Season 4 Episode 1 – Review and Discussion of The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Welcome to Take Good Care podcast.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

An endeavor that grew out of our love for obstetrics and gynecology.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Our aim and mission is to serve as a source of vital information for women of all races, ages, and walks in life.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

I am Dr. Mironda Williams.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I am Dr. Deanna Guthrie.

Dr. Karen Greene:

And I am Dr. Karen Greene.

All:

Welcome to our show.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Welcome to this episode of Take Good Care podcast. This is also a new season for us, and this is our first recording for this season. I’m Dr. Mironda Williams.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.

Dr. Karen Greene:

And I’m Dr. Karen Greene.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

We are so excited to be back in the studio. We hope some of you all who follow us on social got to see the little tease that we posted not too long ago and we today decided that we would talk about Michelle Obama’s latest book, The Light We Carry. With the previous season we did a brief book review of her first book, or the book that came out a couple years ago, Becoming. And we enjoyed that. We also watched the docuseries that was on one of the streaming channels associated with that book. And when this one came out, we thought we would take a stab at it as well. Dr. Guthrie and myself actually had the opportunity to experience her book tour visit here in Atlanta. You want to tell everybody how that experience was for you? What did you enjoy?

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

No, it was amazing. I did not do the first book tour, so I’d never been to one of her book tour functions, but just the crowd. There was a line down the street headed towards the Fox. Part of it, of course, was because of COVID screening and getting through the door, so you just didn’t walk into the theater. It was held at the Fox Theater. I think it was December 3rd I think I went. But scores of people and everybody just friendly, excited. They had a DJ so that while we were waiting for the event to start, they were playing music and people were dancing and-

Dr. Karen Greene:

Was like a big party.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Yeah. It was like a big party, and it was just amazing that it was just the diversity in the group of people that you saw. It wasn’t just African American females. There were men there. So it was just amazing. It was just amazing.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

And I went the next night, Dr. Guthrie was there on a Friday night, and I went with another girlfriend on the following night, Saturday. Same thing. Just a wonderful experience. It was like a big party. That night it was a surprise that DJ Nice… Those of you all who are a member of the Quarantine Club, Club Quarantine that he popped off when the pandemic first hit are very familiar with him, and so he’s also blowing up. So it was a party. So people were definitely dancing in the aisles and dancing with each other and whether you knew them or not. And so it was a great time. But then the discussion. Tyler Perry was the moderator for both nights and so the discussion about the book I thought was also very insightful.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Very, very.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Because we hadn’t gotten it yet, and we actually-

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

And she was fly. Okay.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Yeah, she looked good.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

So it wasn’t formal Michelle, she had on the leather outfit for-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

She was no long First Lady Michelle, but we received a signed copy of her book. And so it was just a great night. It was a great night and definitely encouraged us to want to get the book, to read the book, to see what we thought about the book and go from there. Dr. Guthrie, I think you looked at a summary.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Yes.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

So give us an idea of what the book was mainly about before we give our own take on it.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

So, of course, the title is The Light We Carry. And so the prevailing thought of the book, and this is a quote from her. It says, “Each of us carries a bit of inner brightness, something entirely unique and individual, a flame that’s worth protecting. When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it. When we learn to foster what’s unique in the people around us, we become better able to build compassionate communities and make meaningful change.” And so basically, she just went through her years since being in the White House and all how current events had affected her and the tools that she developed from childhood and from her parents and from her partnership that helped her navigate through this time. And so another quote she has is, if you know you’re light, you know yourself. I love that one too.

And so all her chapters broke down certain aspects of dealing with your life. The power of small where she talked about using small tasks, small hobbies, anything to get you away from the stress of thinking about something that may be looming large in your life, how to handle fear. That was another thing. It was how to use fear. That fear is not necessarily bad, it’s just helping you to recognize things that you should look out for. And a fearful mind can have you questioning yourself and your abilities. She talks about being seen and being lost. Either you’re put up as a spectacle as the only, for her, the only Black or whatever, but even with that being lost and losing yourself in that she talked about partnering well and how she got to know and love Barack and how they worked together-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

I love him too. We share that. We share that.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

And then she talked about, this is a good chapter for me too, the building a good friendship network and your crew around you. And she calls it the kitchen table. And so she talked about her group of friends and how she kept in touch with her friends, even through her White House years, and having that group to reach out to, have your tried and true friends, but understand that it is okay to reach out to others to add to your table. And she talked about her mom and how her mom helped her and how her mom, even though she was always there for her, she kept a step back to allow her to mother her own children. And it wasn’t her interfering. And she was just there to reassure her that there’s no absolute right or wrong way to do it, that you learn along the way.

