Healing First-Gen Money Trauma

Money can trigger a pit-in-the-stomach fear even when the numbers “look fine.” We go straight to the real root: the emotional relationship with money that gets wired in childhood when bills cause fights, stress lives in the house, and you learn to read the room to stay safe. If you’re a first-generation Latina daughter, you might recognise how fast money turns into responsibility, guilt, and a quiet belief that you have to grind to be worthy. 

We talk about scarcity mindset as an inherited wound, not a personal flaw. We also name the guilt that can show up when you start making more than your parents, especially when their sacrifices were so visible. We work through a reframe that can loosen that knot: your success doesn’t dishonor them, it can prove their sacrifice mattered. From there, we get practical about “charging your worth” for coaches, healers, creatives, and entrepreneurs who overdeliver, discount, or panic at pricing, and we explore money as an energetic exchange rather than a symbol of greed. 

A life-changing cancer diagnosis adds a sharp perspective shift, from “what if I fail?” to “what if I never fully live?” We close with a powerful focus on receiving: compliments, support, opportunities, and abundance in all forms, plus journal prompts to help you identify which money beliefs aren’t even yours. If this hits home, subscribe, share it with a first-gen daughter you love, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Transcript

Why Money Feels So Heavy

Dora 0:06

Hola, hola mi gente. Welcome back to another episode of I Mijita. I'm your host, Doralicia Praxedis, and today we're talking about something that has been showing up for me in a really deep way lately. Money. And I'm not talking about like budgeting and spreadsheets, investments, like the stock market and how it's doing, or how to track it and save all your receipts, but the emotional relationship we have with money. That fear that creeps up, the guilt, the stories that kind of overwhelm me at times, those inherited beliefs that I'm not good enough or I don't have enough money, and especially the trauma, the trauma of maybe stories that I've been holding on to that no longer are relevant. Because if you're a first-generation Latina like me, chances are money wasn't just a resource growing up. Money meant stress. Like people fought over it. You tried to survive and you were in survival mode for so long. Or money meant like you had to sacrifice, you had to like work super hard, like my parents, two jobs each. Or that money was something everybody worried about. And if we're not careful, these stories become the lens through which we view ourselves. So today I want to talk about that first generation money trauma, that scarcity mindset that creeps up all the time, the guilt of making more than your parents. Why charging your worth feels terrifying, especially in this day and age where everything is going up in prices? And what healing your relationship with money actually looks like. So grab your water, cafecito, beverage of choice, take a deep breath, inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth, and let's get into it.

Childhood Scarcity In The Body

Dora 2:25

Growing up, I don't remember learning about investing. I mean, I think I had a project when I was young, I think it was second or third grade, and I saw a newspaper, and that's where I probably saw the first time about stock markets, but I didn't understand the symbols. I just saw charts and graphs, and I'm like, okay, cool, like, but that's not that's like a widow thing, or that's like a white people thing. That's not something my parents or we talk about. And I don't remember having conversations about wealth building or what wealth was even like. I didn't even know what the difference between wealth and rich was, or um what abundance meant, or scarcity for that matter. But what I do remember is feeling scarcity before I even know what the word meant, like in my body. I remember my parents doing the best they could. They worked two jobs each. Um, my mom loves her so much. Um, she's the one that's that had like her full-time job. She would come home cook real quick and then turn around and go to her another job just to buy us clothes or just, you know, keeping up with the trends and provide us with what we needed. But I remember that caused a lot of stress, a lot of turmoil with my parents. My dad, I remember blowing up with my mom when he got the credit card bill, because he's like, Oh my gosh, how much money did you spend? Look at this. Or that one time where I remember my dad got really mad at my mom because the account went overdraft. And my mom actually went out and bought us clothes, like she had three girls. So obviously, we needed clothes for school and when we went to trips to Mexico, because we would go like two, three times a year. And we would often outgrow stuff. And I would, it would be odd because I don't remember getting any hand-me-downs. So because I'm the oldest, I would get the new clothes, and then my sisters always had like similar outfits, or we had outfits, all three of us were the same. Like we were triplets, even though I was much older. And these conversations I would hear behind the closed doors. Like my parents were very like they would have these like fights or quote unquote fights in front of us, but then they wouldn't talk about why or how. And I you could just sense the tension between them. Even when nobody explicitly said anything, like you could tell money was a very sore subject. And children, they feel everything. Especially when a child who became super vig hyper-vigilant, like myself, where I sensed like mom and dad are going through something, and I didn't like that confrontation. I did not like how my dad talked to my mom, or how my mom would get all stressed and worried about everything. And I remember reading the rooms when that would happen, and I would get scared. And so money for me was associated with being scared all the time. And especially for me, like at the age of five, becoming a caretaker, like I took that on because it's like my mom is stressed about money, and so I should be stressed about money all the time, or I should be working really hard to get money. And many of us became emotional caretakers long before we understood what that meant. And I remember my mom, one of my sisters would always say, Mom, don't buy me anything because it's too expensive, or no, I don't want anything. You should just, you know, just to save. And I get it. And that sister is very frugal, for sure. So we learned that money equals safety or survival and stress, and especially the responsibility to provide for your family. And not to say the least is the work ethic. Like you have to hustle and grind and work, work, work super hard, like Riri say would say, work, work, work, work, work in order to sacrifice to get that money. And I did not know how I had it so good living at home because when I met my boyfriend, I it was really easy. My parents had given me a car at 15. I would drive around. I learned to drive actually at 11. I would take the car, I would go to work at 15 with no license or permit, worked as a cashier in a grocery store in Streamwood, which is called Fiesta Market, and I was a cashier

