Shadowing Practice: How to Heal the FEMININE Nervous System (it's different) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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i think in a lot of ways we've accidentally over complicated our own healing especially
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when it comes to the nervous system cold plunge in the
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morning then breath work then 20 minutes of somatic shaking sunlight before coffee
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but wait don't drink
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that coffee for at least 90 minutes vagus nerve exercises tracking
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your hrv don't eat after 7 pm get your steps in
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do legs up the wall before bed now there are a million different tools
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and techniques for regulating your nervous system and
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while some of them may be helpful i just i think we might be missing the point, especially when it comes to the female body.
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Because what if, as a woman, regulating our nervous system is so much more simple and so much more enjoyable than it's made out to be?
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Hey friend, welcome back.
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If you're new here, my name is Jill's and I help women step into their power, tap into their divine feminine, and become their best self, live their best life.
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So if that's something you want to do, you should subscribe and stick around.
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So several years ago, I healed my nervous system completely on accident, years before I even understood what the nervous system even was.
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And wasn't until much later that i could actually articulate what i'd done
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and why it worked i'm going to tell you exactly what all
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that was in this video but it's changed the way
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that i think about this topic and i think
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that we've been making this more complicated than it needs to be
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and as women we've been taught to live by
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so many male standards and the male way of doing things
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and we look at scientific research done on mostly male bodies to determine what we should be doing
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when is that really the best way okay so let me back up
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and let me start here what is the nervous system the simplest way
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that i can explain it is
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that your nervous system is kind of like your body's internal
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security system it's running in the background all day every day
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scanning your life your body asking this one question am i safe
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or am i in danger that is basically its whole job
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and when it decides that you're in danger
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which it's not always accurate by the way it flips you
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into survival mode right your heart rate goes up your muscles
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tighten your digestion slows down your thoughts speed up your body pulls energy away from everything
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that isn't urgent into getting you through this threat and
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that is very smart right our bodies are kind of magical
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and it is a system
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that has kept humans alive for a very long time for
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everyone man woman doesn't matter safety is a fundamental component of the nervous system
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and the real root of a chronically dysregulated nervous system is chronically anticipating danger.
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It's like when you get a text that says, hey, can we talk?
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And your stomach immediately drops.
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There's no real issue right now.
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You're not unsafe.
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But with that simple little text, all of a sudden you're anticipating danger.
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I talk all about this and the fundamentals of healing your nervous system in this video up here.
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It's a must watch if you haven't seen it already.
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But here's what that video didn't really cover and what I want us to dive into right now.
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Yes, safety is a fundamental component to healing the nervous system, but what makes a woman feel safe and what makes a man feel safe is not always the same thing.
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And I think that that's a huge piece of the puzzle
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that all of these modern protocols and tactics and practices are not really fully taking into consideration.
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We're trying to heal a feminine system using a masculine blueprint, and then we're wondering why it's not really working and not making us feel much better.
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So we're going to dive into how to heal the feminine nervous system
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which is so much more simple and
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so much more beautiful than you might think
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but before we do i just want to thank quince for
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kindly sponsoring today's video i actually first got into quince
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because one of my friends told me about them
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but they're such a good place for high quality basics especially now
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that we're heading into fall they have so many good sweaters
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and layering pieces and classic staples they work directly with manufacturers
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which allows them to use really premium materials like 100 % mongolian cashmere or 100 % silk without the traditional retail markup.
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So let me show you some really cute things that I picked out for fall.
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First is this lightweight cotton cashmere link stitch dolman sweater.
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It is just so cute.
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I think it's just so cozy and elegant and it's perfect for transitioning into fall since it's not very chilly yet.
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I also got this cotton cashmere ribbed tank.
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I love this color and it's such a good classic elegant base layer that you can wear with anything.
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Then I got this Mongolian cashmere full zip hoodie.
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This is just such an everyday casual luxury piece.
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It's so soft and I already know I'm going to be wearing this one a lot.
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And lastly, this Mongolian cashmere cardigan sweater.
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Again, love the color, but this is just the perfect classic cardigan.
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You can never go wrong with a good cardigan for fall.
