Parables of a Resilient Nomad: A Conversation with Dawn Trautman

Tara Lamont Eastman interviews life coach, podcaster, theologian, and author Dawn Trautman about her new book, Parables of a Resilient Nomad. The episode explores themes of spiritual and physical nomadism, community, creativity, and the importance of courageous conversations. Dawn shares personal stories of her nomadic experiences, outlines critical components of community, and discusses practical ways to build resilience and navigate transitions. The conversation also touches on the current epidemic of loneliness and suggests churches' potential role in combating it. Dawn promotes her group coaching program for leaders undergoing transitions and underscores the importance of developing supportive relationships outside of one's primary community.

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Transcript

S5 E23 Parables of a Resilient Nomad: A Conversation with Dawn Trautman

Tara Lamont Eastman: [00:00:00] Welcome to Holy shenanigans. I'm your muse, Tara Lamont Eastman, a pastor, podcaster, and practitioner of Holy shenanigans.

Since September of 2020, I've been sharing stories of sacred everyday experiences. I'm And we are so happy that you are here bringing your spiritual and theological questions of your own. This week at Holy Shenanigans podcast, we find ourselves sharing a journey with life coach, podcaster, theologian, and author.

Dawn Trautman. Tuesday is a very exciting day for her as she is releasing her book Parables of a Resilient Nomad, 10 Years, 500 Kitchen Tables, [00:01:00] No Math. Welcome Dawn. I'm so glad that you are here with me today at Holy Shenanigans.

Dawn Trautman: Thank you, Tara. It's so nice to be back. Thank you.

Tara Lamont Eastman: You're welcome. So I was thinking that if people are on a spiritual journey, having a guidebook is helpful. And even if folks are coming from a different faith or spiritual background, as I was reading your book, I was like, Oh my goodness, there are so many people that would benefit from hearing these stories and wrestling with these questions around, you know, big life pondering.

So could you tell me a little bit more around your own nomadic experience,

Dawn Trautman: I thought that I was on a path right up until age 22 that the big pieces of my life were in place that I would, you know, stay within, for me, it was a Lutheran [00:02:00] little bubble and go to college. Get a job, get married, have kids, and just those big brushstrokes that all the pieces, if I just was following the rules, they would come into place somehow magically, the way if you finish fourth grade, you go to fifth grade.

It felt like it would just continue. And right at that juncture, as I was coming out of college, I was on a Lutheran traveling music ministry team when my father did something. so cataclysmic that I lost contact with all of the people who had been part of my life up until that point. And so suddenly, the only stability was this traveling music ministry team, and I found that I could be okay, and I found ways to build up structures for myself.

And honestly, I found that some values and [00:03:00] concepts mattered more than the structures of exactly where will I live, exactly what am I doing. And so later when I was in another transition, I put myself into a nomadic situation for nine more years. I was fully nomadic. And so the book has a lot of insights and discussion questions about being in transition and finding your next step.

Okay.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Wow. There's a lot in your story that resonates with me, different circumstances, but. Feeling somewhat of a spiritual nomad myself, you know, growing up in one tradition, leaving that tradition serving now in an ecumenical ministry setting.

I'm always having to be, ecumenically multilingual.

Dawn Trautman: Oh, I love it.

Tara Lamont Eastman: And not just speaking it, but being able to see through those different lenses. One of the tools in my toolbox is my prayer book, a Celtic daily prayer [00:04:00] book. And in this prayer book are a multitude of prayers and a lot of them are about journey. 

And I just wanted to read a part of this as we dig deeper into this journey together today. The key in prayer says this, circle me, God, keep protection near, keep danger afar. Circle me, God, keep light near and darkness afar. Circle me, God, peace within, keep evil out. Circle me, God, keep hope within, keep despair without.

 There's a few different verses to the prayer, but there's something about this in circling. That I find very comforting comforting on a spiritual level, but [00:05:00] also on an energetic level. And I'll say a little bit more about that. You know how sometimes in life you need to kind of have your bubble around you, you 

Dawn Trautman: Yes. 

Tara Lamont Eastman: For your health, right.

And for the health of other people. And so when I think about this PM prayer, I think about you know, being self differentiated In the world. And how self differentiation gives people space. It's a way thrive and have their own call, and they have their own way of going through life in a healthy way so that other people can do the same.

