School of Shamanism

S2 EP6: How your ancestors shape your life

• Season 2 • Episode 6

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Can the lives of your ancestors still influence your relationships, health, finances, and sense of purpose today?

In this episode of Many Paths, One Mountain, Giada is joined by Liane Maitland, psychotherapist, Family Constellations practitioner, and Ancestral Lineage Healing facilitator, to explore how patterns are passed through generations and how healing can transform not only our lives, but those who came before us and those yet to come. 

Whether you're curious about ancestral work or already walking a spiritual path, this conversation offers a thoughtful bridge between psychology, shamanism and ancient wisdom.

Connect with Liane:

Connect with Giada Gaslini:

About the Host

Originally hailing from the vibrant city of Milan, I’ve spent the past two decades traversing the globe in a quest for spiritual and personal growth and combined with 25 years of international corporate work experience. From navigating the vast landscapes of Australia in a campervan to finding tranquility living in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, my journey is nothing short of extraordinary. Along the way, I’ve delved deep into Buddhist teachings, yoga, and shamanism, becoming Shamanic Teacher,  Forest Therapy Guide, Esoteric Numerologist, Shamanic and Integral Yoga Teacher and Ikigai Coach. In 2013 I settled in Edinburgh, where  I founded the Art and Spirituality Centre, a social enterprise and the School of Shamanism, where I passionately help others on their own transformative journeys.

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CHAPTERS

It didn't start with you

Can you inherit trauma? 

Family constellations explained 

The hidden patterns passed through generations 

Why ancestor work is misunderstood 

 Ancestors vs spirits: what's the difference? 

Working with your ancestors 

Healing yourself heals your family

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It Didn't Start With You

SPEAKER_01

It can be incredibly empowering realizing that it didn't start with you. Of course. No, incredibly empowering and such a relief to your system to realize that you know often we're the ones, particularly people who go into healing professions, um who carry it, welcome to School of Shamanism, and I'm Giada, and this is my podcast in YouTube uh season two uh Many Pass One Mountain.

Giada

And today I've got the pleasure uh um to be here with Leanne Maitland from Inner Wilderness. Thanks so much, uh Lian. It's been really a pleasure to work with you in the past and to have you as a guest uh today. So, would you like to let us know what you do among the many things?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, thank you very much for for having me and such a warm welcome. It's brilliant to be here and to see you again. It's been a it's been a minute, it's been a couple of years, I think. Um so yeah, um where to begin. So it's probably worth beginning with saying that I have been a counselor psychotherapist for about 15 years, uh, or just just over 15 years, uh, specializing in working with trauma. I trained in something called sensory motor psychotherapy, which is a somatic neurobiological way of working with trauma and stress. And my continued professional development, but also quest for learning about being human and what influences us and what we struggle with, led me to train in a couple of other things, which is mainly what I do now. So um, I am a family constellations, or it's also known as a systemic constellations practitioner. And I also do something called ancestral lineage healing. So they're kind of different offerings, but they have a similar premise, which is that our ancestors are not only part of our past, they're also part of our present, and they influence us more every day than most of us would necessarily realize. And also that goes for the future as well. So essentially, their stories, their patterns influence our well-being. Uh, the well, you know, influences the well-being of the living, our beliefs, our behavioral patterns on a personal, but also on a family and a cultural level as

Can You Inherit Trauma?

SPEAKER_01

well.

Giada

Yeah, perfect. Uh, and uh exactly that makes sense uh in the title, also many paths and one mountain. It can be applied to the fact that there are different ways to reach healing, uh, which is the one mountain, but also all the paths of our ancestors are actually going towards us, um coming back to us. Is there, of course, uh a way in which uh we can avoid that? And being in the influence, being in the middle way of so many pasts that have come from the past and then are with us today. Is it inevitable to be in the center?

SPEAKER_01

So, gosh, I'm gonna sound like a politician now, but I think the answer to that is yes and no. Uh, let me explain why why I'm saying that. Um so I think it's inevitable in terms of what it means to be human is to be influenced by the stories of those who came before us, for sure. And therefore, our fate is our fate in a way. But what I suppose the work I do does is it brings us into conscious relationship with that, whereas most people aren't necessarily in conscious relationship with the stories of the past and how they influence the living and them themselves personally. And so by coming into conscious relationship with it, either through something like systemic constellations or ancestral lineage healing, and I'm sure there are many other modalities which do the same thing. So that kind of goes to the um, you know, the the topic of your podcast as well. We can start to work more consciously with healing essentially, uh, in a way which can then change the direction moving forwards and bring healing not only to the past. And although you can't change what happened in the past, um, and also I should say, maybe we'll get into this a bit more, you don't necessarily need to know your ancestral stories uh in order to do this kind of work. Um, but we can certainly come into different relationships with some of the patterns that have been passed down. So it's not a done deal, I suppose, is the reason I'm saying no. Like there's the yes and the no.

