My Best Life

#16 - Nita Sweeney - Run for your life: how mindful movement can awaken the soul

• Peter Kolakovic • Episode 16

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Sixty seconds doesn’t sound like a comeback story, but it can be. Author, runner, and mindfulness coach Nita Sweeney joins us to share how one tiny jog at age 48 became the first crack of light after a long stretch of chronic depression, intense grief, and the kind of heaviness that makes even getting out of bed feel impossible.

We walk through what made that first minute work: choosing a goal so small you can’t fail, letting a training plan carry you when motivation is gone, and building a steady practice instead of chasing dramatic transformations. Nita explains how movement can shift mood through brain chemistry and how running can become a reliable mental health support alongside professional care. We also talk honestly about coping habits that stop working, the fear and skepticism you may hear from family, and why community can be the difference between quitting in private and growing in public.

Then we zoom out into mindfulness and “moving meditation.” If you’ve ever said, “I can’t meditate, my mind won’t stop,” Nita offers a relief filled reframe: the goal isn’t a blank mind, it’s noticing and returning. From listening to birds on a run to using nature as an anchor, she shows how attention training can help in anxiety, depression, grief, and the everyday noise of life. We also touch on her memoir Memorial and what it means to stop keeping score with someone you love.

If this conversation helps, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs a small next step, and leave us a review so more people can find it. What’s one tiny action you can do today to “just stay”?



Three Tools for a Happier, Healthier Mind (free PDF)

https://nitasweeney.com/three-tools/


Infographic: Meditation Myths
https://nitasweeney.com/meditation-myths

Depression Hates a Moving Target
https://nitasweeney.com/about-the-book/


Book club kit for Depression Hates a Moving Target
https://nitasweeney.com/book-club-kit/

Make Every Move a Meditation

https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Every-More-Meditation/dp/1642509892/



A Daily Dose of Now

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CK5F5DPP


You Should Be Writing

https://amzn.to/36Urj5d


Memorial: The Year My Dad and I Stopped Keeping Score
https://amzn.to/42vBWea


All Things Nita!

https://linktr.ee/nitasweeney


Welcome And A Life Saving Run

Peter Kolakovic

Hello everyone, and welcome back to My Best Life, the podcast where we explore what it truly means to live with purpose, joy, and deep connection. My guest today is author, runner, and mindfulness coach Nita Sweeney. Now it has been said that our running shoes have magic in them, the power to transform a bad day into a good day. But for today's guest, that magic did something even bigger. It didn't just transform a bad day, it saved her life. Many of us struggle to find peace in a chaotic world. We try to sit quietly, but our minds refuse to calm down. That's because for so many of us, running is the meditation for people who can't sit still. It is a moving prayer, a way to let the brain unspool its tangles and to set the mind completely free. In 2010, Nita Sweeney was facing a very dark place. She felt emotionally paralyzed by severe depression. But then she laced up her shoes for a tiny sixty second jog. Just one minute. That single minute of movement started a beautiful momentum. It led her from deep despair all the way to running full ultra marathons. Today she's a best selling author and mindfulness coach who teaches us how to turn every single step into a living meditation.

The 60 Second Turning Point

Peter Kolakovic

Nita, we often think that massive life changes require massive dramatic actions. Yet your entire transformation started with just 60 seconds of jogging in a hidden ravine. When that kitchen timer finally went off at the end of that first minute, what did you feel shifting inside you, either physically or emotionally, that made you realize that single minute was actually the start of your way back to life?

SPEAKER_00

My immediate thought was, oh my gosh, I didn't die. I really, I was in a very dark place, as you said, and was not an exercise person, not at all. And I'd seen this social media post by a high school friend, and that's key because I identified with her. We were the same age, we were, I was, you know, about the same size, equally not athletic, especially as adults. And she was running. And so I tried this thing, this training plan, and it said a lot more than 60 seconds of jogging, but that's what I took away. That's what I took away. And that's what I did. And yeah, yeah, the timer went off, and I thought, oh my gosh, I just I just did this thing. And at that time in my life, there were a lot of things that I wanted to do that I wasn't even attempting. And uh, and things I said I would do that I didn't and couldn't. And so what the way you kind of started this question or started the intro was about how people think they have to have these huge shifts. And that that can be such a barrier because especially if you're depressed or anxious or have any kind of mental health challenge, the key is to chunk it down so that you're doing something so small you can't fail. That's what I like to tell people is choose a goal so small you can't fail. And it seems ridiculous sometimes that that goal can just be, you know, just jogging for 60 seconds or getting out of bed. But it it that's the way life changes. It changes one moment at a time. So great question. Thank you.

Depression Grief And Hitting Bottom

Peter Kolakovic

So what did your life look like before that moment, before the age of 48? And and when did you first notice that you were sinking into a dark place?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I've had chronic recurrent depression for probably most of my life. I was diagnosed in my 30s, but I have had cycles of darkness. And in the year and a half before that 60 second jog, we had lost seven people and a cat who I loved, including my 24-year-old niece, my father-in-law, and my mother, and my niece's cat.

