Shadowing Practice: You’re Not Obsessed—You’re Avoiding Your Life - Learn English Speaking with Video
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I think the reason why a lot of people can't break out of their obsessive loop is because they're not being honest about why it's happening.
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I think sometimes we tell ourselves this story.
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I'm obsessing over them because I really like them.
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They are really amazing.
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I just can't stop thinking about them.
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They are living rent-free in my head.
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First of all, we say it with the focus on them.
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Second, we say it like it's something flattering.
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Third, we talk about it like something special is happening.
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Either they are special or this connection is special.
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But what would happen if you turned that story inward?
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Instead of saying, they are living rent-free in my head, you ask, why have I given them this space?
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Because when someone takes up that much real estate in your mind, it is rarely just about them.
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It's often about what is missing in you, what you think you lack, what part of you feels empty.
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My default in life, my starting point for almost everything is to ask why.
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Why am I reacting like this?
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Why am I ruminating?
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Why is this hitting so hard?
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Why am I holding on?
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When you find out the why, the how becomes easier.
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How to change it, how to let go, how to stop spiraling, how to come back to yourself.
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Obsession is a signal and now that I know that, anytime I start to feel it rise, I whisper a quiet thank you.
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Why? Because it's a loud, clear cue that something in me isn't right.
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And when something is that noticeable, I know it is calling me to correct it.
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So right now, just for a moment, let's push aside whoever or whatever you've been obsessing about.
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Let's take them out of the frame completely, and let's understand the root of it so that you can find your freedom.
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Okay? Number one is the scarcity trap.
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A lot of times we obsess over people and things because we believe that whatever we want to get out of them or are already getting out of them is rare.
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For example, love or safety.
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So you've met this person or in dire cases, you have just seen them from across the road, across the street, or something like that.
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And in both situations, you don't even know them like that.
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But you may have noticed some sort of attribute in them.
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You love the way they move through the world.
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It lights up something within you.
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Or maybe when they talk to you, it feels like it's just you and them in the entire world.
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It makes you feel good.
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It makes you feel seen.
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So because of your scarcity mindset, the immediate response assumption, especially for people with a lot of wounding and not many examples of being loved by other people, your assumption, your immediate thing is that people like this don't come around often.
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So you hold on tightly.
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But that's the thing about starvation.
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When someone is starved for love, for attention, for care, even the tiniest bit feels like a lot.
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Picture someone who has been lost at sea or maybe someone who is walking through the desert for days, maybe weeks, no water, no rest, no relief.
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Their lips are cracked.
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Their throat is burning.
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They are beginning to see and hear things.
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Now, imagine that this person finally stumbles across the smallest trace of water, just a puddle, barely enough to quench anything.
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But then when you look at that person, they would drop to their knees and lap it up with so much force, with so much urgency, like it is life itself, so much gratitude, so much energy because to the starved, even a drop feels like an ocean.
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That's what happens when you've gone your whole life not feeling fully seen, when you've never been loved in the way you needed, when all your experiences have convinced you that scraps are the best you will ever get.
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So when someone sees you even slightly, when someone gives you attention, even if it's casual or neutral, that's literally how they treat everyone else.
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You cling. You tell yourself, this must be it.
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This is the person that will finally love me and fill this hole that I've been carrying for so long.
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You convince yourself that they are different, that this is special, but it's not about who they are.
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It's about the lack you've been carrying and the scarcity mindset that it has created.
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So even if they're just being kind, even if they're just being themselves, you confuse that attention for affection.
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You confuse proximity for compatibility.
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And if they're playing a game and giving you crumbs, you convince yourself that it's a loaf.
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They trigger hope in you so you attach your entire emotional world to them.
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You start orbiting them like they are the sun.
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That obsession is not about them.
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It's about your desire to be saved.
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And this leads me to number two.
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Projection.
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Let's be real.
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What do you know about this person?
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Do you know how they handle conflict?
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How they treat other people in their lives?
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Are they safe people?
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Decent standard members of the society?
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Is there someone somewhere who they have caused irreparable damage to?
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What kinds of relationships have they had or do they have?
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Are they disciplined?
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If you can't tell me about this person as a full human being outside of your imprinting on them, then it's all a projection, smoke and mirrors.
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They are just an idea to you, not a person.
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And honestly, it feels really shitty to be on the receiving end of that.
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When someone decides that you're perfect, you're just this perfect thing, so they put you on a pedestal, it's awful.
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When you put someone on a pedestal, you stop seeing them and start seeing your dream, your dream in human form.
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They represent the connection, the safety, the validation, the future you wish for.
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So what's living in your head isn't them, it's your dream.
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When you truly like a person, a job, a city, they won't be perfect.
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They will be flawed and yet worth it.
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When you start seeing people for who they are in the fullness of their humanity, it's harder to obsess.
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Take them off the pedestal.
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Let them be human.
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Ask yourself, if I really knew them, would I still feel this way?
