Shadowing Practice: why you need to get a life, respectfully - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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I've wasted 23 years of my own life before I realized thinking about my life was keeping me from living it.
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I'm currently in Barcelona and something I've been thinking about is the difference between reflection and rumination.
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What makes someone an overthinker?
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How do you deal with it?
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Is there even a cure?
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So I want to share my thoughts.
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Here is Thought Daughter Travels, overthinking in Barcelona.
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Act 1.
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Reflection vs. Rumination.
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They look identical from the outside.
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Both feel like thinking hard about your life your life but reflection ends.
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You think about the thing, you get somewhere, then you stop thinking about it.
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But rumination doesn't stop.
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It's the same three thoughts on a loop and the loop convinces you you're doing something productive because it's about something important.
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There's a psychologist, her name is Susan, and she spent her career on this.
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Her research found that rumination feels like insight while making people worse at solving problems and more depressed.
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I think this is like the perfect definition of overthinking
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because honestly every single time I overthink about something I always feel 10 times worse than how I felt initially
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and I never arrived with better solutions I never arrived with
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a clearer answer I just arrived feeling 10 times more stressed anxious and unhappy
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today I'm gonna have myself a good old shopping day I heard the vintage shops in Barcelona are amazing
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and right now I'm actually in Paloma Wool.
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I want to just experience everything that Barcelona has to offer retail-y so let's go.
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I went to Paloma Wool earlier and they had no power so it was like super dark.
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I didn't find anything but now I'm at Guimaguas and we'll see what we can find there.
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Barcelona is actually so beautiful guys.
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I feel like the architecture here is just so dreamy.
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Like I know it's like gothic style architecture but it feels like whimsical gothic.
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Like when I think of gothic architecture I think of Transylvania like really dark depressing
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but this like gothic is just so beautiful.
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It's so like pastel sometimes and there's also so many trees in Barcelona
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so the nature with like the The architecture is just, oh, chef's kiss.
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Act two, what makes an overthinker an overthinker?
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I think I've genuinely just been an anxious overthinker my whole life and I've always wondered like, what makes me this way?
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Why am I like this?
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You know, I have friends that when something happens to them, they can think about it for a little bit, move on, make a decision, and just not think about it again.
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But for some reason, I feel stuck.
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I feel like trapped in my own thoughts, in this horrendous loop that just happens, and it feels like I have like no control of it.
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So I actually looked it up, and there's more research from our dear friend Susan.
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She finds that women tend to ruminate more than men.
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She says this is because of socialization.
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Girls get trained to monitor feelings and boys get trained to distract.
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But beyond gender stereotypes, the biggest reason is belief.
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Over thinkers think that overthinking works.
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Adrienne Wells's research on metacognition found
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that ruminators hold sincere convictions like analyzing this will help me understand myself and if I keep thinking I'll find the answer.
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And personally I think one of the biggest causes is people who don't handle uncertainty well aka moi.
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I think overthinking is really an attempt to gain control over
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uncertain situations in your life whether it's job interviews whether it's relationships
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and honestly just life in general there's so many things
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that you just have no control over that really impact you
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and that can be really really scary to not have control over things
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so by overthinking something by really ruminating it by thinking about all the possible scenarios all of possible solutions,
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you feel like you have this control over where your life is going to go when in reality you don't.
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Act three, what do I overthink about?
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I overthink a lot about relationships actually.
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I think relationships are the type of thing where you truly don't have full control over it because there's another person involved, another person with their own perspectives, their own thoughts, their own opinions on how to live life.
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I think it's easy to want control over how you want your relationships to play out.
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Your friendships, your romantic, your family relationships.
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I think everyone has, you know, like a conception in their head of how they want to be treated, how they want other people to feel about them.
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You can't control your perception in the world.
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You can't control how other people perceive you.
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Yes, I am.
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Yes.
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Oh my gosh.
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Oh my gosh.
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One of my favorite lines from a YouTube video I made is from the video the fear of being perceived
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and I said something like to be human is to be
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misperceived to be human is to exist as a multiplicity an ever-shifting reflection in the eyes of others
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and yeah I think
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that like as you get older you just need to deal with the fact
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that you can't control what people's perceptions of you I've always wished
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that I could compartmentalize my feelings better I feel like when something is on my mind, I literally just can't do anything.
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Like I can't focus.
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I can't concentrate.
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I often like can't eat.
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I look at people, especially like my guy friends, and it feels like when something really big is in their lives and they have to go to work, they'll just work or they're hanging out with friends.
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They'll just hang out with friends and they'll think about
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that issue later and compartmentalize that to a very specific time of their life.
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For me, it just like bleeds into my entire life, my entire being and it feels like these thoughts like literally flood every aspect.
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I feel like these days I've been struggling a little bit with work.
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As you guys know I make like these video essays
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and everyone always asks how I come up with ideas for my videos
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and honestly it's just what I'm experiencing in life at that point or what article, sub stack I found to be interesting
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but I have been feeling not as inspired these days so that's why my uploads haven't been as consistent.
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I'm hoping that being outside of New York in a new setting, you know, inspiration will just come to me.
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Act four.
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Why you need to get a life respectfully.
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Rumination has a requirement.
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Empty time.
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The loop needs quiet hours to run.
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Thoughts expand to fill whatever time that you give it, which is why I usually don't spiral when you're hanging out with friends and usually spiral when it's like 1am,
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you're on your phone, alone at night, sleeping.
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Thinking can't generate new information.
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It only reprocesses what's already in your head.
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Action is the only thing that truly adds new cards to the deck.
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You apply, you ask, you go somewhere, and the world hands you information you never could have thought your way through.
