Make Every Move a Meditation - by Nita Sweeney (Paperback)

About the Book

"Exercise can be meditation. What do you think of when you hear the word meditation? A quiet room filled with monks? An Instagram influencer? What about moving meditation? Yoga? Tai Chi? For too long, meditation in books has focused on specific periods of meditation, rather than mediation through fitness or daily activities. What if lifting weights, dancing with your love, or walking across a room counted? What if you could use exercise as meditation? What if you could make every move a meditation? Let's combine the two. In Make Every Move a Meditation, award-winning author, meditation leader, and mental health advocate Nita Sweeney shows us fitness can be mindfulness. She teaches us how to bring meditation and mindfulness into any activity by incorporating centuries-old techniques. Studies show that both exercise and meditation reduce anxiety, stabilize blood pressure, improve mood and cognition, and lead to a deeper self-relationship and wisdom. Movement is medicine, and meditation is medicine"--Amazon.com.

Book Synopsis

In Make Every Move a Meditation, award-winning author, meditation leader, and mental health advocate Nita Sweeney shows readers that fitness can be mindfulness.

Review Quotes

"In her new book Make Every Move a Meditation: Mindful Movement for Mental Health, Well-Being, and Insight, Nita Sweeney argues that pickleball or a Zumba class can be turned into a powerful meditative practice whose benefits spill into other areas of life. Focusing the mind on a single thought, object or sensation during exercise can help bring clarity and peace of mind, she says. 'For running, I often use my left foot, ' she says. She encourages people to use 'a teensy bit of willpower' to keep focusing on a single object when they exercise and bring their mind back when it wanders."
-Ellen Gamerman, The Wall Street Journal

"I don't practice mindfulness to get better at sitting still in quiet rooms. I practice to inhabit my life more fully. Make Every Move a Meditation encourages you to develop liberating attentional skills with your eyes open and your body moving. In it, Nita Sweeney shares practical strategies she's field-tested over the years, and how they've equipped her to respond more effectively to a range of obstacles. She'll inspire you to expand your exploration of mindful awareness and to sneak it into more areas of your life."
-Daron Larson, mindfulness speaker, teacher, and coach, TEDxColumbus Talk: "Don't Try to Be Mindful"

"Awakening awareness in the body is the portal to resting in an open-hearted and dynamic presence. Make Every Move a Meditation is an accessible and powerful guide for taking our practice off the cushion and connecting deeply with the creativity, wisdom and aliveness that is our very essence."
-Tara Brach, author of Trusting the Gold

"Let me say it simply. Someone should have written this book a long time ago. Thanks, Nita. Systematically exercising consciousness while you systematically exercise the body in which it dwells...that's a major lifehack. It's a way to work smart that's ideal for busy, modern people committed to a sound mind in a sound body."
-Shinzen Young, meditation teacher, neuroscience research consultant, founder of Unified Mindfulness, author of Meditation in the Zone and The Science of Enlightenment

"Humans evolved to survive predators, and to find food, shelter, and mates. Those activities required noticing and responding to the subtlest unfoldings of nature. Now lost in a speed-and-greed world, we need to be reminded of who we are and why we are here. Nita Sweeney's Make Every Move a Meditation provides us exactly that, a deeply-considered, well-organized, and beautifully-presented guidebook back to self-actualization, flourishing, happiness, and meaning. An important work for every seeker."
-Yun Rou, Daoist monk, Tai Chi master, and author of The Monk of Park Avenue

"You exercise but don't have time to meditate? Or meditate but don't have time to exercise? Or maybe you would like to meditate but can't sit still. This book has the solution: do both at once! Drawing from decades of experience in formal meditation settings, as well as many years as a long-distance runner, Nita Sweeney presents invaluable guidance toward bringing meditation into movement and making movement your practice. Highly recommended for anyone who moves, or sits still: in other words, everyone!"
-Sean Tetsudo Murphy, Sensei, Zen teacher in the White Plum American Zen lineage, and author of One Bird, One Stone: 108 Contemporary Zen Stories

"I love to walk and I'm a 45-year veteran of meditation, but I have never combined the two. Thanks to this book, that's about to change. I've been sharing meditation with others for the better part of two decades and teaching professionally for over ten years. Many times, students have asked me how to do moving meditations, and I've never had a good answer. Now I do. My answer is, 'Buy Nita Sweeney's book, Make Every Move a Meditation.' "
-Kim Colegrove, author of Min