The onset of depression after a medical diagnosis is common and even clearly understandable as a first reaction. And, it is important that you meet your medical diagnosis from the start with openness of mind, body, heart, and most importantly, Spirit.    

In fact, the thought process you engage in and the belief system you develop around accepting a medical diagnosis will determine to a significant degree how you will handle it. And it will also determine how you work with your diagnosis as you move forward.

If you remain open, your journey will be hopeful. 

If you are closed off and shut down, your journey may become more difficult. 

To be clear, none of us ever expects to receive a negative health report. Upon hearing that there is a medical diagnosis, it is not uncommon to freeze with fear and apprehension. You hear the words. You possess what you think is a textbook understanding of the diagnosis. And you simply shut down.    

Freezing, becoming fearful, negative, and thinking the worst are common responses after receiving a medical diagnosis. We have learned to become negative after receiving any kind of bad news. Instinctively, you think the worst. Through experience, you have learned to fear any kind of loss of control. 

In thinking the worst after a diagnosis, it is important to recognize that you are also closing off hope and possibility. 

You are closing off other channels within yourself that would likely lead to a better process during your treatment.  Remaining open to a more positive process may lead to a better overall outcome. Remaining positive will relieve you of the burden of depression after a medical diagnosis.    

A first step in moving toward a healthier process involves reframing your health information in a way that widens and broadens your awareness of who you are. What do you bring to the process of your health that expands your whole self, rather than being reduced to depression after a medical diagnosis? 

By reframing, I mean considering the overall health of your whole body. This includes aspects of your health that are healthy and strong. These aspects are able to support other aspects of your body that are currently burdened by a medical diagnosis.

Let’s use cancer as an example.  You may have received a diagnosis of cancer or perhaps have learned that your cancer has recurred. You immediately feel depression after a medical diagnosis like this. But I am suggesting reframing your diagnosis in a way that envisions cancer cells being surrounded and supported by millions of healthy cells. 

Acceptance of a medical diagnosis is enhanced by engaging and putting your healthy cells to good use by staying positive, eating, sleeping, and resting in a healthy way as a step forward.

I am saying that acceptance and refusing to engage in depression after a medical diagnosis frees and restores healthy energy that helps your body fight the good fight.

And I am also saying that by letting go of ego-driven fear, you will more graciously surrender control. You will place yourself in God’s tender care.

You will be enabled to trust that God who knows and sees everything, is right there with you and for you. In fear, you are unable to feel God’s closeness.

Let’s think of it this way. At the moment you receive a medical diagnosis you are betwixt and between where you were, and where you are going.   

The term for this is liminal or transitional space. This space is where you are leaving behind one phase of your life and entering into the next.   

How you choose to move through this space is completely up to you. 

You may not have control over your medical diagnosis. But you have complete control over your attitude and the way you want to carry yourself through the process. 

As someone who needed to make decisions about how I was going to accept and work through my own medical diagnosis, I know that surrendering to the process, foregoing depression after a medical diagnosis, and freeing up my energy to be better connected to God within me, helped me to go through the process better. 

When you accept the process ahead of you after a medical diagnosis, you free your body and soul to feel the Presence of the Spirit. You place your trust in God who loves you and lives within you. This formula does not provide the outcome of a medical diagnosis. However, it does provide a pathway toward your transformation through the process.

In place of depression after a medical diagnosis, you lay down your fear and apprehension to find more of who you are along with God’s holy Presence. 

Perhaps for the first time in your life, you will learn openness. You learn openness to God’s love, supportive love of others through your diagnosis, and love for your own life and all that you are. 

Once you accept that you are no longer in control of outcomes (as if you ever were!), reality opens up. And it provides you an entirely new way of moving through life. 

Fear and depression after a medical diagnosis can be a very lonely place. Once you place your vulnerability and fear into God’s holy Presence, you will become more peaceful and less alone. Others will join the Spirit within you.  Together, you will find strength, not weakness.    

We are all vulnerable in the face of a medical diagnosis. 

However, there is no greater moment than being transformed beyond weakness and fear, into thriving, resilience and hopefully ultimate recovery. 

I have walked this path in my own life. And I am happy to help you if you are beginning your own journey toward accepting a medical diagnosis.  Please contact me here.