And then there’s going high, which was her famous quote. And she just talked about how she never realized that. She said it at a time at the convention dealing with what was going on and how she wanted to impress upon people, how important it was to vote and to come out and that sort of thing, and not let critics and other parties tear you down. But she said, I never realized that that would be “tied to me for the rest of my life.” But she just kind of went into exactly what going high is. It’s not just recognizing that you should go high, but it’s your actions after they go low that that’s what’s important. But just a very insightful book that I enjoyed.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Now both of you all have finished the book?

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Yes.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

I haven’t been able to finish yet, and I’ll explain why in a little bit. But Dr. Green, tell us about what lessons you may have learned or read or your impressions of the book in general.

Dr. Karen Greene:

So I remember when my partners went to see Michelle and I thought I missed another one. So I guess I’m going to have to wait for the next book so I can go on the book tour and I’ll have to probably prepare in advance. But I thoroughly enjoyed the first book and she’s very relatable. And so I honestly wasn’t sure that this one was going to be any different. But it really is in the sense that she starts, she says from the outset that people are always asking, well, what do you do if, or what do you do if? And so she says, I’m not an advice giver. These are just things from my experience. And I think that that’s what makes her so relatable that she just basically says, this is how I got through and these are the tools that I’ve learned. And so the article that I read from the ARP, they went through the five lessons learned. And she talks about a lot of lessons, but these were the main ones and they put them in a certain order.

And I went through them in the order that the chapters went through because it was interesting just to hear her reflections on her time at the White House because Becoming goes up to them leaving the White House, and this is a little bit in the White House, and then also afterwards and all the stuff that she did after and speaking at the convention for the next election and the quote about going high, and just all of how she’s become the person she is with a lot of… And the way she has done that has a lot to do with things that she learned when she was younger and how she’s applied them as she’s gotten older.

Her mom’s a big influence, and that was probably my favorite chapter, was about her mom. But when she talks about not letting the big stuff become so big, the book starts out during the pandemic and the pandemic was a big deal, and I wondered why she chose knitting, but I got it afterwards because that was just something that she could just do with her time. And for me, especially when the pandemic hit-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Well, and then it gets you out of your mind. That’s the thing because you just get, you’re into the mechanics-

Dr. Karen Greene:

Repetition.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

… of what you’re doing and-

Dr. Karen Greene:

Exactly.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

So it makes your mind quiet down because you’re just focusing on that task.

Dr. Karen Greene:

She said, when your life is filled with lists and things to do, the pandemic hits and all of a sudden you have nothing to do. For me, the pandemic hit and baseball season was canceled and school was canceled, and you’re going into work, but you’re not seeing patients.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

And remind the audience why that’s significant for you because you’re the only mom.

Dr. Karen Greene:

I have two boys and-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Two man boys.

Dr. Karen Greene:

… in 2020, I guess I remember specifically the day everything stopped because that’s when my calendar stopped. I live by a calendar and I have everything color coded, and that’s the way I keep organized, and that’s the way I keep my stress level down is by knowing exactly where I need to be, when and what time. And it keeps it from being overwhelming. And so that’s my tool when things are busy. And so when March 20th hit and the kids came home and they said, coach says we’re not having any school. And I looked at, I’m like, what do you mean we’re not having any school? What do you mean you’re not going to be in school? That’s the first thing. Why are you going to be home? And then they went to get their stuff and the season’s canceled. And I literally looked at my calendar and erased everything. All the blue went away because that’s their color.

And then even the appointments that I had, those went away. Some of the personal events and things we were looking forward to that summer, I think we were going to a conference in May as a group. It was a women’s white coat conference. And I was so excited about that. That went away. So purple went away. So all my little colors, and suddenly I had a calendar with nothing in it and nothing to do. And so the knitting and the repetitive nature of the knitting, I think for me it was puzzles. It was something to do to defocus my mind on the global of other stuff that was going on and able to just focus on just one piece at a time. Where does this go? That type of thing.

