S2 E21:👵🏽When Your Parents' Financial Trauma Becomes Your Money Mindset
EPISODE SUMMARY
How do you overcome a scarcity mindset when it was essential for your family's survival? Financial therapist Rachel Duncan responds to a listener's question about breaking free from the scarcity scripts inherited from immigrant parents. Rachel explores how financial trauma gets passed down through generations and offers a step-by-step process for honoring your family's experiences while creating new money scripts that serve your present reality.
💬 "I'm doing money differently than my parents did, and that's okay because they raised me to be smart and watchful. I will always look out for my safety." - Rachel Duncan
Key takeaways from the episode:
Immigration often involves significant financial trauma that shapes family money scripts
Scarcity mindsets that were once survival mechanisms can become rigid identities
Rewriting money scripts should honor the original intent (safety) while allowing for growth
Financial healing isn't about rejecting your heritage but expanding what's possible
Recovery from financial trauma means integrating past challenges into a fuller life story
⏰ EPISODE BREAKDOWN
Understanding Financial Trauma [00:02:08 - 00:04:16] Rachel explains how financial trauma develops and manifests through fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses in relation to money.
Common Scarcity Patterns in Immigrant Families [00:04:16 - 00:07:08] Exploration of typical money behaviors in immigrant families, including guilt around purchases, hypervigilance about being ripped off, and "take whatever you can get" mentality.
The Purpose Behind Family Money Scripts [00:07:08 - 00:08:54] Discussion of how family money scripts often come from a place of wanting to keep you safe, rather than just being arbitrary rules.
Step-by-Step Script Rewriting Process [00:08:54 - 00:16:30] Rachel walks through a detailed process for identifying, examining, and thoughtfully rewriting inherited money scripts to create flexibility while maintaining safety. [See below]
Examples of Transformed Money Scripts [00:16:59 - 00:19:15] Several examples of common limiting money beliefs and how they can be reframed into more supportive, flexible scripts that honor both safety and growth.
📝 Money Script Rewriting Process
Step 1: Identify Your Current Scripts Complete these prompts to uncover your inherited money beliefs:
Money is...
Income is...
Spending is...
Expensive things are...
Enough looks like...
Being "good with money" looks like...
Debt is...
Credit cards are...
Wealth is...
Step 2: Examine the Language
Circle one sentence that feels like a block to your growth
Identify absolute, extreme, or black-and-white words (never, always, don't, must)
Note words with moral judgment (bad, stupid, evil, greedy)
Step 3: Understand the Historical Context
Where did this script come from in your family's history?
What economic conditions shaped this belief?
How did this script help your family survive during challenging times?
Step 4: Identify the Protective Intent
What is this script trying to protect you from?
How was this belief meant to keep you safe?
What values does this script reflect?
Step 5: Rewrite with Flexible Language
Update the script for your current reality
Use words like: tools, learning, wisdom, flexibility, consideration
Center the script on your agency and choice
Maintain the core safety element
Allow room for growth and change
Step 6: Test Your New Script
Imagine saying your revised script to a loving elder
Notice if it brings a sense of relief in your body
The script should feel both honoring and liberating
💬 Join the Conversation
Do you have a family script about money that you'd like my help to workshop and re-write? Click on the big orange button on our site right from your phone or browser and let me know! https://www.moneyhealingclub.com/podcast
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[00:00:03] welcome to the Money Healing Club podcast. I'm your host Rachel Duncan. I'm a financial therapist and art therapist, and I founded the Money Healing Club. You've come to the softest place to land in personal finance where we talk about all the things we don't usually say when we talk about money. This podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only.
[00:00:22] For help with your particular situation, please seek help from a licensed mental health tax, legal, or finance professional.
[00:00:30] In today's episode, I have a wonderful listener question that I help them unpack. It is about culture. It is about family scripts, it is about scarcity. It is also about financial trauma.
[00:00:43] I've included a step-by-step instruction in rewriting your money scripts in the show notes. So this is a good one to get out your journal, listen along, and I'd love to hear how this process goes for you.
[00:00:54]
[00:00:58] Speaker: Hi. My question is about overcoming a scarcity mindset when I come from a background with immigrant parents, and scarcity was a matter of survival, so it was very innate and, and also the repercussions of that have been hard to overcome. So just would love to hear some practical advice. From someone, uh, for whom scarcity was really about survival as a child.
[00:01:31]
[00:01:31]
[00:01:36] thank you for this question. You know, first I want to acknowledge just the complexity of this question alone. It touches on family dynamics, intergenerational trauma, cultural values, and I'm sure so much more. So today I want to answer you like you're in the room with me, uh, and try to understand where these patterns come from.