Peter Kolakovic

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00

All in like 11 months. That was tough. And I had hoped that by that time, by 48, I would have had a book published. I did not. I, you know, it just felt as if things they were just dark for a lot of reasons. So there were there were situational things. There was my baseline chronic depression that's always a factor in everything and all this grief. And yeah, I couldn't get out of bed a lot of days. And I was barely walking the dog around the block. I was doing that, but it was hard. And some days I, you know, couldn't even do that. And I wasn't completely sure I wanted to go on. And I'd been in places before where I wasn't sure I'd, you know, I'd been hospitalized for nearly fatal suicidal ideation much years before. But yeah, I was in this darkness, and then this social media post popped up, and I went, well, that's weird. I thought we should do a wellness check. She said something like, This running is getting be fun. What was it? Call me crazy, but this running is getting to be fun. And I thought, we should check on her. That doesn't sound right. That sounds like something's way off. Because those words fun and run, they just didn't go together in mind. Right, right. But I watched her. I kind of, you know, I'm she was a Facebook friend. I watched her, and sure enough, she looked like she was having fun. I sure was not. I was glued to the sofa. There were probably bond bonds, I don't remember, but it was definitely a rough time. And and movement was the thing I hadn't really tried. I mean, I had I'd had intense periods of exercise, brutal exercise, where I punished my body, mainly trying to lose weight. And there would be a little bit of a lift, but I didn't make the connection. And it wasn't until, you know, I kind of, well, I discovered it through her, but I gave it a good try. And it was more consistent. And over a period of time, that's when uh I really started to see, oh, this is the thing. And also I hadn't really tried running. I well, I I would think I had tried sprinting, but I didn't really try, you know, jogging, running slowly, easy.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Zone two kind of thing. And so this was very different. This is a very, very different uh approach than any other exercise I had done.

Coping Habits And Why Change Happens

Peter Kolakovic

So a lot of people that find themselves in a similar situation, facing anxiety, facing depression, turn to various coping mechanisms. For some people, it's alcohol, for others, it's drugs, for others, it's binge eating on junk food. Were there coping mechanisms in your life that you felt were not serving you well?

SPEAKER_00

Check, check, check. So by the time I started running, I had actually been sober for quite a while because I um, you know, drank to excess. I drank my fill long before I was 30. And and so I had that coping mechanism dealt with, or in remission, let's say. Let's say in remission. But the eating was definitely an issue. And that was a I I wouldn't say I was a binge eater so much as I just ate more than I needed. And as a result, it showed on my body. I had, you know, gained a lot of weight and didn't didn't like how I felt, how I looked, any of that. And I felt weak. I felt, you know, I I mean, when you can't when you can barely walk the dog around the block and you're only 48, that seems like a problem. So there were just a lot of things that just felt like they needed to change, but I hadn't had the energy to do that. And I'd had them before, you know, there was like these cycles where things had gone better and I'd kind of fixed a few things, and but this was a this was the biggest shift. This was the biggest kind of change.

Peter Kolakovic

Is there a reason why this shift happened at the particular time that it happened? Because I I know that for a lot of people, myself included, our 40s tend to be a very challenging time. You know, some people call it the midlife crisis. I think it was St. Thomas Aquinas, if I'm not mistaken, who talked who talked about the long, dark night of the soul. You know, in my case, I experienced a sh a profound shift myself, which was a little bit earlier. I think I was about age 42. But I and I've noticed with other people that I've spoken with that it it tend that that seminal shift in our lives often happens in our 40s. And I'm just wondering for you, why do you think it happened when it happened?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I already thought I'd had my midlife crisis when I got went back to get my master's degree when I was in my early 40s. I already had a law degree and a journalism degree. It's like, you know, do you need another one? Well, yeah, let's get a writing degree too. And and that was great. But then when I couldn't get the books published, that was really, really the dark thing for me when I tried to pitch, you know, a book and tried to write a book, tried to finish a book, and there were a lot of reasons why it didn't happen. But that was that was all happening. And then all these people died. And so it just felt like like the universe was pushing me or something to do something. I mean, I really was at a place where if I hadn't, I really think if I hadn't found something, I would have been hospitalized again because I was, you know, I was having suicidal ideation, and I've always had a plan. So I wasn't ready to implement the plan, but I was in a very dangerous place. And fortunately or unfortunately, I knew I was in a dangerous place because I'd been there before.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

I'd been in a dark, dark place before. And and so I was sort of looking for something because I know that, you know, sometimes it just the shift can happen with something so simple. Like you pick up a book or you talk to a a friend who says something you hadn't heard before, even though they've said it a hundred times. I had this one friend that used to talk to me. She she bicycles, and she would used to talk to me about how great she felt when she would get out on the trail with her bike. I had another friend who had picked up tennis, decided to start playing tennis in her 40s, and would talk to me about, oh my gosh, Nita, when I'm out there, I just feel so strong. It's just, it's like the depression just dissipates for at least a while. And I would go, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great for you. That's great for you. And something about seeing that social media post, it was just sort of, you know, the idea of the wind in your hair out in the trail. And that's, you know, cyclings like that too, but I also have really bad balance. So I had all these reasons why I couldn't, you know, and I I tried tennis. I have I'm I have no hand-eye coordination. And but something about running, it just seemed like the thing. And then this is the weird, weird thing. After I saw her post, I had I didn't try it right away. I was I had to let it kind of like sink in. But I started dreaming that I was running. Before that, before that. Yeah, before I started. Interesting. Yeah, I started, it was after she. It's like she planted a seed. That's why I said actually when my first book I talk about that. Or she planted a seed, and that seed just like it got some water and then it sprouted and it started to grow. And and then the other thing that happened, and you're from Ottawa, Canada, so you know what a tough winter's like. I live in central Ohio, and our winters aren't Canadian winters, but they're not easy. And when spring rolls around, there's a different shift in the energy. And that's when I started. I started, I don't know the exact day, sometime in March. The cro I noticed the crocuses had come up and the snowbells and some of these, you know, just tiny little buds that had actually flowered. And I thought, all right, something's gotta give. You know, it's spring, time for something new.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And I just I'd been watching my friend, and I, you know, I think her first post, I should really go back and look. It might have been in January. So I'd been watching her for a while. And I'd, you know, pulled up the plan. And so, yeah, that's what it was. So it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't like one thing. Right. It was a bunch of different things that led me to be ready. Because that's the other thing, is that I I get, I get when after the book came out, people would reach out to me, mostly on direct messages or email, and say, Oh my gosh, my, you know, aunt needs this book or my niece needs this book, or and I wish that it worked that way. You know, I mean, I can give it to them, you can give it to them, and you can say, oh gosh, this lady did it. But until the person has that shift inside themselves where they want to try, whether it's it's the same thing with therapy, same thing with medication, same thing with meditation, writing, any of it. Until the person has that willingness inside them where they just want to try something different, you just can't force it. And so that's where I was at. I was at the place where I was willing and just sort of scanning the horizon for something. And it the fact that it ended up being running just still blows me away. I mean, I just I'm like the I was like the kid picked. I mean, this is so stereotypical, but I literally was the kid chosen last for softball and kickball and all that. I mean, I just was the worst gym student ever.

