And I do not mean the Britney song. We all have them in our lives. Toxic friends, toxic people we work with. Even toxic family members. People that try to make you feel like shite. Those people that are not on your team. The ones that secretly smile when they see you fail, or they get a pang of annoyance when they see you succeed. They give you compliments, yet they are underhand and they somehow let slip an ounce of information that 'might' play on your insecurities. Toxic people that mess up your chi. Chi that you have spent a long time trying not to mess with yourself.

The thing is, when you start to question the people you surround yourself with,you have to look at yourself first. Holy moses, god forbid I am not a perfect specimen of grace and kindness. But... I'm not. I am human. We are human.

The question I have asked myself throughout the years... Am I Regina George? I can pretend that I don't have an ounce of mean molecules in my body. I can 'say' that I am the 'nicest person EVER. But no-one would believe me. Not even I believe me. Not even my mum could say that I was. My ego and insecurities can turn me into a big old mighty twat.

I've been that person to hear of someone's good news and get a pang of jealousy. I'd like to put it out there that we all have horrible thoughts (occasionally). About people, about situations. Even our loved ones. People we consider friends. If I am in this alone then stick a pickle up my bum hole and throw me to the sharks.  

As you get older, you start to ask yourself 'how can you control the negative feelings? How can I be a better human?' It's not that I do voodoo on anyone or wish that their hair would fall out (If you have seen The Craft then I know you know)I just mean the general crap. The slagging someone off, the bad vibes, the grumpiness, the ignoring of people, rolling your eyes when they annoy you, the little dig when they talk about their new, shiny expensive shoes 'Ooo babe, are you sure you should spend your money on that?' Or just the head chatter. The things you may not say out loud, but you think in your head for a slight moment, the smile you don't give or the 'hi' you don't wave...

We let our feelings,  which I believe are affected by thoughts, eat away our light and leave us in he dark.  

I found my old diaries.(the ones that prompted the blog) There is no way of avoiding that I have been that person. The only thing I try and do differently now is, that I catch myself. I have either said something judgemental or I am about to and I ask myself, what am I really thinking that is making me have this feeling that means I 'act like a C word'

I am on insta one day a few years back... I see that a fellow actress has booked an acting job. She's not a friend friend, but I know her. We speak here and there. My immediate feeling isn't happiness for her.(and maybe I am alone in this, maybe I am the worst human alive) But honestly, it wasn't 'wahooo' for her, it was 'oh' for me. It was 'How is that fair... Why does she get all this good fortune? Is she even that good?' And what ensued was a tantrum. A 'throw myself on the floor, literally off the sofa and ball my eyes out until I am swallowing snot and I can't breath. Jealousy. Severe, outrageous, pure jealousy.  And although I didn't project any nastiness onto the person in question (because I was still a decent human in many ways and wasn't one of those weird trolly types) perhaps I wasn't shitting out toxic turds onto her directly, but I was filling my flat up with the bad energy and I was intoxicating my own brain, my own soul. I believed my own thoughts enough to make me react like a two year old brat.

A while later I saw a pinterest quote (of course) and it said...

"jealousy is admitting to yourself that you don't think you will ever have what that person has and envy is knowing that you want it too, and can"

and something clicked a little. The feeling-(why not me?) jealousy, the thoughts deep down-(I'm not good enough) like someone's fortune was a lack in me. Like they were stealing something from me, like there wasn't enough jobs to go around, like the closer someone else got to (what? who knows) the further away I got. 

When I was eleven I became friends with the new cool girl. My insecurity fear based teenage angst grew and I slowly became toxic for a while. I abandoned my kind souled best friend and tossed her in for hair mousse and lip gloss. I no longer wanted to write plays and perform them, I wanted to write journals and adorn them, with names of boys and doodles of things mean girls doodle. Arriving at big school was one big toxic hell hole.  One place full of girls all going through that one thing that defines our behaviour time and time again. 'Who are we? And are we good enough?' And for most thirteen year old girls, the answer was easy, not as good as Nancy with the rock solid abs, not as good as Suse in her brand new hipster bootleg jeans (the exact ones) All Saints wore, not as good as Amanda, look at her round, pert, large boobs.  

Those feelings of inadequacy thrive on bad thoughts. Every action thereafter is to rid yourself of such thoughts of worthlessness-Of feeling less than. Not as pretty as, not as clever as, not as skinny as and in doing so you find people that you think are either 'more than' or 'less than' and you tell them they can't sit at the back of the bus. You maybe snipe at a friend who looks better than you. You may embarrass someone so you look 'funny' After reading my old diaries I found that I breathed toxic behaviour as a teenager. Whilst I was still learning who I was, who I wanted to be. I tried on different masks and characters. I joined forces with other mean people who I subconsciously felt made me worthy. My diary was full of 'people don't like me, my friends hate me, I'm fat, Ooo this boy fancies me, he said I was pretty' I can't read more than one page without feeling even my nostril hairs standing to attention whilst I cringe and my blood runs hot. 

The best way I found to begin ridding myself of the negativity,  was to be empathetic to myself. Aware and empathetic. When you know where your thoughts come from it is so much easier to see why you're being a fanny flap. If I was always beating myself up in front of the mirror, how was I going to go out into the real world and be nice to anyone else?

