The Asian American Life Crisis
As a therapist and healer specialized in working with Asian Americans, I notice that Asian Americans frequently come into therapy when they did everything they were supposed to do in their life, they have met the required milestones; they thought they would be happy, but they are not. They are not happy and they do not receive the love and support they thought they would have by doing things ‘correctly’. In short, it is an identity crisis.
When you reach the pinnacle of what you thought was your life, what do you do when the promised reward is not actually satisfying? Feelings of shame can arise. Angry waves of self-criticism will hit you, as you have been taught to lambast yourself with due to your Asian conditioning. And all these self-destructive feelings are actually a defensive mechanism to prevent you from looking deeper at the structure and framework you were taught for success.
Most Asian immigrant parents teach the same moral curriculum and goals to their children. As a therapist, I don’t actually know all of my clients’ parents, but most of the time I can guess with uncanny precision what these parents are like, how they react, and what they preach. That’s because all these parents play from the same rule book. Most Asian Americans are taught that it is essential to get the best education possible, obtain a high paying job in a stable career industry, and get married by their early thirties. If that is not too much, they’re also pushed to start having children soon after marriage to prevent a woman’s biological clock from ‘running out’. What is tragic about this trajectory is when Asian Americans can finally experience their adult independence psychologically and financially, they are pressured into giving it up quickly by taking on the enormous responsibility of parenting. This is an ill-fated cycle because people who have not individuated do not make good parents. When I say this, I do mean to call out the majority of Asian immigrant parents who are putting their Asian American children in this conundrum.
A lot of Asian Americans have succeeded in following this particular road to success. They live with financial abundance and hold high status jobs, but their self-confidence and self-love hasn’t increased as much as their career as.
A misconception in astrology is that the Midheaven always correlates to your career. As an Asian American astrologer, I make this mistake every day because I’ve been conditioned both by traditional astrology and by my Asian conditioning that my career is so important. The Midheaven actually indicates your highest calling in this lifetime. Which could be a career or it could be something completely else. What is for certain is that you will be able to intuitively feel your highest calling when it is in front of you. That is because your highest calling is unique to you and no one else.
This presents two new conceptualizations for Asian Americans:
If Career is not necessarily my highest calling, I can remove the excruciating pressure I have put on myself all my life to succeed in this. If I am an Asian American who happens to not have success in my career at the moment, I do not need to feel like a failure. Because there is more to life. A lot more. It then calls into the question the whole life framework that Asians Americans have been taught. And rightfully so. The playbook Asian immigrant parents use is fragmented and trauma-ridden, holding the desperate vestiges and dreams of an emotionally dysregulated population. We should question it, because perpetuating trauma helps no one.
If I do not strengthen my own intuition, my belief in myself, I cannot accurately hear my own calling. This realization deeply invites Asian Americans to get to themselves anew as vibrant and unique individuals, instead of daughter/son/child pawns in the game of an Asian hierarchy. This is an invitation to become acquainted with your own feelings, nervous system, and body sensations. It is a process of learning your likes and dislikes, and becoming gracious towards your wounds and mistakes. You learn to become your own ally so fiercely that you can champion your own growth into the unknown.
The moment Asian Americans realize that everything they worked for is for naught… is a heartbreaking moment. But what’s on the other side of that realization is reuniting with their full potential as a happy and whole human being.
