The Permission Slip: A Field Guide to Stopping the Performance and Surviving Your Own Life (The Work of Living)

For anyone living with high-functioning anxiety, burnout, or emotional exhaustion - this book is for you.

In The Permission Slip, A M Lavender speaks to the capable, responsible, high-achieving person who is quietly unraveling behind the scenes.

You're functioning. You're productive. You show up.

But inside, you're tired in a way sleep doesn't fix.

Following his memoir The Truth I Found in the Silence, which explored collapse and addiction, Lavender turns to what comes after the breaking point: burnout recovery, nervous system regulation, boundary-setting, and rebuilding without performance.

Blending personal narrative with trauma-informed tools and practical reflection, this book explores:

• High-functioning anxiety and depression
• Chronic stress and nervous system shutdown
• People-pleasing and perfectionism
• Soft addictions and dopamine dependence
• Religious and family performance patterns
• Emotional burnout and recovery

Each chapter includes a Field Guide with realistic, trauma-aware practices designed to help readers regulate stress, reduce overwhelm, and step out of survival mode - without toxic positivity, productivity pressure, or "fix yourself" messaging.

This is not a quick-fix self-help book.

It's a grounded guide for anyone who feels stuck in performance mode and wants to recover their life without losing themselves in the process.

You are not broken.

You may simply be carrying too much - for too long.

A M Lavender writes stories about fracture and repair-about the systems that hold worlds together and the people who must decide whether those systems should endure.His epic fantasy series, beginning with The Shattered Keystone, blends mythic scope with grounded emotional realism, exploring balance, consequence, and the cost of permanence. Across his work, he is drawn to characters who stand close enough to the cracks to see what others overlook.In addition to fantasy, A M Lavender has written a nonfiction memoir reflecting on resilience and personal reckoning, as well as children's books centered on wonder, friendship, and courage. Though the genres differ, his work shares a common thread: the search for meaning in moments of change.Originally from Texas and now living in Utah, A M Lavender writes while raising his family and sharing his home with four determined cats.