It's alignment. Not abandonment.
Not rejection. Clarification.
For years, I’ve watched women over-give, overdeliver, over-accommodate and over-function in relationships, friendships, communities and work.
And this weekend, I realized something.
Underneath so many layers is a core wound: the fear of abandonment.
I know that’s true for me.
I can see it now in how I completely abandoned myself in service to other women who did not have my back.
Friends, family, co-workers, co-founders, clients, industry peers, community members, mentors.
And here’s why we do it. Women learn—from an early age—that expressing our needs, boundaries, value or worth could lead to rejection, disconnection or being left.
So instead of risking abandonment, we abandon ourselves first.
We became easier.
More useful.
More selfless.
More agreeable.
More emotionally available to everyone except ourselves.
We learn to over-perform love instead of believing we’re worthy of receiving it.
Over time, women became so accustomed to self-abandonment that we began calling it kindness.
Service.
Leadership.
Loyalty.
Being a “good woman“ whose sense of self was built inside of her “good girl“ identity.
But it’s a trap.
Because when a woman finally communicates her worth, her needs, her boundaries or her value, the people who benefited from her self-abandonment often do leave.
And we are taught to interpret that loss as proof that we should have stayed smaller.
But that isn’t abandonment.
It’s alignment.
The departure of people incapable of meeting you where you are is not rejection.
It’s clarification.
Because communicating your worth does not lead to people leaving you.
It leads to being valued by the people actually capable of cherishing you.
The women who are meant for you do not require your self-betrayal in exchange for supposed belonging.
And I think this is part of why so many women feel disconnected right now.
Not because we are incapable of community.
But because we have spent years participating in relationships where proximity was exchanged for performance.
That is not sisterhood.
That is survival.
Healing the sisterhood wound is not just about addressing how women hurt one another.
It’s about acknowledging how women abandon themselves in order to remain chosen.
And activating what becomes possible when we stop.
Next Wednesday, I’m gathering a small group of women—inside Hype Women HQ in Chicagoland—for an intimate dinner and conversation called Healing the Sisterhood Wound.
Not networking.
Not performance.
Not posturing.
Truth.
Real connection.
Real reflection.
Real women.
Doors close this Friday, May 15.
If you feel the pull, you already know.
xoxo,
Erin