Simple terms, kept honestly.

The short version

Our tools are for reflection and growth, a place to grow with guidance and support. Crisis help comes from 988 and 911, and therapy and medical care come from doctors and therapists; our tools point you to them. What you save stays on your device, locked with your own passcode, so it stays private to you. Your Root Words and a backup file let you open it again yourself. A grown-up agrees for kids and teens. Tending, inside The Grounded Way, offers research-informed guidance for healthy living to talk over with your doctor; see The Grounded Way and Tending. Please use what we make kindly, and keep it credited to Grow With Grounded.

Who we are

Grow With Grounded is run by Chris Joy and Kayti Joy in St. Cloud, Minnesota. When these terms say "we" or "us," they mean us. When they say "you," they mean anyone who uses this website or its tools, and the grown-up who agrees for a child or teen.

What our tools are for

The Grounded Way (with every tree from Maple to Sequoia), the companion apps Heartwood and Willow, The Grove, and the Field Guide are for reflection, conversation, and growth. They grew out of years of chaplaincy, and we built them with care. They offer spiritual guidance and emotional support for everyday life, and they ask open, curious questions about growth. Diagnoses, therapy, and medical care come from a doctor, therapist, or other professional who knows you, and our tools are made to work alongside them.

Practices about movement, food, sleep, and breathing are general. Many offer a gentler way, like seated, lying down, shorter, or with a helper. If you have a health condition, are pregnant, are recovering from something, or aren't sure a practice is right for you, check with your doctor first, and listen to your body: pause any practice that feels wrong for you.

For a crisis, 988 and 911 answer any time. If you ever feel like hurting yourself, call or text 988. In Minnesota you can also call **CRISIS (274747). In danger now, call 911. What you enter in our tools stays on your device, so no one at Grounded sees it or responds to it. Visits with a Grounded Guide, Staff member, or Founder follow the Grounded Response Plan, described in our Privacy Policy.

Your Grounded profile

A Grounded profile lives only in the browser on your device, so it stays yours alone. It's locked with a passcode (or, for young kids, a picture code) that you choose. Your passcode and everything you save stay with you, so you are the one who unlocks your profile, resets your passcode, or brings back what was saved, using the three keys below.

So you hold the keys to your own tree, and you have three ways to keep it safe:

• Your passcode. Keep it to yourself, and lock your profile on a shared device.
• Your Root Words. When you choose a passcode, you get 12 plain words. If you forget your passcode, they open your tree again so you can choose a new one. Keep them somewhere safe and private, like your passcode.
• Save a Backup. One locked file you keep on your device, in iCloud Drive, or on another drive. It brings everything back on a new phone, still locked with the same passcode and Root Words.

Keeping these safe is up to you, since we never hold a copy. Clearing your browser's data or losing your device without a backup, or losing both your passcode and your Root Words, can erase what you saved. That is the other side of keeping your life private, and the three keys above are how you stay in charge of it.

Kids and teens

A person must be 18 or older to create their own profile. A profile for a child or teen needs a parent, guardian, or another responsible grown-up to agree to these terms on their behalf, and that grown-up is responsible for how the child uses our tools.

For kids and middle schoolers, the grown-ups who agree can open the child's profile with their own passcode, so no child is alone with something hard. For high schoolers in Pine, answers and journal entries are private to the teen. Grown-ups can see progress, and the teen's answers stay with the teen. 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 so they can start fresh. Those entries are erased, never read.

Our tools can show help lines and encourage a child to talk to a grown-up. Watching over a child is a grown-up's work: please stay close, keep talking, and reach out for help when a child needs it.

Faith or Plain wording

Our tools include spiritual content, written for all faith traditions and everything in-between. In Maple, Aspen, and Pine, the grown-up who agrees for the child or teen chooses the wording at setup: 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 anyone who wants it. Birch offers the same choice to the young adult. The wording can be changed later in the tree's settings.

Health and Ability

Health and Ability is an optional setting that lets a person choose anything about their body and health that's part of their life right now, or none, or "I'd Rather Not Say." It shows the guides, practices, and videos that fit first, adds a few examples and information lines, and keeps every question, score, and help line the same. It is for reflection and growth, the same as everything else in our tools. It offers general information, never a diagnosis or medical advice, and a doctor or other professional who knows you is the right person for health decisions.

The choice is saved only in the locked profile on your device, and Grow With Grounded never receives it. For a child or middle schooler, the grown-up who agrees sets it with the child. Clear My Choices erases it at any time. Our Privacy Policy explains exactly where it is kept and who can see it.

The Grounded Way and Tending

The Grounded Way is our app at growwithgrounded.com/home/, open to everyone, with Today, Check-in, Grow, Learn, and Library. My Growth Plan builds one plan from your check-in, and Tending is its healthy living part: food plans from Grounded Recipes that meet the Grounded Nutritional Standards, Holidays and Gatherings, workouts for every level in Strength, Cardio, Flow, Yoga, Balance, and Stretch, guided meditations, Morning Quiet, your own labs beside recommended ranges, the LDL Path, My Heart Risk, family nutrition, and My Plan from My Team. Everything in these terms applies to it, along with the health guidance below. Our Privacy Policy explains what Tending keeps and where.

Health guidance in Tending

Tending offers research-informed guidance, education, and estimates for healthy living, made to talk over with your doctor. It is general guidance for everyday life, never medical advice, a diagnosis, or treatment. Your doctor and the professionals who know you guide your medical choices, and Tending is built to work alongside them. Their numbers, goals, and decisions always come first.

