“Breaking Good” with Dana Trent

Show Notes:

We welcome back Dana Trent to The Weight for a conversation about trauma and finding a path towards healing with empathy and faith. 

Dana Trent is a graduate of Duke Divinity School and professor of World Religions and Critical Thinking at Wake Tech Community College. An ordained Baptist minister, Dana served as a hospital chaplain where she accompanied individuals and their families through the passage from life to death. This time, Dana talks to Eddie and Chris about her childhood and the trauma of being raised in a poor household with drug-running parents who both had their own mental health challenges. 

Dana has shared her story through the Breaking Good podcast, which she is currently turning into a book. In today’s conversation, she offers some tips for how she centers herself spiritually every day to help her navigate every day challenges.

Resources:

Learn more about Dana on her website

Follow Dana on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube

Listen to Breaking Good on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Dana’s website

Buy Dessert First

Stay tuned for information about Dana’s next book, Vermillion, based on her Breaking Good podcast.

The Body Keeps Score by Bessel Van der Kolk

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.

Eddie Rester 00:02
And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 00:04
Today we're talking to Dana Trent. Dana is former guest of The Weight, and we are bringing her back to have another conversation.

Eddie Rester 00:14

Her first book was "Dessert First: Preparing for Death While Savoring Life." In a previous episode, we talked about that book with her and just her experience of being a chaplain, and even being a chaplain as her mother died. She is a graduate of Duke Divinity School. She's a professor of world religions and critical thinking at Wake Tech Community College. And she released a podcast last year that I followed and listened to about her own experiences growing up and the trauma that she experienced as a child, and how she understands it now, and how she understands how it impacts others as well.

Chris McAlilly 00:53

Yeah, this is a conversation that kind of bridges a number of topics, kind of at the intersection of mental health, family life, family dysfunction, and faith. We talk about, there's a particular tool that's used in the mental health community called ACEs, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and it's a kind of a scorecard that helps mental health providers see the risk that a particular individual might have for adverse outcomes, both physical, emotional, and spiritual. She gets into that, and that it's really a deep conversation. And really helpful, I think in whether you're trying to understand your own story, or maybe someone that you love or someone that you're in relationship with. She's a delightful conversation partner. Eddie, what was your takeaway from today?

Eddie Rester 01:53

I think just that sometimes, when we get to be adults, we assume that we are the way we are, and that's it. And yet, there's a lot of conversation that we need to have within ourselves and with others, to help us understand the impact that our childhood and the things that happened in our childhood have on us today. And how do we work from that? How do we allow that experience to shape us in a healthy way? And when I see in her life, particularly she talks about the gifts her parents gave to her, even as they also gave her trauma. That's evidence of someone who's done the work. And so I think for me, it's an encouragement to continue doing work.

Chris McAlilly 02:36

Yeah, if you want to grow in your capacity to be a resilient human being, listened to Dana Trent. She's definitely someone who, I think just in hearing the way she talks and some of her habits of mind, I think it's really helpful. You learn how to get to a place of gratitude and empathy, even in difficult circumstances. And we also drill down quite specifically into resources and spiritual practices. So we're grateful that you're listening in today. As always, like the podcast on whatever social media platform you find it. Leave us a review wherever you listen, and share it with your friends, and listen to the backlog. Dana's episode is really good. You can go back and find that, the first conversation. There are many other conversations that we've had with folks at the intersection of faith and mental health that you can discover. There's just a whole world waiting back there, Eddie.

Eddie Rester 03:34
A whole world. Thank y'all for listening. Thank y'all for making all of our seasons possible.

Chris McAlilly 03:39
[INTRO] Life can be heavy. So heavy, in fact that the weight we carry can sometimes cause us to lose hope.

Eddie Rester 03:48

But we've all come across those people in life who seem to be experiencing the same world we live in, except they maintain a great depth of joy and hope.

Chris McAlilly 03:56
A former generation called this gravitas. It was their description of a soul that had gained enough weightiness to be attractive, like all things with a gravitational pull.

Eddie Rester 04:08
Those are the people we want to talk to. On this podcast, we talk to pastors, entrepreneurs, artists, mental health experts, and many others.

