Unconsciously, in our mind we close the door because of our inability to see our worth. We close the door because of our negative thinking that what's beyond the door is too difficult, so we let someone else deal with it.

We continue to close the door because we feel others are better placed to open the door we've chosen to close. We close the door because we have no confidence to open it. We close the door because we lack the self-esteem and that matches our confidence.

Our reality of course is that we're really no different, that we can be all the things we see in others, but choose not to see in ourselves. It is my belief that we're far worthier than we think, but that when we come to see that we are, we’ll begin to open the doors we chose to close.

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.

Most people who read this blog

went on to read these blogs next
Date 6 September 2026
Author Ilana Estelle

Depression is REAL

Healing, understanding and why empathy matters Dealing with depression is REAL. There isn't a lot of support out there and I don't think people always understand how much empathy someone needs when they ...
Read more
Date 31 August 2026
Author Ilana Estelle

The Life I Might Have Chosen

Mourning the choices I never had Standing back from my life and trying to understand it now doesn't mean I no longer have feelings about what happened. I do. My life was shaped for me long before I had the chance ...
Read more
Date 28 August 2026
Author Ilana Estelle

The Knowledge That Was Always There

The past cannot change, but the understanding can Knowledge can arrive at the wrong time because the people you needed to hear it from are no longer there. And there is nowhere to take that knowledge. Not knowing ...
Read more
1 2 3 686

8 comments on “Closing doors”

  1. There you go again, rightly extolling the virtues of our unconscious talking to our conscious and I couldn't agree more.

  2. We can be our own worst critic. It can be more comfortable to believe all the lies we think of ourselves and the ones people makes us believe in, than to venture out to discover what we are capable of.

    I know I have kept some doors close because of fear.

    1. Thanks Maria. You're right. Yes fear is the number one reason why we close doors. The irony is that when we do manage to overcome the fear we feel, we're often quite happy with what's through the door.

      It's often the apprehension and the not knowing that is our main cause of fear. I couldn't agree more. Perhaps we should learn to feel the fear and just get on with it.

      From my own experience, things are normally not as bad as they seem, as we often go on to find out.

  3. I agree. I used to be a little heavy on lip service but light on substance when it came to pursuing opportunities for advancement. But after a while my conscience started gnawing at me to seek a world beyond my own.

    My problem was transparent; I was simply afraid to fail.

    1. What you describe Tim is the way most of us learn. If we learned to take a step back and work things out for ourselves, we'd do less of the lip service and more of the substance.

      We tend to close the door on all the things we're afraid of. The older we get the more we realise through our experiences, we have little to fear, but more to gain. Thank you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to receive regular updates

Enter your details below to be the first to receive updates on new articles on my blog.