Why Movement Lifts The Fog

Peter Kolakovic

So Yeah. Well, let's let's talk about running and and your book. Your first book, because you've written several of them, but your first book was was titled Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink. So what thoughts are going through your mind during that first 60-second run, and and what is it about movement and running in particular that you've you you think instigated that shift?

SPEAKER_00

Well, in the 60 seconds, it was very physical. So it was whatever the happy brain chemicals are: the endocannabinoids, the endorphins, you know, dopamine, I don't know what all it was, but but I physically felt not like runners high by any means, but a lifting, an energy that wasn't there. Because for me, depression feels like I have lead in my veins. It feels like somebody has just tied weights to my shoulders, my legs, my arms. And so it was counterintuitive that moving that heavy body would feel good, would feel uplifting and helpful. But it did. So that was where it started. But then there were other things that happened that kept me going. And that was a big part of it too. Because I think just the run itself, that one, you know, just that one run itself, that's not gonna do anything. It it takes the consistency and I actually hate that word, but just like a regular practice. That's the I like that word better, practice of it that actually made the difference over time. And I was, I was like the last person to notice that something was changing. I felt this shift, but I thought, okay, so you know, big deal. But after a couple of weeks, people asked me things like, Did you get a haircut? Or, you know, what do you it's something's different. What are you doing different? And I hadn't told anybody, even my husband, I didn't tell my husband for a while, even. Because I was so afraid it was going to be one of those, you know, oh, this is the great new thing. And yeah, yeah, no, it's not the great new thing. Well, it turned out it was, so yay.

From 5K To Ultramarathons

Peter Kolakovic

So, you know, that that 60 second run eventually turned into you running ultra marathons, which I I wasn't sure exactly what an ultra marathon was, so I had to look it up. And if I understand it correctly, it's anything longer than an official marathon, which I don't know what it is in miles. I believe it's 42 kilometers.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's 26.2 miles.

Peter Kolakovic

26.2 miles. And an ultramarathon is anything that's longer than that, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00

Right. That the race is longer than that. I mean, a lot of times when you run a marathon, you run longer than 26.2 miles because you you know you weave on the course, you don't need to. But yeah, it's a race that is that the distance of the race is anything longer than a full marathon. So 26.2. So the the ones I've done have been 50K. So it's 31. We we say 31 and change. 50k.

Peter Kolakovic

Okay. So you know, running for 60 seconds when you've never run before takes some mental strength. Running 50K takes a lot of mental strength. So how did you build that mental strength to get to those ultramarathons?