And so when she said that, try to break things up and think small, I was like, okay, that made sense. And I didn’t realize why I did it. And I think that when you find a tool and you’re able to share it with somebody else, that’s what she did by this book. She found different tools of her experiences. The next one talks about fear. And sometimes you can’t conquer it. You just have to experience it. You have to forge ahead despite, my favorite thing is she says, being comfortably afraid that even though you are scared to sit there and speak in front of all these people, you just do it. You just find a way to be comfortable with that uncomfortable situation that if the teleprompter goes out and you can’t see anything because the little signs are blocking the other thing that you’re supposed to use, you’ve memorized it, you’re prepared.

And so I think that in life where you are preparing for different things, sometime you are scared, have a surgery, you don’t know what you’re going to get. And that’s for us all the time we operate, we don’t know what we’re going to get in there, but we rely on, we’re trained, we know what we’re supposed to do. And even with the jitters, you just go in and do it. And the pre-surgery jitters for me is always there, but it’s-

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

… deep breath and-

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yeah.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Okay.

Dr. Karen Greene:

You take this deep breath and it’s like, okay, what am I going to do? And you’ve prepared what could potentially happen. And if this doesn’t work, I’m going to do this. If this doesn’t work, I’m going to do this, and I’m getting this uterus out and it’s coming out the way I want it to come out. So it’s, you’re afraid, but it doesn’t stop you. And I think that was her message.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

And she says, finding a way to let your nerves guide you rather than stop you.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yes.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

So that’s what she says.

Dr. Karen Greene:

And then, of course, my favorite is it’s important to start kind. She uses the example of children. And I can relate to that because when your kids come to see you, they’re looking for a kind word. They’re always looking for a kind word from my children when they were five to now the 20 and 17 year old, that’s what they really want is a kind word. They don’t want you to say, why didn’t you do A, B, C, D, E? Why didn’t you pick up that pile of clothes? Why didn’t you do this? They’d rather you say something nice. They really would. And most people-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Before you ask them, why you didn’t-

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Before you ask.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Exactly. Exactly. That’s what they’d rather do. And most people would like that. So if you start the day with kind, then that’s a good thing. But do you know who you really need to be kind too is yourself.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I like the guy who says hello buddy every morning-

Dr. Karen Greene:

I know. I know.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

… in the mirror.

Dr. Karen Greene:

She gave the example of her friend that sits every morning. He says, hello buddy. And her and her, is the husband of a friend of her good friend of hers. And they laugh about it. But it does make sense that if you greet yourself with kindness at the beginning of the day, then the rest of the day is wonderful because someone has said something nice to you. And I think that being kind to yourself is often hard. You have a lot of self-talk that tells you things that maybe aren’t as totally as correct as they should be, but they’re not always nice. We’re our worst critic.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

And then you were talking about kids, another thing she says, if you try to keep your children from feeling fear, which I think is a problem nowadays, that we’re protecting our children, and I don’t want to say too much, but-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Well, we are, we’re insulating them from life.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

… we’re trying to insulate them from everything. But she says, if you keep your children from feeling fear, then you’re keeping them from feeling competent. Because if they don’t push through that fear and then see that they can do something, they’ll never do anything. They’ll just stop here and wait for somebody to do the rest for them.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

And this is how you develop your tools, because that’s what she talked about when she talks so much about her childhood experiences and what those childhood experiences taught her, as well as her young adult experiences and being a college student, that is how you develop tools, is by experiencing life.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I love when she said, mother send her off to kindergarten. She goes, you going to let me walk all the way by myself? And her mom said, you can do it.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

You can do it.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

You can do it. But you know mama’s watching the whole time.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Of course, of course, of course. But that’s what you do.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

So what are the things, lessons that you see in the book?

Dr. Karen Greene:

Let’s see. Get yourself out of other people’s mirrors. She describes herself as a only, she was the only female. She was the only Black person. And being that only you think you understand what they’re seeing. And that’s just the reflection that you’re seeing of yourself. And it’s not always correct that if you know who you are and know what you can do, then it doesn’t matter what you think they see. So your mirror is more important than somebody else’s mirror, because it’s just, it’s self-consciousness. And she quotes W.E.B Du Bois about double consciousness, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in a muse, contempt and pity. And it says a lot to say that if we measure ourselves by other people’s values and thoughts, then we may not be measuring ourselves correctly.

