Kind Cloud

A (free) sound-free, loving-kindness meditation app
App link: https://kindcloud.app

History

Many years back, I was going through a difficult time. I went from having a great mentor to something very sour. After a while - and a bit of shock - I realized I was experiencing workplace bullying.

Research 🔎

So I did what I normally do, obsessively researched the topic. I was amassing all this information about but none of it seemed to help until I came across the article, Study Analyzes Personality Traits of Bullies, Victims. It suggests a link between low self-compassion and being a bully OR a victim of bullying.

Personality traits like extroversion or introversion are hard to change, but being nicer to yourself is a skill that can be increased. There is also something so lovely about finding a way to help people both sides of the equation.

I looked for meditations that increased self-compassion and found loving-kindness (metta) meditation.

Loving-kindness Meditation ❤️

How it works: Say nice things to...

• ⭐️ Yourself
• ❤️ A loved one
• ⚪️ A neutral party
• ⚡️ Someone you find difficult
• A larger community

You wish nice things to not only yourself but others and follow rings of compassion.

I enjoyed loving-kindness meditation, but would forget which phrase or people group I was on. I thought a web app would be a great way to help guide the user through the meditation and keep them on track.

Kind Cloud's Goals

Deliberately slow + sound-free

To encourage users to interact with the phrases, Kind Cloud shows each phrase and allows the user complete control of when to move on.

Peaceful yet welcoming

Animations are deliberately slow to be calming. You may also sync your breathing to the growing / shrinking circle in the app. And anytime you need a little bit of extra love tap on Kind Cloud or any icon in the breathing circle to get floating multi-colored hearts. ❤️💙💛💜

True dark mode for nighttime meditations

In the overflow menu, you can switch the color theme including a pure black background option.

Non-addictive

I do not wish to enforce any unkind patterns on the user.

Tech Used

• Netlify (hosting)
• PWA
• create-react-app
• react-router
• localStorage for saving user preferences
• styled-components
• SVG
• Canvas
• GSAP
• React Transition Group
• RAF (Request Animation Frame)
• CSS transitions + animations

I built this app to make it easier to complete loving-kindness meditation. I hope you enjoy it, and it helps you be kinder to yourself and in turn to others.

Kindly,
Shalanah Dawson
Kind Cloud