The authors introduce and study the notions of hyperbolically embedded and very rotating families of subgroups. The former notion can be thought of as a generalization of the peripheral structure of a relatively hyperbolic group, while the latter one provides a natural framework for developing a geometric version of small cancellation theory. Examples of such families naturally occur in groups acting on hyperbolic spaces including hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups, mapping class groups, $Out(F_n)$, and the Cremona group. Other examples can be found among groups acting geometrically...