So it's a spiritual thing and it's like the psychology thing for me too. Yeah.

Dawn Trautman: that. You know, I was kind of following such a traditional path and I truly did want it in traditional ways. I had bought in fully and when that seemed to be not available to me and I started to make my own pathway, lots of people now see my life and they say, I didn't know you could sign up for that.

And I've. [00:06:00] I'm always saying, I didn't sign up. It is a thousand tiny decisions, but they were possible through three concepts that I talk in the book about, which anyone can access, which are community, creativity, and courageous conversations. And so you're circling, in my mind, each of us need our bubble.

And also a circle requires three or four people as well. And that's community.

Tara Lamont Eastman: When people hear the word , boundaries or expectations, they think of it as sometimes this exclusionary thing, but it is not actually it's, so that you can stay in healthier connection.

Dawn Trautman: I have a toddler and so I listen a lot to a parenting expert named Dr. Becky Kennedy, and she, in toddler terms, the way she explains it seems to apply to all humans, not just toddlers, that if the child is running out into the street, control is, , you're going to be [00:07:00] punished if you keep running.

But boundaries are saying, this is what I'm going to do. Regardless of what you do, you don't need to do an additional thing. My boundary is you cannot run into the street, so I will be holding your hand and we can try again tomorrow. But the child doesn't suddenly need to develop full self control in that moment.

It's dangerous. So boundaries are just saying, I will be doing this. You can continue on your life. And it's not controlling, it's not saying, you also need to do this certain thing for us to be okay. You just need to know, I will be removing myself if you keep doing this thing or whatever it is. Yeah.

Tara Lamont Eastman: As I was reading your book, you were in this very public musical performance 

group traveling all over the place. So there was very little space for that wall space, that buffer life, you know, It happens right [00:08:00] and we need that space to kind of let go of things or to have an emotional experience.

And I just wondered how did you navigate that? Being in the super public job , but not having a whole lot of, solitary time. 

Dawn Trautman: There were a couple things. So I was on this music ministry team. We went to six towns a week. So it's arriving at a church, setting up for a concert, doing some activities with the youth group and living in a host home. So there's not even a hotel. There is no private space. And a couple ways I carved that out was, first of all, I had to tell those other seven people that I was traveling with so that I did have some external processing with them.

And then the sponsoring organization created a bubble around us by removing all of our last names. And since there was not Google, no one knew it was me. Nobody was seeing me and able to recognize me. So they just saw eight people there and didn't know that [00:09:00] this pretty public scandal involves somebody who was standing right in front of them.

And then in terms of my own internal processing, I did. Take out journaling and I also a couple times as this was unfolding in the very first week, the team would start their activities with the youth group and I would hide off in one of the dark Sunday school rooms and you know, that place of depression where you don't.

Even want the lights on. So I was kind of in the dark, you know, back Sunday school room of a church I had never been in before. And that first night after I found out about this, I was laying on the table, you know, those kind of low tables they have in the preschool rooms and smelling the crayons and the glue and that.

sensory experience of hearing the happy youth group just outside in the fellowship hall playing the games, and I just couldn't tap into it. So, these little [00:10:00] times that I was able to set apart, even though I had no space of my own, I created it within other people's space.

Tara Lamont Eastman: It's, again, going back to that Caim, you were circling yourself in those, you know, laying on that table with the smell of crayons and, Play Doh and also your colleagues, your community

Dawn Trautman: Yes.

It would be impossible without them , and I don't know that any of them could fully process it with me. You know, they're also just 22, 23 year olds, but they're humans and they were able to step up and at least create the space and deflect and it was not our idea, but they, , were able to play along of let's all drop our last name so that I do not stick out for dropping mine. 

Tara Lamont Eastman: Such a wonderful example of community care. And navigating without a lot of structure 

Dawn Trautman: Right, right. and so, so public that I didn't [00:11:00] even know who to talk to, you know, like to have something where you're encountering people and they all know this about you. And you're not sure how they feel about it. So to be cut off, not just from a few people, but from a whole town and, you know, it was on the news.

It was in the newspapers. So people in that region very much knew about it. And we're talking about it.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Thank you so much for sharing it. Cause I know it's a, tough thing to go back and to share those kinds of losses. And to offer some suggestions, some, guides, you know, I think that's such an important process , you're taking this experience that was very personal.

