How to Help Your Teen Challenge Negative Self-Talk

 Is your brain constantly telling you you're not good enough, or that everyone’s judging you? That voice—the inner critic or inner roommate—might sound convincing, but it’s not telling the truth.

In this episode, I break down 7 common thinking traps like mind reading, catastrophizing, and all-or-nothing thinking, and show you how to challenge them using powerful questions.


💬 You’ll learn:
• How to recognize the negative voice inside your head
• Simple ways to change your perception and reduce anxiety
• Practical tools to reframe anxious thoughts with facts and self-compassion

Whether you’re a teen struggling with self-doubt or a parent trying to support your anxious child, this video offers hope, tools, and support.

👇 Links & Resources:
🔗 Test Anxiety Calming Audio

📩 Contact Cynthia for coaching:


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Here is a video about the inner mean person

Here is a video about the dark side of Social Media

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Email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com
Text me: 785-380-2064
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Transcript

 Do you ever feel like the meanest person, you know, actually resides inside your head that constant? And I've called it different things before in my podcast, but the inner critic, the inner roommate however you want to think about these thoughts inside your head. About, you're not good enough or everyone hates you.

We're gonna talk about that today. 'cause everyone has it there. That's a human response. Our brain is always trying to look for danger and tell us, you know, things that it thinks is going wrong and. But those thoughts can really get in the way of you doing the things that you wanna do. So today we're gonna talk about what are some of those tricks and traps that our brain.

Gives us, that, gives us that anxiety where we don't wanna do the things, even though we do wanna do those [00:01:00] things and what to do about it, how to talk back to that inner critic, inner roommate, those, uh, stories that our brain is telling us and so we can, can feel better. So we're gonna talk about this is actually the first, I, I have a triangle formula that I teach my clients, and the first part that we talk about is perception.

And we do that in a lot of different ways. But this is, we're gonna understand this. Inner dialogue that goes on with this inner roommate. And maybe that's the best way to look at it today, is this person who lives inside our brain is telling us this stuff. And maybe that will help you kind of separate yourself from the things.

And then when you are finished listening to this today, you will have some ideas of what to do when this comes up again, because a lot of times we're so used to this voice talking to us that we don't even. [00:02:00] Question it, or we don't even realize that the tricks that it's using to try to get us sucked into the story.

And so that's why I want you to know about these things today. And I like thinking about them as thinking traps because we do just kind of like get caught up in it and then we don't realize we're caught up in it until we've already suffered a really long time with it. So the first trap is mind reading.

So that inner roommate thinks that it knows how to read other people's minds. And so when you experience maybe somebody. Not paying attention to you or talking to you, your, your inner roommate's. Like, oh, well, they don't even like you, or, you're weird, or you're not ever gonna get a date because these people aren't paying attention to you.

And so that is one, that's the first trap, is that your inner roommate. [00:03:00] Thinks that it's a mind reader and can read people's minds in your, in your world. And the, the other thing that's similar to mind reading is fortune telling. So your. Inner roommate thinks that they can tell the future, and so something happens and your inner roommate is like, oh, well you know, you are gonna do terrible on this test and you're gonna fail everything and you're never gonna get married and you'll never lose this weight.

Or you're, you'll never get healthy, or whatever it is. And it's thinking about your inner roommate is looking into the future and just telling you what it thinks the future is gonna be. And then there's catastrophizing. And so you know that a catastrophe is something terrible that happens, like the worst thing that could happen.

So when your inner roommate decides that they wanna catastrophize everything, that just means [00:04:00] that it's your. In a roommate is telling you the worst possible scenario about everything. This is gonna be the worst party you ever went to. You. This is the worst experience you're ever gonna experience. You're never gonna get into a good college.

You're never gonna have. A life partner, you know, whatever. You know this always, never, it's terrible. It's the worst. All of that is catastrophizing. Then labeling, so the inner roommate gives you a label of some kind, like you're the, you're a clutz, yours, you know, you are the. The most boring person.

You're the ugliest person. You're the fattest person. It gives you a label or a label to something. Your video was the worst video anyone ever saw or so those kinds of, where it's labeling you [00:05:00] in some way because of something that you said or did or something that happened and then overgeneralizing.

So if one person tells you they don't want to go out with you now, there's not a person in the world that will go out with you. Or if a person didn't invite you to their party, you'll never be invited to any parties ever again, or no one likes you and that's why you weren't invited to this party. And then all or nothing thinking, which I think that's my brain's favorite.

And I, I have, I experience all of these by the way, as so does everyone else. But sometimes your brain likes one in particular and does it a lot more than the others. And so all or nothing, or black and white thinking and, and black and white just means that they're complete opposites. It's like all or nothing are complete opposites.

