I have always had this sense of wanting to become a woman. To me, a woman was power, grace, a 'juicy mama', a goddess, a warrior. My childhood was full of examples of these women. Either in books of faraway lands and the magical and fruitful women who inhabited them, or in my mother, my teachers and my community. When I was younger, I thought that becoming a woman was the greatest feat and challenge that a young girl could undertake. I admired women's strength and resilience. Women are connected to the earth, we make bonds between each other, and we create new life. I thought that one day I would wake up and be a woman. Or perhaps that it would happen after my cycle or once I graduated high school. When I became a woman was when I fully stepped into my power and when I started using it.

When I found love for myself and my womanly body, I stepped into my power and made the conscious decision to never lose sight of it. This is what invoked the goddess and the sense of this divine gift of a body we are all given. This is what invoked the warrior that would stand up for myself and others who are mistreated. This is what invoked the juicy mama and the playful spirit that basks in her own beauty. What I realized, was that coming into womanhood was everything about accepting and loving myself absolutely for who I was and also for what I looked like.

Some cultural messages insist that we deny the physical body and what it represents as a way to be modest, to fit into a group, to behave or be good. This was made clear to me during The Body Positive’s recent workshop, which I participated in as a facilitator. The first activity we did was to introduce ourselves with the following: our name, what community we were coming from (i.e., school, hometown, workplace, creative community, etc.), what brought us to the workshop, and what we could say about our beauty. For all the women, the first two questions were the easiest. Most people strongly identify with their names as well as where we're from. Our communities are also strong identifiers. When it came to saying what brought us to the workshop, and making a statement about our beauty, some felt stuck. What about their beauty? Had they forgotten it had even existed? Had they ever talked about their beauty in a group before? What about being self-righteous? Conceited?

Most women shared about their beauty being tied to how they interact with others; being a good friend and confidant; being empathetic or emotional, being a good student or helping others.

When it came to my turn, I said, "I am enjoying my physical body! I have had treasured moments recently when I have caught myself in the mirror and really enjoyed what I see. I find myself doing a little dance or giving myself a genuine smile when I cross paths with my physical self. Its really fun!"

I think I pretty much shocked half the room. Of course my point wasn't to do that, but for them to realize that women can love their physical selves! We don't have to be wise or strong or emotional to be beautiful, we can risk being conceited, risk sounding confident, and proudly say that we love our bodies and therefore we love ourselves!

Being a woman is so much about the physical. It amazes me that in this society we try to shame ourselves into denying our womanly parts and our own natural flesh. We learn to lose the parts that make us women and add to parts that make us more 'desirable' to some people. I say that being a woman and encouraging our flesh connects us to the earth, honors our heritage and the ancient wisdom and lineage that created us.

We can be dynamic leaders, amazing friends, empathetic, and conscious humanitarians and also celebrate our flesh. We can be mothers and friends and co-workers and sisters and citizens and agents of change and love our bodies. We can all step into our power and find gratitude for our womanly bodies! We can have it all.

I am happy to say that my absolute love and compassion for myself and for my body have made me proud to be a woman.

When I am on stage and the lights are on me, I feel so full of love. I love putting on a show! The second the lights come up and the music starts, and I can feel the audience's eyes on me, I feel at home. I enjoy every moment of being on stage and when I catch myself in the mirror I even gasp at how truly beautiful I am. This is the real me. The me that is full and happy and passionate. Who I am on stage is who I crave to be every single day. I crave that uninterrupted gaze of the audience, the gushing applause, the smiles, the wonderment, and the enthusiastic response when my dancing is done. Dancing these past two weekends in the show Earth Girls Are Easy was a turning point in my life. For all the nerves and anxiety and build up, I left all that behind when I stepped onto the stage each night. I danced like it was the absolute last time I ever would, and it is for that reason I think people were so drawn to me. Every stranger that came up to me after a show said they absolutely could not take their eyes off me. I was brought to tears with their kind words and smiled widely and said thank you. I will never argue with such gratitude for my dance. With each compliment, I took a breath in and said thank you, because each time I heard their words, a permanent imprint was made on my heart.

I could have focused negative attention on my body and for my perceived flaws. I could have picked myself apart, and I almost did...

But each time those lights went up nothing else mattered.

My body is my joy and without it I would not be myself. These arms, these thighs, these taped up ankles and knees will never be anyone's but mine. I grow so much each time I am on stage that I feel 10 feet tall, strong like a warrior woman, so big that it is only me the audience sees. I take up space, I am large and grand, and they see Me.

