The Unexpected Gift of Gratitude: Turning Pain Into Purpose

By Adriana L. Cowdin

If you’d told me ten years ago that gratitude would one day save my life, I probably would’ve rolled my eyes. Gratitude was something other people talked about — people whose bodies didn’t betray them, whose plans didn’t involve hospitals, feeding tubes, or pain meds lined up like soldiers on a nightstand.

But eventually, life backed me into a corner. And that’s where everything changed.

I live with more than thirty chronic illnesses, including lupus, Addison’s disease, and chronic pancreatitis. I’ve coded (yes, the kind you’re thinking - code blue), come back, and gone on to rebuild both my body and my business more times than I can count. As a former C-Suite executive turned entrepreneur and now reinvention strategist for high-achieving women, I was built for control — for making things happen. Grace wasn’t exactly part of my vocabulary. But somewhere between another round of bloodwork and another 3 a.m. hospital alarm, I realized I had two choices: cling to the losses or lean into gratitude for what was still there.

At first, gratitude felt awkward. How do you thank a life that hurts this much? But I started small. I noticed mornings when I could drink coffee instead of just smelling it. A walk where my legs held out longer than yesterday. The nurse who remembered my name. Gratitude became my quiet rebellion — proof that even when everything felt out of control, something beautiful was still in reach.

And just when gratitude began to steady me, storytelling showed me the way forward.

Writing started as therapy — a way to pour out what I couldn’t say out loud. My book, Stubborn As F❤️ck: 13 Certain Truths to Rise, Reclaim, and Reinvent Your Life, grew from those late-night journal entries and voice notes recorded between appointments and during hospital stays. I didn’t write it because I had answers. I wrote it because I was done pretending I didn’t have questions.

Through storytelling, I took back my voice in a world that too often reduces people like me to diagnoses. Each chapter pulled another truth from the wreckage — that love heals deeper than medicine, that boundaries are self-respect in action, that there’s beauty in surviving what was supposed to end you.

And here’s the thing: I didn’t just write to heal myself.

I wrote for every person who looks “fine” while quietly falling apart inside. For all of us who hold everything together for everyone else but rarely for ourselves — often women, but really, anyone who knows that kind of weight. Gratitude gave me permission to feel it all. Storytelling gave me the power to turn pain into purpose.

Today, gratitude isn’t just something I do — it’s how I live. It shows up in coaching sessions, keynotes, and in those quiet Miami mornings when I’m just thankful to still be here. I’ve learned that purpose doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from surviving, standing back up, and daring to share your story anyway.

Because the story you’re most afraid to tell? That’s the one someone else is praying to hear.

Connect With Adriana

www.adrianacowdin.com

Instagram: @adrianalcowdin

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