Chris McAlilly 04:17
We'll create space for heavy topics, but we'll be listening for a quality of soul that could be

called gravitas.

Eddie Rester 04:24
Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO] We're here today with Dana Trent. Dana, thank you for coming back being a part of The Weight again.

Dana Trent 04:33
Oh, it's such an honor to be back with y'all. Thank you for having me.

Eddie Rester 04:36

Now, the last time we talked a couple of years ago, we talked about your book, "Dessert First: Preparing for Death While Savoring Life." Great conversation. If you're interested in going back and listening to that one, we'll make sure the link is put in the show notes. And that was a personal reflection on your time as a hospital chaplain but also moving through the death of your mom. There's a new project that you've got, that's also a personal project. You released a podcast, I think last year, called Breaking Good, which is going to turn into a book, and I want to get into your story and just a little bit. But before we get there, today we want to talk about something called adverse childhood experiences. So Dana, help us understand what those are.

Dana Trent 05:26

An adverse childhood experience is any trauma that happens to a child under the age of 18. And typically, those are, they fall into three categories: abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. And there are 10 sort of circumstances in which children under the age of 18 may experience physical abuse, emotional neglect, maybe their household dysfunction in terms of mental illness or substance use or divorce in their home. And so each of these 10 sort of boxes are possibilities for children to have experienced under the age of 18. And the number of ACEs that you have directly correlates to your risk factors in adulthood, including possible risk outcomes, like behavior and physical and mental health. But before we get kind of to the risk factors, one thing I want to point out is that over 60% of Americans have at least one adverse childhood experience, because many of us have parents who divorced before we were 18. Yes. So an ACE score of one is not uncommon, you know, 60 to 64% of the folks you meet have an ACE score of one, just by virtue of being children of divorced parents.

Eddie Rester 06:53

As you think about that, and I'm sitting here looking at a chart that shows the three different types of of ACEs. And it really are things that could impact... The number 64%, I think it really could be even higher than what we think. How does that impact children? How does it impact their journey into adulthood? What begins to happen in someone that's experienced one or two or three adverse childhood experiences?

Dana Trent 07:25

Yes, you're absolutely right. It has a huge impact. And let's talk a bit, just to backup in case folks are unfamiliar. A traumatic experience, you know, in any of these three categories, is any experience in which the person's coping mechanisms are absolutely overwhelmed. And in children, that's easy, because children don't necessarily have the coping mechanisms that adults have. And so when this happens to children in particular, a child's brain is still developing. So everything that happens to a child actually becomes part of them, versus adult trauma, which is stil,l you know, overwhelming your coping mechanisms, but you may or may not have a different set of coping skills, and it varies from adult to adult. And so that's why these adverse childhood experiences are so important for us to examine as community, society, and especially as church which I know we're going to talk about, because if you think about it, if you're looking at the chart, you know, abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, divorce is under there, my ACE score is seven out of 10. And so I am exponentially at risk for heart disease, cancer, substance use, harmful behaviors like smoking and addiction, malnutrition. I mean, these are things that affect people we know. And so whether or not it's affecting them because of their ACEs or affecting them because of their adult trauma, we can look at these behaviors, we can look at these mental and physical and emotional health flags. All of us know someone who is anxious and or depressed. And oftentimes, we can trace that back to either an ACE or a traumatic experience in adulthood.

Chris McAlilly 09:20

So you tell your story, and you use the Breaking Good project as kind of a way to do that, to bring ACEs to light. Can you talk a little bit about the project and your story and maybe why you chose to do that?

Dana Trent 09:37

Sure, absolutely. I chose to do it, you know, going back to that 64%. Knowing that 64% of the people that we know or that listen to the podcast or have an ACE, have at least one and more often than not, it's going to be more than one and or it's folks who we all know who say, you often than not, it's going to be more than one and or it's folks who we all know who say, you know, "I'm ashamed of my past," or "I'm angry all the time and I don't know why I'm tired." "I don't want to eat well. I don't want to exercise. I've got high blood pressure." "The past is alive for me." "I can feel it in my body." "I don't feel comfortable in my body." I mean, we have all had friends and parishioners and community members who have who have said these things to us. "I'm anxious, I'm depressed. And so in sharing the Breaking Good story, my hope was that we would meet people exactly where they are. Because the truth is, many people are hurting and many people are struggling with this and they may not even know it. The Breaking Good story is about launching off with the... even the simple fact of divorce, we could even start there. But I think what's interesting about the Breaking Good podcast is that on the surface, right, my upbringing in rural Indiana looks pretty innocuous. My parents were both college educated. They were mental health professionals. My dad was a recreational therapist. My mom was a psychiatric nurse. They met in a psych hospital, where they were serving inpatient folks there. And so it seems like wow, what a story of two mental health professionals, right? So they certainly raised their child in a healthy environment. Well...

