Overcoming Money Blocks: From Immigrant Families to Millennials and How To Continue Pursuing Their Dreams.

Since coming home to help my family pack up our house that they have lived in for 30 years, where I spent 11 years of my life, there has been some generational information that has filtered through. 

Today I want to unpack a somewhat taboo topic that some of us don’t talk about or realise is even a thing. Money / Wealth / Abundance conditioning within immigrant families. Now, this topic would also run through families that aren’t immigrants, but most of us are immigrants in one way or another. The reason I say specifically immigrants is because this is my background, my experience and as I am learning, this is a commonality with families like mine.

A little background here, which I have mentioned before, my grandparents migrated to Australia with their young children and then my mums parents almost migrated, but returned to Italy after 5 years, leaving my mum who had married my dad behind. You can already probably unpack the challenges and trauma that might be happening here. 

AI: An Italian family coming to Australia on a boat in the 1950's.

My grandparents came here with nothing and made the best with what they had at the time. Doing this helped my parents live a very comfortable, successful life. But do they believe that to their core? I don’t believe they do. They see it, at the surface they see. But deep down there is generational ‘lack’ and ‘fear’ that is carried through their DNA coming here from an already poverty stricken, wore torn country (if we go back generations).

So what happens when you have money and lack fears running through your psyche as it continues to be passed down generation to generation? Here is my perspective, my lens and my experience. You might relate, you might have overcome it already or it might not resonate at all, but this is my view through a narrative in relation to my story. 

‘Make sure you save money for a rainy day’. This statement that my mum repeated to me as a child is indented in my psyche like a tattoo. It feels so permanent and real. It feels true. But how many people believe this? How true is this? This sounds like living in fear of the future. So here we are, living in fear of a future that has not yet happened in our reality. It may or may not happen but what use is fearing it now? There is no use to it. I get it, I understand the statement and had I not been taught this I may not have lived the life I have or be where I am today. In fact, I know I would not. But what I have learnt is that this statement goes deeper than it appears. It seems like a simple sentence, save your money, don’t spend it, keep it for when you’re old or have an emergency. But what my mum, dad or grandparents didn’t realise was, this was a statement of lack. That you don’t trust that you already have enough and you will always have enough.

How did I come to this conclusion? Because I sat with my parents and we talked about it. We talked about how this effects me today and how it effects them in their life in the now. It was kind of like a round table talk and it created a breakthrough for me. Mum told us that she is afraid of letting go of things because she never had things like this and she might not be able to get them back. Crazy right? But let’s rewind to a time where a family left their country, miles away and came here with a few suitcases starting from scratch. I don’t know what that feels like, only they can. This is their experience. So all I can do is try to understand why so that we can unlock that part of our psyche. So that we can gently tell ourselves, ‘it will be ok, you will be ok, you are ok’. Really reiterating that you ARE ok, in the now. Stay here in the now. By helping my parents through this, it rolls out to me and my brothers and their children and we are shifting DNA that hasn’t shifted for generations. 

I am not saying it’s as simple as that, it takes time. Baby steps. But watching my mum throw old junk away during the move shows me that the shift is happening and I can feel it too. Guiding my parents through this transition, allowing them to express their feelings and being gentle with the transition has helped them move through it. Instead of judging them for being the way they are, ask your parents the questions as to why. Ask them if they are wanting to change, ask them if this makes them feel good or bad, ask them how does this help them.

I want to remind you to be gentle with your parents as they are not you. We are not our parents, we are OF our parents, remember that. As a millennial, I am here to make the changes and shift quicker than them. I understand this. So being gentle and patient is the only way through to the other side, for me anyway.

I will say, I did not get the hoarding our stuff and keeping it close to me gene (thank God haha), so it has been harder to watch my parents with it. But it manifested in a different way for me. It manifested in a fear that I have to always have a safety net of money. This often held me back from doing the things that I want to do. It very much still does. Don’t get me wrong, I spend money, plenty of it haha but it seems to be in a less resourceful way and the guilt kicks in and fear of not having enough comes creeping up to the surface. This feels like a loop that is hard to get out of. But, allowing my parents to slowly move through the loop has helped me move through my own loop.

Another way this can manifest and once did for me too is that it can create what is called a glass ceiling. A barrier to move any further than your psyche is comfortable with. Some people will self sabotage when they reach the glass ceiling, some will naturally move their way back down, some will struggle at the ceiling and for some they will break through. What is a glass ceiling for money? There are many. Some will call this money blocks, some trauma and some conditioning. All of which are moveable. If you are ready.

I hit a glass ceiling in 2022 and I didn’t even realise until later that’s what it was.

My glass ceiling was hit when I was running my digital agency at it’s peak. Many clients, passive income coming in, more than I have ever seen in my life. So, naturally I got scared. ‘This is too much’, ‘I can’t handle this’, ‘I don’t deserve this’, ‘who am I to earn this’. All of these were running through me at the time. As I attempted to go further by hiring people, I came up against barriers that I believed at the time were guiding me in the opposite direction. I started to reach burn out and my body had enough so naturally I believed that this was the universe telling me to stop. I’d definitely had enough and my body was saying stop, this was true, but how did I get to this point? By hitting my glass ceiling and feeling suffocated trying to break through it. So I turned around and came back down. Gracefully, of course. I shut down my agency, gave up high paying clients and pretty much went into hibernation for a year.

