BUSINESS

Overcoming anxiety, addiction to inspire others

Emilie Eaton
eeaton@enquirer.com
Stacy Sims (foreground) rings a set of chimes to end a meditation session in Washington Park. She is the founder of the True Body Project and City Silence. At left is Edgar Brown, of Downtown; at right is James Ritter, of Over the Rhine.

Stacy Sims is a serial entrepreneur.

She’s involved in various projects around town, most notably The True Body Project and City Silence, initiatives aimed to empower women and girls and promote silence and meditation. She founded Pendleton Pilates before selling it in 2010. She’s written two novels and three plays. And that’s just the beginning.

“I’m action-oriented,” said Sims. “If something occurs to me, I never say ‘I can’t do that.’ I don’t run into many walls in making something a reality.”

But it wasn’t always that way. Eighteen years ago, when Sims was in her late 30s, she faced serious problems. She had the anxiety disorder agoraphobia, which causes you to fear and avoid places or situations that cause you panic. She overused anxiety medication. She drank and blacked out many nights.

Sims finally decided to get sober. She entered a 12-step program and joined a Pilates studio.

Slowly, her life began to turn around.

That’s when the first book deal came through. Then, the rest.

For Sims, the best part of getting sober hasn’t been the book deals, business initiatives or other successes. It wasn’t traveling to Cambodia to work with victims of sex trafficking, or having The Chicago Sun-Times call her book “a brutally moving first novel.”

“All that was great,” the 54-year-old Bellevue resident, who has short, red-dyed hair. “But the best part was being there for people. I get to be there for others - and myself.”

Growing up on the East Side, ‘agile-brained, agile-bodied’

Sims grew up on the east side of town and went to Newtown Elementary School and Turpin Hills High School.

“I was lucky in that I was agile-brained, agile-bodied, and a good student,” she said. “I had clever, well-meaning parents who tried to give me everything I could possibly want.”

In third and fourth grade, Sims experienced two grand mal seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. Doctors put her on Barbital, a type of drug used to treat seizures. As a side effect of the drug, she has very little memory of her early years.

Years later, Sims developed addiction problems. By her late 30s, Sims was a daily, black-out drinker. She lived in Cleveland, where she was able to hide – for the most part – her problems from her friends and co-workers.

Sims has no way of knowing what got her to that point, but she wonders now if the problems she developed later in life had anything to do with the seizures and her early formative years.

Despite not knowing what got here there, what matters is she got out. Eighteen years ago, she joined the 12-step program and started doing Pilates.

“I learned how to reorganize my thinking – depressed thinking, addictive thinking,” Sims said. “I was able to tolerate looking at myself and going ‘Oh my God, I was at the center of all these messes. Look at how messed up my thinking became to support my craving.’ ”

Pilates studio led Sims to books and other new projects

The change was fundamental to Sims’ future success.

A couple years later, in 2001, Sims founded Pendleton Pilates. She operated the business for nine years, expanding it to four studios that offered a hundred weekly classes and had thousands of clients.

Four years later, in 2005, Sims published her first novel, Swimming Naked. The book, which was published by Viking Press, is about a 33-year-old, self-aware woman who moves to Florida to take care of her mother who is dying of cancer. "Swimming Naked by Stacy Sims is a gem,” The Enquirer wrote. “It’s funny, intense, sad, thought-provoking. I was hooked on the first page."

In 2005, Sims also founded The True Body Project. The project, which was created through ArtWorks, offers summer apprenticeships, residential summer camps, weekly classes in Cincinnati and Columbus, and workshops in Cincinnati, Columbus, New York and Los Angeles.

Lily Raphael, 25, participated in the program when it was in its second year. At the time, Raphael was 16.

“I thought she was a very vibrant person,” Raphael said. “She was very interested in me and helping me as a person. She’s a go-getter. She is committed to getting things done and helping people.”

Since then, Raphael and Sims have worked together on several projects. In the last few years, Raphael has lived in Ecuador and Montreal before moving back to Cincinnati. She credits, in part, The True Body Project for helping her find her passions and learn the skills to go after them.

“In nine years, I’ve changed a lot,” Raphael said. “Even though I’ve changed a lot, Stacy was able to pick out these firm, true qualities in myself. She’s always able to bring those out. She’s always believed in me.”

In 2010 and 2011, Sims raised $3,500 for a Kickstarter project. She sold Pendleton Pilates. She published another book.

City Silence becomes entrepreneur’s latest venture

And this year, Sims created City Silence. Sims began to realize that there were profound problems in today’s contemporary culture, problems that needed more than a once-a-week meditation.

“What I came to realize was, I’m a better version of myself when I have time and space to connect with others, so I had the idea to do City Silence,” Sims said.

Sims said that City Silence can be anything participants want of it. Participants can come to pray, stare at the sky, meditate or just relax. Participants don’t have to come for the whole time, and it doesn’t have to be guided.

Harold Sellwarth, an U.S. Army veteran who currently lives at The Joseph House, has become a regular at the City Silence gatherings at Washington Park.

“It has helped me tremendously,” Sellwarth said. “We are all in the same boat. We all have problems that we try to overcome. People have good days and bad days. It’s definitely a stress-reliever.”

Now, Sims and Raphael are working to implement silent spaces in different businesses and public spaces, including Procter & Gamble, The Cincinnati Museum Center and the University of Cincinnati campus.

And this weekend, she will watch as five actors recreate Titus Kaphar’s Vesper Project at The Contemporary Arts Center in Downtown Cincinnati It’s something she helped put together and direct. The public is invited to see the theatrical recreation, called Retracted, at 12 p.m. on Saturday and at 1 p.m. on Sunday. The viewing is free with gallery admission.

In January, she will travel to Cambodia for the sixth time to work with victims of sex trafficking.

What’s the next business venture after that? Childrens’ books.

After that, who knows?

Stacy Sims holds meditation chimes during a meditation session in Washington Park. She is the founder of the True Body Project and City Silence.