On today’s episode of Period Story podcast, I’m so happy to share my conversation with Mika Simmons, the award winning filmmaker, actress and founder of the Lady Garden Foundation and the Happy Vagina. Listen to hear a really tender conversation about navigating trauma and loss, and of course, the story of Mika’s first period.
Mika says that her mum was so excited when she first got her period and threw her a little party to celebrate. This lovely start was unfortunately not mirrored at school, where she was teased and bullied for getting her period. Listen to hear Mika talk about how this led to a time of confusion and pain.
In time for #gynaecologicalcancerawarenessmonth, Mika shares the story of losing her beloved mother to ovarian cancer. Mika very poignantly talks about how she was able to heal after this seismic experience and how starting the Lady Garden Foundation was a part of this healing. Listen to hear about the incredible work the foundation is doing to raise awareness about gynaecological cancers.
We talked about body image, self-pleasure, orgasms and the importance of female desire. Mika says that it’s important to get past the discomfort of having these conversations and that by starting small or what feels comfortable for you, we can start to find a vocabulary that feels right for us. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Mika!
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MIKA’S BIO
Mika Simmons is an award-winning film maker, actress and host of The Happy Vagina.
Mika has worked on a diverse range of creative projects for stage and screen, including Frenchman’s Creek (ITV), Unforgotten (ITV/PBS), the BAFTA award winning Falling Apart (Ch4) and Film London’s Balcony, which won the Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2017. Most recently, she can be seen in Dictynna Hood’s Us Among The Stones in competition at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2019.
In 2019, Mika’s directorial debut Rain Stops Play short film won Best Comedy at Houston Film Festival and was nominated for Best Comedy at the BAFTA qualifying CBFF Wales and Portobello Film Festivals; UnderWire and Fragments Film Festival in London.
Mika’s latest project, The Happy Vagina is a podcast showcasing a huge variety of heartfelt, honest, uplifting, fun and personal experiences. In a world where the word ‘vagina’ can feel taboo or make some feel uncomfortable, The Happy Vagina Podcast opens up a dialogue about fundamental issues, experimentation and lack of education around women’s experiences and gynaecological health; aiming not only to educate but also entertain and enlighten listeners in a supportive and empowering way. Mika possesses an unmatchable capability to relate to and understand people, and is a poised and self-assured interviewer who, when necessary, brings a great sense of fun to any interview.
In 2017 Mika was chosen as one of 40 inspirational British women to front L’Oréal Lancôme’s powerful women campaign.
Mika is also a co-founder of Lady Garden Foundation & Mental Health Mates.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise: On today’s episode, we have Mika Simmons.
Mika is an award winning winning filmmaker, actress, founder of the Lady Garden Foundation and The Happy Vagina. Mika has worked on a diverse range of creative projects for stage and screen. Mika’s latest project, The Happy Vagina, is a podcast showcasing a huge variety of heartfelt, uplifting, fun and personal experiences. In a world where the word vagina can feel taboo or make some feel uncomfortable, The Happy Vagina podcast opens up a dialogue about fundamental issues, experimentation and a lack of education around women’s experiences and gynaecological health, aiming not only to educate, but also entertain and enlighten listeners in a supportive and empowering way. Welcome to the show.
Mika: Thank you so much. It’s so good to be here. Good morning.
Le’Nise: Let’s start off by getting into the story of your very first period. Can you remember what happened? Can you share with us what happened?
Mika: I mean, Le’Nise, let’s just drive straight in the deep end.
I was watching May I Destroy You last night. I don’t know if you’ve been watching it, but there’s an episode where she has sex with a new man and she’s on her period. It’s extraordinary. If you haven’t watched it yet, you’ve got to watch it. Everyone is looking at.
I mean, I started my periods really young. When we were away camping. I had an extraordinary mother who was part of the feminist movement in the 70s, and so it was a really turbulent time in a way for women. I think that women were still trying to find out what being a feminist was. And my mother was definitely on the front line kind of pushing things forwards and writing. She’s, you know, she’s written in books and written essays, so, in a way, her kind of attitude, outlook and then kind of power towards life was a reaction to her upbringing and her upbringing, we’re Irish Catholic working class and immigrants to this country. And as immigrants, my grandmother, I feel emotional, my grandmother was a really hardworking woman and an amazing woman.