Giada

Yeah, good, interesting. And if you say, of course, uh, let's say what are the most common patterns that you find uh if there are uh, and I'm sure there are uh lots nowadays for which people ask for your support and help, uh, things that you find that almost all the time are there.

SPEAKER_01

Gosh, um you know it's as diverse as humans are diverse, if I'm honest. Um so it might just be worth me touching on how family constellations and ancestral lineage healing operate, because although they have a similar premise, they work quite differently. And so I think that has an influence on the question that you're asking about what I typically see in the work.

Giada

So would that be useful if I Yes, 100%, also because there is so much confusion nowadays in general for from what we see online, what we see from movies, what other people think, and actually it's not. So we hear we need to hear that uh clearly from uh from a person that has a lot of experience in this in these fields.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, okay. So I trained in family constellations first, um, and it's probably better known uh than ancestral lineage healing, certainly here kind of in in the West,

Family Constellations Explained

SPEAKER_01

I suppose. And it was based on on the work, it was developed from the work of a um German philosopher and psychotherapist, Bert Hellinger, who spent many years working as a as a missionary in South Africa. And so his work was informed by Zuli culture essentially. And you know, it it the premise was that we're all influenced, as we've said, by our intergenerational family narratives, and that the and the roots of the issues that we struggle with the most are um have that basis in in terms of what, you know, in terms of our ancestral field. And so the types of things that I typically see uh people coming with, and you can work either in a one-to-one basis or in a group as well. So I run workshops, for example, as well as seeing one-to-one clients, could range from someone saying, Look, I really struggle with money. Interesting, I know you've just done a podcast on uh our relationship with money, particularly spiritual practitioners. They might come struggling with their health, they might come struggling with uh relationships, either partnerships or in their family, or just feeling generally lost in life and not knowing really what sense of direction that they want to go, um, or just feeling plagued by depression. So there's like this huge, you know, kind of um range of issues that that people come with. And in if you're running a workshop, you can cover a lot of diversity in a day or in a couple of days. Um but but the idea is you start with what is someone struggling with and start to look at by building up a picture of the kind of primary family. So that was the family that someone was born into, but then potentially going back a couple of generations to see um what some of the stories might be uh and and how it's showing up. With ancestral lineage healing, it's a bit different. So um I trained with an organization called Ancestral Medicine, much more recently than my constellations training. So that's still quite new for me. And Ancestral Medicine was founded by um uh an American called Daniel Faure, and he actually lives in Spain now, but he's done an enormous, really dynamic, interesting guy. He's done an enormous amount of study uh into many earth honoring and ancestor honoring cultures, which would be much more fitting with a shamanic outlook. And um rather than someone coming for ancestral lineage healing saying, I'm struggling with this in my life currently, it comes from a place which is much more about restoring connection um to and living in more conscious relationship with our ancestors. And of course, many cultures in the world already do that and have always done that. But the the idea is that we've lost, we've forgotten, we've forgotten how to do that. So it's about restoring it. And the purpose is about bringing balance and healing across the generations, and as a result, there can be benefit for the living and for future generations, but that's not the starting point, and that's where the two approaches differ. So someone may come like with a basic sense of knowing that what they're carrying isn't necessarily theirs, or they might come with a really troubled kind of family history and know there was a massive amount of trauma. Um, you know, but it starts from a different place. So I hope that makes sense.

Giada

Yeah, absolutely, 100%.

The Hidden Patterns Passed Through Generations

Giada

And it's extremely fascinating. So thanks so much for explaining the difference because uh I'm not sure that people know nowadays between the two, or they kind of, of course, can have an idea, but there is a lot of confusion, and then just not knowing where how far they they have to go all the time. Yeah. Which is all which is also the question, how far do you know that you have to go? Like when you're doing shamanic healing, I don't decide. I mean, there is just just the channeling that comes out in the life that pops up when uh when I'm doing the healing, which refers uh to I cannot say the first time, but probably one of the most important times in which the client experienced the pattern, the issue that for which he or he is coming to me in that session. No one can say, well, actually it was the first time, no one can say that. And it just comes out in a natural way.

unknown

Yeah.

