“Sometimes you wanna go

Where everybody knows your name

And they’re always glad you came

You wanna be where you can see

Our troubles are all the same

You wanna be where everybody knows your name”

I might be dating myself a little bit here, but as a child I remember watching the show Cheers where everyone gathered at their favorite watering hole. I can’t tell you a single thing about the storyline or characters, but I remember the theme song.  It made people feel like the bar was a place where you could always go and would always be welcomed.  A place where you could go to forget all your troubles, walk in and the smiling faces there knew your name.   A place where you could go to feel like part of a community.

Sound a little familiar?  Sound a little (a lot) like Power Life?

For me, Power Life is a place where I can distract my mind from all the chaos  going on the other 23 hours of the day.  During those 60 minutes, I’m not thinking about the decisions I made at work, or what is going on in the world around me.  I’m thinking about the pose the instructor has given the Power class, about breathing my way through the next single-legged posture in Barre, or about whether I really can do anything for 30 seconds, as you’ll often hear Lisa tell us in Sculpt class. The postures and the movements are challenging, but I’m surrounded by my fellow Power Lifers who are also meeting the same challenges.

Day to day, each one of us faces a challenge that is unique to us. For me, it was the cancer diagnoses of my mother-in-law. More than anything, my heart wanted to be at home and with family. But like the amazing human my husband is, he encouraged me to make time for myself at Power Life. He knows Power Life provides a refuge for me take my mind off the stresses of the day.

However, as a society we are also faced with new communal challenges. Together, we have, and still are, facing a set of uncertainties that we never had to face. I wonder, will I ever be able to see all my colleagues together again? Will I ever be able to travel freely again?  Will I be restricted from seeing my loved ones when they are sick?

How many of you had to shift your day-to-day routine? You don’t get to see those familiar faces at work anymore?  At school anymore? We, together, have these communal challenges, but thankfully we’ve still have Power Life. A communal place where we can still come together as individuals. Individuals who need Power Life as a venue for tackling their challenges, but where we still feel like part of a community.

Whether our troubles are the same or not, in Power Life we have a place where we can walk in, they know our name, and I’m certain they’re glad we came.