Eddie Rester 11:21
They were taking you to church as well.

Dana Trent 11:23

We were going to church. In fact, sort of my birth narrative, as they called it is one of this great miracle that involves Dr. Robert Schuller. So when they met in Ohio, they tried to have a baby. They were unsuccessful. They had been watching Dr. Schuller on the TV from LA. And Dr. Schuller, you know, was encouraging everyone who was watching to believe in miracles and you have the power in your mind to do anything. And so my parents said, Well, okay, let's quit our jobs in Ohio. Let's move to LA. Let's worship at the feet of Dr. Schuller, and let's get our miracle. Let's get our daughter that we so want. And they did that. And that did work. But LA is expensive, and they didn't have the best coping skills for dealing with the stress of a new baby and being in poverty out in California. And so they went broke, and they moved back to my father's hometown in Dana, Indiana. And this, this is where those categories of ACEs begin. So the poverty to start with, right. Because my parents were, we were so poor, you know, we used to eat what my father called ketchup sandwiches, which is when you have a loaf of bread and ketchup in your refrigerator, and you put it together, and that's your meal. And so they got creative. And one of the things that they decided to do to make money is to traffic drugs across Middle America in the carcasses of kiddie rides, which were these fiberglass ponies that used to be out front of the Kmart. And you could put a quarter in and your kid could ride and ride and ride. And not only was it a great way to mule drugs across the country, but it was also a cash point operated business, so you could launder your money as you were doing it. And so therein lies these categories of abuse, neglect, household dysfunction, because my parents were mental health professionals, but my father had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and my mother was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. And so together that combination made for a very tumultuous childhood, and Breaking Good is the story of that childhood.

Eddie Rester 13:44
You know, some people don't fully understand the impact of poverty on a person's future outcomes and the impact that has on top of divorce or abuse or alcoholism. Can you say a little bit more about that part of it as well?

Dana Trent 14:04

Yes. Yeah, exactly. And in our case, you know, rural poverty is its own sort of specific animal when you're thinking about food insecurity and food deserts. Indiana, in particular, is really wrought with a food insecurity problem, even though it produces so much food, but most of that food is actually for animals. And so for instance, Dana, Indiana has the fifth largest grain elevator in the United States, and many of its households and residents are food insecure. And so we don't think necessarily about the impact that has on families, what to speak of families in BIPOC communities, underserved communities, communities who have systemically been oppressed, and so yes, absolutely. When we get into household dysfunction, parental stress, violence, abuse, we're talking about the ripe environment for children to be recipients of violence, neglect, mental health issues, because parents are stressed out and/or they've been struggling with mental health and therefore using substances to cope. I mean, it's just, there's so many factors. And it's such a complicated picture.

Chris McAlilly 15:28

Yeah, one of the ways I've heard this referred to as there are ACEs, adverse childhood experiences, but there are also adverse community environments, and poverty would be one of them. An environment of discrimination would be another. Community disruption, lack of opportunity, that's just social mobility, or economic mobility, poor housing in a violent environment. One of the things I'm thinking about as it pertains to rural poverty is just some of the... You know, I think sometimes we view the choices that people make under the lens of kind of moral decision or moral choice, when what's really going on is there are these environmental factors that are intense, and that are beyond the control of any one individual, but that are pressing in on people. And I feel like rural poverty, in some ways is a direct result of large, globalization and macro economic forces that are profound.

Eddie Rester 16:38 Uncontrollable.

Chris McAlilly 16:39

Yeah. And so yeah. Then, you know, one of the ways to read that... I mean, there are political ways of reading that. There are economic ways of reading that but really, like through the mental health lens, you kind of see that there are any number of bad outcomes that emerge out of that environment, because it creates a kind of culture of despair. I mean, it seems to me.

