The Role of Identity in Healing
Chapter 4 - Decode Your Diagnosis
Introduction
With: Patrick Nolan
Welcome back to the ChapterKey First Edition release of Decode Your Diagnosis.
I’m Patrick Nolan, and this week we turn the page to Chapter 4, The Role of Identity in Healing.
Diagnosis doesn’t just disrupt your health, it shakes your very sense of self. This chapter explores what happens when your story fractures and how you begin the work of rewriting it from the inside out.
We’re not just talking labels here. We’re talking identity, purpose, and power. So if you’ve ever looked in the mirror and wondered who you are now, you’re in the right place.
Let’s join Paul as he reflects on the shift from patient to Titan.
The Role of Identity in Healing
By: Paul Cobbin
A diagnosis doesn’t just attack the body. It fragments identity.
In the weeks following my heart crash, I wasn’t just recovering from a physical blow, I was wrestling with a deeper question: Who am I now?
This chapter isn’t about lab tests or medications. It’s about the story underneath the story, the invisible shift in how you see yourself once a diagnosis arrives.
Identity. You could fill a library with books on the subject. Such a simple word, but oh, what a powerful concept. Identity shapes not only how we see ourselves, but how we engage with the world. For example, when I began to identify as a 'patient,' my tone changed, my posture changed, and even the way others spoke to me shifted. It’s more than a label, it becomes a lens through which all experience is filtered.
I mean, we spend most of our life wrestling with the existential question of ‘who am I?’ and then your doctor gives you a chronic diagnosis and a fault line immediately appears with a grand chasm between who you thought you were trying to be everything you can be in the modern world, and then your new title appears out of nowhere, a patient with a chronic condition.
When I reflect back on my medical life, I can honestly say I never identified as a patient until turning fifty. For sure, with PCT and regular venesections, I had been a patient with a chronic condition all my life, but you know what, I didn’t recognise it as chronic, or myself as a patient, heck, I didn’t know what chronic meant until my prostate cancer diagnosis. At that moment I became a CANCER patient. I identified as a cancer patient and if I’m honest I enjoyed the novel exploration of what it meant to be a patient with cancer.
But as a patient, I started fearing what life after prostate cancer might look like. Would I survive, would it metastasise, would I have to endure Chemotherapy and then there was my masculinity. All of a sudden identifying as a patient wasn’t so cool, in fact, it was down right depressing.
With depression being a chronic condition of its own, there was no wonder I was struggling with my diagnosis, because in reality I was combating an invisible mental condition and a treatable physical condition all at the same time. Being a patient meant I was captive in ‘that box’ of being clinically ill.
It felt like every conversation circled back to cancer, not because I brought it up intentionally, but because it had become part of how others saw me, and slowly, how I began to see myself. I tell you, I’ve been a Titan for so long that even writing these reflective thoughts is agitating me. The hairs on the back of my neck are raising as we speak, because I’m identifying with ‘my cancer’ again instead of ‘the cancer’ I had removed which immediately reframes as a detached thing being treated and me being void of emotion.
Being a patient feels so helpless.
Look, I’ll be absolutely frank with you, identifying as a patient is a hard thing to kick and I am constantly struggling with my identity. But, I do know that when I drop a line into a conversation relating to either the prostate cancer or the heart disease conditions, the tone immediately changes.
I’ve even tested it for effect by dropping it into a conversation and gauging a person’s empathic response and then totally switching it up by redirecting to the measures I’ve taken to decode the diagnosis, and the steps I’m taking on a daily basis to decode the prognosis. And when I reflect on the emotional juxtaposition of the two perspectives, the evidence is irrefutable.
When I speak as a patient, I can hear the empathic pitty in the listener’s responses and every now and then a touch of sympathy reflecting their own relief of not having the condition themselves.
When I speak of tackling the condition and fighting back with daily rigour, their tone immediately lifts to one of triumphant empathy.
