The grammar of the soul: A dictionary of the feelings we cannot name
I always know when the Christmas season is near. It is not because of the mall décor that appears overnight, nor the Jose Mari Chan memes that invade my timelines, or even the cheerful carols echoing through every public space. I recognize the holidays by a feeling that slowly creeps up on me, a sensation I cannot quite name. It is part excitement, part stress, part happiness, part sadness, and part loneliness. I have felt this strange emotional cocktail for years. When I mentioned it to friends recently, they nodded in recognition. They also have their own Christmas feelings—each one unique, deeply personal, and almost impossible to describe.
It made me think about the countless emotions we carry that do not fit neatly into simple labels like happy, sad, angry, content, frustrated, or hurt. Language often fails us as we try to describe a complex emotion. But as we grow older and hopefully wiser, we begin to understand what I like to call the grammar of the soul.
Here is an imperfect attempt to give shape to the shapeless. It is a small lexicon inspired by psychologists, poets, philosophers, online creators, and the emotionally curious, including myself. Consider it a multilingual dictionary for the days when we need clarity and self-understanding.
Echo grief. The soft aftershock of loss. The sorrow that resurfaces long after the wound has closed—a grief that does not crash but gently reverberates. It is the song you were not ready to hear, the scent that unlocks a memory, the photograph that startles you. Echo grief is not the original heartbreak. It is the quieter, deeper tremor that proves love never truly leaves; it simply changes its frequency.
Schadenfreude. Admit it—you have felt this. It is the dark delight in witnessing someone else’s misfortune. From the German words for harm and joy, it is the satisfaction of watching karma unfold in real time. Schadenfreude reveals a truth we often deny about ourselves. As some would say, buti nga!
Yugen. The grace of falling leaves. Mountain shadows at dusk. A faint rainbow after rain. Yugen is a Japanese word for the profound and mysterious beauty that exists in the subtle and the unseen. It is never overwhelming. It lives in the quiet recognition that the world is deeper than what we perceive.
Kuchisabishii. A Japanese term that literally means “lonely mouth.” It refers to the urge to eat when you are not hungry, but because something inside you feels empty. It is emotional hunger disguised as appetite. Many people eat when they are bored, stressed, or heartbroken—not out of need, but out of ache.
Limerence. A romantic obsession that hovers between longing and fantasy. Coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov, limerence describes the ache of wanting someone so intensely that your mind becomes a movie of imagined moments. It has a pull so strong it rearranges your inner world around that one person.
Saudade. A Portuguese word for a longing that does not expect resolution. It is the feeling of missing something or someone that may never return. It could be a person, a time, or a version of yourself. Saudade holds both the sweetness of memory and the salt of loss, teaching the soul to cradle both at once.
Kilig. A Filipino word for the quicksilver thrill of affection. It is the spine-tingling, heart-leaping rush when someone you like says your name or looks at you in a certain way. Light and fizzy and impossible to contain, kilig proves that the soul delights in small fireworks.
Numinous. A sense of awe that feels spiritual—a moment when mystery seems close enough to touch. Philosopher Rudolf Otto described the numinous as mysterium tremendum et fascinans, meaning mysterious, terrifying, and fascinating at the same time. It can happen while standing before ancient ruins, listening to a choir in a cathedral, or encountering a wild animal. It can also arrive while reading a sentence that feels written just for you, watching sunlight break through a storm, or seeing someone you love sleep peacefully. The numinous is the recognition of something larger than yourself.
Amor fati. As a trying-hard stoic, I always read this phrase in my books and daily guides. It is Latin for “love of one’s fate.” Nietzsche championed this as a way of living. Instead of merely accepting life, you embrace it fully, including the chaos and the scars. Amor fati means saying yes to the entire arc of your journey, trusting that every hardship has shaped who you have become.
Metanoia. Greek for a profound transformation of heart and mind. At its core, metanoia means a deep change in one’s way of seeing the world. In early Christianity, it referred to spiritual transformation. In philosophy and psychology, it describes a fundamental shift in perspective. Today, metanoia arrives when grief leaves you gentler, when burnout forces you to redefine success, or when aging redirects your priorities from proving yourself to understanding yourself.
Monachopsis. The subtle and persistent feeling of being out of place. Coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, it names the gentle misalignment many people feel with the world around them. It is not loneliness; it is the sense of watching life through slightly fogged glass, or being at a gathering where everyone else seems tuned to a frequency you cannot hear. It can be sitting with friends you love yet sensing an invisible wall, or entering a room and feeling slightly out of step.
Quiet joy. A tender, almost hidden happiness that does not arrive with fireworks. It is the kind of joy you feel more than you show. It carries the warm lift of something small going right and the gentle glow that needs no audience. Quiet joy is the opposite of performative happiness. It is happiness with no desire to be seen—the soul’s private celebration, a steady candle that keeps burning even in silence.
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In the end, these words remind us that the soul often speaks in ways ordinary language cannot easily capture. Naming these feelings does not limit them. It allows us to understand ourselves with more honesty and compassion. When we learn to recognize the quiet shifts within us—the small aches and the moments of beauty—we begin to understand our own inner world more deeply. This is the true grammar of the soul.
