Tracee Ellis Ross has many superficial reasons to love herself. She’s an actress who has starred on iconic Black sitcoms. She’s a former model who has stormed high-fashion runways. She’s an entrepreneur who offers the sanctity of specialty haircare to women who look like her. Oh, and she just so happens to be Diana Ross’s daughter. 

Still (God forbid), Ross is a human being. 

Just before her new Roku series, Solo Traveling With Tracee Ellis Ross, was set to premiere on the Roku Channel, the superstar came under social media fire for attempting to share something normal. While speaking at the Travel + Leisure Summit, the actress/former model/entrepreneur/Diana Ross heir shared that she packs two pairs of underwear in her carry-on luggage to rotate and handwash in case her larger bags go missing. A simple, relatable-enough admission caused enough backlash that Ross had to hop on her Instagram stories to reiterate her original statement. 

Thankfully, many of us didn’t skip out on the medicine; Solo Traveling With Tracee Ellis Ross became a hit for the streaming service, out-performing all of its unscripted offerings. And rightfully so, because Ross’s international excursions were an exemplary display of what “self-love” actually means. Packaged into a three-part journey from Morocco to Mexico to Spain, the series takes us along with Ross as she sets out to do something that seems simple, but is actually quite complex: be herself, by herself, out in the world.

Throughout the series, it’s impossible not to remember that Ross is 52 years old, single, and childless—and she doesn’t want you to. In a tender moment of sheer vulnerability, she shares that loneliness and longing are indeed part of her emotional journey. Noting that this chapter of her life feels “transcendent,” Ross lays it all bare. “I feel like I was fighting to be in my skin when I was growing up,” she says. “And I still have these really low dips of fighting with my own sense of lovability and my own grief around not being a mother and being single. So much of what solo traveling is about, is for me not waiting for something in order to walk towards my life, in order to be in my life, in order to experience my life.”

Ross also shares that she laments Oprah Winfrey crowning her as “the poster child for singledom,” which she instead wants to swap for a reputation of “being in and inhabiting your own skin.” While she wrestles with the pangs of her reality, she also acknowledges that it has come bearing gifts. “It has deposited me here, at 52, in an extraordinary experience that is filled with joy, loneliness, grief, exuberance, delight—like literally all of it. And I feel available to it.”

Along the way, Ross graciously imparts details she simply didn’t have to—airport agents finding her vibrator, random spells of melancholy, taking down her braids, the last-minute desire to be alone after getting all dressed up—and she even catches a stomach bug. In a world where Black women are dehumanized at every turn, there is sheer, palpable bravery in traversing the confines of her own mind, body, heart and spirit. With each passing moment, the truth becomes clear: robbing Tracee Ellis Ross of her humanity is a choice, and she will not follow suit.

A righteous byproduct of her introspection is deep wisdom. At one point, she sits in wonderment about the differences between how happiness and joy show up in her body. At another point, she rolls with the punches. As storms pummel Cancún and bring about disappointment, Ross decides to find solace in acceptance by working poolside, going for a rainy swim, and still adorning herself in gorgeous fashion.

The star’s penchant for designer clothing should not be mistaken for materialism for materialism’s sake. “Clothing is a form of creative expression for me,” Ross shares. “It started as an armor, and so now it’s a mix of the two: it’s how I wear my insides on my outside.” Instead, it is a breeding ground for self-admiration, purposeful delight and the courage to be seen as both beautiful and valuable. Sure, the looks eat down—hello blue Alaïa peep toes and white, floral Prada kitten heels!—but the will to do it all for and by herself is the real statement. 

Too often, Black women are asked to shrink, to deny ourselves what we need, want, think, or love. But Tracee Ellis Ross chooses otherwise. Boldly. Loudly. Without abandon. Whether she’s deciding to hop into a pool donning red lipstick, or wearing one of her “sexual revolution” dresses to sit alone on a rooftop, the actress/former model/entrepreneur/Diana Ross heir is intentionally present in her own sovereignty.

Moreover, as she sets out on luxury solo vacations, Ross is still the same level of gleefully awkward that has made her an easy social media follow. She laughs at her own jokes, employs random renditions of “Ave Maria” to overstate her pleasure, and gets into a hilarious battle with a lamp at a dinner table. The layers of resolve, determination, and glamor are balanced by a jubilation that presents a woman fully realized. No wonder her middle name is Joy.

By the end of episode three, Black women are sure to be inspired by the permission slip that Solo Traveling With Tracee Ellis Ross hands out: to bask in what lights you up despite what may try to dim your shine. 

If that’s not self-love, what have we been talking about this whole time?