Breana, the founder of Montana Grit Outdoors, has been an avid hunter since she was a child. Now she uses her hunting expertise to help the female first responder and veteran community.
Breana is not your average hunter. In fact, women in the hunting industry are already hard to come by. But she is among America's most experienced, gifted, and talented hunters – that says a lot. And she is absolutely committed to hunting. She recalls a moment from several years ago when she took her children on a hunt.
“I went out with my three-month-old baby and my three-year-old son, I wasn't going to give up my hunting because I couldn't find childcare,” she said. But Breana wants to be known for more than being a skilled hunter. She wants to pursue philanthropic work by helping women from the veteran and first responder community overcome trauma, personal challenges, and the stress associated with that challenging line of work.
After the solo hunt with her two children, she had an idea. “That was the first time I ever shot a deer by myself, and I had a three-month-old and my three-year-old and got it done. I realized that there was so much more I
could do,” Breana said. The relationship Breana has with hunting is far more than killing big game like Elk
– it’s about respect.
“We don’t enjoy killing anything. It’s harvesting because when you take life like that, it breathes life into you. And you want to do it well, you want to make sure that you make a good shot and that you take that life as quick as you can,” she said. Breana found a way to use that level of respect to help women, too. “Hunting is an obsession that I have. And I have a deep respect for the animal, for the terrain that we’re in, and for the mountains that we could hunt in. It’s a gift,” she said. “And to be able to share that with these women and put them in a situation that they’ve never been in before is truly special.”
Breana’s nonprofit organization, Montana Grit Outdoors, is the only female-led nonprofit organization that serves women from the veteran and first responder community in the hunting and outdoor space. They take women on a hunting expedition and provide all the equipment, guns, training – everything they need for a successful hunt. All the women need to do is be willing.
And since starting her nonprofit, Breana has expanded to offer more for her female attendees, a way to help them even further than just going on a hunt.
Emotional Recovery Coaching
Breana and her team have recently added a new comprehensive program known as ERC, Emotional Recovery Coaching. Montana Grit has teamed up with Megan Brumel, a Leadership Development Facilitator and coach, and the founder of Wayfinders Leadership out of Bozeman Montana to continue to help female veterans and first responders. They each have had their challenges and setbacks but found a way to overcome them. The goal is for the coaches to use their personal experiences to help other women with their struggles.
“A lot of it is geared around self-awareness and breaking chains. It’s letting go of those things that keep you in a bad headspace. If you’re focusing on what happened to you all the time, then you are not able to focus on who you are,” Breana said. “They are able to see a part of themselves that they didn’t focus on since they were probably a child.” The participants go through a six-month program with their coach that involves a combination of in-person and Zoom-style meetings. The goal is to provide the skills necessary using the resources and tools to create personal growth to become a better version of themselves, embrace their freedom, and get through everyday life.
“After that six months, they get to take that new mindset and the new set of tools and apply it in the hunting trip itself because it’s challenging. And it can be scary, emotional, and very frustrating. They take the tools that they learn through the program, and the new mindset and the new self-awareness, and then use that in an uncomfortable place [like hunting],” Breana said.
Breana’s Experience with Trauma
Breana’s desire to help women didn’t come from nowhere - she has experienced her own trauma. She understands what it can do to someone and simply wants to lend a helping hand to women who have gone through trauma of their own. For her, it happened when she was just a child with a sick mother who routinely suffered from epilepsy.“When I was nine years old my mother died. From the age zero to nine, she’d be standing there talking to you, and she’d tip over and go into convulsions. She’d get up, not know who I was for a half hour, then we’d move on. I thought that was normal, I started normalizing trauma at that point,” she said. “And the night she died I was awake, I watched the whole thing happen.” Breana recalls not having any emotion in the days following her mother’s death. During the family gathering, nine-year-old Breana was told by her grandmother that her mom “never woke up.”
“I remember at that very moment, I fake cried. And I felt so stupid because I did this ‘I want my mom’ and started crying thing, even though I know what happened,” she said. “So I had guilt. Nobody talked to me about what is death. I didn’t understand that I was allowed to grieve her and that I needed to as a kid.” Breana now offers speaking engagements to people everywhere. She wants to share her story of trauma to let them know, especially women, that trauma can be overcome. All it takes is a little bit of coaching… and a little bit of hunting.
A Message from Trudy Jacobson
“Going through a traumatic event as a child will almost always have a lasting effect on the person. But Breana didn’t let her experiences ruin or define her. Instead, she found a way to use her experience to help women everywhere, andthat is why she is a Great American Warrior.”
For more information about Breana and her nonprofit organization, visit their website https://www.montanagritoutdoors.com/ and follow them on Instagram @montana_grit_outdoors
