Shadowing Practice: Never React, Never Explain, Just Ignore - Learn English Speaking with Video
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You can read all of the books, listen to all of the podcast episodes,
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and still find yourself being triggered by the same things and the same people over and over again.
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And it's not because you're not trying hard enough or because you're down or because there's something wrong with you.
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It's because you're trying to control your reactions instead of actually understanding your reactions.
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Because your reactions don't come from the present moment.
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They come from the past that hasn't fully been processed or healed yet.
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And until you really understand that, you'll keep repeating the same emotional patterns in your life, but in different situations.
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And so today, we're going to go deeper into what it actually means to become somebody who actually doesn't react to anything.
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So let's dive into it.
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To start off, I want to talk about something that I think a lot of people really misunderstand.
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Being triggered by somebody or something is not the problem think about
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that for a second being triggered is not the problem being triggered is the signal
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that you need to pay attention to it's not something to
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be ashamed of it's something to be curious about to look at
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and start to question when you are triggered because
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if you just start to guilt yourself
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and shame yourself for being triggered you learn nothing but
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if you start to get curious around why you're getting triggered
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now you really start to understand who you are in what's going on behind the scenes.
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Because every time you get triggered, you're being shown a part of yourself that is still sensitive, that is still reactive, that is still holding on to something,
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that is still not healed from the past.
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And most people's instinct whenever they're triggered is to look outward and ask themselves questions.
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Why would they say that to me?
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Why would they do that to me?
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What did I do to them to make them react that way?
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And they're looking outward.
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But what you need to do is look inward whenever you're triggered.
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The deeper question here is, why did that affect me so deeply in the way that it did?
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Why did that affect me so deeply in the way that it did?
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And I am now taking responsibility for being triggered.
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The way I like to look at being triggered is this.
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It's kind of like salt on a wound, right?
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If the wound is healed, the salt doesn't do anything.
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It doesn't hurt.
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But if the wound has not healed, it hurts like hell.
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That's the best analogy that I can think of.
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So whenever you're triggered, the triggering is like the salt.
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If you get triggered on just normal skin that's healed over, no big deal.
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But if you put salt on top of a wound, it's going to hurt like hell.
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That is the universal way of life coming to you and saying, hey, you haven't healed here yet.
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You need to start working on yourself in this particular area.
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So it's not about them.
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It's not about what happened.
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And it's not about the circumstances.
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It's about why did it affect me in that way and how do I need to heal myself?
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See, because most people don't really look at it through this way.
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They don't really understand something that's really important is that when you're looking at something that's happened to you, every moment of your life,
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your mind is giving meaning to everything that's happening around you.
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Your brain is a meaning -making machine.
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It's doing it all day long.
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It's giving meaning to this and that and this person and what they said and what they're going to do.
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And that meaning is what creates your emotional response.
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The meaning that you're giving a situation or a circumstance is what creates your emotional response.
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And we will be right back.
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Hey, if you're still watching this video, you're the type of person who wants to learn and grow and improve yourself.
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Do me a favor, check below and see if you have subscribed to this channel.
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If you have not, do me a favor, hit that subscribe button so that you and I can go on this journey of self -improvement and making your life better.
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So if you had subscribed to me, I would appreciate it.
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And now, back to the show.
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And so when someone says something and you feel triggered, it's not their words that are actually triggering you.
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It's the meaning your mind is attaching to those words.
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And that meaning is shaped by your past, shaped by your experiences, your identity, who you think you are, your wounds.
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You know, like a simple example is this for instance, if somebody cuts you off on the road and there's no reaction,
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well then there's no reaction.
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But if somebody else gets cut off on the road and they blow up because of it, it's the same circumstance, but it's different meaning attached to being cut off.
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It's not because of the event, but because the person who is triggered is giving meaning to that event.
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And it's something like, oh, that person doesn't care about me, or they think that they're more important than I am or they aren't worried about my safety at all.