And in your book, you said something about allowing.

Dawn Trautman: Preach from your scars, not your wounds.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Could you say more or what that means to you?

Dawn Trautman: know, I first heard Nadia Bola Weber say it. I have Googled it and others, I don't know the origination and it may be her, [00:12:00] but I just, I want you to know that is a quote and not my thoughts. But preach from your scars, not your wounds means be somewhat healed, have that stronger skin over the emotional trauma.

or physical trauma before you're using it as a teaching tool and allowing it to be out in the public square. Because if it's an open wound, some people will tear me apart when this comes out, you know, and some people just the way social media is, the way the media environment is, some people will not be kind, but I have the stronger skin over this particular thing that I chose to share.

And also, Preach from your scars, not your wounds to me means you can't work out your therapy in public. You know, you've heard the people literally preaching on Sunday and it's like, take that to your therapist. That's not really a sermon illustration,

Tara Lamont Eastman: Right.

Dawn Trautman: [00:13:00] So once the thing is healed, it can be helpful to others, but you have to be in a strong enough place.

Tara Lamont Eastman: And you're thinking, and this is the, circles of connection are really important in that healing process. Hmm.

Dawn Trautman: Absolutely. I'm often saying humans are pack animals. We just are not meant to do these things by ourselves, not meant to do a daily life by ourselves. And when something really big happens, you want to already have the community in place. You can't build it then, you don't have the emotional resources and the time.

It has to already be there. I do have a pretty specific definition of community that I've taken from a number of social scientists, that the prevailing idea around community is it's a defined group of people, so everybody knows who else is in it, that meets at a specific time and place so they're findable, they have a shared goal, so they're all moving towards something, and everybody knows that both [00:14:00] the joys and the sorrows The whole community is going to celebrate with each individual.

 The classic example is the church ladies bringing the casserole for the funeral. There's no question, of course, this is our responsibility. We're doing this. But that can be a baseball team or a very strongly knit neighborhood that's trying to get sidewalks put in or, you know, anything where you have a shared goal and a group of people meeting at a time and place to share joys and sorrows.

 You mentioned in the book that there is a, essentially like a pandemic of loneliness?

Dawn Trautman: Yeah, so that is the U. S. Surgeon General's report. So it's a pretty big deal. They have a lot of fact checkers and researchers.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Yes.

Dawn Trautman: Vivek Murphy is the U. S. Surgeon General and he declared an official pandemic of loneliness, epidemic of loneliness, an ongoing health problem because being lonely is as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

The

Tara Lamont Eastman: Wow.[00:15:00] 

Dawn Trautman: outcomes are equal. So We do need other humans around us in a real way. And so now that it is an official thing, then money can go toward it. We can figure it out as a group. But I think churches could single handedly solve it.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Yeah. already have communities. It's a marketing issue. It's an openness issue.

Dawn Trautman: It's a hard conversations issue that people really do feel welcome if they chance to walk in and having ways for them to walk in that's not Sunday morning worship. People need to interact with the community for maybe six months, maybe a year without feeling like, am I supposed to be religious or can I just help with the service project?

Tara Lamont Eastman: Right. There need to be some easy on ramps.

Dawn Trautman: Yes, exactly. If enough places were able to show how open and welcoming they are, it could make a [00:16:00] big dent in this loneliness epidemic.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Such an important topic. Because our lives seem to get faster and faster.

Dawn Trautman: Yes.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Not that they want to go back to the COVID 19 pandemic and all of the scariness, but there are folks that are longing to find a way to make that space in their lives again.

Dawn Trautman: And then it's back to being creative about how you structure your life. And having the courageous conversations that the people around you are not just going to do that. You're going to have to talk about it. What are we giving up? What are we doing? And I think with COVID 19 have that pace, but also somehow have community, not be isolated as people are craving.

Tara Lamont Eastman: so in church world for folks that have a vocation in the church, whether they're youth directors, youth [00:17:00] pastors, ministers of music, pastors deacons, all of the things. Do you have any suggestions for them? And how to retain a sense of connection

Dawn Trautman: yes. It is so important that you have not just a couple of friends, but a community outside the congregation. It's the only way because you are the spiritual leader of a whole group of people who will experience grief when you announce that you are taking a new call or retiring. And so you have to carry all of that and No one's going to take care of you.

