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It’s difficult to constantly live in the limelight. Not to mention living in The White House as the wife of POTUS. You literally have the eyes of the entire world on you at all times. Then you have to deal with opposition within your own home, holding your man down, raising kids, oh, and the gang of haters and trolls that like to take front row seats.

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No one has handled the job of First Lady with more grace and poise than our very own Michelle Obama. On Wednesday, at the Obama Foundation Summit, she shared some intimate details about how she did it.

“Let me tell you I love my husband. He is my rock, but my girlfriends are my sanity. And when you live 8 years in the white house where you can’t even open a window. Where you can’t even walk out on a balcony without notifying 3 people so that they can shut down security. Your walk outside is a walk around that same circle in the south lawn over and over… because the thought of you leaving those gates requires 50 people’s attention and work and inconvenience. When you live like that, for 8 years, you need your girlfriends.”

Eek, when put like that The White House sounds like more of a gilded cage.

“All our spontaneity was basically taken away from us,” she remarked. “I had to plan my time with my girlfriends who kept me grounded… I am blessed to have a wonderful community of girlfriends… I have a whole set of mothers at our girls’ school who keep me out of the gossip but notified about what’s going on. It’s like ‘Ooh girl you don’t want to go to that potluck.'”

Can you imagine? The air is thick, and the tension is high. Meanwhile, Michelle is texting her girlfriends.

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Ok, so it probably didn’t go down quite like that, but this is why we love her! She keeps it real.

When talking about planning her schedule Michelle stresses the importance of taking time to take care of herself first. She fills her calendar up with the kids’ events and the things she wants to do. She schedules time with her girlfriends and Barack. Then, after all those moments have been planned for, she uses the remainder of her time for speaking engagements and other work related events. She remarked, “…and we still got a lot done.”

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Yes, yes you did.

The main takeaway is that it’s important to take care of yourself first. It’s something a lot of “doers” as she puts it, and nurturers neglect. When you are not at your best, everything beneath you will suffer. But, when you are the best version of you, you have the ability to give the very best of yourself. A great lesson for everyone.

Check out the full video below.

 

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