But, you know, just worked. I don’t think that my grandmother and also the Catholic Church doesn’t encourage, at that time, did not encourage, you know, kind of biological or sexual talk with women. I think many of the reasons that periods and sex is so damaged and shrouded for women and men is because of religion. So my mother was, you know, kind of fighting against what she’d experienced. And so for me, when I got my period, it was like the biggest celebration in the whole world, you know, like there was no hiding it. And then she threw this party for me. We were camping in the South of France and ,I what I remember, I remember being quite confused. I don’t remember. I think I was, I think it caught us all a bit off guard because I was so young.
So I think that, like, I went to the shower and it started and I hadn’t already had a chat with my mum. There’d been no like, you’re gonna get your menstrual cycle at some stage and this is what it’s for and this is how you should love it. And it’s the most amazing thing in the world where life comes from. It was just like, oh, I’m bleeding. And, you know, when I went off and I came back and she’d bought Viennetta ice cream and bought some champagne. Not for me. I was under age.
But she told everyone in the tents around us cause she was just so unbelievably excited about the whole thing. It was mortifying. I did not consent to the party and I do, I mean, I love her for it. And as you will know, I lost my mother to ovarian cancer. So, you know, I don’t have any resentment towards her for her choice. I do also think it’s really important to talk to, you know, all young women and daughters about what it is that they want, because I think that period of feminism was very bullish, rightly bullish. It needed to be bullish when when change needs to happen. When when people have been oppressed for a long time. Sometimes you have to be bullish to move things through. And then you have to come back into being part of a negotiating an in a gentler way, which I think feminism now is so much more. Everyone’s a feminist, you know, like Obama standing on the stage saying this is what a feminist looks like. Yeah. So, yes, that’s what happened and it was tough because I was young and I got teased loads. I was using sanitary towels. The boys at school saw them in my bag. I got really teased for it. I lied and said, I don’t know. They said, “Have you got your period?” I said, “no.” I mean, of course I have, I’ve got sanitary towels in my bag. It was just, you know, it was painful. It was painful and confusing.
Le’Nise: What did you say to the boys when they teased you?
Mika: I didn’t stick up for myself. I was thinking about this this morning, preparing to come on here. It’s very poignant for me, this stuff around teasing and bullying at the moment, it’s something that I’m working on a huge amount in my personal development in my life, because there seems to have been a pattern for me where I don’t really stick up for myself or I don’t stick up for myself in the right way. So when the boys teased me, I didn’t say anything and I and I and I and I internalised it. Actually, I internalised the shame.
I felt other, I felt wrong. And I. And I. And actually, it was during a period of time. I had a bit of a bad start in school where I was in a in a local primary school feeding through to a local secondary school. And some of the girls at the the the bigger school were waiting outside my primary school. When I finished to, to threaten me. And I didn’t tell anyone about that either.
And I went to my secondary school kind of therefore on the back foot. I went to my big school really frightened. I don’t know why I didn’t tell anyone. I think the thing is about bullying is mostly you think it’s your fault. That’s really one of the biggest strands through bullying, is that people somehow it’s so confusing when people bully you for no reason that you just basically can’t, it is a weird sort of paranoia where your brain can’t compute why this is happening. So therefore, it kind of must be something you’ve done. So I didn’t stick up for myself with the boys.
And if I’m honest, what I did this was the thing I was thinking about this morning, is I got tough. So in order to protect myself, I kind of joined, I think when you were bullied. This there’s there’s three options. One is that you fight them. The other is that you completely come away and take another river. And the other is that you that you join them.
And to a certain extent, I joined that kind of crowd of kids that weren’t that kind. So my first couple of years at school, it was only it was only the first couple of years. But the first couple of the years, I would suggest I was kind of quite naughty. And that’s how I dealt with being teased, was I surrounded myself with people who could stick up for me.
Le’Nise: And so you became part of this gang that was not very kind and would bully others, but then did that stop the bullying towards you?
Mika: Yeah. Yeah, it did.
