# Covering the Shame

By [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2) · 2025-05-15

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I feel a tightness in my chest, across the front, extending down my arms into my hands.

That’s the anger.

I feel a heaviness in my stomach, like an expanding balloon or a mini bowling ball.

That’s the sadness.

I feel a hole in my sternum.

That’s the regret and the remorse.

But why are they there? What’s underneath?

Hiding beneath them all somehow, I think, but I don’t know, is a shame. Or maybe it’s just a fear of shame.

It’s like a scene in the movie when the actor (and the audience) senses that something is amiss, but doesn’t quite know what it is.

I’m just guessing. Or, rather, trying to intuit what’s there.

Shame perhaps, saying, “you’re not good enough as you are.”

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*Originally published on [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2/covering-the-shame)*