Meditation and running

Nita started running about ten years ago at the age of 48. At the time, she was severely depressed and found it difficult to even summon energy to get dressed or clean her teeth. It took Nita 20 weeks to complete the nine-week Couchto5k programme, but she did it! Since then, Nita has gone on to complete many long distance events, including half-marathons, marathons and ultra-running events.

Nita is diagnosed with  bi-polar disorder and and she now describes running as one of the key elements in her self-care "toolkit". The other elements are: meditation, writing and medication.

This week, Nita has published her second book  Make Every Move A Meditation - Mindful Movement for Mental Health, Well-Being and Insight (2022). The book brings together Nita's running, writing and meditation practices.  For too long, she says there’s been a focus upon the need to take time out to meditate, whereas in reality, meditation on the move really does make sense. Particularly when it is applied to daily activities and fitness – including running.

Like Why Run? host Diane Church, Nita loves to run with her Labrador dog, who is called Scarlet. He has his own hashtag #ninetyninepercentgooddog . Nita Sweeney's first book is Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running With My Dog Brought Me Back From the Brink (2019).

In today’s interview, Nita talks about a lonely childhood, a successful career in law that didn’t ultimately fulfil her, her bi-polar and how running and meditation help her manage life today. “I’m not cured” says Nita, "but running definitely helps keep me alive".

Trigger warning - please note that there are references to suicide in this interview.

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Check out Nita's full story here   

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Transcript

Diane Church: 0:06

Hello and welcome to series two of the Why run podcast. Each episode I talked to a different guest about how running has helped them through some of life's more challenging times. So whatever is going on in your life at the moment, good or bad, I hope that my guests will inspire you to put on your trainers and hit the road running. Hello, and welcome back to Why Run the podcast all about the mental health benefits of running. My guest this week is author and runner Anita Sweeney. Anita who is diagnosed as bipolar started running later in life a bit like me, and in her case, iwt was in her late 40s. It was at a time when she was extremely depressed and was struggling to find any purpose in life. Any movement, even getting up to cleaner teeth or get dressed just felt like too much effort. But Anita was inspired by a friend on Facebook to give the couch to 5k a go. It took her 20 weeks to complete the nine week programme, but she did it. And today running is a vital part of her self care along with writing and meditation. Using these three essential tools for her life, Anita has brought out her second book this week called Make every move and meditation. For too long, she says there's been a focus upon the need to take time out to meditate to be still. Whereas in reality meditation on the move really does make sense, particularly when it's applied to daily activities and fit. In today's interview, Anita talks about a lonely childhood, a successful career in law that ultimately didn't fulfil her, her bipolar and her running and meditation helped her manage life today. Please note that there are references to suicide in this interview, when I spoke to Anita, I started off by asking her about her child well,

Nita Sweeney: 1:53

I was raised on a farm in central Ohio, United States, which is a rural part of the country. It's in the Midwest, we joke about the mean the flyover states between you know New York and California. And I think that my mother especially had her own mental health challengeeeneys, I was the youngest by many years, it was a vast area, there weren't a lot of people around. And I was kind of a melancholy child. There was also a bit of drinking might call it alcoholism. And so I didn't know at the time that my upbringing was different than my peers, my other classmates, but kids would come to our house once and then they wouldn't really want to come back. And I go to their house and I think oh, they all they're all getting along just fine. So it was a, you know, a sort of a chaotic situation a little bit, mostly, mostly a lot of space and emptiness and loneliness. There was just a lot of I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. And with cows and horses and dogs, as my friends. But um, but you know, I mean, it wasn't I didn't don't feel like I was abused or anything like that. I just was a very melancholy child in a very melancholy family.

