237: Enduring more than we think we can with author Nita Sweeney

Michigan Runner Girl

"I realized I thought I was writing a book about a middle-aged woman who ran a marathon, and what I was actually writing about was a woman trying to save her life."

Nita Sweeney, the award-winning wellness author of the running and mental health memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink, joins Heather to talk about her journey of becoming a runner — and her journey of finding herself. Before she discovered running, Nita was a 49-year-old chronically depressed, occasionally manic, and unable to run for more than 60 seconds at a time. Using exercise, she unearthed an inner strength she didn't know she possessed, and with the help of her canine companion, she found herself on the way to completing her first marathon.

A former lawyer-turned-author, Nita has a new book — Make Every Move a Meditation — that comes out this summer and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal. A certified meditation leader, mental health advocate, ultramarathoner, and former assistant to writing practice originator Natalie Goldberg, Nita founded the groups Mind, Mood, and Movement to support well-being through meditation, exercise, and writing practice, and The Writer’s Mind, to share using writing practice to produce publishable work. Nita also publishes the writing resource newsletter, Write Now Columbus. She lives in central Ohio with her husband, Ed, and their yellow Labrador retriever, Scarlet.

You can downtown your free copy of Nita’s eBook Three Ways to Heal Your Mind.