But then I self-harmed. It’s really interesting because I think that within people that particularly children are so cruel, you know, children are so cruel and I think if you end up, I mean, actually at around 14, 15, I really rightsized it all and started to work really hard at school and there was some interventions that happened that brought me back to, I would say, my real self. But during that period when I was like hanging out with the naughty set, I was over sexualised. I was objectified by the boys that we were hanging out with, the boys at school, very aggressive. Obviously, I started my period. So actually, there was quite a lot of sexual energy around me. I was blessed with some quite good looks so I got a lot of male attention. And I’m hanging out in that, I think, you know, children who bully or are naughty or kind of the wayward gang are often in a lot of pain.
They haven’t learnt it yet because they go, ‘I know or I’m gonna, like, bunk off school and not go to gym class and smoke behind the shops.’ They’re in pain. And when we’re in pain physically, our cells that are in pain orient towards other people that are in pain. So that we can feel safe. It’s not safe, but it feels safe and it feels like what we know.
And so, yeah, it did stop the bullying, but I just self-harmed. I drank way too young. I was drinking, you know, and I and I was and I was and I said, as you know, over sexualised. So I had my periods and I was like, my womanhood started age 13. I started you know, I started behaving like grown-up when I was a child.
Le’Nise: What would you say your relationship with your body was back then?
Mika: Really confused. Confused is the most, you know, poignant word. I think the whole time was very confusing for me. My body was being objectified by a lot of men older and my age and therefore and I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand.
You know, I hope for every young woman that she has the experience where she gets to know her body in a gentle, timely manner.
And, you know, we’ve been talking about this a lot on my podcast The Happy Vagina about how self pleasure that in order to really have a great sexual relationship with someone, you have to really learn your own body first. That was not my experience. You know, my experience was it was it was a slam dunk.
I was, I was I was like a horse up and running, but before I had had any conversations, you know. Anyway, it sounds like a sob story, but I don’t feel like that about it. I feel that all of that made me the woman that I am today. So I don’t have any kind of resentment or, you know, hang ups around it. I wouldn’t wish it on other people. I don’t I don’t think that it was the best start, but it certainly, it certainly gave me, I went so far that way, most of the time I’ve been back in the other camp since, so yeah, I think everyone has a time when they’re walking in between one camp and another.
Le’Nise: Yeah. And you went, you had that time of being across two different camps, as you say, when you were in school and then when you left school and went on to the next phase of your life, how would you describe your relationship with your your body and your period?
Mika: Well, I one of the ways that I, you know, thrust myself out of that naughty period at school was like starting to take acting classes, so I had this amazing year head at my school called Mrs Barrett. And she invited my mother and I to go and have a conversation with her. And she highlighted the fact that, you know, I was wearing makeup at school, you know. Oh, I was renegade. And she she was you know, she she said, you know, Mika’s very, very bright and she’s not using that.
And they asked me what it was that I wanted to do. And I said that I wanted to go, there was no drama at my school. So they they got me some some acting classes and I started to compete.
And that really saved me intellectually and emotionally and really changed my life. I would suggest that the pressure on me from that stage on in terms of my body possibly did not heal itself. So many of the other areas healed, but I went from being kind of objectified for my body to wanting my body to be what I saw in the movies.
That that gap. So there was definitely some periods of severe under eating. I wouldn’t suggest that I was anorexic, but I controlled my food for a very long time. Particularly around my drama school years.
And at university, in leading into going to drama school, you know, it’s a huge pressure on in the industry to to be thin and in in the film industry. Sometimes I think, you know, it’s kept me healthy. I love food.
But I do think that there’s many benefits of needing to be fit and healthy and strong for my work.
And there was a moment when my periods almost stopped. I think that that was probably the worst moment. When in terms of my my eating habits and from that point onwards, I started to eat properly, you know, and then. And then of course, just after drama school, my mom got sick with ovarian cancer.
So I you know, I had an extremely stressful late 20s. I think I was in a lot of pain and quite, quite heightened anxiety.
Le’Nise: And how did you deal with that?
Mika: Therapy.
Yeah, therapy mostly. It was a, it was a huge shock. I’d just left drama school and got my first kind of big job and I was up and running really, and all of my dreams were coming true.
