In this raw and honest conversation, Kimberly Rash opens up about surviving a domestic violence marriage, a shocking second marriage, and a childhood shaped by a strict, fear-based religious upbringing. She shares how survival mode convinced her for years that a better life was not possible, and how playing small kept her stuck in unhealthy patterns and relationships. Kimberly walks through the moment she chose to stop settling, the limiting beliefs she had to unlearn, and how she eventually found safe, steady love after years of heartbreak. She encourages listeners to question what they were taught to believe, release relationships and people who no longer serve their growth, and take small, consistent steps toward becoming their future self. This episode is a reminder that your past does not define you, healing is not linear, and your life really can get better from here.
Transcripts
Kimberly Rash: [:
Kimberly Rash: Because when you've been through a lot or you felt stuck for a long time, it can be hard to believe that something better is actually possible. But what if it is? What if this season isn't where your story ends, What if it is where something new begins?
deserve that You play small [:
Kimberly Rash: And sometimes we don't move forward, but it's not because we can't, but because we don't believe it will actually ever really be better And my hope and my joy and my wish for you is to know that oh, baby, yes, it can. It can be so much better
Kimberly Rash: I can tell you in my own life, there were many times I just didn't believe things could ever improve. I really didn't. I had a bad marriage to start, and then the second time I attempted to get married, I call that the blip. first of all, I was not in a good place because if you saw the person with whom I married, my friends were like, "What are you doing?"
, and turns out that husband [:
Kimberly Rash: I kicked him out prior to knowing absolutely everything because the feds didn't raid his house until he was with a different girl a couple of months later. but he had inappropriately did something to someone that I loved, and it wasn't a child, but it was somebody that I loved.
Kimberly Rash: And again, after coming out of a horrible marriage the first time and thinking, "Well, maybe this will be good," I just fell to my knees in the kitchen, and I just remember crying and saying, " God, what is wrong with me? Why can I not find one good man on this planet to love me for who I am? I'm a good freaking wife.
ife. He had to have multiple [:
Kimberly Rash: When?" And you know what? Everyone made me feel like a failure. I was like, "Nope, get out of my house. Get out." I kicked him out, and most of the people around me, were like, " Kimberly, you can't get a second divorce. How dare you get divorced again?" And I'm like, "Dude is inappropriate. Dude did really disgusting things, inappropriate things."
Kimberly Rash: You shouldn't get divorced again. I'd get divorced 5,000 times again if I was married to someone like that, without hesitation. And I didn't hesitate. I kicked him out and I never looked back And he became someone else's problem, and that poor girl had her own reckoning.
happened." And wouldn't you [:
Kimberly Rash: And all that to say, I just remember, being like, "Great, another failure, another thing. What is wrong with me?" And I saw no chance of me ever finding love or being loved where I wasn't always, again, in survival mode and walking on eggshells and having trust issues and trying to figure out why I'm not good enough for one man just to wanna keep his eyes on me, in a relationship.
Kimberly Rash: I played it small and I kept it safe. anything that felt bigger than that, bigger than a loser or a jerk or someone, a cheater just made me too insecure. It would make me feel ready for the fall. And so I didn't move forward, So I stayed single for a while, and then I finally did meet a very nice boy.
ee times because I was like, [:
Kimberly Rash: And he just looked at me like, he is Rip from Yellowstone. I was Beth. I was a crazy girl and he is that rock. He is, "All right, baby, I'm gonna love you through your crazy." I married a Rip. They're out there, girls. You can find a Rip. And he just loved me through my anxiety, and my insecurities, and all those things.
Kimberly Rash: you can break out of that limiting belief that you can't have more, that you can't have better, because they're out there You just have to stop pushing them away if they do show up
at was breaking up my family [:
Kimberly Rash: I probably wouldn't be here talking to you today That's fact.
Kimberly Rash: Second creepy one, like it was such a f- freaking, we were only married eight months. Like what a blip. even then, it broke my heart because again It just rose up all those insecurities and things that you thought you were on your way to healing, and it just threw them out the water, and you started all over again.