Is that it just goes to [00:06:00] extreme. So you fail or your, your inner roommate will say something like, you either will get an A or you're gonna fail, or you are going to get a date, or you'll never get a date. Like so. It's like everything or nothing and or just like the complete opposites of each other.

And then sometimes your inner roommate will personalize something. So because this happened, it's your fault. And a lot of people who feel over responsible for the world and other people's feelings and situations use this one because it's like, oh, because this person is mad, it must be your fault because my parents got divorced.

It must be because of me. Because my friend group had a falling out. It must be because of something that I did. And so [00:07:00] taking just anything that happens and personalizing it and telling your, this inner roommate telling you that it's your fault that these things have happened now because we hear.

Thoughts and have thoughts all day long. Constantly. We do tend to tune out a lot of this stuff and not realize that these dialogues are going on because we can't possibly listen to all of it. It's like too much for any person. And so sometimes when we're feeling bad, we need to look inside and become aware of what is being talked about in there.

What is, what is our inner roommate saying to us? And we might then pick up on, oh. This is why I'm feeling so bad today 'cause my inner roommate's saying all these terrible things about me. So what I want you to do about hearing, you know, finally becoming aware and realizing that this stuff is being said, what I want you to do about that is to start asking.

Your inner roommate [00:08:00] questions, and that's where this like separating it out from your brain helps you, because if you think about it as a person that you're having a dialogue with, you can ask questions to this person. But first of all, if you are curious about my triangle formula, if you're a parent who wants to know more about how this works, or if you're a teen who's listening to this and you're like, I would love help figuring this stuff out.

Consider this your sign that you need to contact me because I can help you figure all this stuff out and we can practice it because talking back to our inner roommate does take practice and time and this video will help you. But this is something that you need to continually practice and it really helps if you have a mentor or guide somebody that can kind of help you figure this out as a parent or as a teen.

So you can message me on any [00:09:00] social media you can. Put a comment in here and I can, you know, send you more information about how um, I can help you. And I have a parent workshop coming up. If you're watching this before July 24th, then 2025, you can come to my parent workshop and find out more about it as well.

'cause I will talk about all three pieces of the triangle formula and I can help you work on this and many other things in my program. So what are the questions we need to ask our inner roommate? So let's challenge those that inner roommate, when they come up with all these different scenarios. So first of all, we're gonna ask our inner roommate what are the facts about this?

So if our inner inner roommate is telling us that you're going to never pass the driving test, then. First of all, when you [00:10:00] ask yourself what are the facts? I mean, we don't know. We haven't taken it yet, and even if we have failed it before. That doesn't mean we'll fail it again. Like every time we practice it, we're gonna be doing better and better to get to the part part where we are gonna pass it.

But what are the facts? So I've been studying this manual. I've taken notes that help me. I have made flashcards or whatever it is that you do to study for things like that. Just remind yourself that I have done the work that it's gonna take to pass this. Also asking, what would you tell a friend in this situation?

So if a friend told you, oh my gosh, I know I'm gonna fail my driving test, what would you say to them? I'm sure you would do some say something encouraging, like, I'm sure you're gonna be fine. You've done all the work, you've studied, I've seen you study, you're. You're good at taking tests or this is really [00:11:00] important.

I'm sure you're, you know, you're putting the work in that it's gonna take to do this. So saying something nicer and more encouraging, then this is terrible. You're gonna fail. You're the worst. Hopefully you don't talk to your friends like that. And then, what can I do to solve this problem now, you know, we, we can't just go in and say, I will.

Pass this test and just make that happen. But how do you ensure or help yourself pass a test of any kind that you've taken, whether it's a driving test or tests at school? We've all had experiences with tests. We prepare for them. We study, we think about it. We find ways that help that information stick in our brain.

And one of the things we don't realize we need to do. That I can also help you with is we need to calm ourselves, our bodies, and our brains so that our brain is at full capacity to take that exam, whatever that exam is. And [00:12:00] so the other part of what are some steps I can do? How can I problem solve this?

I'm gonna make sure that my body is calm when I take that exam so that I can pass it and I have a test anxiety. Kind of meditation, get your body in alignment to take the test. And I'm going to link it somewhere. I, this is my first try at linking something to my video. So, um, hopefully you'll find it somewhere.

And if I can't figure it out, it'll just be in the show notes or in the comments, but. I have an audio that you can listen to the morning of the night before, whatever it is, uh, to help you with any kind of test, but maybe you're getting ready to take your driving test or maybe it's some other test that you're taking for school or for a certification or anything else that you need.

So, I hope that this helped you. What are the thinking traps the inner [00:13:00] roommate uses? What are some questions you can ask? Practice this and contact me. I can help you with all of this. I'll talk to you soon.