
Settler, it is okay to feel unsettled
An increase in awareness asks for an increase in capacity
What wakes me is not my alarm, but the heat of a cigarette searing into my thigh. Panic yanks me from my sleep. I wake to darkness, and a hyena that sits panting on my pounding chest. Hello, 3:00 a.m. anxiety.
This feeling of angst is not new. It comes whenever I realize there’s a reality I’ve been blind to, an uncomfortable truth dawns on me, and my consciousness grapples to integrate a new worldview.
I first heard the word “settler” in a chant. It rose from crowds gathered to resist South African apartheid: “One settler, one bullet!” The idea that white people deserve to die — white settlers on the continent of Africa — stirred up fear in bodies like mine.
Then came the golden transition to post-apartheid, with Nelson Mandela extending forgiveness and reconciliation. I naively believed that the wounds and anger caused by settler colonialism was healed.
But I was so wrong. And I didn’t KNOW I was wrong because I stood in few honest relationships with people of color. Now much later I am seeking candid conversations about race, justice, and equity, and I see that we have a long, long way to go before things will be genuinely better.
My anxiety started two months ago. In quick succession, I attended three workshops on race and oppression. They provided a historical and systems perspective, a high-level view of colonialism’s impact on society. Then those lessons were made vivid and personal by a series of intimate individual experiences. Back home, a friend of mine was strangled. A family friend was shot dead in his home. My cousin was displaced from her home by protests. Near Pittsburgh, Antwon Rose was shot by police.
I felt my knowledge deepening: the systemic nature of oppression, the pain and trauma that pulses through people, the daily hardships that most people face, and my own pain, sadness and fear. All this shook me. I lost my footing. My mind began to slip into moments of fearfulness, hopelessness and dread.
Let me count the ways….
This pain seems unhealable. Standing in the presence of people at protests and meetings and listening as they utter sorrowful mourns of loss, helps me touch the deep wound in our world. It can seem like we have inherited wounds we did not cause and pain too great to heal.
This fear seems so real. I have lost loved ones to violence. I live in countries where violence is used to oppress and silence. l live in a world built on violent histories of genocide and displacement. My mind is excellent at weaving webs of disturbing images that trap my soul in fear, constructing a future where corrupt power perpetuates displacement, bloodshed, and in my worst imagination of the future, genocide and war.
This animosity seems unbridgeable. “We should put white people on trial for what your forefathers have done and what you own at this moment,” says a person of color. “I hate white people,” says another. These statements are hard for me to hear and yet I wonder how I would feel if I was living in a shanty town after my great grandfather was evicted from his land and only allowed to work as a miner. Given our history, can we build something together? Is there even a place for me, a white settler? Can I belong and contribute?
My life seems too small, this work seems impossible. The issues we face feel overpowering. I can construct a mental maze. It has pillars of systemic injustice: people who want to work but can’t, people working in exploitative environments, people unable to make ends meet. My maze has stones of inaction: those with privilege and means checked out, not engaged in shifting this. There are boulders of self-serving leadership exploiting suffering to gain power. I can get lost in trying to find the way my life can affect this. My fingers become raw from tracing my path in narrow tunnels of cold stone. “Am I doing enough? Am I focusing on the right things? Why am I in the U.S. and not in South Africa?”
I speak with Chris Corrigan. He’s recent work flows from Canada’s national conversation about reconciliation and he works at the intersection between indigenous and non-indigenous communities.
“Settler,” he says, “It is good to feel unsettled.”
“Darn it, Chris,” I reply, “It is so hard to feel this way.”
He says, “That is your privilege speaking.”
And I can only agree. The things we as privileged people fear — displacement, becoming an immigrant, being oppressed, living in poverty, etc. — are the daily reality for millions of people around the globe.
What do I do with this discomfort? If I deny or suppress it, I am not making progress. I only postpone dealing with it, and pass it on to my future self or future generations. But what if I can become able to hold what feels so hard? I get to choose and I choose to change. Changing my capacity to sit with and hold space for what is uncomfortable, unsettling and hard — this feels important to me. If we cannot stand this discomfort, we cannot have the hard conversations. If we cannot have the hard conversations, we cannot do the hard and beautiful work of healing, repairing, restoring and rebuilding our world into a home where everyone belongs.
We change as we develop new capacities. And we develop new capacities through practicing a new skill. Remember when you learned to ride a bike? Every morning when I wake up with that bad-breathed hyena panting on my chest or every time I hear news that unsettles, I have the opportunity to increase my capacity to hold this discomfort.
I practice…
…calming the part inside myself that feels so afraid. Questioning its fearful stories.
…sitting with questions for which I have no answer and acquiescing into them, surrendering to not-knowing.
…letting out my sorrow. Crying about what feels so deeply broken, and putting my arms around myself in a caring embrace.
…reminding myself that while I might feel alone, I am supported and connected to thousands of caring people working towards a better world.
…extending myself towards the Life and Beauty of the world, taking refuge in the river of life that flows through it all.
Sometimes I hit that golden place inside me where I know everything is alright and I can go back to sleep or calmly back to work. And every day, regardless of how I feel, I step into my life with the intention to participate in creating this better world. And every day I find ways in which my life can be useful to that aim.
Our world is shifting, and the world-views, structures, beliefs and identities that used to promise immunity are falling away. This is hard, and it is also beautiful. Within this tender shakiness of life lies the invitation to embrace and befriend what we often dislike about our own humanity: our fears, our belief that we are powerless, the sorrows we have buried in our bones, the sense of isolation and hopelessness.
Claiming these as part of ourselves makes us better equipped to claim our painful past, and to work with greater acceptance and skill towards the future where all mankind is cared for.