While exploring linguistic psychology became a pleasurable interlude, it didn’t decode the underlying condition. That’s where reframing my narrative from top to bottom came in and from first hand experience I can honestly say it works.
Just like the months of training it takes for a Kungfu master to break a block in two, I didn’t suddenly wake up one day as a Titan. It took small steps. To begin with it was about reframing my language. Instead of being a cancer patient, I was a person recovering from cancer. And from there began layering on the traits required to forge a path to recovery.
This perspective worked for cancer because there was the potential for recovery and if I trained in a certain manner with pelvic floor exercises, embarked on a fitness routine to reduce weight etc., all these efforts would contribute to a definitive cure once the cancer was removed. It was considerably harder when the circulatory conditions were diagnosed. Yes, I beat cancer but in today’s medical environment it is virtually impossible to beat CAD or CSVD, so I had to take a different approach, I had to dig deeper and return to the state of thinking like a Titan and raise myself above the conditions.
Rising to Titan status didn’t happen overnight, it took time as I added more fitness to my routine to the point where I now have the lifestyle and health of an elite athlete. Actually I jokingly described myself to a practitioner recently as being an athlete with an elite chronic condition. It was a playful remark, but it captured the mental shift I'd made from passive recipient to proactive enforcer. Framing myself this way reminded me that identity is chosen, not assigned. It was a joke but internally that’s how I think. I am now an elite Titan and everything I do in life contributes towards decoding and rising above the chronic conditions.
Physical fitness is not the only area I work on as I build my functional integrity. I have regular discussions with a psychologist aimed at corrective conditioning first and more often now, preventative application to continue to build my mental strength. Naming my inner critic to Charlie was one of those measures, even exploring elements of a dissociative identity, to compartmentalise some of the harder questions for later, was part of my early treatment.
Every action helps but the real milestone, hinting towards successfully decoding my diagnosis, was when I could start exploring my spirituality. Spirituality is such a deeply personal concept that you need significant emotional health to explore without shame. Before we continue, please don’t confuse spirituality with the ritual of religion as they are far from being the same things. Spirituality is about what it really means to be you, the you that exists beneath the diagnosis, beyond the roles, and outside the limits others may try to impose. For me, this realization came on a heartfulness retreat in Kanha Shanti Vanam, India through an intensive few weeks of prolonged meditation and yoga theory beyond the Asana’s (postures or poses). This intensive introspection helped solidify a renewed sense of identity, rooted not in what had happened to me, but in who I was choosing to become.
Being a Titan decoding a condition is not just about a medical condition, it’s about identity, about who you are exclusively apart from the condition.
When it comes to the various conditions I’m dealing with, I couldn’t tell you the medical intricacies of them because reading clinical treatises about medical conditions is, A rather dry, and B downright depressing because the cause of nearly all chronic conditions is epigenetic and in my case incurable. I don’t need to know how bad my condition is or how my past led me to where I am now, we can’t change that and we certainly can’t turn back.
Instead, I spend my time in the positive space of reinvention, researching a broad range of topics from function medicine, to diet, supplement trials, lifestyle and exercise routines, spirituality and mental capacity building. Collectively they are what I call taking a functionally integrated approach. I need to know how to rise above the conditions, how to enjoy life to the maximum of my potential and find future growth, mentally, physically and spiritually.
I need to think, do and act like a Titan.
Identity Interrupted
When illness arrives, it disrupts more than your physiology. It calls into question the very narrative of who you are. Suddenly, you’re not just a parent, a leader, or a creative force, you are a patient.
This moment is called identity rupture, akin to an earthquake that splits the self down the middle. It’s one of the least-discussed consequences of a chronic diagnosis, yet it marks the exact point where your inner story fractures under the weight of a new reality.
As Viktor Frankl wrote from within the depths of suffering:
“Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
In the face of uncertainty, the human spirit searches for continuity looking for something to hold onto. But when your body fails you, and others begin relating to you differently, it’s easy to internalize a new identity shaped by limitation.
