"Barack Is My Home" with Oprah Winfrey

Speaker 1 The Light Podcast is presented by Starbucks and Intuit. Wow.

Speaker 1 Oh my goodness. So I know all of you have been at some point in your life to an event

Speaker 1 where the host

Speaker 1 is standing there before you and says, we have our guest this evening who needs no introduction. And then they spend the next 20 minutes

Speaker 1 telling you everything that person did since they was born.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to do that. Because I know you already know who's here.

Speaker 1 I'm here for the same reason you are

Speaker 1 to get some of that light she's carrying.

Speaker 1 So the woman who needs no introduction for real,

Speaker 1 our forever first lady, Michelle Obama!

Speaker 1 Hi everyone, and welcome to the Light Podcast. I'm Michelle Obama.

Speaker 1 If we're trying to get through a tough stretch, whether that's a couple of days or a couple of years, one of the most important tools we've got is other people.

Speaker 1 And it's easy to think that friendships or relationships follow a simple formula. The more you see someone or talk with them or text with them, the harder you can lean on them.

Speaker 1 But my experience with my father tells me otherwise. My father passed away 32 years ago, and sadly I've lived most of my life without him.

Speaker 1 But the depth of that relationship, the wisdom he passed on to me, the confidence he instilled in me, the moral compass he steadied me with,

Speaker 1 those things are still embedded in me and I draw on them every single day. He did it all in less time than either of us wish we had together.

Speaker 1 I think we all wish we had more time with those we love, whether they're across the country or sleeping in the same bed with us at night.

Speaker 1 So what I want to talk about are the ingredients that make relationships endure.

Speaker 1 How can we foster connections last?

Speaker 1 And who better to join me for this episode than the queen of fostering human connection, Oprah Winfrey?

Speaker 1 Oprah and I have known each other since the day she showed up on my doorstep when Barack was running for Senate. In the time since, she's become a friend, a mentor, a guide.

Speaker 1 She constantly encourages me to use my voice, my light, to help others find theirs. As you will hear in this episode, she always, always delivers.

Speaker 1 My goodness!

Speaker 1 Woo! Woo!

Speaker 1 Wow. Can you, I have to say, the people came to see you.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I think it was a pretty big added bonus that we got Miss Oprah Winfrey here, too.

Speaker 1 I have to just say this. Every other moderator was so glad that they weren't following you.

Speaker 1 It's so interesting because

Speaker 1 I've been watching you on Instagram and people have been sending me, oh my gosh,

Speaker 1 you should see what Conan did. You should see what Tracy Ellis Ross did.
You should see what Gail did. Did you see Tyler? Did you see Ellen? And so I was feeling kind of like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 Was your fearful mind kicking in? My fearful mind. See, even Oprah Winfrey has a fearful mind.
My fearful mind. You know, I actually, you know what happened?

Speaker 1 I thought, okay, I'm going to go back to the toolbox. Exactly.
You know how to do this.

Speaker 1 I know how to do an interview. I know how to do an interview.
I'm not scared of the people.

Speaker 1 So here we are. Yes.
Thank you for being here. My dear, dear friend.
I love you so much. I love you too.
I appreciate you so much. Saying back at you what you stand for.

Speaker 1 I want to know where were you and what was going on when you first realized this here is serious. Yeah.
And we're not going nowhere. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, interestingly enough, I was on the road becoming, the tour had just finished. We took some time off and I was on the road doing a couple of speaking engagements.

Speaker 1 And I was in Las Vegas because I also coupled those engagements with a celebration with my team to thank them for the hard work they had done on the tour. So, this is March 2020.
This is March,

Speaker 1 and there was still buzz about COVID in the air, but you know, it was sort of back and forth. What is this? So, we're in Las Vegas, and that's when there was a slow wave of cancellations.

Speaker 1 You remember that ripple effect because people didn't know what to do. Correct.
You know, companies were making split decisions, and so we're stuck in Vegas watching the world slowly turn off.

