Michelle Obama admitted that she struggles with negative thoughts about her appearance and her “fearful mind”, but that “we women need to learn to love ourselves as we are”.
In her new book, the former first lady of the United States reveals that she hates her appearance “all the time and no matter what.” But she has discovered techniques for being kind to herself, she told BBC Breakfast.
“I’m still an unfinished piece of work and facing myself every morning with something gentle is still a challenge,” says Michelle. “I try every day to greet myself with a positive message, as I said in the book.”
“And it’s really a shame that so many of us, particularly women, have such a hard time just looking at our own image without scrutinizing it to find out what’s wrong.”
“I think this is the center of our restlessness and unhappiness, because if we don’t start by learning to love ourselves as we are, it’s hard to pass that on to others,” says Michelle. “So I’m working on it every day.”
Michelle Obama is 58 years old and occupied the White House with her husband Barack between 2009 and 2017. She gave the BBC her only interview with the British press about her new book, “The Light We Carry”, released in Brazil by the publisher Objetiva with the title 🇧🇷Our Inner Light”🇧🇷
During the interview, BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty asked: “You are considered a powerhouse. You are seen as this confident woman, this established woman, this intelligent woman… hope left for us?”
“I think this is the reason to share this,” Michelle replied. “We all have these thoughts, these negative thoughts that we’ve lived with for years, especially as black women and women, that we don’t see ourselves reflected in our society.”
“I think we’re in a better position, but one of the things I talked about was what it was like to grow up, not just as a black woman, but as a tall black woman, before the Serena and Venus era. [Williams]before we had the WNBA [a liga norte-americana feminina de basquete] and that we had other role models besides gymnasts to guide us,” she continues.
“It’s important for us to look at who we are to feel good about ourselves,” she says.
‘Comfortably Afraid’
Michelle also spoke about the importance of dealing with the “fear that comes naturally to all of us”.
“If you can master your fear, you can feel comfortably fearful,” she says. “Being afraid of the things that can really bring you danger, but being open to the things that can carry you forward. There is strong real growth on the other side of the feeling of fear.”
“I can now say that everything I am today is the result of pushing myself out of my comfort zone, silencing my fearful mind, and taking on those challenges that might otherwise have held me back,” she says.
In the book, Michelle Obama reveals that the greatest anxiety she felt in her life was when her husband told her he wanted to run for the US Presidency. “It’s strange to think that I could have altered the course of history with my fear,” she says.
Obama told BBC Breakfast that “it was certainly worth taking that leap of faith” and offering him his support.
“I’ve lived through the legacy of many people, especially African-American people, including my grandparents, who had their lives restricted by fear of something different,” she explained.
Her grandparents grew up in a time when “there were real fears that a black man showing up in the wrong neighborhood, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, looking the wrong way, could spell his death,” she says.
“With each passing year, I feel like my grandparents’ world got smaller and smaller for both of them, to the point where they didn’t trust anyone they didn’t know, not even the doctors,” recalls Michelle. “And that, with one of my grandparents, kept him from being diagnosed with lung cancer.”
“I use this as an example of how many of us get stuck in our sameness, afraid to meet or understand someone who doesn’t look like us, who doesn’t feel the same way we do, who disagrees with us. It makes our minds small and makes us susceptible to the disinformation and conspiracy theories that present themselves to us.”
“We started to be afraid of people who aren’t like us,” says Michelle. “This is not a healthy position. So I want young people in particular to think about that shock caused by fear when it arises, to be able to differentiate between the fear that will make them safe and the fear that will leave them trapped in a small world. “
‘Have we left our contribution?’
She added that more and more people “think they don’t matter on this planet” and that “it still hurts” that Donald Trump succeeded Barack Obama. “This is that moment where you have to ask yourself, ‘Was it worth it?'”
“Did we leave our contribution? Was it important?” Michelle asks herself. “And when I’m at my worst, most irrational, I might even say, ‘well, maybe not.’ Maybe we weren’t good enough.'”
“But when I look around and there’s more clarity, when I can let go of those feelings and think more rationally, I’m like, ‘Well, my God, there’s a whole world of young people who are thinking differently about themselves because of the work we’ve done. ‘.”
“Has everything been fixed in the eight years we were there? Of course not. That’s not how change happens.”
“But we left a mark in the sand. We pushed the wheel forward a little bit. But progress is not a constant path up. There are ups, downs, and stagnation. That’s the nature of change. And that’s why the work we’re doing doing today is empowering the next generation,” explains Michelle Obama.
The couple now run the Obama Foundation, whose mission is to “inspire, empower and connect people to change their world.”
– This text was published here.
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