What we keep, and what we don’t.

Free reflections

We do not store the text of a free reflection in our database or our application logs. Your draft stays in your browser until you send it, and the reflection stays in that browser until you press Erase. There is one exception. When you ask us to email a reflection and your address isn’t verified yet, a locked copy waits for up to 7 days for you to press the button in the email we send, then it is deleted. We can’t read it without the link in your inbox. See “Email me this reflection”.

So the AI can write back, the text is sent to Anthropic’s API. Under the terms we use, Anthropic does not use it to train its models. Anthropic keeps it for a limited time to check for abuse, then deletes it.

To keep a daily limit, we count each step as it is sent. For that we keep two scrambled things. One is your network address, or your account when you are signed in, mixed with the date so it can’t be matched from one day to the next. The other is a fingerprint of what you sent. It only tells “Rewrite this reply” from a new reflection, and it can’t be turned back into your words. Both are taken off within about an hour of the day ending. The day runs midnight to midnight, Malaysia time. What stays, for 90 days, is the name of the step and what it cost, with nothing that points to you. Signed-in Plus members are not held to the limit. Their steps are counted without either scrambled thing.

Once you’ve reached the day’s limit, up to ten more steps you send that day still go to Anthropic’s API, on the same terms. Conscious Living AI reads them only to check for signs of crisis or danger. If it finds none, you see the limit message and nothing it wrote.

If you use Conscious Living in a chat app, what you write goes from the chat to our server and then to Anthropic’s API, and we don’t store it or what comes back. The chat app keeps its own record of the conversation, under its own settings.

Plus

With Plus, we keep every reflection in your account automatically: your guided reflections, the reflections from “What’s happening for you?” and “Try it” on Psychology Library pages, and the readings from Library search. We also keep each Psychology Library self-check you finish: your answers, the scores and the headline the result page shows. Taking a self-check again replaces the earlier one. When you open your account page, it adds any self-check results this browser holds that your account doesn’t have yet. You can turn this off in your account, under Settings (“Save every reflection automatically”). When it is off, you can still save guided and situation reflections by hand, and add a self-check result from your account page. Search readings are kept only while it is on.

While automatic saving is on, we also keep a guided reflection you leave partway: what you wrote and what Conscious Living AI wrote back so far. We keep one at a time, so starting another guided reflection replaces it. You can pick it up on any device, from your account page or the reflection’s page. We delete it when you finish the reflection, choose “Start fresh” or “Discard”, or turn automatic saving off.

While automatic saving is on, we also keep the patterns you mark “Sounds like mine” in the Psychology Library and the pages you save there, each with its date. The first time, the marks and saved pages your browser already held are added too. Unmarking or unsaving a page takes it out of your account.

Short excerpts from what you’ve saved, your saved self-check results and the patterns you marked can inform later reflections, and you can switch that off in your account.

In your account, each question you’re carrying has a “Bring a new moment” link. It opens a guided reflection with that question shown above the box where you write. When you send your new moment, the question goes with it to Anthropic’s API. You can remove the question before you send.

A feature called What keeps returning, in your account, reads across the reflections you’ve saved and names one thread that runs through them. While automatic saving is on, a new one is written each morning without you pressing anything, and you can also press its button. Each time, the words you saved, your saved self-check results, the patterns you marked and the newest earlier ones go to Anthropic’s API to write it. Each one is kept in your account with its date, like your saved reflections, so a new one never replaces an earlier one. You can delete any of them. The morning one is also emailed to the address on your account, but only when that address is shown to be yours, which for now means an account that signs in with Google. The email’s subject and first lines say only that a new one is ready, and none of your words come before the line that starts it. Every one of these emails has a “Turn off this morning email” link that works without signing in, and your account’s Settings has a switch for the email. A second switch there stops the morning writing altogether. Turning off the email leaves the reflection in your account. To know when your morning is, we keep your browser’s time zone (such as America/New_York) with your settings. For each morning, we keep a row with your account, the date, whether it was written or sent, and a short reason code, with none of your words, deleted after 40 days. Nothing is written or emailed for a morning when your recent saved reflections include a crisis or danger reply or words about harm. When your Plus ends, the morning writing and the emails stop. When automatic saving is off, none is written in the morning, and one you ask for is kept only in your browser. To keep the ones you ask for to three a day, we count each time it is asked for. Each count is stored with a number that changes every day. It holds none of your words and is not tied to your account.

