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Barre3 Can Help You Practice Compassion—Here’s How
Back in October, we shared how a regular barre3 practice can do wonders for your mental health. Today, we’re looking at the connection between barre3 and building compassion. We sat down with Aly Waibel, PhD, a meditation and compassion teacher, Program Director at Compassion Institute, (and a barre3 Bend client!), to learn about her work, her barre3 practice, and how she uses every class as an opportunity to practice compassion for others and for herself.
B3 MAGAZINE: Let’s start from the beginning: How did you discover barre3?
My barre3 journey started at the Tucson, Arizona studio—honestly, I think I was there the first day it opened! Before that, I did yoga and CrossFit, and I had also been a runner. The first time I tried barre3, I immediately fell in love with the workout. When I lived in Tucson, I would often go twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. I was working at home at the time, and barre3 provided structure to my day and helped me create a schedule for myself.
I love the community and the ethos of barre3—it’s very in-line with how I feel about fitness. It’s not about pushing yourself to look a certain way. It’s about the journey toward balance and the joy of movement.
B3 MAGAZINE: We’d love to hear more about your work in Compassion Cultivation Training. Could you explain the focus of the course?
Our main flagship course is an 8-week program designed at Stanford Medical School in 2008. The course begins with mindfulness practice, then moves to compassion for loved ones, self-compassion, and then expanding compassion for others. The program culminates in one of my favorite practices, which is a practice for transforming suffering.
B3 MAGAZINE: Transforming suffering—let’s hear more about that.
In compassion training, it’s important to emphasize our strengths and our capacity to confront suffering from a place of resilience. For many people, it’s common to want to avoid, and “breathe out” things you don’t want, like stress or fear, but if you’re constantly trying to deflect and avoid what you don’t want, it reinforces a sense of weakness. It’s like you’re telling yourself, “I have to get rid of the things I can’t handle.”
We turn that inside out with active compassion practice, which is a visualization for relieving suffering. We breathe in the stress and pain of another and allow the power of compassion to transform it.. As a result, we breathe out ease, peace, and strength.
B3 MAGAZINE: What are some of the benefits of this practice?
Actively practicing compassion helps us decrease the distress that challenging situations may bring. By cultivating compassion, you’re increasing your awareness and developing the courage to be present for these challenges, while at the same time learning to reduce the stress you may feel in difficult situations.
There’s a lot of great research on how cultivating compassion can benefit our physiology and relationships. Compassion training can reduce isolation and loneliness by strengthening our connections to others. At the end of compassion training, people often report feeling more connected and less lonely, even though their number of relationships hasn’t changed.
What I think is really interesting and helpful for people to understand as well is that there’s a difference between empathy and compassion.
B3 MAGAZINE: Many people think empathy and compassion are synonymous. How are they different?
Empathy is feeling with other people, which can lead to empathy fatigue. Empathy is often experienced as draining, whereas compassion can be felt as activating and energizing. This often comes as an “aha” moment for people taking the course, particularly for people in who spend a lot of their time caring for others.
This is not to say that empathy is bad, just that if we’re not careful, staying in the “feeling-with” zone can lead to burnout. On the flipside, compassion can help strengthen our resilience and willingness to take action to relieve suffering when and where we can. This is really important for people who, for one reason or another, may have lost connection to the very necessary sense of purpose, meaning and connection. Compassion training can help them reconnect to that.
B3 MAGAZINE: Many of us who take barre3 classes in the studio or online take on those caregiver roles in our lives. Where do you see the crossover between practicing compassion and what we practice at barre3?
I totally agree, and knowing that, I love using the time I spend in class as a reminder to practice compassion for others. We’re all struggling with something, and are just trying to be our best selves and create balance in our lives. Knowing this, when I look around the studio and see others with me, it’s an opportunity to express compassion. Barre3, and the group fitness experience, is great for that.
Want to learn more about Aly’s work? Visit her website, and click here to get more information on Compassion Cultivation Training. And if you’re feeling inspired to practice compassion with barre3, find your local studio or try barre3 online for 15 days, totally free.