And so you really need to measure yourselves by, in her instance, what her mom taught her, what her dad taught her, what other people see, what she actually sees in herself, in her soul as opposed to other people’s reflections. But it takes work. She said, it takes work. It takes practice to keep the right messages in your head. It really does.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

There’s other two quotes. There’s one that says, no one can make you feel bad if you feel good about yourself. That’s number one. And then that feeds off a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt who says, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yes.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

So that’s true.

Dr. Karen Greene:

That is true. And then number five, don’t neglect your kitchen table. She describes her friends like flowers, like daisies that she gathers, she plants. But she makes conscious effort to maintain that friendship. She knows that these are the people that are important to her. She understands why. And it’s just like a garden, you know why those people are there for you. So you flower it, you water it, you feed it, you make efforts to make sure you get together. They would go to, I guess it was Camp David, and she describes herself as a task master, because she had a list of things they were going to do, work out and do all this stuff. And they were like, can we just have some fun for us? Can we balance it out? But she knew that that’s what they wanted to do. And even though she felt like she had a list of things to do, it was very important for them just to be together. And that was the more important thing.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

And another thing she said about friends too, is that all friends are not going to be equal. They’re going to be one friend who is more for this than another friend. So you can’t hold all your friends to the same standard that-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Everybody’s different.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Everybody’s different, you get different things from different-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

… Strengths. So I want to push this a little bit, because I got through chapter six, I started the next chapter, which is where she talks about introducing her mom. And I just couldn’t really go there yet because I was already in a lot of my emotions and feelings from the first six chapters of the book. And so, one of the reasons I haven’t finished it yet is because for me, as you all have said, I found her very relatable, yes. But I saw so much of myself in some of the descriptions of her childhood being the only being tall, and how that impacts you because you are the tallest for most girls, because we have our growth spurt early, we’re the tallest thing in the room, even with the teachers. And so that can have an impact on your outlook.

So as I’m reading the book, it really… I’ve had to stop. I can’t read it quickly because it’s making me think about what are my tools, what am I doing? What do I need to do? And so I wanted to push us a little bit because I think we’re all reading the book and we understand Michelle and she is sharing, I can call her Michelle, because we got it like that, first lady, she is giving us her wisdom. And I really appreciate because she makes a lot of references about how she’s now trying to impart wisdom to her girls who are now young women starting their own lives. And so I feel like a lot of what she’s describing, and how she’s conceptualizing things in the book is almost so they have a roadmap of things to do as she’s giving us. So I just want to push us a little bit. We know what Michelle has said for her, but when she talks about decoding fear, her chapter when she talks about decoding fear.

So what helps you decode fear? What are some of the things that you do that you decode your fear or anxiety? And I’ll say for myself, when I was reading through that, because I was like, I don’t know if fear is my issue. We all have things where we’re fearful or nervous, but what I have as I’m reading through this, I’ve discovered by myself that I have an anxiety problem. And I don’t think I ever would have thought that until I was really reading through this book. But also with some other conversations with other friends, I have one good friend who always says, give a name, give a word to what you’re feeling. Give it words. And so as I think about it, I’m like, oh, this is anxiety. That’s what this is. And now that I’ve put a word to it that makes sense to me, I’m beginning to develop better tools. An example.

And I make fun about it, but it’s the truth. It’s like my father is widowed. We lost my mom about three and a half years ago, so I’m making sure he’s good. If I call him and he doesn’t call me back within a specified amount of time, my mind goes to the worst possible thing. And I now can say I am anxious. It’s not fearful, but I become extremely anxious. And now I’m just like, oh my God, what’s going on? And I just find myself just going off the deep end.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Spiraling.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Spiraling.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yeah. Thinking about all the things that could be happening that are terrible things.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

And there’s never anything that bad usually, but that’s how I am. But I realize that’s my anxiety. And so again, after reading through her book, it’s like, okay, I’m decoding it. I’m giving it a word, but as I’m giving it a word and now recognizing what it is. So in that moment I can say, okay, Mironda, you’re getting anxious. It’s helping me to come up with tools and ways of thinking or reframing the thought so that my anxiety starts to settle a little bit. So decoding your fears or anxieties, what kind of things could you say that you’ve developed or discovered?