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It's really lightweight, but still really, really cozy.
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So if you want to pick up some new pieces for fall, maybe even some of the ones that I got for myself, you can shop Quince through the link in my description or use the QR code here on screen.
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And all the links for everything I got are down there too.
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And don't forget that Quince offers free shipping and 365 day returns.
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Everything that I've gotten from Quince has always felt really nice
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and well -made and I love that they are classic pieces that you can have in your wardrobe for years and years.
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So thank you to Quince and now let's get into the video.
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So you've probably all heard of the nervous system response, the stress response called fight or flight, right? So So...
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That's where we either fight the threat or we run away from the threats.
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But this fight or flight response was named in the 1930s after it was studied on males, well, male animals specifically.
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And it wasn't until the year 2000 that we discovered
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that women have their own separate stress response that we turn to sometimes.
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So men and women both experience fight or flight and can exhibit those qualities.
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But we also have another stress response that we turn to called tend
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and befriend so this is basically
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when we are experiencing stress we tend to want to be with other people with people
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that we trust we want to be in community we want support from other people
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and we want to tend to our family our friends
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and our offspring think about the woman who is cold plunging alone in her garage at 5 a .m
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that is an experience that isolates and shocks you
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when her stress response is literally asking for the opposite and
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so that's the thing is i think sometimes we have all of this backwards fight
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or flight was named in the 1930s
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and it was studied on male animals there wasn't even a
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proposed model for how women could respond differently to stress until
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the year 2000 the nih didn't require women in clinical research until 1993
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and didn't require researchers to account for sex and animal studies until 2016.
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so for most of the history
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and research in this field the default body was male there's this viral statement going around
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that women need oxytocin to regulate their nervous system
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and men need dopamine to regulate their nervous system and while
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that isn't entirely factual there's definitely a piece of truth in
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that statement or else we wouldn't all resonate with it
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so clearly even think about the tend
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and befriend response right that's connection with other people that's oxytocin inducing activities and
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when you think about it we live in a very dopamine
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heavy world achieve produce check off things on our list scroll on our phone
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so much stimulation around us it's not
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that dopamine is bad women need dopamine too but
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when a woman spends her entire day in that dopamine focused state
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which a lot of us naturally are especially during the work day
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and things like that
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and then her nervous system protocol is more of the exact
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same thing more dopamine heavy it's just more of the same we're not shifting into the energy
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that actually heals and regulates our nervous system so besides
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that core fundamental truth that we all need safety to heal
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and regulate our nervous system the feminine nervous system needs four other things okay
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and the first one is pleasure the female body needs pleasure the feminine essence needs pleasure needs play
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and what if everything that we've been doing is the opposite of
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that when really all we need to do is come back to pleasure
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and play and joy
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and laughter we're supposed to have fun we're supposed to experience
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pleasure on a regular basis men yes every human being needs to experience pleasure
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but men also need more of
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that achievement i'm doing things i'm handling things type of mentality for them to feel good in their body
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and for them to regulate their nervous systems for us to
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regulate our nervous systems we need to relax to surrender to
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let go we need to play we need to feel pleasure
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we need to feel good i know i've told this story before but back
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when i was in like my mid -20s i was really
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stressed in my life it wasn't a good time in my life
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and i was struggling with really bad health issues and
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so you know i had autoimmune issues and things like that
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and i was in the thick of trying to heal those health issues naturally
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and of course i did all the things like i changed my diet
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and i was doing the supplements and seeing the people the doctors
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that i felt like i needed to see but one thing
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that i did that i think that was most important and most crucial in my healing was that I decided, this was back when I lived in California,
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that I was going to go to the beach at least two times a week.
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And that was part of my protocol, if you can say that.
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That I realized that what I needed to heal was
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that I needed more pleasure and life and fun and joy in my life.
