“Becoming” by Michelle Obama: Valuable Learnings from the Former First Lady of the United States (1/2)

What do you do when someone gets on your nerves? Find out how Michelle Obama chooses to react when put in the same situation.

By Tan Yi Ming   •   5 minute read

Former United States first lady Michelle Obama's 2018 memoir "Becoming" details her journey growing up in the rough South Side of Chicago, to support her husband in the world's most powerful office. The book shares how she faced a variety of challenges being of a minority race with less privileges, fighting prejudices brought on by the media during her husband's presidency, and keeping grounded to her values despite her rise in social status. In addition, she shares personal and relatable experience of marriage, motherhood, and self-confidence.

Though highly successful, Mrs Obama's humble persona and reflective attitude throughout the book is truly respectable. Reading the memoir, I could not help but relate some of the insights I came across to the Buddhist values I learnt during my weekly Dharma class.

Insight #1:

Choose to free yourself from karmic connections

Though commonly known as the largest democratic nation, America's politics is greatly influenced by external forces such as large corporations and media conglomerates. These companies and individuals pour in tremendous amounts of money to pressure politicians or sway voters to support specific causes that benefit themselves. There is also increasing tension between political parties, resulting in the common use of smear campaigns to tarnish the reputations of their competitors.

Mrs Obama shared her dislike of such politics, having felt its sting while helping her husband campaign for his presidency. During the campaign, she spoke passionately about issues she believed the country desperately needed to address such as systemic racism, unequal opportunities for minorities and income inequality. However, several politically influenced media outlets painted her as an individual who was unpatriotic, unappreciative, and hated America — an "angry black woman," she recalls. Though, instead of seeking revenge and attacking these media outlets, which might have further fuelled the fire, she decided to learn from the experience, and toned down the delivery of her speeches to one that was understanding but equally passionate.

Similarly, in 2016, when she helped to campaign for Hilary Clinton during her presidential race, Mrs Obama helped to coin the now-famous phrase, "When they go low, we go high." During the campaign, Mrs Clinton, who was vying to be the first woman president of the U.S., received countless personal attacks on whether she was able to lead the nation as a female. Much was said about how the former U.S. Secretary of State as a female would buckle under the immense pressure required of the role. Mrs Obama came to her defence, saying that to handle such bullying, we should not retaliate by using the same dirty tactics as that would be immature. Instead, we should show them how to act with grace  by "going high" and shifting the focus back on how to solve important issues that plagued the country.

There’s always a choice to break free from your karmic connections.

This attitude of not seeking revenge helped to steer both hers and Barack Obama's mindset during their time as First Couple where they faced intense media scrutiny. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Mrs Obama said: “For me, what I learned from my husband, what I learned from eight years in the White House, this life, this world, our responsibility in it is so much bigger than us. When I want to go low, it’s all about my own ego. It’s not about solving anything... It’s about seeking revenge on the thing that happened to you.”

From my Dharma classes, I also learned through the law of karma that if someone attacks you, it is because you have done something bad to him/her in the past. Ultimately, your reaction to such attacks would be key to determining your future karma. If you seek revenge, you will, again, generate a negative karmic connection that may continue for life after life. Instead, we should aim to break free from this karmic cycle by choosing not to retaliate.

In the Buddhist scripture, “Saṃyutta Nikāya”, there is a story on how the Buddha taught a lesson on anger to a person who insulted and cursed Him. Even though the Buddha had been attacked, he did not retaliate or feel angry. He explained that if one offers food to another but that person does not accept food, that food then belongs to the person who originally offered it.

This is the same with anger. The person had given the Buddha a lot of his anger, but the Buddha chose not to accept it. In the end, that anger fell back on that person, leaving the Buddha unharmed.

However, Michelle Obama also confesses that going high is not always easy, and it is only normal to feel hurt by such attacks.  In these moments of anguish, it is easy to follow your emotions and retaliate with the same anger. But doing so would only solve things in the short term as another attack by your opponent will surely follow. Therefore, to gather the motivational strength to "go high," she makes it a point to reflect on her role as First Lady and on how millions of Americans looked up to her as a role model. This gives her the strength to respond with maturity as she wants to set a good example. 

When we are angry, “going high” may not necessarily satisfy our feelings at that point in time. It is easy to fall into the trap of reacting to our anger and letting our emotions get the better of us. Therefore, in order to find the strength to “go high,” we must first practice mindfulness and acknowledge the vengeful feelings that arise when we are hurt. Only after we identify such feelings can we then move on to practice restraint, and not let these emotions control our actions.

To practice restraint, we can think longer term about karma and focus our mind on more important issues, rather than be distracted and consumed by petty squabbles. Having controlled our negative emotions, we can then proceed to  "go high", creating virtuous karma in the process, like OMAK.

Now that you’ve learnt about the law of karma, will you still choose to react to your anger? Or, will you practice restraint?

Eventually, as we keep practicing mindfulness, restraint and "going high," they will turn into habits. With such habits formed, "going high" would thus be an automatic reaction even if others go low.

I hope my sharing has been beneficial to you. There are two more learnings from the book which I would like to cover in a subsequent article so stay tuned!

Lastly, if you need a good read to brighten your day, do consider Michelle Obama's memoir "Becoming" as it is filled with heart-warming and thoughtful reflections, giving readers both positivity and insightful learnings.