Susannah Kenton

Susannah Kenton is a New Zealand-based breakthrough coach, breathwork facilitator, and meditation teacher who helps people reconnect with their dreams and live with more freedom, fulfillment, and joy. She's a bestselling co-author who made her name early on with Raw Energy, co-written with her mother when they were teenagers, a book about raw food living that became an international bestseller and launched multiple book collaborations. Beyond writing, Kenton has worked as an actress, voice artist, and entrepreneur—her career has included singing on riverboats in Paris, touring the United States as Anna in "The King and I," and even lighting up 22 billboards with "LOVE" across New Zealand. People care about her work because she brings a rare combination of embodied practical experience across performing arts, nutrition, and somatic healing into her coaching and teaching. Her integrative approach—weaving together breathwork, EFT tapping, meditation, and creative expression—appeals to seekers who want transformation rooted in concrete tools rather than abstract spirituality. She draws legitimacy from training with influential teachers including Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, Denise Linn, and Reverend Michael Beckwith, and she's worked directly with shamans in the Amazon jungle to deepen her practice.

Susannah Kenton's lineage is deliberately eclectic, drawing from multiple contemporary wisdom traditions rather than a single unbroken lineage. Her teachers—Byron Katie (The Work), Eckhart Tolle (non-dual presence), Denise Linn (space clearing, shamanism), and Reverend Michael Beckwith (conscious evolution)—represent a contemporary lineage rooted in the late 20th-century intersection of Western psychology, non-dual spirituality, and indigenous healing practices. She has formal training in tantra, mindfulness meditation, shamanic healing, and space clearing, and she's been a serious student of sacred ceremony and breathwork—all of which point toward an integrative, embodied approach rather than a single temple or teacher lineage. Her certification as an Advanced Practitioner of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) grounds her work in the somatic-psychological tradition, bridging ancient wisdom about the body's energy systems with contemporary applied techniques. She has also trained as a certified nutritional consultant and hypnotherapist, reflecting an interest in the whole human system—nervous, digestive, psychological, energetic. In short, her tradition is the tradition of the conscious contemporary practitioner who integrates multiple modalities to serve clients in a globalized world.

A newcomer can access Susannah Kenton's work most directly through her YouTube channel, where she has published guided meditations and consciousness-awakening courses that require zero prior experience to engage with. Her website, susannahkenton.com, serves as the central hub for her teaching and coaching offerings and will direct you to her current work, retreat schedules, and available resources. Since she has recorded dozens of guided meditations over her career and has worked as a mentor for online mindfulness programs, these pre-recorded resources offer an excellent low-barrier entry point—you can listen at your own pace and develop a sense of her voice, presence, and teaching style before committing to a paid retreat or one-on-one session. Many newcomers benefit from starting with breathwork, which is an accessible entry into her somatic teaching without requiring sitting meditation experience; she herself describes not being a "natural meditator" and had to actively build her practice. Her teaching on mindful eating or joyful movement is also approachable for people who want to begin with daily-life practices rather than formal meditation. What surprises newcomers is that her approach—which she calls "Lit from Within"—is not about adopting a new identity or buying into a guru's vision; it's about reconnecting with your own aliveness and agency.

Susannah Kenton's signature approach—"Lit from Within"—differs from much contemporary breakthrough coaching in its emphasis on embodied, pleasure-inclusive transformation rather than pure willpower or cognitive reframing. While many breakthrough coaches focus narrowly on mindset or goal-setting, Kenton integrates breathwork, EFT tapping, meditation, mindful eating, joyful movement, and even pleasure and sensuality as legitimate dimensions of personal empowerment—an unusual stance in coaching circles that often remain risk-averse about embodied joy. Her credentials are notably diverse: she's a certified nutritional consultant, a qualified hypnotherapist, an advanced EFT practitioner, and a trained shamanic healer who has worked directly with indigenous practitioners in the Amazon jungle—not the typical profile of a breakthrough coach trained primarily in psychology or business methodology. She has also maintained a serious artist's practice throughout her life (actress, voice artist, entrepreneur), which means her retreats and workshops carry a performance artist's understanding of presence, storytelling, and holding group attention—something many therapeutically-trained coaches lack. She has taught for established organizations including The Institute of Noetic Sciences, The Maine Media Workshops, and The Foundation for Living Beauty, lending her credibility within the consciousness and embodiment communities rather than purely commercial coaching spaces. What distinguishes her further is her honest acknowledgment that meditation and spiritual practice aren't natural or easy for her—she "alligator-wrestled" herself into discipline—which makes her relatable to students who struggle with the mythology of spiritual effortlessness.