[00:01:58] And finding a path forward that honors your family, your personal lived experience, your culture, while also creating new possibilities.
[00:02:08] Immigration itself often involves significant financial trauma. And like you very honestly acknowledged some real survival mechanisms where scarcity was very real. It was not imagined. It was a very real experience that your people, your parents, your grandparents, really did go through. And financial trauma is, is a real kind of trauma and it is where we experience or witness helplessness when money is just involved, I sometimes say money was just in the room, whether it was a cause of the trauma or not. If money was involved, our brain is associating helplessness with something financial, right? So those two things get hooked together, sort of hand in hand, and then your brain going forward is saying, we need to avoid that thing as much as possible because it was harmful in the past and maybe that thing was money.
[00:03:04] So this has a different flavor for everyone in different circumstances, but that's an overview of financial trauma. So if we back up and look at trauma in general, there are ways we typically, um, express or deal with trauma. One is flight. We have fight, freeze, and fawn. I'm sure there are others, but those are the main ones I think about.
[00:03:26] So how might financial trauma actually show up? Okay, we've got flight, which means like getting outta here. That could be, um, avoidance of topics, avoidance of your financial situation. That would be a fleeing from... we have fight, which could be like, you know, aggression, a defensiveness maybe about your spending choices or angry at the world, or, uh, feeling like it's you against the world.
[00:03:53] That's a real flight type of response. We have freeze, which is maybe mentally just checking out during financial conversations. Even dissociating a little bit, that freeze thing where like, I'm not even here anymore. And then there's fawning, which could show up as undercharging, overworking, and people pleasing around money.
[00:04:16] So you talk about scarcity with your parents, and I have some guesses about how that may have shown up financially. So tell me if any of these things ring true for you. Guilt around purchases and spending that they may carried their own guilt and they guilted you and maybe your siblings around your purchasing decisions.
[00:04:38] Did they have a difficulty enjoying things that cost money? I. Did they have hyper vigilance about being ripped off by others? Did they anticipate financial disasters? Like something always looming on the horizon? Did they have workaholism? Did they burn out? Did they have kind of a take whatever you can get mentality that, hey, you're not gonna enjoy work.
[00:05:01] Work is not meant to be enjoyed. Work is meant to provide for you. Um, kind of obedience at all costs. Did they have a strict adherence to rules and authority? Kind of keep your head down. Uh, take what you can get and don't complain. Those are typical things that, um, sometimes we see in immigrant families and all of those things really make sense.
[00:05:22] You already acknowledge these were real survival things, coming into a new country. Um, the challenges of of integrating were there language barriers were, was there a sense of starting all over again? Which often happens, uh, when people immigrate.
[00:05:47] So I wanna share a little bit of how I've come into this process myself. Uh, my mother grew up in England and immigrated to the United States in the sixties. And, um, she came here just for a short trip and one thing led to another and she stayed here for, uh, 60 years, something like that. Sort of a Gilligan's Island three hour tour thing.
[00:06:08] She really never meant to immigrate here. So I can understand this sort of tension that I, I am a citizen of this country. I grew up, I was born in this country and. Uh, my mother and I never shared the same nationality and there was always like almost a little bit of a disconnect there. And then my father was from the States, uh, many generations, but was very tied to his Scottish ancestry.
[00:06:33] There was very much this attitude of we're poor but proud. And his family had gone through a lot. They had had a tiny cotton farm in Oklahoma during the depression and the dust bowl, and he talked about his experience of growing up in, in poverty in the impact of World War ii. He fought in the war,
[00:06:53] these things really shaped who he was and how he identified. So we have like a financial reality someone lives through and then it becomes an identity. I think that's a little bit about what you're talking about, where like the scarcity makes sense. They had to get through things, but then it became such an identity.
[00:07:08] It became really rigid. Couldn't get updated. And now I've got that script and I need to update it, but it feels super rigid, like it's tattooed on my arm. That often happens with family scripts, but really what's happening with Family Scripts is our family just wants us to be safe.
[00:07:25] So they're saying, Hey, we learned this lesson, therefore we want you to remember this lesson 'cause we just want you to be safe.
[00:07:31] Okay, so what I wanna walk you through is an experience of rewriting these money scripts in a way that really honors the struggle that the script came from, the statement of safety within it. Updating it for the times that feels right for you, so you can continue to grow and learn in just the way that your ancestors wanted you to.
[00:07:54] So this is an expansion of your family values and not a rejection. Sometimes I hear, oh, I wanna get rid of the scarcity mindset and adopt an abundance mindset. And I think there's just a lot of steps in between, and it's not as binary as that.
