On this episode of The Chicana Therapist Podcast, I sat down with my second-ever podcast guest, and one of my favorite coaching clients, Cristina, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and burnout coach for first-gen professionals.
Cristina, a first-gen professional, became a mom as a teenager, and still made her way through nursing school, and a master’s program, and realized there just weren’t enough providers who looked like us or understood our familias. But the real gold in this episode is what she’s discovered about why first-gen folks burn out, and why it’s not the same as everyone else’s burnout.
The five traits that put us at risk
Cristina shares five patterns that show up over and over in first-gen professionals: hyper-independence, using achievement as a shield, people-pleasing, reactivity, and living in a constant “always on” survival mode. Sound familiar? If you caught my last episode on high-functioning anxiety, you’ll recognize a lot of overlap.
It’s not just in your head, it’s generational
We get into the real cost of burnout for our community: the financial toll, the physical toll, and how so much of what we carry didn’t start with us. Cristina connects the dots between unprocessed ancestral trauma and the nervous system patterns that show up in our daily lives, and she does it through a lens Western psychology rarely offers.
Ancestral healing meets clinical training
My favorite part of this conversation is when Cristina walks us through the Aztec concept of the tripartite soul, how clarity, connection, and instinct live in three different places in the body, and what happens when they fall out of alignment. It’s a beautiful bridge between what she learned in her psychiatric training and what our ancestors already knew.
Where to go from here
Cristina is launching a $27 masterclass series this August covering each of these five traits in depth, an incredibly accessible way to start recognizing your own patterns before they turn into rock-bottom burnout. You can find it, along with her coaching offerings, at mariacristinacoaching.com.
Or sign up here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScs3ytDx6cDOn66XGbLIbndMLE7nLKLARNFdOrUD4DcPka_vQ/viewform
If you’ve ever felt like you have to hold it all together because no one else will , this episode is for you. Dale play y cuéntame qué se te quedó resonando.
🎧 Listen to the full episode now wherever you get your podcasts.