Susannah Kenton's work is not suited for seekers looking for quick-fix solutions or passive mystical downloads—her approach requires active engagement, discipline, and a willingness to sit with discomfort while building new practices. People who are skeptical of alternative modalities like EFT, shamanic healing, or ceremony should probably explore other coaches first, because these tools are woven into her entire framework; if you're not open to tapping on acupressure points or participating in sacred ritual, you'll feel misaligned with her methodology. Those seeking purely intellectual or philosophical spirituality—people who want to study Advaita Vedanta texts or debate non-duality in the abstract—will find her work grounded in somatic practice and real-life application rather than philosophical abstraction; she is unabashedly practical and body-centered. Kenton is not for people who prefer a single, specialized modality (say, a pure meditation teacher or a pure nutritionist); her integrative, multi-tool approach can feel scattered to someone seeking deep specialization. Her emphasis on pleasure, sensuality, joy, and creative expression may also not resonate with practitioners rooted in renunciate or austere spiritual traditions—her vision is about lighting up in life, not transcending it. Finally, her work requires a level of self-awareness and honesty that may be challenging for people in early stages of healing from trauma or in active denial about their patterns—she works best with students already engaged in their own self-examination.

The primary source for Susannah Kenton's schedule and offerings is her website, susannahkenton.com, where she maintains current information about her retreats, workshops, and coaching availability. She is based in Christchurch, New Zealand, and leads breath retreats from there as well as in other locations—she has notably facilitated retreats in Costa Rica, and her website will reflect the geographic scope of her current offerings as they shift seasonally. Her YouTube channel (youtube.com/channel/UClNWh2MwOIIG9cPuZSHUHFQ) is a secondary source for accessing her published meditations and courses, though it may not always reflect newly announced events. Since there are no currently published upcoming events in the available data, your best approach is to visit her website directly and consider signing up for any mailing list she offers there, which will notify you of new retreat dates, online programs, and workshop announcements. She has previously taught through established organizations like The Maine Media Workshops and The Institute of Noetic Sciences, so monitoring those institutions' schedules can also surface her offerings. Given the intimate scale of her breathwork retreats and one-on-one coaching practice, booking often happens directly through her website rather than through third-party platforms.

"Lit from Within" is Susannah Kenton's umbrella term for her coaching and facilitation philosophy, which centers on helping people reconnect with their own inherent aliveness, dreams, and joy rather than imposing external solutions or adopted identities. The approach signals a fundamental belief that transformation comes from illuminating what's already inside you—your own agency, creativity, embodied wisdom, and capacity for pleasure and fulfillment—rather than acquiring something from outside. It's grounded in practical, somatic methods (breathwork, meditation, EFT tapping, mindful movement) that help dissolve the blocks between your conscious mind and your deeper knowing, and it explicitly includes dimensions—like pleasure, sensuality, creative expression, and joyful embodiment—that many traditional spiritual paths have historically neglected or pathologized. The approach reflects Susannah's own journey: from her teen exploration of raw food vitality with her mother, through her work as a performing artist where she learned to embody different characters and hold presence, to her training in multiple healing modalities (EFT, shamanic practice, meditation, hypnotherapy) that taught her the body's intelligence. What makes it distinctive is its refusal to pit spirituality against joy or transcendence against pleasure—Lit from Within is about becoming more alive, not less; more present to your senses and desires, not dissociated from them. It's an approach particularly relevant to people tired of spiritual frameworks that treat the body as an obstacle to enlightenment.

