Stop mistaking your exhaustion for “strength.”
We are the daughters of women who crossed borders, learned new languages, and built lives from nothing. We are so good at carrying the weight of our families, our jobs, and our communities because we have generations of practice. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself: What is it costing you to never set that weight down?
In this episode, we sit down with Lucia Fernandez, a licensed therapist who specializes in helping Latinas untangle patterns that were never ours to carry in the first place. She reframes therapy not as a “white” luxury, but as the next generation of our survival.
You will learn that healing isn’t about abandoning where you come from—it’s about giving yourself the honor and peace your ancestors fought for you to have. We’re moving from the “Strong Latina” myth to a practice of radical, sustainable well-being.
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Healing is Microscopic: You don’t need a dramatic overhaul. Choosing curiosity over fear or setting one boundary is a radical step toward cycle-breaking.
Context Over Failing: Your struggles aren’t personal failings; they are responses to environments and systems that weren’t designed for you to thrive.
The “Brown Tax” of Silence: Keeping family secrets costs the next generation. Replacing silence with language ensures our children don’t carry the same weight.
Start with One Note: You don’t have to book a session today. Just write down one resource and let the possibility of healing exist outside your mind.
Breaking generational cycles means interrupting patterns of trauma, communication styles, and beliefs about worth or gender roles that travel across time. In practice, it looks like a parent realizing they shut down when their child cries because no one responded to them as a child, and choosing to stay emotionally available instead. It is about replacing secrecy with language and reactivity with repair.
The primary barriers are the “survival-first” mindset and cultural stigma. For many Latinas, survival is the organizing principle of life, making emotional exploration feel like an unaffordable luxury. Cultural codes like “qué pasa en casa, en casa se queda” (what happens at home stays at home) create a sense that therapy is a betrayal of family loyalty rather than an act of care.
Many therapists offer a “sliding scale” or pro-bono spots for those who cannot pay full price. Resources like Open Path Collective provide reduced-rate care, while apps like Thrizer help manage out-of-network insurance reimbursements so you only pay the co-share. You can also request a “Single Case Agreement” from your insurance to see a specific out-of-network provider for “continuity of care”.
Andrea: Hola Amiga. Welcome to the Latina Leadership Podcast, a podcast by Latinas for all women. Get ready, because today’s conversation is really special. Hola, and welcome to another episode of the Latina Leadership Podcast. I’m your host, Andrea, and we talk a lot on this show about strength, resilience, how we carry things, how we push through, how we show up for our families, our communities, our jobs. And we are so good at it. We have generations of practice, but I’ve been thinking about what it costs us to carry that weight without ever setting it down. You know, for many of us, the idea of therapy feels complicated. It can feel like a luxury we can’t afford. It can feel like a betrayal of the family code that says qué pasa en casa en casa se queda. It can feel like admitting weakness in a world that already expects us to fail. But what if healing isn’t about rejecting our culture? What if it’s about continuing the legacy our parents started when they crossed borders, learning languages and built lives from nothing? What if healing is the next generation of survival? And today, we are honored to share the voice of Lucia Fernandez, a licensed therapist who helps Latinas untangle the patterns that were never ours to carry. And this is a conversation about breaking cycles, not by abandoning where we come from, but by finally giving ourselves what our ancestors cut it out of the honor of… You know, talking to Lucia and having her answer some of our deepest questions about what it actually means to heal, not as a concept, but as a practice. And I want to share her voice with you now. So we ask Lucia, in your work, what does breaking generational cycles look like in practice, and how does systems therapy help facilitate that healing? And let us watch her answer. Let me get my headphones here and let’s watch breaking generational cycles in practice.