Teen Parenthood And Survival Mode

Dora 7:10

there. But when I got my money, like it was my money. Like I didn't have any bills or anything. So when I became a team mom, all the fears of money amplified. Because now it just wasn't me. It was a little baby that I was taking care of. And my parents, they helped me out financially. They covered the bills, and I actually got a lot of help from an organization in Glen Ellen, Teen Parent Connection. They gave me a lot of emotional support. Uh, they would come over and physically see my daughter's motor skills and all. But financially, I got some help, let's just say, with baby bucks from going to different groups and being in the programs. I had Adula, which is a birthing coach, a healthy family support worker. She would come over and just check on me and my daughter and just make sure that we're doing okay. But that didn't cover everything. In daycare, I was able to get assistance while I was in high school. But daycare runs like we ran at that point in time, 22 years ago, like a thousand, over a thousand dollars a month. And I had someone depending on me, my daughter. So every financial decision felt heavy, especially when I moved out. I couldn't buy myself the clothes I wanted anymore. It was now we need money to cover rent, or we had a cell phone, cover the bills. I remember I did not, I only had like five dollars of money in my bank account, and I needed to put in gas. So we were broke broke. Every dollar mattered. And my then boyfriend, Feely, now husband, he worked and he got paid decently, so we were able to move out on our own. But at first we lived in a basement and we only had a mattress on the floor, and that's all he had. And it was, I wasn't sad, I was kind of happy, but then again, it's like I didn't realize you can't live off of love. You need money to survive, you need money to pay the bills. And so every mistake at that point in moment felt catastrophic. And even when life improved, it just didn't feel like it was improving because there was more bills, more responsibilities, more everything. And I remember working, like following in my dad's mom's footsteps, working two or three jobs. I worked at Walmart, I worked at Teen Parent Connection as a peer education specialist. So I would go out to the different schools and talk about my pregnancy story and prevent um teen pregnancy in all the various high schools. And I went on to go to school. I went to DePaul University, but even when I became educated and graduated, I had so much debt. When I built my career, I'm still paying off my master's degree. It's like living in debt. Like we in America have so much debt and it's normalized. And that was my parents too. They, I believe when my parents split, the amount that they owed was like two times more than what the house when they originally bought it. And for me, I thought that was normal. Just being in debt up to your eyeballs is normal. And so I built a career and went through all the motions. And when opportunities arrived, I would just take them. But I had this fear, always this fear about the money. The fear didn't magically disappear. And because the fear wasn't about money necessarily, the fear was actually living inside my nervous system. Like those conversations my parents had about money, I instilled. Like it's like PTSD in my body. That anxiousness, the pit in my stomach, the fear of not having enough, that scarcity mindset.

