How to Express Your Feelings Better

Telling people how you feel can be liberating—but also intimidating. Whether you're sharing your frustrations, letting someone know that you love them, or opening up about your worries, putting your emotions out there isn't always easy.

Which is why many of us bottle it up. We might fear judgment, rejection, or conflict. But withholding how you feel can ultimately lead to stress, communication problems, and poor relationships. So, if you're wondering how to express your feelings, it's important to remember that you can get better at opening up and letting others know how you *really* feel.

The reality is that it's often easier to share our thoughts (aka the intellectual information in our brains) than our feelings. And while both women and men can have difficulty expressing emotions, research suggests that men often find heart-to-heart communication particularly challenging. 

However, knowing how to express your feelings can also create closeness and connection in your relationship. By sharing what is in your heart with your partner, you can achieve deeper intimacy.

Try these tips to help you feel more comfortable and prepared to express feelings with your partner as well as with others in your life.

Accept Your Feelings

The first step in expressing your feelings is to accept them. Emotional acceptance involves allowing your feelings to exist without judging or denying them. Rejecting or stifling your feelings will likely make them worse.

Judging, denying, or rejecting emotions can be harmful because it often results in unhealthy coping behaviors. This can lead to conflict and tension that harms your connection and intimacy. 

For example, just because you are angry, you do not have the right to behave violently. Managing negative feelings means accepting them without allowing them to overrun us.

Describe Your Feelings

Identifying your emotions is an essential part of knowing how to talk about your feelings. The problem is that emotions are often mixed and complex, making figuring out exactly what you're feeling a bit harder.

Describe the feeling by saying it or writing it down. Think about how to help your partner empathize or help them understand what it's like to walk in your shoes.

If you have a difficult time finding the right words, remember that most feelings can be summed up in a single word, including:

• Angry
• Attacked
• Embarrassed
• Happy
• Hurt
• Sad
• Scared

Practice Expressing Your Feelings

One helpful strategy is to spend more time discussing emotions in general in your daily conversations. It really does get easier the more you practice. To start, ask your partner how they feel, then share your own emotional state. 

If you are not used to expressing feelings, this may initially feel awkward. Practicing it in small steps will make it easier.

For example, start by saying, "I feel angry" or "I feel sad."

Understand Feelings vs. Thoughts vs. Mood

It's important not to confuse feelings with your mood or thoughts. Feelings come and go and change quickly, while a "mood" is a sustained period of an emotional state.

Feelings convey our emotions (and are said to come "from the heart"), while thoughts occur in our brains and convey our thoughts and beliefs. Feelings can also be physical sensations.

For example, "I feel hurt" is correct because you would not say "I think hurt," right? Whereas a statement like "I feel that he is a jerk" is incorrect. You "think" he is a jerk. 

Avoid Judging Feelings

Feelings are more challenging to share when we fear being judged, shamed, or ridiculed. Try not to judge your own or your partner's feelings. If you want your partner to continue to share on a deep level, it is essential not to get irritated or defensive about the feeling expressed to you.

Likewise, rejecting a feeling is rejecting the person feeling it. Do not say things like "Don't worry, be happy" or "You shouldn't feel that way." Doing so invalidates how the other person feels.

Verbalize Your Feelings

Healthy relationships are built on open communication. That's why it's so important to tell your partner what you're feeling and listen when they share theirs.

Verbalize feelings with your partner directly. Your partner can't read your mind. While they may pick up on your vibe, they have no way to know what's going on in your head unless you tell them.

When verbalizing your feelings, it's also important to share your deeper underlying feeling, not just surface feelings. You might be expressing anger, but underneath, feel hurt or embarrassed.

Share Your Feelings Daily

You do not have to have deep, serious conversations about your relationship daily, but you do have to share your feelings (not just your thoughts) about what is going on with you day-to-day.

Saying that you were "late for a meeting" gives the basic information only. But saying you "feel embarrassed about being late for a meeting" helps you connect to the person you are speaking with.

When you are making decisions, feelings will be a part of the process, but you must also think logically and rationally.

Takeaways

To be successful at sharing your feelings, you need to be open, honest, willing to make time for each other, and receptive to these talks. This needs to be a reciprocal process. You both must share on an intimate level with each other; it can't just be one of you.

If you're having trouble expressing your feelings, consider couples counseling (either together or alone) to better understand what is preventing you from taking an emotional risk and having heart-to-hearts regularly with your partner.