Once a month, Plus sends you a recap by email. It says how many reflections you saved that month, shows up to three questions you’re carrying and suggests a reflection to try next. It goes only while automatic saving is on, and only after a month when you saved something. It is put together from what your account keeps, with no AI. To send it once a month, we note the month each recap went out. You can turn it off in your account, under Settings (“Email me a monthly recap”), and every recap links there.

No one at Conscious Living reads your saved reflections.

You can delete any saved reflection, or all of them, at any time. If you cancel, they stay in your account for 12 months after Plus ends, so you can read, download or delete them, then they’re deleted. If you delete your account, everything goes immediately.

Counting visits

On your first visit, your browser makes up a random number and keeps it on your device. When you come back, it offers the same number again, so we can tell that this browser has been here before. That is the whole mechanism.

The number means nothing on its own. It isn’t your name, your email, or anything about your machine. We don’t look you up and we run no advertising.

We also use Google Analytics, to see how people find the site and which pages they read. It sets cookies in your browser whose names start with _ga. Google receives the page you open, the page you came from, your browser and type of device, and a rough location it works out from your IP address. Google Analytics doesn’t keep the IP address itself. We see all of this only as totals, never as a record of one person. Google’s advertising features are switched off, so none of it is used for ads. Google’s own terms are in its privacy policy.

It is deliberately fragile. A different browser, private mode, or clearing your browser data makes you a new visitor. On a shared computer it can’t tell two people apart.

We use the random number for counting how many people arrive, and how many reach each step of a reflection. Each thing that happens, such as opening a page or finishing a reflection, is saved as one record holding what happened, that random number and the time. No name, no email, no IP address, no location. Outside the Psychology Library, nothing you write is attached to these records. The Psychology Library is described under its own heading below.

On some pages we show two versions of a line, each to half of our visitors, to see which helps more people start a reflection. Your browser remembers which version you saw, so it stays the same when you come back. The visit records and Google Analytics log which version it was. Nothing you write is saved with it.

Visitors in the EU, the UK and the other places whose law asks for it (Quebec, Brazil, China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia) see a short line about this on their first visit, with the choice to be counted without the number. Until a visitor chooses OK, Google Analytics doesn’t load at all, so Google gets nothing from that visit. To tell who is in those places, we go by the time zone your browser reports. Quebec shares a time zone with Ontario, so visitors there see the line too. It is read on your device and never sent to us.

Anyone can make that choice here. Your visits are still counted, without the number and without Google Analytics cookies. The number and any Google Analytics cookies already in this browser are removed at once.

Count me anonymously

Clearing site data for consciousliv.com in your browser settings removes the number, the Google Analytics cookies and your anonymous-counting choice. A new number is made on your next visit. On our side there’s no profile to delete, because none exists. Your browser also keeps your unfinished answers on the page you’re on, so you can pick them up again. “Erase and start over”, or “Erase” at the end of a reflection, removes them. It also keeps whether you chose the light or dark look, so the site opens the way you left it.

Psychology Library

The Psychology Library is a field guide we are still building, so it keeps more than the rest of the site. We use what it keeps to train and improve the guide: to learn what people look for in it, and what helps. Training here means teaching the guide’s own search which entries fit which descriptions. It does not train Anthropic’s models.

When you use it, we keep what you type into its search box, the pages you open, what you save or compare, your answers to the chapter quizzes, your answers to the Trustee self-assessment with its scores, and your answers to the money scripts self-check with its four scores, and your answers to the schemas self-check. When you finish the schemas self-check, your answers also go to Anthropic’s API, on the same terms as the free reflections, so Conscious Living AI can write the short summary at the top of your result. The other self-checks work differently. They include “Is my boss a narcissist?” and the attachment style, Big Five and conflict style self-checks. Your answers to these stay in your own browser. We count only that one was finished or that a link to a result was copied, never the answers. The attachment style and conflict style self-checks can also be taken together with someone you choose. The link you send holds your scores and none of your answers, in the part of the address after the “#”, which is never sent to us. Anyone who has the link can see those scores, and we save nothing from it. An invite sent before you start holds only which self-check it is. It is not counted, and the tab that opens it remembers it only until the tab is closed. We count only that a link was made, opened, answered or sent back, never the scores or any name you type. If the other person has Plus, only their own result is kept in their account, as for any self-check, and never yours. If you have Plus with automatic saving on, the result of any self-check is also kept in your account, as described under Plus: your answers, the scores and the headline. We also note, once a visit, that the page was scrolled, tapped or typed in, without what or where, so the counts can tell a person from an automated program that reads websites.