Giada

For any reason, I need for some reason I need to share what I see that refers to that life in which you experience a similar episode. And I suppose that's the same when you work coming back, going back to that time, which is actually important for the session that you are running.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think I think that's true. And um, you know, I suppose one of the reasons that I went in started to go down this route in the first place, you know, like so many of us that work in a healing profession, we've had personal experiences, and then you know, that that unfolds into study and and offerings, um, was despite lots of counseling and psychotherapy for for many years, one of the issues that I noticed was still um bothersome in my life, was, and I'm I'm being quite uh open here, is that I was crap with money. So I never had a problem making it, but I just somehow didn't ever manage to save it, no matter um you know what I tried. Um and I was getting quite frustrated about, you know, it doesn't matter how much I talk about this in therapy or books I read or whatever, it doesn't really seem to make any difference. And when I first went along to a constellations workshop, which was when I was living in London, um, what I realized was that when we take our ancestral patterns into consideration, we have what is essentially known as blind loyalties. So it's like patterns that we continue to play out, like on behalf of our ancestral field, our you know, our our um uh what we inherit without realizing it. And I had this deep loyalty to having nothing because there were a few of my lineages who lived in extreme poverty um when I traced them back through um so through Glasgow and back into Ireland, people who experienced the great hunger in Ireland, some of whom were in asylums and poor houses and workhouses and things like that. And it was like I had this light bulb moment where I realized I was carrying this grief, which wasn't mine, that wasn't my experience because those patterns had been broken a few generations before. Um, but somehow I was committed to um like carrying out the same pattern. And it was only when I started to recognize that that I thought, I don't know if I can continue to offer counseling and psychotherapy without taking the intergenerational aspect into consideration because it's such a huge component of who we are, essentially. So ancestral lineage healing does get to that, but it does it differently. You work, it's much more similar to a shamanic journey. So you work in a way where through a process of guided meditation, you essentially meet a lineage guide working with whatever lineage you decide to work with. Um who the way that we talk about it in at the Ancestral Medicine Organization is a guide who is as far back as you need to go before the trouble began, and who is a very wise, well, if you like, ancestralized ancestor rather than uh being uh an ancestor who is still more troubled and not at peace. Um, and then it's through your relationship with that guide that you then go about the ancestral lineage healing. So if you like, it's the guide that does it, and the person who is um doing the ancestral lineage healing in it and is living today kind of is like opens that portal um for the relationship. So it's kind of hard to, you know, sometimes if I meet people, I don't know, in the doctor's surgery or in a shop and they say, What do you do? I get

Why Ancestor Work Is Misunderstood

SPEAKER_01

some strange little I'm a housewife.

Giada

It's uh yeah. I I was saying that actually the things in the in the that I posted this morning and I say I say it depends who is asking. Because shall I say I teach shamanism or shall I shall I say I ran kind I run something similar to a charity because already uh uh social enterprises might be that people don't know what it is. Yeah, I ran a not for profit. Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_01

Sometimes I think I should just say I work with the dead. Um, but then I think people would make an assumption that I'm a psychic or a medium, and I'm not. That's not what I what I do. Um but actually what I've noticed is I think there's a more of a secret interest in mainstream social thinking than I would have imagined in this kind of work. It's like it might have been generations since we were kind of in flow with what other cultures might call the dream time or a shamanic way of being. Um, but actually you often don't have to kind of dig too low beneath the surface until people are like really curious and oh, what is that? And oh, okay, that kind of makes sense, even although I've not heard about it before, but it's like their body remembers.

Giada

Yeah. So yeah, yeah, but I suppose that probably family constellation is is still accepted. I mean, ancestral healing, it's vague. Family constellation has been kind of accepted, probably nowadays. So I think sometimes it's the safe answer if you say that you work shamanical in a way, because immediately their mind goes back to what they found in Google or uh previous episodes, uh, and they look at you as if you were a witch, basically, or not not knowing, ah, okay. And then they're just afraid of asking.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, I I agree with that. There is uh one of the things that is uh, I suppose uh an ongoing and unfolding question for me, as I imagine it is for you as well, is how to make the stitch between what I do into kind of mainstream thinking, because a lot of the people that come to say ancestral lineage healing and sometimes constellations as well, um already are involved in some kind of healing practice. Um and so it's kind of an evolution, it's a natural evolution. But you know, if you look at the state of our world and you know, many, many of our many of our challenges, uh, you know, let's look at, you know, we're both in Scotland. Let's look at, you know, we know that we've got one of the worst drugs and alcohol, you know, addiction statistics anywhere in Europe. I don't know about the rest of the world. Um and you know, looking at it through an intergenerational lens is incredibly helpful because you know, it enables you to realize that it's something that's been inherited. So there is trauma that runs through people's lineages and through people's families. And I so wish that policy around these kinds of uh struggles uh took an intergenerational perspective. Um, because I think that we, you know, we might be having some very different conversations about rehabilitation.

