Shadowing Practice: Stories of Transformation - Dominique - Learn English Speaking with Video
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118 sentences
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I was pursuing a career as a performer, dancer, musical theatre, when I was 18 and I got sick.
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First with an injury that turned into a debilitating illness where I couldn't dance anymore
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and I was on crutches and that pain spread throughout my body
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and until I was bedridden and And it turns out that I had undiagnosed Lyme disease at the time, which then went to stage 3,
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which involved many organs and my nervous system until I had brain encephalopathy and I was bedridden.
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And at my worst, I couldn't dress or feed myself or couldn't leave the house.
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And I was allergic to everything and I was too weak and etc. etc. And for 25 years,
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I tried to get well and I tried everything you can possibly imagine
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and I can see now in retrospect after Dr. Joe's teachings what I was doing.
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I was trying to change in the third dimension and change matter with matter.
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So everything from diet to tablets to naturopath, acupuncture, this therapy, that therapy and I was just constantly going to therapies.
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I needed to be on very strong painkillers and at one point I was even on 12 medications at the same time.
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But I also tried naturopathic things
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and for a good 10 to 12 years I used plant medicine like regular medicine
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and I was still doing matter to matter.
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And I just couldn't get off the painkillers
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and I was on the morphine patch and on tablets
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and on liquid form and every two hours I had to take something
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because the pain was so severe because I had so much nerve damage, so much inflammation, joint swelling,
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muscle spasms, any movement I would just want to scream.
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If I would just cut a cucumber, I was in such inflammation for days or weeks.
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So I was basically a mess.
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I then went to the progressive and I heard what Dr. Joe talked about and I was intrigued and I was intrigued.
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I understood about the emotional part of the illness
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but about the quantum aspect of it I didn't quite understand
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and I wasted I wasted 20 years or
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so doing it the yeah the difficult way the hard way
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but I had a lot of will that I did have but I was using willpower and I was exhausted.
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It was in his workshops where I realized
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that I need to go quantum and I was
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so moved by his lecture that and determined
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that I was ready to let go of this
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and even though I had tried with my willpower to cut the morphine patch in half
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and reduce and reduce and reduce my medication I couldn't get off the lowest dose
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and at the first workshop I remember I was trying to do the meditations
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and all the long sitting and I was in agony
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and I was having a really hard time focusing on the meditations
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and I had the liquid painkillers here and
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and they were in the opiate category and every two hours I had to take a few drops.
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Now I realized when he said who do you want to be
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and in the walking meditation
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when he said what is your future it didn't include this aspect of me because I was a life coach.
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I had started working with people to help them deal with their disability
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because I had so much willpower and positive energy and everything but it didn't fit that I was still taking pain medication.
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I mean it really really didn't fit, it disturbed me and I just didn't know how to get past that.
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So when he gave this really strong lecture at the advanced follow -up and there were other people there in wheelchairs,
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in with cancer, I was lying under the table with a woman with full of tumors,
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they were people with terrible diseases and they were all there
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and the room held this vibration
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that I felt you know what I can do this I can do this here in this field
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I can just download this information and we can do this
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and so I got myself to the point where I had
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that clear vision of myself
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but the elevated emotion with the support of all these amazing you know geniuses around me
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and we were in that park in Zurich at the advanced follow -up
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and I was so determined and with Dr. Joe in my ears coaching me the whole time,
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it was like he was back here talking to me, I just decided, you know what, it's time, it's time.
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I am now 47, this started when I was 18, I spent my whole life practically, my adult life dealing with this illness
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and I was ready to let it go and
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so I just got myself in this state and I put the earplugs in and I stood there and At first,
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I didn't even want to go because I had a bladder infection, and it was cold.
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It was really cold, and I actually wasn't even going to go because I was on antibiotics.
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And I was almost going to make the excuse.
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And I think about it now.
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If I wouldn't have gone, I wouldn't be in the state that I am now.
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So I'm so glad that he said, come on, you can do it.
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You know how he's such a motivational speaker.
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And so I stood there, and I saw my future, and he said, who would you be?
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Who do you want to be?
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What would you walk like?
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How would you talk?
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What choices would you make?
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Those words over and over again, and I saw my future self, and he says, and now walk,
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and I just walked, and I walked proud and high, and I just walked right,
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and I really, I just decided right then and there to never take anything again, and I just did.
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I just did it, and the emotion was so high that after nine years of being on painkillers,
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opiate painkillers, which you're not really supposed to just quit.
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The emotion was so elevated that I managed to do it.
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And the doctor said, you did what?
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You're not allowed to do that.
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You're not allowed to just quit something like that.