How I am right now is how they saw me. Not a smaller version of me, not a work in progress, but the actual me. One woman said,

"No matter what you do in your life, please please follow your dreams."

And knowing now how much this experience has changed my life, I know I can do just that.

I haven't performed on stage in a dance performance like this in a long time. When I was in college I was so distracted by relationships and the loathing I felt for my changing body that I didn't feel connected to what I was doing. I wasn't empowered by rehearsals, and I definitely couldn't take in compliments. After a performance I would feel like running away and hiding because I wasn't proud of who I was and was unsure of what people thought of me. I sang for others, not myself. I danced to serve a group's purpose and not my own.

Now I dance just for me. I dance because I am alive. I dance to honor this life and this soul inside of me.

If I can recreate the feeling I had on stage every day of my life, I will know real joy. Dance class and rehearsal, not just performance, is a great tool for me to find joy in my body on a daily basis. The element of an audience and lights and costumes is gone but the feeling of support and love is still there. I find support from my teachers, I feel the love in my own gaze in the mirror, and I feel love for my body as I work to make it move exactly how I want, and by doing exactly what feels good. I used to compare myself to other people in dance class growing up, but in my current dance company I have so much gratitude for my own body! Because I don't feel competition with the other women, I am also able to feel appreciation for their bodies! The oldest women in my classes are in their 60's and 70's and they find great joy in movement, joy that perhaps they cultivated when they were my age. Backstage this weekend, I was talking to a woman who said that when teenagers started joining the studio she felt like she wanted to quit. She said she felt that they would judge her for being old and she wouldn't have a place in the company anymore. But what changed her mind was that she became friends with the young women and bridged the age gap. She knew then that they could all be in the company together and make it even stronger.

I had to hold in giggles when people commented on how beautiful I looked this weekend. Don't they know that I am always this beautiful? This kind of beautiful is always within me. But maybe I don't always get feedback because I don't always feel it in myself. When I do feel beautiful and worthy and full and happy, I giggle almost as if I should have known this all along!

In performing these past two weekends, I have learned that I absolutely can have these feelings about myself on a daily basis. Absolutely I can dance everyday. Absolutely I can take in what people say to me as gifts and give them back to myself when I am feeling down. Absolutely the world can be my stage, where the lights are the god and the music the goddess.

When I dance, I am Me. Absolutely.

Welcome to The Body Positive's new blog! Much of our work centers on creating community and sharing stories. This is your opportunity to share, comment, ask questions of, or just relate to this community! I want to welcome those of you who are new to The Body Positive and welcome back those who have anxiously awaited the launch of the new site!

We believe that women can make the choice to love and accept themselves just as they are, and that we can fight against the messages we get daily to change ourselves, most of which are given by the people who profit off of our suffering. The Body Positive is not a diet group, a body-bashing group, or a group where we share calorie counts or numbers on a scale. It is our goal to create awareness of the choice we can all make to start living outside the realm of diets and body hatred or obsession with changing our physical selves.

Loving ourselves just as we are in this moment, without an expectation of changing our bodies in order to feel more beautiful, more accepted, more of whatever someone tells us we should be, bridges the gaps we feel when we are among other women, and it strengthens our bonds with each other and uplifts our spirits. It is time to take back our power and our lives and end the silent suffering of women. We have created a community where beauty is inclusive of everyone, where beauty is love, strength, creativity, and compassion.

We dedicate ourselves to urging all women to take a deep breath and start living.

I feel very proud in my body today. I am learning to live this work in every facet of my life. When I feel uncomfortable or start to second guess how I see my body, I use it as a new opportunity to face a challenge. I remind myself to forget external rules, and to ignore the voice in my head telling me what I should or shouldn't wear or how a shirt sits on my belly or how my legs look in a certain pair of pants.

I am aware that when I feel good about myself, people respond to me! I could pick myself apart in a photograph but then I remember, I was really happy when the photo was taken. What about that happiness? Others will notice my happiness way more than my belly, and they will be completely unaware of how I feel my belly looks!

When we look at things and search for the greater picture or the greater person, we see true beauty. I want to be the most authentic person I can be, and changing any part of me would move me in the opposite direction of that authenticity.

If I think about where I want to find love, my journey always leads me back to myself. So it is my goal to start and end that journey from a place of love--self love!

We welcome your comments and look forward to hearing your stories.

Jessica Diaz