Diane Church: 3:21

And what was your relationship like with your mother with all this space between you? Well, she

Nita Sweeney: 3:27

was the chaotic one she would. She had a lot of mood on instability. So mood instability. And I think she probably was bipolar, which is is my mental health diagnosis, but she was never diagnosed with that. And so it was the kind of thing where you didn't know if, if you were going to come home from school, and Mommy would be there with a plate of cookies, or you come home and she would be in bed, or you would come home and she'd be ranting about something or sometimes even throwing things, you know, she did periodically throw things which is terrifying when you're a kid. And it would be a towel sometimes, although she did once throw a skillet but she didn't. She was a bad Eames, we never we were never in physical danger. But it was just this, this, you know, kind of upwelling of anger that we didn't, there was very unpredictable. And my father was the opposite. He was level he was even tempered, but very particular. And so with her, it was unpredictability, and kind of a walking on eggshells feeling. And with him, there was the feeling of never really living up to the expectation that they were they had both been valedictorian of their high school classes. So, you know, they were both really smart and used to succeeding and so yeah, and I was the third child by like I said many years, and I think they were tired or tired. They'd been worn out by two other children and all that Just because I was, I think my sister is nine years older and my brother's 10 or 11 years older than me. So it was, you know, there's a big space there. My father had a job outside the home, he was an executive with Howie Bell, the telephone company. So you know, he was gone. So it's kind of just me and my mother a lot

Diane Church: 5:17

on how did all this impact upon you as you? I mean, when did you realise that that you had your own mental health issues? Was that did that come quite early on? Or was that later? Well, I

Nita Sweeney: 5:29

I didn't realise it was mental health. I just thought I was odd, and that I was extra sensitive. And that, and I didn't understand other people. It just seemed like I was so different from other people. And what I know now was I was very empathic, I was just a very high, highly sensitive person who picked up on cues that other people don't pick up on him. It's actually can be a skill if you use it right now, I know that yes. So it was it was a very lonely period of time. But yeah, I think the first time I really thought that there might be something bigger wrong was I had a panic attack, possibly as a result of taking an allergy medication because I'm I found out later, I'm really sensitive to certain medications. And I had a full blown panic attack. And I remember seeing the fear on my mother's face that she just had no idea what to do with me, because I was really freaking out and you're trying to catch my breath and mom help help, you know, kind of, and she just was she had no clue what to do. Yeah, not a clue. And we, you know, this was in the late 70s. People weren't maybe people were in therapy, but we didn't know anybody who isn't there. And her. Her father had had, this is just such a tragic story. My family. Her father had been very successful. He was the county superintendent of schools. But he had a tremor, but he had a prefrontal lobotomy. He was convinced a doctor convinced him that that would cure his tremors. And it completely destroyed his life. He ended up in the state hospital and died of a brain brain bleed, probably, you know, as a result of surgery a couple years later, yes, it never totally healed. So she had this nice hair off. I mean, when I think about my childhood, she was so wounded, because she was so close to her dad. And so the thought of anyone who might be doing anything to your brain, there was no way that was gonna happen. Yeah, that seems like a lot of information. But that's the backdrop. So that was the sadness, this sort of cloud that, and I didn't grew up with. Yeah, but I didn't know about that. Until I think I was 25. Before my sister actually told me. Well, do you ever know what happened to grandpa? I don't know. And he was died before I was born.

Diane Church: 8:04

So when did the Running Start? Because you did you run quite early on? Didn't you? First Home round? Is that right?

Nita Sweeney: 8:11

That was I ran when I was in law school a little bit. And I ran around the farm, but that was more me pretending to be a horse cantering. Or, you know, if something was going on in the barn, you needed to run and dad was calling and he needed your help. And so you ran but it was not like what I do now at all. And in law school, and then especially after I got out of law school, I ran just to lose weight, it was just sprinting, it was not anything like distance running, or really anything enjoyable. It was just pound around the track as hard as you can to try to burn the calories. Yeah, get some pounds off. That's what it was. So

Diane Church: 8:54

so there was no enjoyment there, then really very little

Nita Sweeney: 8:57

I would get, I mean, I think, you know, I would get a little bit of satisfaction from having said I was going to do something or set my mind to something and then being able to check that box. And then physical activity of any kind, no matter that, you know, intent, you do end up with a little bit of the physical benefits that are also chemical chemicals for your mind. And so I did get a little bit of what we might call the runner's high, but it was quickly. I was so exhausted by it. And it was just not enjoyable that it wasn't worth it. And I couldn't maintain it. And that was the biggest thing is it wasn't sustainable when I was also lifting weights and doing stretch samknows Just to kind of do a little bit all or nothing sometimes and I was definitely in an all or nothing. So

Diane Church: 9:47

is this was this around your sort of late 20s? Yeah, that's sort

Nita Sweeney: 9:51

of totally Yeah, it would have been my mid 20s Probably and late 20s. Yeah.

