Nobody sends casseroles for the way you disappeared.

There was no crisis to point to. Just years of reasonable trades — a preference swallowed in a meeting, a yes that was a no in costume, a role accepted because you were good at being needed. Then one ordinary morning, in a life you built, you realized you couldn't remember the last decision you made purely because you wanted to.

This book will not ask you to become someone new. You've been replacing yourself with more acceptable versions for decades; that's the habit we're here to retire. Instead, it offers something quieter and far more doable: five minutes a day to reopen the line to what you actually feel, retire the voices that were never yours, place the smallest no and hold it, grieve the selves you didn't become — and want things again, starting with which mug, and ending with what the rest of your life is for.

It also tells you the truth the whole way through: what a book can do, what only a therapist can, and how to know which one your situation is asking for.

The person you're looking for has been transmitting the entire time.

Pick up. Welcome home.

Five minutes, most days, for the rest of your life.