A Guide for Mental/Emotional Strength in Language Immersion

Living in another country halfway around isn’t for the faint of heart! It takes some resilience and courage.  Having done this once before 15 years ago, I was a bit overconfident.  Or, I really didn’t have time to give it much thought. I didn’t have much to fear having worked in elementary schools my entire career and speaking a decent amount of the language.  Yet, being tired from extended travel, and out of my comfort zone, I’d forgotten how much work it is. I spent many hours dreaming, working, sacrificing, planning this into existence with my spouse and had help from our loved ones to make it come true.  After all that, at the same time, it is both wonderful AND hard. 

Wonderful & Hard

I don’t write this to quejarme—(complain) but only to recognize it’s okay to feel what I feel and grow from it. I write this guide to comfort myself when I feel like a fish out of water and to gain some healthy perspective. At the end of the day, I realize I’ve got a rare and great opportunity to give and learn! I’m eternally grateful for befriending some of the kindest and most hospitable people on the planet.  And to do this with my spouse is a dream come true!  Yet, language immersion can be grueling!  It’s taxing mentally and physically, but thankfully, it gets easier every day.  You surprise yourself at the growth you make, just like a body training for a marathon, it gets stronger every time you run. 

Self-Care in Action

This experience is 100% practice of being gentle with myself, not taking myself too seriously and being vulnerable enough to learn. Three scenarios that we don’t often willingly put ourselves into.  I’m appreciative of it and yet compassionate on myself enough to recognize the fortitude it takes to be intentionally uncomfortable.

I tell you, there are days where I feel like the world’s biggest idiot! 

In a few emotional moments, I’ve thought, “Here I am, a 35-year-old professional that left my job to volunteer around the world and feel like a 5-year-old. Why?!??”   

Below is my ongoing guide for emotional/mental strength in sometimes uncomfortable situations:

If you feel like an AWKWARD Adult Child…

Sitting in my room alone, on one of the first nights, having unpacked, I felt REALLY awkward and useless. I overheard only tidbits of a conversation from another room and I immediately assumed it must be going something like “Why is this weird adult staying with us?  She doesn’t understand us and barely speaks to us in English.  Why doesn’t she go home??!” 

After such dark thoughts that only made me feel worse…

Then---

the only thing to do was to dive in and get out of my head!  I brought out a deck of cards and my phone and we played BS, Spoons and Ellen Degeneres’ Heads Up guesing games.  We laughed and took turns joking and attempting to speak each other’s languages.  The absolute worst thing I could’ve done in that moment is to sit in my room alone, sulk and wrongly assume all that I really didn’t know.  Overthinking and entertaining negative thoughts was really a waste of time! It was just stirred up my fears and discomfort when I felt out of place. 

So, to combat the weirdness, you HAVE TO dive in to the deep end of the pool with rubber ducky floaties and all! 

Honestly, I googled, “topics of conversation to get to know someone”.  Sounds a bit forced or clumsy… but eventually, the interactions flowed in order to relax!  There are still moments when I feel like the pieces just don’t connect, but jumping in always seems to scare those inner doubts away.

(Continued in Part 2)