General Discussion

The former first lady responded to backlash during an episode of her "IMO" podcast, admitting: "It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the things that was right for me, that was a hard thing for me to do."

Revealing she was practicing the "art of saying no," Michelle noted, "It's a muscle that you have to build."
And I think we suffered, because it's almost like we started training late in life to build that muscle, right? I am just now starting to build it," she continued at the time.

She added, "I want our daughters, I want the young women out there… I want my girls to start practicing different strategies for saying no."

"After all that I've done in this world, if I am still showing them that I have to keep- I still have to show people that I love my country, that I'm doing the right thing, that I am always setting, going high all the time, even in the face of a lot of hypocrisy and contradiction, all I'm doing is keeping that crazy bar that our mothers and grandmothers set for us," Michelle expressed.