Inherited Fear And Scarcity Mindset

Dora 11:20

Let's talk about scarcity. Because scarcity isn't always about what's in your bank account. Sometimes scarcity is a wound, a deeply inherited wound. Many first-generation families come from immigration. My parents, they came to this country with so many hopes and dreams. And that ended up also turning into some economic hardships where they needed to bunk in with their relatives. My mom stayed with her brother for a while until I was born. And shortly after, they tried to figure out okay, where are we going to next? And there's a lot of generational poverty. My parents didn't want to admit it at the time, but we were living way beyond our means. And so that creates survival mode where you're just trying to make ends meet. Thus, working so many jobs. My dad, at one point, he was a mechanic and he was a cook, not at the same time though. Um, but he was a cook, like early breakfast somewhere. And I remember he would wake up at three in the morning to go to work, and then he wouldn't come home until like midnight. And that was very hard times. I never saw my dad for the longest time I remember. And I would wait up for him, and that's where I always tell this story about the Snicker Bar, and that's why I associate Snicker bars with my dad. But our ancestors often had legitimate reasons to fear not having enough. The problem is that survival strategies that protected them can become limitations for us. And that's where a lot of things come up, such as I can't spend that amount. And we cut ourselves off. We learn to save to some degree, but it's like we blow the savings on, oh, I have a shoe emergency, or there's party quinceas coming up, oh, we need to spend like the $5,000. Or you have this thought of, I need to save every penny. And so you go into the complete opposite. And I often have these fears too of what if it all disappears? It all comes crumbling down. And that did happen when I went through my bankruptcy. I thought I lost everything. I lost all credibility with the credit bureaus. Nobody's gonna let me have a second opportunity. And if I knew what I know now, that there is a way to get out of debt, I would have totally followed that. And I should be grateful for what I have. But sometimes it just you you are in survival mode to the point where you can't even see. It's like driving in the fog. You can't even see like three cars ahead of you. And also this mentality of who do we who do you think I am? Like whom who am I to have? Like all those things. So does any of this sound familiar? But the real question is at some point we have to ask, Am I responding to my current reality? Or am I responding to inherited fear? Because those are two very different things. Now, let's go a little deeper on this because this one can be painful.

The Quiet Guilt Of Outearning Parents

Dora 14:38

Many first generation children secretly feel guilty when they start making more money than their parents. Nobody talks about this enough. You love your parents so much because they provided for you when you were a little kid, and they did the best to their ability, like especially with my parents. I felt their hard work. Like my dad would say, Me parto la madre, like I break my back just providing for you guys. And so did my mom. Like she's like, Oh, hija de la xingala, you think this and that, blah, blah, blah. You know, and it's like the least you could do is keep the house neat and you know, you're in air conditioner and all that stuff. And my parents didn't always have it that good. So I watched them struggle, and you watch them sacrifice, and that's where it's it's hard to have them work jobs that exhausted them. And then suddenly you're earning more than they did. And maybe you're even working fewer hours. Maybe you're using your gifts and talents. They never had the opportunity to develop. And a part of you feels guilty. And that's where my mom's like, well, it pays off to be smart because she has a very physical job, even to this day. She's 59 years old, and she's already thinking about retiring. But she's like, no, I can't trabajale, we gotta work. And so the unconscious belief becomes: if I have more, I'm betraying them. If I succeed, I leave them behind. If I become wealthy, I'm no longer one of them. And that's the reasoning and the mentality I had when I first started earning a lot more than my parents. Um, even to this day, it's like my husband and I make multiple times more than most families. And my husband and I kind of ask ourselves, how do those people save? Because obviously we have more things, a bigger house, a car, and cars, but we also have the responsibility of the payments that go along with it, right? But healing teaches us something very powerful. Your success does not dishonor their sacrifice. Your success is evidence that their sacrifice mattered. And let that sink. That's where I appreciate my parents so much for all the things they had to go through in order to one, make it to this country, two have the work ethic that they do, and three is they did something right because my sisters and I had everything we wanted and more. And even though I could say we didn't have that emotional and physical like communication or connection with our parents, I'm very proud of what they did. But for me, I feel like they they always did those things in order for us to be and succeed. And my dad would always say, I want you to be better than us. I want you to be better than me. Because that was their whole way of life. And my mom, now she she, well, my dad, he struggled to say that he was proud of me because of all my mistakes, or not mistakes, but of my, let's just say, choices of life. Um, getting pregnant so young and being able to go to college and then even get a master's degree with two kids. And my mom has always supported me, and she's always been the one that's been my rock, I I could say. But it took a while for them to kind of give me respect that I went through so much stuff, and I'm still going through it. And it's hard for them to say that they're proud, because in a way, they are living through us, through their children, because they wanted that type of upbringing, and that's what they provided.

