I was doing two things at once: journaling to figure out what I felt, and meditating to calm down. The two never met. The guided meditations I used were fine, just bland. The same calm voice whether I was anxious at 11pm or wiped after work. So I built the app I wanted: you tell it how you feel, and it builds the meditation for that.
🌊 How it works
Check in with one tap, or type a few words about what happened. Shora reads the mood in your words and names it, something like "feeling worthless after a loss". Then it composes a guided session for exactly that moment: 2 to 10 minutes, built from 20 techniques with real studies behind them. Cyclic sighing, box breathing, NSDR, body scans, grounding, and more.
One thing I got wrong in the first version, and fixed: your words are never read back to you inside the meditation. I tried that. Hearing my own problems in a calm voice made me think about them more, not less. Now what you write only sets the mood. The session itself gets your mind off the day.
🎯 It learns what works on you
Every session ends with one question: did that help? Not everyone responds to the same technique, same as in therapy. If box breathing did nothing for you, next time Shora tries something else. If that clicks, you'll see more of it. Over time the picks get personal.
📓 Also inside
• A private journal, encrypted at rest, with mood tracking
• 3 minute micro sessions for when 10 minutes is too much
• An SOS button for the really rough moments
• Voices in English and Romanian
• Works with the screen locked, background playback
• Anonymous by default. No account needed to start. No ads, ever.
🧑🎨 Why it looks like a painting
My favorite spot to meditate is a beach. Two phrases have lived in my head for years: "a fragile wreck in a storm of emotion" and "painting an emotional picture". So Shora helps you navigate your emotions and get to shore, and every mood has its own painted artwork. Watercolor at first, oil now.
🚢 Built solo, in public
I'm Bogdan, a solo developer from Romania. Shora launched in August 2026 and I'm building it in public. It's free to start on iPhone and Android, and the code SHORA30 gets you a month of Pro. Tell me what feels off. The app literally learns from feedback, and so do I.