It's inappropriate for them to take care of you. And so you need a separate organization, a separate community. I actually, that's what I do in my coaching is group coaching of people in transition. So if I could have a small commercial,

Tara Lamont Eastman: Yes, that is perfectly timed, Dawn.

Dawn Trautman: So it's called discern by doing and we create six month [00:18:00] communities and they're all leaders of churches and nonprofits, they're all people who are really reconsidering. their relationship to their institution. They love the institution and they also are very emotionally connected to it, but it might be time to either redefine how you are in it or leave. And that requires another community, which we create online together. And another group is coming up in October.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Oh, wonderful. So if people want to apply for that, now is the time.

Dawn Trautman: Discern by doing. com. Right after you read the book. There's a link in the book, too, actually. One of those QR codes you can just scan.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Very well thought out. Good directions, Don.

Dawn Trautman: Thank you. Thank you. I'm trying to have an easy map. If people do resonate and need this particular kind of resource, I want to make it easy for them to access.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Wonderful. So I'm glad that you mentioned online community, as well as in [00:19:00] person community, because in my own life years ago when I was in seminary, reverend Becky Hart would say, it who's on your bus.

Dawn Trautman: Mm hmm.

Tara Lamont Eastman: They can be people that are living. They can be people that are past. They can be folks that you read they can be your therapist, they can be all sorts of things, but you are the person driving the bus and opening and closing that door.

And she made a really good point in that you need to let those folks know that, you want them to be on your bus and what their role is. 

Dawn Trautman: I love this. we use different words, but in discern by doing, we talk about the five different kinds of people who need to be in that group or on the bus to use your analogy. And so we have them find the people and tell them that's part of the six months, you know, who is your cheerleader? Who is your naysayer?

Who is your test market? All these [00:20:00] things. They have to all be there and know their role because if the cheerleader becomes the naysayer, then who's the cheerleader. People need, oh, are you solving it or are you supporting it? 

Tara Lamont Eastman: That's very cool that there's very specific roles. yeah, 

Dawn Trautman: Yes. And some people don't have some of the roles and they go out and find them during our six months together.

Tara Lamont Eastman: that's wonderful. I'm so glad to hear that. It's a different metaphor. 

But this kind of work is continuing because I have to tell you, the people that are on my bus, I continue to go back and navigate who's on my bus and nurture that and invite people and if things change, sometimes I'm like, okay, well, maybe you don't want to be on the bus anymore.

That's okay. Thank you for your

time. 

Dawn Trautman: them. 

Tara Lamont Eastman: Yes.

It's been a practice in my own life. And so this is, you know, over 15 years ago, and I go back to that bus every day 

Dawn Trautman: I love that you're [00:21:00] driving it. Some people are not driving their bus where they want someone to drive their bus and thus no one is and it just sits.

Whole analogy is great.

Tara Lamont Eastman: and in the metaphor in the class, I think you'll find this is funny. Because what is the answer that people always say is the correct answer in church world? God is driving the bus.

Dawn Trautman: Jesus, take the wheel! It's a bumper sticker!

Tara Lamont Eastman: But no, no, we all have to drive the bus.

Dawn Trautman: We have free will. So let's get out there and drive the bus.

 I chose to be a single mother by choice and as that was all playing out. I started a weekly dinner party and cultivated some people, you know, some random friends. I wanted them to be a community around this child and made it happen.

So I have a dinner party every Tuesday. And so she has other consistent adults in her life in her home because that was one of the things I wanted for her.

Tara Lamont Eastman: It's beautiful. You are teaching her [00:22:00] to also be courageous.

Dawn Trautman: I hope so

Tara Lamont Eastman: At the end of each chapter, you offer some practical questions to help that person navigate what connection means for them or how to engage with more creative things. So why was it important for you as the author to have those questions 

Dawn Trautman: I am Northern European, Upper Midwestern enough to think no one needs to just read my story. There needs to be an educational helpful aspect to it. Also, I'm not conventionally famous, no one's like waiting for my memoir. , it needs to have some sort of purpose in the reader's life.

And so, I made my life into two, three page vignettes with a teachable moment. I patterned it a little bit like chicken soup for the soul. Except that it does fall together into a narrative. [00:23:00] It's not just random stories of my life. So it was important to me. It also does follow some of the pattern of discern by doing.

