Former US first lady Michelle Obama says she struggled with a “crushing sense of hopelessness” after the 2020 presidential election that was brought on by the deaths and isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic, a summer of political and racial unrest and the insurrection at the US Capitol.
“I was in a low place,” she said. Then she got an idea.
“Everyone was searching for some answers about how to cope. And for some reason they were asking me, ‘What do you do?’ I had to start thinking about that,” the former first lady told People magazine in an interview pegged to next week’s release of her second book, “The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times.” She is set to open a six-city book tour in Washington.
In the book, former President Barack Obama’s wife, who is one of the world’s most famous women, tells how she steadies herself during these anxious times and how she works at overcoming her lifelong fear of change and doubts about herself.
“Over the 58 years that I’ve lived, I can look back and I can say, ‘This is how I deal with fear. These are the things I say to myself when I need to pick myself up. This is how I stay visible in a world that doesn’t necessarily see a tall black woman,’” she said. “This is how I stay armoured up when I’m attacked. The book is that offering.”