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I think mine is stress. So like you, I’m dealing with an elderly patient, a patient, a parent, parent.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Yeah, patient.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

My mom lost my dad two years ago. And so it’s just trying to, you’re at work and then you have other responsibilities and trying to take care of her, and she has to get to doctor’s appointments. And luckily I have a brother who can help me with those things. But realizing that over the holiday, and my aunt, I have an elderly aunt who also, her sister who lives, they both live together. And so over the Christmas holiday, my aunt got hospitalized and I was dealing with that literally on Christmas morning and just recognizing the stress that I was under that I left my garage door open all night long. I don’t know how I did that, because I have a routine when I park my car, turn off the car, I get out the car, hit the button, go in the house, I got up Christmas morning and the garage door had been open, which led to a whole lot of other complications that we won’t go into right now, but frozen pipe, but anyway.

But I just realized that for me it’s stress. And what I’ve tried to do, how I try to cope is I just try to take a day for myself and just… And this is the hardest thing for me to do after we stop delivering babies, but to just not necessarily have to do anything, go anywhere, be anywhere, read or watch TV or puzzles and that sort of thing to just calm me down so that I can start the next week. So I’m refreshed and refurbished to go through the whole process again for the next week. So I think that’s mine is the stress, the trying to handle everything that I was not used to handling before. And it may not even be a lot to anybody else, but for me it’s just stressful.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

You got to know your thing so you can decode it.

Dr. Karen Greene:

It’s funny when you propose these questions, I was like, decoding your fear. And then when you just, literally when she just said anxiety, I was like, oh, okay. I put a name on it. It’s anxiety. I claim that because when my mom, before she passed was sick, before she got sick, my mom would go everywhere. So if I called her and she wasn’t there, I’d always have to tell myself, she’s probably out visiting somebody. She’s probably doing such and such. So I would always have better talk in my head as opposed to the worrying about her.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Outside the road.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Exactly. Exactly. And then I’d call her again, oh, I’m fine. And then when she was less able to move around, I had to change it because now she couldn’t leave the house, but something bad could have happened and okay, no, it isn’t bad, I’ll just call back later. So that for me it was, let’s think of good possibilities. They always say, I try to be very optimistic. And that’s where it comes from. It comes from trying to be optimistic about my mom when my second reaction was always to worry. It was always to worry about her. And so I was like, no, you can’t do that. That’s not healthy. And so definitely for me, it’s anxiety. Now that my mom has moved to a better place, it’s my kids. And you always worry about your kids. But now they are, I have one in college and we’ve always had what’s called Life 360, which is to track them essentially. And so-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Stalking them.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yeah, basically stalking my children. But it’s okay, you have different levels of Life 360 where you can just look and see where they are. You can see what their speed is. You can also see if they’re in an accident. I have never upgraded to the accident part, mainly because I don’t want to look on my phone and see that, because I know where my brain would go. Because when my son did have an accident, it was all I could do to talk myself off the ledge. And so for me, it’s having a better conversation because oftentimes other people are in a panic, my husband to name one. And I really have to not react to that because it’s not good for two people to be anxious.

And so for me, the fear is definitely anxiety, because even now, if I look in, I’m like, okay, it’s snowing in Memphis, and why are you outside of your dorm? You can’t drive in the snow. I have to not go there, not have that whole conversation. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy, but that’s my tool, having a better conversation and really not trying to have that worst case scenario all the time.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

It’s recognizing it. Like I said, once you can name it.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yes.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Then you can start working on how to decode it. How to decode it. So you’re talking about that self-talk, and both of you mentioned when she talked about starting with kind and we’re a gynecologist, we deal with women, we talk to women all the time. We were just at a function the other day where we talk about we never put ourselves first. So how do you extend kindness to yourself?

Dr. Karen Greene:

I always, well, not always, most of the time try to say to myself what I would say to other people. Because I know what I say to other people is always nicer than what I say to myself nine times out of 10. So if I can at least make that 50/50 that most of the time I say nice things to myself, then that’s a first step. Also, trying to be in the moment as opposed to worrying about what I have to do, what I didn’t do, what I’m going to do, be in the moment of what I’m doing, appreciating the time and what I’m doing at the moment, and appreciating that is my way of being kind to myself really. And that’s definitely a work in progress. Just saying, okay, I’m here. I am enjoying this. I’m enjoying a basketball game because I don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow, what work I have to do. I’m going to enjoy what I’m doing. I’m exercising. I’m going to enjoy what I’m exercising. I’m not worrying about, I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to do this.