And Mum thought she had fibroids or the doctors were telling her she had fibroids. So we we went we went on holiday together. We came back and she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. And she did get put onto a trial that was a new type of medication, chemotherapy that they thought was going to work. And it did work, but the cancer came back quite rapidly. So she actually passed away nine months after her diagnosis. Yeah. So I was 25 going into 26, so, you know, super young. And I think that had an impact on me and my body. I think I, I really lost my faith over that period. I really lost my faith in life. I had this kind of like, feeling that life was quite a dark thing.
You know, and the, yeah, I lost my faith, I think, for a while.
Le’Nise: Can you tell us a little bit about how you found your way back or if not back to where you were before, back towards something different? Maybe towards a place of healing?
Mika: You know, I think it has taken a really long time.
I think I feel, I feel it, it’s taken me most of the time since, you know, it’s taken a good 15 years to actually really heal it.
I had a lot of therapy and that helped me come back to a more spiritual way of managing life. And I had a lot of treatment, I had a lot of cranial psychotherapy, which I believe really gets rid of trauma in the body.
And I think probably the final healing was starting The Lady Garden Foundation because I have a feeling that we don’t fully heal things until we take an action that rightsizes it, so you know, I sort of like when when you fall in love and you break up with someone, you can have completely let go of that person, but I don’t believe you completely let go of them until you meet the next person.
And it is a bit the same with this, that while I’ve done everything I could to heal and let the grief come and then let the grief go. There was an action around the miracle that happened with starting Lady Garden. It really was a miracle that my next door neighbour in the apartment block I live in ended up being Head of Oncology for research into gynaecological cancers at the Royal Marsden, you know, I mean, that’s just a real miracle. Then she asked me if I wanted to do a project with her to raise money.
And for me, I really wanted to do the awareness raising. And I think that was the final, final, you know, the final integration.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it. I would say you didn’t get to you know, I just I talked about this a lot. I, I feel that because I’d only just left drama school. I was still a bit of a child.
I think other people at that age are very grown up. They’ve started working since 18 and actually, you know, but I somehow or other was still dependent on my mum. And I suspect there was also a level of co-dependency with my mom because of my earlier experiences.
I think she was very firmly in my camp. She championed me in a way that was, you know, kind of beyond beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. She really, she was she was my biggest cheerleader, you know, and and so the loss of that at that age was significant for me. And there was a period of time when I was flailing, trying to find where I sat in life until I think the real kind of deep realisation was that it was me I needed to find. I needed to find me and love myself like my mother had loved me and that no one else would probably ever love me like that again.
And that it may not have been that healthy that she did. I don’t know. I mean, I wish I could just say I was thinking about something the other day and just thinking it would be so nice just to ask Mum about that. I can’t. I mean I can in my prayers. Yeah.
Le’Nise: I love what you said about your mom being your biggest champion. And I love, I have a six year old son and I love, really that I read something once where someone wrote your child should feel like you’re their biggest champion, that you’re always going to be on their side. And that has always stuck with me. And I love that, you know, you said that about your mom because that feeling of always feeling, knowing that someone will be in your corner is so powerful in life, because often you feel like, wow, you know who is actually in my corner. So to have had that experience is so powerful.
Mika: Life’s hard.
Le’Nise: Yes, yes. Yes.
Mika: I mean, sometimes I’m like, what is this thing called life?
Le’Nise: Can you talk a bit about the Lady Garden Foundation?
Mika: Yeah. So we’re a tiny charity, actually, with a really, really loud voice. When Dr. Banerjee, who is my next door neighbour, asked me whether or not I would do some fundraising to help her explore research into the cancers that I lost my mum to, I said yes. But I said there was an absolute prerequisite that I was allowed to do an awareness campaign alongside it, which is where the Lady Garden campaign came from. And Dr. Banerjee has developed a drug called Olaparib, which has now been green lit, and it’s been rolled up by a pharmaceutical company and it treats women with varying cancer with great results. So that side of it has been really phenomenal. And we fundraised for that by quite high level events. I’ve got an amazing cofounding committee who they love doing kind of fundraisers. So they’re. And they’re amazing at it. I don’t think I’m so good at that part of it. What I’m really good at is using my voice to raise awareness. And the awareness side of it is just absolutely fundamental. So when we started the project in 2014, part of the reason we called it Lady Garden was because we couldn’t really call it vagina. But obviously now you know that it’s a different landscape and the awareness that, I believe the awareness that we started back then has been part of the impact for women all over the world in terms of starting to reclaim our bodies. We started to, we may have given it a nickname, but we absolutely were talking about the fundamentals around gynaecological health. And, you know, and then the Me Too movement happened, which then started a huge revolution in women’s, in women’s bodies and women’s wellbeing. And I think at the moment, one of the things that I’m really interested in exploring and why I started my podcast and the project, The Happy Vagina, is that somehow or other still we are only talking about gynaecological issues or pregnancy in terms of women’s health.
