Using Movement and Mindfulness to Overcome Depression in our Later Years

Hello and welcome to Boomer Banter.

So the human mind.

It's a marvelous tool for solving problems, creating beautiful works of art, imagining wonderful stories and designing complex highways, coming up with new recipes, researching, writing, even hosting podcasts.

But the human mind can work against us also.

It can take us down dark paths where we see no solutions.

It can remind us of our failures and tell us that we are no good.

It can recognize some of those aches and pains of aging and convince us that we're just too old to keep trying.

It can manipulate our thoughts to such an extent that some days even getting out of bed is a choreography.

Today we're going to talk with Nita Sweeney about her journey with bipolar depression and the tools she has found to help her move through some of the darker days.

We all get discouraged, feel defeated, feel less than we can all get depressed.

Learning from Nita may give you some encouragement and tools you can use when your mind begins sabotaging you.

Welcome to Boomer Banter, the podcast where we have real talk about aging.

Well, my name is Wendy Green and I am your host.

She says she was an overweight woman and suffering from crippling depression of bipolar disorder when she caught the running bug.

Sitting on her sofa in her pajamas one weekday, she saw a social media post about a middle aged friend who had taken up running.

Nina leashed up her lab Morgan and headed out with a kitchen timer in hand and ran for 60 seconds.

But she kept running a little longer each day until two and a half years later, Nita finished the crossline at the Columbus Marathon.

Nita Sweeney was a runner and since then Nita has completed two ultra marathons, three full marathons, 36 half marathons and more than 100 shorter races.

And through it all, she has faced many fears, learned to cope with her bipolar symptoms using exercise, and discovered inner strength she didn't know she possessed.

Nia's book Depression Hates a Moving Target How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink earned recognition as a Faulkner Society Award finalist and as an Ohio Arts Council Governor's Award nominee.

I highly recommend this book for its honesty, its inspiration and its vulnerability.

I will be referring back to her book often when I need a bit of extra inspiration.

And as you listen to this episode, think about who you know that would benefit from hearing some inspirational messaging.

Just one friend, one family member.

And then forward this episode to them.

They can find boomer banter on YouTube or any podcast app and you know they Will, thank you for this recommendation.

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You could contribute as little as $5, or you can join our community for $25 a month.

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All right, well, join me in welcoming Nita Sweeney to Boomer Banter.

So glad to have you here, Nita.

Hey Wendy, it's great to be here.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Oh, I thoroughly enjoyed your book, as I said, and your story really inspired me because all of us have suffered from dark days.

But what you describe in your book, how you were crippled at times by depression, I don't want to dwell on that for this whole conversation, but if you could briefly describe how depression has crippled you just to kind of set the stage.

Sure.

People don't think of depression as physical.

I mean, there's the low mood.

It's not just sadness, it's more of a almost numbness.

But it's a physical thing as well.

And for me, it feels as if there's lead weights on my body, on my arms, on my shoulders, on my back, on my legs.

And every step just takes so much effort.

And meanwhile my mind is telling me not to bother.

It's not worth it.

Sometimes they it says no one cares or it's not going to make a difference.

Nothing you can do will make a difference.

It's very self defeating and also kind of a self fulfilling thing too.

So the more you listen to the voices, the less you do.

And then you aren't making a difference.

You aren't doing things.

So it's really insidious and very physically painful as well as emotionally painful.

And that's something I've lived with really most of my life, but especially my adult life.

It got bad and has, you know, it waxes and wanes to it.

It doesn't ever completely go away, but it comes in kind of waves and then it'll pass and then it comes back and passes and yeah, so I've spent my life building all kinds of tools, professional tools, but also these tools that I talk about in my books that help me Walk through it all.

Yeah.

So when you first saw this social media post by your friend, you were in one of those places where you were not getting out of your pajamas.

You were just on that couch.

And I mean, how could you possibly have even thought, I'm gonna put on some tennis shoes and go outside?

I, it, I didn't do it right away.

So I saw the post.

And the key I want to say about that is that it was someone I knew so I could completely relate to her.

And it was something I had not tried.

Exercise and doesn't have to be running, but just, you know, more.

A little more intense movement than the slow shuffle walking I was doing.

So that combination of something really different that I had not tried, that seemed a little crazy actually, from someone that I knew and respected and trusted and really identified with.

