I usually take time around Christmas to reflect on my year. It’s been a busy year. Having started work on my manuscript in June 2017, in February this year with the help of my editing agent, I have set about putting my memoir together.

But this year hasn’t just been about putting my memoir together, I continue to work hard on my blog, working through and bringing understanding on my experiences. Although I didn't know, I have had to learn about autism.

Friendship and loyalty are important. It is also important for us to separate our thoughts between those who are there for us and those who continually give us a hard time. Not everyone deserves to have your friendship and loyalty.

But there are those who continue to face hardships. Let's give a thought to those individuals serving in the armed forces, and to those who are less fortunate than ourselves, who aren't able to spend Christmas with their families.

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.

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4 comments on “Reflections at Christmas”

  1. Thank you for this years Xmas reflections and for your continued hard work and selfless help and commitment to others and over the last 12 months.

    You have made and continue to make a difference.

    1. Thank you. I absolutely love what I do and that through helping myself, I can help others also.

      From years of living in a very dark tunnel, I feel blessed that I have finally found my writing, something I love to do, something that I am good at. To also have support through responses to my website is another blessing.

  2. Yes, Christmas can be a very hard time of year for a lot of people, especially when they don't have a 'hallmark family' that gets together during this time and who enjoy spending the holiday together.

    Pretty much every other commercial is a reminder of what we don't have, which only serves to rub salt into the wound. Mine is the fact that I haven't heard from my daughter since May and probably won't, seeing as she seems to think that I want to control her life just like her mother, which is not the case and further from the truth.

    It would be fantastic if I would hear from her, but I'm not going to hold my breath, even though it's painful and that doesn't go away very easily.

    The most I want after this year is just to be able to have some peace and quiet in my life, and for those I love and care about to have a very Merry Christmas even if I'm not going to be a part of it.

    1. That's the right way to do it Randy. It's all you can do for now until something changes in the future.

      As you say this time of year is always the hardest. The optimistic positive side of me believes that things should come good and if they don't it was never meant to be.

      But we all have freewill to change how and what we think. I work on the black and white theory and that works, regardless of the parent.

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