Each record holds what happened, the time, and the random number described under Counting visits. If you have asked to be counted anonymously, the record holds a number for that one visit instead. It has no name, no email and no IP address. Only Conscious Living reads these records, on an admin page behind sign-in. They are never sold.

A search of three words or more is also sent to Anthropic’s API, so Conscious Living AI can write a few lines back and pick the closest entries in the guide. Anthropic handles it on the same terms as the free reflections, described under Free reflections. With Plus and automatic saving on, the search and its reflection are also kept in your account, like any saved reflection.

Situation pages and most term pages have a box headed “What’s happening for you?”. Unless you have Plus, what you write there is not kept by us. It goes to Anthropic’s API so Conscious Living AI can write back, on the same terms as the free reflections. We record only that it wrote back, and for which page. Your own browser keeps what you wrote, what it wrote back and any patterns you mark, so they are there when you come back. “Erase” under the reflection, or clearing this site’s data, deletes them. If you have Plus, what it wrote back is kept in your account automatically, like any saved reflection. If you have turned automatic saving off, “Save” under the reflection keeps it by hand. You can delete them from the /account page. They are also deleted 12 months after your membership ends, or when you delete your account. With Plus and automatic saving on, the patterns you mark are kept in your account too.

After a reflection, “Add to it” sends what you add, with the reflection it answers, to Anthropic’s API the same way, so Conscious Living AI can write back again. It is kept with the first reflection: in this browser, and in your account if you have Plus. When you sign in with Plus and automatic saving is on, the reflections and self-check results this browser keeps are added to your account, so they are on every device. Turn automatic saving off and nothing more is added.

Many library pages also have a short “Try it” exercise with boxes to fill in. When you press Reflect, what you wrote in the boxes goes to Anthropic’s API so Conscious Living AI can write back, on the same terms as the free reflections. Unless you have Plus, we don’t keep it. We record only that it wrote back, and for which page. If you have Plus with automatic saving on, the boxes and what it wrote back are kept in your account, like any saved reflection, and deleted the same way.

If you share a reflection from Conscious Living AI, we keep your search and the reflection so the link opens it. Anyone with the link can read both. You can delete your Trustee answers from your result page. All other records in the Psychology Library, shared reflections included, are deleted after 12 months. Nothing in the records says who you are, so we can’t find one person’s records if you ask.

Your search history, saved entries, reading progress and day or night choice also stay in your own browser, so you can pick up where you left off. Clearing site data for consciousliv.com removes them.

The reflections on the rest of the site work as described under Free reflections. Their text is not stored.

Through Instagram

If you use the reflections through Instagram, your messages arrive with your Instagram account identifier attached, because that is how Instagram delivers them. It comes from Instagram, not from us, and it is counted like everything else. Never sold.

Others in the chain

Anthropic’s Claude models power Conscious Living AI, which writes the reflections. Stripe takes payments. Google runs Google Analytics, described under Counting visits. Our fonts are served from our own site. Our hosting provider keeps ordinary server logs, which can include IP addresses. We haven’t set a date for deleting the visit records described under Counting visits. When we do, this page will say so.

Field guide emails

If you sign up, we keep your email address to send new field guides as they come out. Every email has a way to unsubscribe.

The question by email

Next to Email, at the end of a reflection, is a box you can tick: “Also send me this reflection’s question again in three days.” When it is ticked, the question comes three days after the reflection is sent. If the reflection waits for you to press the button in our email, the question is set up when you press it, not before. We keep your email address, that question and the page it came from in our database. We keep the address after sending, so we can tell if an address keeps being entered by someone who doesn’t own it. To have it deleted, write to us. Nothing you wrote goes with the email, only the question, a link back to the page and one line about Plus. Lovable, which hosts the site, sends the emails.

Every one of these emails has a “Didn’t ask for this?” link. After it is used, that address gets nothing more, and we note in our database that the address said so. If a signed-in account ticks the box for that address again, we first send it one email asking it to confirm, and send the question only after it does.

The weekly question

On the weekly question page, the home page and at the end of each reflection, you can ask for one question a week by email. The first question is sent right away to the address you enter, with no email asking you to confirm first. If you are signed in, one button sends the questions to your account’s address, and you can turn them on and off from your account page.

The questions are written by hand and go in the same order to everyone, with no AI involved. We keep your email address, a simplified form of it (without a “+” tag, and for Gmail without dots, so one inbox counts once), when you signed up, which question comes next, and whether the emails have stopped. We also keep a scrambled form of the network address you signed up from, used only to limit how many sign-ups one place can make in a day. It is tied to that day, and an hourly clean-up clears it once the day (Malaysia time) is over. Your email address is used for this and nothing else, and we keep it for as long as the emails run. Nothing you type is put into an email except your address as the recipient. Lovable, which hosts the site, sends the emails.