So there’s now a movement towards talking about desire and actually how we integrate talking about gynaecological health in all areas of our life. Because at the moment you kind of get these highlights, you get your period starts, you’re pregnant, your menopause and hopefully not, but you may within that have some illness, gynaecological illness. Most of us have something at some stage, whether it just be from candida through to something more serious like my mother had. And those are when we talk about it, it’s like gynae problem.
And we don’t kind of somehow really talk about that area of our body all the time, like it’s, you know, like we would do about our mental health and there is a movement happening towards integrating it into a more daily kind of chat. I’ve just been part of a book that’s talking about young women and periods and teaching them, which is We Are The Hood. And, you know, so that’s going to be a game changer, you know. But again, the focus is kind of on when you get your period. And I’m just really excited to get women talking more about desire and how to look after ourselves sexually.
How to look after ourselves in terms of consent.
How to look after ourselves in terms of, you know, allowing that everybody to be part of our whole being.
Le’Nise: What do you think women need to do if they don’t feel comfortable with these conversations? What do you think they need to do to get comfortable?
Mika: It’s so funny, isn’t it, because I was talking to a really good girlfriend of mine who works in marketing for a huge women’s brand yesterday, and she said, ‘I still find hard to say the word vagina’ and it’s that, it’s just start saying it’s saying it, start talking about it. One of the things that I think as human beings, we do things that we cower together. So identification within friendships is really, really powerful. So if you go to the gym with a female friend and they are hiding their body or go into the changing room. You will probably feel the same shame, we pick up each other’s shame really easily. Just to be super clear, if you want to change in private, that’s totally cool. But what you need to look at is where it’s coming from, if it’s coming from because you’re ashamed of your body, at least acknowledge that and own it. And I think that the identification that we can bring in so we mirror our friends and just to say to a girlfriend, ‘I’ve got candida. I’ve got thrush.’
‘I’m struggling with cystitis. My periods are a bit weird at the moment. My period came three days early. I had loads of sex,’you know, like just to kind of start integrating the very light vocabulary and dialogue with your female friends or with your children, if it’s appropriate, or with your partner.
Just drop it in. Tiny, small things. You don’t have to come out with a big you know, doesn’t have to be a monumental, seismic moment.
I’m now going to talk about periods and vaginas! Sharing in a tiny little way, it’s going to really uncomfortable if it’s something you haven’t done before. Where we’re going to feel really, you know, embarrassing.
Because we’ve been brainwashed to believe that that area of our body is embarrassing and it’s just not, you know, there is an underlying message.
In so many cultures that good girls don’t have sex.
You know, that good girls don’t talk about this stuff and that we are only lovable if we are a good girl. Well, you know, and being a good girl will stop you from being good to yourself. And also, long term, if you don’t really get to know your body and you don’t share with your partner or friends or whatever is appropriate for you, you may find that you ignore symptoms as something that could be quite serious.
Le’Nise: So start to have the conversation. It doesn’t have to be small. Start with what feels comfortable for you and then do it often, do it in a way that you can then build up to then having the bigger conversations that are appropriate for you and your body.
Mika: Also read books. One I still swear by is Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, which is not just about gynaecological health, but it’s a game changer in terms of understanding why we are sort of hard on ourselves and judgemental of our own bodies and how that actually has come through Biblical text, the media, film and significantly, advertising, the advertising is geared towards making us feel less than and insignificant so that then we buy the products that will make us better. You know, so, really great book. Yeah. And and listen to women talk about these things. There’s so much out there now, you know. Yeah. Find your vocabulary through listening to other people talk about it.
