I saw a young woman, she seemed very ordinary, a mother, tall, large hips, and bust, in a very plain tunic. The music started, and she stood up and began to belly dance. She transformed into a goddess, a powerful earth mother archetype before my eyes. When she was done, I ran over to her and started to tell her how beautiful she was and could she teach me to dance like that, and what was it that she was doing, and how did she learn it. That was my Aha moment. Beauty has nothing to do with the outside.

I'm still working on my love/acceptance issues and I doubt I'll ever have that one moment...for me, it's got to be part of the (charmingly long) journey.

Hmm...this is true in the gay world...times 100. There is so much pressure to be gorgeous in the gay world. Men loving men is a recipe for disaster, but it's something I have to deal with. All my gay friends, including me, have issues about body image in one way or another, where weight plays the starring role. Just going to a club really gives you a perspective of how being gay and not ripped can make you feel like crap. I was anorexic for a period because of this pressure to be one of the gorgeous gays. I have changed for the better and kept a fit body without obsessing over the fat thing.

That's so true, Victoria; I'm a belly dancer of about 2.5 years. I dance in a troupe of about 35 women and girls. We are all different shapes and sizes and colors and ages (6 to 60,) and we are all beautiful. Being with those ladies (and we're together about 9 hours a week!) makes me feel so content. Belly dancing has helped me get to that "aha!" moment. I still struggle some days, but not when I dance. It has helped my self confidence so much. We lift each other up in this sisterhood of dance. When I perform, I don't care who's looking or what they're looking at. I know I'm beautiful and the women around me are beautiful. We really dance for ourselves and each other anyways! We work very hard to perfect this art form that we share and were not going to let anyone or anything stop us from putting it out there!
The biggest thing is that this group of women support each other. We don't criticize or bring each other down. We don't compete or try to outshine each other. We're not catty or suffer from "diva syndrome" (and we have kicked out women who were.) There's not time or room for such behavior in the troupe. If we as women spent less time talking shit about each other and more time lifting each other up, we would lift up ALL women. Too much time is spent by us bringing us down!

I never had that epiphany. Dunno if that's good or bad... :) Over time, I told my head to shut up, stopped worrying, and just ignored the self-hating thoughts. Whenever I thought them, I redirected my head elsewhere. And gradually, it mostly drifted away.

Sometimes I wish I had boobs to match my hips, straight hair instead of my wild, complicated, curly mess, or I wish I wasn't genetically predestined to have visible capillary beds in my legs (which have been there since I was 17). But, you know, it's ok. It just is.

My body acceptance (I'm still working on the love) has come about so gradually that I didn't notice it happening.

All I know is that when I was with my ex, who I broke up with about a year ago, I hated every inch of my body. Today, I look at myself in the mirror and admire my hourglass shape, breasts, ass, hips... the things I thought were repulsive just a year ago.

I hate to attribute this newfound confidence to a man - but I think two of the guys that I have been with since then boosted my self-confidence in subtle ways. My ex used to always tell me I was gorgeous - but I didn't believe him. The first guy I slept with after him clearly adored my body and took pleasure from it, as did a more recent ex - they didn't have to say anything, just their actions instilled a sense of confidence in me.

Now, I have a new boyfriend, who I love to pieces. He, like most people, initially presumed that I hate my body and offered to 'help me' to lose weight. "I just lost a stone before I met you - it wasn't hard, I swear!"

My new confidence gave me the ability to turn to him and tell him that losing a stone is a piece of piss. Dieting for a month is pathetically easy - but I refuse to ransom my life to counting calories and eating faux food when I am perfectly happy with the way I look.

"But don't you wish you were thin again?"

I was never thin - at least not in my head, I told him. For years, I was aware that I was 'fat'. Where did this come from? I have no idea. Parents, relatives, peers, I conclude - because a glance at pictures from when I was 10, 16, 20 (I'm 24 now) will reveal that I was not. I was gorgeous. And though I might be heavier now, I still am - and I'm not going to let anyone convince me otherwise this time.

That conversation, I guess, was an epiphany for me.

My moment sort of snuck up and hit me on the back of my head.

I liked a guy. A lot. We had a few casual make-out sessions, but he always kept me at arm's length. I started agonizing about why... because wee'd progressed to me taking off my top and bra, but then no further it must have been my body - my jiggly belly or my cellulite or my not-so-perky breasts.

The on-again-off-again went on for MONTHS, with us being mostly buddies and just hanging out. But then one night we started to fool around, and he cut it off and said he had to leave, I confronted him.

Turned out he had an STD.

He was struggling with this, and while attracted to me, was too busy dealing with his own issues of health. Meanwhile, I was trying to make it all about me.

That was the moment when I realized that the voice of self-doubt was actually that of self-absorption.

That voice still comes out sometimes, but that night, which was over two years ago, still gives me perspective.

I think that as I get older, it gets easier. I'm in my mid-30s and the knowledge that I am never going to be in my 20s again is pretty freeing. First because I was never happy with how I looked and was never comfortable in my skin when I was in my 20s, and I sort of look forward to the continuing comfort with myself that is to come in all of the years I have in front of me - there will be a day, in just a short number of years, that I will be saying "I will never be in my 30s again." I guess what I'm trying to say is that for me, the progression of age has freed me from holding on to some unrealistic expectations I had when I was younger. Like that mid-20s growth spurt that would make my weight and height perfectly proportional.

Those moments of "I'm not worthy of beauty" still come - usually surrounding a special event or a bathing suit unveiling. But the time between "I'm not worthy" and "I'm a hot tamale" has shortened and is usually directly proportional to the amount of effort I feel the need to expend. Because as I age I have less patience for all of the effort and energy that comes with worrying about what I look like to the world and how I don't measure up. I don't really own that as my problem anymore. At least most of the time.