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 ...
Thanks Randy. I love this. 'I've quite literally had to walk away from that kind of life this year' - powerful stuff.
Walking away from anything that is unfamiliar can be difficult, but staying and living in the dark is worse. It's not the walking away, it's the apprehension of walking away (how we'll feel in a new environment, how we'll cope, what life will be like the other end) that stops us moving on.
I love that you've accomplished it Randy. Living in the 'sunshine of the spirit' will help you to continue to live in the moment, positively. Continue to put your trust in it.
This saying is very true. While it is perfectly natural to have feelings of anger, resentment and jealousy, at times those feelings don't do us any good.
The problem with those feelings is not feeling them, but how we handle them and there is a tendency to become embittered.
There is an old saying about speaking when you are angry and it will be the best speech we will ever regret. As hard as it is, we have to find somewhere for those feelings, so we do not do or say something we ought not to and so that we can heal from those feelings.
Yes, you're absolutely right. It is so important we learn to get a handle on our feelings, more importantly that we all learn to work together.
Carrying negative feelings will harm us. Positive feelings will elevate us. We cannot emotionally afford to carry feelings that will leave us embittered. That will make us ill.
Writing has been instrumental in not only me coming to understand my life, but has allowed me to move on from the trauma I sustained as a child.
We all need to communicate and work together more.
I know about those feelings all too well, seeing as I was brainwashed into thinking those were normal, when they were anything but normal.
Eventually I learned how to survive on those emotions, but so much negative energy eventually destroys your mind, body and soul.
Living on the dark side for most of my life, wasn't something I enjoyed doing, but when it's pretty much all you know, it isn't very surprising.
I've quite literally had to walk away from that kind of life this year and it has been an interesting experience; it's all new to me.
Now that I am living in the 'sunshine of the spirit' my life has been getting better and better every day.
Thanks Randy. I love this. 'I've quite literally had to walk away from that kind of life this year' - powerful stuff.
Walking away from anything that is unfamiliar can be difficult, but staying and living in the dark is worse. It's not the walking away, it's the apprehension of walking away (how we'll feel in a new environment, how we'll cope, what life will be like the other end) that stops us moving on.
I love that you've accomplished it Randy. Living in the 'sunshine of the spirit' will help you to continue to live in the moment, positively. Continue to put your trust in it.
This saying is very true. While it is perfectly natural to have feelings of anger, resentment and jealousy, at times those feelings don't do us any good.
The problem with those feelings is not feeling them, but how we handle them and there is a tendency to become embittered.
There is an old saying about speaking when you are angry and it will be the best speech we will ever regret. As hard as it is, we have to find somewhere for those feelings, so we do not do or say something we ought not to and so that we can heal from those feelings.
Yes, you're absolutely right. It is so important we learn to get a handle on our feelings, more importantly that we all learn to work together.
Carrying negative feelings will harm us. Positive feelings will elevate us. We cannot emotionally afford to carry feelings that will leave us embittered. That will make us ill.
Writing has been instrumental in not only me coming to understand my life, but has allowed me to move on from the trauma I sustained as a child.
We all need to communicate and work together more.