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 ...
Yes, I have learned that lesson, finally, in trusting the wrong people and having it come back to bite me in the ass!
They have their own insane ideas and expectations of what they assume I was going to do and refuse to listen to the facts that I don't have any plans like they seem to think. The worst part is that my daughter is now caught in the middle, once again and I was the one who allowed her to be put in that position.
We can't seem to convince them that anything we're doing is in my daughter's best interest and we have no interest in controlling my daughter's life, even though it's something she may end up needing, because of their behavior.
My daughter has been kept isolated and uneducated for so long that she doesn't understand the difference. It just sucks that these people are choosing to not want to listen and learn, so my daughter is going to be the one caught in the middle of this war that she didn't ask for.
As you say Randy, we trust others and you cannot be blamed for that. And perhaps that's the point.
This has nothing to do with what you think you have done. You cannot be blamed for your daughter's circumstances, where others are clearly to blame.
We anticipate and expect the best of people and that's the way it's supposed to be. When those people let us down and we must act, it's not okay but that's not for us to reconcile.
As far as your daughter is concerned, I hope she's okay. It's those others who must learn. You did what any loving father would do. Make sure his daughter is out of harm's way.
Thanks Tim. Yes, I agree with that. As a general rule, we tend to be selective on what we remember and sadly we learn nothing from doing that.
It is a way of protecting ourselves from the truth, but it also means we will block out too much of our experiences that we need to think about and deal with.
It is our experiences that help with spiritual and emotional growth and those help shape us into the people we become.
Our minds have to be open to the possibility of learning and the benefits that arise from it, but that doesn't always happen at the time that we have the opportunity to learn unfortunately.
Thank you. Yes, you're absolutely right. The trouble with a closed mind is that it never really opens.
We start off with the good intentions but then life gets in the way, and we blame that rather than look to ourselves to change things. But for me it's all about the attitude. When we change our attitude to things we will change our lives.
Yes, I have learned that lesson, finally, in trusting the wrong people and having it come back to bite me in the ass!
They have their own insane ideas and expectations of what they assume I was going to do and refuse to listen to the facts that I don't have any plans like they seem to think. The worst part is that my daughter is now caught in the middle, once again and I was the one who allowed her to be put in that position.
We can't seem to convince them that anything we're doing is in my daughter's best interest and we have no interest in controlling my daughter's life, even though it's something she may end up needing, because of their behavior.
My daughter has been kept isolated and uneducated for so long that she doesn't understand the difference. It just sucks that these people are choosing to not want to listen and learn, so my daughter is going to be the one caught in the middle of this war that she didn't ask for.
As you say Randy, we trust others and you cannot be blamed for that. And perhaps that's the point.
This has nothing to do with what you think you have done. You cannot be blamed for your daughter's circumstances, where others are clearly to blame.
We anticipate and expect the best of people and that's the way it's supposed to be. When those people let us down and we must act, it's not okay but that's not for us to reconcile.
As far as your daughter is concerned, I hope she's okay. It's those others who must learn. You did what any loving father would do. Make sure his daughter is out of harm's way.
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink."
Or perhaps, we do receive but do not recall what we've learned; I have a tendency to do that.
Thanks Tim. Yes, I agree with that. As a general rule, we tend to be selective on what we remember and sadly we learn nothing from doing that.
It is a way of protecting ourselves from the truth, but it also means we will block out too much of our experiences that we need to think about and deal with.
It is our experiences that help with spiritual and emotional growth and those help shape us into the people we become.
Our minds have to be open to the possibility of learning and the benefits that arise from it, but that doesn't always happen at the time that we have the opportunity to learn unfortunately.
For some it never happens at all.
Thank you. Yes, you're absolutely right. The trouble with a closed mind is that it never really opens.
We start off with the good intentions but then life gets in the way, and we blame that rather than look to ourselves to change things. But for me it's all about the attitude. When we change our attitude to things we will change our lives.