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You're going to severe withdrawal.
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And all I had to do was think of the coherence and do the work and keep myself at that vibration.
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And so I'm so, so grateful that I understood the quantum model that instead of fighting the pain with,
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you know, massage and acupuncture or plants or the wrong type of meditation, trying to get rid of the pain,
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I had to go where the pain was not.
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And that was in my future.
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That was in my future self.
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And I had to reside there and I had to live there.
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And that's how I could do it.
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The pain slowly, the pain pattern slowly started to reduce the screaming of the body
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so to speak started to go away the more I did the work
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and the more I started to help people in my practice
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and take the focus off myself and off my own healing
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so I stopped healing I stopped going to therapies
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I stopped going to where I needed an external input where
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somebody else was gonna fix me okay as soon as I stopped
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that and trying to heal myself and focused on healing other people, the symptoms just are slowly, slowly, it's like
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Minecraft, that reality is just cubicle for cubicle, just falling away.
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It's incredible.
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It really is incredible.
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It's going to a parallel existence where that is not anymore.
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And how do I maintain it?
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because on paper I'm still my blood work is still not quite the way
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that I want it to be
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and I still have to as he says shake off a couple of other things people say
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you look great you look healthy you look radiant what is it
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and I have to say it's it's it's it's the field it's the work
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and it's not about they ask me how many times do
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you meditate a day do you wake up at four in the morning
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and so forth I can't always do that
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because I have a six -year -old son and he would hear me but you know what I do?
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I just do the work moment to moment and
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that means getting into heart coherence and just getting myself coherent
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because pain is incoherent information and I just go to where it's not
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which is in the heart and so that's what I wanted to share
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and I'm very thankful for Dr. Joe's teaching and motivation and the support of all the other people doing the work.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Stories of Transformation - Dominique”. This video has 118 sentences and 1483 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:40. The speaker talks at a natural 171 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
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. |
| meditation noun | /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/ | A devotional exercise of, or leading to, contemplation. |
| illness noun | /ˈɪl.nəs/ | An instance (episode) of a disease or poor health. |
| 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. |
| medication noun | /mɛdɪˈkeɪʃən/ | A medicine, or all the medicines regularly taken by a patient. |
| quantum noun | /ˈkwɑntəm/ | The total amount of something; quantity. |
| aspect noun | /ˈæspɛkt/ | Any specific feature, part, or element of something. |
| liquid noun | /ˈlɪk.wɪd/ | A substance that is flowing, and keeping no shape, such as water; a substance of which the molecules, while not tending to separate from one another like those… |
| patch noun | /pæt͡ʃ/ | A piece of cloth, or other suitable material, sewed or otherwise fixed upon a garment to repair or strengthen it, especially upon an old garment to cover a… |
| workshop noun | /ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/ | A room, especially one which is not particularly large, used for manufacturing or other light industrial work. |
| lecture noun | /ˈlɛk.t͡ʃə/ | A spoken lesson or exposition, usually delivered to a group. |
| scream verb | /skɹiːm/ | To cry out with a shrill voice; to utter a sudden, sharp outcry, or shrill, loud cry, as in fright or extreme pain; to screech, to shriek. |
| tablet noun | /ˈtæblət/ | A slab of clay, stone or wood used for inscription. |
| inflammation noun | /ɪnfləˈmeɪ̯ʃən/ | The state of being inflamed. |
| vibration noun | /vaɪˈbɹeɪʃən/ | The act of vibrating or the condition of being vibrated. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| follow up verb | To take further actions remaining after an event; to continue, revisit, or persist; especially, to maintain communication or verify. |
| get off verb | To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it. |
| fall away verb | To cease to support a person or cause. |
| get past verb | To continue around a blockage; to get around (something); to surpass something that is in the way. |
| go away verb | To depart or leave a place. |
| shake off verb | To remove (something attached to, on or clinging to an object) by shaking. |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Joe's teachings what I was doing.
- You know how he's such a motivational speaker.
- Who do you want to be?
- What would you walk like?
- What choices would you make?
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 24 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, couldn't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: withdrawal /wɪðˈdɹɔ(ə)l/, thankful /ˈθæŋkfəl/, encephalopathy /ɛnˌsɛfəˈlɒpəθi/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: meditation /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, medication /mɛdɪˈkeɪʃən/, workshop /ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/, inflammation /ɪnfləˈmeɪ̯ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: medication /mɛdɪˈkeɪʃən/, inflammation /ɪnfləˈmeɪ̯ʃən/, motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, disability /dɪsəˈbɪlɪti/, practically /ˈpɹæk.tɪ.k(ə.)li/
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, meditation, illness.
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.