Turning Adversity into Purpose

By Sheryl Cattell

This book is for anyone who wants to reclaim the power and energy lost to adversity and use it to generate a positive transformation through the use of a proven process called Creative Manifestation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GracePoint Publishing
• Release date: May 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781955272797

Book preview

Praise for

Turning Adversity into Purpose

Sheryl has written a wonderful and timely step-by-step guide on turning adversity into an opportunity for growth, healing, and finding purpose. This book is a must-read for anyone facing challenges.

Dr. Chris Michaels,

Author and Nautilus Silver Medal Winner

(an organization that recognizes world-changing books)

I have witnessed Sheryl’s remarkable journey from spiritual seeker to community leader to personal guide for others transforming the potholes and pitfalls of everyday life into opportunities to live their most extraordinary, authentic lives. In this time of great shift and change, for our world and for ourselves, this book offers meaning and methods to harness our personal power to transform adversity into the purposeful living we yearn for.

Reverend Amy Carol Webb,

Minister, Singer/Songwriter, Author

This is the self-help book you need if you’re facing adversity or a crisis that leaves you feeling hopeless, unworthy of a better life, or simply stuck in a hole. The author is intensely relatable; you’ll find yourself nodding in agreement as she describes what led her to the point of realizing she needed a solution to her fears.

Sharon Wilson,

Publisher, The Trades Publishing Company

I have watched Sheryl transform from someone who needed external validation into a whole, self-assured professional on a mission to transform people’s lives and to leverage three decades of marketing know-how to have a more profound impact on the world. This book is about her transformation. She blends deep technical knowledge with a profound spirituality to become a mindful marketer, life-transforming coach, and gifted teacher.

Dan Grech,

Owner and Cofounder, Bizhack Academy

Dear reader: Say yes to this book. Shake off your fears and that I’ve already been here weariness. This isn’t another maintenance manual. Sheryl has created, specifically for you, a roadmap to the life you’ve longed for. Her compelling deep truth, hard-earned wisdom, and practical guidance will make you feel like she is with you every step of the way.

Diane Lade,

Pulitzer Prize-Nominated Journalist and

Features Writer, Sun Sentinel FL

Sheryl is much more than a life coach. I see her as a spiritual guide. She inspires me to better define my goals in terms of my career and relationships. She uses creative visualization to help me with manifesting my dreams and highest aspirations. Ultimately, working with Sheryl is helping me to become my higher self and lead a life filled with abundance and clarity of purpose.

Linda Lathroum, PhD

I had the privilege of Sheryl being my coach, and I loved the way she facilitated, challenged, and squeezed me to get that extra insight out of our 1:1 sessions. As an executive coach myself, I recognize value, and Sheryl is one that ticks all the boxes. It always felt more a case of co-creation or collaboration as opposed to one way or top-down working, and that is the best compliment I can pay her.

Farooq Muhammad, CEO

Sheryl is a force to be reckoned with. I adore working with her because she helps me dream bigger and holds that vision with me. Thanks to Sheryl’s straight talk about my own worth and value, I was able to successfully negotiate a higher salary than I would have otherwise. What’s more, Sheryl gets things done! With her, there’s no sitting on the sidelines waiting for life to happen.

Cassidy Meeks,

Youth and Family Ministry Director

Copyright © 2023 by Sheryl Cattell

Turning Adversity into Purpose

How to Tap the Power of Resilience for Good in Your Life

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be used or reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks or information storage and retrieval systems, or in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher.

In this world of digital information and rapidly-changing technology, some citations do not provide exact page numbers or credit the original source. We regret any errors, which are a result of the ease with which we consume information.

Disclaimer: The information in this book is strictly for informational purposes and is not intended as a substitute for advice from any physician or mental health provider. The reader is entirely responsible for the interpretation and application of any information provided. Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility in whether results occur.

You Aren’t Doing It Wrong If You Are Doing It included with permission from Diane Lade.

Edited by Lexi Mohney and Becky Whitney

Cover art by Rodjie P. Ulanday

Illustrations by Syarif Hidayatullah

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An Imprint for GracePoint Publishing (www.GracePointPublishing.com)

GracePoint Matrix, LLC

624 S. Cascade Ave, Suite 201, Colorado Springs, CO 80903

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SAN # 991-6032

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023937152

ISBN: (Paperback) 978-1-955272-80-3

eISBN: 978-1-955272-79-7

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Dedication

I dedicate this book to women worldwide who face the challenging adversity of an unwanted pregnancy. I hope my story brings you comfort and gives you hope you can survive and eventually thrive. I am grateful for the love and support of my maternal grandmother, who helped me manage my untimely pregnancy with compassion, strength, and love.