Dana Trent 17:02

That's exactly right. And if you look at the behavior of mental health, physical, mental health outcomes, it compounds on itself, right? Because people, one of the behaviors, drug use, outcomes, it compounds on itself, right? Because people, one of the behaviors, drug use, missing work, maybe there aren't job opportunities, because it's really hard. There's transportation issues, and it's hard to get to work. And there's severe obesity because fresh food is not available. It does. It compounds on itself, and people run away with it, because it's way too painful to deal with it, both on the macro level and the micro level.

Chris McAlilly 17:38
Yeah, we're talking about wicked, wicked problems, both on the personal on the social kind of side of things.

Dana Trent 17:45 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 17:46

So this podcast, it's three episodes long. So if someone's out there thinking, "I don't have time to invest in another podcast," it's three really tightly packed episodes. What was it like for you to get to the other side of telling the story of your upbringing and your family? How did, when you kind of took the last breath of speaking the podcast, what was it like for you?

Dana Trent 18:13

It was freeing. It was absolutely freeing, because for so long, I had not told this story. I had hidden it from myself and from other people. I was ashamed of it. Oh, my gosh. And when you're ashamed of something, the trauma doubles down on itself, because then you are sad, and you're angry, and you feel weird and strange. And you feel as if people don't understand you, and in your head and you're out of your body. I mean, it's all so messy that when you share your story, there is a freedom and lifting the shame and secrecy, because the secrecy just breeds trauma. It is a fertile ground for the consequences of trauma. And so the moment we began telling the story and hearing from people who said, "Oh my gosh, I recognize myself in this story", or "this aspect resonated with me" or "I'm from rural America but I don't feel like I can go home," or "I am estranged from my family and I don't know what to do." Then you find community and you feel seen and heard. And that's where we talk about the resilience factor and the upswing and what can we do with our trauma and our ACEs, which is a really important step.

Eddie Rester 19:40

Yeah, one of the things about your story and again knowing you from when we talked a couple years ago, is that you found a resilience. You emerged as a faithful and as well adjusted as we think we can all be, adult. What gave you the opportunity to kind of, I don't want o say escape, because nobody really escapes, but maybe to work through some of that childhood trauma that you experienced?

Dana Trent 20:08

Oh, I'm so glad you said "escape" and "nobody really escapes," because that's true. That's true. You know, we think that we can't go home, but really the solution is "home." And I'll put home in air quotes because home means a lot of different things. But we run and we run and we run, but the solution is facing it. You know, I was raised as this tough, drug dealing preschooler look out for my father, the king, who was just an infamous person in this county and beyond. I was raised to be that person. Budgie was his street name for me. And then I was also raised to be my mother's what she called her Revy. Her reverend, her minister, her Carolina chaplain, as she would say. These are two very disparate identities, right? You know, one of them will stab you, and the other one will pray with you, right. And so what is happening? What is happening? These two daughters that my parents really wanted, and it was an internal struggle, you know, for the past 36 years to figure out who am I. And so I think it's a hard question, because the Breaking Good podcast, and you're right, it is bite sized episodes. And I really appreciate you saying that, because folks, even just hearing about trauma can be triggering for folks. And so I hope that it's a safe, in some ways entertaining podcast, right? Because it is about this larger than life, carnival amusement park childhood. But more than that, really, it's about integration. And I think that was the key for me, for my resilience. And I think that's also another note for people who are struggling with that and listening to Breaking Good. This is about discovering who you are, and asking those tough questions and looking back, but looking back while you are in a safe environment, while you have coping skills, some coping skills. You are doing the homework, as I say, and you're in therapy, maybe you're doing some other things like EMDR. You're going to meetings for addiction. You're taking crisis medication for your anxiety and depression. You know, all of these things have to be in place in order for us to reach any semblance of what we would call resilience, right? To develop the resilience. And so all those tools were in place. And I also had the benefit of having two very tough, gritty, resourceful, opportunistic, at times manipulative parents, who taught me to never give up because they never gave up. And I think, you know, what ended up being their greatest tragedy in their mental illnesses ended up being my biggest gift, because they taught me to keep going, even when things are very, very hard. And life honestly was very, very hard for them.

