Privacy policy

Last updated October 21, 2026

This policy explains how Higher Self (“we”, “us”) handles personal information when you visit this website, share a story, contact us or join a circle waitlist. The short version: we collect only what you give us, use it only to run Higher Self, never sell it, and delete it when you ask.

What we collect

Information you give us

• When you share a story: your story and title, the path you choose, how you'd like it shared, your email address, and optionally a display name and country.
• When you contact us: your name, email address, topic and message.
• When you join a circle waitlist: your email address and the circle you're interested in.

Sensitive information

Stories often include sensitive details, such as health events, bereavement, or religious and spiritual beliefs. You decide what to include. We use it only to review and, if you choose, publish your story, and we never use it for advertising or profiling. Please leave out details about other people that they wouldn't want shared.

Information collected automatically

Like most websites, our hosting provider automatically records basic technical information (such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested) in server logs used for security and to keep the site running. We also collect anonymous page-view statistics (see Cookies & analytics). We don't use any of this to identify you.

How we use it

• To read, review and, with your approval, publish your story.
• To reply to you about your story or your message.
• To invite you to circles you've asked to hear about.
• To protect the site from spam and abuse.
• To meet legal obligations.

We don't send marketing email unless you've asked for it, and every circle email lets you unsubscribe.

Who we share it with

We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we don't share it for targeted advertising. We share it only with service providers that help us run Higher Self, under contracts that limit their use of it to providing their service to us:

• Supabase: secure database storage for submissions.
• Resend: delivering submission notifications and replies by email.
• Vercel: hosting this website and providing privacy-friendly, cookieless page-view analytics.

Stories you choose to publish are, by design, visible to anyone who visits the site, with the name you chose or anonymously. Your email address is never published. We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect someone's safety.

Cookies & analytics

This site doesn't use cookies for advertising or tracking. To understand which pages are useful, we use Vercel Web Analytics, which counts page views without cookies and without identifying you. It records things like the page visited, the referring site, and your browser, device type and country. Visitors aren't tracked across sites, and the data is only shown to us in aggregate. Our fonts and images are served from our own domain.

How long we keep it

• Published stories: for as long as they're published, plus up to 90 days in backups after removal.
• Unpublished or private stories: up to two years, or until you ask us to delete them.
• Contact messages: up to one year after our last reply.
• Waitlist emails: until you unsubscribe or the circle program ends.

Your choices & rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• show you the personal information we hold about you;
• correct it;
• delete it, including removing a published story;
• change how your story is credited, or make it private;
• stop emailing you.

Email hello@higherself.example or use the contact form with the topic “Privacy request”. We may need to confirm it's you, usually by replying from the email address you used. We'll respond within 45 days, and we won't treat you differently for exercising these rights.

California residents

If you live in California, the California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by the CPRA) gives you the rights to know, delete, correct, and opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, and to limit the use of sensitive personal information. In the past 12 months we have collected the categories described in What we collect (identifiers such as name and email, and information you choose to include in a story, which may be sensitive), for the purposes in How we use it. We have not sold or shared personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we use sensitive information only to provide the service you asked for. You may use an authorised agent to make a request on your behalf.

Security

Submissions travel over encrypted connections (HTTPS) and are stored with access limited to the people who review them. No system is perfectly secure, so please don't include information you wouldn't want stored, such as government ID numbers or passwords.

Children

Higher Self is not directed at children under 13, and you must be 18 or older to submit a story. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we'll delete it.

Changes & contact

If we make meaningful changes we'll update the date at the top of this page, and where appropriate tell people who have shared stories by email. Questions about this policy? Email hello@higherself.example.