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: “What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again ...
Food for thought: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” CARL ROGERS Acceptance doesn't mean we stop growing. It means understanding ourselves without judgement ...
Something inspirational: “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” VIRGINIA WOOLF Life isn't a race. There is no pressure to perform, compare or prove yourself. Just be 'you'. That's it.
I wasted most of my life pretending I knew know how to do things, because I was too embarrassed to admit I didn't know how to do the normal things that everyone else knows how to do.
My parents didn't teach us a lot about simple life skills, so most of the time we had to figure things out on our own.
I was talking with my oldest sister on Saturday about it. When were young, she was the only reason we didn't end up in foster care.
Between throwing us to the wolves and making us feel ashamed for asking for help, it's amazing we all survived and not surprising that we've all have had to deal with so many demons.
I'm finally at the point where I can admit I don't know something and not feel like a complete idiot because of it.
We all have family members like Tims who are difficult to deal with at the best of times. In reality, we don't know what we don't know, but thinking we know is dangerous.
I have a family member who knows everything about things she knows absolutely nothing about. I think I'll read this quote to her.
Thanks Tim. Yes, it might not go down too well, but we don't need to convince anyone what we know to be true.
In your heart you know the truth; that's all you need.
I wasted most of my life pretending I knew know how to do things, because I was too embarrassed to admit I didn't know how to do the normal things that everyone else knows how to do.
My parents didn't teach us a lot about simple life skills, so most of the time we had to figure things out on our own.
I was talking with my oldest sister on Saturday about it. When were young, she was the only reason we didn't end up in foster care.
Between throwing us to the wolves and making us feel ashamed for asking for help, it's amazing we all survived and not surprising that we've all have had to deal with so many demons.
I'm finally at the point where I can admit I don't know something and not feel like a complete idiot because of it.
Thanks Randy. It's okay to admit you don't know something. It's the way we learn. This stigma needs to be dropped.
But I think you can teach yourself life skills, just by being taught, 'how not to do things.' It's how we learn.
We all have family members like Tims who are difficult to deal with at the best of times. In reality, we don't know what we don't know, but thinking we know is dangerous.
Thanks. Yes, thinking we know when we don't know is very dangerous. An educated person will always know they don't know everything.
I do think education has a lot to do with it. But I think we can all learn, whether we are educated or not.
A wise person will always accept they literally can't know everything. I don't believe we will know everything.