Goodreads Reviews
Life is difficult and what makes it more difficult is navigating the dark side of our psyche is not taught by our parents and even at school. Thankfully, there are experts who help us understand this journey.
Jacqueline Heller’s Yesterday Never Sleeps is a great book to start with if you want to deeply understand yourself and go through a healing process. She explained the mechanisms of our brain and our emotion and how we could manage our thoughts effectively. Heller also gave practical tips on how to do these things. Not only that, but there are also different stories in the book that concretize the general concepts, which are very helpful.
If you want to start your journey to self-healing, I highly recommend that you read this book.
Thank you, Jacqueline Heller, Green Leaf Book Group, and NetGalley for the ARC and the opportunity to share my honest thoughts.
P.S. I love the title!
Jacqueline Heller, MS, MD knows of what she speaks. I don’t mean just in the sense of her bonafide expertise. Nor do I say it in a colloquial sense, all-encompassingly regarding the nature of her new book, titled Yesterday Never Sleeps: How Integrating Life’s Current and Past Connections Improves Our Well-Being. There’s something personal about how Dr. Heller approaches the material. Something that she’s able to apply with a clinical lens, but draws from viscerally because of her intrinsic, personal experience. As the titling brilliantly encapsulates, the book is a therapeutic work of nonfiction – essentially serving as a self-help and life advice guide for forming a singular whole for oneself. It’s not an easy process, and Dr. Heller writes with this kind of authoritativeness both maternal and somewhat barking – in a good way. She holds your hand while guiding you stoically through the storm, the storm being you, her, or a hypothetical other’s own psyche. You can’t escape the fact Dr. Heller seems to be as informed by hard-earned wisdom as by what constitutes her impressive credentials, and it makes the text that much richer, rather than feeling schizophrenic and tonally misplaced.
“We cannot know another person if we do not know ourselves, which is essential for relationships—for connection, compassion, empathy, and growth. We need to figure out what makes us tick and what ticks us off, no matter the environment. I wrote this book in part to explain the importance of becoming self-aware. The process of introspection helps control triggered emotions and encourages more flexible and adaptive responses,” Heller writes, in aforementioned vein. “…We all have our triggers, our ‘Rosebuds’; they are people, places, objects, ideas, memories, and dream fragments representing our undiscovered parts, the hidden hurts, and repressed longings often expressed in dysfunctional ways. They are the unconscious memories, often the most painful and the most deeply hidden; they are a stimulus that provokes an emotion and feeling—many times a day…This is where self-awareness can help; it allows us to calm down enough so we can think mindfully. To gain self-awareness, we must become psychological sleuths and learn how to identify our emotions and patterns of dysfunctional responses before we act upon them…Indeed, becoming a self-reflective, psychologically savvy person will enrich your life. You might argue that turning inward is a selfish and arrogant thing to do. But in fact, it’s the opposite. Relationships dominate our inner world, and we become more empathetic and compassionate when we look inward and examine ourselves. As a result, we recognize otherness— we acknowledge that other people are not extensions of ourselves—and we develop tolerance and respect for people with different points of view, experiences, and wisdom. We will be much less likely to blame those closest to us for our baggage. We become more comfortable with uncertainty.”
We become more comfortable with uncertainty. I took that to heart, as a reader, as a thinker, and as a fellow writer. I am a true believer in what Dr. Heller writes, not just because of the semantics effectively communicating the left-brain nature of the ideas. I believe it because it compliments my own journey to discovering adequate self-care. I can’t recommend enough the book because of that authenticity, which I am sure will speak to a number of people because of Heller’s generous, compassionate disposition as a storyteller.
If you’re looking for a book that delves deep into self-discovery and healing, “Yesterday Never Sleeps” by Jacqueline Heller is an excellent place to start. Heller brilliantly explains the inner workings of our brains and emotions, providing valuable insights on how to effectively manage our thoughts. What sets this book apart is the abundance of practical tips that she offers, making it easier to apply these concepts in real life.
The inclusion of different stories throughout the book adds a concrete and relatable dimension to the general concepts, making the reading experience all the more enriching and helpful.
If you’re ready to embark on a journey of self-healing, I cannot recommend this book enough. Jacqueline Heller’s work is truly transformative, and I am grateful to her and NetGalley for the ARC and the opportunity to share my honest thoughts. #YesterdayNeverSleeps #NetGalley
I was lucky enough to receive an ARC,and understand that I’m one of the youngest readers so far. Dr. Heller’s book not only simplified and clarified complex lessons of human psychology, but offered uplifting stories that helped me understand the behaviors of the people around me better, and my own behaviors and relationships as well. I honestly think anyone from any age can take something meaningful from this optimistic and well written book. It made me feel smarter and it was very easy to digest. Maybe most importantly, it improved relationship with my family and made me view it through a different and more matured lens. I recommend this book to anyone as i think it’s universal and gender and age neutral. I know Dr. Heller personally and she’s always been someone who’s mind and perspective are something uniquely special.
This is a fascinating book by an author who combines her expertise in psychiatry/behavior–asking why we do what we do–with her own heartfelt memoir, in which she asks: What has this question meant in her life? Is she bound by the past–the “yesterdays” that so brutally bound her own parents as survivors of the Holocaust? If there’s another way forward, how does a person get there?
Dr. Heller shows there are many ways to move forward, and the first step is to become self-aware–to notice and try to understand why we do what we do. It’s not just possible to break the cycles of generational trauma, it’s crucial if we’re to live healthy, well-balanced lives. When I read the memoir sections of this book, it changed the way I see my own parents. (Thank you, Dr. Heller!) Though my folks didn’t endure the unimaginable horrors that Heller’s Holocaust-survivor parents did, they suffered other pain, just as we all do. Dr. Heller helps us see that such pain doesn’t have to define us, and in turn doesn’t have to define the next generation.
While our own “yesterdays” might revisit us now and then, the negative stuff doesn’t have to hold us back. (Obviously some trauma is gonna stick around forever.) But generally, we have the choice, and in this book we learn the tool of “self-reflection” as a way to grapple with the negative stuff and keep it from dictating our lives. Dr. Heller says it’s important to rewrite our own story (mentally) and continually update it, and I’ve found that exercise helpful.
I’m so glad I read this book when I did! (Advance readers copy)
