So,
After a month of being very kind to myself, yet gently insistent to go out and enjoy myself in normal ways (beach sunsets, motorcycle, tennis, salsa) and the moments of seeing something more sensually happening around me; it dawned on me that this new-found kindness towards myself is aligned with the benevolence of the actual universe.
If I were to propose anything to someone interested in actualism it would definitely be this.
Be very kind to yourself. As soon as there is even a hint of shame or guilt inducing internal chatter; stop, reset the intension, and only then continue.
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And the fascinating thing is that it flows both ways, just like you can’t be happy without being harmless. You cannot be kind to others if you cannot be kind to yourself, and if you are being sharp with others you are being sharp with yourself.
I have high standards of myself, that kind of typical perfectionist personality. But the funny thing which I didn’t see before is that I am cutting both them and myself with the same sword.
I remember @claudiu wrote something a while back about how his best progress was when he allowed himself to be completely and utterly sincere. And the reason it works is that it cuts both ways, the load is shifted off yourself and at the same time you are no longer sharp towards others, its happiness and harmlessness.
There is this super sweet link here, that in daring to be a fellow human being you are freeing both. I have never allowed myself to step outside of this perfectionist identity for the fear that others wouldn’t let me, but its actually the other way around. It’s like I am the tyrant and the one being crushed at the same time, but I project it out there onto others.
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A nice simple example is the fact that in my martial arts I am always feeling that I am not good enough, that there is this pressure being placed on me, and yet I am always the one getting pissed off that my students just haven’t got it in them to do better 
There is this fear of no longer ‘being a somebody’ but I never clocked that the flip side of it is that I am freeing others from this very same task.
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Actually I can’t believe I never saw the connection before. The amount of times I have spent hours worrying if I did this or that correctly, fearing that I could have made a mistake (not happy). And then I would get sour with Sonya because she ‘could have done X better’ (not harmless). Yet in my head and heart she was in the wrong whilst I was being oppressed by others expectations, really it’s one and the same thing, the same sword cutting both ways.
There is still some fear there though, that in letting go of the perfectionist identity I will be open to the attacks of others but its part of the same mirage though, I can somewhat see that.
It’s this thing like - Who will dare to put down their sword first? I am wielding mine as I am scared of yours and vice versa. But who will dare to go first?
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Who has the sword?
There is a the fantasy that George Lucas dreamed up, where Obi Wan let’s Vader strike him down.
Such a thing of course is silly. There never was a sword, in this metaphor of conflict, except the sword we created. (another star wars metaphor - the Jedi fight with swords they created).
Tonight, I spent time gently patting myself on the face, looking in the mirror at everything I hated from such an early age.
Isn’t it something quite bizarre that I spent my whole life wanting someone to touch me like that?
When it was available to me to simply touch my own face and attempt the complete acceptance of everything I see before me!
I watched part of this video earlier;
(For context, Prof. Sam is a sociopath/narcissist his"IQ" is reported as being 180. Editorial note; intelligence is king)
It’s quite fascinating that it’s a narcissist that has explained so much of what I experience.
Who made the sword that needs to be laid down?
Absolutely everyone is essentially a narcissist. Some, as you pointed out are so aligned with the expected social norm, that the stench of their rotten core is invisible.
However, back to the topic; it’s that very rotten self which must stop itself in its tracks, and stop the perpetual creation of fantasy and instead begin to generate internal kindness.
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