We symbolize these different feelings with words such as joy, sadness, anger, surprise, disappointment and others, including shame. This implies that what is most primal and potent about shame is its emotional nature. It certainly can emerge in response to information provided for us, and therefore it seems to have its origin in cognition, but its power lies in our felt experience of it. It is important to keep this in mind, for when it comes to combating shame, if we are not attending to what we are feeling, it will be easy for it to have its way with us without our even knowing it.
