affirmation?
- Xavier
How, how powerful is it?
- Kelly Howell
I think, oh, that was another part back to your other question, which leads into this
- Kelly Howell
question, you know, like what drives me or what, you know, what, you know, what's the
- Kelly Howell
main purpose of doing what I do?
- Kelly Howell
I also, as I, the very first audio program I made was for me and it was this secret universal
- Kelly Howell
rough recording on a little Sony, you know, like tape recorder that I made that I listened to every
- Kelly Howell
night going to sleep. I never heard the end of it. So it was a tape that you made for yourself and
- Kelly Howell
yeah, and I listened to it. Yeah, I recorded it on a little tape recorder, listened to it at night
- Kelly Howell
before I went to sleep. Never heard the end of it because it would just knock me out. And within a
- Kelly Howell
couple of weeks, all the things that I needed in my life, this is like right after my mother died,
- Kelly Howell
my grandmother died, you know, trying to get better with the car accident, the whole bit,
- Kelly Howell
everything I needed came to me. And I thought, gee, I wonder if this is a tape. You know,
- Kelly Howell
this is really weird. You know, it's wonderful, but it's weird. Like, somebody called me and said,
- Kelly Howell
Hey, you know, I know you've gone through a lot.
- Kelly Howell
And I have a friend who has an apartment in Hollywood Hills.
- Kelly Howell
It's a really sweet place.
- Kelly Howell
And she wants somebody to house sit for her.
- Kelly Howell
I didn't have a job at the time because I couldn't work.
- Kelly Howell
And anyway, all the things that I needed came to me.
- Kelly Howell
And I kept thinking, gosh, could this be the tape?
- Kelly Howell
And I went back.
- Kelly Howell
Yeah, right?
- Kelly Howell
Could this be the tape?
- Kelly Howell
And so I went back.
- Kelly Howell
It was like I went back to the psychic clairvoyant meditation teacher who had told me I need to listen to a tape because my subconscious is a mess.
- Xavier
I went back to her.
- Kelly Howell
I was like, you got to teach me.
- Kelly Howell
How does this work?
- Kelly Howell
What do I?
- Kelly Howell
I don't I didn't know anything about it.
- Kelly Howell
And she started giving me books.
- Kelly Howell
She was the one who taught me to meditate.
- Kelly Howell
And I would go meet with her once a week and, you know, sit for an hour.
- Kelly Howell
holler during the week and complain, saying nothing's happening.
- Kelly Howell
This is boring.
- Kelly Howell
My mind won't stop thinking, you know.
- Kelly Howell
But she got me going.
- Kelly Howell
And it was, so the whole idea that you could like listen to things while you're sleeping
- Kelly Howell
and have your life change just opened up a whole new world of possibility for me.
- Xavier
Like what is really possible here?
- Kelly Howell
We can really create our own reality and we don't have to work hard at it.
- Xavier
It's absolutely fascinating.
- Xavier
I love the, I love the origin story.
- Xavier
I love how you, you kind of just, you know, things weren't working out for you or you
- Xavier
were.
- Xavier
So you're just like, I'm going to go to San Francisco and everything just kind of just
- Xavier
lined up for you.
- Xavier
And it was almost as if there was something kind of pulling you, pushing you into that
- Xavier
direction.
- Xavier
and I mean was there was there a point at which you were just kind of you stepped back and
- Xavier
you were like, you know, what the F is going on? Or were you just kind of accepting of it the whole time?
- Kelly Howell
I loved every moment of it. I just, you know.
- Kelly Howell
So you were in the moment.
- Kelly Howell
It's like an adventure. Yeah, it's an adventure. When you suddenly get to the point where you go, hey, I can create my own reality. And my thoughts create my reality. And meditation is powerful.
- Kelly Howell
and I can embody different states of being and change my life that way,
- Kelly Howell
your life becomes totally different.
- Kelly Howell
Your life becomes an adventure.
- Kelly Howell
It's like, wow, you don't know what's going to happen next.
- Kelly Howell
I mean, things come out of the blue, mostly good things.
- Kelly Howell
Of course, not everything is perfect.
- Kelly Howell
I mean, we all have our challenges.
- Kelly Howell
But, yeah, no, I was just enjoying the ride, you know?
- Xavier
So Kelly, you know, who were the people that influenced you, you know, with all this work?
- Xavier
I mean, you've been doing this for decades now.
- Xavier
I mean, you're considered a pioneer.
- Xavier
And was there a mentor in your life or someone that?
- HXP Announcer
Yeah, I had a few mentors.
- Kelly Howell
I had Marcy, who was my meditation teacher.
- Kelly Howell
She was my first kind of spiritual mentor.