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This is an opportunity for you to sit down and write out what it is you've been wishing for and hoping for subconsciously.
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That dream of yours that they now embody, write it down.
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Then decide what is based in reality and what isn't.
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What is driven by your wounds?
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For example, the dream that somebody can love you into loving yourself when you don't is a farce.
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Or that someone's love can heal all the trauma you carry.
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It's a pipe dream and I hate to break it to you, it's an unhealthy projection.
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And this is where you class this dream under what you need to start therapy for or begin your personal healing journey for.
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So in that situation, your obsession reflects an internal disconnection.
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It's a clear calling for you to examine what part of you feels unworthy, unloved or neglected.
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Then an invitation for you to learn to love yourself, to build a healthy foundation within yourself.
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In addition to this, you can decide what part of your dream is actually attainable and what you can do to achieve it.
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So say you dream of a deep romantic connection because I know that's what a lot of people dream of, of this future family and future connection that will help them.
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Let's say that's what you dream for or you want friends.
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Great. How do you achieve that?
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The answer is very simple, but it's not easy.
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You put yourself out there.
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And putting yourself out there means you must be open to disappointments and the struggles that come with it.
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And this leads me to our third one, our third reason why some of us obsess.
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You are afraid to take real action.
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It's so much easier to daydream than risk failure in the real world.
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Sometimes obsession is cowardice in disguise.
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It's avoidance.
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It requires no reciprocity.
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You have dreams, goals, things you want to build, but you are scared.
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Scared to start, scared to fail, scared to be seen trying.
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You are chasing and loving on someone here in your mind because you haven't or you won't dare to pursue them in real life.
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In your mind, they bend to your will.
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They don't reject you or shatter your dreams.
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So you get your high off of the what-ifs in your head.
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Instead of putting yourself out there, you channel your energy into your mind-world where variables and uncertainties don't exist.
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You rehearse conversations you will never have.
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You visualize futures that could exist, but don't exist because you are doing duck all.
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If the person that is supposedly everything to you is so real in your fantasy, you don't have to date again.
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You don't have to make new friends.
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You don't have to try because no one else can compare to this person and what they bring to you in your head.
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But as our sister Keke Lauren Palmer says, the gag is they are not real.
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But you keep telling yourself that the love you want isn't happening out here with us mere mortals because of the god you've erected in your mind.
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You keep ghosting the world in favor of that lie.
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It's a cop-out.
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You won't pick up the phone.
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You won't send the pitch.
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No going on dates and getting rejected like us, the rest of us in these streets, wretched streets, might I say.
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Because your obsession is just a distraction from the fact that you are afraid to show up in your own life.
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If this is you, then number four will apply to you automatically.
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And I think this is the biggest one for many people.
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You obsess because you don't have a life or you are living a life that you hate.
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So to regain some sort of feeling of power, you make someone or something else yours.
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Listen, when your energy has nowhere else to go, you don't have any sort of routine, no direction, no structure, no hobbies, no passion.
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It gets funneled into fantasy and rumination.
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When I was writing my first play, or even when I'm working on these videos, or when I'm planning my days, all I think about is my life and how to get to it.
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I simply don't have extra time or space to give to rumination.
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And even when I ruminate, I catch and cut that ish off because I have things to do.
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Let's say it's plain.
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You are obsessed because you have nothing else going on.
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So you'd rather live in your head than face the dissatisfaction of your reality.
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Discipline is the antidote to obsession.
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And this doesn't have to look a certain way, but have a life, my dear, and be about that life.
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Honestly, the last time I had a weird relationship with somebody, I wasn't enjoying my life at all.
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I wasn't really living my life.
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So I was escaping through that connection, what they offered me.
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And honestly, what they were offering me was nothing in capital letters.
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Thankfully, by week four, I received sense and I woke the hell up and went back outside and became an active participant in my reality.
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It's your responsibility to change what you don't like about your life, about your reality.
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It's easier to fantasize of another person who holds the key to your freedom, to your joy, to your excitement.
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It's easier to fixate on them than to take steps to deal with the loneliness, if that's what you're suffering from.
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The disappointment, the stagnancy that you're experiencing right now.
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You hate your current reality.
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So my darling, this obsession, why not take it as an opportunity to recognize that you must make a change?
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Sit down and draw up a list of everything that your fantasy promises.
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The opposite of those promises are the things you believe you lack or are trying to escape.
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So identify them and create an actionable plan on how to solve those exact issues.
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The longer you stay in your fantasy, the longer you delay your own growth.
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And for the final one, this is for people who are obsessing over relationships or situations they were once in.
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Sometimes you are ruminating because you feel guilty.
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Or like in my case, I felt disappointed with myself.
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I walked away from that connection really quickly.
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But even then, in hindsight, there were so many gut checks, so many moments where my body was telling me things, but my mind hadn't caught up yet.
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My brain was lagging.
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So I kind of ignored it because I wasn't seeing a pattern to analyze.
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And this is why one of the solutions I came up with for myself was to go out there and be around more people, socialize a bit more because I need to know the language my body speaks.