Speaker 1 That's what it felt like. You know, events started being canceled and we're in Vegas.
Slowly, the casino started to empty out. The streets in Las Vegas started to empty.

Speaker 1 It felt like we were in a ghost town. Did you think you needed to get home or did you think? Yeah, we were trying to be responsible and wait until the last event canceled.
Right.

Speaker 1 And then finally, they canceled it. We got back on the plane, got home.
So that felt eerie being out there on on the road when slowly the world was shifting. And we really weren't sure.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we weren't sure about it. Everybody was just using hand sanitizer.
That's right, that's right. Washing off their groceries.
Yeah, washing off.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That was that phase, yes.

Speaker 1 And then I was worried about the girls because they were

Speaker 1 still at school. And I'm thinking, my babies are out there with the COVID.

Speaker 1 And I was hoping that the universities were going to be responsible. And then finally, the decision was made that they were coming home.

Speaker 1 But then I was thinking, oh my God, they're coming to my house?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 I was thinking, they're going through airports and sitting on airplanes. So Barack and I cautioned them to wear masks.
And when they got home,

Speaker 1 I made them stay in the garage

Speaker 1 and open all their stuff up.

Speaker 1 I was going to make them stay out there. I told them to take off their travel clothes.
I mean, we didn't know what was going on. My husband thought I was being a little irrational.

Speaker 1 But I was like, we're trying to,

Speaker 1 we didn't know.

Speaker 1 I was not irrational, honey. Sedman was in the guest house for 14 days.
I remember

Speaker 1 that was during the 14-day period. See, now Malia and Sasha, at least I let you come in the house.

Speaker 1 But we were preparing for to create a COVID safe community. And since they had traveled, we were kind of holding our breath, making sure they didn't bring any virus home.
Of course.

Speaker 1 So we didn't know how long to wait. What was the incubation period? So we instituted a set of common sense protocol in our household.

Speaker 1 We had, you know, a COVID community, everybody that was managing in the same way. We were masked.

Speaker 1 We, you know, sanitized. We continued to have a small community of people, but we socialized outside, six feet apart, because Barack was like, This, you know, it is a virus.

Speaker 1 And if we keep ourselves clean, he knew enough to know what this was. So it was scary, but we had information.

Speaker 1 What was scary? So you were comfortably afraid. We were comfortably afraid.
What was scary? As you talk about in the book, being comfortably afraid of the sound of the world.

Speaker 1 That's why we talk about scary.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but what scared me, Oprah, was watching the confusion in the world, the mixed messages, the inconsistency, the lack of leadership, the lack of a plan, you know, watching people not take this seriously, you know, people treating the pandemic like it was an extended vacation, people arguing about wearing masks, watching kids partying on the beach in Florida.

Speaker 1 That was scary because I'm thinking all those kids are going to go home to a grandparent or somebody with an autoimmune disease and it is going to be catastrophic.

Speaker 1 That was the thing that that scared me watching disinformation. That's scary.
You know, because watching people attack scientists and the experts who were trying to steer us towards something

Speaker 1 and just that was the frightening part of it for me, watching the world not deal with this well.

Speaker 1 So before reading the light we carry, I was feeling, and I know so many of you were feeling this too, because we have all these conversations about how bad things are when we were with our friends.

Speaker 1 And I think a lot of us were feeling like you felt before you wrote it: that there are so many massive problems, there's so many things that need to be overcome, and that feels like that there's a conspiracy of craziness going on out here.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 how do we get back to trust? Yeah,

Speaker 1 trusting our government, trusting each other,

Speaker 1 in a way that doesn't doesn't make us feel numbed and tired all the time.

Speaker 1 I think we can't underestimate what quarantine did to exacerbate that because we were

Speaker 1 isolated from each other physically.

Speaker 1 And while to some that felt good, it's like, whoo, I'm so tired of people, right?

Speaker 1 I think we need to be with each other. You know, we really do.
I think it, you know, when we gather and we mix our

Speaker 1 togetherness, you know,

Speaker 1 we feel better. You know, we feel better.
Don't you feel better just being here tonight. Don't you feel better?