The start-up check and the Gentle path. Before a first workout, Tending asks a few yes or no questions. This is Grounded's own short screen for healthy movement, a starting point, and your doctor or physical therapist gives the full picture. If you answer yes to any question, Tending asks you to check with your doctor or physical therapist first. Until you mark that they say you can begin, Tending keeps you on the Gentle path, and My Plan from My Team holds the plan they give you, just as you enter it. Marking that you can begin means you have had that conversation. If your health changes, take the check again.

Listen to your body. Move at your own pace and choose any easier swap. Stop and rest if you feel chest pain or pressure, dizziness, unusual shortness of breath, or new or sharp joint pain, and contact your doctor. For anything that feels serious, call 911.

The LDL Path, My Heart Risk, and your labs. The LDL Path shows research-informed estimates as ranges, and each person responds in their own way; your next lab tells your real story. My Heart Risk keeps the PREVENT scores your doctor gives you. The PREVENT calculator gives an estimate from the American Heart Association's published equations, built for adults 30 to 79 within set ranges. Lab ranges come from national guidelines and are for awareness. All of these are estimates to bring to your doctor, and your doctor's numbers and decisions come first.

Medicines. Any change to a prescribed medicine, whether starting, stopping, or changing a dose, goes through your doctor. Tending shows a medicine only as something to talk over with your doctor. Some foods and supplements can change how a medicine works or is absorbed, so ask your doctor or pharmacist about timing.

Food allergies, celiac disease, and food needs. Tending builds meal plans around the food needs and allergies you choose, and every recipe lists its ingredients. Checking each recipe's ingredients against your own allergies and your family's, and reading the labels on what you buy, is yours to do. For celiac disease, choose Gluten-Free after a diagnosis from your doctor, and follow your doctor's or dietitian's guidance on cross-contact. A doctor's or dietitian's plan always leads, for you and for each child.

Family nutrition. Tending tracks the food, never the body, with no weight and no calories for anyone under 18. The grown-up who logs a child's meals guides that child's food and play, and the child's doctor or dietitian guides any special plan.

Your choice to move. Exercise and changes to how you eat carry some risk of injury or illness, even when done with attention. When you choose a workout, a practice, or a food plan in Tending, you choose it freely, you accept those risks, and you agree to go at a pace that is right for your body. To the fullest extent the law allows, Grow With Grounded isn't responsible for injury, illness, or loss that comes from using Tending. For a child or teen, the grown-up who agrees accepts this on their behalf.

Using what we make

You're welcome to use our tools and guides for yourself, your family, your classroom, your congregation, or the people you walk with. Our tools, stories, guides, artwork, and wording belong to Grow With Grounded: please ask us first before copying, reselling, rebranding, or reposting them, or using them to build a competing product. Printing a handout to share with the people you serve is welcome.

Please use the website gently and as it is meant to be used, and use our tools to lift people up, never to harm, shame, or pressure anyone.

The Grounded Field Guide is for Grounded's own team of Guides, Staff, and Founders, who agree to its own additional terms. They follow the Grounded Response Plan and the law, including privacy laws like HIPAA where they apply.

Stories and names

Our stories come from real life, with details changed when a family asked. The stories, guides, tools, and artwork on this site belong to Grow With Grounded LLC.

Trademarks

Grow With Grounded™ and the names Grow With Grounded Maple™, Grow With Grounded Aspen™, Grow With Grounded Pine™, Grow With Grounded Birch™, Grow With Grounded Oak™, Grow With Grounded Sequoia™, Grow With Grounded Willow™, Grow With Grounded The Grove™, and Grounded Field Guide™ are trademarks of Grow With Grounded LLC.

Membership

Grounded Membership opens the full suite in The Grounded Way for one person, and a Household opens it for up to 6 people in one home. Payments are handled by Stripe; we never see or keep your card number, and we receive only your email, your plan, and your payment status (see our Privacy Policy). After you pay, we email your Member code (a Household gets one code for each person), usually within a day.

Membership renews on its own each month or each year, depending on the plan you choose, until you cancel. Founding Members pay the Founding price for their first year, and then the regular price listed when they joined. You can change or cancel any time with the link in your receipt email, and you keep everything until the end of the time you paid for. We give full refunds for yearly plans within 14 days of payment; other payments are final. To ask for a refund, or if something goes wrong with a payment, write to hello@growwithgrounded.com from the email you paid with, and we will make it right.

A Member code is for the person or household it was made for. We may change prices or what Membership includes with notice; a price you already paid stays as it is for that month or year.

Ceremonies and support

Ceremonies, talks and trainings, Membership packs for organizations, and other services are arranged directly with us. Dates, fees, and details are confirmed with you in writing before anything is final, and those written details are what we both follow.

Other websites

We link to helplines, Substack, and other places we trust. Those sites follow their own terms and privacy policies, and each one is responsible for its own.

Honest promises

We work hard to make our tools accurate, safe, and kind, and we offer them "as is." The website may sometimes be unavailable or have a mistake, and each tool fits some people and situations better than others.

To the fullest extent the law allows, we aren't responsible for decisions made using our tools, for lost or erased information, or for indirect harm that comes from using or not being able to use this website. Nothing in these terms limits anything that, by law, can't be limited.

Changes to these terms

If we change these terms, we'll update the date at the top. If you have a Grounded profile, you'll be asked to look over the changes and agree again before saving anything new.

The law that applies

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota and the United States.

Questions

Write to us any time at hello [at] growwithgrounded [dot] com or call 320-291-7393. You can also read our Privacy Policy and our Accessibility page.