[00:08:09] So we're gonna take the security that they worked for and we're gonna build upon it.
[00:08:14] So I have several prompts. If you wanna sit down with your journal, that would be great. And I'll include these in the show notes. Money is dot dot dot Income is..., spending is... expensive things are... enough looks like this... being ", good with money" looks like this... these are prompts for you to fill in the blank, and I want you to fill in the blank with one of these scripts.
[00:08:45] Like that knee jerk reaction that just pops up.
[00:08:49] As you work through some of these scripts and just getting them down on paper, you could also get into topics about debt. Debt is... credit cards are... things like that. Wealth is..., jot it all down and then circle one sentence that kind of jumps out as a block towards your growth. Maybe it stings a little bit.
[00:09:10] I am gonna make a guess. Now, I'm not talking with this listener right here, but I'm gonna make a guess. Is one of your scripts, don't spend money on something stupid ? We wanna use really strong language 'cause it probably has really strong language. There could be four letter words in there. So let's work with this script.
[00:09:28] Don't spend money on something stupid, right? That draws into that scarcity mindset you were talking about. So you're gonna write that sentence down. Don't spend money on something stupid. Now, does this phrase contain any absolute extreme or black and white words? Are there words that point to morality, like evil, bad, good, best?
[00:09:53] Never, always greed, virtue? And I would think in this sentence we've got, don't. That's very absolute. Right? Do or do not. And then we have the word stupid, right? There's real value judgments on there. Okay? So just put a little line through the words don't and stupid. Now if you're listening and you have a different phrase, just take a look what words in here are really absolute that have like they're really rigid.
[00:10:21] Okay, now we're gonna step back. Where did this phrase originate? Right. It sounds like you know, some of your, your parents' immigration story, use what you know of your family's history, your personal history, or just also economically, historically, what was going on in certain times. Times of war, times of discrimination, things like that.
[00:10:43] So an example might be this. My people went through some wild economic shifts. They basically had to start all over in a new country. They had so many hurdles, especially financially. They didn't have access to credit. They faced discrimination. They couldn't earn much because they had to build themselves up from the beginning with their professions.
[00:11:06] So. Curbing spending was really the only financial tool they had control over in order to provide for themselves. Their access to income was delayed or challenged. They came from a culture that was very against debt. So watching every penny made a lot of sense for their survival at that time.
[00:11:27] Again, it made sense for them at that time. So we're really expanding on, and you can make some guesses here, what made sense for your family at the time that the script really made sense, really was alive? And I'm just making some guesses here. Of course, please write your own. So based on what we know, the context of watch Every penny or it's, you're never gonna have enough.
[00:11:55] What is that statement trying to protect the younger generations from? So here's some of my guesses. They were warning me to secure myself for the changes ahead. They remind me to value the risks that they took and the challenges they faced, but they did all of that. They survived because they had hope, and I am living proof of that hope.
[00:12:19] They want me to be safe, they want me to prosper. And they were planting the seeds and hey, when you plant seeds, it gets muddy. So they remind me, don't spend money on something stupid. They are reminding me that my money is valuable, and that's why they raised me to be smart. That's the thing. I'm so smart.
[00:12:42] I spend smartly because safety is my number one priority. Do you see how I have taken the context and framed it as a statement of safety and also reframed it in the positive? Don't spend money on something stupid because you're not stupid, because you are smart, right? So we're gonna take smartness and we're going to frame it in a way that you have agency over your money.
[00:13:15] So now we're gonna rewrite the phrase using more flexible language that is updated for you today. We're gonna take probably lots of edits in this one. So we want this new phrase to show caution, include modern ideas and views, and it centers on you. So you might wanna consider words like tools, learning, wisdom, flexibility, consideration, safety, protection, family, values, community, ethics.
[00:13:45] So I have a proposal, so we're gonna take, don't spend money on something stupid. I'm gonna rewrite it. Here's some options. Let me know if you like this . When something is valuable to me, I will research the best options and save for it. Quality experiences and goods are part of my authentic code.
[00:14:06] I'm doing money differently than my parents did, and that's okay. I look out for my safety because I'm a smart spender. I look out for my safety because I'm a smart spender.
[00:14:23] I have another example about maybe a script about income. Like, you know, there's never enough or nothing's guaranteed, and it's true that nothing's guaranteed, but if we could take the statement, there's never enough money, it could turn into this. I'm learning to increase my income and learn about personal finance because I trust myself and I believe in myself.