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I'm someone that sometimes needs a bit more help with getting out of my head and into my body.
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And even though I have a pretty good relationship with my body, sometimes my head analysis and pattern recognition wins.
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And that realization that this could have ended earlier if I listened to my body, my intuition first was eating me up.
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I kept replaying all the moments where the intuitive part of me was nudging, but I wasn't listening.
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Ah, it was so frustrating.
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So sometimes your obsession is that you can't believe what you did to yourself in that dynamic.
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You gave too much.
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You abandoned yourself.
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You ignored the signs.
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You are grieving your own self-betrayal.
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And obsessing is your way of making it feel worth it.
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You might be struggling to forgive yourself.
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That might be what's happening to you actually.
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And I think this is why it's so important to be surrounded by at least one or two people, friends, family, acquaintances, groups, someone outside of you, like a therapist or a coach, even a stranger if they're open to it, or an internet person like me who can give you a different perspective.
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Because when I told my sister and my best friend that this thing was haunting me, they were like, what?
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We are so proud of you.
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You caught it early and immediately you caught it, you left.
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That's who you are.
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You are a human being.
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You will miss things.
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People might lie.
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They might be deceitful.
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You might get carried away sometimes.
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They might be manipulative.
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And you won't catch it at first because that's not who you are.
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You don't treat people like that.
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So of course, of course you don't walk around expecting to be treated that way either.
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All that matters is that you walked away and you should be proud of yourself.
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So that put things into perspective for me and helped me rechannel my thoughts and energy into the things that matter to me.
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So whenever the thoughts come, I'm like, hey, hey, hey, please.
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Hey, I have things to do.
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And I focus into my actual life.
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Because what you give your energy expands.
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All in all, the cure is this.
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Not that it's a disease, but obsession fades when you are busy living.
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It dies in motion.
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When you are too full of your own joy, your own goals, your own discipline, actively building your own life, getting rid of stressors, burnout, noticing triggers for anxiety and all the things we do to take care of ourselves, you won't have time to orbit someone else's existence.
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Because your truth will be more appealing than the fantasy.
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And it's not just about having a life.
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It's about being committed to that life, showing up for yourself, having the discipline to stick to your plans, even when someone new or exciting comes along.
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Get so intentional about your own schedule that the thought of rearranging it for someone you barely know feels laughable.
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Sometimes I catch and cut my ruminations off so aggressively.
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I'm like, get the f...
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I don't have time for this.
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Jeez! With so much anger that it runs away.
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Wake up every day with a goal to build a life you love enough to stay present in.
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Become a person you don't want to escape from.
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That's the work.
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Pour that obsession into something real.
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Create music, write, dance, take a class, build a business, sign up for the gym and go.
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Get into the kitchen, go on awkward first dates, go outside and feel the sun on your skin, on your face.
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If you like grass, touch it.
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Move your body, build your world.
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The cure for obsession is presence.
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You stay grounded in the world that is actually here, not the one made up in your mind.
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You redirect your energy into building an altar within instead of making gods out of people.
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You start identifying and meeting your own needs instead of projecting your lack.
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You don't need to get over them.
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No. You just need to come back to yourself.
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As always, it's been an absolute pleasure.
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My name is Pearl Girl.
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And I'll see you in the next video.
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About This Lesson
Ready to level up your English speaking practice? This lesson uses a thought-provoking video to help you master conversational fluency while exploring a relatable topic: breaking free from obsessive thinking. You’ll practice listening, repeating, and understanding natural speech patterns—perfect for shadow speak! By the end, you’ll not only grasp key ideas but also sound more confident when discussing complex emotions in English.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Obsessive loop: A cycle of repeated, unwanted thoughts (e.g., "She’s stuck in an obsessive loop about her project").
- Living rent-free: Occupying someone’s mind without effort (e.g., "That song has been living rent-free in my head all week").
- Scarcity trap: Believing something valuable is rare, leading to clingy behavior (e.g., "His scarcity trap makes him fear losing even small opportunities").
- Ruminating: Overthinking (e.g., "Stop ruminating and take action!").
- Quench: To satisfy a need (e.g., "This drink will quench my thirst").
Practice Tips
The video’s tone is calm and conversational, with a moderate speed—ideal for shadowing. Here’s how to make the most of it: First, watch the video once to understand the story. Next, pause after each sentence and repeat it aloud, mimicking the speaker’s rhythm and emphasis. Focus on phrases like "living rent-free" and "scarcity trap"—they’re common in daily chats! For extra practice, use a shadowing site to record yourself and compare it to the original. This helps you notice gaps in pronunciation and flow. Remember, even 5 minutes a day of shadow speak will boost your confidence. Learn English with videos like this, and you’ll be having natural conversations in no time!
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 | you've been obsessing · I've been carrying · you've been carrying |
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if I really knew them, would I |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being loved · is starved · has been lost |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've met · has been lost · you've gone |
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.