Former First Lady Michelle Obama has shared that she is returning to therapy as she navigates the “next phase” of her life.
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During an appearance on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast on April 28, the 61-year-old shared that she is currently in therapy to navigate the next chapter of her life after her time in the White House alongside her husband, Barack Obama, 63.
“At this phase of my life, I’m in therapy right now because I’m transitioning, you know?” Michelle explained of her choice to go back to therapy. “I’m 60 years old, I finished a really hard thing in life with my family intact. I’m an empty nester. You know my girls are in — they’ve been launched. And now for the first time, as I’ve said before, every choice I’m making is completely mine.”
“I now don’t have the excuse of, ‘Well my kids need this,’ or ‘my husband needs that’ or ‘the country needs that.’ So how do I think about this next phase, and let me get some help,” she recalled.
Michelle Obama Compared Going to Therapy as a ‘Tune-Up’
Michelle, a long-time advocate of therapy with years of experience herself, described it on the podcast as akin to getting a “tune-up.” She explained that this moment in her life felt like the ideal time to pursue it, building on everything she had already learned and practiced.
“Let me unwind some old habits [and] let me sort through some old guilt that I’ve been carrying around. Let me talk about how my relationship with my mother has affected how I think about things,” she continued.
“So, I’m getting that tune-up for this next phase because I believe this is a whole other phase in life for me,” she added. “And I now have the wisdom to know— let me go get some coaching while I’m doing it so that I have other voices other than the people who know me best. I’ve got a new person that’s getting to know me, and seeing me completely new and hearing all these emotions.”