I want to acknowledge all my friends and colleagues who encouraged me over the years to write this book. I see you now as angels delivering a message from Spirit about my purpose here on planet Earth. I relish those who listened intently to my stories, maybe learned something which would help them in their struggles, and then ended with the statement, You should write a book. For all of you, here it is, and thank you.

And finally, this book would not have been possible without the support and unconditional love of my wife, Toni. She has been by my side for twenty years of my earthly journey, but somehow it feels like many lifetimes of connection. Toni, I could not have done this without you and your gifts. Marry me.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter One: Who Is This Book For?

Chapter Two: Understanding the Four Cs

Chapter Three: See Crisis as Opportunity

Chapter Four: Connect with Your Adversity

Chapter Five: Convert and Transform Pain into Opportunity

Chapter Six: Create the Life of Your Dreams

Chapter Seven: Using the Four Cs to Make Your Life Better

Conclusion

References

About the Author

Foreword

When I first met Sheryl Cattell more than fifteen years ago, neither of us was living the lives we are now, and in truth, had not yet even imagined ourselves as we have become. We know better now. All along my own pathway from professional musician to Unitarian Universalist Ministry, I have witnessed Sheryl’s remarkably parallel journey from spiritual seeker to community leader to personal guide for others transforming the potholes and pitfalls of everyday life into opportunities to live their most extraordinary, authentic lives.

It seems no trouble now to look back and declare, Well, of course, it all makes sense! It’s entirely different to look forward from wherever we find ourselves now and say the same—especially if where we find ourselves now is in crisis or conflict.

Some folks believe everything happens for a reason. Some folks don’t. One thing is sure: every one of us will encounter adversity and be presented with choices on how to interpret and integrate adversity into the lived experience as we incorporate the learning adversity offers us, even—and sometimes especially—when lived experience becomes the reason for everything, which it has for Sheryl, culminating in this book.

In the pages of Turning Adversity into Purpose How to Tap the Power of Resilience for Good in Your Life, Sheryl offers a personally proven way through crisis and conflict toward a life of greater creativity, broader consciousness, and deeper compassion. She mines her own journey for the meaning and method which she presents as a blueprint for transformation: to connect with the energy which comes from a crisis and convert it into creativity fueling, as she says, the climb upward, toward the castle of your dreams. That’s a grand proclamation, I’ll grant you. But Sheryl has made the climb, and with this book turns back to show how it’s done with step-by-step exercises, parallel life stories, and philosophical inspiration—just in time for our mutual reemergence from the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Times like these can shake us to our core and make us question things we’ve always taken for granted, Sheryl rightly notes. But then, she says it’s during these times where something bigger can come into view. We may try to ignore it, avoid it, or pretend it’s not there, but… the signs keep pointing in that direction…

In this time of great shift and change, for our world and for ourselves, this book offers clues to how we can harness the power to transform our adversities into the purposeful living we yearn for. When my pathway met Sheryl’s so long ago, we didn’t imagine the future we each live in now. This book could have helped us see the signs.

Rev. Amy Carol Webb, M. Div.,

BCCI/APC Unitarian Universalist Minister

Different Stripes Music Sunrise, Florida

Introduction

You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.

—Rumi

According to the laws of synchronicity, there is no such thing as an accident. You were drawn to this book and its title for a reason—to address whatever adversity you are facing. Unlike most creations here on Earth, we humans are driven to strive, learn, grow, and discover our purpose. Adversities in life are all part of the process, and their existence is no accident.

No matter how terrible your adversities may be, each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

After sixty-plus years on this planet, I have had some fantastic experiences and learned some essential lessons, and now I am committing them to paper so you can benefit from these learnings.

Why should I let anyone else make the same mistakes I did? If I can save some of my fellow humans from a few emotional scrapes and bruises along the way, and help people go even further in their spiritual lives, I will have accomplished the greatest of goals. Maybe someday I will get to read books written by my own students—and we will have come full circle in our beautiful journey together.

I am blessed to call myself a Master Certified Life Coach, leveraging my life experiences to help others become the stars of their own lives. I am the founder of Allmaya Coaching, LLC, providing aspiring high achievers with a focused pathway to realize their own legend. In my coaching, my approach takes a shortcut to a process many people spend an entire lifetime trying to complete.

Most importantly, I am a single traveler on a journey on planet Earth along with my fellow travelers—all of you. We all originate from the same life force and incarnate here together to give and receive love as we learn life