Protecting your peace means a few people lose their front-row seat. That’s fine. It was never a free show.

Pulling back always costs something, and the cost usually arrives as a few people being upset with you. They got used to a level of access and now it is smaller, and from where they stand that looks like a downgrade nobody consulted them about. Their reaction does not mean you did something wrong. It means something changed.

Expect the complaints rather than being knocked over by them. Decide who is genuinely close and treat that list as real: time, honesty, patience. Everybody else can stay in your life from a little further back, and the line does not require an apology.