Your life stays yours.

Our promise

No ads. No tracking. We never sell, rent, or share anything about you. Everything you enter in our tools stays on your device, and our tools don't send your answers to us or to anyone else. You never need an account with us. If you join Grounded Membership, we see only what the payment needs: your email and your payment status, from Stripe. How Membership works.

Where your answers live

The Grounded Way (with your tree, from Maple to Sequoia, and Tending), the companion apps Heartwood and Willow, The Grove, and the Field Guide run entirely in your web browser. Everything you enter, like check-ins, practices, journal notes, and profile pictures, is saved only in that browser, on that device. We can't see it, and we couldn't recover it if it were lost.

That also means your information stays with you on that device. To move it or keep a copy, use Save a Backup (Back up everything in a tool's Settings) to save one locked file. Keep that file somewhere private, like your device, iCloud Drive, or another drive.

To erase everything, use the delete options inside each tool, or clear this website's data in your browser settings.

Grounded profiles

A Grounded profile keeps what you save across every Grounded page and tool: your check-ins, your tree, your saved stories, and your name and email for our contact form if you add them. It is not an account with us. It lives only in this browser, on this device, and it moves to another phone or computer only when you carry it there yourself, with a backup.

Everything saved in a profile is encrypted on your device with a key that only your passcode can open (or, for young kids, a picture code). We never see your passcode or anything inside your profile. That is what keeps it private, and it is why your Root Words and backups, described below, are how you open it again yourself.

A few things are not locked, so a family can see who has a profile on a shared device: each person's name, picture, age group, and, if their "Show my growth on The Grove" switch is on, simple progress, like how many days they've tended their tree and which parts they tended. Anyone can turn that switch off in their own Settings. Answers, journals, notes, levels, and saved stories are always locked. Posts and reactions on The Grove's family wall are shared on purpose with the household on that device, so they are stored there unlocked.

When you create a profile, we record on your device the date you agreed to our Terms of Use and this policy. If either changes, you'll be asked to look it over again. Once you open a profile, it stays open on that device for the time you choose (1, 8, or 24 hours), unless you lock it sooner. Profiles made in Oak before October 2026 move into Grounded profiles the next time they're opened, still locked with the same passcode.

The marks that show which Learn and guide videos you've watched are saved inside your locked profile too. When no profile is open, they are kept only for that visit. Marks saved by an earlier version of a tool move into your profile the next time you open it.

Root Words and backups

Your passcode stays yours alone, and you hold everything you need to keep your tree safe.

Root Words. When you choose a passcode for a profile (for adults and high schoolers), for a grove in The Grove, or for each partner in Heartwood, you get 12 plain words. If you forget your passcode, choose Forgot your passcode, then Use My Root Words, and set a new one. Everything you saved stays. Like a seed phrase, just for you.

Root Words are made on your device and never sent anywhere. They are kept only inside your locked profile, so you can see them again in Settings after typing your passcode. Write them down or print the card, and keep it somewhere private, since your Root Words open your tree the same way your passcode does.

Save a Backup. One locked file holds every profile, grove, and Heartwood on your device, for a lost or broken phone. Save it to your device, iCloud Drive, or another drive. Everything inside stays locked, and opens again with the same passcode or Root Words.

For kids and middle schoolers, a grown-up who agreed opens the child's profile with their own passcode and sets a new picture code or passcode, so a child is always helped by their grown-up.

In Heartwood, each partner has their own passcode and their own Root Words. A partner who forgets the passcode can use their Root Words, or start fresh with only their own answers cleared. The other partner's answers stay just as they are.

Now and then, after a big moment like a first check-in, a tool may show a gentle note: Save a backup and keep your Root Words safe. It shows once, and you can close it.

The Grounded Way and Tending

The Grounded Way is our app at growwithgrounded.com/home/, with Today, Check-in, Grow, Learn, and Library in one place. It lives inside your Grounded profile, the same way every tree does, so everything in it is saved only on this device and locked with your passcode. Along with your tree, it keeps My Growth Plan (the choices you make for Body, Mind, Spirit, Table, and practices, and the rhythm of each practice), and the days you tended it.