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And so I prioritized going to the beach, laying in the sand, soaking up some sunshine, maybe swimming in the water if i felt brave enough
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that day and i decided that i was going to prioritize my pleasure
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and my body didn't start healing
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and didn't start getting better until i started prioritizing my pleasure
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and when i was in the thick of all
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that healing my body struggling one thing that used to happen to me was
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that i would have these vacations scheduled right i would have a vacation planned some were fun
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and every single time
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that this vacation came around i would get sick i would get sick for it
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so i couldn't go or i couldn't enjoy myself
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and at first i just thought that this was an annoying coincidence
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and bad luck bad timing whatever but then i realized
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that you can only call it a coincidence for so long and this happened over and over and over again
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and i realized that it wasn't a coincidence and
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that the problem was me and what i realized is
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that i had been so used to feelings of stress
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and hardship and difficulty that when it came to pleasure
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and ease my body no longer had the capacity for it and my body saw pleasure and ease
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as unfamiliar and almost as a threat and
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when we hear this term increasing our capacity increasing our capacity in our nervous system we often see
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that as increasing our capacity for more for doing more for making more money for being more visible
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but in order to regulate our nervous system
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and in order for us to feel good and feel healthy
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and feel whole we also need to increase our capacity for pleasure
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and so many women's capacity for pleasure is minuscule because we've made it that way.
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That's why maybe when you lie down on a massage table to get a two -hour massage
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and it's super expensive and it's this magnificent spa
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and you get down on that table and you're stressed the entire time and your brain is overthinking the entire time,
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you can't even enjoy the massage because your capacity for pleasure and ease is so low.
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And so what I started doing to train myself to increase my capacity for pleasure in my life is
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that I started incorporating pleasure in little tiny ways.
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This meant romanticizing my life.
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This meant going to the beach twice a week and laying in the sand and enjoying that.
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It meant maybe playing some music while I was making myself lunch.
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It just meant incorporating tiny moments of pleasure into my everyday life.
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Sensory experiences, swimming, dancing in the kitchen, singing in the shower, cooking food that I loved, wearing clothes that felt good on my body,
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wearing clothes that made me feel beautiful, being somewhere beautiful looking at beautiful things holding hands with my husband making out with my husband
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so we build our capacity for pleasure just like we build
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our capacity for other things by practicing it by making it familiar
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and when we let ourself experience pleasure and be more playful what does
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that tell our body that tells our body
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that we are safe the reason why pleasure has become
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so unfamiliar to so many of us is
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because yes we have a lot of responsibilities in our life as we become an adult
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and we have jobs and we have families and we have homes.
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But it's because we put pleasure on the back burner.
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We put pleasure as the thing that we can access after we've already done everything that we need to do.
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But what if we can experience pleasure while we do the things that we need to do?
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Okay, maybe not all the things that we need to do, but what about some of them?
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And I think this kind of brings us to the question is why do we think
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that in order to heal or to get better
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or to have more success in our life
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that we always have to suffer or experience hardship to get
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that now of course there's no science to this
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but i don't think the female body is meant to be
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in suffering i think that's the old outdated masculine outlook on life
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and i think that as women we start to actually get everything
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that we want when we let ourselves experience pleasure
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and prioritizing feeling good in the now as women And when we feel good, we do good.
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Men, when they do good, they feel good.
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The next thing that women need to regulate their nervous systems, which is also so simple and so beautiful, is connection.
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We are not meant to regulate alone, but so many of those protocols and nervous system practices out there are things that you do independently,
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alone, on your own.
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Cold plunge, journaling, meditation, somatic practices, legs up the wall, breath work whatever all of these things we normally do them alone
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but the feminine soul we need oxytocin to feel good we
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need to be in connection with other women we need to
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be in connection with friends that's why sometimes one of the
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biggest stress relievers is not actually doing anything about your problem
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but calling your friend and just talking to her about it that's not wrong that's one way
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that we regulate as women going back to that tend
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and befriend stress response and i think i said this in my first nervous system video
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that if you don't actually have connection with other people
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that you trust then your nervous system is always going to be on alert
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and is always going to be anticipating danger because we are social animals
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if you don't have friends you need to work on finding some
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if you don't have community you need to work on building
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that now if you've experienced trauma in your life
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or trauma growing up then
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that can sometimes make attachment as an adult a little bit
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harder right it's this awkward situation where closeness maybe never felt safe growing up
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so as you become an adult you act very independent
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and you don't build a lot of close relationships with other people
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and the exact thing that you might need
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that connection with other people is the exact thing that your body
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and your nervous system is trying to avoid there's nothing wrong with being independent
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but being hyper -independent is just another way of being hyper vigilant.
