I have a note on my phone that nobody else has ever seen. It’s a list of thoughts that hit me around 2 a.m., the kind that feel too ugly to say out loud. One entry reads: “I’m not sure I’m a good friend when it counts.” Another says: “I pretend to be easygoing, but I’m actually just terrified of being disliked.” I wrote them down not because I planned to publish them, but because they were buzzing in my brain like a trapped fly and I needed somewhere to put them. For years, I assumed these were the exact things I should never write about. Turns out, they’re the only things worth writing.
Here’s a truth I’ve learned the hard way: the stories that connect most deeply are the ones we’re almost too embarrassed to tell. Not the polished versions of ourselves, not the lessons we’ve already neatly packaged into wisdom. The real stuff. The moments we’d rather edit out of our personal highlight reels. I’m Jo Marsh, and if there’s one thing I know about writing (and life), it’s that the gap between who we want to be and who we actually are is where all the good material lives.
The Shame Spiral That Birthed My Best Essay
Let me take you back to a Tuesday morning that still makes me cringe. I was running late for a coffee date with a friend who’d just been dumped. She needed me. I knew she needed me. But instead of rushing out the door, I spent ten minutes rearranging my bookshelf by colour because it suddenly felt urgent that the teal spines weren’t touching the navy ones. I showed up twenty minutes late, flushed and apologetic, armed with a vague excuse about traffic. She forgave me instantly, because she’s a better person than I am. But I couldn’t forgive myself. Not for being late—for the bookshelf. For the fact that, in a moment when someone I loved was hurting, my first instinct was to alphabetise my emotional support hardcovers.
I sat with that shame for weeks. It felt too petty to confess, too weird to explain. Who admits they colour-coded books to avoid a friend’s tears? But eventually, I wrote about it. Not as a tidy lesson on “how to be a better friend,” but as a messy, honest confession. I described the bookshelf. I described the guilt. I described the way avoidance can look a lot like productivity if you squint. And when I hit publish, something unexpected happened: people saw themselves in it. Not the bookshelf part, necessarily, but the avoidance. The gap between wanting to show up and actually doing it. One reader wrote, “I once deep-cleaned my oven to avoid calling my mum back. I thought I was the only one.”
That’s when I understood: the things we least want to admit are often the most universal. We all have our own version of the bookshelf. We all have moments where we chose comfort over courage, and then felt terrible about it. Writing that down doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a real one.
Why We Hide the Good Stuff
Most of us walk around with a highlight reel running in our heads. We want to be seen as competent, kind, and in control. So when we write—whether it’s a blog post, a journal entry, or even a caption—we tend to curate. We share the resolved story, the lesson learned, the version of ourselves that already has it figured out. But here’s the problem: nobody relates to a person who has it figured out. They relate to the person who’s still in the mess.
I think we hide the good stuff because we’re afraid of two things: judgment and permanence. Judgment is obvious—we don’t want people to think less of us. But permanence is sneakier. When you write something down and put it into the world, it becomes true in a way that a passing thought isn’t. You can’t take it back. You can’t say, “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.” You’ve admitted it, and now it’s part of your story. That’s terrifying. But it’s also the whole point.
I once wrote about the time I cried in a supermarket because I couldn’t decide which pasta shape to buy. It wasn’t about the pasta. It was about decision fatigue, burnout, and the crushing weight of adulthood. But on the surface, it was a story about a grown woman weeping in aisle four. I almost deleted it before publishing. Instead, it became one of my most shared pieces. Why? Because everyone has cried in a supermarket. Or a car park. Or a shower. Or all three in the same week. We just don’t talk about it. And when someone finally does, it feels like permission.
The Comedy Gap: Intention vs. Execution
There’s a particular kind of relatability that comes from the space between what we meant to do and what we actually did. I call it the Intention-Execution Gap, and it’s my favourite place to mine for material. It’s inherently funny because it’s inherently human. We intend to be gracious, but we execute petty. We intend to be present, but we execute scrolling through our phone while our partner talks about their day. The gap is where the comedy lives, but also the tenderness. Because in that gap, you can see someone trying. And failing. And trying again.
Take my attempt at “mindful mornings.” I had a vision: wake up at 6 a.m., meditate for ten minutes, journal three pages of gratitude, drink lemon water from a glass bottle, and greet the day with serene, unblinking eye contact. What actually happened: I woke up at 6 a.m., checked Twitter, got annoyed about a stranger’s opinion on pizza toppings, forgot to meditate, journaled one sentence (“I’m grateful for coffee”), and then spilled coffee on my shirt. The gap between my aspirational morning and my actual morning is a chasm. But when I wrote about it, people laughed. They sent me their own failed morning routines. One person said they tried to do yoga and accidentally fell back asleep in child’s pose. That’s connection. That’s the gap doing its magic.
Writing that only shows the intention feels like a lie. Writing that only shows the failure feels like self-flagellation. But writing that holds both—the hope and the mess—feels like truth. And truth, especially when it’s a bit ridiculous, is what makes readers think, “Oh, you too? I thought I was the only one.”
The Things I Still Don’t Want to Admit
Even now, there are things I hesitate to write. I have a draft folder full of half-finished posts that feel too raw, too petty, too revealing. Here’s a peek inside:
- The jealousy journal: A list of accomplishments by people I know that made me feel genuinely happy for them—and also a little bit sick. Not because I don’t want them to succeed, but because their success reminds me of my own stagnation. I know this is ugly. I also know it’s normal. But writing it feels like admitting I’m not as generous as I want to be.
- The apology I never sent: A letter to an old friend I hurt years ago. I drafted it, revised it, and then never sent it because I was afraid she’d already moved on and my apology would just reopen a wound. I still don’t know if that was kindness or cowardice.