Diane Church: 9:56

So what what happened in terms of because you had you had a very severe depressive period in your life, didn't you? So when did that occur?

Nita Sweeney: 10:05

Right after I had practised law for about 10 years, I, a couple of things happened where I realised, I mean, I knew that I had not enjoyed my profession, but where I realised that I actually just needed to get out. So I, I, I wasn't getting treatment for my mental health because it was the early 90s. And so medication was still kind of questionable. It wasn't accepted the way it is today. And I think, you know, I often wondered, well, I've had gotten medication when I've stayed, but I really hate conflict. I just don't like conflict. And that's the whole point of being an attorney, is that you're you just you aren't you aren't. You anticipate problems. I mean, that's the it's sort of the perfect neurotic job. I was good at the research and the writing. I was good at the public speaking. I mean, there were so many parts of it that I excelled at, I became a partner in this firm, and but I just was pretty successful. Oh, yeah. Well, I was very, I had, yeah, I had the trappings, you know, had the big house and the big car and all the fancy things. And, and I was pretty miserable, I would go home at night and just be really, really miserable. And I was at work one day in this partners meeting. And a man pulled up in his car in there was a vacant lot next to our corporate building, in kind of this corporate Park area. And he pulled up into the parking lot. And I was sitting there staring out the window. And he pulled a kite out of the trunk of his car. It was like two o'clock in the afternoon on Tuesday. And he proceeded to fly it in the empty lot. And I am, I still cannot really tell you why that broke something inside me. But it created this sense of longing, that I could not get rid of this sense of I need that joy, that freedom, that happiness that he has. And I feel like I'm in prison. And I mean, I had wonderful co workers. I had a lovely office, our clients were great. I mean, it was really a good firm to work for. There were a lot of great things about it. But it was just, it was just the wrong profession. And

Diane Church: 12:33

well, that's just something so fundamental, isn't it? It is recognition. Yeah.

Nita Sweeney: 12:37

And it was. So it was it was almost as if I had known it for so long, but had just kept trying to work harder, or figure out well, I take this kind of case or only, you know, just sort of a trying to twist it this way in that way. And I also wasn't getting an I wasn't getting the help I needed. I didn't have a therapist, I wasn't on medication. I wasn't in a support group. For the mental health. I was in other speakers, but not for that. And so it felt I just felt so alone. And there was something about that, that just broke me. And so I don't know how long it was after that. I don't actually know when that was, but I don't think it was very long after that, that I decided to take a leave of absence. And then while I was on leave of absence, I became suicidal. And then because I I missed an appointment, and they called me to see where I was and where I was was sitting in my family room planning, how to exit how to you know, get out of debt in my life. And they said, and I didn't tell them that one phone call but they said will you come in right now. And so I went in, and and then they just I told them what was going on in my mind the plans I had and how sad I was and how mostly just felt useless as if it would be better for everyone around me if I were gone, which I mean, I think that sounds so ridiculous. Now I would have broken so many hearts. I know that people that I have lost, it's so heartbreaking. But when you're there, you don't have the perspective. You just don't you know brain is not working properly. And so I'm so grateful that she called me because I ended up in her office and she said you know, we we think you should just go to the hospital or whenever we don't think you should go back home. And I'd love to joke about it now but I mean she just was very calm about it. She said we're going to bring the doctor in and he's going to talk to you a little bit and then we're going to call your husband just they just and my husband took me to the hospital and I stayed there for a few days and they kind of they don't totally warehouse you but they don't really do a lot in, in in the hospital. It's more of a place to keep you safe and adjust your medications. And then once they once they do realised I wasn't suicidal anymore, then they were sent me home. And then I was in like a long term treatment plan like a partial hospitalisation, they call it where I went, it was four or five days a week for six hours, maybe, or something like that. I did that for, I think, eight weeks. And then after that I was in a group for about a year, because I had just gone it was almost like I had just broken so badly, that I had to have so much support. Because the pieces just wouldn't go back together, they would just they had sprung out and they would not go back together the

