Caring For Your Heart

Last week, after George shared his reflection, a thoughtful question came forward from someone in our community.

They wondered if Rebecca might have helpful thoughts about how she supports George when moments of misunderstanding or harm arise. They also asked something equally tender: how Rebecca cares for her own heart when those things happen.

They shared that they see both Rebecca and I as bridges for learning, and were hoping there might be something in Rebecca’s experience that could help others who want to walk this path in a good way.

It’s a beautiful question.

Because when someone you love speaks truths that the world is not always ready to hear, the impact is rarely carried by just one person.

Many of you know George through his teachings. You have witnessed the strength and clarity he brings when he speaks about Coast Salish history, culture, and the ongoing impacts of colonialism.

What you may not see as easily is the quieter circle that surrounds that work.

George is Coast Salish. Rebecca is his wife and partner in life. She is non-Indigenous, with European ancestry. Together they walk a path that holds deep love while also navigating the realities of two very different histories that meet within the same relationship.

When George shares teachings about the harm Indigenous peoples have endured and continue to endure, those truths do not simply disappear when the conversation ends. They ripple outward. They move through families, through communities, and through the people who love the ones doing the teaching.

There is a particular ache that can come from watching someone you care deeply about encounter harm from systems that were never designed to protect them.

Not the kind of harm that lives safely in history books.

The kind that unfolds in real time.

In comment sections. In meeting rooms. In the quiet ways people dismiss or diminish truths that have been carried across generations.

When you love someone in this work, a protective instinct can rise up.

A quiet part of you wishes you could step between them and the harm. That you could soften the impact or shield them from the moments when people respond with dismissal, defensiveness, or anger.

But the teachings themselves require openness.

They require courage.

And those who walk alongside cannot remove the weight of that work. We can only help hold space around it.

Rebecca lives much closer to these moments than most of us. She sees the impact not only when George shares his teachings publicly, but also in the quieter moments that follow, when the cameras and keyboards are gone and life continues at home.

When I shared this question with her, she was kind enough to sit with it and offer some reflections of her own.

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When Kim shared this question with me, I had to sit with it for a bit.

The truth is, I’m still learning.

Supporting George doesn’t mean I always know the right thing to say. Honestly, it usually means saying the wrong thing half the time. I don’t truly know the struggles he deals with, and that is both a blessing and a curse.

I am lucky not to carry the pain he does. But at the same time, I have to watch him feel it and try my best to understand what that might be like.

Most of the time, supporting him means being present. Listening. Letting him talk things through without trying to fix it or make it smaller.

There are moments when I feel protective, or angry on his behalf, or just sad that these things are still happening.

Sometimes afterwards I catch myself replaying things in my mind, wishing I had responded differently. Running through the “what ifs.”

But I have come to realize that it isn’t about me.

Caring for my own heart has meant learning to sit honestly with those feelings. I’ve had to face the reality that the systems that have caused harm to Indigenous communities are the same ones that shaped the world I grew up in.

George is more than the work people see.

He’s the person I share my life with. Someone who loves deeply, laughs often, and carries his culture with pride.

Walking beside him in this work isn’t about shielding him from hard moments.

It’s about being someone he can come home to.

Someone who will listen, keep learning, and keep walking forward with him.

Huy ch q'u | Thank you

Rebecca Harris

Perhaps the deeper invitation in this question isn’t only about how Rebecca supports George.

Perhaps it is also about how all of us learn to walk alongside the people who are carrying truths that this country has not always been ready to hear.

Support doesn’t always look like having the right words.

Sometimes it looks like listening longer than feels comfortable. Believing people when they share what something cost them. Resisting the urge to look away when the truth feels heavy.

And sometimes it simply means staying.

Staying in the learning. Staying in the relationship. Staying present even when the work feels messy or imperfect.

The fact that this question was asked with such care tells me something important about this community.

People here are not only listening to the teachings.

They are also thinking about how to hold the people who carry them.

And that matters more than you might realize.

Because when more people are willing to carry even a small part of that weight, fewer hearts have to carry it alone.

<3 Kim