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So I think the cure to overthinking is to get a life.
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Build a life that demands more of your attention than your anxiety does.
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What inspired this video is actually this sub-sec article I read, The Art of Being Unreachable by Alexis McElroy.
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Here's the first line.
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There is something intoxicating about a person who is deeply occupied with something you cannot access.
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There is a quiet allure to someone who is absorbed in their own interests.
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They feel layered, self-contained, and slightly undiscovered.
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And she goes on to explain the importance of hobbies.
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Hobbies are not frivolous.
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They are sanctuaries.
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Hobbies are where desire goes when it no longer needs approval.
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Spaces you create that belong entirely to you.
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Where you manipulate reality, build worlds, master skills.
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There is power in that.
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And here's one of my favorite paragraphs.
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A rich inner life quiets the need for outside attention.
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The fuller your attention is on your own becoming, the quieter the hunger for external interest grows.
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A rich inner life does not just make you more interesting, it makes you immune to the games, the breadcrumbs, the intermittent reinforcement that keeps so many people trapped in cycles of longing.
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So this article is actually about why being unreachable, having a rich inner life makes you less interested in dating or like less desperate in dating.
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But I feel like it really applied to like overthinking and just like being stuck in your own head in general.
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I'm not saying that you should distract yourself from every difficult emotion.
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I think reflection asks you to sit with your life, but rumination like asks you to stop living it essentially.
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Like this video is truly just for people like me, people who overthink so much,
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who are really anxious about a lot of things and are paralyzed by this like death loop of anxiety thoughts.
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And I truly think the answer is to just get a life.
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Go do things, go outside, hang out with friends.
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These loops needs to be stopped because at the end of the day, they really don't benefit anyone, especially you.
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I think for so long, I've let thoughts kind of dictate my life, let my like anxiety stop me from doing a lot of things and honestly fuck that guys.
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Final act.
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What does a rich inner life mean?
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That is the ultimate question, isn't it?
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Honestly, I think it could be anything from trapeze classes to watching Chinese dramas with your friends at 7pm every Friday night.
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But I think for me at this point in my life, it is traveling.
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Like Anthony Bourdain says, if I'm an advocate for anything, it is to move.
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I've spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about my life.
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If you add it up, probably years.
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And did it amount to anything?
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No, nothing, except more anxiety.
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Nobody ever ruminated their way to a good life story.
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Nobody ever sat alone at 1am rereading a text 15 times and came out the other side wiser.
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And meanwhile, every single thing that I know about people, about myself, about what I want, I learned by showing up somewhere.
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And we've talked about self-awareness a lot on this channel on the trap of it, you know I think people can say that they're self-aware by over processing things But honestly,
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it's stalling the world is out there completely indifferent to your analysis of it
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And it's full of information that you can't get anyway until you walk into it and let life happen to you.
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So no, I
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Unfortunately, don't have a five-step morning routine for you to overcome overthinking I'm sure there's
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so many better videos out there for you but I think the cure is much simpler and much harder than that.
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Book the thing, ask the question, leave the apartment.
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Your thoughts will be waiting for you when you get back.
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They're very loyal that way but you'll be slightly different and I think that's the only thing that's ever worked.
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So go get a life, respectfully.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 148 sentences and 1893 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:17. The speaker talks fast, about 184 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% 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 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- loop /luːp/ (noun) — A length of thread, line or rope that is doubled over to make an opening.
- reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/ (noun) — The act of reflecting or the state of being reflected.
- anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/ (noun) — An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event.
- architecture /ˈɑː.kɪˌtɛk.t͡ʃə/ (noun) — The art and science of designing and managing the construction of buildings and other structures, particularly if they are well proportioned and decorated.
- arrive /əˈɹaɪv/ (verb) — To reach; to get to a certain place.
- trap /tɹæp/ (noun) — A machine or other device designed to catch (and sometimes kill) animals, either by holding them in a container, or by catching hold of part of the body.
- cure /kjɔː/ (verb) — To restore to health.
- anxious /ˈæŋkʃəs/ (adjective) — Nervous and worried.
- hobby /ˈhɑ.bi/ (noun) — An activity that one enjoys doing in one's spare time.
- perception /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/ (noun) — The organisation, identification and interpretation of sensory information.
- inspire /ɪnˈspaɪə(ɹ)/ (verb) — To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by…
- gosh /ɡɑːʃ/ — A mild expression of surprise or enthusiasm.
- spiral /ˈspaɪɹəl/ (noun) — A curve that is the locus of a point that rotates about a fixed point while continuously increasing its distance from that point.
- perceive /pɚˈsiv/ (verb) — To become aware of, through the physical senses, to see; to understand.
- distract /dɪˈstɹækt/ (verb) — To divert the attention of.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- think about /ˈθɪŋk əˌbaʊt/ (verb) — To ponder.
- deal with (verb) — To handle verbally or in some form of artistic expression; to address or discuss as a subject.
- come out /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ (verb) — To be discovered; to be revealed.
- come up with (verb) — To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it.
- get back (verb) — Return to where one came from.
- look at (verb) — To observe or watch.
- move on (verb) — To continue; to proceed; to go on.
- play out (verb) — To play (a game etc.) to its conclusion.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 50 contractions and reduced forms, such as can't, I'm, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/, anxious /ˈæŋkʃəs/, perception /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
- Long words — get the stress right: anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/, architecture /ˈɑː.kɪˌtɛk.t͡ʃə/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.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 loop, reflection, anxiety.
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 | I've been thinking · I've been struggling · have been feeling |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've wasted · I've always wondered · I've always wished |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is Thought · be treated · being perceived |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who don · person who is · someone who 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.