Lucia: Can mean interrupting patterns that quietly travel across time. It could look like trauma responses. It could look like communication styles, beliefs about worth, power, safety, love, gender roles, could be conflict. Beliefs about silence, or maybe being too independent. Because especially as Latinas, being first generation, we grow up being the ones that are paving the way for our parents and really paving the way for ourselves. So hyper independence, addiction, even cutting up emotionally, cutting people off emotionally, which can sound very taboo, especially for, you know, Latino culture, where we’re taught that like family and familia represents everything. So sometimes breaking generational cycles is meaning that it can look like doing something out of the norm, that your family may not perceive it as being healthy. And definitely, knowing that you’re doing it for the future of yourself, the future of your children and being able to, you know, not necessarily assimilate into American culture, but assimilate into like, healthy culture. So that is how breaking generational cycles can look like in practice. But in therapy breaking cycles, it doesn’t have to look dramatic. So it can look very microscopic and radical at the same time. It looks like a parent realizing “I shut down when my child cries because no one responded when I cried.” So they may have that “aha” moment of “nobody gave this to me, but I am going to provide this space for my child.” And in therapy they can realize that that they just being emotionally available is a step into breaking generational cycles. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be huge. Every tiny little step counts. And it really just starts with learning what healthy versus unhealthy is. It could look like someone noticing they tend to choose partners who feel familiar, like their parents. Not safe. And tracing that familiarity back to childhood dynamics. It could look like a teenager learning that anger isn’t danger, or a caregiver discovering they can set boundaries without abandoning people. It looks like families replacing secrecy with language, reactivity with repair, or even just fear with curiosity and taking a step into the right direction of being a little bit more fearless. Systems therapy helps because it refuses to treat people as isolated units. And it kind of tells us that humans, as humans, we are in ecosystems and we’re shaped by families, schools, neighborhood, immigration system, health care systems, which is like a big topic right now. Racial hierarchies, unfortunately. Also a big topic right now, sadly, economic pressure, which the economy definitely contributes towards breaking generational cycles. Having that wealth or generational wealth, religious communities, court systems or even workplaces. So symptoms rarely arise just in a vacuum. It’s all around us. So instead of asking what’s wrong with us, we should ask, what relationships heart this behavior? Was it our parents? Was it our caregivers? Was it our environment? Was it our school system? Was it that we grew up in a neighborhood where we weren’t necessarily accepted? Who carried this first? Was it my parents? Is it me? What environment rewarded it? Did people around me reinforce what was happening historically, culturally, structurally when this pattern formed? Think about the children that are being raised right now. I was 17 year old, and the system is very different from when I grew up without social media and even just the political nature of what is today. What benefits when it continues, and who pays the costs of not breaking the generational cycles? So that’s pretty much somewhat of what breaks. It’s just a very over encompassing question of breaking generational cycles. But in sum, there is no right or wrong way. But definitely if I had to break it down in simplest terms as being able to analyze dynamics that really shaped you, whether it is environment, family or anything of that like, and being able to deconstruct, learn what’s healthy and take small steps into healthier directions. And that is not easy. And it takes having healthy support systems all around. But it definitely starts like right here and right here. And a lot of it is fear or confidence or self-esteem.
Andrea: What an amazing response from Lucia. And she asked the question “who pays the cost of not breaking it?” And that question shifts everything because the answer is never just us. It’s our children. It’s the way we show up or don’t in our relationships. It’s the ceiling we hit in our careers because we don’t know how to ask for more without feeling like we’re asking for too much. It’s exhaustion we carry that we mistake for normal. You know, systems therapy asks us to zoom out, to stop treating our struggles as personal failings, and start seeing them as responses to environments that were never designed for us to thrive. And that isn’t an excuse. It’s an invitation. If these patterns were learned, they can be unlearned. If they were built, they can be rebuilt. Why don’t we go and we ask Lucia this question: like what are the most common barriers, cultural, financial or emotional, that prevent Latinas from seeking therapy? How can we begin to overcome them? So let’s watch her response.
