Incredible chris. Thank you for this. So looking forward to your next piece. Interestingly in the last days i've been reading my journals from 1990 - 1991 when I was ages 21 through 23 living in san Francisco. I have over 100 paper journals starting around age 12, and countless typed pages that I penned from my computer spanning over 30 years. In my young 20s I was inspired by Anais Nin's diaries and decided at some point in my life I wanted to publish mine as she did or in some way share my writings in a way that might be helpful. Since discovering you, your work, TPD, and that being gifted is not just about the gifted elementary school program I attended as a child, i value my journals more than ever. As i read them i feel like i'm an archeologist of the self, able to experience so much understanding and make so many connections. So your piece I listened to today, it was so amazing to hear. I cried and felt such kinship with you. Thank you for your insights, your heart and your generosity in sharing your self with the world. I so look forward to more. xo
Cybrena, this comment brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing something so beautiful and personal.
The image of you as an archeologist of the self with your 30+ years of journals is breathtaking, and so perfectly captures what this work is about. That you were inspired by Anaïs Nin to consider publishing your own diaries shows you understood long before discovering TPD that your inner life had value worth sharing.
What moves me most is how finding this framework has helped you see your journals with new eyes. That shift from seeing intense inner experience as something to manage to seeing it as developmental gold is everything. Your journals were documenting a journey of positive disintegration.
I'm honored that my sharing created that sense of kinship. That's exactly what I hoped for: to help people recognize their own developmental patterns in my story. Your comment reminds me why this vulnerability feels worth it.
Please trust that impulse to share your own writings someday. The world needs more of these authentic maps of emotional and spiritual development. Thank you for seeing mine so clearly.
Wow. Thank you Chris. I've never felt so affirmed about this, nor have I ever known someone who I felt really understood what it even means to have written all those pages in the first place and the meaning in keeping them thought out ones life.
& Yes, the shift from seeing intense inner experience as something to manage to seeing it as developmental gold is everything - that's exactly how I feel, and what I've learned from your work.
Thank you also for encouraging me to share my writings someday, when you said authentic maps of emotional and spiritual development I thought yes, that is what they are... especially since the writings themselves were a private and deeply personal inner exploration with our dearest companion, our journal.
They truly are a chronicle of the unfiltered unfolding, and at times unraveling experience of the human journey.
I love your perspective and your writing so much, I can't wait to read more!
First, thank you so much for supporting my work, Cybrena. 🙏
You've touched on something so important: that our journals are "a chronicle of the unfiltered unfolding, and at times unraveling experience of the human journey." I love this.
The fact that you've intuitively understood the developmental value of your inner life for decades, even without a framework to name it, speaks to something profound about your own trajectory. You've been doing this work long before I had a name for it.
Our journals are more than personal artifacts, and I didn't realize that until relatively recently. They're roadmaps for others navigating similar terrain. Thank you for seeing this work so clearly and for sharing your journey with such openness. ❤️
To experience this connection and to have this conversation with you chris is so deeply nourishing to me. your reflections are like inspirational word hugs traveling out from you and across the vast virtual-sphere. 😌❤️
I continue to be floored by the way your writing and work map onto my own experiences, and put language to things I did not even realize were previously languageless (yet so *right there*).
One thing coming up for me--and I'm not sure why I'm sharing this, not sure that I'm asking for anything in particular; I guess I'm just feeling called to notice this out loud--is a fair amount of grief over feeling like I can't properly access my past self. I do recall keeping an enthusiastic, somewhat manic journal in high school...and I also recall ceremoniously destroying the entire thing. I have a very strange working memory when it comes to my youth, my adulthood, even my life more than a couple years ago; I seem to either remember things in VIVID, more-than-language detail, or not at all. And without getting into the weeds, the one parent I have a close relationship with, because of her own trauma, has an incredibly undependable memory when it comes to my childhood. I feel like a lot of this work requires being able to reflect on past experiences with some detail, and I'm just sort of noticing-wondering what to do when such detail feels inaccessible.
Anyway: as always, thank you so much for your work + words.
