REVIEW: Dr. Jacqueline Heller — Tomorrow Never Sleeps (BOOK)
“Your history will repeat itself if you ignore taking these inward steps to deal with it. Or, as Mark Twain put it, ‘The past does not repeat itself, but it will rhyme’,” writes Dr. Jacqueline Heller, in her new book entitled Yesterday Never Sleeps: How Integrating Life’s Current and Past Connections Improves Our Well-Being. As someone who is navigating their own, introspective process of marrying past and present into a coherent whole, I found the book to be a welcome elixir to the stagnation that comes with suppression.
ABOUT THE PROJECT: https://jackieheller.com/
Suppression of regrets. Suppression of people and places I’m not interested in informing my authentic, present-day experiences, and sense of self. But, of course, the inner workings of the mind don’t necessarily follow what the conscious part of one’s self thinks it desires. Unfinished business is unfinished business. As Dr. Heller brilliantly demonstrates, when this threatens to overwhelm, it’s the sufferer’s job to be able to find a new balance. Something that can even the playing field between what has informed us from day one, to what informs us now — both symbiotically and separately — with consideration, attention, and self-love.
“Self-awareness helps us create a personal narrative history. A strong life narrative serves as a cornerstone for a contented life, helping us be our best selves by developing secure attachments, rootedness, autonomy, and resilience,” Dr. Heller writes. “…This book explores the well-substantiated proposition in attachment theory, which posits that people who benefitted as children from a secure, loving bond with their primary caregivers have better odds of building successful relationships later in life. Unfortunately, not everyone has had the benefit of such a healthy upbringing. It is crucial to reflect on and flesh out your self-narrative for self-understanding and discovery.”
She adds, “Relationships provide a window for self-understanding and acceptance… As a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, child of Holocaust survivors, and a former associate clinical professor at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, I have professional, personal, and academic expertise. I have a rich trove of stories to tell — in the pages ahead, stories of my patients and my own life — and a sleuthing process that I will share.”
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Yesterday-Never-Sleeps-Integrating-Connections/dp/B0C1MBVKYJ
It’s the personal angle Dr. Heller is so generously willing to share that humanizes the clinical tone of the read. It’s not an emotional book by any stretch of the imagination, even if the subject matter itself inherently deals with emotions. It’s pretty interesting to think about this juxtaposition, along with what Dr. Heller is able to integrate because of remaining removed viscerally — while still providing in an objective, rational sense a great deal of emotional intelligence. It may have something to do with the fact she’s a psychiatrist, applying as much a knowledge of behavioral science as she does the intellectual curiosity of a therapist. “More than ever, we require keen self-awareness,” she states, regarding the ongoing process of healing. “If we lack this ability, we are likely to struggle — as individuals, as parents, in relationships, in groups, on the job, and in our health. Under pressure, we fall into counterproductive patterns that sabotage our lives.”
Colin Jordan
