Stories from Kristina + Breanne

  Shared by Breanne Smedley "You always have it all figured out!" The words came out of one of my 16-year-old volleyball players a couple of years ago. "Yeah!" Someone else echoed. "Like, perfect!"   The moment those words left her lips, my heart sank. Because as everyone who strives for perfection knows, "having it all together" on the outside rarely looks the same on the inside.   But, I felt the pressure. To be all, and do all. And appear like I was juggling it all perfectly.   The season that this sweet, young, and confident volleyball player told me this was the one that I had just come back from having a baby. Charlee was 5 months old when I went back to teaching and coaching full time. I was determined to continue exclusively breastfeed. Teach all day. Coach in the evenings. Workout 7 days a week. Eat clean and only eat out 1x per week max. Wear the right clothes and makeup. Spend time with family. Have a clean, modernly decorated house. A...

Shared by Breanne Smedley In 7th grade, I decided to go out for middle school track. In 7th grade, I also looked like a baby giraffe. One of the events the coach said I should do was the 200m sprint. "Just a half a lap!" She said. Knowing no different, I decided to go for it. Nervously, I set up for the race. "Runners to your marks." The judge yelled. I walked over to my lane and got set up in the blocks the way I had been taught.   "Set!" I lifted my hips in the air. The gun sounded, and I bounded out of the blocks as fast as I could. I rounded the first corner, still pretty even with the other girls. After the round, I noticed that I had pulled ahead a bit. The finish line was in sight and I didn’t feel any of the other racers next to me. I heard cheering from parents in the stands and the coaches on the sidelines. "I’m ahead!" I remember thinking. Then, with only about 50 meters left in the race, I made a fatal error. Curious as to just how fa...

  Shared by Kristina Smedley Kaden has been blowing our minds with his persistence in learning how to crawl. I don’t know why this is surprising. For some reason, I expected that babies just crawled… not that I would see his very visible effort into actually learning and practicing how to crawl. #newmom ;-)   About two weeks ago, he started getting further up on his hands. And started a little rocking back and forth. Then slowly we saw a knee pop-under him.   Then a little lat pull-down type action to use his arms to lunge himself forward. Then all in about 24 hours he was army crawling, then getting his legs into it, and then suddenly he was coordinated and crawling around. I loved watching him figure this out.   And watching him struggle a little with something until he got the next piece down, and the next, and the next. And honestly, Kaden has been a great reminder to me that I too have to learn to crawl first, before I can walk and eventually run. And even ‘craw...

  Shared by Kristina Smedley The most direct answer is no. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I’ve been actively doing anything to fight against racism.   Yes, I’m kind and accepting, and empathetic. I’ve never considered myself a racist. I’ve never done anything racist intentionally. And I’ve done some work in the past on becoming mildly aware of my privilege. But do I embrace and embody antiracist values and views? Do I take antiracist actions?   This is something I’ve thought about and maybe even written about in the past. But have I done anything differently since then? No.   I continue to sit comfortably on the sideline as an empathetic observer. I continue to sit in my easy chair, watching what is going on around me.   A chair that is reserved for people who look like me, people of white privileged. As long as racism and white supremacy continue to go unchecked, ruining communities and lives, it’s safe to say that a majority of people who look like me (myself...

  Shared by Breanne Smedley This weekend, my husband and I started working through the "36 questions that lead to love." They are sets of questions that can supposedly lead to two complete strangers falling in love after answering them.   I don’t know about all that, but I do love the questions and they sparked some great conversations between my husband and I! One of the questions was, "What is your perfect day." To my surprise, my answer started with the same thing that I do everyday. I said:   -Wake up (refreshed) at 5am and start my morning routine -Rasa coffee with coconut cream -Write out my dream statements, goals, and affirmations -Meditate -Read -Write -Workout After that, it involved a lot of fun family time, an adventure or two somewhere with water, an afternoon nap, and good food/drinks.   The first part, though…"how boring!" I thought to myself. I figured I should say something extravagant. Wake up in Paris and spend the morning sipping espres...

Shared by Breanne Smedley We are on day #3 of potty training Charlee. It’s actually been a fun, eye-opening, and only semi-shitty experience so far! We are following the "potty training in 3 days" method, which has very strict and specific guidelines that we need to follow in order to actually make this happen in 3 days.   This is bootcamp style potty training...and I’m all about it. Some of the rules are intense: Ditch all the diapers (there’s no going back!) Put her in underwear. Follow her every move for three days straight. DO NOT let her out of your sight. No checking your phone, ever. No TV. Ask her every minute: "Tell me when you need to go potty." Any sign that pee or poo is imminent...put her on the pot! Pee= One M&M and sticker. Poop=Two M&MS and stickers. By the end of day one, Charlee was telling us when she needed to go, running to the potty, and doing it all herself. We did it! (We thought…)   We were following all the rules, Charlee was doing ...

Shared by Breanne Smedley June 19th has been circled on my calendar for the past few weeks. Every time I look at it, I get a rush of excitement and anxiety run through me. (For my teacher friends, yes, it's our last day of school for the crazy 2020 year!) But, it's also the day that I launch my next round of The Elite Competitor Program. The Mental Training program that I've developed for female athletes to help build confidence and resiliency on and off the court. I've had three groups of awesome girl athletes go through the program since January.   All experiencing unique transformations. All coming out on the other end more confident. More enabled. More skilled to take on the challenges in their sport and life. It's been nothing short of an amazing, life-giving, and inspiring process. However, I still have doubts every day that I look at that date on my calendar. I start to wonder...   "What if it was just a fluke that all these girls actually experienced th...