Chris McAlilly 23:14

That's fascinating. It reminds me of that story in the Bible where Esau says, or Jacob says to Esau, or I can't remember who says it to whom, you know, I think I'm even missing the right story here. But, you meant it for harm, but the Lord meant it for good. That sense that it this didn't...

Eddie Rester 23:36 Joseph. Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 23:36
That was Joseph. I was in the wrong story. I was in the right book.

Dana Trent 23:41
I was going to say, you're in the right testament, yeah.

Chris McAlilly 23:44 Definitely the right testament.

Eddie Rester 23:48 The right book, even.

Chris McAlilly 23:48

Which is to say, I think that this requires a little bit of careful nuancing, because I think there are some that would say, you know, everything happens for a reason. That, to me, I think is maybe not what I'm trying to say anyway. It's more that things happen, you know, and out of that, the Lord can do work with what is there. And just the reframe of, you know, these are adverse childhood experiences. And yet, within all of that there are the the tools and resources to navigate your way beyond it are within the experience. I think that's really powerful way. I think it's a beautiful, I guess testament or witness that you offer.

Dana Trent 24:39
You said that so well. Thank you, Chris. Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 24:42
Well, it took me a minute but you know.

Dana Trent 24:44

No, that was great. That was wonderful. And it comes down to agency, I think. Not agency like in the sterile sense of the word, but agency as in we can do something. We can take these experiences, take these very complicated... You know, blessed are the complicated hearts. And I mean that not in the Southern way of "bless your heart," but in the biblical way, right, of blessed are the complicated. And this was a complicated situation with complicated parents, complicated upbringing, but there is agency. And the agency, in many ways, based on my childhood, was in the faith aspect to your point. I was raised in the church. I was raised in the faith. My parents were fervent, miracle believing people. And in that way, that was the doing of it. The faith was the doing. It was something you prayed, and you read scripture, and my dad used to chain smoke joints over his King James Bible and ash on the onion pages, you know. Like, we were complicated, but God was right in there. And the agency to have faith and to live faith, to be faith, to do faith was always a central, core part of my childhood.

Eddie Rester 26:04

I think that's important to remember, that people are complicated, and relationships are complicated. And families are extremely complicated. And trying to figure out how to unravel all that takes a lot of time. You don't just one day, emerge out of your family and say, "Here was the good stuff. Here was the bad stuff." It takes a long time. And it sounds like even with a lot of things that your family handed to you, you've been able through the years to finally say, "my parents taught me to never give up," which is a lesson that emerged through a lot of the trauma that they also handed to you. So...

Chris McAlilly 26:52

What are some of the other resources that kind of helped you navigate your way to... I mean, so I hear gratitude, you know, but what are some of the other resources that you found helpful along the way?

Dana Trent 27:07

Yes. So it all kind of goes back to my, our family mantra was "Tough times never last, but tough people do," which is a Dr. Schuller classic, like one of his quintessential lines from his sermon and his book title. And for me, that was our mantra, that was our family mantra. But then when I grew up, and like, well, that mantra is lovely, but I'm getting into fights in school, and I'm struggling with a food addiction. And I'm, you know, starting to misuse my anxiety medication. Okay, well, that mantra is not helping me anymore. You know, and that's one of the things that I'm looking forward to sharing in the book is because we have so much more space to unpack that, and show that to your point, Eddie, this is not a five minute journey, right? This is a decade's long journey. And so Chris, your question, what helped me was certainly talk therapy, which can sometimes be an obstacle for people based on stigma in their household and or in their community. And so what's cool about living in today's world is that YouTube is a great source for dialectical behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. And even more accessible than that are things like meditation, movement, yoga, dancing, playing soccer, you know, moving our bodies, playing basketball, because trauma is stored in the body. It is tied to a bodily sensation, especially for children, and so so often, we have the disassociation and the disembodiment of our feelings. And so anytime we can get in our bodies, and befriend our bodies, that's huge. And so those were some of the things, in addition to EMDR, which we mentioned, which is a specific form of therapy, journaling, prayer, spiritual practices, small groups. I am a fervent believer in the self-help genre, and so I think I've read every self help book there is and I consume that like it's sugar, like, it's just holy nectar to me, in addition to the Holy Scripture and narratives of my own faith paradigm.