We were about the same age.

I was much, much larger at that time, and she was about that larger size.

And you know, we'd never been athletic.

She was in.

She was.

She rode horses, which is an athletic thing, but not like we never played sports, I should say.

I was in the marching band.

She rode horses.

And we didn't play baseball or basketball or anything like that kind of thing.

And it just gave me this light bulb moment of I wonder if that would do anything.

And I didn't.

Like I said, I didn't do it right away.

But the seasons passed and I watched her and she kept posting every once in a while, just these little posts.

Week one, done.

Check, you know, and week two, done.

And she seemed to be having fun.

And I was not.

I had.

I was in one of the more serious depressive episodes that I have had after a bunch of family losses, some professional disappointment.

Just the mood happens.

Because that's the thing is sometimes it's not anything external.

It's just that your body goes.

These moods.

And that's the thing that's so hard is we try to fix it with all these external things, which I'm going to talk to you about.

But.

But sometimes the mood just swings and.

Yeah, but just, you know, like, wow, if she can do it, maybe, you know, maybe so.

Maybe so you.

You quietly, secretly put on those tennis shoes.

Tell me about that.

So I didn't have a, A pair of kind of jogging or running shoes at all.

What I had, I had a pair of Velcro sneakers, but I think the Velcro may have been broken.

And then I had this pair of trail.

Trail running shoes.

And that's what I ended up using with these trail running shoes.

Which turned out to be horrible.

But it didn't matter.

I got rid of them eventually.

But I had to dig, I mean, way in the back of my closet I kept thinking, I know they're here somewhere, because I just hadn't had tennis shoes on.

And so I wore, you know, boots or I wore.

I don't know.

I don't know what I wore, but they weren't what I felt like were shoes.

And.

And then I got the dog.

And he was more of a decoy than anything because the first part of the.

My friend was on a training plan called couch 25k.

And it said to walk for five minutes.

And so my plan, which is what I did, was to take the dog and walk him down into this area of our neighborhood where the houses are set way back.

It's.

It's a floodplain.

So the houses are set way back up on the lots.

And so there's all these trees.

No one can see you down there.

It's what they call.

Yeah.

I wanted to be a secret, so I walked him and everybody.

You know, I'm thinking my neighbors, who of course probably were not home, I didn't want them to see me trying this thing, which to now, I mean, all of that now seems ridiculous, but that's where you get to, with this depression.

Get to this place where you think everybody's.

Well, I get a pair, a little bit of paranoia, but everybody's going to think I'm a loser.

I mean, that really was, you know, who's this overweight, middle aged lady?

What's she trying to do?

What's she trying to prove, jogging down the street?

So we went down to this ravine.

I took him, leashed him up and down we went.

And then I stood there with this digital kitchen timer, like one of those little square, you know, kitchen timers.

That's all I had.

I didn't have a watch at the time, which now I have the fancy watch.

And I stood there until the dog, he looked at me a couple times as if to say, what are we doing?

And then he went over and, you know, peed on a shrub.

And I had him on a leash, but he went over and I thought, okay, Nita, you're going to do this or you're not.

And finally I.

I just hit the timer and off we went.

And I was slow and it was uncomfortable and it was kind of awkward and weird, but I knew that.

Well, I didn't know, but I believed that if I could just get myself going right, that that would be the battle, and that has always been the battle for me is just starting, just getting myself in motion.

It's the inertia.

So.

So that's interesting, what you said.

You started to say, I knew, and then you said, no, I believed.

So is that a big part of.

Of kind of getting yourself going is you have to get to that where you believe.

Yeah.

Where you trust in something you don't know is necessarily true.

And for me, the.

The reason I could trust, it's not, you know, it's not anything mythical.

It was because my friend had done it.

Someone I could identify with, someone who felt just like me.

Yeah.

Had done it.

And that was the trust is okay.

Kim could do this.

All right.

Let's just try.

Let's just try.

And I also knew, you know, if I didn't like it, I could stop.

But it was just that.

It was just that, getting myself in motion.

I mean, that's the thing with, I don't know, most.

Most things.

Well, and.

And that's part of, you know, what we're.

We're talking about is like, if you're feeling bad, it's so much easier to curl up under the blanket.

