Who is Liana Shanti?
Her story did not begin with a smear campaign. It began with a lifetime of advocacy.
For more than three decades, Liana Shanti’s advocacy work has centered on one conviction: people facing abuse, persecution, and coercion deserve to be heard – and deserve the freedom to choose their own lives.
“If you asked me to pick one person in the entire world who epitomizes the highest character qualities possible in a human, Liana Shanti is that person.”– Cahira Noelani
She is a former Wall Street attorney, Certified Human Rights Consultant, clinical and sports nutritionist, spiritual teacher, author, wife, and homeschooling mother. Her education includes a Juris Doctor and a Master of Science in psychology with a focus on neuroplasticity.
Chapter 01 · The foundation
Her advocacy did not begin with this controversy.
Advocacy was never a profession Liana entered. It was simply part of who she was. As a child, she stood up to bullies, defended children being yelled at by teachers, and spoke when classmates felt unable to speak for themselves.
That instinct – to protect people who were vulnerable or being silenced – remained part of her life wherever she went. While practicing law, she chose to devote extensive pro bono time to helping people seeking safety and asylum. She has continued that advocacy throughout her life, separate from her professional work and businesses.
Long before the families documented on this website entered her life, Liana was standing beside people facing religious persecution, gender-based violence, domestic abuse, child abuse, and politically motivated harm.
Her advocacy has never been a source of income. In fact, it has cost her millions of dollars through lost business and legal fees. Yet she has continued because she believes people facing abuse, coercion, persecution, or silencing deserve someone willing to stand beside them.
Today, her work reaches women across the world.Some came for health education. Some came to understand patterns of family abuse or narcissistic relationships. Others came for spiritual growth, business mentorship, or the courage to rebuild a life on their own terms.
Chapter 02 · Advocacy through law
Before she became known as a teacher, she was an attorney fighting for people seeking safety.
Liana practiced at Skadden, one of the world’s largest law firms, working as an M&A attorney on billion-dollar deals involving IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, international arbitration, and high-level financial structuring. Alongside that work, she devoted extensive pro bono time to asylum cases.
Her clients included Tibetan monks and nuns who had fled the People’s Republic of China after imprisonment, torture, rape, and the killing of family members because of their participation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Some escaped Tibet through the Himalayas with the help of the Dalai Lama’s government in exile before reaching India and, ultimately, the United States.
She also represented women seeking asylum from gender-based violence, including female genital mutilation – at a time when recognition of those harms under human-rights law was still developing.
Believing people who disclosed abuse was not a position she adopted for the events on this website. It was already part of the life she had chosen.
Chapter 03 · The work she built
From helping people seek legal protection to helping women reclaim their lives.
After leaving Wall Street, Liana built a body of work that brought together her legal training, study of psychology and neuroplasticity, clinical nutrition background, spiritual teaching, and firsthand experience as a mother and entrepreneur.
Her programs address core-wound healing, narcissistic relationships, the Mother Wound and Father Wound, family-abuse patterns, physical health, spiritual growth, purpose, and financial independence. Through Liana Shanti®, HMI Wellness®, Illuminations®, and The Relaxed Millionaire®, she created distinct paths for women seeking change in different areas of life.
She built three multi-seven-figure businesses while raising and homeschooling her children. But the scale of those businesses is not the clearest measure of their effect. The women who describe sobriety, safety, restored health, stronger families, and lives rebuilt in their own words are.
Chapter 04 · In their own words
What the numbers cannot say.
In 2022, one of Liana’s students independently created Liana Shanti Saved My Life. Liana did not ask for it. Seventy-one women submitted their stories freely, describing what they say changed in their lives.
“Finding this work after spending so many thousands of dollars in therapy has been an oasis of healing and health after ‘trying everything’ and still feeling as if I was spinning my wheels.”
Joni writes that the work helped her move out of long-term survival mode, calm her nervous system, strengthen her parenting, and experience the best health of her life.
– Joni Abbott
“Thanks to Liana Shanti, I now have a great relationship with my ex-husband, a loving relationship with my child and I’m free of all auto-immune disease!”
Gloria says she learned to take responsibility for her own wounds, rebuilt a loving relationship with her child, and developed a stronger co-parenting relationship with her ex-husband.
– Gloria Jao
“If it wasn’t for you, I would've been dead by now and this isn't a joke.”
Leilani describes being ready to end her life after years of chronic pancreatitis and debilitating pain. She says Liana answered her message with patience and hope – and did not try to sell her anything.
– Leilani / Cahya Bodhi
“I reversed all of my health issues: PCOS, acid reflux, high blood pressure, Type 2 Diabetes, migraines.”
Angie writes that she became free of medications, left a job that depleted her, began her own business, and later opened a brick-and-mortar location.
– Angie Bernreuter
Chapter 05 · Then the story changed
The advocate became the target.
Two adult women in Liana’s community – Haley and Amanda – were speaking about serious conflict and alleged abuse within their families. Liana listened to them, believed them, and supported them.
Amanda’s and Haley’s ex-husbands joined relatives from seven other families to harm Liana, continue the defamation, and spread the “cult” narrative. Together, they were the families of nine of Liana’s adult students.
The people attacking Liana were not her students – their family members were. Their connection to Liana came through those nine adult students, who had spoken about serious abuse within their families and whom Liana had listened to, believed, and supported.
To discredit the women speaking about abuse in their families, they first had to discredit the woman who believed them.
That is where the “cult” narrative began.But it is not where Liana’s story began.
What the record shows
The smear campaign did not begin Liana’s story – and it does not define it.
Liana was standing beside people who disclosed abuse long before these families targeted her. It is why they targeted her – and it is who she remains today.