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Sometimes the best form of regulation is just sitting next to your partner, holding hands and watching a movie
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or spending four hours at a long lunch with your girlfriends or think about other oxytocin type of activities, touch, eye contact, hugs, spending time with your dog,
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having your friend play with your hair, getting a massage, even taking care of someone you love, making food for someone you love, laughing together, inside jokes.
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I think as women, we're supposed to be oxytocin maxing.
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And it doesn't mean that our goals and the things that we have to do and getting dopamine is not important.
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But oxytocin, and while this might not have, you know, full scientific research to back this up,
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I do believe that oxytocin is a core hormone that keeps us balanced and keeps us regulated.
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The feminine nervous system also needs warmth.
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Warmth is soothing.
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Warmth feels like safety in traditional chinese medicine they say
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that the female body needs warmth they say no cold drinks
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no swimming in cold pools no cold plunges no things like
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that they say that the female body needs warmth
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and that's what the womb needs the womb needs warmth hot
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baths long showers feeling the sun on your skin sitting with
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a heat pad on your womb area i love this sitting
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with a big cozy blanket eating warm food instead of a cold smoothie a warm hand on your body
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but also maybe even things like warm lighting instead of overhead lighting warmth and how you're spoken to
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warmth in your home warmth in the way you talk to yourself warmth feels soothing warmth feels like home
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and that's not to say that everything that's cold is bad but what if we need more warmth more soothing, more feelings of safety to the body.
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The feminine nervous system also needs enoughness.
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And what I mean by that is that as women, our nervous systems are not the same throughout the month.
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And as women, the only constant for us is change.
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And that means that what we need and what is enough for us is going to change day to day.
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Throughout our menstrual cycle, our HRV actually changes.
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So I believe when we have a higher HRV, we usually have a higher HRV in like the follicular in the ovulatory phases
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and when we have a higher hrv that means
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that our body is naturally a little bit more resilient
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and a little bit more capable at handling stress
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and our nervous system usually stays a bit more regulated during
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that time because we naturally have a bit more capacity
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but during other parts of our cycle our hrv actually decreases a little bit
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and our nervous system is affected by that so what
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that means is that something that can feel totally good
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and totally regulating in an earlier part of your cycle can feel like too much
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or dysregulating in other parts of your cycle and this doesn't mean
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that you have to meticulously track your cycle
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and say oh i'm on day 26 this means i'm going to be more tired this means
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that you need to start tapping into your body
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and asking what it needs right now this means
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that you need to respect how your body is feeling in the current moment
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and respecting its capacity that it's at right now
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and that's what i mean by enoughness you need to know
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when enough is enough you need to know when you've done enough and
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that feeling of enough is always ever changing some days what
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is enough is going on a long walk instead of a
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really hard workout some days what is enough is checking off half your to -do list
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and not everything pushing past your edge all the time is how you stay dysregulated
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and you are repeatedly telling your body that its signals don't matter and that you don't care.
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Knowing when enough is enough and honoring that, that is a strong safety cue right there.
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I'm a strong believer that the feminine nervous system wants to be listened to.
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It wants to be held.
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It wants to be respected.
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It wants to be loved.
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It wants to be cherished.
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And when you incorporate pleasure and connection and warmth and enoughness,
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this will communicate more to your body that you are safe than so many of these nervous system practices ever will.
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Activating my feminine energy for me has been one of the things
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that most changed my life and for
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so long i could never really articulate why it changed my life
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and why it benefited my life so much
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and it wasn't until many years later that i realized
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that it's simply
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because activating your feminine energy living life from your feminine energy
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it naturally regulates your nervous system think about what tapping into
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your feminine energy means it means activating your play your pleasure
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learning how to receive learning how to rest learning how to romanticize your life learning
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that your worth is not dictated by what you produce activating our feminine energy heals a woman's nervous system
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and activating a man's masculine energy helps heal the masculine nervous system
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and this is just my theory but i think
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that a woman's journey on this earth is to learn how to embrace pleasure here.