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So it's not the event, it's that your mind has attached some sort of meaning to
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that event and now you're reacting to the meaning not the actual situation.
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Whatever it is, there's a negative meaning that you're attaching to it in that situation.
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So we need to learn how to get to a point of not being reactive.
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And when I talk about like not reacting and not being reactive, I'm not talking about like becoming an emotionless statue.
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It doesn't mean that I feel nothing.
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That's not what I'm trying to say here.
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What I'm talking about is becoming aware of what's going on inside of me before I react to anything.
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It is extreme self -awareness.
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I'm talking about creating space within yourself.
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Because right now, for most people, something happens and the reaction is just instant and there's no space.
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There's no awareness that's in that space.
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It's just an automatic response that you've been dealing with for 25 years.
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But the psychologist Viktor Frankl says that growth happens in the tiny space between stimulus and response,
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between something happening and us actually responding.
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And in that tiny space, if we become aware of what's happening within ourselves,
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we can choose how we want to respond versus just responding in a pattern in a way
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that we have our entire life or something that we learned from our parents.
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So between something happening to you and you actually responding,
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there's a moment where you can decide how you want to respond without being swept away by old emotions
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or old stories or old meanings.
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And so when I'm saying try to work towards never reacting, I don't mean don't feel.
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I don't mean don't have emotions.
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I mean don't let the feelings control you.
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You can have feelings and not be controlled by feelings.
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Now that's, I understand, very foreign to a lot of people because for me, for a long time when I was I was just controlled by my emotions.
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I felt like I was just not in the driver's seat.
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But it's not about not feeling.
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It's about don't let your feelings control you.
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You are experiencing feeling.
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You can decide how you react.
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You can notice it.
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You can sit with it for a minute.
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Start to get curious about it.
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Understand it.
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Man, why do I feel this way?
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Like what's going on in my head?
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Why do I always get mad when this happens?
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What meaning am I giving this situation?
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What does this situation remind me of in my past that's not healed yet?
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And that is where your true growth will actually lie.
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When you actually start to get really curious about your emotions
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and your feelings and your reactions and why you are triggered the way
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that you're triggered and the meaning that you're attaching to situations.
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Because your emotions are not problems that you need to fix.
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They're signals that you need to listen to.
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They're pointing you in a direction.
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Stop ignoring where they're trying to point you.
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And so you have to start to think that this also has to deal with the way other people interact with you.
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So it's like, we need to understand about ourself, but it's also very important when we understand this about ourself, this is also happening inside of every other person around you.
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Like I always say, hey, when you see a male, like a 40 -year -old man who's just an asshole to everybody, right?
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What you're seeing, or he's having a breakdown or he's yelling at somebody, what you're seeing is a 40 -year -old body that happens to have a little child still in it.
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So it's a child that is still hurting and wounding in an adult's body.
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So, and the reason why you can understand this is because people don't see you as you are.
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Like, I really want you to understand this people don't see you as you are.
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They see you as they are through their beliefs, through their past, through their wounds, through their conditionings, through their patterns,
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through what they learned from their parents unconsciously.
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So no matter how clearly you explain yourself,
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people will still misunderstand you because people can only understand from the level of their perception
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and sometimes people just aren't going to be able to understand you
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and it's not because there's something wrong with you and it's not
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because you failed in explaining yourself but sometimes it's just
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because they're filtering you through their own lens of conditioning over their entire life
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so what i mean by that is like if you need to set boundaries with somebody
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your boundaries might feel like rejection to somebody who has abandonment wounds
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doesn't mean that your boundaries are bad it just means that they haven't healed that aspect of themself.
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If you are a confident person and somebody reacts to it, your confidence might feel like arrogance to someone who's extremely insecure.
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If you're an honest person and you don't like to beat around the bush, your honesty might feel like an attack to someone who avoids truth.
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It's the same you, but it's just a different lens.