- Kelly Howell
and then I connected up.
- Kelly Howell
Actually, Michael Hutchison was writing his book, Mega Brain.
- Kelly Howell
I don't know if you're familiar with it.
- Xavier
Are you familiar with that book?
- Xavier
Anyway, it was like the Bible.
- Kelly Howell
It's an old title and it was the Bible.
- Kelly Howell
I mean, back then in 1980-whatever, he was saying the brain is like a muscle
- Kelly Howell
and you can grow it and build it and make it stronger and better.
- Kelly Howell
And so he was the pioneer of brain machines.
- Kelly Howell
And so he interviewed me and Allison Daniels, who was my partner in audio activation, which was our first, you know, my first foray into audio.
- Kelly Howell
And and so we connected and it was with him that we went, you know, out to San Francisco and started the nonprofit.
- Kelly Howell
And he was quite the the leader in the field at the time.
- Kelly Howell
opened up the doors for a lot of research and experimentation. And he was way ahead of his time
- Kelly Howell
in terms of neuroplasticity. That was not a word back then. And that's all the book was about.
- Kelly Howell
And so that was my excitement and inspiration. And, you know, we had a lot of really amazing
- Kelly Howell
scientists involved. And it was fun. It was really fun. And then, you know, I've had different
- Kelly Howell
Oh, I had a spiritual teacher for a while here in Santa Fe, New Mexico that I studied with.
- Kelly Howell
And, you know, energy work and chakras and consciousness on higher levels.
- Kelly Howell
It was very esoteric and far out, but I liked it because it was just, you know, it's kind of changed, kind of grounded everything for me in a spiritual sense.
- Kelly Howell
and yeah just different I love doing my podcast theater of the mind because I get to talk to
- Kelly Howell
people I read their books I love their books and then I get to call them and have a conversation
- Xavier
with them like you do yeah you can definitely plug that where was there any sort of shamanic
- Xavier
experience that happened for you at all I mean or was it just strictly the tapes
- Xavier
What do you mean shamanic?
- Xavier
Shamanic, I mean drugs, psychedelics.
- Kelly Howell
Oh, have I done psychedelics?
- Kelly Howell
I used to, yeah, like I experimented a little bit with ecstasy when it was medicinal.
- Kelly Howell
and we did it, this was after, you know, a couple of years after I had, you know, began making audio and meditating and everything.
- Kelly Howell
So I experimented with ecstasy as a means of transformation.
- Kelly Howell
So we would do it, you know, with one person not doing the ecstasy and the other person on it.
- Kelly Howell
and ask inquisitive leading questions
- Kelly Howell
to work through emotional issues.
- Kelly Howell
So that was the way I approached doing ecstasy,
- Xavier
did that a little bit.
- Kelly Howell
But actually, one of the biggest things
- Kelly Howell
I think that changed my life besides meditation
- Xavier
is breath work.
- Kelly Howell
I did a lot of breath work
- Kelly Howell
and I moved through because I believe that,
- Kelly Howell
experience that we hold trauma in our cells. So the breathing, holotropic breathing,
- Kelly Howell
rebirthing, there are many names for the kind of breath work that I did. You move through the
- Kelly Howell
trauma that's trapped in your body, in your cells. So I had a lot of trauma to move through. I had
- Kelly Howell
no idea how much was there. And I think that has been a godsend. Yeah. Doing that kind of work.
- Xavier / Kelly Howell
Have you ever done that? Breathwork, Polytrophic, Breeding? Yeah. That was Stan Groff, right? Yeah.
- Xavier
And yeah, I've definitely tried that. Very interesting. We just had Wim Hof. And when we
- Xavier
released this episode, Wim Hof will be before this one. So we just had Wim Hof on, he has a
- Xavier
really interesting breathing mechanism, methodology. So yeah, I agree. Breathing is
- Xavier
definitely in line with hearing sound. Yeah, but that was like, I would say some
- Kelly Howell
major shamanic experiences, really big from breathing, breath work. Just amazing. You know,
- Kelly Howell
insights, revelations, releases, forgiveness, blessings, all those kind of like, wow,
- Kelly Howell
kind of experiences I've had through breathwork.
- Xavier
If you don't mind, I'd like to talk about consciousness and where sort of the planetary
- Xavier
consciousness is and where humanity is.
- Xavier
I mean, where do you see it being?
- Xavier
I mean, there seems to be this sort of, you know, quote, awakening and people have started, they're more in tune with meditation, yoga, stuff like your work.
- Xavier
Where do you see the global consciousness headed today?
- Xavier
I mean, where do you see it now?
- Kelly Howell
That is a good question.
