Michelle Obama acknowledged that she has difficulties with her negative thoughts about her appearance and her “fear mentality”, but that women need to “learn how to love ourselves as we are”.
In her new book, the former first lady of the United States reveals that “I hate how I look all the time, no matter what.”
However, she has found strategies to be more compassionate with herself, as she told the BBC Breakfast program.
“I’m still a project in progress and facing myself every morning with something kind is still a challenge”, she said.
“Every day I try, as I say in the book, to greet myself with a positive message”, continued.
“And it’s really a shame that many of us, especially women, have a hard time accepting our self-image without destroying it and figuring out what is what is wrong.”
“I think that is the core of part of our anxiety ad and unhappiness, because if we don’t start learning how to love ourselves as we are, it will be difficult to pass that on to others”.
“So I dedicate myself to that every day”.
Michelle Obama returned to the White House in September to unveil a portrait.
Mrs. Obama, of 58 years, she held the White House with her husband Barack between 2009 Y 2017.
In the only interview he gave in the United Kingdom on the occasion of his book The Light We Carry, BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty commented : “You are considered a driving force.”
“You project yourself as a confident woman, an established woman, an intelligent woman… If you feel that way, what hope do we have the rest of us?”
Mrs. Obama responded íó: “That’s what sharing this is about.”
“We all have these negative thoughts that we have carried for years, especially as women and as women of color, where we do not see ourselves reflected in our society.”
“I think we are in a better situation , but one of the things that I touched on was how I grew up, not just as a black woman, but as a tall black woman, before the days of Serena and Venus [Williams], before we had the WNBA [the National Basketball Association Female] and that we had other role models outside of gymnasts.”
“It is important for us to recognize who we can become in order to feel good about ourselves.”
Also He also spoke about the importance of dealing with the “fear that comes naturally to all of us”.
“If you can control your fears, if you can live comfortably with fear – fearing the things that can really put yourself in danger, but remain open to the things that can propel you forward- there is real powerful growth on the other side of that feeling of fear.
“Now I can affirm that everything I am today day is the result of pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, calming my fearful mindset and taking on that challenge that might otherwise have held me back.”
In the book, Michelle Obama reveals that the most anxious moment in her life was when her husband told her he wanted to run for president .
“It is strange to think that I could have altered the course of history with my fear”, he writes.
He told BBC Breakfast that “it was totally worth it take that leap into the void” and support it.
Michelle Obama said she sometimes doubts if she and her husband made any difference when they were in the White House.
“I have lived with the legacy of many people, particularly people of African descent, including my grandparents, whose lives were restricted by fear of something different,” he explained.
His grandparents grew up during a time when “there were real fears that if a black man showed up in the wrong, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, looking the wrong way, it could mean your death,” he said.
“So with each passing year, I feel like the world of My grandparents were getting smaller and smaller, for both of them, to the point where they didn’t trust anyone they didn’t know, not even doctors . And that, with one of my grandparents, was what made him miss a lung cancer diagnosis.”
“I use that as an example of how so many of us are locked inside our similarity, afraid of meeting or understanding someone who doesn’t look like us, who feels like us, who agrees with us. That keeps our world small and makes us susceptible to misinformation, to the conspiracy theories that we face.
“We start to fear anyone who is not like us. That’s not healthy. So I want young people in particular to think about that shock of fear when they face it, so that they can distinguish between the fear that is going to keep them safe, and the fear that is going to keep them trapped in a small world.
“Did we make a dent?”
She added that more and more people “feel like they don’t matter on this planet,” and that she still “resents” that Donald Trump succeeded Barack Obama.
“That is the moment when you have to ask yourself, was it worth it?“, he observed.
“Did we make a dent? did it matter? And when in my darkest moments, my most irrational place, I could say, well, maybe not. Maybe we didn’t measure up.”
“But then I look around me, and when there is more clarity, when I can get rid of those sensations and think more rationally, I think, by God! there is a whole world of young people who think differently about themselves because of the work we did.
- “He is the wrong president for our country”: the powerful speech against Trump by the former first lady
“Was everything resolved in the eight years we were there? Definitely not. This is not how change happens. But we planted a marker in the sand. We pushed the wheel a little. But progress is not a steady and regular ascent. There are ups and downs and stagnation. That is the nature of change.”
“And that’s why the work we do today is about empowering the next generation.”
The couple now operates the Obama Foundation, whose mission is to “inspire, empower and connect people to change their world”.
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