The speaking police

14 Sept 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:44

In this YouTube monologue, Hadar Shemesh introduces the concept of the "speaking police" – an internal, self‑critical voice that judges, edits, and over‑thinks our speech. She describes how the volume of this inner voice can vary, and when it gets loud it clouds the mind, leads to word‑finding difficulties, repeated phrases, and atypical grammar mistakes, even for fluent English speakers. She invites viewers to rate the loudness of their own speaking police on a 1‑to‑10 scale and share situations where it feels especially loud. She also mentions that she has learned techniques to dial the speaking police down when needed, though it still sometimes interferes. The video ends with a teaser for a follow‑up reel that will discuss the "cost" of the speaking police, while encouraging audience interaction in the comments.

Chapters

So how loud is the speaking police in your head? So you know this thing where you speak and you need to say something and all of a sudden you start hearing that voice in your head judging, editing, correcting, overthinking, reevaluating, searching for words, shaming, making you feel uncomfortable, or just keeping you silent? So I call that voice the speaking police. And sometimes it's not very loud, and sometimes it's very, very loud. And the thing about the speaking police is that something happens when the police shows up to your English. It's not that you don't know English. It's not that you couldn't say it correctly, but when the speaking police gets louder, all of a sudden your words are all over the place. The brain is a little foggy. You can't think straight. You start repeating yourself. Maybe you start making grammar mistakes that you don't usually make, or you can't find words that you usually use or you know. So I'm curious to know, on a scale of 1 to 10, how loud is the speaking police in your head? Let me know in the comments, and also tell me if there are some situations where you feel like it is exceptionally louder. I definitely have the speaking police, but I learned how to dial it down when I need to so that it doesn't influence the way I speak or what I say. But honestly, sometimes it does. In the next reel, I'm going to talk about the cost of it, but in the meantime, let me know what you think and how you experience it.