What Tending keeps. Tending is the healthy living part of The Grounded Way. It keeps what you choose to enter: your goals, your food needs, and any allergies you type; your household (how many grown-ups, and each child's first name, age range, and sex, for portions and daily amounts); your food plan, My Menu, the holidays you plan, My Own Items, and shopping lists; the meals and foods you log; your workouts, your level, and the weights you lift; your daily checks and Morning Quiet; your start-up check answers; your weight and other markers, if you add them; your lab numbers and blood pressure; your LDL goal and your LDL Path choices; the heart risk scores you add from your doctor and the numbers you type into the PREVENT calculator; your notes; and My Plan from My Team, kept just as you wrote it.

Where it lives. All of it is saved only on this device, inside your Grounded profile, encrypted with the same key your passcode and Root Words open. Save a Backup carries it inside your one locked file, so it comes with you to a new phone. Grow With Grounded never receives it: no food logs, no health numbers, nothing you type. It leaves your device only when you choose to share something yourself, like copying a shopping list into a text.

Recorded voices. In Tending, recorded voices coach the workouts and practices and guide the kitchen. Each recording is an audio file your browser fetches from our audio host, audio.growwithgrounded.com, served by Cloudflare. Every file is named from a line Grounded wrote, never from anything you enter, so each request carries only what a normal web request carries, like your internet address and browser type, and no personal or health information. With Voice Off, Tending fetches no recordings. The soft music under a session plays from our own website.

Kids and teens. For kids in Maple and Aspen, The Grounded Way shows Today and My Tree, set up with their grown-up. Family nutrition is logged by a grown-up, inside the grown-up's own Tending, and it tracks the food, never the body: food groups and nutrients, with no weight and no calories for anyone under 18. A teen who uses Tending in their own profile sees no weight and no calories either, and only the teen's passcode opens it. In Your Family, a grown-up sees each child's progress only, like days tended this week, their season, and their rings.

Starting fresh. Entries like notes, lab panels, heart risk scores, and My Plan from My Team each have their own Remove button. To erase everything, open Manage My Profile (tap your initials at the top of The Grounded Way, then Privacy) and choose to remove the profile from this device. That erases the profile and everything in it, Tending included, for good. Clearing this website's data in your browser settings erases it too. Save a backup first to keep anything.

Membership and payments

Grounded Membership is paid through Stripe, a payment service. You enter your card on Stripe’s own page, and Stripe keeps it under its own privacy policy. We never see or keep your card number.

From Stripe, we receive what the payment needs: your email, the plan you chose, and your payment status, like whether your membership is active, renewed, or ended. We use your email to send your Member code (a Household gets one code for each person), to answer your questions, and to help with a payment or a refund. We never add you to a list unless you ask.

Your Member code opens Membership on the device where you enter it, and the key stays there, in your browser. Membership also opens Grounded Stories in full on that device. Everything else stays on your device today: we never see your check-ins, your plan, your Tending, or which practices you open.

An organization with a Membership pack receives codes from us to give its people, and it never sees anyone’s answers. Supporters who join on Substack receive a Supporter code for Grounded Stories by email; Substack handles that payment under its own privacy policy.

Locked with a passcode

The Grounded Field Guide locks its records with a passcode you choose, using the same strong encryption on your device. We never see your passcode, so if you forget it, we can't open your records for you. Keep a backup file.

Kids and teens

Maple, Aspen, and Pine, the trees for young people in The Grounded Way, collect nothing, and nothing is sent anywhere. A child's answers stay on the family's or school's device. A profile for anyone under 18 needs a grown-up to agree first.

For kids and middle schoolers, the grown-ups who agree can open the child's profile with their own passcode, so kids are never alone with something hard. Kids are told this plainly before they start. For high schoolers in Pine, answers and journal entries are locked with the teen's own passcode, and no one else can open them. Grown-ups can see a teen's progress in The Grove (the parts they're tending, days tended, and visitors), and the teen's answers stay with the teen. Teens are told this before they start. If a teen forgets their passcode, their own Root Words open it again. Without them, a grown-up can clear the teen's private entries (erased, never read) so they can start fresh.

Every check-in screen shows a quiet line about who to talk to and how to reach help, the same for every child.

