Shadowing Practice: you never lose, because it was never yours - Learn English Speaking with Video

For a very long time, I could not cope with the word loss.

I hated to lose something.

I hated to be a loser, whether that be literally something as small as I lost my favorite lip product or I lost a good friend.

So as I've gotten older, I've had to come to the realization that loss or being a loser is sometimes a part of life.

But then one day, I was like, wait a minute, I can't even control my breath I can't control my body

in regards of its health something could go wrong tomorrow

and all I can do is try my best to prevent

that from happening but ultimately I cannot control it so

if I don't own my own breath can I ever lose something

that was never mine to begin with because

if you think about it in order to lose something means it was in your possession

that you had full control over said object noun whatever it may be person place your thing

and that's not the case because if it was truly mine

and i was the owner i could never lose it meaning i never lose

because it was never mine and i love that because

that makes me never a loser but i will go ahead

and explain why the philosophy psychology and even my own religion islam

and a lot of theological religions point to this exact fact where you are not a loser

or more eloquently you can't lose because it was never yours

if you're new to my channel my name is sahar

or sahar and i am a professional yapper self -proclaimed philosopher

and i really just i am the thought daughter nothing is

ever not not deep everything is deep even the mere concept

of losing things anyway i digress let's get into this video starting off with the philosophy

and like most things every time i have a thought

and i look to philosophy i discover that it's been experienced

and evaluated way before my time and within

that i realize i will never be the creator of something new

but i will always have evidence to my creation it's all

about reframe anyway epictetus in his book in credian has a line

that was very radical at the time

that he dropped it essentially he says never say of anything i have lost it

but i have restored it has your child died it is

restored has your wife died she is restored has your estate been taken away is not this also restored and

if you notice this phrasing he doesn't say don't care he

says restore to epictetus the universe is a landlord like everything

you enjoy your partner your wealth your job even your health

is a temporary property handed to you basically as a loan

even buddhism actually has this exact same concept um called upadana

which is clinging or grasping um suffering doesn't happen

because things change suffering happens because things are constantly moving

and we are standing there screaming at the river to freeze

into solid ground impermanence isn't the interruption of life it is life

so if this idea is a thousand years old why does it hurt

so badly still i think humans evolve

but we never evolve in this aspect of things you know i mean

if something was discovered thousands of years ago we are able to build upon

that within science but for some reason within philosophy

it's never built upon within our own self -understanding

because we still go through the same struggles

and it's about going back to

that to understand them there's this thing called person illusion

and essentially within person illusion you fall in love

or you build a deep friendship so you think you have them

but people are not real estate they are not autonomous agents within your life

and there are trajectories that happen to intersect with yours

and for their life

and that's the reason why you guys are even in each other's worlds loving someone deeply

while recognizing you have no place in their future life is actually the purest form of affection

because regardless of if they exist within your world or

if they choose you back you still love them

and isn't the purest version of love what we all aim to be able to extend to another person

so why is it that whenever it's not that easily attainable

and love isn't easy we start to think that

that means we lost the person there's also this thing called opportunity illusion

so think about you spending six months pitching a project you

build the decks you rehearse the lines even imagine this great launch

and within this entire process you didn't just want the outcome

you colonize the entire concept of what it's going to feel

like what it's going to be like the person you are going to be in

that moment and the thing is whenever that opportunity or outcome goes to someone else, you actually just feel robbed now.

But you weren't robbed of a future, you're robbed of an assumption.

Meaning you did not lose a future opportunity, you lost an assumption that you made in your mind of what it would be like, what it's going to happen, how you're going to feel,

assuming the outcome is going to be in your favor.

Now I'm going to stop being preachy and tap into a little bit of reality, what the pessimist wants to hear,

or even self -proclaimed realist one really ear -leading pessimist um sometimes this can become a toxic habit

so within philosophy there's this thing called spiritual bypassing

and you can consider this the dark side of philosophy um it's a term coined by psychologist john wellwood

and it's when you use philosophical ideas to duck under the hard work of actual human emotion

so if you yell it was never mind the second something doesn't work your way

or breaks your heart you aren't being epictetus in that moment you are actually being just terrified.

It's essentially a self -protection mechanism where if nothing is yours then nothing can hurt you so you aren't trying anymore.

You don't pitch the ambitious project, you don't open up to your partner, you essentially keep one foot in and one foot out of everything

that could potentially have the power to hurt you just

so in the end you can sit back

and say you see it was never mine and that's not the right way to go about it okay.

That's ultimately not wisdom, that's emotional cowardice.

You see grief is the tax we pay for being brave enough to attach to things in a temporal universe.

If you don't feel the sting of the loss you never really honor the value of what you had.