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And this is where most people get stuck because most people, have other people react to them and they think, well, I need to change myself.
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And they're trying to change themselves or they're trying to fix the other person's perception.
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So they will try to explain themselves more to be accepted, or they will soften themselves more for the other person.
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They will shrink more for the other person.
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But understanding this is really important because you understand that it's not just about how you communicate and who you are.
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It's also about how somebody is able to receive you.
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And it's really important to understand this
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because as you start to work on yourself
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and you become more confident in yourself and you become more confident in who you're becoming, it might trigger other people.
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It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you.
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It can mean that there's something wrong with that person's perception based off of their past.
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They might not be able to perceive you at a different level.
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So some people can only meet you at the level that they're at themselves, right?
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So if they don't respond to you in the way that you want them to respond to you, they might be triggered by you in some sort of way.
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They might be protecting their own wounds and you don't realize it.
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If you're not careful, you will accidentally change yourself in order to meet other people's expectations of you.
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You'll start to carry labels that were never yours in the first place.
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Like, oh, you know what?
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Maybe I am too much.
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Or, you know, maybe I am selfish.
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Or maybe I am hard to love.
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That's really challenging, right?
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Or maybe someone just can't clearly understand you
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because they're just not able to understand you with the level that they're at in their life right now.
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And, you know, obviously I want to kind of walk this line very carefully
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because it doesn't mean that you ignore all feedback from other people.
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It means that you become clear so that you can learn the difference, right?
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Feedback from another person looks like, hey, this is how your behavior impacted me.
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Somebody projecting their own crap on top of you is like, hey, this is who I've decided who you are, right?
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There's a big difference between those two things.
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You cannot explain yourself into clarity with someone that's committed to misunderstanding you.
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And so at some point, your piece might look like, hey, I know who I am, even if that person doesn't know who I am, because their lens is not your identity.
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Don't ever take on what somebody else says about you because that means that they're filtering you through their lens.
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I'd rather make up my own identity of who I think I am
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and who I am versus looking to other people to tell me who I am
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when I know that their filter is already clouded, right?
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So the right people, the grounded people, the self -aware ones, they don't need you to change yourself.
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They don't need you to shrink so that they can understand you.
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They will see you clearly because they're already looking through clarity, not through clouded lenses.
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And that's the shift that you really need to understand is you won't fit everyone's lens and everyone's perception.
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And everybody's lens is not about the truth about you anyways.
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And so really what you start to become peaceful with is to accept yourself as you truly are.
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Once you go on this journey of self -discovery, you start healing these wounds and coming in contact with who you truly are and starting to work through your triggers,
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peace comes when you start to really figure out who you are
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and you accept it and you stop fighting against it and you stop trying to control everything around you.
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And you're just okay with who you are.
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You don't need to be accepted by other people.
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And when you're truly okay with yourself, you don't need everyone to accept you.
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That's the key.
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Like what really matters to everybody listening to this podcast, what really matters more than almost anything else is not about, do other people accept you?
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It's, do you accept you?
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Because if you accept you, it doesn't matter if other people accept you because you fully, 100 % already accept yourself.
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To accept yourself and to love yourself
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and to truly know yourself might be the highest form of enlightenment that we could all get to.
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And so the deepest truth of all of this, of being triggered, of going on this journey of self -discovery is understanding
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that healing is not when life stops triggering you because you'll always be triggered.
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We're probably not going to become a monk and get fully enlightened in this, you know, this life that we're in right now.
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But you, you realize that you may never get to the point where you're not triggered, but real healing is not, not being triggered.
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It's when your reaction to those triggers changes.
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Like the same situation that used to ruin your entire day, you now just passes through and you don't even notice it.
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The same comment that used to hit a nerve and make you feel like less than barely even lands anymore.
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Like that is the proof as real as it can be
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that you're healing and that you're growing and that you're becoming better and that you're developing a deeper relationship with yourself.
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that's what we all should be working towards.
