Letters from Past Self

Letters from Past Self

The 20-second daily-check-in creates a quiet archive — chips, mood, one short note — that most people never look at again. Letters from past self is the feature that makes the archive useful without making it loud.

How it works

You turn it on in settings and pick a cadence: every two weeks, once a month, or random. When the cadence triggers, Soulwise selects an entry from at least 30 days ago whose cycle phase matches your current one — same phase, different month. The card surfaces with three lines:

• What you wrote then
• Where you were in your cycle
• One gentle question — never a prescription

You read it, you keep it or you let it pass. There is no streak, no score, no nudge to journal more.

Why we built it

Because pattern reads itself best when you see your own words. Soulwise can describe your cycle-related-archetype and your cycle-weather, but neither lands like recognising the sentence you wrote in your own voice a season ago. The feature is the smallest possible interaction for that recognition to happen.

Privacy posture

This feature is exactly where privacy matters most, so the engineering is strict:

• Entries are encrypted at write time with a key derived from your device's hardware secure enclave.
• The "select an entry" pipeline runs locally — no server sees the body of your text.
• The card surfaces in-app; it is not pushed to any server, email, or notification body.
• Erasing the app erases the key. There is no cloud copy unless you explicitly export.

See period-privacy for the broader data-handling posture.

What it is not

Not a streak. Not a journaling app. Not a memory test. Not a notification that performs work. The whole point is that the only thing you do is read yourself.

Companion to "Letters from future self"

A sibling feature, letters-from-future-self, inverts the direction — a prompt to write to yourself in three months, surfaced when that time arrives.