Speaker 1 I haven't been able to do that. I always say it's harder to hate up close.
And we have been isolated from each other. We're just hearing about each other from the news and from our feeds.

Speaker 1 And my experience with this this country is that it's a distortion of the truth of who we are.

Speaker 1 I have traveled all around this country in communities of all different races and socioeconomic backgrounds and political affiliations.

Speaker 1 And people have across the board been kind and decent to me, to my family. Once they get to know us, they may not agree, but we are not the people that we see on TV.

Speaker 1 And I just want us to remember that, that we do not, we should never fear each other.

Speaker 1 Everyone, there are the outliers of people who are struggling deeply, but the vast majority of people are like Toot and Gramps and mom and dad.

Speaker 1 They are hardworking, honest, decent people who are not entitled, who are grateful, who are proud Americans, who are willing to work hard, who tell the truth. That's who our country is.

Speaker 1 But we have to have leaders

Speaker 1 that reflect that back.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 it is dangerous when our leadership says something different.

Speaker 3 My parents were really good at unconditional love, right?

Speaker 1 This is my big brother Craig.

Speaker 3 So they just

Speaker 3 made us feel like our house and our home was the best place to be, the safest place to be. You could talk about anything you want.
They never said,

Speaker 3 it's because I said so,

Speaker 3 right? They always explain their decisions. And my mom was really good for saying,

Speaker 3 I don't know the answer to that, but I'm going to find out the answer and then I'm going to give it to you. If you ever asked her a question, they caught her off guard, right?

Speaker 3 I don't think many parents did that then, and I don't think many parents do that now. I get the feel of people who sort of avoid those kind of interactions with their kids, the hard interactions.

Speaker 1 Oprah and I will be right back in a minute.

Speaker 1 Here's more of my conversation with Oprah. Can you finish this sentence? I still hear my father's voice whenever.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's as deep as like whenever. His voice is ringing through my head.
His voice was, you know, with me on my first day at Princeton, you know

Speaker 1 settling myself into this bastion of elitism you know he was with me on my first day at my law firm and even after he died he still was there walking me down the aisle because he was the model

Speaker 1 He helped model for me the man I should have.

Speaker 1 So I was able to see Barack. I was able to see him see past all the external stuff.
And the external stuff was really pretty good, ladies. but

Speaker 1 but I could see

Speaker 1 what was important to look for in a man you know he's with me now

Speaker 1 he is with me on this stage he he he is what I tap into when I'm trying to speak some truth to people and show my authenticity and my vulnerability he is there whenever

Speaker 1 I love that you said that he helped you in many ways to be able to see what you needed to see in Barack Obama. Can we talk about your husband for a minute? Oh, yes, please.

Speaker 1 Yes, please.

Speaker 1 People have tried to capture

Speaker 1 your love story.

Speaker 1 They've tried to capture the love story. They've tried to,

Speaker 1 they've made the movie, the drama movie, they did the series on the first lady, they did, trying, but they can't get it.

Speaker 1 They cannot get it. But you summed it up so completely in just one sentence that was so powerful that when I read it, it actually stopped me and made my eyes water.
You remember what the sentence was?

Speaker 1 No, what was it?

Speaker 1 Well, I don't know what sentence made you weep. Okay.

Speaker 1 The sentence you were talking about: you've lived many places. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Barack

Speaker 1 is my home. Yes.
Barack is my home. Barack is my home.
Barack is my home. Yes, he is.
Now, go home and see if you can ask yourself that question

Speaker 1 about the person you're with. You so silly.

Speaker 1 Are they your home?

Speaker 1 And I appreciate how you break it down to us, that first trip to Hawaii.

Speaker 1 Because when you first arrived in Hawaii, you were looking for, and I understand why, you're a working woman and had never been to Hawaii. So, you're looking for the Hawaii and Hawaii 5-0.