This isn’t a weakness. It’s in the wiring. The mind naturally forms “I am” statements to make sense of the world:
“I am strong.” → “I am sick.” → “I am fading.”
This is where awareness becomes medicine. Recognizing that your identity is not fixed, but narrated and this decline in narration signfying the first step toward claiming your new identity.
The Danger of the Label
Let’s be honest: the label “patient” is seductive. It gives us structure. It explains why we’re tired. It justifies the grief.
But it’s also a trap.
This is where the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis becomes relevant. In linguistics, it proposes that the language we use not only describes reality, it limits how we perceive it.
If you speak of yourself only as a patient, your world begins to shape around that role. Your power gets outsourced to doctors. Your identity becomes passive, reactive, even invisible.
You begin to shrink and retreat within your story.
But what if, instead of “I am a patient,” you said:
“I am a Titan.”
Reclaiming the Narrative: Becoming a Titan
The word “Titan” might sound mythic, and to be honest, it’s meant to.
In decoding philosophy, a Titan is not defined by the presence or absence of disease. A Titan is defined by the act of continuing to show up and grow despite a diagnosis.
A Titan is someone who rises from identity rupture and says: This is still my story to write.
We do not deny the diagnosis. But we refuse to collapse into it.
To reclaim your narrative:
Speak your identity aloud. “I am learning,” “I am growing,” “I am decoding.”
Journal from the I perspective. “I felt... I chose... I discovered...”
Name your inner critic, as I did with “Charlie”, to separate doubt from truth.
Align with a symbol: a totem, a phrase, a memory of strength. Something that reminds you daily: I am more than what’s been written about me.
This is the core of the Time Continuum: rewriting the present, not repeating the past.
The Alignment of Identity
Just as illness touches Mind, Body, and Soul, so too does identity.
Mind Identity: The thoughts and beliefs you hold about who you are.
Body Identity: How you experience your form, its capacities, and limits.
Soul Identity: The part of you that yearns for connection, meaning, and legacy.
Illness can distort any one of these, but healing requires bringing all three back into harmony. This is the beginning of Dynamic Identity Realignment and it is foundational to your transformation.
Foreshadowing Reinvention
Healing is not about returning to who you were.
It’s about becoming who you are meant to be.
This chapter is your first invitation to look beyond survival. To begin imagining reinvention. Book 3 will guide you there fully, but here, now, on the Knife Edge of Time, you choose how to live, how to define, and how to become.
In the next chapter, we’ll explore the structure beneath the philosophy of the Elements, Forces, and Harmony that shape your daily experience and help you begin building a more resilient, intentional future.
Key Insight
A chronic diagnosis can interrupt your story, but it doesn’t get to end it. You do.
Practical Reflections
Where have you unconsciously accepted an identity shaped by your diagnosis?
What parts of your identity are most important to you and how can they guide your recovery?
What does it mean for you to think, do, and act like a Titan today?
Fama’s Sidebar
Rediscovering You A diagnosis might shift how others see you, but it doesn’t have to change how you see yourself. You are still whole. Still you. Still capable of writing the next chapter. Even if today is a tough one, remind yourself: “I am more than this condition. I am choosing who I become.”
Close Notes
With: Patrick Nolan
That was Chapter 4 of The Trinity of You, and what a powerful step.
We saw how a diagnosis can interrupt your story, but it doesn’t get to finish it. You do. Reclaiming identity isn’t about denial, it’s about direction. You’re not who the world says you are. You’re who you choose to become, one choice at a time.
The journey continues next week. But for now… breathe. You’re doing the work.
However, if you would like a deeper engagement to mix with other Titans just like you, the Titans Arena waiting list is now open. By joining the waiting list you’ll receive early access, live events, and a lot more opportunity to decode your diagnosis exclusively to members of the Titans Arena.
🔒 Join the Inner Trinity Arena Inner Ring waitlist
Keep decoding and we’ll see you Tuesday in Rings of Resilience.
With you in this always,
Patrick