How to Write About Your Feelings When the Words Won’t Come

You open your journal after lunch with a friend and write, “I feel bad.”

It’s true, but it doesn’t tell you much. “Upset” seems no closer. You had a pleasant enough afternoon. Nothing happened that you could easily explain to someone else.

Writing about your feelings can begin here, before you know what to call them. Describe the moment you keep remembering. Often it’s something small: the question you hoped your friend would ask, or how quickly you said goodbye.

Where to start when you can’t name the feeling

Stay with one part of the conversation. What were you about to say? When did you decide to leave it out?

You might remember reaching for your phone to show a photograph, then putting it back in your bag. Your friend had started talking again, and you didn’t want to interrupt. At the time, it hardly seemed worth noticing.

A detail like that gives you somewhere to begin. Write it as you remember it, including anything you’re unsure about. Follow the memory. You don’t have to reconstruct the entire lunch.

The diary passages below are imagined.

I’m upset about lunch. I wanted to tell her I’d finished the little bookcase. Three weekends of sanding in the hallway. I had the photograph ready on my phone.

We talked about her work for a while. Then the food came and I thought I’d bring it up afterward, but somehow I didn’t.

I kept waiting for her to ask what I’d been doing. Saying it myself would have felt like asking her to be impressed. Which I suppose I was, a bit.

What if no word seems to fit?

“Disappointed” might fit. So might “left out,” or “a bit foolish.” Try the word in a sentence about what happened, rather than searching for a perfect label on its own.

“I feel foolish because I’d rehearsed how I would tell her” says more than “I feel foolish.” The extra detail gives the feeling a shape the writer can recognize.

You’ll cross words out. You might write “angry,” then realize you were hurt first and became angry on the way home. Keep the sequence if it matters. There’s no need to replace the ordinary words with language that sounds more thoughtful.

I was proud of myself this morning. I’d put a few books on it before I left, just to see. I wanted her to see it too.

Now I’m pretending it wasn’t a big deal. I’ve even put the photograph in a different folder, as if I’m tidying up.

I think I’m hurt. I wish she’d asked. And I wish I’d just shown her.

Listen for the feeling you’re quick to dismiss

Notice where you start arguing with yourself. “It was only lunch.” “She has more important things going on.” These may be things you believe, but see what you were about to write before you added them.

Perhaps you wanted a little attention, and admitting that sounds childish to you. Write about the embarrassment as well as the wish: “I don’t like needing someone else to be pleased for me, but I did want that today.”

The aim here is to hear what you felt. Deciding whether your friend should have behaved differently can wait. That conversation can come later. For now, you’re the person who needs to know why the photograph is still on your mind.

If it helps to set aside a particular moment for this kind of writing, our guide to journaling and ritual writing considers how to begin and end a session.

Keep the affection in, too

An entry can sound harsher than the afternoon felt. You’ve spent half a page on what hurt, then remember laughing together while you waited for the bill.

Write that part as well. It belongs to the same lunch.

She did make me laugh. I’d forgotten about the story with her neighbor’s dog until just now.

I’m glad we went. I’m still disappointed. I don’t really know what to do with both of those things tonight.

Stop there if you want. If you return to the page later, you can add something without correcting the earlier entry into an account that sounds more reasonable. It records what you could say at the time.

Come back to the words when you’re ready

People talk about healing through writing. What we mean by it at Orileva is narrower: the slow work of understanding an experience in your own words. Sometimes that begins with admitting you wanted to be noticed. The feeling may still be uncomfortable after you’ve named it.

If you’re repeating the same lines and getting more caught up in the conversation, close the journal for now. You can return another day. Our article on how often to journal considers a practice that leaves room for those gaps.

Next time “I feel bad” is all you have, write it. Underneath, describe the moment that comes back to you. See what you find yourself wanting to add.