Le’Nise: Find your vocabulary. I really like that. You talked about desire. And this is tied into the conversation about finding your vocabulary, moving away from this good girl image. Or good girl kind of idea that’s drummed into us from when we’re very young. What role do you think owning your desire plays into that?
Mika: Well, young women out there, there’s absolutely no education at all around desire for young women at the moment. Whereas I think it’s quite normal for parents of young men to understand that young men start masturbating.
And it’s almost like this kind of God given thing that they can’t help, you know, this sexual energy and power that comes through that means they have to do it. I’m not suggesting that young men don’t go through shame around it. I don’t. It’s not like they’ve got it so easy. But I do believe there’s more vocabulary around young men’s sexual power coming through and that there is absolutely zero, zero teaching around young women’s desire. And I think. Again, just to be super kind of clear on it. It’s up to you. I don’t think you need to start suddenly talking about self pleasure, masturbation or that the moment the millennials are all talking about wanking. You know, for me, that’s not my taste. But I respect them. But it’s about getting the relationship with yourself, with yourself so that you, so that you whatever that is, and it may be that there’s only one person in your life that you talk to about it, and that might be your partner. But dear God, please talk about it. And I really believe that if you don’t, you cut yourself off from that area of your body. And I think disease in the body comes through the nervous system. So if your nervous system is not fully integrated, if you if you feel shame around the area of your body, the likelihood is this is that your mind body connection is probably very disassociated.
So I I really believe that if we don’t integrate the shame that we have around an area of our body, then we kind of get blocked off from that areas of our body. And not only does that mean we probably won’t look out for symptoms if we have any come up. Also might mean that we can’t feel that part of our body as well, which may affect our ability to have an orgasm. Also, there is the potential that not being connected to that area of our body may block energy in that area, probably which there is a suggestion could lead to ill health. You know, there is scientific evidence that’s starting to show that blockages within an area of our body and a blockage can come from not listening to that area of the body. It could be to do with faking orgasms for your whole life. And the reason that you may need to fake an orgasm is because without even knowing it, you have shame around that area of your body. You may not you may not even know that you’ve got shame. You may not know that that’s why. But if you you know, if you if you if you don’t know the irony of what if you don’t know your own desires. If you’re not really fully integrated with yourself as a woman, you’re not free.
And then your body can’t be free.
Le’Nise: I think it’s also because when we’re younger, we don’t tend to, you mentioned the conversation around boys and masturbation. Girls and masturbation, I remember growing up and having conversations with girlfriends and they would say, well, I don’t masturbate. And I would say, “well, well, why?” And they’d say, “well, I don’t need to.” But when you masturbate, you learn about what you know, what an orgasm actually feels like. You know how to get to an orgasm. And you can bring that conversation into your relationship or any sexual encounters you have. And that’s that element, that’s a way of empowering yourself to get the best out of that situation. So I think it’s really important for women of all ages can get there. It doesn’t, you don’t have to be young. But again, to going back to what you said earlier about being comfortable and starting with those little small conversations and growing there and finding a way to feel empowered about, in your desire and owning your desire.
Mika: So many women I know find it difficult to get to climax, orgasm. And I, I believe that is because we don’t spend our teenage years practising, whereas somehow there is a, again, really, just to be clear. I think men feel a lot of shame around at that age, too, but they still get on and do it because within media, within films, it may be teased a bit, but it’s still considered normal. And with women, everyone lies about it. No one admits to doing it. I think I said you said I didn’t do it. Someone asked me at university, “Are you doing that?” I thought, ‘no.’
You know, it’s just not. Not. We’re not free within it. There are also women who can’t reach climax, and I think it’s really important, to, I don’t know because I don’t know those women. I don’t know whether or not if they did a lot of work on themselves in terms of body release and really integrating, whether or not they would be able to reach climax.
But I think it’s very important that we take some of the pressure off ourselves to reach climax and understand that sexual pleasure is not just about an orgasm. And if you as a woman, you haven’t managed to reach that point, that’s okay, you just need to enjoy the experience still and not write it off and not over give to your partner. Not deny yourself pleasure in whatever way that pleasure comes in order to make sure your partner’s needs get met. And you don’t. So don’t always seek that orgasm.
You know, it’s not it’s not the essential thing. But open connection is.
