Yesterday Never Sleeps

Book excerpt: Befriending our inner mind with curiosity opens the way to secure attachments, empathy, and intimacy. Because relationships dominate our inner world, knowing what we feel, and what we think about how we feel, cultivates self-awareness and acceptance. We learn to respect that others have their minds; we stop blaming and seeking scapegoats. Self-reflection, a learnable skill, links raw emotion—the kind we feel in our hearts and guts—to past events and behavior patterns. Knowing the story behind our painful feelings soothes and regulates our emotions so we can think before we act. Creating and updating a lifelong self-narrative—including the good, the bad, and the ugly—are the cornerstones for gaining wisdom and loving-kindness, qualities that interrupt cycles of trauma. The brain creates new neural connections during these processes, improving emotional health and cognition. Jacqueline Heller, MS, MD, is board certified in psychiatry and neurology and is a psychoanalyst. In Yesterday Never Sleeps, she draws upon decades of clinical experience to weave together a powerful narrative that contains neuroscience, memoir of her life as a child of Holocaust survivors, and patient histories involving a range of psychological ills and trauma. Dr. Heller offers a uniquely holistic approach, demonstrating how the therapeutic process and self-analysis help us make sense of our history and forge a better future.