Eddie Rester 29:25
As you're talking about your faith paradigm, you know, one of the things that I was struck as I listened to the podcast, was how interwoven your family story is with faith. And as you say, they were miracle believing Christians, and yet at the same time, there's all this deep dysfunction and mental health trouble. So how did, how were you, because a lot of people in that situation walk away from their faith. They say, "You know what? Faith was a part of the problem. I'm never going back to that. I can't go back to that. There's too much woven together there. How were you able to kind of reset your faith life and find it to be just a strength for you in your journey?

Dana Trent 30:09

Church the one place where I felt seen. I felt seen and heard and in my body when I would sing and go to choir, and go to youth group and hug friends and feel love and be in community, and I felt secure, which is... The adults at church seemed to know what they were doing. Right? They seemed to have their lives together. And so for me, church was always a safety net, in addition to family members outside of my home, aunts, and uncles who were so good to me. But you know, going to church Wednesdays and Sundays, I mean, I lived for that, because I always felt safe at church. And now that doesn't mean that I was telling people that I was raised as a junior drug trafficker under the leadership of King. I wasn't telling that story at church, for fear that I would be ostracized, but I felt accepted as kind of a small, kind of shy, not really sure myself little girl and church was always a place where I felt like I could be. I could be and be safe, and I didn't have to worry.

Chris McAlilly 31:29
Talk a little bit more about kind of your faith practice now, kind of as you continue to move forward. What does it look like now for you to engage a spiritual, religious life?

Dana Trent 31:44

Right now, it looks like a lot of spiritual practice, a lot of prayer, a lot of meditation, a lot of reading for me. Anything that helps me do what I call, see, say and do right. So recognize what's going on in my mind and body. Say it, seek it, give voice to it, and do it. So practice my faith, do something about it if I am feeling particularly sad or down or trapped, or I feel like bullying or fighting or fawning, which are the three classic reactions to trauma. And so for me, right now at this stage of my life, it's a lot of spiritual practice. It is some community as well. But I'm 41, and so the work that I feel like I need to do right now is a lot of internal work, faith work. And I think I will be ready to connect back with community, but for right now, my morning devotional practice, which begins every day at 5:30, and lasts at least an hour. That is the daily homework and faith practice that keeps me tethered to constantly integrating these two very disparate parts of me, a la my father's Indiana daughter and my mother's Carolina chaplain.

Chris McAlilly 33:14

Could you just, I want to drill down just a little bit more if you're willing to do that. Because I think sometimes... Into that 5:30 AM hour. I think, you know, for me, I've found that at a certain point I discovered like drinking 12 ounces of water first was going to be really helpful. I wonder if you could just get down to very specific, to the extent that you're comfortable, kind of giving us a window into what that time looks like for you.

Dana Trent 33:47

Oh, gosh, Chris, I love that question. And I love this. I'm such a nerd about this thing, this practice. And it changes. It changes shape based on what I need. But right now it's up at 5:30 without fail. Coffee, coffee, coffee. I wish I could do the water first thing, but I need the coffee first. And then right now it's on my stand in our spiritual practice room that I share with my husband. There's a Bible on there. Right now, there's a book called "The Art of Gathering." And there's also my iPad. And on the iPad, I play YouTube meditations and contemplative prayer in the morning. And I listen to that as I journal. And that to me is paramount. And then I'll do you know scripture study based on whatever I'm listening to, or I'll follow one breath at a time, which is kind of my own 40 day practice of meditation. And so for that hour, I'm getting my head on straight, is what I call it, because otherwise all of this neurotic behavior that I still don't quite have a leash on it. It just creeps in all day, and if I have not I've started my morning with faith practice and with God in the stillness and in the quiet, I see a huge difference for my ability to cope throughout the day with whatever challenges I encounter.

Chris McAlilly 35:14
Yeah, that's so helpful. What about, I've never asked you this question, Eddie, what do you do?

What does that time look like for you, in terms of your personal devotional life?

