When you build your career on anticipating problems and running toward the fire, stepping back can feel like failure. In this excerpt from her debut book, Hype Women: Breaking Free From Mean Girls, Patriarchy, and Systems Silencing You, Erin Gallagher shares what happened after she walked away from the company she co-founded — along with everything she thought defined her worth.
From the outside, it looked like quitting. But for Erin, it was a radical reorientation: a quiet return to stillness, purpose and self-trust. By trading constant crisis management for intentional calm, she discovered a new kind of leadership and developed five strategies any of us can use to move from chaos to clarity.
— L’Oreal Thompson Payton
Growing up as a hypervigilant, self-motivated, people-pleasing perfectionist made me the ideal worker when I entered the “professional” world. I was an expert at anticipating other’s needs, of seeing around corners, of identifying a potential problem before it happened.
What it looks like from the outside is a person who has it all together and is ready for anything.
What it feels like on the inside is running on a treadmill — whose speed and incline continues to increase — while catching and juggling balls that are flying at you, from every direction, with varying intensity and increasing weight.
I loved a good crisis. It made me feel alive. It made me feel needed. It made me feel valuable.
I turned 40 on March 25, 2022. Six days later, I publicly resigned from the company I had co-founded two-and-half years before.
I walked away.
I quit.
I “opted out.”
It was the first time in my life that I said, “Enough.”
And oh, did it feel shitty.
I had failed. I had given up. I was weak. What had become of me? All of the flashes of faces of the naysayers telling me I “didn’t have what it takes,” “wasn’t ready to be the boss,” “couldn’t do it my way” flooded my mind and stole my spirit.
I stayed in bed for three days.
What felt like the end was really the beginning. I was disintegrating the version of myself that I was finally ready to release in order to become one I had never had the space or permission to envision.
Disintegrate is defined as: to break up into small parts, typically as the result of impact or decay.
The four months that followed my resignation were deeply unfamiliar. Because for the first time in my life, I wasn’t moving. And moving is what keeps you from coming home to yourself; from sitting with your thoughts; from feeling what you need to feel in order to let go.
For the first time in my life, I sat on my couch. Without a purpose. For no reason. I stopped myself from getting up to “do something” at least 10 times in the first four minutes. I had to actively immobilize my inertia-driven operating system.
It was So. F*cking. Uncomfortable.
I felt suffocated in my own skin.
I wanted to scream from all the quiet.
I couldn’t shut up — or off — my mind.
Was this meditation? F*ck this. Who could live like this???
I had never learned to just be.
My mother never sat. She was always doing something: working, cooking, cleaning, organizing, comforting, consoling, helping, rearing, leading, building, creating, preparing, planning, rescuing, rescuing, rescuing. As a single mother, she did it all. She had to.
The Family Hero never sleeps. She abandoned herself in service to others.
So, I followed suit.
Sitting was for quitters.
Slowing was for weaklings.
Stopping was for the dead.
Without my service to everyone but myself, without external validation, without solving something somewhere for someone, what was I even worth?
One of my best friends Neha O’Rourke said two things to me over the course of our relationship that changed my life:
Be where your feet are.
You are worthy simply because you exist.
When she first shared these messages with me, they described my personal, fresh hell.
“Be in the moment” and not preparing for what’s next? Well, that sounds like a nightmare. And it will be. Because of the not preparing part. Sure thing. I’ll just sit here and wait for the impending fire to engulf me.
And I’m worthy just because I exist? That was some woo woo shit that even I — as an astrology-loving, Universe-believing, witchy woman — had a hard time getting behind. Yeah, yeah, yeah, self-love. Great. Cool. But what am I doing to matter?
Chaos made my skin tingle.
Calm made my skin crawl.
Until I shed it.
Until I disintegrated.
Until I dissolved into goo — and left the body of a crawling caterpillar to cocoon.
I started to create small rituals that taught my nervous system — that taught my body — what calm felt like, and why it was a good thing.
I lit candles.
I watched the flames flicker and the wicks burn.
I inhaled the jasmine and blonde wood and tuberose.
I took baths.
With steaming hot water.
And Himalayan bath salts mixed with crushed purple and pink flower petals.
I played music.
And I sang loudly and let my body move.
I was transported by the lyrics and the beat and the stories.
I sat, often.
Wrapping myself in dusty rose-colored, faux fur blankets — surrounded by fuzzy pillows.
I wore sweatshirts and socks and stretchy pants that made me feel held.
I read books.
Not to learn about history or public figures or current events.
But for pleasure.
I used lotion.
Tokyo Milk’s “Gin and Rosewater” and “Dead Sexy.”
I noticed the silky feel on my hands as I held my own hand, rotating one into the other repeatedly.
I drank tea.
Magic Hour’s “Goddess” and “The Moon” and “Aries.”
I steeped the leaves in beautiful mugs and cupped the warmth in my hands.
I sprayed sacred mists.
The Sacred Wild’s “Goddess” — jasmine, tuberose and Ylang Ylang — in the morning.
And “Energy Cleanse” — mint and sage — early and often.
And “Grounded” — clove, sandalwood, lavender, and vetiver — at night.
I wore perfume.
My special perfumes that I previously saved only for special occasions, when I would be in the presence of other people: Lilac Path by Aerin Lauder, Rebecca Minkoff by Rebecca Minkoff and Intimissimi — a perfume I bought on Capri during my honeymoon in 2014
I sprayed them on my wrists, my neck, and the soft spot above my hard ribcage.
I created a daily routine that told me I was safe. I cared for myself in the way I so freely and diligently took care of others. I taught myself to seek calm over chaos. It took me a long time to get there — to actually enjoy these experiences versus feeling like I was in a bullshit bootcamp of my own making, begrudgingly trying to survive the slowness and the silence.
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses.
I sucked at each of these things over and over and over again. I failed to do them well. I kept getting drawn back into the chaos vortex — creating my own drama when it didn’t find me fast enough.
And that’s to be expected.
Redesigning an operating system that has kept you alive for 40 years takes effort. Actually following that new operating system takes time. Planting the seeds of your growth is a process that requires patience. You can’t will a plant to grow faster than the time it takes for the sun to pour its light into the earth; for the rain to water the roots taking hold; for the soil to nourish the potential of what could be.
You must wait.
Five Shifts to Move From Chaos to Calm
- Identify your chaos triggers. What are the experiences — and who are the people — that cause you anxiety and distress? You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep them warm.
- Rewire your roadmap. Identify the patterns of your life that draw you to chaos. Investigate where these sequences stem from and shift your behaviors away from this structure. Start small and build from there.
- Move through the discomfort. Overhauling your operating system will not be easy. If you are uncomfortable with the changes you’re making, good. It’s working. Keep going.
- Create your daily rituals. To teach your mind and body a new home base and foundation for your life, you must create new habits. Test out new rituals throughout the day and keep coming back to those that calm you.
- Shift from survive to thrive. As you heal your nervous system, you will leave your constant state of fight of flight for a new homeostasis grounded in peace, gratitude, joy, pleasure, and contentment. Take your time. Get to know this new place that could be home.
