The barriers of a first generation American.

Being born in the latino culture has been the greatest blessing i could have received in this physical body in the human experience. Our culture is full of taste, joy, abundance, love, loyalty, etc. When you are born latino you learn to care for your family members needs and wants, it is our duty to look out for our loved ones for the rest of our lives. We grow up watching our parents work long hours to make ends meet and still take care of the family with care and love. That naturally starts to accumulate a sense of responsibility on our shoulders we feel in debt with our parents we feel we need to contribute or at the very least be independent to discharge weight from them. At a young age we adopt heavy responsibilities in a sense we lose a vision of our inner child because of the natural dynamic in the family of working to make a living.

I will use myself as an example to better explain the barriers i have had to overcome in seeking the alignment with my true abundant self. When i first started growing into my developing years around the age of sixteen my uncle once came home and said " i got you a job" like if i was looking for one. I was grateful that i had an opportunity to finally earn cash i was gonna be able to be independent and never will have to ask my parents for a dime i took the chance. I started to work and i was making money the more i kept making throughout my teens i stopped doing youthful activities like i would not go to high school events, hangouts, seeing friends, work and school was all i knew. I was just doing what i was suppose to do work to just make enough to live and move forward each day. I decided that i was not going to be going to college and that i would just keep working two restaurant jobs for the rest of my life aiming to be the bartender to make big bucks. After two short years of working two full time jobs i realized that i hated that life style missing christmas, thanksgiving, birthdays, time with friends that is not the life i wanted.

I decided to go to college where everyone told me i was wasting my time and that i was gonna be stuck in community college for the rest of times just like everyone else. I was tired of looking through the lense of other people telling me what i could and what i could not do. I decided to take charge of my life, my fate, i started to see the vision of where i was going while keeping my eyes wide open in the current moment working step by step towards graduating so i could transfer to a state university. In two years i finished and i was able to transfer to Chico State my first and only option it was a wonderful moment in my life i realized that i was being limited by the lack of experience in my family. Nobody in my family had ever gone to college let alone having the opportunity to actually feel the american dream of abundance and prosperity. Where we came from we always had to work to be good enough we lived in a state of scarcity, for the first time i knew that i was enough and worthy of good things so i left behind the broken limited lense.

When i transferred to Chico State it was like if i carried a super power within. At first it was hard leaving behind the know for the unknown it took some time to adjust to being far away from home and friends. It was when i would wake up and walk to school that i realized i was living a dream what i envision i was living it in real life WOW. Realizing that i decided to expand my experience and look further ahead what else can i learn? we all could read books watch movies and feel motivated but nothing will change our lives like experiences and for the first time i had experience what setting a goal and accomplishing it felt like. I took advantage of college and i worked jobs that exposed me to the real world and struggles of people like working in sales and customer service that taught me about human behavior.

I realized that people at their core are good but sometimes they measure you by their ideal of who you are on their mind not by what you have achieve from the point of where you started. Friends and family your loved ones will be the one who subconsciously limit you the most because when you explore different they cant understand it and different is dangerous to our minds. Traditionally we are born into our culture of love, care, joy, we learn to be selfless in order to protect the wellbeing of our family but at what cost? the cost of your dreams and goals? It is time for you to empower yourself to be a little more selfish in things that make you feel good and wholesome. You don't have to start working at sixteen in order to meet the norms of your culture, don't let the limit lense of others rob you of your potential to create the life you want for yourself.

When i say be selfish it sounds scary and contradicting but look at how i shifted the lane in my journey. If i would have stayed working two jobs forever i would probably resend people around me and most importantly myself for not being more when i knew inside of me i could be. By me taking charge and being selfish on what i wanted not what would satisfy my family keep in mind they were not trying to harm me by offering me work, they were just trying to provide from the best point of view they could. My uncle was showing me his support and belief by dragging me with him to work because that's the only way he knew of making a living hard physical labor work.

Making the shift was an important step but where i truly struggled was in accepting the fact of being alone. When you are the first to do something your family will not understand it so they will naturally judge you and how could they not? what people can't understand scares them. We have to accept that for a long time we are going to be alone until we meet the vibrational match of the goal we set out to be. It will be at the moment when we align with our true selves, that more people will start to come into our life and we will feel more understood, supported, and value. It is scary to be the first one to do anything but you are not alone there's thousands of others that been in your shoes you just have to open up and be willing to explore this wonderful universe full of possibilities.

Today i am the happiest i ever been, i have a job full of autonomy and flexibility. I am my own boss i provide my pipeline i am in business by myself but not for myself people will always come first. I have realized that by putting people first you will empower a movement of possibilities of abundance and care. It takes nothing for you to light up another candle the world will just get brighter because of your action. For every action theres a reaction i choose to be a co creator of love and acceptance, are you living the life you want if not it's time to take charge.