My Year of Fear: Part I

When I was thinking about New Years resolutions last month all the obvious options came up: lose weight, eat healthy, be more organized, etc.  But then I realized what I really needed to conquer this year: Fear.  There are so many stupid self limiting beliefs I've filled myself with, so many things that are holding me back, and it's been eye opening and humbling thinking over these different fears.

It's February and my "Year of Fear" has gotten off to a rough start.  But fear does that; it holds us back. 

Some of these fears I'll talk about on this blog, some I will not, but this last week I decided to face a self-limiting belief that has plagued me for years. That I can't learn French.

Somewhere in my brain this belief sprung, and it's crept into my attempts at learning Japanese.  If I can't learn French, how can I learn any language?  Learning languages is not one of my talents.

But I struggled with reading growing up, feeling stupid all the way through my very last semester in college (it took me 12 semesters to graduate with a 4 year degree).  It wasn't until I was in music literature 304 that I realized I wasn't stupid in English.  That's when I finally realized I could write.  So many signs leading up to that very last class proved I was good at writing, but my early struggles created a handicap in my mind.  Being pulled out of class in the 3rd grade with a couple other kids to get special learning haunted me.

It's amazing how we can let stupid, silly, little meaningless life events dictate who we think we are.

And somewhere I've come to believe I can't learn French.  I can't speak it.

And somewhere I know this isn't true, but this self-limiting belief keeps holding me back.

What am I afraid of?  Not being perfect.

I'm a visual thinking person.  Auditory skills are my weakness, which is ironic because I have a music degree.  (I failed second semester music dictation at BYU, retook it that first Summer getting a C, and if I had failed the second time I would have been kicked out of the school of music.  I cried so many times those few years.)

But I want to be a linguist!  I love listening to different languages being spoken, even though I understand nothing.  The idea of it thrills me.  And I love listening to music in different languages.

And just yesterday I was really struggling with my depression and didn't go to the LDS mid-singles ward/congregation I attend.  It was a few minutes before 1:00 pm, and if I wanted to partake of the sacrament I only had one option, and that was to attend the Spanish ward.  I snuck in the back, feeling ashamed, really, but even though I couldn't understand anything, catching a gist here and there, I still felt the Spirit.  And it was fun listening to the hymns I know so well sung in this different tongue.

I want to learn Spanish, too, but only after French.  First French, then Japanese, then Spanish.  And after I'm confortable with those three I'm going to learn Italian, German, Irish, Portuguese, Korean, Greek, and Hebrew.  Maybe I'll throw Armenian in there at some point, as well.

But it must start with French.  It's my childhood dream.  I took two years in High School, and another two years in college.

And now I have so many tools I didn't have back then.  The four main resources I'm working through are Frenchpod101.com, FluentU, Duolingo phone app, and the Michel Thomas method.

Those are good places to start.

And as a note: Studying the Michel Thomas method is like standing under a waterfall with your mouth open, wondering if you'll ever breath again.  But it sure works.