Ithaca is self-care; New festival wants people to take time for themselves

By Jamie Swinnerton
Tompkins Weekly

 

When was the last time you took a minute to check in with yourself and what you need? Probably too long ago. For those who don’t fully understand the concept of self-care, have no fear! A new festival is here that will guide you through the many ways someone can practice self-care, and introduce you to the local resources available.

Jamila Walida Simon, a state 4-H Civic Engagement Specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Mar Perez, who works in the office of care and crisis services at Cornell University, are the co-organizers of the upcoming Hair and Self-Care Festival starting Friday, Sept. 14 on the Ithaca Commons. They met while attending a cohort meant to practice just what they plan on preaching: finding work-life balance, restoring your energy, and generally just taking care of yourself.

“I serve as a community organizer, and a lot of times we find that activists and community leaders get burned out,” Simon said. “I have a number of friends that I’ve seen go from zero to 360. There’s nothing wrong with taking a break. As much as we deposit into this really great community that has a number of non-profit organizations, we also need to make those withdraws for ourselves.”

Making those withdraws to take care of ourselves (emotionally, physically, financially, etc.) is important, Simon said, and ideally should become a regular practice for everyone.

The idea of creating something focused on self-care had occurred to both Simon and Perez long before they met and started planning the festival. Perez, who was born in New York City but spent time growing up in Venezuela, said she feels that today’s society doesn’t promote the idea of taking time for yourself.

“I think we live in a society that is rush, rush, rush, rush, rush, and I think we’re starting to lose that connection with the self,” Perez said. “We’re starting to lose that connection with what’s going on in the moment. We live so in the past and in the future that we forget the now, and what happens now is your future, is your tomorrow, is your next hour. Busy is the norm. If you’re not busy, you’re not cool.”

But, by taking care of yourself, Perez said people can be a better self for others. There’s a ripple effect when people who take care of themselves help take care of others.

Starting this Friday, the Commons will be taken over by hairdressers, practitioners of massage therapy, and all other manner of local self-care businesses. One of the many questions that Simon said she receives from new students, staff, and faculty has to do with where people can get their hair cut, or their nails done, or just a massage. Bringing these local businesses and organizations together in one spot was a no-brainer when organizing the festival.

“I think that there’s a really great opportunity to look at the service industries that are behind self-care here and to bring those folks together, make introductions, and to have a really great space for people to think about ‘What is my self-care plan for the year? Who are the folks that can help me with that? What dimensions of self-care am I lacking in? Which ones am I really strong in, and I don’t necessarily have to worry about? What new relationships do I need to develop in order to make sure that I have the best self-care plan possible?’” Simon explained.
The idea of a self-care festival, Simon said came from a friend of hers who is also a barber, True Benton. It was his encouragement that pushed her to turn the idea into reality.

Self-care doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. It can even be free, Perez said. Calling a friend to talk and check-in is self-care, so is taking a walk on your lunch break to enjoy a bit of time off. But by bringing local resources together in a festival, Perez said it can get the conversation around self-care started, and introduce people to resources they might want to use but were unaware existed.

“There’s something for everybody so they know what’s around the community, how to navigate,” Perez said. “I know how hard it is to feel sometimes like you’re a fish in a big pond and you don’t know, sometimes, who to ask, or even if it is okay to ask for those resources that many people perhaps don’t think are necessary for you to function as a human being. But I think they’re important to connect to one another.”

The festival partnered with the Downtown Ithaca Alliance to put it all together and was made possible by a grant from the Tompkins County Tourism Board. After putting out a request for proposals for both vendors and workshop facilitators the organizers had more than enough of both to fill the three-day event.

“They came out of the woodwork and said ‘Hey, we would love to be able to support this particular event. Here’s how we’re envisioning it,’” Simon said.

The workshops aren’t just aimed at adults. Both a Mindfulness for Kids and a Meditation for Kids are on the workshops list.

Proceeds from the festival will be donated to two local causes: Our Children’s Future at West Village apartments, an after-school program for the kids that live at West Village; and the Leon Lawrence Scholarship through the Community Foundation, launched last year by the Southside Community Center and named for a prominent local activist and educator. Volunteers from West Village and from the local campuses will be manning the welcome booth and filling in at vendor stalls in order to allow vendors to participate in the workshops that interest them, too.
If the festival is a success Simon and Perez want to see the idea grow, hopefully bringing the festival back again, but possibly also into a self-care and mindfulness retreat. Participants in the festival will be given a Self-Care Bill of Rights to help them figure out what areas of self-care they could use more resources in, and which areas they are already excelling in. The aspects of self-care that become popular topics at the festival are more likely to become the focus of any future retreats.

 

Find more information and the event schedule at the website hairandselfcarefestival.com