SPEAKER_00

By practicing. So it started with those 60 seconds, and then eventually I continued that training plan. And the training plan is one of those things. Remember, I said that there was the physical part of it, but then there were other things. Well, for me, the training plan is part of it because it does a couple things. So with the the first training plan I had, the goal was to eventually run for 30 minutes or a 5K. And so that's 3.1 miles, so 5K. And so that goal of eventually being able to run a 5K sort of pulled me toward it. So that's the other thing is having a goal that kind of pulls me toward it because I am not internally motivated. Very much take an external motivation. I think actually most people do. And I would print out the training plan and I hung it on the side of my bookcase. And then after each workout, there were three workouts a week. After each workout, I would check off the workout. That is a dopamine hit. Eventually, I joined first an online community, and then once I wanted to do longer distances, I joined an in-person community. And the fellowship, total surprise. Never thought, I'm an off-the-scale introvert. And the idea of, you know, well, first running in public, which is a whole thing, because I'm down in this ravine, and then eventually, you know, training with other people. That just seemed absurd. And now these are some of my closest friends, or some people that just I, you know, we depend on each other. So so those things all were factors. And being outdoors was another thing. But what happened was part of it is my wiring. I'm very driven. I mean, you don't get a law degree without being driven and pass the bar exam without having some sense of competition, achievement, something. You got to have to have those strengths. So I have that. But I also am chronically depressed, so I'm always like fighting that. So what happened was I'm basically running around my neighborhood or in the ravine. It took me a while to get out of the ravine. And I made the mistake of telling my sister that I was running. And she within a short period of time said, Hey, there's this 5K and one mile fun walk that raises money for cancer research. And her daughter, her only child, had died of, my niece had died of cancer. And so at first I went, oh no, no, no, no. No, I'm I'm a private runner. I don't run in public, no, no. But then I remembered my niece and the agony she'd gone through, the treatment, the, I mean, it was just awful, just horrible. And and she died, you know. And so I decided I could get over myself. And I ran that first 5K. And I'm telling you, I did not see that coming either. I expected it all to be these, you know, twig little people in spandex, not talking to each other at all, or anybody, and definitely not talking to me. No, they were people of all shapes and sizes and colors and all kinds of gear and all paces and dogs and music. And I just was blown away. I just, I don't think I'd ever been to any kind of, you know, that kind of sporting events. I was used to baseball games and football games and stuff like that. But but yeah, I completely I fell in love. I just fell in love with this community. And they were so, everybody was cheering each other on. And, you know, some of the faster runners stayed to the end and were cheering us back at the Packers. And I mean, it was just, I I had just, it just blew my mind. And and so that's that's really how it started. And as I wanted to do longer distances, I knew I needed support because I didn't know what I was doing. I needed a training plan. I Needed, you know, f fuel fuel for the runs. I needed to know about shoes. And so I went to a running store and they had a running group. And long story short, when you hang around in a barbershop long enough, you're gonna get a haircut. And when you hang around with women your own age long enough, women who run extremely absurd long distances for fun for no other good reason, eventually you are too. And so the first ultra was kind of a a mistake. I was sort of on our high from, because by the time I signed up for it, Depression Heats and Moving Target had come out. I'd been, you know, I'd done three fulls by then. I think I'd done, yeah, I'd done three fulls and a whole bunch of halves and a whole bunch of shorter races. And the group kept talking about this Eagle Up, Eagle Up. We're all going to Eagle Up in June, Eagle Up in June. I'm like, what's Eagle Up? And it's like, oh yeah, it's an ultra. And I'm like, okay, no, no, no. But then in 2019, when I was on this, you know, book tour high and kind of a runner's high, things were going well. I went ahead and signed up and I thought, oh, what the heck? It'll be, you know, I might the worst thing that can happen is I I DNF don't, you know, did not finish. Or as we say, did nothing fatal. That's the worst thing that can happen. DNF. And yeah, so then 2020 happened and everything got canceled. And a whole bunch of other stuff happened for us in 2022, some life stuff. But I thought, oh well, you know, I guess I'm not meant to run an Ultra or whatever. Well, then in 2021, and I'd I'd canceled the, I knew I'd canceled the either Airbnb or, you know, whatever accommodations we had. I knew I'd cancel that because we had a refund from that. And in 2021, I started getting the emails from the race. I didn't think about it. And then I realized I was getting the participant emails. They had just deferred me. They hadn't canceled it. Right, right. So I was like, okay, what do I do now? So off I went and we did it. And it was kind of brutal. I mean, I it's funny because the one that I do is a loop course. And so every five miles you see your gear, the bathroom, the aid station, you know, my husband. The uh because you know, you see it, and uh and you have 24 hours to do it also. So it's not like with a marathon, you have a a very strict time limit. Often it's you know, six or seven hours, and I'm back at the packers, so that's a those can be really tight limits for me. But but with this one, I mean, people they sit down and they like take naps and eat a meal. I'm like, I can't do that. I don't do that. I I might rest a little bit, you know, change my shoes, have a snack, but I'm not I'm not gonna take a nap. I won't get back up. But yeah, that's how it happened. It's these other women who had done it. And uh a couple of men, I don't think there were any men that did it the year I mean, there were other men that did it, but I mean in my little group, it was mostly these women that were, some of whom were older than me. I mean, there's one woman that was, I think she was in her she might have been in her 70s when she did it the last time, most recently. And and it's one of those, you know, it's very similar to when that kind of identification thing where I saw my high school friend, and I thought, well, you know, if she can do it, maybe I can. And the same thing with these women. They would just talk about it like it was a blast. And there are moments of blast, and there are moments when it's really, really awful and you are really questioning your life choices. But um yeah. But yeah, that's that's the long version.

Community Support And Pushback

Peter Kolakovic

So well, thank you for that. You know, you you kind of touched upon the importance of community as you're as you're going through this shift. And, you know, one of the things that I noticed in your bio as you as you were describing this first 60-second run was the fact that it happened in a hidden ravine.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

Peter Kolakovic

And, you know, I've I've noticed that with quite a few people, myself included, when you first start to make this shift, it's almost like you're you're you're unsure of yourself, you're almost ashamed of it, and you don't really want to show it to the world. And then eventually you start coming out of your shell and you see that there are others who are you know doing the same thing, and and you know, you get inspired by them, and and and and vice versa. So, yeah, it just goes to show the the importance of community. But I'm also wondering, because one thing that I've heard from from others that I've spoken with is, you know, when we start making these profound shifts in our lives, that the reaction from our friends and family can vary because when we make a shift, it forces other people to confront their own lives. And, you know, you'll have some people who are very supportive and others less so. And I'm just wondering how those around you, your loved ones, your friends and family, how are they reacting to seeing you taking steps to change your life?

