Your old coach’s harsh words might echo for years. You still get to decide which ones you keep.

Criticism from someone with authority sticks whether it was fair or not, and it can keep playing long after the person has gone. Some of it was accurate and useful. Some of it was their bad day arriving in your direction. The replaying does not sort one from the other, so you have to, with the distance you now have.

Take one line that still repeats and ask whether it has ever once helped you get better. If it has, keep it as instruction and drop the tone it came wrapped in. If it has not, it was never information, and you are allowed to stop carrying it.