[00:14:45] It's okay to ask for help and I love to give back. I'm doing money differently than my parents did, and that's okay because they raised me to be smart and watchful. I will always look out for my safety. Okay, I'm gonna repeat that last bit. I'm doing money differently than my parents did, and that's okay because they raised me to be smart and watchful.
[00:15:11] I will always look out for my safety. Now these are just some ideas. I really encourage you to, uh, really work and rework some of your scripts. This might be a great chat prompt for chat GPT or if you use an AI bot, Hey, I've got this money script. I need some help rewriting it.
[00:15:34] You can go to my show notes and copy and paste that and ask AI to help you. This might be a great dialogue. I want you to think of this new statement, though, to be centered on you and for it to be flexible to allow for growth as well as always, emphasize that you're keeping yourself safe because whenever we're talking about money, all roads lead to safety.
[00:15:57] So when I talk about money healing, it's really not about becoming someone else. It's actually a journey inward to get to the very root of who you are. It's about expanding what's possible and honoring where you came from, all of the challenges and journeys that got you to where you are today.
[00:16:16] It's not about, oh, I'm gonna adopt that script. That's usually not gonna stick very well. We're gonna take the one that is rooted in trauma and rework it into one that is flexible and can grow while also keeping you safe.
[00:16:30] Look it takes a lot of courage to look at where we came from to look at these deeply held beliefs that are often rooted in trauma. It takes courage to examine deeply held patterns. So I really wanna invite anyone else to share a script a money script they find is blocking them,
[00:16:49] if you could share that voicemail with me, I'll feature in a future episode of the podcast. If you find this sort of, uh, workshopping of a script helpful. It's one of my very favorite things to do.
[00:16:59] I wanna close with a few more examples of money scripts that I have heard in my work as well as within myself. So one is "money is the root of all evil". That can turn into money is a powerful tool that I respect and I am wise about how I use it.
[00:17:16] Another one is debt is always bad. I can turn that into credit is a tool that I use carefully I stay in good standing with my loans, and it is a tool that helps me bridge one point to another.
[00:17:31] Another script that I hear so often is I'm just not good with money. That can turn into. Being good with money looks like having income, spending and investing that is in alignment with my values. I'm doing money differently than my parents did, and that's okay.
[00:17:50] I'm looking out for my safety always. I want you to imagine saying your revised script to a loving elder. Now, if you did not have a direct experience with a loving elder, that's okay. Not all of us did. You can just imagine, the ideal elder you wish you had had in your life.
[00:18:08] Imagine saying this revised script to them. And when you get a sense that they would reply, yeah, that's what we meant. You know you've rewritten your script in a way that speaks to your safety and your values and honors your lineage. When you repeat this phrase and feel some kind of relief in your body, uh, a more deep down sense of satisfaction rather than like a sparkly one or something that's hopeful and unreal.
[00:18:37] You know that when you have that felt sense, it's updated correctly for you today, and it's a step towards healing financial trauma and getting better with money simply. We all carry multi-generational hurt from money, but this hurt can contain knowledge about safety, about, yeah, it's possible to lose at all.
[00:18:56] I will not pretend otherwise. So financial trauma does stay with us and it shapes our brain pathways. It can affect our choices, if we sit with it and work with it, we can create new choices from that script. So questioning your inherited beliefs doesn't mean you're turning your back on your values or your family.
[00:19:15] It means you're building financial health so you can live into your values more fully and continue to grow and change and evolve just as every human really ever has.
[00:19:26] Financial trauma recovery is about fitting the experiences of challenge into a life story. Say it was of that time, it happened at that time. We're not gonna pretend it doesn't. It's a story of ups and downs, safety and challenges and danger.
[00:19:45] And so that's why these scripts live on as sort of this game of telephone. But if we can identify that script and say, Hey, I know you're trying to keep me safe because that was a hard earned lesson, but here's the updated version. Your ancestors, your people want you to flourish.
[00:20:03] I have every bit of faith that your new script can be flexible, can honor safety, and to take you a new place in your money healing. If you'd like to continue this line of thinking, you might enjoy checking out An earlier episode of the podcast where I interviewed my husband about his lived reality growing up in USSR Ukraine, where scarcity was absolutely the name of the game and he really unpacks how that impacts him today as an adult living in the US.
[00:20:30] Again, if this rescripting exercise is interesting to you, all of the instructions are in the show notes, and I encourage you to leave me a voicemail if you want some help workshopping your inherited money script. Go on over to moneyhealingclub.com.
[00:20:45] There's a bright pink tab on the side that says Leave a voicemail for the pod. You can just do it right from your phone or browser, and I really appreciate you helping shape the podcast and it will help other people heal their money as well.
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