- The parenting fear: I’m not a parent, but I’m terrified I’d be a bad one. Not in the big, dramatic ways. In the small, daily ways. The impatience. The phone-checking. The times I’d choose my own comfort over their needs. I don’t write about this often because it feels like confessing a crime I haven’t committed yet.
These are the things I sit with. The things I’m not ready to publish. But I know, deep down, that when I finally do, they’ll resonate. Because someone out there has a jealousy journal too. Someone out there has an unsent apology burning a hole in their conscience. Someone out there is scared they won’t be the parent they want to be. The things we least want to admit are almost never unique. They’re just the last to be said out loud.
How to Write the Thing You Don’t Want to Write
If you’re a writer—or just someone who wants to be more honest in your journal, your letters, or your group chat—here’s what I’ve learned about getting the scary stuff onto the page.
Start with the detail that makes you flinch
Not the big, dramatic confession. The small, specific one. The moment you pretended to laugh at a joke you didn’t understand. The time you said “I’m fine” when you were anything but. The way you rehearse conversations in the shower and still mess them up in real life. These tiny admissions are the gateway. They’re specific enough to feel real, but small enough to feel safe. Once you write one, the next one comes easier.
Write the version you’d never publish
Give yourself permission to write something that will never see the light of day. No audience. No edits. Just the ugly, unfiltered truth. I do this in a separate document I call “The Vault.” It’s password-protected, not because anyone would want to read it, but because the password itself is a ritual: I’m choosing to keep this safe. Once the words are out of my head and onto the page, I can decide later what to do with them. Often, I find that the raw version has a heartbeat the polished version lacks. So I publish something closer to the raw version than I ever thought I would.
Look for the universal in the specific
The most relatable writing is almost always hyper-specific. It’s not “I felt sad.” It’s “I felt sad while eating cold spaghetti straight from the Tupperware at 11 p.m., and I didn’t even like the spaghetti.” The specificity makes it real. The emotion underneath makes it universal. Your job as a writer is to trust that the specific details of your experience will tap into something broader. They almost always do.
Use humour as a Trojan horse
Humour disarms. It lets you say hard things without sounding preachy or self-pitying. When I wrote about my bookshelf avoidance, I framed it as a comedy of errors—a person who genuinely believed that colour-coding was a valid emergency. The humour made the confession feel less heavy, for me and for the reader. But the truth was still there, tucked inside the joke. Laughter opens the door; honesty walks through it.
Remember: you’re not the only one
Whatever you’re afraid to admit, someone else has already thought it, felt it, or done it. Probably today. Probably in your own neighbourhood. The shame that makes you feel isolated is actually a thread connecting you to thousands of other people who are also hiding the same thing. Writing it down doesn’t expose you. It frees them. And, weirdly, it frees you too.
What Happens When You Actually Do It
Every time I’ve published something that scared me, the same thing has happened: silence, then relief, then connection. The silence is the scary part. You hit publish and the world doesn’t immediately respond. For a few hours, you’re convinced you’ve made a terrible mistake. You’ve revealed too much. You’re going to lose friends, clients, the respect of strangers on the internet who’ve never met you but whose opinions you inexplicably care about.
Then the messages start. Not a flood, usually. A trickle. But each one is more meaningful than a hundred likes. Someone says, “I thought I was the only one.” Someone says, “This made me cry in a good way.” Someone says, “I’ve never told anyone this, but…” and then they tell you their version. And you realise: the thing you were most ashamed of is the thing that made people feel seen. That’s the paradox. The parts of ourselves we want to hide are often the parts that build the strongest bridges.
I’m not saying it’s easy. I still hesitate before publishing anything vulnerable. My finger hovers over the button. My stomach does a little flip. But I’ve learned to trust that flip. It’s a signal that I’m about to say something true. And truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, is what people are starving for.
FAQ: Writing the Hard Stuff
How do I know if something is too personal to share?
A good rule of thumb: if sharing it would harm someone else, pause. If it’s just your own embarrassment or shame, that’s usually a sign it’s worth exploring. Ask yourself: “Does this story involve someone else’s private experience without their consent?” If yes, change details or wait until you can tell it without violating their trust. If it’s only your own vulnerability on the line, that’s your choice—and often, your gift to readers.
What if I’m not a writer? Can I still use this approach?
Absolutely. This isn’t just about publishing. It’s about how you show up in conversations, in therapy, in your journal. Admitting the thing you least want to admit—to yourself or to someone you trust—can be the starting point for real growth. You don’t need an audience. You just need honesty.
How do I handle negative feedback when I’ve been vulnerable?
First, remember that not all feedback is equal. Some people will project their own discomfort onto you. Some will misunderstand. Some are just unkind. But if you’ve written something true, the people who need it will find it. Focus on them. And give yourself permission to protect your peace—you don’t owe anyone a debate about your own experience.
The Invitation
So here’s what I want to say to you, whether you’re a writer or a journal-keeper or just someone who’s been holding onto a story that feels too heavy to tell: write it anyway. Start small. Start with the bookshelf moment. Start with the thing you did when you should have done something else. Start with the thought you’ve never said out loud. Write it for yourself first. Then, if you’re brave enough, share it. You might be surprised by who’s been waiting to hear exactly that.
Because the most relatable writing doesn’t come from our best selves. It comes from our real ones. The ones who cry in supermarkets, who colour-code books to avoid hard conversations, who try to meditate and end up napping. The ones who are trying, and failing, and trying again. That’s all of us. We just need someone to say it first.
Maybe that someone is you.