But you said, all right, all right, I'm going to try this.

I'm going to move a little bit and see if maybe that helps.

So that was the first step.

So you started in secret, and then you finally got to where you're like, oh, well, okay, maybe I can do a little more.

And you find this online group called the Penguins, which is really fun.

Yeah.

Tell us about the Penguins.

So there's a writer name.

Oh, I just lost his name.

Anyway, he wrote.

He wrote his.

The book that I loved is Marathoning for Mortals or the Courage to Start.

The Courage to Start.

I think that's.

And he started an online group, and by the time I joined, it was actually kind of old.

I was sort of at the tail end of it.

John Bingham.

I'm sorry, just.

I couldn't believe.

I couldn't remember his name.

John Bingham was his name is his name.

And he's written a ton of great books, just about ordinary people doing wonderful athletic things.

And he refers to himself as the Penguin because he caught a glance of himself.

He was running in the city, and he.

He just happened to look over at a plate glass window as he was running.

Bikini.

You know, you.

And this is kind of a joke.

It's kind of a meme of how you feel when you're doing a thing versus how you might actually look.

He said he looked Like a penguin.

And so that's.

So we all became we're the penguins, because that's how it is.

And so they were so encouraging.

These were people who.

They had.

Some of them were very fast, and they were just supporting those of us who were starting and that were slower.

And some of them would talk about finishing last in a race or being swept because they couldn't meet the time limits, but running anyway.

But they talked about things like what clothes were more comfortable or more effective and what types of shoes they wore.

And.

And they talked about races, which I had not.

That wasn't on my radar at all.

At all.

But they were so supportive.

And then, of course, there was a troll, and then I had to deal with the troll, and that was kind of a pain.

But.

But they all.

They.

It was so great because they all just glommed on the troll and got him kicked out.

And it was wonderful.

But that happens.

You know, we know how that happens.

Online communities.

And they helped me feel like, okay, we could take this to the next step.

Not that, you know, I wasn't even sure I wanted to, but it was more about finding the right gear for a thing.

Because sometimes the thing that happens with gear is it makes it more comfortable and sometimes easier, but also you feel sort of like you belong and you feel as you're part of the group because you're Have a textured on as opposed to cotton and.

Right.

Things like that.

Yeah.

But then you have to.

You can do cotton.

That's fine.

Yeah.

And, you know, I want to take this.

I mean, I'm not a runner.

I go to the gym, you know, and.

But I'm not a runner.

But you talked about this wonky ankle, your swollen ankle.

And I was reading about that, Nita, and I'm thinking, I go to the gym and I come home, my back hurts or my neck hurts or my legs hurt, or, you know, it's like I'm trying to be good.

And now this.

How do you get past that when something is hurting, when you're trying to do the right thing?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that was really a thing.

And I have had a lot of criticism.

I've had a lot of blowback about that, because apparently I didn't make it clear enough in the book for some people that I was not putting myself in danger.

So that's the first thing I want to say.

If you have a physical pain that does not go away, just make sure you get it checked out.

Okay?

So I got it checked out, and I was referred to this doctor.

But it was not a good choice.

And in my gut I knew essentially he was wrong.

I mean, because he wanted to do something really extreme.

And I just thought that doesn't make sense to me.

And I checked it out with some other people and they agreed that I should continue.

So that's the first thing is just if you have those pains, just get them checked out.

Right.

And then, you know, maybe you want to ignore your professional.

Maybe you.

I did, I did.

And then.

But I got other professionals, I guess like a second opinion, second, third opinion.

Because that, because the, the first guy's opinion was so extreme.

I mean, he was going to fuse my ankle.

Yeah.

And it would, I mean, which, you know, I understand.

Some people need that.

You need that.

But it just was so extreme.

I wasn't well for anything.

It was just.

That was.

Would have been extreme.

So.

So that's the first thing is if you have those pains.

But then I was.

I knew I was getting so much benefit by that point.

By the time I got to that doctor from the running, because I was.

My mood was starting to lift a little bit.

Not, you know, not a ton.

I wasn't going manic or anything like that.

That might have happened later, but I was.

I was able to get out of bed.

I didn't need to nap every day, which had been a.

I mean, that was just part of my routine is Nita has to take a two hour nap every afternoon or she can't function.