Speaker 1 Those of you who remember that show, My Ties, My Ties, and Sunny Moon

Speaker 1 and Honeymoon Suites. But instead,

Speaker 1 instead, it was a trip home to visit his family. That's where he was from.
He wasn't going back to some island vacation. He was going back to be with his people.

Speaker 1 But I was young, and I was, it was cold in Chicago, and I thought, I'm going to Hawaii with my man. It's going to be so romantic.

Speaker 1 And then we landed, and we went straight to Tutan Graham's apartment. No ocean.
It was a high-rise building. Go up to the 10th floor, you know, walk in.

Speaker 1 Looks like my grandparents' house. Might as well be on the south side of Chicago, which was a wonderful thing, right? To know that I saw his, I was familiar with his family, right?

Speaker 1 Then we cuddle up. What's on the TV? 60 minutes.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, they pull out some TV trays. And I think we probably had tuna sandwiches with sweet pickles.
I was like, yes, I do like this.

Speaker 1 Within some days, you would go to the beach, and then I love the moment where he says, okay, gotta go. Going back to Tootin Gramps.

Speaker 1 Going back to the house, you know. So I was young and silly, and I started feeling like, well, I don't know if I like this.
It's not as romantic as I thought. Although I didn't act like that.

Speaker 1 So my mother knows I did not act like some little spoiled person. I was like, you are thinking, where is the Hawaii? Yeah, where is the Hawaii?

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 But I conclude the story by saying that, you know, what Barack was showing me was the real of him.

Speaker 1 And sometimes as people looking for partners, we're looking for what we think are my ties and sunsets. And what we need is somebody who respects and loves their family and is going to show up for

Speaker 1 again and again. That's what they're showing you.
And Barack valued the time that he had with his family.

Speaker 1 It was nice to go to the beach, but being there for his mother and his grandmother, his little sister, helping them work through their stuff, he was the rock of their family. And let me just tell you,

Speaker 1 he always shows up for me and the girls in that same way. He is present and there when we need him.
And that's what he was showing me in Hawaii when I was trying to get to the beach.

Speaker 1 I think what we all so appreciate in both becoming and also in the light we carry is how you are so candid about

Speaker 1 your relationship, about your life, and how everything is not perfect. You say it took some time and a lot of practice for you all to work through your disagreement.
So what's your style?

Speaker 1 You talk about your style and his style. Yeah,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 I've said this to him. I've said this before.

Speaker 1 One of the things that's different in how we show love is that because his family lived far away and traveled a lot, he had to learn to love at a distance, you know, and that means there are more words said, more love exchanged, more physical, you know.

Speaker 1 I love you. Yeah, I love you.
I love you. Love you too.
Love you too. You know,

Speaker 1 I grew up with everybody like within eight blocks of each other, you know, all my aunts and uncles and great uncles and cousins and, you know, everybody celebrated birthdays.

Speaker 1 So we were with each other every weekend, twice a weekend. We were always together.
So it was like, bye. I don't have to tell you I love you because I'm going to see you Saturday, right?

Speaker 1 So love for me was showing up.

Speaker 1 It was like, yeah,

Speaker 1 stop kissing me. Just do the laundry.

Speaker 1 You know, I mean, and so, and we also are temperamentally different, you know. Guess what I am? Kind of hot-headed, you know, talkative, easy to get mad.
It's like, what?

Speaker 1 what and barack wants to talk rationally and I'm like rational rational don't come to me with sense I'm angry don't come to me with your three bullet points you better get out of here let me cool down

Speaker 1 I don't hear none of that reason I believe more of us have to be honest about the work that it takes to build a life with another person. To me, it doesn't seem like it's that controversial, you know?

Speaker 1 I mean, what's controversial is somebody of of your stature being dishonest about it. That's exactly right.
You know, it's like all hashtag relationship goals.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I was mad at him in that picture. Not only that.

Speaker 1 So what for you is romantic now? What do you consider romantic? Romantic is I love when my husband plans something, right?

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 it is hard to plan when you are the president or the former president, right? So if he can surprise me with all, and he gets so pleased with himself when he pulls something off, right?