Lucia: Culturally, one of the biggest barriers is the inheritance of survival versus values. So many Latina families come from lineages shaped by migration, colonialism, political instability, poverty, labor exploitation, medical neglect, and many much more. So when survival is the organizing principle of all of this, emotional exploration can definitely look like a luxury. So oftentimes, being in survival is normal. And up until the point that you actually move out and you interact with different sorts of people, you don’t really know what anything else other than what we grew up with looks like. So survival is so embedded in our culture. But you look at the immigration, people who immigrate, obviously, most of the time you hear that they come with a few dollars in their pocket. They don’t know the language. So survival is embedded. And as first generation we see our parents go through very much, just surviving, whether it’s to put food on the table or be able to just wake up the next day and function, not having luxuries or privileges that other people have, such as health care or resources. So we learn to survive things. And it’s almost like passed down anxiety. So, you know, pain gets normalized. Strength is equated with endurance. And then silence becomes a form of respect. So family loyalty becomes sacred. And all messages like “we handle things at home, you don’t air dirty laundry.” “Others have it way worse.” “Pray about it and see what happens.” “Just pray to God that something is going to happen.” Just kind of sit there and wait. Or you know what? You’re being dramatic or “te crees mucho,” you know, like, you think you’re all that if you’re working on your self-esteem. So therapy kind of feels like betrayal rather than care. So that’s often another reason why there is so much stigma around therapy and where that becomes a barrier in and of itself. Another barrier is stigma. So it can sometimes be explicit. It sometimes can be very whispered. So, you know, therapy can be associated with being loca or being weak or unstable. Incapable of managing life. Like, “oh, you need to go talk to somebody” or “oh, they’re only you’re only paying them to listen.” So for first gen women, especially the pressure to be the translator, the stabilizer, the caretaker, the strong one, it often leaves little room to admit vulnerability. So when you’ve been carrying like a lot of that on your back, asking for help can often feel like dropping the load and risking spilling everything. Especially in school systems where they fear that, you know, DCFS is going to be called or, you know, you go to therapy when you’re a teenager and you hear stuff like, “what is in here is confidential. Unless someone’s hurting you, you’re hurting someone, or you think of hurting yourself.” Well, oftentimes, what people don’t know is that suicidal thoughts are very normal to feeling hopeless and very normal to depression, and that doesn’t mean that that gets reported. We only report if there is like a major crisis and there is impending suicidality where there is a plan of action and there’s danger. So oftentimes, not having that education really determines if someone is going to get help.
Andrea: Her response is so amazing and so thoughtful because, you know, I think a lot of us will hear ourselves in what Lucia is naming, the survival-first mindset that many of us know, the normalization of pain, the belief that if we can still stand, we don’t need help. The voice that says “others have it worse, so who are you to complain?” The fear that admitting struggle will somehow dishonor the sacrifices our parents made. And I think this is the big one. But here is what I’m learning. Honoring their sacrifice doesn’t mean repeating their suffering. You know, they worked so hard so we could have more. Not just more things, more choice, more peace, more freedom to be human. So how do we actually get past these barriers? And Lucia gave us a roadmap. You know, we asked Lucia, as a professional in the field, what is one resource or tool you wish every Latina had access to for her mental and emotional well-being? And she didn’t give us just one. She gave us several. So let’s tune in.
