There’s power in choosing.

Dance fitness saved my life.

Maybe that sounds dramatic. Maybe it IS dramatic. But it’s what I believe in my core to be true.

It was 2016 and I had gotten really good at being a wife, a sister, an aunt, a daughter, a friend, an employee… I was making my way up that corporate ladder faster than I could even think about whether I wanted it. And then one day it hit me. Who am I? I mean, like, I know who I am for all these other people, but who am I really? Am I anything more than or outside of what I am for everyone else?

What do I even like to do?

Ryan and I lived in north Delaware and I worked from home and traveled occasionally for work. It sounded like a dream, but it also was where I felt most lost. I couldn’t put my finger on why. I wasn’t sure if I even WAS lost. I just knew that something didn’t feel right even though everything looked… perfect?

And then there was the eating disorder. Yeah, more on that later.

I was doing some at home workouts and I had found a yoga dance class that I enjoyed. I decided to go online to see if I could find one locally so I had a good reason to get out of the house for something other than business travel.

Well, what would you know! There was a class in Powell. I got my life together, I mustered up the courage to enroll (don’t even pretend it’s not scary AF to try something new as a grown-up - especially when you’re feeling so unsure of yourself as a human…), the day came and I went to the studio…

… and the class was no longer being offered due to a sudden change in circumstances. Womp womp.

This is where the magic always happens though.

You know that moment where you have a choice? You have a decision to make and it’s standing right in front of you with flashing lights, loud music and complete uncertainty? Ok maybe the choice is usually less obvious and obnoxious, but it’s still there.

I could choose to leave. To give up because I came for a class and the class was no longer offered. OR. ORRRRRR my friends, I could choose to stay and take the owner up on her offer to dance.

I could hear the Thong Song playing from the room in front of me. I chose to stay.

I haven’t left the dance floor since. Sure, I’ve been on OTHER dance floors and all this lead me to my own dance floor. But that’s where it began. That one simple choice to stay for a class that I didn’t plan to take and wouldn’t have signed up for on my own… and that class saved my life.

It was through that class that I found a part of myself that I had forgotten about. And it was through that class and that simple choice to stay that I rediscovered what makes me… me. And I’ve made it a mission since that day to never stop learning and surprising myself and plot twisting my way through this life because I realized that I had so much more power than I realized and that the power was in simply choosing differently.

All because of a persistent owner, a choice and 60 minutes.

Don’t underestimate the power of your choices.