You get older work out your own thoughts, your behaviour. You cut people out. You realise who your real friends are. The ones cheering when things go good. The ones that are happy because you are. There are still those people, ones that will be so unhappy with themselves that they will make you second guess yourself, doubt your own moral compass, cry when you get home,  but before culling them from your real life, Empathise and relate and look at why you act like a cock bucket sometimes. The world doesn't need more hate, but more love. I never got this before. I've been mean, selfish, self indulgent (I know right, me?) and gradually it dawned on me to try not let my own crap seep into the universe as much. (It's still a working progress) 

So to all the people I have ever been mean to, to my first friend in secondary school who I didn't support through a really hard time, to the pizza man I shouted at for no real good reason, to my friend in school I told her 'happiness seemed fake', to the girl I bundled at the back of the bus in year 8, to the pen pal I never wrote back to and the people I never smiled at in street. 

It's not you... It was me. 

"There is nothing in the world that can bother you as much as your own mind. In fact others seem to be bothering you, but it is not others, it is your own mind" 

So you audition. Sometimes a lot, sometimes not. You go to class, workshops, you have head shots done. They don't look like you, you have more done, you cry at the price. You get a friend to do them and pray that there is just one in there that your agent likes, you pray that there is one in there that you like. You go to your day job, you leave and go to rehearsals for that play you said you'd do for free and then you rush from there to a night shoot of a short film that your mates, neighbours, dog sitters boyfriend, wrote. You spend five hours on a night shoot, outside, in the middle of winter. You take a pic for intsa and hash tag it #livingthedream or #dreamsdocometrue and you secretly want to cry because your so hungry and all they have on set are biscuits. You really don't want biscuits because you have been eating clean and you are now wise enough to know if you have one biscuit you will have ten. You finally get in, after a long night bus journey home and you get three hours sleep in before you have your day job again. Short shift today. Afterwards you head to that cute little coffee shop to go and write. You have five hours. You sit for three trying to think where to start, you decide to make a list of all the things you need to do. Pay for class, chose head shot, buy shower gel, tax return... Oh shit... Find all your old receipts. You get a call, private number... you pray it's your agent, but pretend that you so don't think it's your agent. You answer easy breezy... Its your agent. 'Yes' you think. 'maybe it's an audition.
And it is. And with a lovely warm sense of purpose and joy you put down phone and await the e mail with the details.

It's a play. Sort of, a musical. You read the part and you love it. You actually feel you can do this. You understand the part. You love how it reads. It feels natural and it makes you smile. Sometimes you just get those auditions that just feel right. Your not sure why, but it feels like it makes sense. Some you get and they are so far out of reach of what you think you can do with the character or they don't click with you and you feel you may have to blag the audition. But when that  one comes in that just feels good, you feel fooking great. 

You go in. You may have had an espresso because you fell asleep on the tube on the way. You may go into the audition a little off kilter. Perhaps a bit more unsteady, than you may have been without said espresso. You read, you faff, you plough on, you leave. And suddenly, that audition you thought you could smash, the one you thought you could be just right for, you may have effed it up. You call your agent, you explain. You loose sleep because, despite it only being a three night run, something, deep inside your gut, tells you this is going to be a good project. And secretly (because its way cooler to pretend you don't) you want it. You want the job, your mad you might not get the job and you resign yourself to a moment (and only a moment) of self pity. 

The phone rings. Its private number. You pick up knowing it's going to be PPI calling about that insurance fraud payment that you never took out because you have never had a loan and you... 

'You got the job' Errrrrm... what? 'You got the job' And your belly actually flips because your gut, your heart, tells you, this is going to be an awesome thing to be apart of. 

Day one of rehearsals comes after your thirtieth birthday celebrations and life feels freaking awesome. You rehearse, you chat, you bond, you banter and you make friends with people you think you could be friends with for life. You drink, you bond, you laugh, you try to dance to the choreography, you can't, you tear up and you rehearse and learn lines and drink and bond some more. You watch in ore at the talent your working with, you don't feel threatened because you admire everyone's ability to bring it all together and perform an assemble piece so strong you might not get over the fact that its over. 

And then... suddenly... it's over. You do the three nights, that went so very quickly you try to recount exactly how they are over already, and you sit on a bus the day after the last show and you cry. Your not sure exactly why, but you sob. Like you have just been dumped by the boy in the year above who has a six pack and all the girls fancy. Like he's just taunted you and said he will go out with you and then laughed in your face and said it was a joke. You feel lost, alone and so gutted that its over that you wonder how on earth your going to get through the next week before you head to LA. 

Post show blues are not the one. And despite knowing that its a come down, you still want to eat nothing but ice cream and not wear anything but jogging bottoms. Even though you know it will pass, you still feel so gutted that it's over, you might hibernate for weeks on end. Acting lark is funny. You wait for a long time, for jobs, it seems. You make sacrifices and work hard so you can feel a pay off down the line. Then, sometimes, when you're least expecting, you end up in something so special that it gets you excited about acting again and you know is meant to be a part of your journey, that you can't help but eat cake, shed tears and already look forward to getting to do the show again... and you remember exactly why you chose to this acting lark in the first place...