SPEAKER_00

Well, at first my husband was guardedly optimistic because he'd been through it before. I mean, I think we still had the mini trampoline in the basement covered with clothes. We'd gotten rid of the treadmill. The jump ropes were still hanging in the closet, the weights, which he uses, are still in the basement, but I wasn't using them. So, you know, he he was guardedly optimistic, I will say that. He talked about me being an interval runner. He was very concerned just that I would take it on too fast and do too much, and that's kind of my MO, and then quit. But other members of my family weren't so optimistic. My sister was, she's always just like, rah, rah, rah. That's sort of who she is. Go, Nita. With, you know, she's it's just great. She's like, it's amazing to have her in my life. And but some other family members were, oh my gosh, you're gonna ruin your knees, and oh, that's a horrible thing, and it's you know, people get hit by cars, and you just like, and yeah, they do, and that does happen sometimes. But but they were just concerned also because I was very overweight. I've lost quite a bit of weight, and I was much, much larger than I am now. And, you know, they could have been right, but but my husband, he came around pretty quickly. He saw the change pretty quickly. He was one of the ones that really saw it before I did, and and now he'll even say, Are you going out today? You know, like I'll take the dog for a walk. The dog's getting, she's eight now. She's a deer, but she's eight now. And he'll say, Are you going back out? You know, meaning like for running, not just walking. And and so that's that's a privilege to have somebody like that in your life to really be by your side. He's been at a bunch of races. He has the his a couple shirts. Like one is that, you know, sorry, I'm already taken by a hot, sexy runner or something like that. He wears them to races. It's just so much fun. That's beautiful. It is, and he's not a runner. So that's been great. So yeah, to have the running community, but to also have other people. I mean, I've had neighbors that'll see me running and like, go, go, go, you know, that kind of thing, just in our hood here. Sure. So yeah, people for the most part are really good. Often, I think the ones that may criticize or may, you know, say negative things, it's their stuff, it's their fears. And often they mean well. I mean, they really do. The people that have talked about are your knees, you know, they mean well, but but it's sorry, it's not helpful. You could stop. Yeah, it's not helpful.

Peter Kolakovic

How

Getting Out The Door Anyway

Peter Kolakovic

did you keep yourself moving on days when your mind was telling you to maybe stay in bed?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so uh the this doesn't work for everyone, and it's taken me a while to kind of realize that. That for me, that training plan becomes I don't know, like my, you know, it's it's I just follow the training plan and I don't think because because somebody else created, I mean, like I can create a training plan. I actually am a certified running coach now, but back then somebody else who knew what they were doing, who was kind of an expert, had created this plan. I have a goal that's six weeks, eight weeks, ten weeks from now. I want to get to that race, that half marathon, that 5K, that full, that ultra. I want to get there and I want to succeed. And I know from experience that if I I don't have to follow the training plan 100%, but I have to 80% it. And so if I just don't want to do it, I kind of remember, well, if you want that goal, you got to do this thing. And today's as good a day to do it as any day. And I, and and the thing that happened was that a lot of the symptoms, they didn't completely go away, but they abated so much that it was so much easier to push through because I couldn't push through. When you're when you're as depressed as I have been, there is no pushing through. You're just you're just in mud. You're just like up to your neck in mud. You're not going anywhere. And without help, which is there is help. And I've had help. But because I had started the running, and because of a lot of reasons, the you know, the goal stuff I talked about, just feeling like I had done, like I would say I was going to do something and then I couldn't do it. And now I was saying I was doing things and I was actually doing them. And not just with the running. I mean, I was actually, I actually was able to write, whereas for a long time I couldn't. And then an amazing thing that happened, which was it just it, I mean, it still blows me away. And this was actually, this actually happened after the time period in Depression, Hates, and Moving Target. I w I want to write about it again someday. But I was on four really, really strong mental health medications, which kept me alive. But they also dimmed my focus, made it very difficult to concentrate, caused some lethargy, sometimes they cause anxiety, and you know, made my thinking very fuzzy, in addition to me not having any stamina from just not being physically fit. And over time, I started to have the symptoms of someone who was on too much medication without having changed the amount of medication I was taking. And it got to a point where it was kind of a crisis, and they pulled me off all my meds and then eventually put me back on tiny, much, much, much, much lower doses. And um, and it worked because what was happening was my body was creating the happy brain chemicals. And so it was like when you put that on top of something and you don't need it, you just get the side effects. You don't get the, you know, because you don't need it. And that's what was happening. And so I was getting these not pleasant side effects. And I, you know, called my psychiatrist. And at first she said, Oh, I I think it, you know, I think this is just a a blip or something. And and then it got really bad. And she said, No, no, no, just stop everything and we'll re-up. Which sometimes when they do that, that you that you have to go in the hospital to do that. But she and I talked through it and decided that it was bet I could do it on my don't do it on your own, is what I'm saying. I had gone off my meds plenty of other times. It went very badly. Do not recommend, you know, zero stars. But uh, but yeah, we were able to to take me off completely and then get me clear, and then I started back up on a on much smaller doses. And that's been amazing because now I could focus, which I couldn't. And I had the stamina from the running. And so I think, you know, if I hadn't had all of those things, I still wouldn't have finished a book. I still wouldn't have gotten a book published because I wouldn't have been able to. I just couldn't. And so so yeah, that's uh yeah, it's been uh it just has continues to blow me away. So but uh but yeah, the pushing through, I don't I'm not a big fan of the idea of pushing through, period, but I just can do it now, and I want to do it, and I have the energy now. And that's just different.

Mindfulness You Can Do Moving

Peter Kolakovic

So, Nita, running is not the only practice that you've been engaging in. At some point in your journey, you also became a mindfulness and meditation coach. And and you've talked about turning ordinary everyday moments into meditations. So I'm just wondering, what does that mean and what does it look like?

