Exploring Your Elements
Decode Your Diagnosis - Chapter 6
Introduction
Introduction By: Patrick Nolan
Welcome to this week’s ChapterKey. I’m Patrick Nolan, and today we’re entering Chapter 6 — Exploring Your Elements.
In this powerful and personal chapter, Paul walks us through the unraveling of a life that looked stable on the outside, but was quietly fractured within. What emerged from that moment was the foundation of the Decode Framework: the recognition that healing isn’t just about the body. It’s about the interplay of Mind, Body, and Soul and what happens when we start treating them as a unified system.
Whether you’re newly diagnosed or years into your journey, this chapter will help you reflect on what’s been calling for your attention, and what you’ve been trying to outrun.
Exploring Your Elements
Written By: Paul Cobbin
Narrated By: Paul Cobbin
(For narration goto the ChapterKey Audio Edition of this chapter)
I was walking through Suva city in Fiji, days after the CAD diagnosis. My fitness level at the time was relatively high and walking was something I did quite a lot when visiting international cities to keep my physical health in peak shape for the rigours of international business. I remember the day quite clearly. I was walking between a meeting with the minister for infrastructure and my next one with the Fijian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
To fill time I rang the chair of my corporation back in Australia to advise him of my fresh diagnosis with CAD and CSVD. The call itself was rather matter of fact, even procedural to be honest, but the moment after I hung up I needed to stop and sit under a Betel Nut tree to gather my composure. When I say ‘gather my composure’, I’m talking all out emotional upheaval culminating it terse words being shouted at the defenceless tree and a healthy dose of crying, not in pity of my diagnosis, but in drawing a line in the sand of my life long career.
I was fractured. My body felt quite fine, I was fit, I ate healthily, yet my mind and soul were smashed. This wasn’t my first rodeo with a chronic condition but it was the first one to impact my career. That feeling of my career disappearing under my feet was as real as standing under a shower. Work life, as I came to enjoy it, would be over. In addition, part of my recommendation was to reduce travel and refrain from dangerous environments like my sojourns to Papua New Guinea. Danger was what I did for a living and I cherished the opportunities of doing business on the frontier of humanity.
But, in that short phone call I had personally called a halt to that life, I knew at that moment, that I had voluntarily kickstarted the demise of my professional career and I was shattered. That moment under the Betel Nut tree was the starting gate of internal struggle between my three elements. What started as a subtle moment became all out brutal competition for my limited personal resources.
My mind was having a field day, with Charlie running wild, playing with my emotions and encouraging thoughts of the apocalypse. As far as Charlie was concerned, I was doomed.
My body refused to give up its dominance as the stoic survivor. Fitness had to be maintained, or the wheels of civilisation would definitely fall off. So I did more laps in whatever pool I could find, and I walked extra kilometers every day, with my watch dutifully coaching me toward continuous improvement.
Again, if I’m brutally honest I had no idea my Soul even existed at this stage. As far as my capitalist self knew. The Soul was some wu wu approach to religion so my spirituality just got left behind entirely.
The breaking point of my internal struggle with the diagnosis happened when I was back home in Australia. I was a few months into the CAD/ CSVD diagnosis and I began to get aggravated easily and that’s when my wife gently stepped in suggesting I needed to talk to someone about my mental health. I talk about this in more detail elsewhere, but my point is, the moment felt like a strategic failure indicating that the focus on my physical health without addressing my mental health was patently floored and the single-element approach collapsed when I called a psychologist and we explored the root cause of my dilemma.
The physical fitness had to continue to facilitate mental and spiritual rehabilitation but it was clear a functionally integrated approach was necessary to uplift all my elements.
As the subject of my own survival, I had to each element to have it’s own truth and somehow I had to give all three of them an equal voice if I was to have an empowered diagnosis.
For mental health I became a student, working with my psychologist, doing my homework and constantly keeping Charlie in check. As time and my mental skill set improved, I even became the subject of my own personal experiment exploring split personality traits. For my body I became the PT coach actively championing the efforts of my training and researching a life plan focused on coronary conditions. As much as I tried in those first twelve months I still couldn’t identify what it meant to let my Soul express itself. I took my psychologist’s advice and started immersing myself in creativity writing this book, and that felt really good, but I still didn’t have a sense of self, an identity for the future, so rather than beating myself up I decided to let it ride for a while knowing I would give it due focus when the more pressing concerns with my mental health had been resolved.
When it came to matters of the Soul I really had to nurture it as you would a neglected personal relationship because as I mentioned earlier, it had to take a back seat while I focused on the more pressing issues of Mental Health.
Healing the Soul meant starting with the basics and taking a keen interest in spirituality from as many cultural traditions as I could find. Everything from the Abrahamic religions we all know, to more specialised teachings such as Heartfulness Yoga and Daoist philosophy.
