That critic in your head isn't you (probably)

You're heading to the ring and it starts.

You're going to blow this. You always do this. Why do you even bother?

Here's the question worth asking: whose voice is that, exactly?

Because here's the thing — that critic in your head? There's a good chance it isn't actually you. It's someone else who moved in a long time ago and never left. An old trainer. A parent. A competitor who said something offhand at a trial three years ago that you've been replaying ever since. Maybe even a version of yourself from a chapter you thought you'd closed.

We absorb critical voices faster and deeper than encouraging ones. That's not a character flaw — that's just how the brain works. Negative experiences get flagged and stored with more intensity because historically, threat and criticism were things we needed to remember. Your brain was trying to protect you. It just didn't have great judgment about which voices were worth keeping.

The tricky part is that once a voice gets internalized, it stops feeling like someone else's opinion. It just feels like the truth. Like your own honest assessment of your capabilities. It's not dramatic or obvious — it's just the quiet, matter-of-fact narration running underneath everything you do in the ring.

You're not a 195 handler. You always fall apart under pressure. Your dog doesn't trust you.

Stated flatly. As fact. As you.

Except it isn't.

The moment worth paying attention to is the one where you catch a thought and it doesn't quite sound like you — it sounds like someone specific. A tone you recognize. A phrase someone actually said to you once. That's the tell. That's where you can start to pull the thread.

You're not trying to silence the voice. You're just trying to correctly identify who's actually talking.

Because once you know it isn't you, you get to decide whether to keep listening to it. You can acknowledge it — oh, that's not mine — and choose a different narrator. Not a fake-positive one. Just a more accurate one. One that actually sounds like you on a good day, talking to yourself the way you'd talk to a teammate you believed in.

That's not a small thing. The voice running your internal commentary has a direct line to your confidence, your timing, and what you broadcast to your dog before you even take your first step.

So this week — when the critic shows up, get curious instead of just absorbing it. Ask where it came from. Ask if it actually sounds like you.

If it doesn't, you don't have to evict it. Just stop giving it the mic.