Michelle Obama didn’t attend Donald Trump’s inauguration earlier this year — and for the first time, she’s sharing why.

It wasn’t just politics. It was preservation.

“I had to basically trick myself out of it,” she confessed during a deeply personal episode of Informed Minds of Opinion (IMO), co-hosted by her brother Craig Robinson. During the conversation, the pair spoke with actress Taraji P. Henson about her journey in nurturing her mental health, but the chat quickly turned to Obama’s battle. 

“I told my team, ‘Don’t even get a dress read,’ the former FLOTUS said. “Because I knew, if I had it, I’d go. I’ve been so programmed to do what’s expected, even at my own expense.”

It was a decision that unleashed criticism and wild speculation. “People couldn’t believe I would say no for any reason other than my marriage falling apart,” she recalled. “But I said no for me — and that was the hardest part.”

Now, at 60, Michelle Obama detailed in the podcast that she is learning how to say “no” not as resistance, but as revolution. 

“I’m still trying to convince myself that I’ve done enough,” she said. “Even after everything I’ve done in the world, I’ve struggled with guilt. Like I still needed to do more.”

It’s a sentiment many Black women will recognize: the relentless push to prove, perform, and persevere — even when exhausted. “We’re raised to be shock absorbers,” she said. “For our husbands, for our kids, for the world. But that’s not healthy.”

Saying no, she explained, is now part of her emotional fitness plan. “It’s a muscle you have to build. And I started late. But I want my daughters to learn early — the world won’t stop because you say no.”

She went on to explain that the public saw the poise. But few understood the price.

“What happened to me those eight years in the White House?” she asked. “What did it do to my soul? We got out alive. My girls are whole. But I’m still figuring out what it cost me.”

Part of that reckoning has come through therapy — a practice she’s long supported, but is now using to unlearn the internal messages that shaped her. “I’m trying to rewire the neurons in my brain,” she said. “I’ve been telling myself for so long that I had to be more, do more, prove more. And now, I’m practicing something different.”