Diane Church: 15:33

phrase you used in your book, which really struck me, you talked about how you say daily living exhausted me think that's very true for depression, isn't it where it can be and people it manifests itself in different ways. But just that complete lack of energy for being able to achieve just the most normal tasks, just

Nita Sweeney: 15:52

brushing your teeth, taking a shower, just very basic things can feel impossible. And it's like having weights tied to your limbs and a big backpack on your back. And you're just trying to do everything with all these extra weights and heaviness and kind of like walking through mud also. So you're trudging along with all these things on top of you. And it physically hurts, I mean, it, it hurts, I mean, I ate, and I would go to the doctor and talk about these kind of mystery pains I would have. But they it was just depression, I'm not just but that's what it was, it was depression, because it is physically painful. And, and I know now, you know on. If more than a couple of days go by, and I don't shower. That's a cue that oh, we need, we need to call somebody we were sliding again. Because I'm not cured. I mean, I have the running the running basically keeps me alive, keeps me from wanting to kill myself and has let me thrive in so many ways. Because I didn't have the stamina to do a lot of the writing I do now to do something like this, like an interview like this, I this would have been just too much. But I still have times it's very cyclical, where just the basic stuff, it just feels like too much. And the people that I know that struggle the most have not had the help or the ability to build what I call a toolkit. So for me, the three main tools are running or movement of some kind, sometimes it's walking, but running usually is I need that little extra, just getting my heart rate up, maybe break a sweat, and then meditation, which sometimes I do when I run, sometimes I do sit in practice, but when I run, I can also meditate. And then writing practice, which is more of a meditative writing style. It's more about kind of downloading the thoughts that already are in your mind and also recording your experience in a very detailed, specific way. So it's not just journaling. But it's also not necessarily writing for publication it can there's a lot of overlap, you know, that look like journaling, sometimes, oh, this would be a good piece, I can develop this, but it's more of a just dropping into a place where there's no judgement and no need to produce anything. So those three things are my big, those are my big tools outside, the ones you mentioned, which is community or pretty my family, the running community. I'm in the recovery community also. And then medication and therapy. I have those also I'm very grateful. And I've tried to go off meds many many times and have been wholly unsuccessful. But with running I've been able to reduce them. So now I take one mental health Med and I take a thyroid medicine and that's all and at one point I was on six meds so it's really been press message with my with my psychiatrist approval.

Diane Church: 18:58

So tell me a bit about when you got into running through the Depression really when that really kicked off.

Nita Sweeney: 19:04

Well, that was in my late 40s I think I was probably 48 about to turn might have been 49 and I had gone through another really difficult episode it was a little more situational because we'd had seven loved ones. Many of them were family members, including my 24 year old niece and my mother had died within 11 periods

Diane Church: 19:27

and was very young. She was 2324 she was

Nita Sweeney: 19:31

24 she was my sister's only child and she was probably the niece that you know the niece nephew person that I had spent the most time with because she lived the closest and sending on my sister my sister lived closest. And so it was just you know, she had cancer which is horrible. And then I had been trying to publish a different book on successfully it just it just things were just really dark. And now. And I think I was at a place where I probably probably was time for a mid change. But we weren't quite there yet. So nothing was working, I'd go to therapy and cry, it was a spin. And so I'm sitting on a sofa one day, scanning, probably I know it was Facebook, some social media channel, I think that was probably the only one at the time. And this high school friend, which that's really important. So with somebody I knew she was the same age as me, or maybe a year old or even. And at the time, I was much larger than I am now, which I only say that because the fact that she was about the same size as I was then was really important. Because when I thought of runners, I thought of these, you know, really skinny people who can eat anything they want. Yeah, so she posted, call me crazy. But this running is getting to be fun. And that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. Because my memory of running was misery at the idea of one and fun. They just did not compute

Diane Church: 21:00

I could relate to that as well, because I didn't start running until my early 50s. And I've never I mean, I've I've you know, I've always walked the dog, but I've not really gone run it I've never done running or at any regular exercise is a bit of a eureka moment can enjoy this.