- Kelly Howell
I would just say there's so much of everything.
- Kelly Howell
It's kind of hard for me to get a grip on.
- Kelly Howell
In many ways, I feel like I can connect, like plug into the consciousness of humanity.
- Kelly Howell
I've had that experience a lot in meditation where I can kind of tap into it.
- Kelly Howell
Like if you took all of humanity and you could just tap into it as one being.
- Kelly Howell
And I would say it just feels very chaotic right now in many ways.
- Kelly Howell
Like there's so much good and then there's so much chaos.
- Kelly Howell
And I feel like you're in a tipping point.
- Kelly Howell
And I don't know what way it's going to go.
- Kelly Howell
I'm not a doom and gloom person.
- Kelly Howell
I'm more accepting of the way things are going.
- Kelly Howell
There's the renaissance that I always hoped for back in the 80s.
- Kelly Howell
I mean, I see the true renaissance in consciousness happening and that people are opening up and expanding and it's accepted now.
- Kelly Howell
And I mean, everybody has a meditation practice or some kind of spiritual practice, yoga, something.
- Kelly Howell
I mean, everybody I know.
- Kelly Howell
That was not the case a long time ago.
- Kelly Howell
So this is wonderful.
- Kelly Howell
Consciousness is raising on so many levels.
- Xavier
But like you said, yeah, there's a very strange, I mean, even the political climate is so bizarre and just looking at this sort of circus and doing your best not to kind of.
- Kelly Howell
I find that we have to go to a deeper level of spiritual practice now just because of that, because we don't have any control.
- Kelly Howell
I mean, if you wanted to use a political situation as an example, the only control you have is your vote, and that may not even count.
- Kelly Howell
I don't know.
- Kelly Howell
but that you know so it gets back to
- Kelly Howell
like basics like the serenity prayer
- Kelly Howell
where you know you just have to accept things you know the way they are
- Kelly Howell
I don't know what to do to change
- Kelly Howell
you know how you can change the way the world is right now I think social media
- Kelly Howell
is contributing a lot to the craziness
- Xavier
people are just so connected
- Kelly Howell
and there's also a lot of anger
- Kelly Howell
and a lot of negativity being thrown around
- Kelly Howell
not just politically but on the internet.
- Xavier
I'm so glad that you said what you said
- Xavier
and not just some pat,
- Xavier
oh, everything's great,
- Xavier
the consciousness of the planet is increasing
- Xavier
and we're all going to ascend or something like that.
- Kelly Howell
We could have a war.
- Kelly Howell
I don't know what's going to happen.
- Kelly Howell
You would think with the amount of people that are meditating
- Kelly Howell
and the amount of people that have raised their consciousness
- Xavier
to a
- Kelly Howell
much higher level than 20 years ago that we would have a planet that looks better.
- Xavier
Yeah.
- Kelly Howell
I don't like the way it looks now.
- Kelly Howell
I mean, I love my life.
- Kelly Howell
I love where I live.
- Kelly Howell
I love my friends.
- Kelly Howell
I love my home, my family.
- Kelly Howell
Everything is great in my life, but when I look at the world, I don't know if it's because we're looking through it, you know, through the media or if we really are in a matrix.
- Kelly Howell
I want to watch the matrix again because I'm beginning to think we might be in a matrix big time.
- Kelly Howell
And, you know, very much controlled and manipulated, especially with the Internet.
- Kelly Howell
Right.
- Kelly Howell
And I do think it's important to unplug and, you know, just connect with nature.
- Kelly Howell
And I just I wonder how how much people are being controlled.
- Xavier
Okay, so that leads me into, you know, kind of my next question. We're, we're starting to wrap up here. But, you know, what are what are some tips that you could give people who are, you know, either not familiar with your tapes, or just getting into meditation, or, you know, some, something that you give to someone listening that, you know, isn't aware of your work?
- Kelly Howell
I would say I just came out with an app and it's called Meditate Me with Kelly Howell.
- Kelly Howell
And it has a couple of very short micro classes about meditation, how to get started.
- Kelly Howell
It has nine meditation tracks, 10, 20 and 30 minutes.
- Kelly Howell
So you can get guided or non-guided and it comes loaded with that.
- Kelly Howell
You can go on the iTunes store, Google Play from the app or the in-app shop and go deeper into the material.
- Kelly Howell
But I think it's a really good way to start because it's simple, quick, easy.
- Kelly Howell
If you're just starting meditation, there are 10-minute meditations in there.
- Kelly Howell
Another place is on my website, brainsync, B-R-A-I-N-S-Y-N-C dot com.
- Kelly Howell
You can sign up for free guided meditations.