And that, you know, that went away and I.

And I started being able to write more clearly.

I was always writing, but it was.

My brain was foggy and so my brain was starting to clear just a little bit.

I started noticing.

Actually, other people noticed at first.

Oh, okay.

And they, Then they would ask me.

That was the funny thing.

The one friend asked me if I'd gotten it, like if I'd gone to a different hairdresser.

Huh.

Because she knew something was different, but she didn't know what it was because this is before I was telling anybody because it was a while before I told anybody other than my.

Well, I hadn't told my husband even for a couple.

I don't know how long it was before I told him, but it was a little while because I just didn't want to get.

I had disappointed myself mostly.

You know, he, He.

He's tough to disappoint.

He's just not that kind of person.

But yeah, that I was afraid to put my, you know, to tell everybody because I didn't want anybody else to get my hopes up.

But it was me.

I was trying not to disappoint.

Yeah, yeah.

But I think even with that sore ankle, you were trying different shoes and you were elevating and icing and you know, all of these things because like you said, you found that the movement, the getting out there, being part of the group, all of that was starting to make a difference for you.

Huge.

Especially once I joined the running group, which took a little while.

I joined the Penguins first and then eventually I joined an actual.

You know, there's a training group.

There's.

They have two parts which I don't know if they had the.

They have a 5k, 10k group, but by that time I'd already done a 5k and 10k and so I was looking at half marathon.

But there's running groups where you can go with beginners and join and.

Oh my gosh, that was amazing.

It was just, I, it just blew my mind that there were these people, all shapes, all sizes, all colors, wearing all these different things that, you know, I had the Boston marathoner in my head as to.

Right, that tall, thin, skinny.

Yeah.

Long legs.

Long legs.

And fast.

Fast and you know, so intense.

Well, it turns out I am really intense.

But it wasn't, you know, I just, I, I just didn't, I didn't know there were people like me who could run.

I didn't think of myself as that.

Yeah.

So.

Well, so at, I mean that's a big step from I'm getting off the couch and going to try and go to this ravine in secret to running your first 5k.

What got you to that?

Oh, it was my sister's fault.

It was your sister.

Blame her a hundred percent.

It was actually mine.

It was fine.

But what happened was, I would say, I think I said that in the book.

I made the mistake of telling my sister I was running.

And part of what had happened that led up to this really awful depressive episode that found me on the couch, possibly with Bon Bonds Curling social media, was that during one 11 month period of time, seven different people and a cat had all died.

Oh God.

And the first of those, the first of those people was my niece who was 24.

She died of osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer.

And she was my sister's only child.

And then bunch a bunch a bunch of different people.

And then the final one was our mother had died that same year.

So it was.

And my father in law.

It was just crazy.

Too much.

And it was my niece's cat that had died, who was.

We just all loved him.

So, so I made the mistake of telling my sister and after a few weeks she said, hey, there's this 5k to raise money for research search for osteosarcoma, the, you know, the kind of cancer that Jamie died from.

She got one way that she helped heal her pain and feel as if the loss of her daughter wasn't, you know, for nothing, was to help other families who were going through the gr.

And so she emails me, there's this race and my, I'm not, I'm laugh about it now but at, you know, I was, I'm kind of ashamed also because I went, oh, no, no, no, no, I'm a private runner.

No, no, I don't run in public.

No, no, no, you know, what do you mean?

But that's all you've done.

Yeah, well, that's.

But I wasn't, I was only, you know, just that.

And then, and then I thought, oh my God, think of your knees.

Think of the 500 days suffered.

Think of the other kids that are going through this, the families, you know, because that's the thing about depression.

It looks very self centered.

It's not, it's self preservation.

You don't have an ounce of energy to think about somebody else because you're just trying to stay alive.

Especially when it's really bad depression, mild depression, maybe that helps.

But for some people, the, the thought of, you know, if you're really, really severely mentally ill, helping other people doesn't actually help you the way it does most people because you're just trying to stay alive.

But I had gotten to a point where I was sort of well enough to think, now wait a minute, what if this is helpful?

What if this, you know, and I did not expect to fall in love.

I did not.

And I showed up and there were these people with their dogs and people with their strollers and these families and they were walking, they were running, they were.

I mean just the whole.

