10/10/2026
In 2017, a few months after my second baby was born, I was diagnosed with severe post partum depression. I didnāt know how to function. I didnāt know how to pull myself out of it. Of course, I started therapy, but I still felt like I was drowning.
My friend had been inviting me to an exercise class for a while, but I was adamant that I hated exercise, and it wasnāt going to help. One evening, my husband quite literally pushed me out the door and made me go with her, just to get me out of the house and away from the kids for an hour.
That one class changed my life. It took 3 songs for me to fall in love with REFITĀ®. I grew up dancing (not in classes), but at youth dances, in my kitchen, and even the grocery store parking lot with friends. Dancing like that never felt like exercise to me, and REFITĀ® felt like dancing in a parking lot again.
I went to every REFITĀ® class I could. The morning ones, the evening ones, I was going 8 times a week. In the mornings, I would bring my kids, and the evenings were my time off. Hours of feeling free, and my mind was taken off of everything I had going on.
I finally found community. I found friends that surrounded me, lifted me, and took care of me and my kids in my most vulnerable moments.
Exercise didnāt become my escape, it became my safe haven. REFITĀ® is a place where every body belongsā there are no guidelines, no dress code, no aesthetic, and no judgment. We gather to move our bodies joyfully and freely. We create relationships that might be surface level at first, but turn into something deeper and more wonderful.
I will forever be grateful to REFITĀ®, to my friend for dragging me to that first class, to the instructor who made me feel like I belonged, for the community who encouraged me to become an instructor, the participants who took a chance on me when I started my own classes, and this community for continually showing up for me and themselves every week.
I hope this place weāve created together has become a safe haven for you as well ā¤ļø