I couldn’t wait to receive my April issue of O THE OPRAH MAGAZINE when I learned that Oprah would be sharing the cover with First Lady Michelle Obama. It wasn’t really the cover that I was concerned with. Rather, I wanted to read Oprah’s interview with the new First Lady. I was not disappointed. Not only did it make me like Michelle Obama even more, but I also took away a couple of lessons that I want to imitate from her life.
1. Help doesn’t have to come from my husband. In a section of the interview, Michelle Obama was talking about a growth point in her marriage. She shared about “the stress of needing help, and then finally realizing that the help doesn’t necessarily have to come from your husband. It can come from anywhere.” For some reason, that caused a light bulb to go off in my head. I’m someone who is good at meeting other people’s need, but not so good at allowing others to help me – especially when it comes to my kids. For some reason, I had the mentality that either my husband or I had to meet their needs since we were the ones who chose to have them. Now, my husband’s schedule has been getting crazier and crazier over the last couple of years (teaching, going to school and now teaching on Saturdays to prepare his students for the Regents test). I’ve been handling everything pretty well, but the Saturday addition to his schedule was threatening to push me over the edge. (That’s the only day that I really had to do anything “unscheduled”.) Michelle Obama’s statement reminded me that I couldn’t only rely on my husband for help, but that I could get help from others too. It’s not even like there were not plenty of people (family and friends) who had offered me their help either. Although I’m still very particular regarding whom I leave my kids with (literally, everyone who watches my kids have had their backgrounds screened) you better believe that I’ve started taking them up on their offers!
2. I really need to make eating well and working out a priority. I realize that I’m good in these areas when everything is going according to (my planned) schedule. When my schedule gets crazy busy though, that’s when I start to slip. I eat whatever is lying around and I exercise when I can “fit it in”. I want to change that – especially since I don’t see my schedule getting any “saner” at least until the end of June. If Michelle Obama can get up at 4:30 to work out, then I can figure out how to fit exercise in my daily schedule (and carrying Sean on the subway doesn’t count as strength training any more!). I’m a logic-based person (for the most part) and the First Lady’s thinking just makes sense to me. As she said, “if I had to get up to go to work, I’d get up and go to work. If I had to get up to take care of my kids, I’d get up to do that. But when it comes to yourself…If I don’t exercise, I won’t feel good.” Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not doing the 4:30 thing – I am not a morning person. It’s more that I’m going to make exercise a priority in my daily schedule. The truth is when I start my day off with a morning devotional and exercise, I’m happier and more equipped to deal with each day’s happenings. Michelle Obama also mentioned that she gave up foods with artificial ingredients (for the most part). That’s something that I’m working on little by little. When I first read that, I was like, “Doesn’t practically everything have artificial ingredients?!” However (to my pleasant surprise), since I’ve been more conscious of ingredients in products, I’ve found several tasty foods with no artificial flavors. “Seek and ye shall find…”
In any event, I was happy to learn these lessons. Have you learned anything from the life of First Lady Michelle Obama that has inspired you to change?