There's a book by John Kabat Zinn called the Full Catastrophe.

And that's what it was like.

The full catastrophe of life all there on in this park, not far from my house, just prepared to do the thing and I was hooked.

That did it, huh?

It was like a, it was sort of like a party.

But you could, I mean you could be alone or you could be with your little group or, you know, we had a little group of our family members that joined me.

They were walking, I ran.

That's, that's what did it and then after that I started realizing, oh, you could do these charity races and it's fun and it's.

I always watch because I'm slow and I don't care.

So you have to watch the time limit because you don't want to be.

Well, you could be swept and it doesn't, isn't a big deal.

But for some people I'm enough of a high competition that it is kind of a big deal for me.

But, but you just don't want to be inconvenience.

The race director is the biggest.

These volunteers that are out there, you don't want them to go looking for you because you're still out on the course when it's past the time limit.

So that's the one to watch.

If you're thinking about a 5K, make sure it's one that's got a very generous time limit.

There's plenty that do.

Most of the charity races they've got, you know, four hours to do a 5K, which is a pretty generous time if you're walking.

Yeah, you can do that really, really easily.

And so that's what I started doing.

There was like a turkey trot and then there was, I don't know, the New Year's race and just these little holiday things.

A way to, to be active, to be in community but also kind of be alone.

Because I'm an introvert.

Right?

Because you were doing, you were following the training schedule and there was something about, it sounds, it seemed like there was something about having that next goal.

Yeah, that's the other thing for me.

And not everybody needs that, but I need to be pulled forward by something external.

You know, it's very funny because I'm in these writing groups where I've taught writing for a long time.

I have an mfa.

I'm, you know, have had different writing teachers.

I've been the assistant to a internationally best selling author for a few years.

I was, did that and there are so many.

It's really in any, any kind of influencer thing, there's these people that will tell you, oh my gosh, you have to learn how to be internally motivated.

And I've studied personality types now long enough that I realized that actually about half of the population will never be internally motivated.

And so if you need like I do, to print out a physical training plan and tape it on the end of your bookcase so that you can look at it and it makes the decision for you and then you check it off once you've done it.

Good for you.

Hallelujah.

You know, and with writing, I had to find contests to enter.

It helps if I have a contract to.

That's a.

I need an external deadline, and I can't create it.

I just.

If I create it, I just blow past it like it doesn't even exist.

Isn't that interesting?

Yeah, yeah.

It's wiring.

It's mental wiring.

There's nothing wrong with you.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with you for needing external motivation.

Yeah, Yeah.

I mean, I make my schedule out on Sundays so that I know what.

You know, otherwise I'll miss things and.

Right.

Yeah.

So.

But it did seem.

It does seem to help when you sit there sometimes, then you don't have that schedule.

You're like, well, now what am I going to do?

Yeah.

And the decision.

It's like decision fatigue.

So I don't have to decide.

I just go look at the schedule.

And that check mark that.

Taking my pen, my little pen.

Take my little pen.

Make that dopamine hit.

That is a dopamine hit.

And for you, if you can.

I don't know if you make.

Sometimes making the schedule might be a dopamine hit for you, but finding what.

For me, it was about finding what really works for me and having a training schedule and then eventually having a community help, too.

Because if I would get up on Saturday and think, oh, I don't want to go, then I would think, oh, but Helen and Deirdre and, you know, Ann and I know, you know, all the ladies, they're going to be there, and then they'll go to breakfast afterwards, and I don't want to miss all that.

And, you know, Devin and Athena, I can just think all the names and I can see their faces and.

Oh, yeah, okay, okay.

I'll get up and go.

Okay.

You know what I mean?

It's like.

And those are things.

Yeah, right.

Those are big things.

As we're aging and particularly as people step away from careers, they lose that sense of community because they're not in the office anymore or wherever they were.

So building that back up, having a reason to get up in the morning.

Right.

Like, we.

We need that.

Even if we're externally or internally, we need that to know why we're still moving forward.

So I think those are really, really important points.

Community is huge.

Huge.

Community is huge.

And I don't care if you get it with running or, you know, knitting or.

But finding people who are.

Are enjoying something you love so that you have.

It's a common language, it's a common goal.

Common interest.

You know, there's like, all these different things that brings it together, and it's special.

