Shift your reality, one question at a time.
Turn your “what if it all goes wrong?” into “why is this working out for me?”
Portal Keys is a tiny practice app for asking yourself powerful “why” questions throughout the day. Create your own Portal Keys, press play, and let your subconscious go to work
A question is a doorway.
What Is a Portal Key?
A Portal Key is a question you give to your subconscious mind on purpose.
Think of the life you want to create as the portal, and the question...the key.
Instead of repeating flat affirmations you don’t believe, you ask:
- “Why am I so consistent with my writing?”
- “Why is my nervous system feeling safer every day?”
- “Why is money showing up for me in aligned ways?”
Your brain hates unanswered questions. It quietly starts looking for proof, patterns, and micro-actions that match the question.
All Your Power Questions, All in One Place
Portal Keys helps you collect those questions, revisit them daily, and turn them into a simple ritual that's easy to build into your busy days.
How Portal Keys Works
Portal Keys is one of the simplest apps you'll ever use to get your mind right.
Create your Portal Keys
Write your own “why” questions that match the life you’re building. Keep them playful, specific, and honest. This is your language talking to your subconscious, not a script from the internet.
Choose which ones are active
Toggle which Portal Keys you want in rotation right now—maybe just one theme (like creativity, money, or healing) or a blend. You’re always in control of the focus.
Press play & practice
Tap Play and cycle through your active Portal Keys. Read them, feel them, breathe with them. Come back for short sessions throughout the day or set gentle reminders to nudge you.
Designed to be tiny, focused, and calming
Create the life you've always wanted through a simple change in the way you speak to yourself.
Your questions, your language
You write the Portal Keys, which means no templates or forced “love & light” scripts. This app is a container, not a preacher.
Play mode for daily practice
Tap "play" and move through your active questions one by one. No distractions. Just you and the questions that matter.
Gentle reminders (up to 3 per day)
Set up to three check-in times that work with your life. Morning, mid-day, night—whatever keeps your practice alive without being spammy.
Dark & light modes that actually feel like moods
Portal Keys ships with atmospheric themes: cozy dark mode for night sessions, and an airy light mode when you want morning clarity.
Offline by default
Your Portal Keys live on your device. No need to remember logins, finally.
No data harvest, no social feed
There’s no “engagement” metric here. Portal Keys isn’t here to keep you scrolling, except through your questions for greatness.
Why "Why" Questions?
And what makes Portal Keys different from affirmation apps?
Affirmations say: “I am confident.”
Your brain says: “…baby, oh no you are not.”
Portal Keys helps you ask:“Why am I becoming more confident in conversations?”
...and your mind starts quietly collecting evidence. It notices the tiny shifts, the days you spoke up, the times you didn’t abandon yourself.
Portal Keys isn’t about pretending everything is perfect. It’s about giving your subconscious better prompts so it can help you build something more real.
Here are some real data about how your brain responds to questions in general:
“Why is this true?” improves memory
Question-based study participants remembered ~8–10% more information than passive readers.
Questions nudge behavior
In over 100 experiments, simply asking people about a future behavior made them more likely to follow through.
Interrogative self-talk > hype
"Will I…?" style questions led to better task performance than "I will…" statements in lab tasks.
Self-asked questions = better coping
When people write out their own reasons and plans, they handle stress and change more constructively than when they just receive advice.
100% Offline
No account. No feed. No tracking obsession.
This is a quiet corner of your phone where you get to practice a different internal conversation, without an algorithm listening over your shoulder.
No account or login required
Maybe you have a password manager, maybe you don't, but either way, you don't need to login to be able to work with your Portal Keys.
Your Portal Keys are stored locally on your device
No internet? No problem. You don't need it to use Portal Keys. All you need is a charged phone, so make sure you've got your charging cable and a wall plug handy.
No social feed, likes, or public posting
Are you as tired as me of doom-scrolling while also trying to create your best life? There's none of that business here. Perfect for focusing on what truly matters to you.
Frequently asked questions
What is a “Portal Key”
A Portal Key is a question you give your subconscious to chew on. Instead of saying, “I am confident,” you ask, “Why am I becoming so much more confident in conversations lately?"
The app stores these questions, lets you “play” them like a gentle loop, and reminds you to come back to them daily so they can quietly reshape how you see yourself and your life.
How is Portal Keys different from a regular affirmation app?
Most affirmation apps tell you what to believe. Portal Keys asks your mind to go find evidence. A statement can bounce off your nervous system if it doesn’t feel true yet.
A well-crafted question sneaks past that resistance and invites your brain to look for clues: “Why is my creativity feeling safer to come out?” hits very differently from “I am a creative genius.”
Is Portal Keys a manifestation app, a mental health app, or what?