Speaker 1 And our 30th honeymoon was probably

Speaker 1 the latest romantic thing that he did because he recreated our honeymoon, which was driving along the Pacific coast.

Speaker 1 When we were married, first married, we started in San Francisco, rented a car, drove all the way down through Big Sur, stopped and saw the Redwoods and went through Santa Barbara and then ended in LA.

Speaker 1 And it was just the two of us. And he created that.
Now it wasn't just the two of us because we were in a motorcade and we had our agents and

Speaker 1 three cars behind. They're like 12 people in the back, you know, trying to hide.

Speaker 1 It's changed, but everyone was excited. All of his agents were like,

Speaker 1 we're going on a walk next. And it's like, and

Speaker 1 they were trying to lay back and all our aides. We traveled with the crowd, you know, but he planned romantic.
It was very romantic. It was very, very sweet.

Speaker 1 Oprah and I will be right back in a minute.

Speaker 1 So in becoming, you told us so much about, you know, the years when he was away and those years, I think, when you were feeling badly in the relationship, in the marriage.

Speaker 1 Has it changed now that he's home

Speaker 1 where all the wives are like

Speaker 1 has it changed yes is he a different kind of husband now than he was yeah all those years with all the pressure

Speaker 1 no i think he's been pretty consistent you know i've grown i've changed i've learned that you know over these years that i you know i have to make me happy you know it goes back to the lessons from my father.

Speaker 1 He's not responsible for my happiness. He loves me.
He cares about me. But most of my unhappiness had to do with choices I was making.
Like, I had to be the perfect mother.

Speaker 1 I had to do everything right. I had to hold down a job and make sure that I was holding myself to a standard that was stressful for me.

Speaker 1 And also impossible. And absolutely impossible.
Because you can have it all, perhaps, but you can't have it all at all. At the same time.

Speaker 1 Let us say that again.

Speaker 2 You say it.

Speaker 1 You can have it all, but not at the same time. You really can't.
You know, that whole, no, it is impossible, especially if you want to be a good parent, you know, and spend any time with your kids.

Speaker 1 It's a tough balancing act. I really appreciate it in the light we carry when you talked about how you recognized and Barack recognized that you couldn't be everything for each other.

Speaker 1 And that's why your kitchen table of friends is so important and, as you say, has helped to take the pressure off of your marriage. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Tell us about that kitchen table. You know,

Speaker 1 all right, I'm going to tell the story of when you met my kitchen table.

Speaker 1 Can I tell that story? It's not in the book, but.

Speaker 1 Oprah kindly hosted my 50th birthday party. Not just 50th? It was your 50th.
Not just your 50th.

Speaker 1 See, I wasn't going to tell that story. I didn't know I could tell that story.
Oh, okay. So you said yes before you knew I was talking about.
No, I know you're going to.

Speaker 1 I want you to talk about what I was going to, a moment ago, say,

Speaker 1 Barack Obama, President of the United States, called me

Speaker 1 to ask me, would I host? And at the end of the conversation, he says, make sure you note that I'm the one making this call.

Speaker 1 I'm the one that told you to to arrange all this so I'm the one that made the call I didn't have an assistant call you so when you were telling that story I thought oh that's why he said that that's why he's I'm the one that's making this call

Speaker 1 so we're coming to stay with you graciously hosting us and you said bring your friends and I was like okay

Speaker 1 and she's like how many people and I said well it's like 12 12 and you're like

Speaker 1 What'd you say? You were like you don't have 12 good friends. I did.
I was like, I do. I do.

Speaker 1 I'm not trying to statute. I'm 12 good friends.

Speaker 1 I do.

Speaker 1 And Oprah was like, I got Gail.

Speaker 1 And what I said was. The only person I know with 12 good friends was Jesus and the disciples.

Speaker 1 The only person I know with him. But then you met him.
And then one of them betrayed him.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 But then you met my kitchen table and you saw that I

Speaker 1 collect and keep my friends throughout life. You know, so I got my roommate from college.
I've got my best friend from law school. I've got the moms who, you know, helped me in Chicago.