Lucia: Reach out to therapists, a lot of therapists do what’s called the sliding scale. For example, I do a sliding scale. And I hold two spots for clients that might not be able to afford the full pay range. And so that is something that I do. There’s a lot of therapists that do sliding scales and hold certain spots. There may be some that even do pro-bono. Also, there is a website called Open Path, and that’s a really good one for reduced therapy. You might not get somebody that’s licensed, or maybe you do, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good quality care. Example in my practice I have associates that take on reduced pay rate clients and see them at a very reduced rate. So that is openpath.com. There is also things called… you can call your insurance and ask for a one time case agreement. So if you do find a therapist and say they take Aetna and you have Blue Cross Blue Shield, then if you reach out to Blue Cross Blue Shield and you request a one time agreement, you might be able to get a contract—your therapist might be able to get a contract with that insurance company. And be able to see you and they might be able to pay for your treatment as a result of that. That usually happens. And it’s often the case when you transfer from one insurance to another. Therapist takes Aetna but my insurance recently changed to Blue Cross Blue Shield. Therefore I’d like to have a one case single agreement because it’s imperative that my therapist continues to see me for continuance of treatment. We all know that in therapy, the number one thing is relationships. In any health care system, the number one thing is relationship. And somebody having your history. But in therapy, what really treats you is the relationship you have with your therapist and feeling safe and comfortable in order to open up. So what I’ve noticed is that when somebody starts with a new therapist, you know, you have to start your story over and that can feel very overwhelming. So having continuance of treatment and having somebody know your story is very imperative to keep with progress of treatment as opposed to regressing. So there is certain type of lingo that might help in order to be able to kind of convince your new insurance that it would benefit you for you to see your old therapist and insurances like to operate out of what’s going to cost us less money. So if you frame it that way, that might help in insurance being like, “Yes.” And I have found that a lot of insurances do give therapists single case agreements, but it is up to the client to request those. So advocacy is very important. I think and there is another thing is, requesting a super bill, which is pretty much like a therapeutic receipt. So you pay out of pocket first. So say that therapist charges 160 and your benefits cover 120. Then you would only pay the difference. There’s an app called Thrizer that I use, that allows me to charge my rate and then they collect from the client’s insurance. So then the client doesn’t even have to pay the full rate. They only pay the difference and Thrizer pays for it in the meantime until they collected from the insurance. It used to be that there was a super bill. And the way that a super bill is, is that a client pays out of pocket the full price, and then they have to wait a couple of weeks to get reimbursed. It takes about 6 to 8 weeks to get that first reimbursement. Well, Thrizer kind of cuts off that middle person. They pay the therapist directly and Thrizer waits for the money. So that’s very cool, but they do charge a percent. But it does alleviate a lot of the stress and chasing down money. So that’s another option. There’s plenty of little tricks and nuances. Sometimes you might just want to call a therapist and consult and then ask them, “do you have any suggestions?” Consultations are usually free, so you can usually find therapists on psychologytoday.com. There are a lot of places where therapists market themselves, but that’s one that’s been around for a very long time. So worst case, call a therapist, consult and ask them if they have any suggestions for you in terms of how to find treatment for a lower cost. If you have Medi-Cal there’s a lot of mental health agencies that take Medi-Cal. And if you find that there’s a waiting list again, ask for referrals. Places like Psychology Today, you plug in your insurance and it’ll give you a list of therapists that are in the community. It usually says if we’re accepting clients or not. But yeah, that’s a way to be able to access that.
Andrea: Lucia’s response is so thorough. She gave us names, websites, and app subscriptions. She gives permission to use the needed language to ask for it. She has proof that there are Latina therapists who are waiting for us, holding spots specifically for women like us. But here’s what I want you to hear. You don’t have to do it all at once. You don’t have to call ten therapists a day. You don’t have to master the insurance system overnight. Maybe today you just open Psychology Today and look. Maybe you just write down the words “Open Path” and sit with them for a while. You know, healing isn’t a race. It’s a direction. You deserve to be well, not someday, not when everything else is perfect. Now, as you are with the weight you’re still learning to sit down. So where do we start? This week, I want you to borrow Lucia’s method not to fix yourself, just to gather information. Open your phone, open your notes app. Write down one of the resources Lucia gave us. Just one. It could be Open Path, Psychology Today, Thrizer, Sliding Scale. That’s it. You don’t have to call. You don’t have to book. Just write it down and let it exist somewhere other than the back of your mind. Because here’s what I know about us. We are so good at taking care of everyone else. We remember the birthdays, the appointments, the deadlines. We hold it all, but we forget to hold ourselves. So this week, hold one resource. See how it feels. Your healing doesn’t have to be dramatic. It can start with a note on your phone and a promise you’re not ready to make yet. But that’s still a step that counts. Thank you, Lucia, for your wisdom, your vulnerability and your refusal to let us believe we are alone in this. And to every Latina listening, you’re not too much. You’re not broken. You’re not the first woman in your family to feel this way. And with each small step, you’re making sure you won’t be the last. I’m Andrea Diaz, y empiecen con un paso, un paso. Hasta la proxima. Bye amigas.