Giada

Yeah, that would be for yeah, exactly. That would be interesting for you, let's say, as uh to start an organization, a startup as an extra, as an extra job, as an extra work. But then you would just need to wait for some years in order to find the right uh open-minded people that could support you in changing the policy. Like, for example, let's look at Reiki. Reiki has been accepted by the NHS, so hopefully, in some years, what we do will have its own place.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

Giada

I didn't actually know that. That's marvelous news. That's good. Yeah, I don't know what level, but I know that it's used and sometimes it's also funded. So the energy work in general, that's why sometimes also when uh I have to say, okay, what is shamanism? It depends on how much I have, and according to the person, it's like Reiki, but it's different. But because I cannot say we actually work with spirits, it's not a universal form of energy because spirits, then of course, people are afraid. Uh but mentioning now Reiki in uh funding proposals or whatever, it's depending, of course, with to whom you are applying, it's okay. But certainly I couldn't, I couldn't mention people the rest of the things that I do. So maybe I don't know, there is a hope.

SPEAKER_01

Uh yeah, yeah, that would be brilliant.

Working with Your Ancestors

SPEAKER_01

And and if can I hop on to your point about people can be a bit afraid when you when you talk about spirits? Yeah, so yes, and I would say rightfully so as well, because you know, in my field of work, there is a recognition that like the living, amongst the dead, there are those who are well and those who are not so well. And there are degrees of that. There are those who are, you know, what my teacher would would have called the regular ghosts, the ones who are just a bit troubled and need a bit of support, you know, to kind of elevate to a more well status. And then there are they're much more troublesome spirits. And you know, that's different work that is potentially much more kind of shamanic work in terms of the psycho pump, yeah, like psycho pumping, you know, possession states and and and all that kind of work, which is um more complex and more layered, but as you well know, you know, often bring um you know people some real challenges in their lives. Um so um, you know, but of course, as there is in shamanism, there's a very safe way to work in that respect. You know, you don't just open your door to any old spirit in the same way as you wouldn't open your front door to any old, you know, drunk who might happen to be hammering on it. Say, hey, come on in and stay for a couple of weeks, you know. Um so there are safe ways, and and that's partly particularly in the anti. ancestral lineage healing, but I take a lot of that into my constellations work as well and to ensure that you know we're really, really working with ensuring that energetic space is is both cleared and protected in a kind of in a ritual in a ritual type way, in a real discipline type way.

Giada

Interesting because uh when you think of uh ancestors uh it doesn't come to me into my mind the fact of having fear because you think my ancestors they are connected with me so they can they they can't be so harmful like unknown spirits well actually they can but if you sometimes you you don't think about that you kind of think okay they are kind relatives of mine they they come um through through my line so whatever they are they are doing it's definitely not for um for the purpose of um wishing me something bad uh I don't know compared to when you work to unknown spirits that have entered um let's say your uh your house or whatever not necessarily they are ancestors and so there is probably more fear when I need to go and do some house cleansing because they there is no clue about uh who is over there can be people that maybe they were living there before you they were killed or they have come to haunt you from a past life they have found you and they stay there till some till I don't know I come there I go there I speak with them I understand what needs to be done and then the person needs to do the work so that then they can leave and find their peace.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah I think that's the kind of general understanding and of course you know um our ancestors had their struggles too and um as as there is in the living we have I don't always like this language but you know kind of victims and perpetrators is is a language that comes into constellation's work a lot and I haven't heard it mentioned in ancestral lineage healing but it's certainly the concept is definitely central to the work is that actually you know we all have ancestors who either were um you know um enacting some of those harms or who were on the receiving end of it and you know for me probably the one that I've worked with the most with ancestral lineage healing is um looking at the impact of colonialism so I have um Irish ancestry and I'd have what I would call native Irish ancestry but I've also got incoming colonial British Irish ancestry um and you know if you you don't have to look too far into history to know that um the colonial occupation of Ireland inflicted an enormous amount of harm so that's the kind of thing um you know certainly in in my experience that that's very common in many people's experience wherever they are in the world that they have in their ancestral field which is essentially unresolved um so yeah yeah yeah I know because I think for the highest majority of us how many people really do ancestor ancestral work?

Giada

Yeah it's a lot but not

Ancestors vs Spirits: What's the Difference?

