I’ve talked before about Poison Playmates and how important it is to do a little Friend Shui now and then to remove the negative nellies from your world. It’s important for everyone. It’s vitally important for creatives. We, at our core, are more sensitive to almost everything and that’s a huge part of how we get our jobs done. Yes. But because we are such sensitive critters, our community of friends and associates needs to be filled with support, smarts, and synergy.

Funny thing is, when I talk with actors who — even after purging the poison playmates from their lives — repopulate their community of closest friends with more negative people, more bitch-and-moan types, more “I can spin anything into a reason to be depressed” folks, I begin to wonder whether the friends are the problem. “Perhaps the poison playmate is you,” I want to suggest.

Before I have you look inside, let’s look at a quick list of qualities most poison playmates exhibit. Poison playmates:

• love hearing about what’s going wrong
• always have a better “what’s going wrong” story
• encourage the sharing of troubles
• have “been there” and really understand you
• are threatened by the success — especially emotional success — of others
• introduce drama into situations that don’t already have a healthy dose of it
• enjoy discussing problems but never solutions (there’s always a reason this or that won’t work, no matter what)

And as you get more successful, poison playmates find it very tough to let you have your joy. Their problems become bigger, or their focus on your non-successes gets keener. (“Oh, walking the red carpet at that film’s premiere would be so great if you hadn’t put on weight recently.”) They become harder to be around, so you withdraw. And as you withdraw, they take swipes at you about being too cool to stick with your old crowd, about how you’ve changed and left them behind, about how you’re abandoning them right as they need you the most.

See the trap? See why these folks are called “poison”? There’s a reason. Their energy can eat at yours like acid.

Now, how are you to your friends? Is it possible that you are a poison playmate? Do you always have something about which you can complain, some “yes, and…” reply to every bit of bad news they share, loads of issues that need fixing but very little time to come up with creative solutions?

I know it’s tough to spot in ourselves things that we’ve perhaps spent a lifetime doing, because these things so become a part of who we are that we don’t even realize they exist. But consider — if you’re seeing a pattern of complainers in your life — that perhaps you are a really good home base for them. You’re making them so comfortable to be around because you’re so good at complaining yourself. You’re so sure no one can ever make it in this biz that it feels good to be around folks who share that opinion. Believe me, people will go out of their way to be sure you’re right, when you have such a strong opinion about anything.

“This business isn’t fair.”

Do you say that? Then you will, for sure, live a life in which this business is not fair.

“I can’t get an agent.”

Done. Say it enough, and even when you do meet the right and perfect agent for you, that person will be so turned off by your lack of belief in yourself and your ability to book that you’ll get exactly what you’ve been saying to yourself: no agent.

How’s your self-talk? Y’know, that stuff you say about yourself and to yourself about the world in which you live when no one is around. Listen to yours. Really listen. Write the recurring bits down if you have to.

Could YOU be the negative one in all of your friendships? If so, get to cleaning that mess up. Or don’t. Of course, some folks are perfectly happy living in a world that never gives them anything but a steady diet of stuff about which to complain. But whatever you do, let others have their joy. When a friend books a national, celebrate, don’t covet. When your classmate signs with a rockstar manager, be excited, not jealous. By being “that person,” I can assure you that when things DO go great for you, you’ll believe it was meant to happen, and you’ll get to have your joy, just as you deserve.

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!

Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001183.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.