{"id":256,"date":"2009-08-28T10:21:34","date_gmt":"2009-08-28T10:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/successrefresh.com\/blog\/?p=18"},"modified":"2009-08-28T10:21:34","modified_gmt":"2009-08-28T10:21:34","slug":"be-bitter-or-be-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/be-bitter-or-be-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Bitter or Be Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I was decluttering the basement where years and years of junk had piled up. As I was purging, I stumbled upon a bunch of papers and notebooks that contained quite a number of high school love letters (addressed TO me), receipts from now defunct stores (remember Consumers Distributing?) and photos.<\/p>\n

I found a picture of me when I was in my late 20s and wow, I could see the anger piercing from my eyes even though I was smiling.<\/p>\n

That period was my angry period and I remember why.<\/p>\n

I was supposed to be doing something else. Instead of working for a technology start-up as a project manager, I was supposed to be playing basketball. My 20-something year old self would constantly remind me that I was supposed to be a big time basketball star representing my country at the Olympics and making my hometown proud as I played professionally in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But instead, I was angry that a knee injury took me out of the game in my 2nd year of college which ended all my hoop dreams. I carried around that anger from the time I quit playing college basketball in 1995 until I attended the Millionaire Mind Intensive workshop in 2004.<\/p>\n

Almost a decade.<\/p>\n

Looking back on that period of my life, I could see that the anger did so many destructive things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It left me feeling resentful which meant that I complained about everything.<\/li>\n
  2. It brought on a whole set of health issues, including being overweight and becoming lactose intolerant.<\/li>\n
  3. My relationships with my family, my friends and my boyfriend at the time were strained because I only focused on the negative things happening in my life.<\/li>\n
  4. I couldn’t figure out why I was constantly broke and continued to spend all my money buying food since it brought me pleasure (or so I thought).<\/li>\n
  5. It disconnected me from having a wonderful experience with my Creator because I blamed Him everyday for my circumstances.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\"As Joyce Meyer said recently in one of her teachings, you can be bitter or you can be better. Anger encourages poverty, while gratitude encourages abundance. When I left the Millionaire Mind Intensive weekend in July 2004 at the age of 30, I made a decision to change my thinking. It has been a 5-year journey, but the person I am today is happier, healthier, more prosperous and feeling way better.<\/p>\n

    How can you develop a much more positive outlook? Be thankful for the small things. I was reminded of this when my friend, Nancy Marmolejo, sent out words of thanks even though her car broke down on a busy Los Angeles highway. If you’re thankful for the small things in your life now, God will cause an overflow of abundance in your life tomorrow.<\/p>\n

    Another thing you can do is keep a journal beside your bed where you can write down the 1, 2 or 3 things you’re thankful for before you fall asleep. I’ve been doing this every night for about two weeks. I’ve now developed a habit to say thanks whenever I’m tempted to complain.<\/p>\n

    Just these 2 things can help you get rid of the bitterness and anger. Having a thankful attitude is a choice. I challenge you to throw out the mental, spiritual and emotional junk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I was decluttering the basement where years and years of junk had piled up. As I was purging, I stumbled upon a bunch of papers and notebooks that contained quite a number of high school love letters (addressed TO me), receipts from now defunct stores (remember Consumers Distributing?) and photos. I found a picture of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-teller","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leesabarnes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}