I’m currently living abroad in a country that doesn’t speak my native tongue. I had basic knowledge of the language before I came and have improved a lot since being here but am no where near where I want to be/think I should be. Most of the time I enjoy learning the language and have fun with it. but right now I’m having difficulty changing this thought: ‘I should be smarter than this, I don’t know why I can’t access what I’ve learnt in the past and apply it’… It feels like a super scary bully. I feel so raw and vulnerable when this thought it upfront that I have a hard time sharing my work with anyone because I feel like I don’t have the nerves to deal with any criticism. It’s so foreign to me because generally in my life I’m okay making mistakes. however, I have almost no humour about my intelligence.
In this mid set I also have a hard time working on my homework, or think anything I do is shit so I do things over and over and over, which makes me more frustrated with myself.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been carrying this around for a while. I know I have a lot of issues around the idea of myself, my intelligence and education and learning because this isn’t the first time I’ve thought this, it’s only the first time I sat with it and didn’t try to buffer it out.

I did a model that changed the thought to ‘I’m learning the language, I don’t remember learning English but I’m sure I wasn’t that great at it’ but it doesn’t feel right. I think I need to change the way I think about my own intelligence and not just my ability to learn language, but haven’t been able to come up with anything yet.

thanks in advance for the help.