Rest Easy, My Brother
What the survival mind does with good news.
OK here we are. I’ve written the book. Unlearning Myself is scheduled to be published. The manuscript is on my hard drive. My editor has it. Final proofreading is nearly done. The artist is working on the cover as we go back and forth — allowing his artistry to flow and my vision to come forward. And so much more.
In the moments I’m in the work, taking it on, doing the do — man, it’s good. I’m getting all the feelings of accomplishment, overcoming everything that pops up along the way. Emails flow in. Congratulations. Can’t wait. So exciting. Same thing on social media. Yay Bill. Amazing. Woo hoo.
And then there are the quiet moments.
The spaces where I’m not at the computer getting it done. Not answering texts and emails. Not being praised, overcoming, feeling successful and important. In the quiet, long-standing versions of Bill remind me in their own unique ways that they still want to be known. And I hear it.
How ya doing?
OK you’ve done something pretty good but you can’t take your foot off the gas.
Oh sure, you’re being published — but who’s really going to buy this? Huh? Did ya think of that?
Nobody. That’s the answer. Unless you get back in your office and start swinging. Chop wood, carry water, Mr. Spiritual Author Dude.
Last night this happened while I was settling down to sleep. Lying in bed next to Allison. Something like the hum of adrenaline coursing through my body. The 10-11 o’clock voice telling me get back in the office or all this will fail — bouncing around in my head, my chest, my shoulders, my stomach. I told Allison it felt like I was a balloon and the pressure throughout all of me felt like I was about to pop unless I started working again.
It was in that space that I took a step back to be with it. How ya doin. With a smile. Like — I see you. What’s here for me.
And then I turned to Allison and said let’s talk. So we did. I shared more or less everything I just shared with you. And together we walked through the me that wanted to be heard — and why.
What showed up was a me that felt unsafe. Energy wanting to be safe. And for that me, safety is surviving. This is the survival mind doing exactly what it was built to do.
This is a me that was formed a long time ago. A young man, early days getting sober, just out of jail, off house arrest, done with probation. Time to live life. And the question hanging over everything — who am I? What do I do?
No blueprint. No stable ground. Mom an alcoholic. Dad didn’t know how to be there for me, or for her, for my sisters — his anger, his occasional disappearing, leaving me to navigate heightened moments. Then years of my own drinking, my own running, my own brand of craziness, my own failing. And then — nothing. The social lubricant gone. No buffer between me and the world. Welcome to life sober kid, be normal and go get em.
So I did what I knew how to do. I watched other people. I reverse-engineered what it meant to be okay. I’ll be like him. I’ll do this. No — I’ll do that. Is it money in the bank? A nicer place to live? A girlfriend, a wife? Maybe go back to college. A better car — that’ll help, right?
It never stopped. Striving, searching, navigating. And I was supposed to do all of it while looking like I had it under control.
That young man was ingenious. He built a whole life out of watching and adapting and figuring it out. He deserves respect for that. But the beliefs he formed — the ones that said safety only comes through achieving enough in all the right ways. You’ve got nothing else but outworking them and finding an edge — those beliefs became his truth. Not the truth. His truth. There’s a difference. And somewhere along the way I resigned myself to that truth as if it were the only one available.
That young man lying next to Allison last night? He would have gotten up. Gone back to work. Given up sleep, given up her, in order to do the work that fear said needed to be done.
I stayed.
I turned toward her instead. That was the willingness. And I said to that young man what he never heard when he needed it most.
I see you. Man, you’re smart. You did so much for me in moments I truly didn’t know what else to do. But rest easy, my brother. You are safe, accepted, and loved beyond question. Your energy might be needed, and I’ll call on you in those moments. But fear doesn’t rule the day.
This is my experience. Yours will look different but will also be very much the same. None of this is like dance steps I can teach you. There isn’t a list of boxes to check. But the idea, held loosely, is this: don’t confuse experience with truth.
I am who I was before my first breath and who I will be after my last.
What comes between is my experience.
For the Willing.
This piece lives inside a much longer journey. Unlearning Myself — releasing June 30, 2026 — is where I’ve laid the whole thing out. Not as a system. Not as steps. As the path of a man still walking.