I was published in Lotus Magazine! Here is a preview of my Transcend The Tiger program – we’re starting our live group only ONCE per year on May 31 – email me at DrTooni@Mail.com to inquire about joining or book a free consultation!

I’m Toni Liu, an ex-Ivy-League doctor turned nomadic cartoonist and educator. I am one of many Tiger Children who were groomed by a Tiger Mom to be a certain way, with insane expectations, relentless criticism, and conditional love if I didn’t obey. I broke free from this vicious cycle, and I hope to help others break free, too.

First, I see you, and I GET it. It was abuse disguised as cultural normalcy—let’s call it what it is. Shouting or name-calling to “motivate” a child to “do better,” or using conditional treatment or threats, even empty ones, to control or manipulate behavior leaves lasting, invisible scars on self-esteem, self-worth, identity, decision-making, relational skills, and many other areas of life. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way. And you’re OK exactly where you are now; you don’t have to change or do anything unless you genuinely want to. You’ve been through enough, and who you are now is more than enough. But if you’ve been feeling unhappy, stuck, empty, anxious, or just simply off, keep reading!

For years, I carried so much pain, anger, resentment, and even a gleeful sense of rebellion in fighting back against my Tiger Parents and fighting for the life of freedom & expression I never got. (That’s part of why I quit medicine in a blaze of glory to travel the world full-time working online as a digital nomad.) I felt like a victim. I read so many books, such as Will I Ever Be Enough? Healing Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers. It discusses the 12 roles a healthy caregiver SHOULD have fulfilled, and gave me so much relief and insight to the pain of being an emotional orphan struggling to find a place of belonging. However, that’s a sneaky way the intergenerational cycle of trauma continues. It’s not truly healing from the past, and those feelings can still harm your loved ones, present and future. It’s necessary to acknowledge your pain in order to transmute it, but it’s not a healthy endpoint.

Rather than continuing this struggle, I offer this perspective I cultivated from my 15-year spiritual journey and months spent in monasteries over the world—Transcend The Tiger: transcending the ancestral Tiger that victimized us all, through understanding, compassion, and wisdom.

DUKKHA (Suffering)

Being alive means there will be inevitable pain, or at least dissatisfaction. We all have desires we crave and fears we try to avoid. Life is always full of challenges, and what matters is accepting that this is the nature of living a human life. It was nobody’s fault. It doesn’t excuse what they did to you, but your parents, and all your ancestors too, were victims of this Tiger.

A Tiger Parent’s demands are often driven by their own traumas, fears, cultural conditioning—even genetics. They were also brainwashed and didn’t have the courage or strength to face their own fears about survival, success, or worth. They’re doing the best they can with the limited tools and skills they were taught.

We can choose differently. We can choose to respond with awareness, compassion, and kindness. We can show empathy rather than judgment, and see them as another human being struggling with their own pain and unconsciously crying out for help.

If the weight of anger harms your peace and well-being, and takes up energy that could be spent doing other things, it might be worth trying to release it, or at least soften it with compassion. It can be an act of self-compassion to stop re-creating and re-living the harm, injury, and trauma in our minds and memories.

ANNICA (Impermanence)

The past is only alive in our minds (and sometimes our bodies as well, such as physical scars, but we give them power with our minds). We can’t change what happened, so why think about it so much? Memory is more flawed than we think and vulnerable to suggestion.

Imagine a heart with some pieces torn out from heartbreaks; if it keeps growing bigger, the holes are less of a big deal. Not because they are shrinking, but because you are expanding. You don’t need to shrink them, erase your trauma, deny or gaslight your experiences; you simply grow and fill your life with new, more healthy and authentic experiences.

ANNATA (Non-Self & Non-Attachment)

Tiger children often internalize our family’s attachments to achievement, believing our worth is only validated through external accomplishments, such as money, possessions, relationship status, etc., that flatten our humanity. Healing means transcending this simplistic, reductionist, capitalistic, and materialistic view of success.