It just is.

And I.

If you can find one.

Yeah.

I feel.

I feel like that's just so important.

Well, thank you for.

Yeah, for reinforcing that.

So you did mention your writing, and I want to talk about that.

You studied with Natalie Goldberg.

She wrote Writing down the Bones, which is a book that I've had for.

Yeah.

So tell me about your work with Natalie and how that.

How that has impacted your writing skills.

Well, she was one of the first people that I read, writers that I read who writes.

She writes about meditation, too.

She's actually a meditation teacher as well.

You know, she's meditated for many years, and.

And she wrote about it in such a way that it felt doable.

It was.

It was kind of similar to seeing my friend run.

But I didn't know Natalie.

And she uses timed writing, where you set a timer and, you know, they kind of call it free writing in.

In school now, but with hers, you write it and then you read aloud to somebody.

So it's a.

It's more than just the writing.

There's sort of a sense of hearing yourself speak.

It.

It's kind of hard to describe.

I teach classes in it, too, but.

But.

And then she studies books in a way that a lot of other people don't study.

She studies the physical structure of the book, both the external structure and the internal structure.

It was just a different way of learning that clicked with me because not everybody learns the same way.

I mean, I'd taken lots of English classes.

I had a.

Journalism was my major in undergrad, and I'd gone to law school and, you know, done tons of legal writing.

That was my big thing was legal writing and research.

But.

But I actually read the book while I was still practicing law, and it helped me learn how to write legal papers with less stress, because I really started to.

Because what happens, you do this writing practice, and you start to trust kind of an inner.

It's almost like intuition.

You.

You learn to trust your mind, is what they would say.

I guess in the meditative tradition, you learn to trust your mind that it will present you with the.

The right information.

So, for example, I would research.

I do all this legal research.

And when I sat down to write, let's say, a brief for a case, I would lay all the cases out in front of me.

I'd have them that was back when we printed everything.

I'm not sure how I do it now, but.

But I would literally lay them on my desk in front of me in a circle.

And there usually were maybe eight or 10 of them.

And then I would just start typing and not even really think about where I was going.

And my mind would pull.

It would go, okay, this is where that case goes.

And then I would pull that up, and then I'd type that, and then I'd continue with my argument.

And then, oh, wait, this one goes.

And it's sort of this natural flow.

And that's where I started with it.

And then it took me a long time.

I had a couple of really major depressive episodes.

And so it took me until, you know, it seems like it took a really long time for me to publish a book.

I was writing books, but I couldn't either finish them or I couldn't sell them.

And that's where.

That's where the running and the writing came together.

Because I'd studied with Natalie, I got.

I'd gone to MFA school.

I went to get to graduate school to get my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

I had my thesis that I'd had, you know, revised and revised and revised, and I pitched it to agents, and it was going nowhere.

That was part of what led me to that dark day on the couch, was I just felt like I was getting nowhere with anything and everybody was dying.

It was.

It was.

I kind of.

I mean, it's very dark humor.

I kind of laugh about it now, but it was really.

It was.

I wasn't laughing that day and.

But that foundation of trusting your mind.

And so I knew, because people will ask me, and I think sometimes I think, you know, you.

You write a book and you think everything's in there.

And if there's the.

If there's one or maybe two things that are really.

I wish I could go in and put more in.

It's the fact that I had this foundation of meditation, of sitting practice and writing practice, where you just keep going.

You just show up to write no matter what.

You show up to sit no matter what.

And it's a training, and it's not, you know, you have to train yourself to do that.

And so once I had a running training plan, you just show up.

There wasn't any question of showing up.

You just show up and it's.

It.

And I say just because I don't think it's.

It's not something everybody can necessarily do.

But I had been trained to do it.

And it's probably partly my personality.

I tend to be a bit like a dog with a bone.

And, you know, there's nothing worse than a reformed anything.

And I was reformed runner.

Oh, my God.

This was the answer to everything.

And it has kind of been.

But all those pieces started coming together because I got the focus and the concentration that I hadn't had.

And then the idea for the story.

Oh, my gosh, this is.

People might be interested in learning how running just really changed my life, improved my mental health.

And that's.

And also the timing in the world.

The world was much more interested in mental health at that time than they had been.

And the publisher.