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And that's how you really know that you've grown.
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Not because life got easier in any way, but because you became more grounded within yourself.
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And this is what I love about Stoicism.
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Like the Stoics really understood this deeply.
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Like they didn't try to control the world.
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They worked on themselves.
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They focused on what was within their control, their thoughts, their responses, their inner state.
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And I think that's one of the reasons why Stoic philosophy
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is making such a big comeback in the past five to 10 years is
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because there's so much truth to it and so many people resonate with it.
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To become more stoic in everything that we do requires us to keep working on ourselves.
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We can't control most of the circumstances in our life, but we can't control how we react to the circumstances in our life.
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And that's what we should be trying to master.
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That's pretty much the only thing that we can really control because the world is always gonna be unpredictable.
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People will always say things, situations will always happen, but your peace, that's something that you can build.
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That's something that you're in control of.
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That's something that you can get more of.
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And when you get to a place of peace, your calm doesn't have to be something that you're forcing.
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It's just something that you are, something that other people feel by being around you.
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And so I want you to remember this.
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The goal is not to stop reacting completely.
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The goal is to heal the part of you that feels like you need to react.
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Hey, thanks
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so much for watching this video based off of what you've
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been watching on youtube recently youtube thinks out of all of
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the videos i've ever created this one is the one that's going to impact you the most
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so click this one and if you want to make sure to never miss another episode
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and another video So click this button right here and I'll see you on the next one.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 228 sentences and 3047 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:24. The speaker talks fast, about 186 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 89% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| trigger noun | /ˈtɹɪɡɚ/ | A finger-operated lever used to fire a gun. |
| heal verb | /ˈhiːl/ | To make better from a disease, wound, etc.; to revive or cure. |
| react verb | /ɹiːˈækt/ | To act in response. |
| lens noun | /lɛnz/ | An object, usually made of glass, that focuses or defocuses the light that passes through it. |
| wound noun | /ˈwund/ | An injury, such as a cut, stab, or tear, to a (usually external) part of the body. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| attach verb | /əˈtæt͡ʃ/ | To fasten, to join to (literally and figuratively). |
| circumstance noun | /ˈsɝ.kəmˌstæns/ | Something which is related to, or in some way affects, a fact or event. |
| curious adjective | /ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/ | Tending to ask questions, or to want to explore or investigate; inquisitive; (with a negative connotation) nosy, prying. |
| perception noun | /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/ | The organisation, identification and interpretation of sensory information. |
| deeply adverb | /ˈdi(ː)pli/ | To a deep extent or degree; very greatly. |
| filter noun | /ˈfɪltɚ/ | A device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from… |
| boundary noun | /ˈbaʊndɹi/ | The dividing line or location between two areas. |
| subscribe verb | /səbˈskɹaɪb/ | To write (one’s name) at the bottom of a document; to sign (one's name). |
| reactive adjective | /ɹiːˈæktɪv/ | That reacts or responds to a stimulus. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| blow up verb | To explode or be destroyed by explosion. | |
| cut off verb | /ˌkʌt ˈɔf/ [ˌkɐɾ ˈɔf] | To remove by cutting. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| look through verb | To take a view of the contents of; search in, either with the eyes or by hand. | |
| make up verb | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | To constitute, to compose. |
| pass through verb | To go through, to travel through, to transit or lie across a place or from one place to another. | |
| start off verb | To begin. | |
| sweep away verb | To remove something by, or as if by, sweeping. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 104 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, perception /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/, selfish /ˈsɛlf.ɪʃ/, ashamed /əˈʃeɪmd/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, automatic /ˌɔː.təˈmæt.ɪk/, accidentally /ˌæk.sɪˈdɛnt(ə)li/, communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/
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 trigger, heal, react.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If you're not careful, you will accidentally |
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to ruin · used to hit |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being triggered · been processed · are triggered |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has not healed · haven't healed · have subscribed |
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.