Try to get rid of those lists in my head. I put them on a tablet, let’s leave them there. Let’s get them out of my head and let’s enjoy what I’m doing as opposed to working through my list.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Like you said, Karen, I think you’re more critical of yourself. So I’m still working on that. I have slight OCD tendencies so that if things don’t go the way I think they should, I beat up on myself sometimes. And I’m just, I’m trying to learn not to do that. Just like she said, give myself grace.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Can you think of one thing that you may have done in the past where you say, you know what? That made me feel better about me. I extended myself grace.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Let’s see. I’m trying to think of something recent. Maybe you have to come back to me on that one.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

And because as you’re thinking about it, like I told you, this is why I can’t get through this book. Because every time I’m like, oh man. Yeah, Michelle. It’s like, why are you taking me to my feelings, Michelle? So she made this message, she gave this thing about the enoughness. How do you let other people know that they’re enough? And then that made me start thinking, well, dang on it. How do I make myself feel that I’m enough?

Dr. Karen Greene:

… that’s it.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

And so I had to think about that. And so I really, and it is a self talk, but I started to think about how many times do I really look at myself in a mirror, or do I avoid it? And then I found, I said, most of the time I’m like, I avoid it. And so the grace that I started extending myself was even in the morning, because I’m just getting ready to… And I realized I wasn’t really looking at myself. I’m just trying to get ready to get out the door. And so I said, you know what? You’re okay. You’re enough. Could I lose some weight? Yes.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

See, that’s my problem.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

But I’m enough.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

It’s okay that I haven’t. It’s not a character flaw. It’s just I like to eat. That’s okay. And I don’t exercise like Dr. Green says, she runs to eat. Well, I haven’t gotten there yet. I just eat to eat. But it’s okay. It’s okay that I eat to eat because I am enough.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Fair enough.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

I’m enough.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yeah. I told a patient the other day, they were just talking about something they saw and I was like, I said, in our brain, we have an idea of what we think we look like. And then we go into the mirror and we start picking ourselves apart. I said, I do it. I do it every time. And like you, I can’t honestly say I look in the mirror. I look in the mirror to do the things I need to do that needs a mirror, but I don’t actually look in the mirror. And that is a great thing to say, yes, I am enough, because-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

That’s enough.

Dr. Karen Greene:

… those little words, that’s all you need, I just, I’m going to do that.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I have to learn to say those words-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

And it’s hard.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

… look in the mirror hard, but then I’m hard on myself. And then-

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Hard on myself. Instead of just going in, because we all, we’ve gone through hair transition. So it’s a journey. And there’s some words I’m just like, [inaudible 00:33:19] Mironda, it’s enough. It’s okay for today. It’s okay for today. And it’s okay.

Dr. Karen Greene:

It’s okay.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

It was so funny. One of my patients this morning, I went to examine her neck and her hair was in the way. She goes, oh, this is the rainy day. Whatever hair. She goes, I knew I wasn’t even going to try to straighten it or whatever. And it was so funny that on the drive-in when it was that misting and I saw somebody standing out in the rain waiting for a bus or something like that, I remember thinking back to myself before my transition that on a day like this, I would be panicked about my hair-

Dr. Karen Greene:

My hair. It’s going to be wet, and will look crazy-

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

… and it would be like, oh my God is it going to feeze, by the end of the day what I’m going to look like. But I was just like.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Exactly. It is what it is.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

It doesn’t even cross my mind.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

It is.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Which is a good thing because that’s extra talk in your head that’s taking up space that’s not good-

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Yes.

Dr. Karen Greene:

… for you.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Oh my God.

Dr. Karen Greene:

It’s all of that talk in your head that you’re right. It’s okay.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

We are enough.

Dr. Karen Greene:

We are enough. We are enough.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

We are enough. So I know we’ve gone on with this. We could go on and on because this book is just so rich. But before we stop altogether.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Oh, no.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Because I have been stuck in chapter six, partnering well. And I know she talked about her relationship with her husband, who should have been my husband, but her husband, Barack Obama, and how they have partnered. And it just made me start thinking about partnership in general, not just, or long-term relationships in general, not just romantic ones, business relationships, friendships, and of course romantic relationships. Like she says, for people who choose to partner in that way, everyone doesn’t have to partner in that way.

So then I thought about that, I said, this is really adulting 101. This is really adulting 101 right here. Trying to have mature relationships, not relationships based on fantasy or based on the kind of stuff that we’re fed-

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Through the media.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

… through social media, through marketing, advertising, whatever. And how that can set you up for failure because you’ve got this picture in your mind. And then when it doesn’t add up, then you’re like, well, this isn’t what I want. Like when she’s talking about when she went to Hawaii with him for the first time, and she had plans of romantic walks and candlelight dinners and all this passion. And she’s like, we sitting up there with his people.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

She’s helping his mama with bills.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Help mama with the bills. She’s like, Hey, hey, hey, what about me?