Speaker 1 We were like a unit. We raised our kids together.
Some of those kids are here tonight. You know, they are like my children.

Speaker 1 I had a whole new set of mom friends and women in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 1 who could understand that life, a couple of who were married to people in Barack's administration. And when you're in that world, you need someone who understands that plight.

Speaker 1 They were my ride or dies.

Speaker 1 So I tend to collect people throughout life and keep them

Speaker 1 because it's like different people bring different things to my life.

Speaker 1 But the bottom line is that I call it my kitchen table because the kitchen table in our home was always the place where we felt safe.

Speaker 1 You know, we'd come in as little kids from the woes of the playground and the

Speaker 1 give and take of the neighborhood and complaining about a teacher or some unfairness. And you could always let it out at the kitchen table.
You felt safe and seen.

Speaker 1 It was probably the first table where I felt seen by my mother and father who loved to hear our stories and our voices. But you always got rejuvenated at that table.

Speaker 1 You know, you could let out the insults and the slights and yell and scream and get that out your system so that you could get yourself together and go back out there like you had some sense.

Speaker 1 You know, so my kitchen table is that for me, you know, and not, there are so many different aspects to my life.

Speaker 1 You know, I've had so many different facets from motherhood to professionalism and on and on and on that that table has just gotten bigger and bigger.

Speaker 1 I love the beginning of the book. You have this poem by Alberto Rios that says, if someone in your family tree was trouble, a hundred were not.

Speaker 1 The bad do not win, not finally, no matter how loud they are. We simply would not be here if that were so.

Speaker 1 A simple truth. So that brings us to the phrase phrase that has become synonymous with your name.
When they go low,

Speaker 1 we go high.

Speaker 1 We go high. And you say that going high

Speaker 1 usually involves taking a pause before you react to anything, correct? Absolutely. Okay.

Speaker 1 So what has happened recently in your life or in the country that you had to step back and say, let me pause and try to get to high?

Speaker 1 watching the uh

Speaker 1 Georgia Senate

Speaker 1 you know just watching that before it was decided you know watching that turn into a runoff oh

Speaker 1 where are we in the world that that even had to happen you know

Speaker 1 That Barack had to go down there and literally pronounce to the people, yes

Speaker 1 Be like, don't do this. Don't what are y'all doing? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So yeah, there are, look, there are, there are, there's plenty in the world that makes me mad. And wait a minute, look, Kennedy just asked you this.
Yes. Do you go high immediately?

Speaker 1 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Okay. No, that's what the kitchen table is for.
Remember, I go sit at my kitchen table and we have a go-low session.

Speaker 1 You know?

Speaker 2 We just go low.

Speaker 1 We're all picking ourselves off the floor.

Speaker 1 I used to do this thing with my staff in the White House where before I would give a speech or do an interview,

Speaker 1 we'd mock answer the questions because they knew I needed to get the low out, you know?

Speaker 1 So I would have. So we feel better knowing that.
Oh, yeah, I would just play out what I would call presidential ending statements that I could make. I'd be like, you know what?

Speaker 1 We could just go home if I said, burnt, right?

Speaker 1 And my team would look and go, yeah, don't do that, you know.

Speaker 1 But sometimes you, you know, so going

Speaker 1 high doesn't mean you don't feel the rage, right?

Speaker 1 It doesn't mean that you're not supposed to feel.

Speaker 1 It doesn't mean that you are complacent in unfairness and inequality. It doesn't mean you don't do the work.
It's just the choice of your approach. And going high is a choice.

Speaker 1 It's a choice that I think is most mature.

Speaker 1 It's a long-term choice, and it's not you just wallowing in the gut feeling of what you feel

Speaker 1 at that moment. That's self-indulgent.
And when you are a leader with a platform, we can't afford to indulge our innermost ugly, right?