Now for the psychology aspect of things there's a concept called psychological ownership theory.

Research has found that your brain doesn't differentiate very well between your physical arm and your intangible assets meaning your job title, your relationship status, subscriber count,

five -year plan, etc. So when you control something or you know it intimately or invest any effort into it,

your brain fuses it into your natural self -map and it becomes mine.

Meaning that when a person leaves or a contract falls through, your brain doesn't register it as an event.

It's literally seen as literal dismemberment, losing a body part.

So you aren't just missing an opportunity, you are now missing a part of your identity, a part of what makes you you

and again the phrase it was never mine isn't supposed to

make you care less it's designed to fix your accounting it's a tool to remind your brain

that you are mistaking a lease for a deed of ownership so

100

if the person wasn't yours the job wasn't yours the home

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wasn't yours what is even ours well what do i own in this world that's the real question

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because i'm tired of losing i don't want to lose what do i own

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and the answer to

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that is what's left is what's built inside of you the capacity to love

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that you expanded while you were with them that is yours the discipline

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and skill you developed while grinding for that failed venture

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that is yours the integrity in which you handle that collapse

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that is yours you can never lose that

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so you don't lose you release what was borrowed

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and you retain what was forged the external world can repossess the house it cannot repossess the character

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that you built throughout the journey Even within Islam, I think the reason why this concept even really started going in my mind is

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because we are very aware we don't even control our next breath.

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I'm not in control of anything that I do in my life.

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It's quite literally qadr.

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It's up to Allah's will.

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So then what can I control?

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And I think

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that is the ultimate question people ask whenever they try to

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figure out what the point of us being on earth is

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because if everything's written

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and we are already destined for certain things why am I

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here what is the point of me going through things

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if I have very little control

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and that's kind of what got me spiraling into like figuring out okay

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so what what is the purpose what is the point what am I supposed to do here and that's

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when I realized oh there are things in my control there

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are things of how I can perceive loss there's ways

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that I can show up whenever I'm sad

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when I don't get the way I want there's ways I

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can build discipline in order to make do ah to get the ways

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that I want there's actually a lot in our control but

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when we focus too much on the things

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that are out of our control is where we feel lost

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but remember you can never lose because it was never yours

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but you can always win

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if you focus on what is i need to find a way to make

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that line cute on the other end

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if you'd like to read more about this i wrote about my sub stack

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but this is really just a short video to explain my life motto obviously borrowed from epictetus

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but i didn't know it when i created it

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so maybe he maybe he knew I was gonna exist and wanted to borrow from me all right bye

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 141 sentences and 1782 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:08. 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
restore verb	/ɹɪˈstoɹ/	To reestablish, or bring back into existence.
essentially adverb	/ɪˈsɛnʃəli/	In essence: by nature.
loser noun	/luzɚ/	A person who loses; one who fails to win or thrive.
outcome noun	/ˈaʊtkʌm/	That which is produced or occurs as a result of an event or process.
rob verb	/ɹɑb/	To steal from, especially using force or violence.
breathe verb	/bɹiːð/	To draw air into (inhale), and expel air from (exhale), the lungs in order to extract oxygen and excrete waste gases.
borrow verb	/ˈbɑɹ.oʊ/	To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it.
illusion noun	/ɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/	A distortion of sensory perception where real stimuli lead to a false or misleading impression of reality.
suffer verb	/ˈsʌfɚ/	To undergo hardship.
pitch noun	/pɪt͡ʃ/	A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand.
aspect noun	/ˈæspɛkt/	Any specific feature, part, or element of something.
ownership noun	/ˈoʊnɚʃɪp/	The state of having complete legal control of something; possession; proprietorship.
psychology noun	/saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/	The study of the human mind.
phrase noun	/ˈfɹeɪ̯z/	A short written or spoken expression.
discipline noun	/ˈdɪsəplɪn/	A controlled behaviour; self-control.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
fall through verb		To be unsuccessful, come to nothing; to be cancelled; not to proceed.
go ahead verb	/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/	To proceed with; to begin.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
show up verb		To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically.
sit back verb		To recline while still in a seated position, with one's back on the frame of the seat.
take away verb	/ˌteɪk əˈweɪ/	To remove something and put it in a different place.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	been experienced · is restored · was discovered
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've gotten · have lost · have restored

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 41 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, doesn't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: breathe /bɹiːð/, theological /θi.əˈlɑd͡ʒɪkl/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, illusion /ɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/, ownership /ˈoʊnɚʃɪp/, assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/, friendship /ˈfɹɛn(d)ʃɪp/
Long words — get the stress right: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, psychology /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, temporary /ˈtɛmp(əˌɹ)ɛɹi/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, mechanism /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/

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 restore, essentially, loser.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?