It sits in the overlap. It's for people who care about their inner world and want real-world shifts.
You’re using questions to: calm down old stories, rehearse new ways of being, and gently pull your attention toward what you want more of.
It’s not therapy, and it’s not a magic wand, but it can be a very kind daily practice.
How many Portal Keys should I use at once?
For most people, 1–3 active keys at a time (for 3-6 weeks) is plent. More than that and your attention gets scattered.
Think of them like “themes” for this season of your life: one for inner world (self-worth, safety, creativity), one for outer world (work, money, projects), one for relationships (love, friendship, parenting, etc.)
How often should I "practice" my Portal Keys?
Aim for at least once a day. Twice is lovely: once in the morning to set your direction, once in the evening to close the loop. If all you can manage is 3–5 minutes while you sip tea or sit in the car before going inside – that’s still real work.
You have space for up to 3 reminders though.
Do I have to practice with full focus?
You don’t need perfect monk-level focus. What helps: soft attention (reading the questions, feeling them land), noticing any resistance (“ugh, that doesn’t feel true yet”) without judging yourself
What if I don’t know how to write a good Portal Key?
Totally normal. The first ones usually come out clunky.
Good Portal Keys are often:
- framed positively (“Why am I becoming kinder to myself when I make mistakes?”)
- grounded in your real life (“Why am I finding it easier to send one message about my work each day?”)
- believable as a direction, even if they’re not true yet
Start messy, then edit them over time as you notice what hits and what doesn’t.
Do you collect or sell any of my data?
Everything lives on your device.
Your Portal Keys, your reminders – all of it is stored locally. There’s no account, no cloud sync, no “secret dashboard” where someone is reading your questions.
If we ever add analytics in the future, it will also be offline living on your phone, and it will never be hidden behind cute marketing language.
Can anyone else see my Portal Keys?
Not from inside the app.
If someone has physical access to your phone and it’s unlocked, they can open the app like anything else on your device – so treat it like a journal.
If you want extra privacy:
- use a generic first name in settings
- avoid writing other people’s full names in your keys
- keep your device’s lock screen on a reasonable timeout
- require a passcode to unlock the app by holding the app icon and selecting "Require Passcode" (if your iOS version supports it)
What happens to my data if I delete the app?
On iOS, when you delete the app, your local app data (including Portal Keys and stats) is removed with it.
If you reinstall later, you’ll be starting fresh unless we add some future opt-in backup / sync feature.
How do the reminders work?
You can set up to three daily reminder times in Settings.
At those times, your device will nudge you to come back to your Portal Keys and press play.
You can:
- turn reminders off entirely
- use just one
- or set all three (e.g. morning, midday, night)
The notifications stopped showing up. What should I check?
A quick checklist:
- In Settings → Reminders inside the app, make sure “Notify” is enabled.
- On your iPhone, go to Settings → Notifications → [App Name] and make sure:
- Allow Notifications is on
- Banners or Alerts are enabled
- If you changed time zone or clock settings recently, open the app once so it can reschedule things properly.
If nothing helps, try:
- restarting your phone
- opening the app and toggling reminders off and back on
Is this a subscription app?
This is a 100% FREE app, for now and forever.
If you love this app, and want to support my work, I will soon add the ability to Buy Me a Coffee.
What if I try it and it doesn’t “work” for me?
A few things can help before you write it off:
- Make fewer keys, not more. Focus on 1–2 questions that really matter right now.
- Re-write any question that feels fake or crunchy when you read it. The body can feel that.
- Give it at least 2–3 weeks of short, consistent sessions rather than one intense weekend and then nothing.
That said, this is a tool, not a religion. If it doesn’t click for you, that’s okay. It just means you and your brain want a different doorway.
How can I give feedback or ask for features?
Inside the Settings tab you’ll find a way to contact support / send feedback.
I read it all. I care. And I’d rather hear your honest “this part feels weird” than fake praise.
Because this app is fairly light and will be free forever, there is a limit to how many features I can add, but I will absolutely take them all into consideration.
Can I use Portal Keys if I’m going through something heavy?
You can, but gently. This app is not a replacement for therapy, medication, or crisis support.
If you’re in a deep grief, trauma response, or crisis moment, your first layer of support should be:
- trusted humans
- qualified professionals
- local emergency or crisis lines
Portal Keys can sit alongside that as a softer tool to help you build kinder internal questions over time.
Can I use Portal Keys with my kids / partner / clients?
Yes, with consent and sensitivity.
You can create Portal Keys about how you show up in those relationships (e.g. “Why am I getting better at listening to my kids before jumping in to fix?”).
You can also share the concept and let them make their own questions if they’re into it. Just avoid using questions as a way to secretly control someone else’s behavior.