- Kelly Howell
kind of explain the way the technology works, you know, how to start your practice, you know,
- Kelly Howell
what's the difference between the alpha state, what are the benefits of the alpha state compared
- Kelly Howell
to the theta state or beta. So, on my website, there's a ton of information. If you go to the
- Kelly Howell
brain lab, you can get educated on all the different brain states, what they're good for,
- Kelly Howell
what kind of programs would be good for you.
- Xavier
But is there an actual, I mean, like outside of downloading your app
- Xavier
and going to your website, which I recommend people do,
- Xavier
but is there anything that you can give to someone who's listening right now
- Xavier
and, you know, just an affirmation to be more mindful, to breathe more?
- HXP Announcer
Well, I would just say, I mean, yeah, I mean, I would just say
- Kelly Howell
if you have that inclination and you feel like you need something,
- Kelly Howell
in your life. There's so much there. I mean, there's just so much you can just, you know,
- Kelly Howell
practice different relaxation techniques, breathing techniques. You know, I just tell people to,
- Kelly Howell
to, if you look, if you say, hey, I want to learn to meditate, or I want to learn how to reduce
- Kelly Howell
stress, very quickly, whatever, you'll have a lot of choices in front of you. It's just the way the
- Kelly Howell
mind works. It's kind of like a homing pigeon. It'll find you. So begin asking for what you need,
- Kelly Howell
you know, articulate to yourself what you want, how you want to feel. Do you want to feel,
- Kelly Howell
you know, and then the answer will begin to come because it all starts with the right questions.
- Xavier
So you have to start asking the right questions. But you said it, I mean, you said you need to
- Kelly Howell
Right. So that's I mean, that's the first goal, because sometimes, you know, like, you don't need to know the solution necessarily can just say, I need to feel more relaxed. What can I do? I need to feel more grounded. What can I do? You know, those kind of questions. Like when I didn't know what to do with my life, everything was in a shambles.
- Kelly Howell
I just ask
- Kelly Howell
show me what to do with my life
- Kelly Howell
what's my path
- Kelly Howell
I know I have a purpose
- Kelly Howell
I know I have a path
- Kelly Howell
show me
- Kelly Howell
and I do really believe
- Kelly Howell
in the higher power of our brains
- Kelly Howell
to give us those downloads
- Kelly Howell
but we just have to ask
- Kelly Howell
the right questions
- Kelly Howell
you don't need to know the answer
- Kelly Howell
you just have to know
- Kelly Howell
what you want
- Xavier
you know like
- Kelly Howell
and usually the want
- Kelly Howell
comes from a need
- Kelly Howell
like you know
- Kelly Howell
I'm needing more money
- Kelly Howell
or whatever it is, you know, a relationship.
- Kelly Howell
Whatever it is that you need or want, you have to start asking for it.
- Kelly Howell
You know, I need a relationship.
- Kelly Howell
What do I do to get into a relationship?
- Kelly Howell
You know, what would help me?
- Kelly Howell
So, you know, I really think that's where it all begins, is asking.
- Xavier
I'm a big believer in prayer.
- Kelly Howell
Doesn't matter who you're praying to.
- Kelly Howell
You know, you can pray to goddesses and gods.
- Kelly Howell
You can pray to higher power.
- Kelly Howell
You can pray to your higher self.
- Kelly Howell
But I do believe in building a very strong connection with that,
- Kelly Howell
an inner dialogue with the higher aspects of consciousness within our own being.
- Xavier
Yeah, I love that.
- Xavier
So, Kelly, where can people find your work?
- Xavier
Is it just brainsync.com?
- Kelly Howell
Brainsync.com and the app, you know, and the website, of course,
- Kelly Howell
You can go on there and there's tons of stuff and meditate me with Kelly Howell as the app.
- Kelly Howell
So you can get like a nice sampling of material and not have to spend a lot of money.
- Kelly Howell
And actually, my audio programs are way less than a lot of people.
- Kelly Howell
You know, they're $9.95 instead of $49 or $400 or whatever.
- Kelly Howell
I just don't think it's fair to charge that much money to help people.
- Kelly Howell
Yeah.
- Xavier
yeah well kelly i really appreciate your presence on hxp thank you so much for being here i'd
- Xavier
listened to your tapes for so long and oh yeah which ones did you which ones have you listened
- Xavier
to the the secret guide something to the secret universal yeah the secret universal mind meditation
- Xavier
that was my favorite that was my go-to for a long time and um i just i just listened to that
- Xavier
meditation for a really long time. And so it's kind of cool to kind of go full circle and have
- Kelly Howell
you on the show. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me here. Guys, this is
- Xavier
the human experience. We will see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening.
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