Erin with a Capital E

At 44 years old, I was finally assessed and diagnosed as a very high-masking autistic woman.

And by very, I mean my scores were off the charts. lol.

How did I not see this before?

Oh right… high masking means I learned how to orient myself in the world by mirroring and modeling other people’s behaviors in order to create safety. So I learned how to be excellent at noticing other people, while I’ve had to work my ass off to notice myself. Which, unsurprisingly, led to some pretty intense burnout later in life. I’m grateful I had the time, resources, and privilege to recover, and to learn how to help others avoid or better navigate these same patterns.

One of my earliest memories of masking led to over 30 years of taking up less space.

Rewind to 13-year-old Erin, sitting in middle school study hall, writing notes to a friend. I admired her handwriting. It was expressive. Artistic. Confident. So I decided I wanted to write like that too.

That’s when I started signing my name with a lowercase e and a capital R, creating a version of her style for me. And it stuck.

For three decades, I’ve written some version of erin with a lowercase e (with the exception of my PhD coursework. I couldn’t quite bring myself to submit dissertation pages with a lowercase e).

Then a few months ago, I started rumbling with my professional work and where I’m ready to take up more space. I love working with the Enneagram, and I love my coaching work; which is about so much more than someone’s Enneagram type.

My coaching is about building emotional and physical capacity. About creating behaviors that support the person you are as you expand into the person you choose to be. Because most of us didn’t choose our conditioning.

That’s the work that fuels my capacity. Helping people sift through what shaped them and supporting real expansion, without forcing or fixing.

So I decided to separate the two. I’m building a dedicated coaching space at erinbaute.com, and shifting Living the Enneagram into a dynamic learning community with an expanded team of incredible practitioners.

And then the coolest thing happened.

As the new brand identity took shape, my designers naturally wrote my name with a capital E. They didn’t know about my lowercase habit. They just assumed I’d be taking up all the damn space with my name.

When I first saw it, I thought, this doesn’t quite look like me.

But the longer I sat with it, the clearer it became:

It might sound silly, but in the work of unwinding autistic masking, this was a big noticing. I started writing my name that way because I liked what someone else was doing.

Today? I like what I am doing.

My work is bold. Transformative. Grounded in love and yes, sometimes even fun. It is not small. I know this because I witness my clients taking up space every single day. I watch them build capacity, soften self-criticism, and shift behaviors in ways that actually stick.

So this year I’m stepping into a new level of my work, and expanding the space I’m willing to take up. If you’re new here, Welcome! This is a Substack about behavior change, the nervous system, and what actually changes when we stop trying to fix ourselves. I’m so glad you’re here.

I’d love to know… what are you stepping into?

Hit reply or drop it in the comments. I read every one.

With love,

Erin (with a capital E)