Nita Sweeney: 21:16

Not only I mean, for me it was I can still do it. You know, and I can find a way to enjoy it. But yeah, yeah, it's an I think I'm meeting more and more people who are either discovering it for the first time or rediscovering it in their mid, you know, mid 40s, mid 50s, even 60s. And that's so that's so fun. Because I thought of course, I was the only one just like most things. I thought I was the only one. And so I didn't start right away. I watched her. I just watched her because I thought she was I thought it was ridiculous, but not that she was ridiculous. But just the whole idea of like yeah, midlife crisis. Here we go. Yeah. But she was having fun. She kept posting, she was doing the couch to 5k You know, and like an interval training. So eventually, I don't know how long a couple months probably later, I actually looked up the plan. And this is key also, it said 60 seconds of jogging. And I don't know if they did that on purpose to not intimidate people. But I swear if it had said 60 seconds of running or a minute of running. But so I think I could do that. And so again a couple days you know some time went by and then spring rolled around I live in like I said I live in central Ohio, United States. And it gets very cold here and snowy and at some point when spring isn't here yet, but it starts to break. little flowers, little bulbs, crocus's and snowdrops. They pop up through sometimes the snow or sometimes a little green patch where the snow is melted. And I looked out and there was this crocus and again, just that breath of life, that little perk of life made me remember oh yeah, my friend Kim, she's, she's running down in Florida. And so I went and leashed up the dog and walked him down. I put on I think I had I don't know if I had the Velcro. I think I had I used trail shoes because I the velcro sneakers that I usually use just for two that just seemed to to kill us. So but it wasn't running gear at all. It was like, you know, cotton sweatpants, a cotton sweatshirt or probably a jet. I mean, just whatever normal people clothes and took the dog down into this ravine where nobody could see us and with a digital kitchen timer that I set for 60 seconds, and then we jog. And I mean, it sounds. I always think it sounds so dramatic. But when I look at where I am today, it was dramatic. Because being able to do something like that, that I said I was going to do to myself. And then the enjoyment. I mean, I felt really good just that you know you do 60 seconds of jogging, and then I think there were like 90 seconds of walking and then 60 More seconds of jogging. It was much more than just the 62nd the jog, like 20 minutes total. And I felt really good. And I thought oh my god I ran. I jogged oh my gosh, you know just I don't know it just switched something in my mind because I was not able to complete anything at that point in my life. I wasn't finishing the book I had tried it was trying to sell I wasn't being able to sell it. I wasn't I hardly doing anything. And and so we continued and I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell anybody for a while. I don't remember exactly how long at least a month probably. And then eventually told my husband and then I made I would say I made the mistake of telling my sister because she emailed me not much longer after she heard that I had started running and said there was this 5k to raise money for the type of cancer or that my niece had died from? And I immediately in my very self centred, I want to say it's actually self preservation. Was that what it is? But it sounds self centred. I said, Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm a private runner. I just run in my neighbourhood. I mean, he had taken me a month to get out of the ravine. Yeah, I was like, in the ravine, just going back and forth, where no one can see me, I've finally gotten brave enough to run in front of houses. And here, she wants me to run in public. So I got over myself took a couple days. And that was amazing. It was quite a

Diane Church: 25:29

big move, though. That is a big shift at that stage. And I think that, because I did, I did the couch to 5k as well. And even with the eight weeks, whatever it is, or nine week takes you it took me longer than that. Oh, yeah. No mics. And you just have to take your time and do it at your own pace. Oh, yeah.

