Nurturing Abundance: Debunking the Scarcity Mindset Myth Among Asian Immigrants

I came across a brilliant article recently about poverty and it’s impact on cognition (Thanks to Simone Seol!)

In this article, it mentions some social scientists that are exploring how poverty “places an undue burden on an individual’s limited mental resources.” In other words, the poor are not less capable, but are using up a lot of mental, emotional, physical and energetic resources on meeting basic needs, such as gaining safe shelter, getting reliable and basic transportation and putting food on the table. The researchers defined poverty not by any income level, but by the gap between needs and resources provided to fulfill those needs.

Why is this relevant to Eldest daughters (NB, trans) of asian immigrants?

First, it is really gaslight to tell a person to “fix their scarcity mindset” if you or your household have experienced poverty within the last 7 or 8 generations. Did you know that the trauma imprinted in your DNA can be from your ancestors going 7 or 8 generations back? Just because you aren’t experiencing poverty, it doesn’t mean your body doesn’t know the difference through transference of information through your DNA.

Second, I want to reframe the need to “fix your scarcity mindset” into recognizing that we live in a scarce reality.

Here are some examples of unmet needs that we may be acutely unaware of. The need to:

• be deeply emotionally known and understood

• rest

• have multiple deep relationally intimate relationships filled with fun and shared values

• not worry about having basic healthcare coverage

• have affordable access to medicine

• have affordable access to trauma healers

• affordable childcare

• affordable housing

• reliable transportation

• affordable nurturing foods

• have sick and vulnerable elders in the family have affordable long term geriatric care

I am considered a high income earner, but the reality is that I live in America, where affordable food, healthcare and basic childcare are not a given. I live in a scarce reality.

As a result of that scarce reality, I can’t just fix my “scarcity mindset”. It’s like telling someone with ADHD to “just try harder and start doing difficult tasks.” or telling a paraplegic person to “just get up and walk.”

That is gaslighting.

There are cognitive burdens on people who have a scarce reality. People who have a scarce reality often obsessively think about how to meet their basic needs. This leave those in poverty to have less resources to take risks and action on their goals. What I think is most important to hear for eldest daughters of asian immigrants: you are not defective because you are a “late bloomer” in your career, relationships or personal milestones. You have just had an exceedingly heavy mental load placed on you from poverty and that impedes your capacity to take action.

The definition of poverty, in this case, is the gap between your needs and resources to fulfill the need. This leads me to my third point:

Don’t be deceived by your and your parents “high” income compared to others living in relative “poverty” in Asia. Don’t use you or your family’s income to gaslight yourself into thinking that you were given many opportunities to “succeed” and you aren’t living up to it because you have a “scarcity mindset.”

If the definition of poverty is equal to the gap between needs and resources to fulfill this need, your parents might of actually been extremely impoverished, despite their ability to purchase many homes, have nice cars, or stable jobs. They might of experienced the poverty of having a robust family and community infrastructure, adequate childcare, cultural rituals and connection to land, healing medicines, personal and professional mentorship. Someone who is more impoverished in some small village in Asia earning $8 per day might be more resource rich than someone in America earning $2K per month.

Here are some conclusions that I want to draw:

1) Trying to fix your “scarcity mindset” is gaslighting someone who actually has a scarce reality.

2) The “scarcity mindset” is one of the ways that the white body supremacy uses tactics to coerce us into “working harder” and becoming better “capitalists.”

3) Have compassion on yourself when you have parts of you that think you’re defective because you are a late bloomer— haven’t bought a house yet, don’t have your dream career, don’t have the ideal romantic partner, etc. Your “delays” are a result of the lack of energetic capacity you might have as a result of having to parent your parents, to deal with relational isolation and emotional neglect, etc. Your lack of capacity stems from the cognitive erosion due to emotional and relational intergenerational poverty.

4) Consider your true cognitive bandwidth right now. Mindset work is very important and powerful. Not everyone has equal access to be able to change their mindset. Some people are trying to use up their emotional energy to do basic things, like survive. Even if you are a 6+ figure earner, as a child of asian immigrants, there are things that your body is holding from previous generations that have not been unburdened and healed.

You might feel like you have all your financial needs met right now, but you experience constriction and discomfort around spending money or receiving money. Ask yourself, did my recent ancestors struggle with having their basic needs met? If you want to cultivate an “abundance mindset” that will be permanently sustaining, it will have to involve systems and government shifting around their funds to prioritize basic health care, eldercare, and childcare, along with increasing more access to food and housing security.

Recognizing that the burden of the shift needs to be done with the systems that govern is something important. The burden of the work is not on our shoulders alone.

What IS in our personal realm of control and responsiblity that can help us move towards an “abundance mindset” is this:

1) learn about your brain’s unique wirings and structure. If you have ADHD, like me, the regular way of organizing your time and life are going to be very unique, so don’t look at regular resources directed towards the neurotypical brain. Follow people who have contextualized materials that address your unique brain structure

2) follow and connect with mentors that have shared cultural, ethnic, sexual, gender identities as you for more contextualized care in this regard too. I think having an liberation oriented social justice lens is a must in this regard. Non liberation oriented healers can unintentionally place undue burden on you to individually shoulder the work of healing and can bring shame if you “dont heal in the right way”.

3) pursue healers that can help with intergenerational trauma healing. This will address the epigenetic part of poverty that was imbedded in our DNA from generations ago. Some examples of these types of healing modalities can include Internal Family Systems, Family Constellations, Somatic healing, etc.

4) do this healing work in community. Community is a resource!