Giada

enough.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah yeah and generally people who come to it end up getting quite hooked and and loving it and then realizing oh there's another constellation and another one and another one that I'd and another lineage that I'd like to work on. So um but you know for me ancestral lineage healing has brought an enormous amount of support and resource a bit like you know in from a shamanic perspective and and working with helping spirits I have a team of ancestors who um you know are often part of my um my daily dialogue um and and it's you know that there's great wisdom and and strength to lean into in if we can learn how to work in that way and that is what it is is just learning it.

Giada

Yeah yeah exactly sometimes I find myself speaking speaking with them as well during the day and if I don't know I don't know who can help me just say or whoever is in the rota or whoever is in charge because as I think if you cannot help me for like for example uh I never remember who's in charge for technology like I did I didn't call anyone before when we had a technology because I never remember uh which one of my guides is in the I should probably go on a journey and say can you please clarify to me please for the chronological issues all the time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah brilliant as I said to someone yesterday um when you have a a team of supporters and helpers they don't always agree either which can be an interesting experience so you might have to come into some kind of um you know group dialogue to uh to figure out what's best for you and of course there's still always free will but um it's it's definitely a creative and honestly fun um way of of managing what it is that we struggle with as humans. Yeah exactly exactly that's uh they are uh they are our teachers uh even yes to help us learning all uh how to navigate life all the time and uh as I mean and sometimes they don't know either because it's just like they found out every time that we give them work to do because exactly as you said free will they uh help us in that moment according to the mess that we have created yeah yeah totally totally it's definitely a two-way process um yeah and sometimes they they need reminding my probably one of the main ones for me is reminding my ancestors not to visit me in the middle of the night they don't have the same sense of time and I and for a while until I got uh more disciplined about making the space in my day or in my week um the more I started to do this work the more my sleep was disturbed and it was really quite important for me to recognize that was because they don't have the same sense of time it doesn't matter to them whether it's 3 a.m or you know um and I was exhausted. So um now that I am more disciplined as I say it's you know that's a lot better. So yeah yeah just like also when uh when there are of course spirits coming and they need help and support and you can actually say no no come back tomorrow I can't at the moment I'm busy yeah because they know they see the lights they see that you can help uh and so you start attracting more and more yeah exactly yeah sometimes they'll be ancestral sometimes they won't and yeah yeah yeah yeah fascinating I know I know we can do another uh another actually season three about uh about I don't know uh um about a topic of uh entirely the invisible world yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um I'm actually supporting ancestral medicine at the moment with a program called Animist Psychology and it it's um it's been developed in recognition of um how working with the unseen and more um you know kind of earth honoring and ancestral honouring cultures um could sh could influence psychology for the greater good uh and it's fascinating there's a lot of counselors and psychotherapists and people who work in mental health who are on it um who are really really having their eyes opened and and appreciating the um the synthesis I suppose between the two yeah yeah yeah wonderful and so where where can people find you if they want to or they are curious to work with you or know b know more about you

Healing Yourself Heals Your Family

SPEAKER_01

yeah thank you for asking um so on my website which is uh I'm guessing you'll put a link to on on the bottom of the podcast um I'll also send you a link I know we're connected on Instagram um I'm on there and I'm on Facebook and on LinkedIn as well uh and I run regular workshops in Edinburgh for systemic constellations uh there's only one more this day uh this year sorry just a one day one and I'm also running a a retreat here in East Lothian where I'm based in October um over Sawin one-to-one work is you know ongoing so um yeah that's beautiful beautiful so I'm uh I'm really I'm already sure that some people will contact you because of course it's a very interesting topic and we all uh we are all curious uh we are all uh want to know sometimes uh why do we experience this nowadays we're uh sometimes it's uh just in a funny way who do I need to blame my back line yeah it it can be incredibly empowering realizing that it didn't start with you. Of course no incredibly empowering and such a relief to your system to realize that you know often we're the ones particularly people who go into healing professions um who carry it yes yeah exactly and who are sometimes in charge for the for the healing process as well to just say I'm the lucky one. Yeah not just just not just for ourselves but for the wider family system.

Giada

Yes exactly exactly yeah yeah yeah fine okay thank you so much again for uh this wonderful uh very interesting uh full of knowledge uh conversation for all the things that you have uh taken on um in our uh in our conversation today and I really look forward to to having you again uh in the in the next season with a new topic also if you have any topics to suggest uh feel free to do it so we really hope to take more and then by then maybe you will have another uh qualification on board I'm sure other studies um among the many things that you know thank you so much for having me I'm taking a rest from studying right now but um yeah but in six months season three will be in six months so who knows 2027 never say never exactly so thank you so much Lianna thank you no worries lovely to see you lovely to see you too