Sarah, it is humbling and amazing to hear that my work resonates so much with you. I can feel the weight of what you’re describing. Some of my own journals have been destroyed or gone missing over the years, and I carry grief for those gaps. I’m grateful for what remains, and I also find myself wondering how to honor what’s not remembered. I don’t have answers, but I’m grateful to even be having this conversation with you. Thank you so much. 🙏
Incredible chris. Thank you for this. So looking forward to your next piece. Interestingly in the last days i've been reading my journals from 1990 - 1991 when I was ages 21 through 23 living in san Francisco. I have over 100 paper journals starting around age 12, and countless typed pages that I penned from my computer spanning over 30 years. In my young 20s I was inspired by Anais Nin's diaries and decided at some point in my life I wanted to publish mine as she did or in some way share my writings in a way that might be helpful. Since discovering you, your work, TPD, and that being gifted is not just about the gifted elementary school program I attended as a child, i value my journals more than ever. As i read them i feel like i'm an archeologist of the self, able to experience so much understanding and make so many connections. So your piece I listened to today, it was so amazing to hear. I cried and felt such kinship with you. Thank you for your insights, your heart and your generosity in sharing your self with the world. I so look forward to more. xo
Cybrena, this comment brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing something so beautiful and personal.
The image of you as an archeologist of the self with your 30+ years of journals is breathtaking, and so perfectly captures what this work is about. That you were inspired by Anaïs Nin to consider publishing your own diaries shows you understood long before discovering TPD that your inner life had value worth sharing.
What moves me most is how finding this framework has helped you see your journals with new eyes. That shift from seeing intense inner experience as something to manage to seeing it as developmental gold is everything. Your journals were documenting a journey of positive disintegration.
I'm honored that my sharing created that sense of kinship. That's exactly what I hoped for: to help people recognize their own developmental patterns in my story. Your comment reminds me why this vulnerability feels worth it.
Please trust that impulse to share your own writings someday. The world needs more of these authentic maps of emotional and spiritual development. Thank you for seeing mine so clearly.
Wow. Thank you Chris. I've never felt so affirmed about this, nor have I ever known someone who I felt really understood what it even means to have written all those pages in the first place and the meaning in keeping them thought out ones life.
& Yes, the shift from seeing intense inner experience as something to manage to seeing it as developmental gold is everything - that's exactly how I feel, and what I've learned from your work.
Thank you also for encouraging me to share my writings someday, when you said authentic maps of emotional and spiritual development I thought yes, that is what they are... especially since the writings themselves were a private and deeply personal inner exploration with our dearest companion, our journal.
They truly are a chronicle of the unfiltered unfolding, and at times unraveling experience of the human journey.
I love your perspective and your writing so much, I can't wait to read more!
First, thank you so much for supporting my work, Cybrena. 🙏
You've touched on something so important: that our journals are "a chronicle of the unfiltered unfolding, and at times unraveling experience of the human journey." I love this.
The fact that you've intuitively understood the developmental value of your inner life for decades, even without a framework to name it, speaks to something profound about your own trajectory. You've been doing this work long before I had a name for it.
Our journals are more than personal artifacts, and I didn't realize that until relatively recently. They're roadmaps for others navigating similar terrain. Thank you for seeing this work so clearly and for sharing your journey with such openness. ❤️
To experience this connection and to have this conversation with you chris is so deeply nourishing to me. your reflections are like inspirational word hugs traveling out from you and across the vast virtual-sphere. 😌❤️
I continue to be floored by the way your writing and work map onto my own experiences, and put language to things I did not even realize were previously languageless (yet so *right there*).
One thing coming up for me--and I'm not sure why I'm sharing this, not sure that I'm asking for anything in particular; I guess I'm just feeling called to notice this out loud--is a fair amount of grief over feeling like I can't properly access my past self. I do recall keeping an enthusiastic, somewhat manic journal in high school...and I also recall ceremoniously destroying the entire thing. I have a very strange working memory when it comes to my youth, my adulthood, even my life more than a couple years ago; I seem to either remember things in VIVID, more-than-language detail, or not at all. And without getting into the weeds, the one parent I have a close relationship with, because of her own trauma, has an incredibly undependable memory when it comes to my childhood. I feel like a lot of this work requires being able to reflect on past experiences with some detail, and I'm just sort of noticing-wondering what to do when such detail feels inaccessible.
Anyway: as always, thank you so much for your work + words.
Sarah, it is humbling and amazing to hear that my work resonates so much with you. I can feel the weight of what you’re describing. Some of my own journals have been destroyed or gone missing over the years, and I carry grief for those gaps. I’m grateful for what remains, and I also find myself wondering how to honor what’s not remembered. I don’t have answers, but I’m grateful to even be having this conversation with you. Thank you so much. 🙏
Me too, Chris :)