Speaker 1 We have a responsibility to go high because we are living we've lived through leadership that goes low, and no one feels good in that it doesn't lead to solutions it just doesn't work so i answer i end the book by answering the question that everybody has been asking me still go high michelle now really really

Speaker 1 and my answer is yes absolutely we always go high we go high

Speaker 1 But we do we do the work you know and that's what I want young people to know that you you know the light we carry is in all of us you know we have to learn how to build it up in ourselves first we can't look to other people to build it up in us because sometimes they don't have it in them you know and once we build it up we have to protect it protect it with a good kitchen table keeping people in but also letting people go when they're not serving you for the best they're losing oxygen when they're losing oxygen you know you have to protect yourself from the poison that's out there you've got to get out of other people's mirrors, right?

Speaker 1 And then once you've buttressed yourself and you've got it together, then it's our responsibility to share that light. That's the going high part.

Speaker 1 So as you think about interacting, speaking out, texting, using social media, think about the light you carry. Lead with that light because light begets light.
Hope begets hope.

Speaker 1 Going high begets more of it. That's why we do it.
Thank you for reminding us of the light we carry, Michelle Obama.

Speaker 1 The YouTube fit hurt free.

Speaker 1 When I wake up in the morning, love.

Speaker 1 Look, there will be days where you'll want to go low and just sit in it. Just stew for a while.
And believe me, I have been there.

Speaker 1 But I've learned that if you spend too much much time down there, you'll end up asking yourself, what am I doing to myself? What am I doing to my light?

Speaker 1 That's why we're talking about going high and building lasting relationships.

Speaker 1 It's why in other episodes we've talked about the power of small, the importance of building your kitchen table of friends, of navigating relationships and building meaningful partnerships, of the joyful, maddening journey of of raising children, and so much more.

Speaker 1 There's no right or wrong way to do any of this. We're all just trying to find our way.

Speaker 1 Hopefully the conversations in this podcast have given you some tools and practices and attitudes that will help clear a path through the darkness and into the light.

Speaker 1 It is wonderful to have a friend like Oprah to explore all of this with, as well as Ellen DeGeneres, Conan O'Brien, Gail King, Hoda Cotby, David Letterman, Elizabeth Alexander, and Tyler Perry throughout this season.

Speaker 1 Because believe it or not, this is actually our final episode. So I just want to say thank you.
It has meant so much to have you with me on this journey.

Speaker 1 And I hope you can find something useful from it in your journey. I hope there's something in here that gives you comfort or a new perspective.

Speaker 1 And more than anything, I hope this helped you recognize your own light so that you can share it with others. Thank you so much, everybody.

Speaker 1 I'll catch up with you again soon sometime. Until then, take care.

Speaker 2 This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original, produced by Higher Ground and Little Everywhere.

Speaker 2 executive produced by dan fearman and mook de mohan for higher ground and jane marie for little everywhere audible executive producers zola mashariki and nick d'Angelo audible co-producers Keith Wooten and Glenn Pogue.

Speaker 2 Produced by Mike Richter. With additional production by Joy Sanford, Dan Gallucci, Nancy Golumbiski, and Lisa Polak.
With production support from Andrew Epin, Jenna Levin, and Julia Murray.

Speaker 2 Location recording by Jodi Elf.

Speaker 2 Special thanks to Melissa Winter, Jill Van Locheren, Crystal Carson, Alex Mayseali, Haley Ewing, Marone Haile Meskel, Sierra Tyler, Carl Ray, and Jerry Radway, Meredith Coop, Sarah Corbett, Tyler Lechtenberg, and Usra Najum.

Speaker 2 The theme song is Unstoppable by Sia. The closing song is Lovely Day by Bill Withers.
Audible Head of U.S. Content Rachel Gyatza.
Head of Audible Studios Zola Mashariki.

Speaker 2 copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio LLC.

Speaker 2 Sound recording copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio LLC. Voiceover by Novina Carmel.

Speaker 2 This episode was recorded live at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 When someone else instead of me

Speaker 2 always seems to know the way,

Speaker 2 then I look at you

Speaker 2 and the world's all right.