Leslie Kenton

Leslie Kenton…
is one expert who can genuinely be described as pioneering and visionary

[TIME OUT, LONDON]

Leslie has always insisted that real health comes from within and that the only true ‘guru’ is the individual human soul.

Award winning writer, novelist, broadcaster, lecturer, social activist and shamanic practitioner, Leslie, daughter of jazz musician Stan Kenton, is well known for her work in journalism and television world-wide. A living example of health and vitality, Leslie has been described as ‘the most original voice in health and beauty’ and ‘the guru of health and fitness’.

Two things fired Leslie’s interest in health. Firstly she was constantly ill as a child and no-one seemed able to help her – Leslie now suspects food allergies. Secondly, when her long-awaited sister was born with her intestines in a sac outside her body, requiring major surgery at 5 hours old, Leslie was determined that she was not going to die. By the time the baby was ready to leave hospital Leslie had read up on nutrition and had changed the entire family’s diet. This is pretty much the way Leslie works in all areas of her life – see a problem, change it.

Leslie has been a consultant to the European Parliament and a course developer for Britain’s Open University. Her work was honoured by her being asked to deliver the McCarrison Lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine. She received the PPA’s Technical Writer of the Year award as well as the Gordon Whitehead Award for her work. Recently her work has been increasingly concerned not only with the process of expanding individual health but of helping herself and others to re-establish deep bonds of connectedness with the earth as a part of healing the planet. Her high public profile and her consistent ability to practise what she preaches have brought her much admiration, as have her vibrant personality and passion for life.

At 18 Leslie had her first child and through the bond that developed between her and her son decided that her life should be about creating a physical and psychological place where people could grow and become what they truly are. This instinctual philosophy underscores all of her work – her twenty-odd best-selling books, her first novel Ludwig, her journalism, television series’, videos and audio tapes, lectures and workshops – not to mention the four children she has brought up by herself. Leslie travels throughout the world continually striving to bring to light natural methods of enhancing health – from detox to meditation, through child care to menopause, to finding good health products – that enable people to gain more control over their own lives, to achieve a high degree of autonomy, and to make better use of their own personal creativity and charisma.

Leslie conceived and created the worldwide ORIGINS product range for the cosmetic giant Estee Lauder as well as developing health-care and beauty products for Sunstar in Japan. In the UK she formed her own company then imported and promoted the world’s first internal regenerative skin care product into Britain, taking sales from zero to £2.3 million in less than two years. She has done consultancy work and development for many other corporations including Guinness and Boots in the UK, L’Oreal in France and Unilever in the USA.

“helping us realise our own potential for energy, health and personal freedom improving our lives so we can give more to our families, our communities and the planet itself”

Leslie insists that we are multi-sensorial human beings still trying to fit into a 5 senses world too small to contain us. She spent much of her childhood immersed in Japanese Buddhism then later went on to study all of the world’s great religions. Her background in health, psychology and philosophy, and a sense that we need to heal the planet eventually led her to explore the shamanic traditions and techniques for herself. After in-depth training with the world authority on Shamanism, Dr Michael Harner and other experts in the field she was appointed UK Guest Faculty Member for the world-wide charity Foundation For Shamanic Studies. Out of this work gradually Leslie developed her own Journey to Freedom workshops which uses ancient shamanic traditions to help people enhance health, creativity and personal power as well as to live more fully their individual truth.

Leslie’s network television series include Raw Energy, a cookery series for Thames and Ageless Ageing for HTV, which she conceived, wrote and presented herself. She has also written, made and presented a series of short films on health for the BBC and was health correspondent for BBC’s Pebble Mill.