Eddie Rester 35:23

Yeah, I mean, I don't... I get up at about 5:00, not by choice, but by age, I think. And that, you know, my kids are out of out of the house now. Audra's not up at that time. And that's my time to sit down with a cup of coffee, read through my scripture for the morning, do any journaling I need to do. It's kind of a time to center myself so that I know whose I am going into the day.

Chris McAlilly 35:55
Do you have a space, as well?

Eddie Rester 35:57
It is, there's a big ol' leather chair in our living space. That's where I sit When Audra wakes up every day, that's where she finds me.

Chris McAlilly 36:07

It's great. That is great. I love, Dana, that you have a room like, a space. I think time and space. I remember when I was in seminary, I was in Atlanta. So I went outside Atlanta to Conyers, Georgia to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. These guys are crazy. They pray like eight times a day. I don't know. They're very methodical about their prayer life. I remember going into the chapel, and the monks came in, and they prayed and we kind of were in awe of this. And then they left to go about whatever they were doing next. And they went through this secret door. And I remember sneaking up into their prayer area. And I thought it was gonna be, I don't know. I felt like it was gonna be more like mystical or holy or spiritual. What I realized was, it was basically what I do in my chair with my coffee. It's just, they had their books out. It was super practical. But they had set aside time and space for prayer.

Dana Trent 36:07 That's great.

Chris McAlilly 36:08

And it was a revelation to me, I was like, oh. You know, if you're gonna do this, you kind of have to arrange your life around this, just like you would anything else. You've got to arrange your life around, you know, eating. You've got to prioritize sitting down at the table, if that's something that's important to you. And you've got to create the time and space for meditation, spiritual practice, and prayer, if that's going to be a part of your life. So I really appreciate you guys indulging the question. I'm fascinated by the specificity of people's spiritual practice.

Dana Trent 37:38

Me, too. Me, too. And y'all as pastors, I mean, I know you are teaching people how to do this. And I think that's the trick, right? Everybody thinks they have to have a specific time, a dedicated room. They've got to do their yoga postures or whatever it is. Complicated, right? But you all as pastors, you're teaching them that this is accessible. Faith practices are accessible practices.

Eddie Rester 38:03
Right. They're not something that you have to set apart seven hours. You have to pray like the monks, eight times a day.

Chris McAlilly 38:10

Yeah, I remember hearing, there's a spiritual director in England in the 20th century. I can't remember the name. Maybe it'll come to me. But there are two basic lines that I've held on to. One is "pray as you can, and not as you can't." And "the less you do it, the worse it goes."

Dana Trent 38:33 Whoa, whoa.

Chris McAlilly 38:35

And those have been so helpful. It's just do whatever. Doesn't really matter what it is. It can be very small and short, just pray as you can and not as you can't. And then the less you do it, the worse that will be.

Eddie Rester 38:47
That's great. That's fantastic.

Dana Trent 38:48

That's a great rule of life for trauma, too, right. Like, do what you can to cope, but know that if you do nothing, it really sneaks up on you. And it can have detrimental effects. That's a good word. Yeah. Thanks for that rule of life.

Eddie Rester 39:04

Yeah. You know, one of the things that I was involved in early in my ministry, at a church I served in Harrisburg, Mississippi, the church had divorce recovery. And it was an amazing gift to men and women who had experienced. It was an adult trauma. It wasn't a childhood trauma, but for them, it was an adult trauma. I'd gone through my parents divorce. They started when I was a freshman in college. And what I found was being a part of that was important for me, just as important as it was for them. It was one of the things that the church could do. And it was a thing that the church had actually, before I got there, long before I got there, had fought about. Would they welcome divorced adults? And anyway, it's hard to imagine that in the late 80s, early 90s. But as you think about what the church can do to help people who've had these childhood experiences, this trauma, or are in the midst of experiencing it. You talked about what the church did for you as a safe place where you were seen. What can the church be in our communities?

Dana Trent 40:11

Oh gosh. Well, church is first and foremost relational, right? It's community. And so it is that feeling seen and heard. And I can't wait to hear like if y'all are actually... I know you're doing a lot of these things, but thinking about how trauma is taking shape and your communities and ministries, so bringing awareness to it. How can churches bring in an expert on trauma, a local expert, or host an expert as they discuss, you know, Bessel Van der Kolk's book, "The Body Keeps Score"? That's an excellent book, by the way, I recommend. Have y'all read that book?

