Guilt & Shame: The Actor Behind the Role

William Shakespeare wrote: “All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players…”

We enter. We exit. We wear costumes. We speak lines shaped by society and circumstances. 

We interact with other players who seem, at times, to determine the entire direction of our story.

Shakespeare’s theater was called the Globe Theatre—a fitting name. The world. A stage upon which dramas of love, betrayal, ambition, grief, and redemption unfold. 

What was built in wood beside the Thames river mirrors the “stage” we walk each day.

But here is the deeper truth: we are not the costumes we wear.

Returning to the Stage

After twenty-two years away from the theater, I found myself—almost perfectly accidentally—returning playing Lear in King Lear.

Peter McLaughlin as King Lear

The path back was unbelievably bizarre. It involved a bank robbery, just before Christmas, and a sequence of events so unlikely it felt scripted by a spirit playwright motivated by deeper meaning that comes from unfathomable wisdom. 

Suddenly, the only option was to step into a role I had never intended to play.

Suddenly. Costume. Crown. 450 year-old Shakespearian verse.

To play any character truthfully, one has to surrender. I had to allow his madness, pride, grief, and devastation to move through me as if they were my own.

If I held back—if I winked at the audience as if to say, “Don’t worry, this isn’t really me”—the performance would collapse.

The audience demands commitment and reality.

Life does too.

We must fully inhabit our roles to extract their lessons. Half-hearted participation yields half-learned wisdom.

But the deeper spiritual maturity lies in an ancient remembering: this is still a role. You and I are actors playing out our parts.

The Danger of Forgetting We Are the Actor

In life, as in theater, immersion is everything. If an actor playing King Lear does not fully believe he is Lear—broken, raging, prideful—the audience will never believe it either. 

The commitment must be total. 

The stage transforms two hours into reality where even the audience can forget they are witnessing a play.

When the house lights rise and the crown is removed, Lear dissolves. But the actor remains.

We’ve become so identified with the character we are currently playing—parent, executive, failure, victim, hero, villain, addict, success, disappointment—that we mistake those temporary roles for our eternal identity. A painful mistake.

Because when the character falters, we assume our being is flawed.

Guilt whispers: You are what you did.Shame insists: You are broken at your core.

But what if those are merely character attributes? What if they belong to the role—not the actor?

Responsibility Without Identification

This perspective does not absolve us of responsibility. On the contrary, it deepens it.

If I wound another person, the harm is real within the play.

Apologies matter. Amends matter. Growth matters. The lesson embedded in the experience must be honored.

But once responsibility is taken and the lesson integrated, clinging to guilt becomes unnecessary suffering. 

It is like an actor refusing to remove the costume after the curtain call, insisting, “No, I am forever this tragic king.”

You are not forever your worst moment.

Pain, I believe, is not punishment. It is a cue. A spotlight illuminating an area of the script that needs attention. Something unresolved. Ultimately, something ready to heal.

Holding onto pain beyond its lesson is like remaining on stage long after the audience has gone home.

It’s time to lock up for the night…

Peter McLaughlin as Shakespeare's King Lear

Seeing Others Beyond Their Roles

The same grace we extend to ourselves must be extended to others.

How often do we freeze someone in a single act? We define them by betrayal, anger, addiction, arrogance, or cruelty. We see only their “current character.”

But what if you think of them as eternal actors too immersed in a difficult role?

What if their harshness is part of a script designed for their own awakening?

Or yours?

Boundaries are part of the play. Harm requires redress including Karma.

Permanent condemnation of the soul misunderstands the nature of the stage.

Death as a Curtain Call?

When the performance ends and the house lights rise, the audience applauds. The actor bows. The costume is removed.

Many spiritual traditions—and Shakespeare himself hints at this mystery—suggest that consciousness does not vanish with the body. 

The stage changes. The play concludes. The actor continues.

I believe we do return. Different theater, different script, costumes and the rest. 

The purpose: to learn, to experience, to refine understanding, love and awareness.

If this is true, then guilt and shame are just old relics from the stage.

Turning on the House Lights

Every human carries experiences that become lodged within—moments of humiliation, betrayal, abandonment, regret. 

These harden into unwanted thoughts and behaviors. We react rather than respond. We defend the character.

But healing begins when we metaphorically turn on the house lights.

When we glimpse the one behind the role.

Perhaps this happens in meditation. Or therapy. Or prayer. Or during an unexpected return to the stage after twenty-two years.

I am not merely this role.

You are not alone in your pain. You are not alone in your confusion. And you are certainly not defined by your most difficult parts and scenes.

All the world is still a stage. The play unfolding.

Somewhere beyond the footlights, beyond the applause and the grief and the crowns and the betrayals, there is an actor—eternal, aware, and whole.

Just for a moment, perhaps, to remember who you are.

Working Together

For those who want deeper, personalized support, sessions are available both in person and remotely. My office is located in Tarpon Springs, part of the greater Tampa, FL area, and remote hypnosis sessions are available for the deeper spiritual work of healing root cause trauma —no matter where you’re located.

Peter

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