Ilana Estelle is a mental health and wellbeing advocate who combines educational insight with her personal experience of living with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities.
She holds diplomas in Counselling, Diet and Nutrition, Nutritional Therapy, Psychotherapy and Counselling, and Stress Management. Through her writing, Ilana supports others in navigating their emotional, mental, and physical health challenges.
In addition to writing for The CP Diary, her work has appeared in healthy lifestyle magazines.
Ilana is also the author of three books: Cerebral Palsy: A Story – Finding the Calm After the Storm, Spirituality, Healing and Me, and Survival: The Covid Years – Time for Change.
Something inspirational: “Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.” DORIS LESSING Thinking for yourself means more than having your own opinions. It means owning your words, your choices, and ...
Something inspirational: "We are not what happened to us. We are what we choose to become.” JAMES HOLLIS "I am drawn to James Hollis's words: 'We are not what happened to us. We are what we choose ...
Something inspirational: "Healing begins when we can hold our own experience with compassion." TARA BRACH Brach's quote reminds us that healing begins when we meet our pain with kindness instead of judgement ...
I should have been prepared by my past for whatever was to come, but that was strictly for survival and not very good for living.
I have existed for most of my life, seeing as I was forced as a child to take whatever came along. People do live their own lives and do what they want, but it's such a foreign concept to me.
Right at this point I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, but being able to enjoy my freedom would be the icing on the cake.
Thanks Randy. Perhaps now you can be prepared by your past. It's never too late. It may take slightly longer to learn how to prepare yourself, but with your parents no longer living, you are free to make your own choices.
Unconsciously, without realising I must have used my past to challenge my thoughts and my experiences by reinventing myself. Even if we don't define ourselves through our past, it doesn't stop us defining us.
But many of us will be defined by our past, simply because we choose not to use our past to be prepared.
We are not defined by our past unless we let it define us. I agree the past prepares us if we learn from it and we define ourselves through our actions and words in the present.
Thank you. Yes, I agree although others will and tend to define us too. From my life and my experiences in the past that is exactly what I have done.
My past has prepared me for this life, with my blog, through my writing, what I do. In myself, my experiences and my past have shown me a different way to be.
And I agree. We are not defined by our past unless we choose to think about, and work from the past.
You are cultivating your future by 'being prepared by your past.' and that is exactly right.
A human failing is that we continue to be defined by our experiences of the past. You're right to look back in this way. We must always learn our lessons of the past.
However bad our experiences, we must use those experiences to learn and change our future. We're not getting those right.
I should have been prepared by my past for whatever was to come, but that was strictly for survival and not very good for living.
I have existed for most of my life, seeing as I was forced as a child to take whatever came along. People do live their own lives and do what they want, but it's such a foreign concept to me.
Right at this point I want to feel comfortable in my own skin, but being able to enjoy my freedom would be the icing on the cake.
Thanks Randy. Perhaps now you can be prepared by your past. It's never too late. It may take slightly longer to learn how to prepare yourself, but with your parents no longer living, you are free to make your own choices.
Unconsciously, without realising I must have used my past to challenge my thoughts and my experiences by reinventing myself. Even if we don't define ourselves through our past, it doesn't stop us defining us.
But many of us will be defined by our past, simply because we choose not to use our past to be prepared.
We are not defined by our past unless we let it define us. I agree the past prepares us if we learn from it and we define ourselves through our actions and words in the present.
Thank you. Yes, I agree although others will and tend to define us too. From my life and my experiences in the past that is exactly what I have done.
My past has prepared me for this life, with my blog, through my writing, what I do. In myself, my experiences and my past have shown me a different way to be.
And I agree. We are not defined by our past unless we choose to think about, and work from the past.
The past is the only thing that helps me put one foot in front of the other, as I'm always looking back for motivation to move forward.
I really appreciate that, no matter how disgusting those memories can be.
You are cultivating your future by 'being prepared by your past.' and that is exactly right.
A human failing is that we continue to be defined by our experiences of the past. You're right to look back in this way. We must always learn our lessons of the past.
However bad our experiences, we must use those experiences to learn and change our future. We're not getting those right.