Eddie Rester 40:47 I have not.

Chris McAlilly 40:49

I'm familiar with it. I mean, I almost asked your question about it, because a lot of the things you were talking about reminded me of it. It's in the same ballpark, it seems but no, I have not read the book. Although I'm familiar with the work.

Dana Trent 41:03

That's a great launching point for any church. Highly recommend that book. Bring in an expert to talk about it or to lead a discussion on it. Or if you don't feel comfortable doing it at the church level, bring it in for your clergy, you know, and read it as a clergy group. Anything you can do to address, safely, the emotional and physical and mental impact of ACEs. So you know, one thing that always comes to mind when I'm thinking, looking at the impact of ACEs is partnering with your local health department to bring them in for anxiety and depression screening, diabetes screening, heart disease screening, smoking cessation, thinking about, Eddie to your point, support groups for divorce, divorced folks. Al Anon, Narcotics Anonymous, AA, you know, the church hosting those groups as well. Anything you can do to empower your parishioners and your community to see, to be aware of their trauma, and to process it and to do something about it, even through the embodied practices that y'all were talking about. You know, sharing with your congregations what you all are doing in your morning practice, making it accessible, doing meditation, prayer group, playing basketball, strength classes, yoga classes, you know. Anything that helps us be more aware of our ACEs and our trauma in ourselves and maybe in our families helps us tell our story and also recognize our triggers, and therefore help us modify behaviors and patterns, heal relationships. All of that is holding space, holding space for ourselves and others so that we can remember that this is a journey, and not everyone is at the same place at the same time.

Eddie Rester 42:58
Even though we wish they were sometimes.

Dana Trent 43:00

Yes. Yes. So that empathy. And you know, that is the church's gift. That is the church's gift is that our narratives teach us to be loving and empathetic, and to be community-minded relationship people. That's our calling. And so this in many ways, ACEs and trauma, is right up the church's alley in terms of how do we hold space for healing.

Eddie Rester 43:32

One more thing, and you just mentioned the word and it was on my list of things to talk about is that the gift of empathy. That was a thread that I heard all through the podcast. I've heard it today as you talked about your parents. There's not bitterness. There's not anger. There's a lot of empathy that you feel for your parents, their situation. Where did you see that modeled through your life? Because that's, for me, empathy often comes not just through natural, you get it, but you've seen other people model it, show you the the worth of it. Where did that come from for you?

Dana Trent 44:12

It came from my parents. They modeled it because they had struggled their entire lives with mental health and substance use and they became mental health professionals. They had fervent, deep epic empathy for their patients. And when we used to sit around in our Indiana trailer and my parents would tell stories about their most psychotic, just extra patients, they always told the stories with such a heartfelt connection for those who are hurting, even when the world had rejected them and put them in locked psychiatric wards, thinking about their patients. My parents were there to serve them, and help them cope, and help them heal as best as they were able. And so I got that from my parents and their deep empathy for their own patients.

Chris McAlilly 45:14

Storytelling is, you know, it's a real gift. And when you hear... I think there's the bullet point, kind of the self help book, do these seven steps, or whatever. But I do think that telling stories, hearing stories, these are ways that we kind of developed the skill, the habits, the character to navigate the world. And so we're grateful to you, Dana, for giving us a window into your story, both through the podcast and through conversation here today. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us.

Dana Trent 45:51
Oh, thanks so much y'all, for having me and for making space for this important conversation. I

appreciate it.

Eddie Rester 45:57
Do you know when the book is going to come out, Dana?

Dana Trent 45:59

Yes, it comes out a year from Monday. So for us, that's February 6, 2024. So we still have a full year leading up to this book. But the book is tentatively titled, "Vermilion," and it's a memoir of regret, repair, and redemption in flyover country, coming out from Convergent at Penguin Random House, February 6, 2024.

Eddie Rester 46:26
Well, Dana, thank you very much for your story. Thank you for your time today.

Dana Trent 46:30 Thanks, y'all, so much.

Eddie Rester 46:31
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.

Chris McAlilly 46:40

If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]