Michelle Obama always comes across as eloquent and positive, confident and composed, but in her new book, Overcoming: A Workbook, the former First Lady reveals that she often starts the day loaded with uncertainty, obstacles and self-doubt.
In this extract, Michelle shares a candid insight into her mornings, and how she prepares for a brighter day…
Michelle Obama's morning ritual
© Paras Griffin, michelle obamaA day can feel hard and not hard; a challenge can seem giant, and then maybe conquerable, and then two hours later, it’s overwhelming all over again.
It depends not just on your circumstances but also on your mood, your attitude, your stance—all of which can change in an instant. We get pumped up and knocked down by the smallest of factors—whether the sun is shining, how our hair looks, how we slept, how we ate or didn't eat, whether someone bothers to look kindly in our direction or not.
We may or may not acknowledge out loud all the other forces that knock so many of us down, the social conditions shaped by generations of systemic oppression. But of course they are there.
The start of our day is often when we can set ourselves up for how we confront these challenges; many things can happen beyond your morning to frustrate or overwhelm you or knock you off course, but when you buttress yourself against these forces from the beginning, you stand a greater chance of remaining resilient.
However, it’s easy to wake up and start the day with a critical thought. The mirror can be a scary place. Many of us find it tough to approach with any sort of ease, especially first thing in the morning. We can be reflexively harsh in our self-appraisal. We have often absorbed negative comments about our looks, messages that leave us feeling objectified, unworthy, or unseen.
© GettyWomen are also consistently held to higher standards than men when it comes to grooming and style, requiring more elaborate, more expensive, and more time-consuming preparation before feeling comfortable heading to work or even just stepping out into a new day.
I personally have plenty of mornings when I flip on the bathroom light, take one look, and desperately want to flip it off again. Face-to-face with myself, I’ll impulsively start in on cataloging my flaws, seeing only what’s dry and puffy, recognizing only the parts of me that could and should be better.
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In assessing myself, I instantly alienate myself. I start my day divided—one part of me a critic, the other a clown. One of us bites; the other hurts.
The feeling is decidedly bad. It’s hard to shake off. And that’s what I want to talk about here—the possibility of starting kind.
I learned this small-power tool from a dear friend of mine, Ron. Every morning, without fail, Ron gets out of bed and smiles at himself in the bathroom mirror, then greets himself with a warm: "Heeey, Buddy!"
I would guess that like the rest of us, my pal Ron often shows up tired and puffy in the mirror. He, too, has plenty of flaws that surely beg to be inspected and scrutinized. But what he sees first, what he chooses to recognize, is a whole person, someone he’s genuinely glad to see.
Unlike a lot of us, Ron has figured out that self-loathing is hardly a good starting block from which to launch a new day. If you think about it, his simple message of compassion and approval is exactly the sort of thing many of us rather desperately try to wring out of other people—parents, teachers, bosses, lovers, and so on— and then end up feeling crushed when we don’t get it.
For me, part of the beauty of "Heeey, Buddy!" is that it's not terribly ambitious. It doesn’t really count as a pep talk. It requires no passion or eloquence, nor any sort of belief that the day ahead will be stellar, full of new opportunities and positive growth. It is merely a friendly hello—two words delivered in a warm tone. And for this reason, maybe it’s something more of us could try to do.
Overcoming: A Workbook by Michelle Obama is available from 3rd December 2024 (Viking, £16.99)