After that year in hibernation, I realised that I hit my glass ceiling and I was afraid of breaking through it. I realised I had a fear of money and it was manifesting in a way that I was not only afraid to spend my savings but I was afraid of making more than my threshold as this story had played out in me hitting burn out. More money = more anxiety for me. This was the storyline playing out in my life and when I realised it, I decided I no longer wanted to play with that story. I was ready to change it. Other ways this can show is by not asking for what your worth, not charging enough for your services, doing things for free because you don’t believe you’re worthy of being paid for them, giving up when you’re about to break through the wall, not talking about money or negotiating for you. There are so many more ways this can manifest. 

Our fears, traumas, shadows etc only want to be recognised. They don’t want to be relived or reenacted or pushed down under the rug. They want recognition that this is a part of you, or was, and that you have compassion for it. Not hate, not animosity, not fear, not anger. Simple recognition that it exists so that it can no longer have power over you. You take back the controller. You recognise that these fears kept you safe at a time you may have needed them but now you are ready to let it go and be back in control.

This was my generational fear: lack of losing everything and having it all taken away from me. Not just money, but freedom, love, time and things. I feared anything can be taken from me if it feels so good. This is how I manifested these beliefs into my reality. ‘I don’t deserve to feel this good’, ‘I don’t deserve to live out my dreams’, so let’s take it down a notch. In hindsight, it all happened as it needed to so that I could see and I am so grateful for that. But it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy to say this out loud and it wasn’t easy to look at it in this way. Many people will still see this as ‘you weren’t meant to go down that path’ - yes, that is true. But I was also meant to see it for what it was so that I can break the loop, unlock the chain that held me back from knowing my worth. This is my viewpoint, this is how I see it and it took me a very long time to see that.

How did I come to this truth? Well, I came to this truth because as much as I tried to push this path away from me, it came back around. As much as I tried to tell myself, this is not my path, it came back around. But it came back around in a way where I feel more aligned, more in control. It came back around when I now have the tools to push through the glass ceiling rather than step back down. This is what I see, this is what I feel and after doing so much inner work over the years, if I don’t back myself 100% in what I am feeling then what is this all for? So I backed myself. I sat with the fears, I sat with all the motions that came through. I talked about it with the lineage that kept these fears in their DNA and I walked through. 

Have I broken the glass ceiling? Only time will tell. I have definitely moved it in a way. For now, I feel more in the now. I feel more abundance than ever all around me. By abundance I mean, I have more time, more freedom, more space for it all to come through. I feel more confident in my decisions and I feel more confident in the now. Does it always feel this way? Hell no, haha. I have days, weeks and times where I feel it all rush up on me. But what I do have now are tools, so many of them, that there’s no way in hell I am going back to my old self. Love her, I have compassion for her, but we are on a different timeline now and we aren’t ever turning back.

Money can be an icky topic for some and I get it. ‘We don’t need a lot’, ‘we have enough’, ‘be grateful with what you have’. This is all very true. I invite you to say these sentences out loud and feel into how true they feel in your body. Go deeper into them and what they mean for you. Do you truly resonate with that in your body? If so, amazing. This is when you know you are in full alignment and this is your path. When these clicked into place and I no longer felt lack for all that I have, I knew I had shifted something. Before this, saying those things I never actually believed them deep in my body. I believed I needed more and therefore I was lying to myself and I in turn manifested this into my reality, once again. It takes time though, I will say this. I always say it will click once it is ready to click.

Now, let’s talk about how our dreams come into this, not just for money fears but for all fears.

I often align my fears with my dreams. What dream do I have that fear is stopping me to go for it? For seeking it more? When I see dreams that are yet to come, I look inwards to why. Often, it’s time and it just has to happen, but more so it’s a fear. A fear that is in the way. For me, my money fears have stopped me from some of my dreams. ‘I don’t need that’. ‘I don’t deserve that’. ‘No way that I can have that’. I see that. So I go deeper. My inner child yearns for me to go deeper.

One day I will share my dreams that I had since a young girl. Dreams that even I didn’t know why these were mine. Some are playing out, some are yet to come, some may not manifest this lifetime as I navigate what I came here to be. But this is your reminder that those dreams are there for a reason and if you truly desire them, desire it all. To infinity & beyond (I have this tattooed on me). We are limitless. Never let anything make you believe otherwise.

Are you living out your dreams or are you afraid? I invite you to take out a journal, put today’s date on it and write down all your dreams. Ones you had as a child, ones you had in your adult life, ones you have right now. Reflect on the ones that have played out in this life, reflect on the ones that no longer resonate and reflect on the ones that are yet to come.

And so it is. 

Adelina x

AI: A woman from an Italian Immigrant family becoming an enlightened version of themselves.