Michelle Obama: Being nice to me is a challenge

“I’m still working and treating myself to something good every morning is always a challenge,” he says.

“As I say in the book, I try every day to greet myself with a positive message,” she continues.

“It’s a real shame that so many of us, especially women, struggle to look at our image without tearing it apart and figuring out what’s wrong.”

“I think it’s at the heart of some of our discomfort and dissatisfaction, because if we don’t begin to learn to love ourselves as we are, it’s hard to pass that on to others.”

“So I work every day.”

Mrs Obama, 58, was in the White House with her husband Barack between 2009 and 2017.

In a one-off interview for the UK’s book The Light We Carry, BBC Breakfast’s Naga Manchetti told him: “You are seen as a driving force.

“We see you as a confident woman, a grounded woman, an intelligent woman… If you feel that way, what hope do other people have?”

“I think the importance of sharing that,” Mrs. Obama replied.

“We all have these thoughts, these negative thoughts that we’ve lived with for years, especially as women and women of color, and we don’t see ourselves reflected in our society.”

“I think we’re in a great position, but one of the things I talked about is like Serena and Venus years ago, growing up not just as a black woman, but as a great black woman. [Williams]Before we got the WNBA [Women’s National Basketball Association] We have role models other than gymnasts,” said the former first lady.

“It’s important to see who we can be in order to feel good about ourselves.”

He also spoke about the importance of managing the “fear that comes naturally to all of us”.

“If you can control your fear, become comfortable with your fear—being afraid of things that might actually put you in danger, but open to things that might propel you forward—on the other side of that is powerful and real growth. The sense of fear.”

“I can now say that everything I am today is the result of stepping out of my comfort zone and calming my fearful mind, taking on this challenge that would have otherwise held me back.”

In the book, Mrs. Obama reveals that the most anxious moment of her life was when her husband told her he wanted to run for president.

“It’s strange to think that my fear might have changed the course of history,” he wrote.

“It was absolutely worth it to take that leap into the void and support him,” he told BBC Breakfast.

“I lived the legacy of many people, including my grandfathers, especially African Americans, whose lives were defined by fear of difference,” she explains.

His grandparents grew up in a time when “there were very real fears that a black man in the wrong neighborhood, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and looking blind would mean his death,” he says.

“So every year, I feel like my grandparents’ world is getting smaller and smaller, both of them, they don’t trust anyone they don’t know, no, they don’t even trust doctors. That’s what led to one of my grandparents being diagnosed with lung cancer,” she says.

“I use this example to show that many of us are trapped in our sameness, afraid to meet or understand someone who doesn’t look like us, who doesn’t feel like us, who doesn’t agree with us. It narrows our world and makes us susceptible to the misinformation and conspiracy theories we face,” argued Mrs. Obama.

“We start to fear anyone who isn’t like us. It’s not a healthy situation. So, especially when young people are faced with the throes of fear, we need to think about that, to be able to distinguish between fear. It keeps them safe, and fear traps them in a small world.”

He says more and more people “feel like they don’t count on this planet,” and that Donald Trump’s inauguration after Barack Obama “still hurts.”

“It’s time to ask yourself if it’s worth it,” he says.

“Have we made a difference? Does it matter? When I’m in my darkest moment, in my most irrational place, I can say, maybe not. Can – maybe we’re not good enough.

“But when I look around and see things more clearly,​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ and and or and has and has been able to separate those feelings and think more rationally, there is a whole world of young people who think differently, and I, my God, thank them for the work we have done”.

“Has everything gotten better in the eight years we’ve been there? Of course not. Change is not like that. The wheel. But progress is not a steady upward climb. There are ups and downs and stagnation. That’s the nature of change.”

“That’s why the work we do today is to empower the next generation.”

The pair now lead the Obama Foundation, whose mission is to “inspire, empower and connect people to change their world.”