Le’Nise: Can you talk about what’s coming up next for the Lady Garden Foundation, for the Happy Vagina?
Mika: So Lady Garden Foundation, really excitingly with my co-founders, we have greenlit a piece of research again by Dr. Banerjee into how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected key workers within cancer research. So looking into mental health and resilience and I feel that that’s a really appropriate use of our money at the moment. Alongside also continuing to donate to cancer research into, into medication and continuing to raise awareness around these cancers so that women will go and get checked more often. And then we’ve got hopefully we had to change our run date. We have a run, an annual run that I started. It’ll be our fifth, I think, this year. And. And it was meant to be in April. And we’ve moved it. So it’s going to be in October. Fingers crossed. We’ll see what the government says. Yeah. Lots of just other bits and pieces, fun, fun things going on later. And then I’m just starting to record the second season of The Happy Vagina. And I’ve got an amazing guest list, and I’m really branching out into some other areas. So one of the most fundamental differences is that I’m gonna have men on.
All of season one, I just kept getting all of my male friends that were can be the ones that work in the entertainment industry going, what are you doing? Why are you like ostracising us and being divisive? Oh, no. This is a really divisive project. I get it because obviously with Lady Garden, it’s about gynaecological cancers. One of the reasons I started the Happy Vagina was because I wanted to reach out more into women’s health. And then the men who, like you were being divisive. And I was like, you know what? You’re right, I am. So I’ve got some men coming on who will be talking specifically about experiences that are relatable to women.
So the main focus and story around The Happy Vagina is still around women. So I’ve got George Robinson, who is one of the stars of Sex Education. He’s just joined in season two.
And he’s going to be Maeve’s love interest in season three. I think, although he wouldn’t really tell me. And he’s going to talk about he’s talking about how his relationship to women has changed since doing Sex Education.
And also, he had an accident where he broke his neck a few years ago. So he’s in a wheelchair. And so we talk about his relationship to women, which is just fantastic.
And then I’ve got Charlie Condou coming on, who is a gay, three-way parenter. So he and his male partner had a child with one of their friends and they three-way parent. And I’m really excited to hear about that. And then I have Kenny Jones coming on. So I’m really and then I’ve got some amazing woman as well. Emilie Pine and Kate Devlin. And yeah, so it’s it’s kind of. I’m just starting to record it, and I hope it’ll be out in July.
And I just feel really. It’s just an amazing project. The response to it is amazing. People absolutely love what I’m doing with it. And I feel I feel really liberated by it. I feel we liberated by it and excited for the future of it. We’re going to make some pants as well. Oh, I know.
Le’Nise: Thinking back on your journey from where you started when you first got your period, the party that your mom threw for you to where you are now, if you could go back to speak to your 13 year old self, what would you say to her?
Mika: I think I’d say it’s going to be okay. You know, just quite simple, soothing. It’s going to be OK, because it always is in the end. I think so many of us go through such trauma. Pain in life. Life can be incredibly painful and human beings can be very mean, very, very mean. I don’t know why, but they can. And I and I think just the very simple. Everything’s gonna be okay. Which was one of the meditations that I used to soothe myself after my mother died. I’d wake up in the night unable to get back to sleep in sheer shock and severe anxiety. Just everything’s gonna be okay.
Everything’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.
Le’Nise: I can feel that mantra going through me now, everything’s going to be OK. If listeners want to find out more about you, The Lady Garden, The Happy Vagina, where can they find out more?
Mika: Pretty straightforward. I’m Mika Simmons and my handles on social media at @missmikasimmons, which I’m trying to change at the moment. I don’t think I should be a miss anymore.
The Happy Vagina is @thehappyvagina. So never forget the the it’s the most important part, the happy vagina.
And then Lady Garden Foundation is Lady Garden Foundation, which and that’s our handle on social media. And also, if you want to look up on the Web site in the Web site’s really great. It’s got loads of really interesting information, blogs from people who experienced these cancers, symptom checkers, you know, really informative Web site.
The Happy Vagina’s just got lots of fun stuff, really.
Le’Nise: Well, thank you so much for coming on to the show today, Mika.
Mika: I’ve that’s such a nice time.
Thank you. You’re an amazing interviewer, I think.
Le’Nise: Thank you.