Susannah Kenton holds formal certifications as a Certified Nutritional Consultant and a qualified hypnotherapist, credentials that reflect her early partnership with her mother on Raw Energy and her ongoing interest in the whole person—mind, body, digestion, and energetic system. She is an Advanced Practitioner of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), a somatic-psychological modality that combines acupressure and cognitive reframing to shift deeply held patterns and trapped emotional energy. Beyond these clinical certifications, she has trained extensively in what might be called the wisdom traditions: she has studied tantra, mindfulness meditation, sacred ceremony, and breathwork with various teachers, and she has trained directly in shamanic healing and space clearing (the latter being particularly relevant to her work holding sacred ceremony at weddings, funerals, and conferences). Her training with teachers including Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, Denise Linn, and Reverend Michael Beckwith means she has worked with some of the most influential contemporary teachers in the consciousness and personal development space. Most significantly, she has done direct apprenticeship work with shamans in the Amazon jungle, a commitment to learning outside the Western professional credentialing system that signals her seriousness about indigenous wisdom traditions. She has also worked as a mentor for online mindfulness programs, bringing her teaching into a structured institutional context. Her background is deliberately pluralistic—combining clinical training, artistic development, and wisdom tradition apprenticeship—rather than deep specialization in a single modality.

A breathwork retreat or coaching engagement with Susannah Kenton integrates multiple dimensions of healing and embodiment simultaneously, rather than isolating breathwork as a standalone technique. Sessions typically weave together conscious breathing practices, EFT tapping to release trapped emotional patterns, meditation and mindfulness training, and guided exploration of mindful eating, joyful movement, pleasure, sensuality, and creative expression. Her background as a performer and voice artist means she brings a particular quality of presence and spaciousness to group work—she knows how to hold a room's attention and create conditions for vulnerability and transformation that feel safe rather than performative. Depending on the retreat, you might also be offered sacred ceremony, which could include prayer, blessing, or ritual practices drawn from multiple traditions, reflecting her training in shamanic healing and consciousness work. One distinguishing feature is her direct, practical approach: she doesn't traffic in vague spiritual concepts but rather teaches concrete tools you can use immediately in your life—specific breathing patterns, EFT tapping sequences, ways of bringing mindfulness into eating or movement. Her retreats have taken place in locations like Costa Rica, and they typically operate on the assumption that people come alive through beauty, nature, and purposeful gathering—not austere conditions. It's important to note that she works with students who are willing to show up honestly, examine their own patterns, and engage in the sometimes uncomfortable work of shifting long-held beliefs and behaviors.

Susannah Kenton explicitly states that she is not a natural meditator, and that she had to "alligator-wrestle" herself into a consistent daily stillness practice that eventually took root—this is a deliberate stance that distinguishes her from teachers who present meditation as an effortless spiritual attainment or natural capacity. Her honesty signals to students who struggle with sitting practice (which is the majority of people, despite the mythology of meditation) that discipline and commitment matter more than natural ability, and that sustained practice rewires the nervous system even when it feels difficult at first. This stance also explains why her teaching includes so many alternative entry points—breathwork, EFT, mindful movement, joyful activity—rather than positioning sitting meditation as the non-negotiable foundation of transformation. For students, it means she won't gaslight you into thinking meditation should be blissful and easy; she understands the real obstacles (a busy mind, a restless body, competing priorities) from lived experience rather than ideology. Her own journey of wrestling herself into stillness also informs her emphasis on pleasure, joy, and embodied aliveness—she knows that spirituality grounded only in discipline and transcendence can feel joyless, and her work is dedicated to integrating transcendence with immanent joy. In practical terms, her "not a natural meditator" stance gives permission to students to follow whatever modality and pace gets them to their own inner light, rather than forcing them into a meditation-or-nothing framework.