Faith or Plain wording

Our tools include spiritual content: questions, practices, and guides about faith, meaning, and hope, written for all faith traditions and everything in-between. In the kids' and teen trees (Maple, Aspen, and Pine), the grown-up who sets up the tree chooses the wording. Faith wording comes first, and names God, prayer, and faith as one door among several. Plain wording asks the same things without religious words, and it is there for any family or school that wants it. Birch offers the same choice to the young adult. Scores compare the same either way, and the choice is saved on the device with the rest of the profile, so nothing about it is sent to us.

Health and Ability

Health and Ability is a setting in The Grounded Way, for every tree from Maple to Sequoia, and in Manage My Profile. A person can choose anything that's part of their life right now, like a long-term health condition, chronic pain, moving differently, being Deaf or hard of hearing, being blind or having low vision, or someone close to them living with one. They can also choose None Right Now or I'd Rather Not Say. It is always optional, and it's offered once, quietly, after a first full check-in, and then waits in Settings.

The choice changes only what shows first: guides, practices, and videos that fit, a short example under some check-in questions, and a few information and support lines below the crisis lines. The questions, the scores, and every help line stay exactly the same.

The choice is saved once, inside the person's locked profile, and every tree reads it from there. It stays on the device and is never sent to us or anyone else. Grow With Grounded receives no health information at all. It is kept out of the open parts of a profile, out of The Grove, out of Visit cards, Share to Family, Willow cards, and printed plans. A guest's choice lasts only for that visit. Living Sober is one of these choices, and it is kept exactly the same way, along with its one follow-up question, inside the locked profile on the device.

For kids and middle schoolers, the grown-up who can open the child's profile sets it with the child, and the child's own view shows only the guides and practices that fit, never a label. In Pine, only the teen can set it and only the teen's passcode opens it. In Birch and Sequoia, it stays private from helpers unless the person turns on "Share My Health and Ability with my helpers." A Guide using the Field Guide never asks anyone to choose.

Clear My Choices, in the same setting, erases the choice completely. Moving to the next tree keeps it with the profile, and starting a new Birch profile asks first whether to bring it along.

Show Gentler Ways First and Rest Week are open to everyone, with no health choice needed. They are saved in the locked profile in the same way.

Willow, and helpers

Willow is built for a person in hospice and the people who love them. The person's Willow lives in their own Grounded profile, locked with their passcode: their check-ins, their faith answers, what matters to them, their Cuttings, and the log of what helped. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else.

A family member or friend can be a helper. A helper has their own profile and passcode, and the person's profile can be opened with the helper's passcode, the same way a grown-up opens a child's profile. Helpers are added with their own passcode typed in, and can be removed in Willow's settings at any time.

The person chooses what helpers see in Willow: how their tree is doing (in words, never answers), what matters to them, their Cuttings, the log, their faith answers, and notes from check-ins. Faith answers and notes start private. Please know that this choice is kept by Willow itself, on a shared device, so anyone who can open the profile could in principle see what is saved in it. Only add helpers you trust.

Every check-in records who answered: the person, the person with a helper tapping, or a helper answering from what they see. A helper's observations are kept apart and never speak for the person's own tree. After a death, a helper can mark the tree as remembered. Nothing is erased.

Willow can share with a Grounded Guide who walks with you, in person, and only when you choose. You pick what goes: check-ins, faith answers, what matters, and notes, and only what the person already chose to share. A Guide can send a card back from a visit, with a practice to try, what matters, and the vigil plan. Either way, the card is sealed with a short code you read out loud, and it travels inside a QR code or link after the #, the part a browser never sends to any server. It never passes through us. Once a Guide adds it, it's kept in their own encrypted Field Guide, under Grounded's privacy rules.

Pine, for high schoolers

Pine is built for high schoolers, grades 9 to 12. A teen's Pine lives in their own Grounded profile, and only the teen's own passcode opens it: their check-ins, their growth plan and practices, their journal, and Next Steps, their notebook for plans after high school. All of it stays on the device, and nothing is sent to us or anyone else.

The grown-up who agreed when the profile was made sees only the simple progress described above, if the teen's "Show my growth on The Grove" switch is on. Answers, levels, notes, faith answers, and Next Steps stay with the teen, and Pine sends no alerts. Pine's optional questions start off, and only the teen can turn them on.