SPEAKER_00

Well, for me, the meditation practice came before the running. I people asked me how to start meditating, and there was this guy I was dating who happens to currently be my husband of many years. But yeah, we were dating and he said, Do you want to sit? And I said, What? Do you want to what? Because I had no idea what he meant. And he'd been studying Zen. So he introduced me and um he suggested that I try not to fidget. He was gonna set the time, microwave timer for five minutes, and he asked me to just try not to fidget, which of course I fidgeted. But but yeah, the over time, I'm gonna zip through that, I realized that the I realized how scattered my mind was. And and so the meditation helped me, it I think primarily it helped me with pain relief and anxiety. I was still depressed, but I had had so much anxiety that it helped me ride through it without kind of adding panic to anxiety. And it also helped me with some physical pain I was having, in part due to my weight. And so when I did start running, I very quickly realized that you could meditate while you were running. I sort of was doing it and not realizing it because I often will choose an object of meditation through the day, you know, maybe a color to notice through the day, or a sound, or something's really annoying. I'll try to turn that into meditation. And so I started choosing an object of meditation, especially on the longer runs. And this is probably in part an answer to your previous question about how did I go from 60 seconds of jogging to, you know, nine hours in the woods kind of thing. Because I'd been meditating for so long that I had these tools that it creates in you, I joke about an infinite capacity for boredom because you learn what to do with boredom, is a body sensation and a series of thoughts. And so if you know what to do with your thoughts and body sensations, which is basically let them be, notice them and let them be, that's it. And uh and when you you know forget what your object of meditation was, you just remember and bring yourself back. And so so that's part of what I would do on these long runs when everybody else was listening to music. I was, you know, listening to my thoughts and listening to the trees and listening to the birds and smelling the lilacs and noticing the color green and things like that. And that is actually mental training. Meditation is mental training. It's it it's other things too. But that practice of just coming back very gently, coming back, very gently coming back, really served me in a lot of ways. And and it's, you know, it's it can bring a sense of peace and calm, which, like I said, I had anxiety too. That's sort of the flip side of depression. Often people who have are depressed also have a lot of anxiety. And when I did start to be able to write the meditation practice of noticing the critical thoughts, because writers are notorious for hating their own writing, um, noticing that and being able to let those go and coming back to the page, back to the page, back to the page. Um, that really, really served me. And so now I'm able to help other people notice, you know, when something big's going on in their life, what are the thoughts and body sensations that are arising? And can you just be with those just for a tiny bit of time? Because we're trying to escape, we're trying to, you know, change what is, which sometimes that's good. You can do that if you can do it, but there's always going to come a day when we can't. When we can't, we can't change it. It's just gonna be painful, or the thoughts are just gonna be so loud, or you know, the experience is going to be just so unpleasant. And meditation, it helps us with the joy, but it really helps us when things get really tough to be able to be with those things. And um, so I had that foundation even before I started running, thanks to the guy.

Peter Kolakovic

So

Building A Practice Without Sitting

Peter Kolakovic

you wrote another book, which was titled Make Every Move a Meditation. So can you talk a little bit about that book and the inspiration behind it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so that one I I probably wouldn't have written except for my publisher. They wanted, I wanted to do something in the meditation vein, just because I feel like it's so powerful, especially it's some it's mindfulness, it's the type of meditation that I do, insight, mindfulness. And and they were interested in that, but they my readers were primarily runners with mental health issues, or runners, you know, who may or may not know they have mental health issues, or people with mental health issues that were looking for some movement form. It didn't even have to be running. That's more the people that follow me, or the people who have challenges and are looking for solutions. And so we tried to figure out what I could write that would be kind of a bridge between this running and mental health community and the meditation community, because taking it all the way to, you know, just pure meditation seemed like too much of a leap. And so I said, Well, I can I can write about how I meditate while I run. And they were very interested in that. And so we I put together a book that has a ton of footnotes. I forget, it's like 72 footnotes or something, because I tried to just make it very not research-oriented, but supported. I wanted people to know that there is science behind this. It's not just Nita making some stuff up. It's you know, well, well researched. And so I went through and used the lessons I had learned primarily from a teacher named Shin Zhen Young, that he was my primary meditation teacher for a number of years. And I went through and tried to build on just like a real basic practice all the way up to some of the more complicated practices. And so the book is kind of progressive and it has your turn exercises at the end of each chapter so that the person can actually do what I'm suggesting. And then there's a couple of chapters that talk about more Buddhist philosophy, because that's where my training comes from. But there, it's more about like the ground that the meditation should sit on so that it's not ungrounded. I'm using the same word there, but but it needs a kind of a foundation. And so I talk a little bit about that, about some of the, I don't know, just different principles that that come from uh that that the meditation comes from. Because meditation itself is actually one of many tools in a tradition. And it's and so I was sort of taking that that practice out of the tradition and just giving them that. I wanted them to have a little more founding. And then also every chapter has a little bit of a mental health spin on it. So how does this, what's this look like when you have depression? What's this look like when you have anxiety? What's this look like when you, you know, are dealing with chronic fatigue and fear? And mental from the mental, not physical chronic fatigue. And probably my favorite chapter is is about making it your own, about you know, finding your own way through this, using the suggestions I've made to come up with what works for you. And there's some examples of all kinds of different ways, like people use it, meditate while they're doing one woman's while she's sailing. Another guy does Brazilian jujitsu, and he talks about the space in between the exercises and some lifting weights. I mean, all kinds of fitness. Most of my examples are running because that's my main thing. But but yeah, I tried to make it kind of comprehensive and it's been pretty well received. Yeah, it's not as it doesn't have as hot a you know, flashy title like Depression Aids Moving Target. So it doesn't have the big marketing spin that book has. But but it's it's I'm really proud of that book because it was a lot of work. Yeah, I'm sure it was. Yeah, but yeah, and it and the point, just the point is that you don't have to sit. You don't have to sit. You can, and it's good to sit because the stillness is good for us. It's good to learn how to sit and not have to move, you know, not have to fidget, if you will. But you don't have to. You can meditate doing nearly anything.

Peter Kolakovic

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And that's the that's kind of the point the book is trying to make.