Building A Career With Big Dreams

Dora 18:47

And so I built a career and I love my accounting job. However, there's this other facet of me that I also have been delving into for the past nine years. And it all started off as just me being me and down this spiritual path, and I didn't even know what life coaching, spirituality work, all the emotional work, emotional intelligence, all those words were so foreign to me because I did not grow up with those things. But that's where I've envisioned myself one putting out this podcast, but then also branching out, like having these collectives, and I just started having all these like ideas, and I'm like, one day I would love to be able to do what I really want to do, like be so passionate. Um, not that I don't love the numbers and that, and I love my corporate job, but be able to like help a way broader like community, other people, and especially given my story that I've overcome so much. I want to provide that and be that light for people that everything is possible. And that's one thing my parents always taught is you know, kind of fight for your dreams, even though they lost faith in me at the beginning, right, when I got pregnant, they thought, oh, everything went to shit, but it didn't. And that I think I made it my purpose of it doesn't matter how many mistakes you make, because they're not mistakes, they're actually lessons if you look at it that way. So for me, life's its biggest teacher because it makes you and it kind of shapes you to the person you're supposed to be. And God doesn't send you, God source divine, does not send you more than you can handle. I know that for a fact. And I've seen it firsthand with with people's lives, my life, and those around me.

Charging Your Worth Without Panic

Dora 20:36

Now, let's talk business because I know so many healers, coaches, creatives, and entrepreneurs struggle here. You know you're good and you know you help people and your work changes lives. Yet when it's time to charge, you panic, or there's a discount, especially with the family and friends discount. That or sometimes over delivering, and then you apologize for things that you say, like, oh, I'm so sorry, or you catch yourself and you're really hard on yourself. That or we just shrink, shrink. And it's like, why? Why do we just like dim our light so much? Because worthiness gets attached to the money. There have been many moments where I've questioned myself, can I really charge for that? And sometimes it's like, oh, just give me whatever, you know, like donation-based, which I do at times. And I also ask myself, like, will people think I'm too expensive? Or who am I to charge for spiritual guidance? Like, I'm just doing this for me. But then when people seek me, I'm like, I don't even know how to charge for my healing work. And I know there's testimony to it because people have a big change and a big transformation in their lives. And then Spirit reminds me, people aren't paying for an hour. Okay. So I remember one time my dad, I wanted time with him, and that's where I asked him, How much do you get paid an hour? And I think he gave me a number, I think 20 bucks. And I'm like, okay, I'll give you 20 bucks for you to spend an hour with me. But people aren't paying for that. They're actually paying for that transformation, for that change in their life, that wisdom, that experience. They're paying for the years it took to become who you are. And that's where I understand, wow, there's so much that I carry. And every situation, every challenge, every person is so different that when I'm able to support, that's where it fills my cup up for sure. And I don't feel like my energy is depleted at all. Actually, it replenishes it. It's kind of weird how that works. And I know, like, there are certain sticky situations where I know how to cleanse myself. But being a healer and in this work is where I have learned to navigate that I am worthy of having it all. I am worthy of having my corporate job and doing all the initiatives and all the projects and all the things. And I do overcommit myself all the time and I over-deliver, but that's because I know I'm making a difference in that person's life. I know that spirit, God, source is working through me and all around me and providing the person that I cross paths with with what they need. And sometimes I don't charge because why charge all the time? But I do have that in the back of my head, in the mind, of am I good enough to do those things? And that's where I've learned to trust the guidance, trust what is coming up for me in that moment. That we all have gifts and we all have these virtues. It's just a matter of finding what's your jam, what lights you up, what can you put out there that you can monetize on it, you can make money. And it could be making cake pops or making cookies. Um, it could be as simple as like translating documents, like those types of things. And sometimes it's like not even that that they come in for is a challenge that they're facing. They don't know that they're encountering so much more. It might be rooted in something different. And that's the magic of this work is that transformation that you see them go from that panic mode, maybe on like, oh, I don't even know how to navigate this problem or issue, or I don't know where to go for a resource. And then all of a sudden it's like, wow, providing that clarity of like these are the next steps. That gives me so much joy when I see that transformation happening for the person I'm working with.