Birch, for young adults

Birch is built for young adults, 18 to 25. A person's Birch lives in their own Grounded profile, and only their own passcode opens it: their check-ins, their growth plan and practices, their tree's levels and milestones, and Groundwork, their private notebook for plans and skills. All of it stays on the device, and nothing is sent to us or anyone else. Groundwork stays on the device too, and leaves it only when the person chooses to print or save it.

Helpers are off until the person turns them on in Birch's settings. A helper, like a parent, a mentor, or a friend, has their own profile and passcode, and sees only what the person chooses to share. Groundwork stays with the person and is never shared to family.

Sequoia, and helpers

Sequoia is built for older adults. The person's Sequoia lives in their own Grounded profile, locked with their passcode: their check-ins, their growth plan and practices, and their Legacy Book. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else. The Legacy Book stays on the device too, and a page leaves it only when the person chooses to print or share it.

Helpers are off until the person turns them on in Sequoia's settings. A helper, like an adult child, a spouse, or a friend, has their own profile and passcode, and sees only what the person chooses to share. Faith answers and notes start private. Check-ins a helper takes with the person record who answered, and a helper answering from what they see is kept apart from the person's own tree.

Helpers also have a check-in of their own, with questions for the person doing the helping. Their answers stay in the helper's own profile, locked with the helper's passcode.

Safety

Grounded tools are for reflection and growth. Our self-guided tools ask open, curious questions about growth and ask nothing about harm, so they save nothing about harm and send nothing anywhere. Your answers stay on your device, and no one at Grounded sees them. Answers saved by an earlier version of a tool stay on the device, untouched, and are no longer shown or used.

If you ever feel like hurting yourself, call or text 988, any time. In Minnesota you can also call **CRISIS (274747). In danger now, call 911.

Guide-led work and the Grounded Response Plan

When you meet with a Grounded Guide, Staff member, or Founder, they ask open questions and listen with presence, staying curious and without judgement. Sometimes harm comes up on its own in a conversation. When it does, they follow the Grounded Response Plan.

Grounded follows the mandatory reporting law of the state where a visit happens, with Minnesota law as our baseline. When a guide believes a person may harm themselves or someone else, or that a child or vulnerable adult may be harmed, the guide reaches out to the right people: 988, 911, the county crisis team or child protection, or the Minnesota Adult Abuse Reporting Center (MAARC). The guide tells the person what they are doing and why. The guide also lets Chris or Kayti know the same day, by phone, and keeps a short factual note of what happened and who was contacted in their own locked records.

When you contact us

If you write to us through our contact form or at hello@growwithgrounded.com, we receive what you send, like your name, email, and message, and use it only to reply and to help you. We don't add you to any list unless you ask. Our contact form is delivered by a service called Formspree, which passes your message to our email.

If you subscribe to our stories, that happens on Substack, which has its own privacy policy.

Outside services

Our website is hosted by GitHub Pages and protected by Cloudflare. Like almost every website host, they may briefly keep basic technical records, such as your internet address, to deliver pages and stop attacks. We don't use those records to track you. Recorded voices in Tending play from our audio host, audio.growwithgrounded.com, also served by Cloudflare. We host our own fonts, so your visit isn't shared with any font service. Links to other websites, like helplines or Substack, follow those sites' own policies.

The library and Amazon links

The Book Library is a list of books, kept on our own site. The "Find on Amazon" links on each book open Amazon in your browser. Nothing on our site tracks you or tells Amazon who you are. Once you land on Amazon, Amazon's own privacy policy applies. If a link carries our Amazon Associates tag, Grow With Grounded may earn a small amount from qualifying purchases. It never changes which books are in the library, and the library page says so whenever a tag is in use.

Guides, Staff, and Founders

The Grounded Field Guide is for Grounded’s own team of Guides, Staff, and Founders, who use it with the people they walk with. Their records stay encrypted on their own devices, not with us. They follow the Grounded Response Plan and the law, including health privacy laws like HIPAA where they apply.

Your choices, and changes

To ask for help using our site or tools in a way that works for you, see our Accessibility page.

You can use every tool without a profile and without giving us anything. You can delete a profile from its own settings at any time. If we change how we handle information, we'll update this page and the date at the top.

See also our Terms of Use. Questions? Write to us at hello@growwithgrounded.com.