Peter Kolakovic

You've kind of already answered what was going to be my next question. You know, I was going to talk about how a lot of people who start out with with the meditation practice say that they can't do it because they can't sit still, because the thought they can't stop the thoughts in their minds. You know, I I've certainly spoken to a lot of people who have reported that. I I I also have my own daily meditation practice. That's excellent. And so I'm wondering like, what is the biggest misconception people have about what meditation is supposed to look like? I think you've already you've already hinted at it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, the the there's two. The one is that you have to sit, but the second one is that you have to clear your mind. You know when your mind's gonna be clear? Never. When you're dead. Not until. Because that's the mind's job. It thinks thoughts. That's its job. And so what we do is we can train the mind to calm. We can train the mind to slow and for the thoughts to, you know, to have more space between them. And there are people and moments when thoughts will stop, but you don't, you're not making them stop. And that's, I think, the big conception is we create conditions in meditating to allow the mind to calm down and for the thoughts to stop. But we don't make them stop. And I think that the the what is really going on, so there's the misconception, but I often think what's really going on is that most of us are terrified of our thoughts. And they're not even that they're bad thoughts, they're just it's just too much, you know, gets to be too much, or they're some of them are terrifying sometimes, but we're just they're they're uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to for us to be alone with our thoughts. And and so this idea or this practice of being completely alone with your thoughts. It's just you and your mind and body. You know, people want any, they just want any reason to just get out of that. No, no, no, no. Uh so but yeah, that's the so the the I have a I actually have a thing on meditation myths, and I can think of a few of them, but not all of them. But uh that you have to sit is one, that you have to clear your mind, that you're gonna become, you know, a Buddhist or a yoga or a Hindu or a whatever the, you know, I don't know, all any of the the meditation-y religions, or I mean Buddhism isn't even a religion, but that's a whole nother that's a whole nother hour. We're not gonna go there. Um but uh what was the other one? Oh, yeah, that you have to join, you know, some like group or something. No, you don't you can meditate in the grocery line. You don't have to join anybody if you don't want to that you know you're gonna get indoctrinated, things like that. You have to change your beliefs. Oh, that's the other one. Now I don't have this as much anymore, but I used to teach writing practice, which is a kind of meditative form of writing that for many years. And I started teaching in 2000. And when I would, and part of what we do is we meditate for just like five minutes in the class, and I would say, okay, how many of you medit would meditate, have meditated before? And in a class of 30 people, one person would very shyly, very slowly raise her hand and then quickly put it down. And now it's, you know, everybody's done it. So it's become much more common. But I think that there's still some people that may have a fear that a meditation teacher is going to ask them, that's gonna question their beliefs or ask them to, you know, question some long-standing faith that they have that's important to them. And that's it's the the type of meditation I practice anyway. Yeah, they they want you to question everything, but they're not gonna tell you anything about what to believe. It's that's the whole point is that you're, you know, you're finding out what you believe by sitting still enough to listen to yourself.

Peter Kolakovic

So I I was having a similar conversation with my last guest about meditation and and specifically about you know all of these thoughts that that come through our heads and that are very, very difficult to get on top of. And what one of my teachers would say is that meditation is not the absence of thought. Meditation is the awareness of thought. And I thought that was really a lovely way of of capturing, you know, the essence of what we're doing. And it's something that I always mention to people when they ask me about my meditation practice and and if I have any any advice for them.

Nature As A Meditation Partner

Peter Kolakovic

Does nature play any role in your mindfulness practices? And if so, what what what role does it play?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's a that's a huge thing for me, both in terms of the running and the meditation in general, is I love going on retreat where there's, you know, trees, a river, something like that. Now, you can have a retreat in the inner city just as well. And you just make the sounds of the inner city, or the sights of the inner city, or the smells of the inner city, your objects of meditation. But yeah, I uh there's definitely something, you know, the whole forest bathing thing, there's something to that. And I find solace in just being out with the trees. I'm a tree-river person. You know, there's people that are mountain people, people that are desert people, people that are ocean people. I'm a tree-river person with little undulating streams and knolls and things. And for me, there's a sense of kind of a oneness with the trees almost. It's uh it's kind of weird because you know, you I mean, they're definitely living creatures, but they're not like dogs or cats or anything. But I I just feel at one with them. I just uh I'm a very I'm a tree person. So yeah, but there's a lot of science behind that too. The I mean, just the fresh air. If you can get fresh air, that is huge. And not everybody can. There's a lot of pollution and still, and people that, you know, can't get out of the city. And but but yeah, if you can get to a park, if you can just get someplace. And one of the things that we would do in often in a retreat setting, would you you'd choose a place like a grassy area, and then if you could walk barefoot and then just walk back and forth in a small, you know, like a line, back and forth, back and forth. And then each time you turn, just feel the grass under your feet and notice the sensation, like the urge to turn. So you stop, you know, at the end of whatever your little line is. You stop and wait, feel the grass and feel the sense of your body wanting to turn or not wanting to turn, either one. That kind of urge or sense or reticence, whatever that is, and feel it in your body, and then turn and do again. And it's lovely when you have some very nice clean grass that you can put your bare feet in. That, you know, I grew up on a farm, so that's that's the other thing with 15 acres of woods and all that. That's probably where that comes from. But uh but I think there's a lot, I know there's a lot of science behind just getting outside and being with the green things, the growing things.

Peter Kolakovic

Aaron Powell Sure. Yeah. I you know, I I also have a very strong connection to trees and rivers and streams. And uh I I I actually believe that trees are are conscious beings, that they have awareness, which you know, for some people is a bridge too far. But there is some interesting interesting science behind that as well. How trees do communicate.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, they talk to each other. I w I read about that, that they do there's I mean, that's not just like one tree. It's very quickly, if you plant a tree, it's very quickly finding the other trees. And that's right, yeah. It's it's not uh and then there's all the little critters that are in the trees too. There's the squirrels and the chipmunks and the birds and the, you know, and so there's just it's a whole thing. And then for me, the sound of a river, oh my gosh, that's just it, that just that's my thing. And it's not for everybody. I mean, I lived in New Mexico for about three years, and for some people, the sound of the wind on the mesa was the most soothing thing to them. And I thought it was gonna drive me crazy. So anyway, yeah.

