Love As You Are
Reading time: About 5 minutes (839 words)
Dolly Parton spent a lifetime singing about a truth every Turbo Thinker® needs to hear: real joy starts with loving ourselves and others exactly as we are, right now, not someday.
Love As You Are
I have been on a Dolly Parton kick ever since she passed away a couple of weeks ago. I cannot seem to stop listening to her, especially the early songs. Her music was in the background of my childhood, particularly on the weekends my parents took us camping deep in Mississippi, where the one radio station was country, and the DJ loved Dolly.
Other weekends, back in the city on Sundays at Abuela's house, my sisters and my cousins and I would ball up our tube socks, stuff them under our shirts, and pass around the hairbrush mike to perform Dolly songs for the family. We could not have loved her more.
Now, as an adult, listening to those same lyrics, I hear a different story. I hear one about empowerment and acceptance. Dolly once said, "We're supposed to accept and love one another." She believed people should be allowed "to be who they are, and to love who they love."
This past weekend, New Orleans celebrated in true Dolly fashion, with more sparkles and sequins and wigs and heels than ever before. It was the weekend of Southern Decadence, the massive LGBTQ+ festival held every Labor Day weekend in the French Quarter, often affectionately called the city's Gay Mardi Gras. What started in 1972 as a small, casual neighborhood costume party has grown into a world-famous, multi-day celebration that now draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. It is a weekend when everyone is welcome to be exactly who they are.
It was a typical summer day of ninety five degrees with heavy humidity. In New Orleans, we are constantly moisturized. Everyone was sweating and dripping and melting. We were all dewy and glistening.
I met friends at the parade, and like Mardi Gras, a good share of the crowd was tourists. It was truly gay, in every sense of the word: happy and excited, cheerful and lively, the gayest of colors besides. It was an alphabet soup of unbridled exuberance. Age and size did not seem to matter, and neither did where anyone was on their own journey. I saw bodies in every stage of gender transition, worn openly and proudly, and I felt admiration at the courage it took to be so visible, so unguarded, in a crowd of strangers.
Smiles everywhere, from ear to ear. I was surrounded by so much celebration and happiness that I had tears in my eyes. How beautiful, I thought, that someone could feel this safe. That someone could feel safe enough, and trusting enough, to love unconditionally and to receive love unconditionally, the way Dolly always seemed to. I want that for everyone.
On Monday I met a new client. Her Turbo Thinking® mind was already getting in the way of her own delight. In our intake, I ask clients about their vision for their ideal future: one year, five years, ten years out. If they had a magic wand and everything could go their way, what would it look like? For this client, the word joy did not appear until five years from now. Even with a magic wand, anything sooner felt unfathomable to her. She had so many obligations, so many people to please and serve: her aging father, her teenage daughter, her boss, her friends, her family. She had no time left over for herself. Maybe later, she said. Maybe years from now, once everyone else was taken care of, she could allow herself some happiness.
How sad, that some cannot escape the trap of their own stories in their heads and allow themselves the joy they deserve. How sad, that some people feel they cannot be themselves, and have to travel all the way to New Orleans to find a weekend where they can.
If only we could love ourselves as easily as we love others. If only we could accept ourselves exactly as we are, and give ourselves the same love we so freely give everyone else. Dolly put it simply: "I'm comfortable in my own skin, no matter how far I've stretched it at times. But I know who I am and I don't try to be nobody else. And if that ain't good enough for you, too bad." She understood the connection between love and happiness. Love requires acceptance of others, yes, but it also requires acceptance of ourselves. It requires the safety to be who we are, and the safety to let go of who we think we are supposed to be.
By the end of our session, my client could say out loud that she deserved love and joy sooner rather than later. She built one small experiment, one tiny next step, to make life a little easier for herself this week, on her own terms. One small way to show herself some love.
One of my favorite Dolly songs makes me think of my own children, and also of every Turbo Thinker® who has ever come wanting me to "fix" them. To them, I dedicate "You Are."
I love them just as they are. I want them to love themeselves as they are. And I want the rest of the world to love them as they are, too.
What would it take for you to love yourself as you are today, instead of waiting five years from now?
How do you find, or create, the safety you need to be yourself?
How can you drop all judgment to love unconditionally?
Love yourself today. Find your safety. Love unconditionally.
About This Post "Love As You Are" is a blog post by Adela Baker, ADHD coach and founder of Mind Coach, LLC in New Orleans. Inspired by Dolly Parton and Southern Decadence, it explores why we mistake disorganization or inefficiency for the real problem, when what we actually need is to believe we're worthy of love and care.
Read more about Collective Connection & Energy in my blog post: Bubble and Belonging: https://www.mind-coach.com/journal/bubblesandbelonging