Money As Energy Not Greed

Dora 24:59

The other thing I see often is many women struggle because they associate money with greed. And I was I'm guilty. I'm guilty of it too. Because especially nurturing women, like women that love to be the caretakers and who are taught to put everyone else first. But money is simply an exchange energetically. That's it. Money is energy. Money amplifies who you really are. And if you're generous now, you'll be generous with more money. And we're supposed to be a steward of that money, of the resources. If you're loving now, you'll be loving even more later. And if you're heart-centered now, you'll be heart-centered with more. Money doesn't corrupt your character, it just reveals who you are. That's where just having that open heart of receiving, but then also of giving, of giving that tenfold. And it could be with time, money, resources, but here we're talking about money. And sometimes your time is valuable, it equates to the money or your wisdom that you carry. It also means the world to someone else. So that's where don't cut yourself short. And that association of money and greed, I mean, there are times where people get away, can't get carried away with that, and I've seen it happen. But that doesn't mean that you can't have it all. This past

Cancer Changed The Questions

Dora 26:40

year changed me. Like walking through the cancer, the whole treatment, chemo treatment process, and I'm still in it for two more years, and especially that anxiety that comes with the uncertainty. It forced me to look at everything differently with a different perspective, including the money part. Because when your mortality gets put in front of you, when the doctor says this cancer can come back in five years and it can go to your bones and your organs, like it really puts everything in perspective. You start asking different questions, not the what if I fail? That's where it's changed my perspective so much to the point where I ask myself, what if I never fully live? And I just what if I keep playing small? And if I have all these gifts and I'm not sharing them. I mean, your eyes, no joke, like in your mind, like it's a like a movie when someone is telling you you have cancer, it's like, what do I want to do? What legacy do I want to want to leave? How do I want to be remembered? Like my kids, my family, my friends. Obviously, no one's perfect. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. And a good friend of me would say, it's proving that I'm human. And especially so relevant in these times with AI. But having that thought of just being with all these limitations in my head, it's like I want to break free. I want to break free from this glass ceiling that I keep like bumping into. Because I know I'm capable of so much more. I know you're capable of so much more. And I've gone through the physical stuff and emotionally also navigating that and seeking help and mentally as well is keeping your head in the game. It's like, what's my goal? What and sometimes there is no goal, right? You're just going through the motions of life in survival mode. But there's so much potential, so much potential that we have that sometimes we cut ourselves short. So that's where I challenge you. Where are you playing small with yourself or not trusting yourself enough? Lean into that. What comes up? Are there gifts that you have that you haven't put out there in the world? Like, don't wait until you get some sort of diagnosis like me to finally wake up and smell the coffee and know that you are so valuable in this world. And you're holding back. You're holding back those cherished gold nuggets that you carry that you can just be like bloop, bloop, bloop, planting all those seeds all around you and watching them sprout.

