Breaking the cycle for your daughter on International Woman's Day

As this weekend marks International Women’s Day, we pause to reflect on our journey—not just as sisters, but as women navigating the weight of expectation, responsibility, and change.

Our work has always been about reducing anxiety in children, but the truth is, a huge part of that puzzle has been learning to reduce anxiety in ourselves. As sisters, we arrived at this realisation from very different places. One of us—the calm illusionist—never even saw a problem. The other—acutely aware—was trapped in a cycle of emotional dysregulation. We carried our struggles differently, but the moment of reckoning came when we saw our daughters mirroring our behaviours.

They absorbed our stress. They watched us people-please. They recognised how to use their emotions to control the narrative.  Learning , as we once did, that women are expected to be the emotional glue holding everyone else together. We were conditioned to believe that our happiness was secondary—that we were responsible for keeping our families afloat, fixing every problem, and carrying the weight of everyone’s emotions.

Something had to change.

We didn’t just want different lives for our girls; we needed to show them what was possible. That meant in practical terms setting emotional boundaries and finally recognising our own needs and working to fulfil them. We had to learn to let go of guilt and other uncomfortable feelings and rewrite the script we had followed for so long.

Even as I write this, I hear that familiar, nagging voice whispering: But isn’t this selfish? And yet, I now recognise it for what it is—an outdated belief that no longer serves me.

So today, we celebrate the courage of women who are unlearning, who are choosing themselves, who are paving a new way for the next generation. We honour the mothers, daughters, and sisters who are stepping into themselves—not just for their own sake, but for every little girl who is watching them.

The Emotions Lab x