Dr. Karen Greene:

But that was who he was and that’s what she needed to see.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

That’s who he was, and that’s what she… Because that’s real.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yeah.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

Yeah. So only one of us is married. Dr. Green is married. Are we hopeful? I guess we’re hopeful.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I am.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

We’re hopeful.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I am.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

I go back and forth. No, I’m going to tell you, I go back and forth because yes, I was like, well, all the rest of little girls, you grew up, oh, one day I’m going to be married. I’m going to [inaudible 00:36:33]. But that’s because it was built on this fantasy. As I’ve gotten older and watched friends who have been married or gotten out of marriages or stayed married and just really understanding, marriage is a lot.

Dr. Karen Greene:

It can be.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

This partnering, this coupling, this coming together.

Dr. Karen Greene:

As one.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

As one.

Dr. Karen Greene:

They say in your wedding vows that you’re suddenly one person, you’ve come together. I think that, I wouldn’t say most people, a lot of people don’t take that to heart. And for me, I always knew that I wanted to remain married for a long time. That was my goal. And that doesn’t always mean you make concessions or you change yourself, but you do change in the relationship. And so I think when it comes to partnering, well for me it was looking to other people that have done it and asking them, so how’d you get there? And they say, I used to ask my older patients how long you been married? And I realize now that’s why I was doing it. I like to talk to my patients when they’re having the exam that they don’t like because it distracts them. So I’ll talk about anything. And so I would ask, well, how long you been married? They said 50 years. And I thought to myself, 50 years?

Dr. Mironda Williams:

How did you do that?

Dr. Karen Greene:

How did you do that? And so they would give me little tools and they’d talk about, because those people had been married through a war and through all these horrible things that at the time had never happened to me, it was pre-COVID. And so I asked, how did you do that? And so communication was key and realizing that this is another person. And because when you go into a relationship, you are another person. And like Michelle, you think it’s going to be all about you, and it really isn’t, it’s all about the two of y’all. And trying to figure out a way.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

How do you make that work?

Dr. Karen Greene:

How do you make that work? How do you make that work? You both have different characteristics. My husband likes to do different stuff, and I’m quite content not to change anything. Probably not a good trait. And so he pushes me to change those things. He pushes me to do those things and you find those characteristics in another person that you partner with, whether it’s romantic or just as the three of us, you find the characteristics that make you work better, I think is the key in any good partnership. And if that person or persons make you better people, yeah, you probably want to keep them along even when you don’t really like him very much, or you’re mad at him for something. Because as he will always say, what is there to be angry about really? Me really angry about-

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Don’t ask me that right now. Give me a minute to think.

Dr. Karen Greene:

But yeah, in the moment where you’re full of it and you’re angry, realize that that’s your feeling, and that’s okay. It is okay to have that feeling. But then think about what’s that feeling really going to do? What’s that anger really going to do? Is it productive? Are you going to use that anger to do something good? Probably not. But it’s okay to feel it. It’s okay to cuss him out, be upset, but then it’s like, okay, let’s move on.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

The quote that she put in there about describing her relationship and her love for her husband, she said, he’s my truest love and my life’s greatest disruption. I’m like, that’s it.

Dr. Karen Greene:

That is it.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

That is it when you partner well, because it’s not going to be a bed of roses.

Dr. Karen Greene:

No.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

It’s not going to be, everything’s great. You’re not going to always going to agree. You’re not going to always like him. And you talk about looking at examples, and for me it was my parents. And now that my mom is gone and I’ve really been relating to my father in a different way, it’s like I understand so much more of what she was trying to tell me when she was alive, because I was like, oh my God. Because I would just be fussing like, mama, why don’t you say this? And why don’t you do this? And she’d be like, girl, dah, dah, dah. And I’m like, how can you just let this… And I’m just being the single girl cranking the neck woman. Until I realized, well, no, we’re both strong-willed individuals, my father and myself, and we are a lot alike. And he’s not changing and I’m not changing, but we have found how to relate to one another so that productive things happen.