So draws on some of the questions that I've been using in these groups. I've been a coach almost 20 years and keep refining the questions. And so then people get little access. Just something if they cannot invest in discern by doing, you know, at least they have a tool to use for a bit of self improvement until they can tap into that community

Tara Lamont Eastman: Wonderful. I love a good question. So thank you for all those wonderful questions at the end of each chapter.

Dawn Trautman: and they're fun. They were fun to make.

Tara Lamont Eastman: If you were to offer some advice to folks that are navigating change. What do you want to say to them today if you were sitting across the table from them?

Dawn Trautman: I would encourage them to figure [00:24:00] out what courageous conversations are between them. And what they feel called to, and that could be at any level, like the risk of even mentioning to one person the thing they're thinking about and or something that's really emotionally fraught. And there's been sort of a sticking point with a person standing in your way of what you want.

I mean, there could be a whole range of courageous conversations, but the life people, one is often on the other side of a few courageous conversations.

Tara Lamont Eastman: How would you invite people into that courageous space? Because I think that's probably the biggest obstacle.

Dawn Trautman: Yes, practice, you know, if you need to have the conversation with your cell phone, if you need to have the conversation with your journal picturing how it could go , I actually ask a lot of people to have tinier, courageous conversations, [00:25:00] like send your food back at a restaurant, you know, something where it's not someone you're going to see again, but you can do it kindly, You can find ways to say you're, I mean, if the food's fine, obviously you're not sending it back, but some of these things where you do speak what you need and allow it to just land in the room and build that muscle among people who are not going to continue to be in your life.

So if it goes badly or is embarrassing or you stumble, you'll never see them again and just remind yourself, when we picture saying something to someone, we think it will go so badly, and often it's just like a little bad. Not World War III.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Right, right. We can awfulize in advance.

Dawn Trautman: Yes, catastrophization. Not a word, but yes.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Is there anything we haven't discussed so far today that you're dying [00:26:00] to tell us about this book?

Dawn Trautman: That it is a story pretty rooted in the church world, but it has applications far beyond that. There are so many subcultures in which people grow up and then have to transition out of. We all hit transitions at some point in our lives, and the book applies to you, whatever transition you're in.

Tara Lamont Eastman: Going around on the socials a lot of deconstruction

 That's a term that people are embracing in times of change. So having a tour guide in your stories and your questions, I think is beautifully timed.

Dawn Trautman: And beautifully timed with this podcast because today is release day. The book is on Amazon , if you are so interested and want to get it. Parables of a Resilient Nomad dot com. 

Tara Lamont Eastman: Wonderful.

Dawn Trautman: Or Instagram. Oh, Instagram. I love talking to people on Instagram. That's where I am every day. It's just at Dawn Trainman, T R A [00:27:00] U T M A N.

Tara Lamont Eastman: . It's another point of connection, 

Dawn Trautman: It is. And that's where I'm most active. It's a happier place, Instagram, than the other networks. 

Tara Lamont Eastman: , I'm there for that too.

Dawn Trautman: Yeah, I see you there a lot.

Tara Lamont Eastman: You know, that's also part of cultivating healthy space, right? How you just said that, like you prefer that space because it's a friendlier space. Knowing what we need, what we don't need knowing what circle we need in our lives that need to be, , fluffed up or filled up a little bit more.

All of this is this ongoing discernment and I love the fact that you are just encouraging people to practice being courageous, being creative, making connections. And I think it's the work of a lifetime.

Dawn Trautman: It is. I'm still working on it. I just happened to notice a pattern and thought I'd share it, but I am not done.

Tara Lamont Eastman: It's just this leg of the journey.

Tara: [00:28:00] I am your holy shenanigans muse, Tara Lamont Eastman. Thank you for joining us this week for holy shenanigans that surprise, encourage, redirect, and turn life upside down, all in the name of love. This is an unpredictable spiritual adventure that is always sacred and never stuffy.

Thanks to Ian Eastman for sound production and editing. You can help the Holy Shenanigans continue by supporting us at www. buymeacoffee. com backslash Tara L. Eastman. 

Tara Lamont Eastman: Until next time, may you be well, may you be at peace and may you know that you are [00:29:00] always beloved wherever the journey takes you.