Learning To Receive Without Flinching

Dora 29:57

Let's be honest. Many of us are incredible at giving. And I'm talking about giving that love, the support, the advice to your friends and the family, and anybody that you cross paths with, like that energy, it's either giving positive or negative energy. And especially when it comes to getting or giving a helping hand with your time, or even ourselves. But receiving that's where the work begins. Like receiving that help when you really need it. Or when someone says, Oh, I love your lipstick, or I love how you did your hair, especially nowadays where I'm like, I'm I'm going out and about and I'm not using any like head gear caps or scarves to cover my head, so I have the shaved head. And it's like receiving the compliment of, like, oh, you have such a cute head, like it's so round. Like accepting those comments. Or opportunities that come your way. Sometimes it's like hard to re believe that, oh wow, this is really happening. Or that abundance that just seeps through. That abundance of it's not necessarily like money showing up, but let's say you get a gift card, or somebody invites you lunch or dinner, somebody pays for it. Those are all signs of abundance. Abundance of love, of having a hug, not being alone necessarily. Or we all love money, right? It's like finding a dollar bill or a coin on the floor. And especially when you receive that support. So for many first-gen daughters, receiving feels unsafe because our body is not used to it. We're not used to being the receiver, okay? We're so used to being the giver to everything. We've been so conditioned to earn our worth through the sacrifice, that hustle, the grind. And again, I lived it myself, where if I'm not working for it, I'm not deserving. And that's the wrong association because you are worthy. You are worthy again of having it all. But sometimes we're just so conditioned, even from being little kids, of what we saw. That's where having that awareness is like such a huge step and catching yourself of like, wow, do you have trouble receiving? Like if somebody were to give you a compliment, how does it land with you? And I have this habit of saying, oh, hey, beautiful. And sometimes someone doesn't feel beautiful. It's like we're all beautiful in our own way. So receive the compliment. You are a hermosa, you are beautiful. Own it. Own it. Okay, so breaking the cycle.

Breaking The Cycle With Safety

Dora 32:53

Healing your money relationship isn't about becoming rich overnight. Okay, this is not a get rich quick kind of scheme. It's about creating safety. Safety in your body, in your decision making, discerning what's what's good for you, what's not, like what fits right. And safety in your receiving, like being in that open vessel, being the channel to what you want to come in. Because where we put our focus is where that's gonna happen. So, okay. And I usually use this with my kids and everybody. It's like, if you think you're gonna have a shitty day today, guess what? 100% you're gonna have a shitty day today. Because that's wherever the mind goes, that's where the energy flows. Okay. And also safety and your worth, that you are worthy. And every time you choose differently, you change the lineage for you, for your ancestors, for the people after you, you become that interruption of wait, why am I thinking that way? No, no, no. It's like unwind it, unwind it. Because creating that safety in yourself, you change so much, even on the like cellular level, it's that powerful. And you become that pattern breaker. And it's it's sometimes really hard to not revert back to ooh, like I don't feel like I'm good enough, I have fear, I have all these things showing up. But that's how, girl, we we we are we are the shakers when it comes to this stuff. The cycle changers. And that's where I want to empower power you to make those changes for yourself, but not only for yourself, because you're giving permission to everyone else around you to challenge and to own their truth and to be worthy of being themselves. And you never know. You might awaken something in someone else that was so dormant or they weren't even seeing it. And I know sometimes we're like, okay, so-and-so's trying to copy me, but no, it's not that. Take it as a compliment, take it as a good thing because they're following in your footsteps. So be that changer and that doorway for other people to be able to open up to other possibilities as well.

Journal Prompts And Closing Blessing

Dora 35:23

So let's grab your journal, and you can definitely pause this. And I want to invite you to some reflection questions. Ask yourself, what money belief am I carrying that doesn't belong to me? Number two, what did I learn about money growing up? Number three, where do I still associate money with guilt? Number four, where am I shrinking because I'm afraid of judgment? And the last one, number five, what would become possible if I fully trusted myself? And just sit with those questions. And journal free write and see what comes up. Because there's something definitely unconscious coming up for you. And that's definitely information on what to focus, what to work on. We all I really love it when I'm doing these reflection questions. Sometimes I surprise myself on what comes up. I feel like, oh, it's this, you know, like the money issues this, but no, in reality, there's way more than the eye can see. And that's where I invite you to dig deeper. You do not need to stay small to stay connected, or struggle to prove your worth. You do not need to suffer to earn abundance, or apologize for thriving. The dream isn't just yours. It's generations in the making. Your ancestors didn't survive so you can remain stuck in survival mode. They survived so you can finally learn how to live. And maybe, just maybe, the most healing thing you can do is allow yourself to receive. If today's episode resonated with you, share it with another first gen daughter or someone of the like who has been carrying the weight of everyone else's expectations. I would invite you to leave a review, subscribe to the podcast, and definitely see below to sign up for my newsletter and receive the rais checklist. Until next time, keep embracing your raízes, reclaim your essencia, and remember, your worth was never up for negotiation. With so much love, amor, I send you a big hug and a kiss. See you next time.