Peter Kolakovic

We've

A Father Daughter Reckoning

Peter Kolakovic

we've talked about a couple of your books already. I wanted to mention your most recent one, which is titled Memorial: The Year My Dad and I Stopped Keeping Score. What is that all about?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it is a bit of a prequel to all the other books, really, because when I was in my 30s, I had my worst bout of suicidal ideation. I was hospitalized and I was recovering. I'd been a partner in a law firm. I was a very busy, productive person. And then, you know, as the depression came on, that all started to fade. And I ended up hospitalized, saved my life. And a few months later, my dad was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer. And so instead of me flying down the road in my Volvo station wagon at way too high of a speed, passing semis on the right and you know, such and such going to clients' offices, I was sitting in my house staring out the window, going, you know, what am I going to do now? I was trying to write. I was in taking some, you know, some very low-level courses, uh, one one course that I was trying to write. And he didn't want to talk about it. He just wanted to play golf. And so here I am, you know, still having panic attacks, still in group, still in intensive therapy. And I got time. I got nothing but time. So so we played golf. And what what the story is, is of course his trajectory through his treatment. And it's no spoiler, he did die. And and me recovering from this what has to date been the worst bout of suicidal ideation depression I've had. And in the process, I wound up examining a lot of the, I don't know, childhood things that had happened between us that had shaped who I was. Some misconceptions were revealed, solved, and yeah, we formed a bond that I thought was impossible. I I really thought, and we were never, we were never as strange. We were always close-ish, but there was always this rift. There was a couple things that had happened when I was young, one big one that I just didn't feel like I could get over. You know, I just was not sure. I was always kind of holding back. And he was very intimidating to me. He wasn't, he was a very nice man, but he was just this very strong personality. And and this gave us an opportunity to work through that. And so it it's that story of, you know, a father and a daughter both in crisis, in different crises that just happened to coincide. And it was kind of a, you know, just almost a fortuitous coincidence. And it's it's got a lot in it. It's very raw, very vulnerable. It's I I'm pretty detailed, so it's got a little tiny, you know, warning about sensitive material because it's it goes pretty deep. There's addiction, there's, of course, his cancer journey, uh, mental health issues, lots of stuff, lots of stuff. But uh yeah, that's that just came out, and I'm pretty excited about that because it's getting very it's being very well received, possibly not with the heat that depressionates a moving target, because it that one just went kind of wild. But but but receptions in places that feel very important to me. That that means it's very meaningful. Of course, the book is meaningful because it's about my dad and I. Sure. But um, but yeah, so I'm pretty proud of that. So thank you for asking for asking about that.

Peter Kolakovic

Sounds like a very powerful and moving story.

SPEAKER_00

I hope so.

Start Small Stay Here Best Life

Peter Kolakovic

Thank you. Anita, what advice do you have for people that you know want to make some changes in their lives, but maybe find themselves in in the same place where you found yourself when you were 48 years old before you took that that first run?

SPEAKER_00

Well, uh always I say start small because we just think we have to make these epic changes. And usually that doesn't go well. It we can do it for a while and then you know, we fall away and then we feel like a failure again. So we've just proven our, you know, we've just proven it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So um starting small for both most people is what works. And, you know, I gotta say, try the thing you think you hate, because that's what happened to me. I just couldn't even imagine. You know, the running I'd done before was just literally sprinting. That's what I didn't know it wasn't. So and also I just think one of the biggest things is just to stay, to just not, you know, not make the choice that is your, you know, that you can't undo. Don't make any changes that you can't undo. Because the thing I have learned through meditation is that everything is constantly changing. And it feels like it's gonna be this way forever, but it's actually already changing. And so if we can watch for that, those little changes, that's that's been the big thing for me. You just do the thing. And you know, I always I always say that movement is medicine, which I hate to say that in a way because it's not, you know, I I'm a big believer in medicine medicine, but but it it really is. It's amazing how much different you can feel if you just get your heart rate up, just even a little bit, just you know, one little circle around the couch, really. It can it can make a huge difference. So yeah. So stay. That's the biggest one, though, is just just stay. Hang around. We need you. We really need you.

Peter Kolakovic

Great advice. Nita, I have just one final question for you. It's the uh signature question of our podcast. What does it mean to you to live your best life?

SPEAKER_00

Well, that depends, because there have been days when my best life was, she brushed your teeth today. And that was it. That was that I checked the box for the day. And some days it's let's be on an amazing podcast, or let's, you know, do a book signing where 50 people show up, or let's speak to uh, you know, go to go speak to a corporation where I'm I'm speaking to 3,000 people. I mean, you know, some days it's like that. But for me, it's more about can I be present for whatever it is? Can I be a present and appreciative for whatever that thing is, wherever I am, because I know, because of the chronic nature of my depression, that there will be times again when things get tough, when I, you know, don't feel on my A game. And and having had the experience of going through that before, I know that the way I hold that, the attitude I have toward myself, the care I give myself will make a huge difference in how well I get through it.

Peter Kolakovic

Nita Sweeney, thanks so much for joining me on the show today. I've really enjoyed this conversation and appreciated all of the all of the insights that you've shared. Thanks again.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. You ask really good questions, thank you.

Peter Kolakovic

And you give really great answers.