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to let go surrender and relax
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and i think a man's journey on this earth is learning how to take on responsibility
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and have agency for his life if you find
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that you are constantly burnt out you feel like your nervous system is constantly dysregulated
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and you feel like you can never have any sort of
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consistency toward any of your goals you need to think about
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am i always pushing all the time checking things off all the time
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when you need to be enjoying yourself you need to be having fun you need to be romanticizing your life
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and once you make this switch it'll do more for you
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and more for your nervous system than you can ever imagine i don't want you to think
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that if you're having fun
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that you can also achieve your goals that's a limiting belief i don't want you to think that
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if you're having fun then things are going to fall apart
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that's a limiting belief i don't want you to think that
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if you're having fun that you can't also be responsible that's a limiting belief
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if you want to learn how to activate your feminine energy
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and heal your feminine nervous system my deep dive feminine energy
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course it's called awaken your feminine energy it is perfect for
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that the link for that is down below but besides that
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if you haven't seen my original video on how to heal your nervous system
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that is your next must watch i really break down healing the nervous system in a way
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that is so practical and easy to understand and probably in a way
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that you've never heard before so thank you
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so much for watching i hope you got value from this video
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and i'll see you over there or i'll just see you next time in my next video bye
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 327 sentences and 4132 words to shadow. The speech runs for 21:10. The speaker talks fast, about 195 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| heal verb | /ˈhiːl/ | To make better from a disease, wound, etc.; to revive or cure. |
| feminine adjective | /ˈfɛmɪnɪn/ | Of or pertaining to the female gender. |
| regulate verb | /ˈɹɛɡ.jə.leɪt/ | To dictate policy. |
| warmth noun | /wɔɹmθ/ | A moderate degree of heat; the sensation of being warm. |
| activate verb | /ˈæktɪˌveɪt/ | To encourage development or induce increased activity; to stimulate. |
| naturally adverb | /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/ | In a natural manner. |
| fundamental adjective | /ˌfʌn.dəˈmɛn.təl/ | Related to a foundation, base, or basis; serving as a foundation. |
| protocol noun | /ˈpɹoʊtəˌkɑl/ | An amendment to an official treaty. |
| massage noun | /məˈsɑ(d)ʒ/ | The action of rubbing, kneading or hitting someone's body, to help the person relax, prepare for muscular action (as in contact sports) or to relieve aches. |
| masculine adjective | /ˈmæskjələn/ | Of or pertaining to the male gender. |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
| vacation noun | /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/ | An extended trip or journey away from home for rest or pleasure. |
| ease verb | /iz/ | To free (something) from pain, worry, agitation, etc. |
| swim verb | /swɪm/ | To move through the water, without touching the bottom; to propel oneself in water by natural means. |
| dive verb | /daɪv/ | To swim under water. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| check off verb | To mark items on a list (with a checkmark or by crossing them out) that have been chosen for keeping or removal or that have been dealt with (for example… | |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. | |
| back up verb | To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so. | |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| come around verb | /kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/ | To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first. |
| fall apart verb | To disintegrate, to break into pieces. | |
| get down on verb | To come to be down (hostile to) regarding something. | |
| go around verb | To move or spread from person to person. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 77 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: warmth /wɔɹmθ/, thick /θɪk/, bath /bɑːθ/, soothe /suːð/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: massage /məˈsɑ(d)ʒ/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, hardship /ˈhɑɹdˌʃɪp/, shock /ʃɔk/, regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, fundamental /ˌfʌn.dəˈmɛn.təl/, coincidence /kəʊˈɪnsɪdəns/, incorporate /ɪŋˈkɔɹ.pɚ.eɪt/, anticipate /ænˈtɪs.ɪ.peɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like heal, feminine, regulate.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | we've been making · we've been doing |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've been taught · has kept · haven't seen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | we've been taught · was named · was studied |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | woman who is · systems, which is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.