Taking it even further, my wife and I became dual Pilgrims together, hiking the Unesco listed path of the Kumano Kodo in Japan. While on this journey of enlightenment, we experienced the tranquility and spirituality of the Three Grand Shinto Shrines of Kumano trekking through mountainous landscapes, lush forests and experiencing traditional village hospitality. This spiritual immersion peaked when we participated in the buddhist Jukai ceremony while sleeping amongst the temples of Koyasan, the origin of Japanese Buddhism.
While I am constantly seeking alignment across the Elements, it’s not often you feel true harmony with all three, but I have experienced it even if it was only for a few weeks after my return from our Heartfulness retreat in India. Sure, you might say it was a flow on effect from two weeks of deep immersion in Yogic philosophy and meditation, but it was real and it felt like pure harmony. My body was tracking consistently well, my mind was clear, even Charlie was silent and for the first time since diagnosis, I knew where I was heading spiritually for my future self. I knew the future me I wanted to become. For that fleeting moment I could see exactly who my future self was.
I suppose the best way to explain the feeling was like creating a strategic team plan that you present to your group and the weeks afterward it all falls into place and you experience the rare moment when everyone is in alignment.
Of course this was only a fleeting moment of weeks but it was the first taste of what was possible in my future and with that I now know what to practice on and where alignment can be found. In a way, it’s about honouring my decoding not just as individual elements but as a collective whole that when aligned take you to a level free of diagnosis, free of unnecessary fear and hurt.
Honouring yourself is an interesting concept and one that often gets confused with self-aggrandizement, so no, honour is not about standing on a pedestal it’s about staying as humble as a warrior monk and treating yourself as a complex living system not something to splash on socials with a selfie.
Am I always humble, of course not but I am always aiming to honour the three elements of my personal Trinity.
A diagnosis doesn’t just affect your body. It reverberates through your entire being, your thoughts, your emotions, and your sense of self. In Decode Your Diagnosis, we call these interconnected aspects your Elements: Mind, Body, and Soul. They are not isolated systems; they are dynamically linked. When one is impacted, all respond. Healing and resilience arise from understanding and aligning these Elements as a lived experience, not just a philosophical concept.
Let’s now explore each one with practical insight, not as abstract categories, but as active parts of your daily life.
Mind: The Architect of Thought
The mind isn’t just where thought happens, it’s where stories are formed, identities are shaped, and decisions are made. After a diagnosis, the mind can become a battleground of what-ifs, fears, and self-doubt. But it can also be your greatest ally in the journey toward resilience.
You don’t need to silence negative thoughts to reclaim mental alignment, you need to reframe them. The goal is not to eliminate fear but to face it with clarity. When you practice gratitude, mindful breathing, or journaling from the "I" perspective, you create space between reaction and intention. This is how you train the mind to support your healing rather than hinder it.
Body: The Foundation of Experience
Your body is your frontline in the journey with chronic illness. It sends signals,pain, fatigue, inflammation, to alert you when something is off. The body doesn’t just carry your condition; it reflects how you live.
Learning to listen to your body without judgment is one of the most powerful practices you can adopt. Hydration, movement, sleep, nutrition, these aren’t checklists. They’re daily conversations. When you learn what energizes you, what drains you, and how your body responds to change, you gain insight into your own operating manual. Alignment here means tuning into those signals and adjusting accordingly.
Soul: The Compass of Meaning
The soul is often overlooked in conventional medicine, but it is essential to Functional Integrity. It’s the part of you that asks, "Why does this matter?" It seeks connection, meaning, and legacy. Chronic illness can cause you to feel disconnected from who you were, but your soul reminds you who you are becoming.
Cultivating the soul doesn’t require a religious practice, but it does demand reflection. Rhetorically, What brings you joy? What relationships nourish you? What stories do you want to tell? Whether it’s through creativity, nature, service, or stillness, tending to the soul adds depth and direction to your healing journey.
The Interplay of the Three
These elements don’t exist in isolation. They inform and influence each other constantly. Mental stress affects sleep and digestion. Poor nutrition dulls clarity. Lack of purpose deflates energy. But the reverse is also true:
A calm mind supports better physical outcomes.
A nourished body fosters emotional steadiness.
A purposeful soul strengthens your will to act.
To explore your Elements is to map your terrain. The more familiar you become with their signals, the more equipped you are to navigate change with confidence.
Key Insight
Mind, Body, and Soul are not abstract categories. They are active, lived elements of your daily experience. When aligned, they form the foundation of your resilience.
Practical Reflections
When have you noticed your mind, body, and soul falling out of sync?
What was the result?
What daily practices help each of your Elements feel acknowledged and supported?
Which of the three Elements feels most neglected right now?
What is one step you can take to re-engage with it?
Fama’s Sidebar
Listen for the signals your Elements are always speaking. The tension in your shoulders, the spark of joy, the restless thoughts at 3am, these are messages. Don’t ignore them. Learn to listen. That’s where real alignment begins.