I got the hit the right publisher at the right time.

There's a lot of luck and timing in getting published.

A ton of it that you have no control over.

And that, those, those pieces all really.

And I mean, a hard work.

Hard work.

I'll get.

I'll take all the credit for the hard work.

But I showed up at the right time too.

And that's key, the showing up.

I think that's key when we're feeling down.

Yeah.

Show up for something.

And that was something that you talk about in the book, too.

At the end of the book.

I, you know, the book is about running and a lot of what you went through with the pain and the shoes and the equipment and the, and the training schedule.

Shoes.

Oh, my God.

That's.

That's one of my cringy things, like, did I really need to think talk about the shoes?

But I.

It was important to me.

It was like the shoes, the bathrooms, like all of it.

N.

Right.

There was, There was so much that you talked about that I would never have thought about running.

Because, no, I'm not a sponsor for Depends, but.

But if you need them, they're there.

Hello.

But the thing that was so inspiring to me, you know, like I said, I'm not going to go run.

I'm working with a coach.

But she's a bodybuilder.

I'm not building.

I'm not looking to do that.

You know, I just want to be healthy and strong and.

And it's just showing up.

So you did talk about at the very end.

I have to, I have to read it.

You said try something, anything.

Orange theory.

Theory or parkour.

Is that how you say parkour?

Yeah, parkour or yoga with goats.

So.

So.

And you.

And you give a few more, but any small action.

So talk to me about that.

Like when you're feeling, ah, it's cold.

It's hot, it's dark, it's achy, it's whatever.

Try something.

What does that look like?

Well, I'm trying to think how long?

I think it was January of last year.

I actually wrote this in my newsletter.

I might have written a blog post about it, but I think it was just in my email newsletter.

I got up and I had a training plan and I think it said two miles.

And I looked outside and I thought, there is no way.

But I.

I do this weird thing called house jogging sometimes where I literally jog in my house.

It's slow, but I.

It's within a ranch house and that helps.

So, yeah, you may not live in the right house.

House jog, but I can go, oh, I don't know.

Anyway, there's just a pattern that.

It's almost like a figure 8.

The way I go through the living room, through the kitchen, down the hallway and through the bedroom.

And then the.

It's a loop through the bathroom back to the hallway.

So it's like this little.

It's like a weird.

It's almost like glasses.

Maybe with the little.

The hallway would be this part of the glasses.

Think about that.

This is the kitchen, living room, this is the bedroom, and this is the hallway.

The hallway is long.

And usually when I house jog, so, so, so the first thing is just let yourself do it inside.

You don't actually have to go outside.

You know, I can't, I can't run on a treadmill because I have vertigo and I get really sick.

I get so dizzy on a treadmill.

So that doesn't work for me.

But house jogging does.

And I just to brag, I have done, you know, 12 miles in my house before.

Oh my gosh.

It's a little ridiculous, but I kind of have that infinite capacity for boredom thing.

So.

So I got up, I thought, okay, a house jog.

But usually when I house dog, I at least put running clothes on.

I'll put a running bra and, you know, shorts and a T shirt or something kind of running itch clothes.

I was still in my pajamas.

It was 2:00 in the afternoon.

I still hadn't done it.

And I thought to myself, what if you just started walking in the house in your pajamas?

Just start walking in the house in your pajamas.

Just do a couple laps around the, you know, kitchen, living room, part of the path.

And so I did.

And then after, I don't know, maybe five minutes, I was starting to get warmed up and I thought, okay, maybe, maybe it's time to switch from the pajama top to the, you know, the normal running top.

Yeah.

And then I did that.

Okay.

And then I, you know, maybe 10 minutes later, I'm sweating and I thought, okay, we got to put.

We got to get these pajama bottoms off.

We got to get some shorts on because we're too hot.

And next thing I know, I'm in running gear and I'm doing two miles, and I've done two miles.

So that's what it looks like to me.

It's.

It's just get moving.

And that's the title of the book and the way where the title comes from.

A friend of mine and I used to.

When she was going through a hard time, I had been through hard times and she had helped me, and so she was going through a hard time, and she would call me and it'd be 3:00 in the afternoon and she was still in bed in her pajamas, and she'd just say, I can't get up.

I can't get up.

And I'd say, we both know depression hates a moving target.

