How to improve your self-esteem

BOOKS | Let out rage and smash shame! Mika Simmons on the crucial life lessons every women should learn

THROUGHOUT history, women's bodies have been as wronged as they have been worshipped. Medicine, politics, religion and social conditioning have created many falsehoods that still negatively impact us today. Since launching The Happy Vagina podcast in 2019, I have been on a mission to make sure as many women as possible know the truth about their bodies, so they can feel exceptional in them. As my book of the podcast is released, here are some ways to start building that self-esteem:

Anger

Anger is a useful emotion and one that women have often been denied due to that aforementioned social conditioning. When you are born with a voice but consistently discouraged from using it, it is not uncommon for this voice to turn on its owner and - in a paradoxical effort to protect - become an internalised critic and source of much psychic angst. Regardless of whether those messages were transmitted by your family or not, they were almost definitely reinforced by society.