Nita Sweeney: 25:46

I think it took me 20 weeks to do the nine weeks. And that's okay. I mean, I don't at the time, I freaked out about it. I thought, Oh, this means I'm not gonna run. I mean, that's part of what my brain does. I would freak out about everything and then have to go check it. But eventually I did. I was able to run for 30 minutes, which wasn't three miles and then eventually run walk for three miles. And so I knew I could do the distance. It was just the it was the public part that was terrifying. And it was wonderful is

Diane Church: 26:16

that one episode, I'm not sure what you're training for. When you talk about going there of crossing the bridge, I haven't processed for a bad those sort of milestones that you have to sort of work your way through to well just yet to reach the next level. Really,

Nita Sweeney: 26:28

it's funny now, because I actually enjoy running across bridges. Not I even did a couple of years ago, I did the Detroit marathon was the I did the half but it's the Detroit marathon, they have a half where you go from Detroit, Michigan, United States into Windsor, Canada. So you go across this giant bridge across this big river into another country, you have to carry your passport. It's really cool. And at the time, and I looked back, and I think I could barely, I mean, these little bridges that I was terrified of. Now they're fun. They're interesting, I did a race just this past weekend, where there was a new new bridge, as I ran across, I thought 10 years ago, you you would have had to stand at the edge of this bridge or hold your breath and run as fast as you could, because it would just been so terrifying. So yeah, the anxiety. Dealing with the anxiety has been a big deal. Because what I figured out was that the breaking a sweat was the key. Now for me, the being outside being alone, I'm really quite a loner, all of that even it's very funny, because I love my running community, I'm gonna go meet with him tonight. And yet, when we run together, I'm almost always I dropped back or I pull ahead. So I'm actually running alone, even though we're together on the trail, and I'm using air quotes for it. Because, because I just like to, because

Diane Church: 28:00

I'm always intrigued when I go running. It's like you're obviously running and you're just in your own head for long, long periods of time. It's like what is going through your mind,

Nita Sweeney: 28:10

the way that I do it is actually very similar to the way that I meditate or anybody might meditate when they're sitting. I practice mindfulness meditation. It's also called Insight meditation, or Vipassana is probably the, the Buddhist term, if you will, or the it's actually a Sanskrit word, I think or Pali. And it's simply bringing your mind to where your body is. So being in the present moment. And the way that I do that is I choose something to focus on. So it's often a body sensation. So it could be my breath. But it also could be the feeling of maybe the wind, if it's a windy day when I'm running, or the temperature the air. Sometimes, if you run on a foggy morning or a cool morning, there'll be like a crisp kind of feeling on your skin. So that might be my focus is anytime I feel that coolness on my skin, and then also the absence of that coolness because things come and go because there's impermanence, which is a big principle in meditation is noticing impermanence, or it could be a sound. One of my favourites is in the spring when the trees for the most part, have no leaves. But there are some trees that still have dry leaves and they haven't dropped them yet because they don't drop them until the new shoots push them off. So there's this crackly sound that I just love it's deciduous trees here in central Ohio is very green. We have big deciduous trees and pine trees and spruce and maples and oaks and all that type of so I'll just listen to that sound and then notice when it when there isn't any of it and then notice it rising again. So those are all bodies Asians because you can do any of your senses. So the visual field, all the colours of green, maybe, or blue in the sky, whatever sound it you can do taste. But usually that's kind of hard. When you're exercising, you usually don't have a great sense of taste, but you can do when you're eating. So what did I miss one, I've got sight, sound, smell. And then so like, in the spring, when the lilacs bloom here, the smell is, it's like the perfume is amazing. So I might choose that. So choose one of those things, and then choose how long I'm going to do that? Am I going to do it for my entire run? Am I going to do it just during my walker intervals? Am I going to do it just for the second mile? Let's say you choose that, because that creates kind of a container of a start and a stop. Point. And your mind doesn't freak out? Oh, my God, I have to do this. Especially if you're starting out. Yeah, so you choose that. And it could be thoughts. Also, you can meditate on thoughts. But there, they tend to be a little trickier. And so I go into that in the new book. It's called Make every move of meditation, I go into how to use thoughts because you can't use them. But you have to usually develop some concentration by focusing on other things first before otherwise, you can just get lost in thought. And then you're not really meditating, you're just thinking or daydreaming.