Built from the Silence

A reflection from the founder

There’s a kind of pain that doesn’t show up in bruises or breakdowns.
It shows up in silence. In distance. In the way a man survives instead of lives.

For years, I lived inside that silence.

Not because I was weak
but because I was conditioned to be silent about the things that hurt.
To perform strength. To stay composed. To hold it all together while quietly unraveling beneath it.

I’ve served in the military. I’ve worn the weight of fatherhood. Of partnership. Of provision.
And I’ve also carried the unspoken fear that I was failing the very people I loved, while never giving myself permission to speak it out loud.

After I was medically retired and lost vision in my left eye, everything changed.
The mission disappeared. The structure collapsed.
And all the emotions I had buried under performance rose to the surface.

Anxiety. Depression. Disconnection.
Not just from others... but from myself.

I began asking questions I’d never been taught how to answer:
Who am I without the role?
What do I do with the weight I carry?
Where does a man go when he can’t keep pretending he’s fine?

This space, Stillness & Storm, was born from those questions.

It wasn’t built to sell you something.
It was built to offer what I couldn’t find when I needed it most:
A space for men to stop performing.
To feel without shame.
To rebuild without pretense.
To begin again, not as the version the world demands, but as the man they were meant to become.

This is not about fixing you.
You’re not broken.
You’re becoming. 

Stillness & Storm is where we return to ourselves.
Through honest reflection.
Through emotional intelligence.
Through the strength found not in silence, but in self-awareness.

My background is rooted in psychology, business, and soon, professional life coaching and counseling. But more than that, it’s rooted in experience.

What you’ll find here isn’t quick motivation.
It’s clarity. Process. Presence.
A slow rebuild, not a rushed reinvention.

This is for the man who’s tired of hiding behind his resilience.
For the one who’s outgrown the image he was told to wear.
For the one who’s ready to lead himself, not just endure.

If that’s you...welcome.
You’ve carried enough alone.
Let’s begin the work that finally makes sense of the silence.

— S. Michael Holt
Founder, Stillness & Storm