Just get up and just.

I'm.

Just hang up now.

Get up and sit on the edge of the bed.

And when you're sitting there, call me back.

And then I would hang up and she would call me back and I'd say, okay, we both know depression hates a moving target.

Now get up and brush your teeth.

And after you're done brushing your teeth, call me back.

And I would hang up and then she would call me back.

And sometimes we would do that until she finally got herself some food.

You know, something like that.

She.

We would do that until she finally got herself some food and.

Excuse me.

And so it was.

It was, you know, the original title of the book was 26 point freaking 2, which is not a horrible title.

Which is the marathon.

Yeah.

But it's not as good as depression is Moving Target.

And so I'm so grateful to Brenda Knight from Mango Publishing because she said kind of, you got anything else in terms of the title?

And that immediately popped in my head.

I'm sure it is an original.

I think Tara Brock actually may have said it.

Meditation teaching.

Tara Brock may have said it.

I didn't.

I googled it and didn't find anything.

Now you can see tons of people have said it.

Whether it's about my book or not, that tons of people have said it.

And.

Which is great.

That's fantastic because it's true.

It's.

It's just so.

It's just get up and do something, even if it's just sitting on the side of your bed.

Because my mind tells me it has to be the whole thing or it has to be perfect or it has to be helpful or it has to be important or it has to be smart or, you know, we're all wired differently.

And so we've all got that thing.

What is the thing it's telling you?

Well, what if that wasn't true and anything counted?

Anything at all?

That's.

I mean, that's the, you know, that's the thing that has worked for me, is to just question those.

I have a writing coach I'm working with right now, and her big thing is qtp.

Question the premise.

And we all have these premises that we live by, these rules that we live by.

And.

Oh, and another friend that I, she said.

She said we all need to be in our villain era.

You know, like Taylor Swift, we need to be in our villain era and basically break all the rules that are holding us back.

And she's not talking about doing criminal things.

But.

No, but it's that, you know, it's that perfectionism that, that I need to have matter.

I don't.

Nobody cares.

What if that was wrong?

What if matter?

And can you act as if you do matter and act as if some tiny little thing is going to make a difference?

Right?

And like you said, you know, you know, it doesn't have to be this whole big pie.

Just you don't have to run a marathon.

You don't even have to run a 5K.

No.

Well, thank you.

Because I won't.

I love you anyway.

Thank you, Nita.

I love you, too.

I have been so inspired by your book and by you and all that you continue to move forward.

Just try that one step.

So Nita Sweeney, you can find her@nitasweeny.com her book, well, she has more than this book, but her book that we talked about today is Depression Hates a Moving Target.

How Running With My Dog.

Whoops.

Brought Me Back from the Brink.

It really is that cover, I have to say.

I know.

They did such a great job.

Mango did such a great job.

Yeah.

Go get the book.

Go get the book.

Thank you.

Yes.

And remember how I asked you at the beginning to share this with a friend?

Now you know why I asked you to share it.

So please be sure and share this episode with a friend.

Just make a one time contribution.

Every little bit helps move this whole podcast forward and bring you amazing guests like Nita.

So thank you for that.

And as we head into the Thanksgiving week, I just want to let you all know how grateful I am for you.

The questions that you bring up, the comments that you make, your curiosity encourages me to keep finding these remarkable guests and new ideas to share.

So thank you and I wish you a peaceful Thanksgiving.

Before I let you go though, let me tell you about next Monday.

We will be back with a woman named Carol Oarsborne.

Carol is an acclaimed author, speaker and thought leader on aging, spirituality and the journey to self compassion, something that we've talked a lot about today.

Carol challenges the notion that by this stage in life we should have it all figured out, instead inviting us to embrace our humanity with grace and humor.

Her reflections resonate deeply with anyone who's wrestled with the paradox of striving for wisdom while learning to let go.

She just released a book called Spiritual Aging Weekly Reflections from Embracing Life and it's designed to be read weekly in two year cycles to help us navigate aging consciously.

So it should be an interesting discussion.

I hope you'll tune in next week to join me for that.

Nita, thank you so much and I wish you a wonderful, peaceful, loving Thanksgiving as well.

You as well.

And hopefully I will see you again soon.

I do hope so.

Thank you everyone.

Bye.