Buddhism recognizes the inherent worth of every being, simply by their virtue of existing. Every person has a personality, and makes an impact on this world, by even simple things like what they choose to eat, wear, live, invest their time, energy or resources in, etc. Every soul matters to someone else. We are all important and worthy of love.

This pokes holes in the obsession the ancestral Tiger has with appearances, saving face, looks, external things, things that we ultimately do not have full control over anyway and ultimately do not matter after we die. Why cause ourselves stress and grief trying to cling so tightly to things we can’t control and hinge our well-being on them?

If we rise above and beyond the sight of the Tiger, we can see what really matters—our internal experience. Perhaps the only external thing that can stay forever is our impact on others and the world. Even long after death we feel the effects some people had, in things they created, causes they moved forward, or fond memories they left with loved ones.

Transcending the Tiger means looking beyond our human conflicts and struggles to (re)discover and focus on what really matters to each of us, which is unique and different to every soul. I hope this brings you some insight and peace to your healing journey.

If you’re struggling with letting go, I invite you to ask yourself:

1. “What were their best intentions, if I gave them the benefit of the doubt even just for 5 minutes for the sake of this exercise?”

2. “What do they actually want for me, deep down? How is what they want for me actually what I want too? Or is there ANY overlap?”

3. “Even though they did many things wrong, what did they do RIGHT as a parent? Knowing that nobody is perfect.”

4. “Are there any lessons or parts of my story I can be grateful for? That I was able to reach THIS depth of love, kindness, wisdom, growth, self-awareness, etc because I went through this? We don’t get to choose our parents or childhood, but we do get to choose our responses to them, and our future.”

Actionable Items:

• Share what you’re grateful for or what your parent did right, to them directly, if you can. If not, write them a long letter +/- share with a trusted friend or therapist.
• Make a daily “Done” / or small success list instead of a “to-do” list that you cross off. You may feel a difference in celebrating yourself for all the things it takes to stay alive as a human that you may normally take for granted (such as eating food, getting out of bed, etc)
• More journaling exercises: if I were a parent… Be honest with yourself. How have YOU treated your loved ones? Did you make mistakes? Did you have moments when the Tiger took ahold of you too? When did you snap out of it? How? Can you do more or notice it sooner next time?

Try out more exercises such as discovering your authentic values and finding common ground with your Tiger Parent or someone else you’re in conflict with available with my podcast episode or join my email newsletter for more resources at bit.ly/DrTooniList.

Thank you for reading, and may we continue to elevate one another and transcend every challenge, together.

These principles are further expanded upon in my Transcend The Tiger program – we’re starting our live group only ONCE per year on May 31 (for Mental Health Awareness & AAPI Heritage month!) – email me at DrTooni@Mail.com to inquire about joining or book a free consultation!

Even if you’ve done years of therapy, self-help books, other programs, courses, coaches… this group uniquely heals in a different way from the rest:

It can also be done privately 1:1 or even on your own self-paced! Pricing is accessible and inclusive for all, since I don’t believe finances should ever be the barrier.

We are the changemakers here to transmute the pain & sufferings of our ancestors that have been passed down to us, to finally break the cycle!

If you feel called to this, there’s a reason—you may be the only one strong enough in your lineage to face the collective grief & pain. You’re welcome to book a call to explore if this might be the right next step for you.

As always, please honor your own pace and timing. The live group version is only once a year, but we will always be here <3

Also in honor of Mental Health Awareness month, I’m offering my Amazon e-book healing guide for FREE from May 5-6 – download it here! And I’m also hosting 2 collaborative events for FREE – a workshop for Tiger Children with Asian Hustle Network and Untigering our Romantic Relationships with best-selling author & founder of Untigering, Iris Chen!

Hope this was able to bring you a new perspective, comfort & healing. Feel free to share with loved ones who may benefit from hearing this. And as always, thanks for reading & following my blog <3