“You cover up the poison, with poetry.”

– Goodbye, Echosmith

We all know those guys. The ones that do all the wrong things. But cover it up by saying all the right things. The smooth talkers. You know the ones.

Truthfully, that’s what this lyric is about. But it’s a beautiful line that I haven’t been able to get out of my head the past few weeks. In actuality, I think it’s great advice.

Cover up the poison, with poetry.

That is: when things don’t go your way, when hope seems lost, find your true passions and put your energy toward that instead.

Here is how I continuously compartmentalize tough situations to shift my mindsets, stay positive, and actually come out of those same tough situations feeling motivated and invigorated, rather than down and depressed.

REFLECTION & JOURNALING

Whenever I don’t know the answer to a potential problem, I love to write my thoughts out on the old pineapple surfboard notebook. Not only does this reflective process help to establish game-plans and potential solutions, but it also allows for all the swirling thoughts bursting inside my brain to actually escape. Once it’s on paper, I find that it’s far less likely to take up mental capacity.

If ever lost, I like to remind myself why I’m doing what I’m doing. If for example my work life starts to become stressful, I simply remind myself about all the things I enjoy about the job, and all the value I’ve brought to the organization over the years. I remind myself about all of my accomplishments. All of the people that make me feel special.

If we can continuously have that as a daily reflection, we might even avoid the stress altogether.

SEE MORE: How to stay conscious when you drown

Instead, we’ll constantly remind ourselves what’s really important, and what really deserves our mental capacity.

DIVING INTO YOUR PASSIONS

If you have multiple different passions that you pursue at once, this one is going to be easy for you. If not, check out one of my favourite articles:

How to identify where you want to go in life

I like to say that if you have four different areas of your life that you’re dedicatedly focusing on at a time, you’re always going to have things to fall back on. When my work was tough last week, teaching became the highlight. When I wasn’t teaching last summer, trail running became the highlight. By having so many different interests and paths in life, I can continuously remind myself that there is more to life than my problems. I can continuously stay in a state of joy. As soon as one star fades, the others can shine instead.

Hobbies or creative outlets like writing (maybe even writing poetry) can be even more powerful, as they allow you to not only forget about your doubts and worries; but again serve as a way to actually let those thoughts escape from your brain.

Distractions are one thing. Distractions that help you gain new perspectives are even better.

SEEK OUT ENERGIZERS

I love to continuously evaluate what things in my life bring me energy, and which drain my energy instead. Ali Abdaal calls this the ‘Energy Audit’. The goal is to reflect upon which areas of life deserve more attention, and which can fade away. Having hobbies, interests and other passions that you can channel your energy toward are amazing, as they can help you forget all about the doubts and worries. But other people can often be the greatest energizers of all, even for those of you that lean toward introversion.

Often when we’re feeling down about our lives, when our ego has been depleted and we have nothing left to give, we want nothing to do with those around us. Even if they’re asking us how we’re doing and showing us how much they care. We still shoulder away our responses.

Truth is, you will always feel better if you simply talk to someone about something completely different from the source of the stress. If you can laugh and bond about arbitrary items of little importance, you will forget about what’s going wrong inside of your brain. You’ll remember why you’re actually an amazing person. Why you don’t have to sweat the little things, and can instead remember big picture items, like being a good friend.

Next time you’re feeling down and like you don’t want to talk to anyone about it, I challenge you to shift that thought, engage with a friend, and talk about something completely different instead. Chances are, you’ll feel immensely better.

REFRAMING THE NEGATIVE

In all of the doubts about if we’re doing and saying the right things, we only cause our anxieties to deepen. We so often think that we have to do everything perfectly, and that any sign of imperfection is a sign of weakness. In reality, imperfections are actually signs of immense strength.

RELATED: Perfectly imperfect is perfect

Who would ever want to be perfect anyway? Why would you want to reach a destination where there’s no more room for growth?

At the same time, we can’t beat ourselves up over our faults. Most of the time, your faults are actually your greatest strengths. Even the negative sides of those “faults” can be reframed in a positive way.

Anxiety for example is so valuable because it means we want something. Most of the time, anxiety is actually your body’s excitement. If you channel that excitement toward doing your best, it’s a lot easier to overcome what otherwise might consume you. Besides, most of the time when we’re anxious, we’re thinking about all that could go wrong. We’re so often not thinking about all that could go right.

Truly ask yourself – why do you constantly beat yourself up over what you need to improve? Why not treat yourself with the love and grace you’d give to a friend looking for advice.

Why do you constantly think you need to be somewhere else? The here and now is what matters.

Why can’t we accept that we don’t have to be perfect? That the current version of ourself is the best version of all time and that we’re only going to grow by having experiences such as the ones that give us our current anxieties.

Seriously. Stop beating yourself up over the littlest of imperfections. Stop letting your mind wander into the most poisonous of plants. Cover it up with poetry instead.

If we focus less on what could go wrong and more on what could go right, we’re going to approach any situation with significantly better mindsets toward accomplishing our hopes and dreams.

If we take ourselves out of the situation to reflect, dive deep into our passions, speak to others that energize us, and finally, reframe those negative thoughts about ourselves into positive ones, we’re going to be able to cover up any kind of poison with poetry.

Thanks for reading and see you soon.