Why this book exists
A focused place to understand what is happening
I want to tell you what this book is not, because you will otherwise brace for it. It is not a book about boundaries, and it will not be telling you to say no more often, which you have heard, and which has never once worked, because the problem was never the word. It is not a book about self-care. And it is not going to suggest that you care less about people, which would be both impossible and a shame, since your noticing is one of the better things in the world and I have no wish to sand it off. What it is, instead, is a book about a belief. There is a claim sitting underneath your exhaustion that you have never examined, because it has never once presented itself as a claim. It presents itself as reality, and as love, and as the obvious shape of.
The writing is designed to reduce shame, bring the underlying pattern into view and give you practical ways to respond without pretending that every life follows the same formula.