And so because of that, I think that’s helped me to understand even more why marriages work and relationships work that are long term because no one’s changing. And that’s what she talks about. She talks about you’re building this shared sense of home together that is in the between, in between your different personalities. She said Obama is a more of a solo person, likes to be by himself and she’s a gatherer. Because I’m tend to be, I’m not so much a gatherer. I have long friends that I’ve had lifetime, but she would say she makes friends here and she makes friends [inaudible 00:41:45]. But the friends I have are long-term friends. So when you partner with someone that may be different, that doesn’t make you want to be more of a gatherer more than it makes her want to be more of a loner. But somehow they put it together so that they make a home, this shared sense of home. And so like I said, I’ve just been thinking and ruminating on all of that.

I think her book is wonderful. As you can see, we can talk about this book and go on and on and on and on. I am so grateful that she now is taking the time to share her wisdom with us in these two books. Like you said, they’re both different.

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yeah.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Very different.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

They both were impactful, but just different. And I found this one to be as engaging as the first one. And I’ll finish it. I’ll catch up with you guys and I’ll get to the end of it. And then maybe we’ll have a part two when we finally get to the end. Anything else y’all want to share about your thoughts about the book or what it made you feel? Any new tools you may have thought you may try after reading her work?

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Just to reiterate how relatable she is, I get a lot of her stories about her parents. Not that my parents did the exact same thing, but I could see the influence of her parents. And I was blessed to have a two-parent household where mother and father were together my entire life until my father passed. So just the blessing of that and taking lessons from that.

Dr. Karen Greene:

I think for me, this book was more impactful because it was relatable, but it also made me think about what I can do, not only to help myself, but when the whole last chapter about going high and it’s about, okay, if you say it, but you don’t do anything, I’m like, where can I do better with that? And I think that for me, it’s thinking about what do I want to do in the future? And that’s something that I said I needed to come back and reread it because I said, I need an action plan. It’s nice to say what you’re going to do and have all these little cute quotes that go on the cups and the t-shirts, but if you’re not doing anything, then it really doesn’t mean anything.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

Oh, she said a post, I have one here, a post like posting on social media or retweeting something is not an action.

Dr. Karen Greene:

It’s not an action.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

It’s not an action.

Dr. Karen Greene:

It’s not an action. [inaudible 00:44:26] so for me it’s like, okay, this is my call to action, for lack of a better word. This book is more of a, okay, you need to do something with this. This really affected you. Because yeah, I was writing, I was underlining, I was thinking like, oh, it makes you think. And it’s like, okay, now that I’m thinking, what am I going to do with it?

Dr. Mironda Williams:

… do with it. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think that’s why this one also has made me read it through a little slower. I think all of us, we felt as we experienced the height of the pandemic, and even though we’re coming out of it, during that initial timeframe, 2021, when everybody was put on pause, I think it helped us all to reframe what is important. How do I want to spend my time? What kind of things do I want to do? What friendships are important? Who do I need to have at my kitchen table? What rituals do I need to go back to or to begin to start to create, to have this well lived life? Because I think that’s really where I am now, being 60 and then having been here working for 30 years, I’m like, okay-

Dr. Karen Greene:

What’s next?

Dr. Mironda Williams:

We’ve done some great things, we’ve accomplished a lot, but it ain’t over.

Dr. Karen Greene:

No. It’s like what’s next?

Dr. Mironda Williams:

So what’s next?

Dr. Karen Greene:

Yeah.

Dr. Mironda Williams:

And how is the next chapter going to look? And so I felt like this book just helped to reframe a lot of that and bring us to a point where we can continue to have a lot of good conversation. So as we wind up this episode with this initial conversation around former First Lady, Michelle Obama’s most recent book, The Light That We Carry, we hope that if you haven’t gotten the book, that you take the opportunity to get the book, read it. If we have another episode on this, we would hope you can share with us your thoughts, maybe your questions of things that we could talk about. And we just want to continue in this season of Take Good Care podcast to bring information and to go over topics that aren’t always medical related or gynecology related, but it’s just about life and about being women, single women, married women, working women, just things that help us all to get the most out of life so that we can have that well lived life when we finally get to the end of this journey.

So thank you again for checking us out. Please remember, you can always find us at our website, ptcobgyn.com, follow us on all of the social platforms. And until we meet again, this is Dr. Mironda Williams.

Dr. Deanna Guthrie:

I’m Dr. Deanna Guthrie.

Dr. Karen Greene:

And I’m Dr. Karen Green. Take good care.