Back in October, we shared how a regular barre3 practice can do wonders for your mental health. Today, we’re looking at the connection between barre3 and building compassion. We sat down with Aly Waibel, PhD, a meditation and compassion teacher, Program Director at Compassion Institute, (and a barre3 Bend client!), to learn about her work, her barre3 practice, and how she uses every class as an opportunity to practice compassion for others and for herself.
B3 MAGAZINE: Let’s start from the beginning: How did you discover barre3?
My barre3 journey started at the Tucson, Arizona studio—honestly, I think I was there the first day it opened! Before that, I did yoga and CrossFit, and I had also been a runner. The first time I tried barre3, I immediately fell in love with the workout. When I lived in Tucson, I would often go twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. I was working at home at the time, and barre3 provided structure to my day and helped me create a schedule for myself.
I love the community and the ethos of barre3—it’s very in-line with how I feel about fitness. It’s not about pushing yourself to look a certain way. It’s about the journey toward balance and the joy of movement.
B3 MAGAZINE: We’d love to hear more about your work in Compassion Cultivation Training. Could you explain the focus of the course?
Our main flagship course is an 8-week program designed at Stanford Medical School in 2008. The course begins with mindfulness practice, then moves to compassion for loved ones, self-compassion, and then expanding compassion for others. The program culminates in one of my favorite practices, which is a practice for transforming suffering.
B3 MAGAZINE: Transforming suffering—let’s hear more about that.
In compassion training, it’s important to emphasize our strengths and our capacity to confront suffering from a place of resilience. For many people, it’s common to want to avoid, and “breathe out” things you don’t want, like stress or fear, but if you’re constantly trying to deflect and avoid what you don’t want, it reinforces a sense of weakness. It’s like you’re telling yourself, “I have to get rid of the things I can’t handle.”
We turn that inside out with active compassion practice, which is a visualization for relieving suffering. We breathe in the stress and pain of another and allow the power of compassion to transform it.. As a result, we breathe out ease, peace, and strength.
B3 MAGAZINE: What are some of the benefits of this practice?
Actively practicing compassion helps us decrease the distress that challenging situations may bring. By cultivating compassion, you’re increasing your awareness and developing the courage to be present for these challenges, while at the same time learning to reduce the stress you may feel in difficult situations.
There’s a lot of great research on how cultivating compassion can benefit our physiology and relationships. Compassion training can reduce isolation and loneliness by strengthening our connections to others. At the end of compassion training, people often report feeling more connected and less lonely, even though their number of relationships hasn’t changed.
What I think is really interesting and helpful for people to understand as well is that there’s a difference between empathy and compassion.
B3 MAGAZINE: Many people think empathy and compassion are synonymous. How are they different?
Empathy is feeling with other people, which can lead to empathy fatigue. Empathy is often experienced as draining, whereas compassion can be felt as activating and energizing. This often comes as an “aha” moment for people taking the course, particularly for people in who spend a lot of their time caring for others.
This is not to say that empathy is bad, just that if we’re not careful, staying in the “feeling-with” zone can lead to burnout. On the flipside, compassion can help strengthen our resilience and willingness to take action to relieve suffering when and where we can. This is really important for people who, for one reason or another, may have lost connection to the very necessary sense of purpose, meaning and connection. Compassion training can help them reconnect to that.
B3 MAGAZINE: Many of us who take barre3 classes in the studio or online take on those caregiver roles in our lives. Where do you see the crossover between practicing compassion and what we practice at barre3?
I totally agree, and knowing that, I love using the time I spend in class as a reminder to practice compassion for others. We’re all struggling with something, and are just trying to be our best selves and create balance in our lives. Knowing this, when I look around the studio and see others with me, it’s an opportunity to express compassion. Barre3, and the group fitness experience, is great for that.
Want to learn more about Aly’s work? Visit her website, and click here to get more information on Compassion Cultivation Training. And if you’re feeling inspired to practice compassion with barre3, find your local studio or try barre3 online for 15 days, totally free.