Every email has a link to stop, and a “Didn’t sign up for this?” link. Both do the same thing. When you press one, that address is taken off every Conscious Living email list, and we keep it on a list of addresses not to email, so it isn’t signed up again by mistake. If it is entered again, nothing is sent. Its owner can sign in and turn emails back on from the account page. An address that told us through another Conscious Living email that it didn’t ask for it, and is then entered here, gets one email asking it to confirm, and nothing more unless it does. For that email we keep a scrambled form of the confirmation code, never the code itself. An address that doesn’t confirm within seven days is deleted from the sign-ups, and stays on the list of addresses not to email. Turning the questions off from your account page stops only these questions, not your other emails. To have an address deleted, write to us. We count how many people sign up, confirm and stop, without the address.

Email me this reflection

You can have a finished reflection emailed from any reflection on the site and from the Psychology Library. If you sign in with Google, or have confirmed your account’s address by email, it goes at once, only to the email address of your own account. Otherwise the Email button asks for an address and sends it a link first (see below). We send it once each time you press Email. We don’t keep the reflection from a direct send: your browser sends it to our server only to put it in that one email, and it goes into neither our database nor our logs. Lovable, which hosts the site, sends the email.

To stop this being overused, we count each send. For that we keep one scrambled code made from your account and the date, so it can’t be matched from one day to the next or turned back into your account. It is deleted within about an hour after the day ends (midnight in Malaysia). What stays, for 90 days, is the name of the reflection and the time it was sent. One account can send itself five a day, and the whole site sends at most 200 a day.

If you aren’t signed in, or your account’s address isn’t one we have verified yet, pressing Email asks for an address (or uses your account’s) and sends it a link first. This is the one time a reflection waits on our side. Your browser sends the reflection to our server, which locks it with a random key made for that one request and keeps only the locked copy. We never keep the key. It exists only in the email we send: in the link, after the # in its address, and as a code to paste if the link doesn’t work. So it never appears in our logs or our host’s. The page the link opens loads no analytics. The email contains nothing of the reflection. It says someone asked for a reflection to be sent to that address, and has one button. Nothing is sent unless the button is pressed, from any device. When it is, the reflection is unlocked, emailed once, and the waiting copy is deleted. A copy that is never used is deleted after 7 days. We can’t read a waiting copy without the link in the inbox. That email also has a “Didn’t ask for this?” link, and after it we send that address nothing more.

To stop this being used on strangers, one address can get two of these links a day and five a week, one network ten a day, and the whole site 200 a day. For that we keep scrambled codes, which can’t be turned back into an address or a network: one made from the address and the week, deleted within about an hour after the week ends (Sunday midnight in Malaysia), and one made from the network and the date, deleted within about an hour after the day ends. If you press the button in the email while signed in to your account, we also note that your account’s address is verified, so Email sends straight away next time. That note is deleted with your account, stops counting if your address changes, and is removed if anyone presses “Didn’t ask for this?” for that address.

The email says you asked for it from your account. It doesn’t add you to any list.

Temples photo vote

On the photo-book vote at /temples/vote, each keep or pass is saved with a random number made in the browser, the photo it is for, and a name if one is typed in. We keep no email and no IP address with the votes. Your browser also keeps a copy of your votes, so you can change them later.

Signing in is optional. A signed-in vote is saved to that account in place of the browser number, so it follows the person to another phone or computer.

We use the votes to choose photographs for the yaatra book. The standings on the vote page show counts, never names. A results page, shared by link with the people making the book, shows the names of those who kept each photo. We haven’t set a date for deleting the votes yet. When we do, this page will say so.

Contact

If you write to us, we keep your message, and your email if you give one, so we can reply.

Voice

If you use voice input, your browser turns speech into text. Depending on the browser, the audio may be sent to its maker, such as Google or Apple, to turn it into text.

Payments

Payments for Plus are handled by Stripe. We don’t see or store your card number.

What this is for

Conscious Living is for reflection. It isn’t therapy, diagnosis or crisis support. If you are in crisis, contact local emergency services or a crisis line. You need to be 18 or older to use it.

Who we are

Conscious Living is run by Positive Leader LLC, in the United States. For anything on this page, write to andrew@consciousliv.com.

Changes

If the way the system works changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top moves.