Kimberly Rash: But you know what? Not everything has to be
Kimberly Rash: overwhelming. Not everything has to feel like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. It does get better from here. I know I went down, the sad path for a minute, But I'm human, and that's what you're gonna get from me My past has not been beautiful, and I will share that with you 'cause it's my show and I'm gonna share it.
have to be in marriages and [:
Kimberly Rash: We do some things out of survival. We do some things or say some things or act some ways out of survival But there is lights at the end of the tunnel There is
Kimberly Rash: You just have to get into the mindset and think, "What would make me feel better? What kind of life would make me feel more aligned? What kind of man or woman in my life is going to make me feel better about myself? What characteristics or traits do I need around me in a relationship or in friendships that would actually help support my life to make me feel like I am safe, like I am strong, like I am motivated, like I deserve to have the life that I want?"
beliefs off of yourself and [:
Kimberly Rash: And then you're gonna be able to let go of limiting beliefs that make you feel That this is just how it is maybe you were raised in a religious household where everything's the devil. I was. And again, I was raised in what my parents knew to be right at the time But growing up, we only knew what we knew.
Kimberly Rash: We had very limiting beliefs We went to a very strict church. We went to a very strict school. I mean, the radio was the devil, the Smurfs were the devil, Devil Dogs were the devil.
a Puritan. Couldn't even mix [:
Kimberly Rash: I was physically paddled in a church school It was called Bessie. It was a paddle. Because I got too many demerits in a day, or tallies. and I got a spanking in the butt with a big paddle by the pastor
Kimberly Rash: If you're brought up in, weird limiting beliefs, in, weird environments that traumatize you or make you feel like you don't have this is just all you know. Trust me, the world is bigger. It's not all you know. It's not all you know. You're gonna learn if you just open a book, go to the library.
you have Google You have the [:
Kimberly Rash: And start to grow from there. Start to release those limiting beliefs and grow into the person that you wanna be. And you wanna know what? Not everyone's gonna like it, not everyone's gonna agree with you, but you're gonna be free. Because other people's opinions about you do not matter. They don't. Only you get to live the life that you're living.
Kimberly Rash: Only you. So only you have to sit with you at the end of a day. Your kids might go, "What?" Or your parents or your siblings or cousins, it doesn't matter. Co-workers, old friends, it doesn't matter. Do you love you? Do you want to change you? Do you wanna be a better you? Then get freaking busy and let's get it done.
shing you could be something [:
Kimberly Rash: Time is fleeting. It is passing by so quickly every single day. And if you haven't noticed, like a lot of people that I know have noticed that time has sped up and it is going faster and faster. Which means your time to go and get things done to become who you wanna be, you're gonna blink your eyes and be like, "Crap, two years went by.
Kimberly Rash: Why didn't I start two years ago?" Get her done. Get her done. You don't have to stick in old timelines, old storylines, old places that rent space in your head. You don't have to
Kimberly Rash: You just don't. You don't have to have your whole future figured out. You don't need to know every step. You don't need to force yourself to believe in something big all at once. But you are allowed to believe that things can get better, and they're going to. You're allowed to want more from your life, and you're allowed to start moving toward that one small step at a time because your story is not finished.
Kimberly Rash: And this [:
Kimberly Rash: We're done. I'm not playing this game of what society wants from me. I'm not playing this game of what my people in my life want or expect from me, even though it doesn't make me happy anymore." God did not design us to live miserably. He designed us to live in joy and love and peace. So find the joy and love and peace in your life.
Kimberly Rash: Find out what that is
Kimberly Rash: and rise into her. Wear the crown that you deserve to wear. You are a queen in your own life You are a prize worth being attained if you want to be attained. You are worthy of having every good and perfect gift that comes from your creator
version of who you wanna be, [:
Kimberly Rash: You'll run into them at Walmart. You'll run into them driving down the road, and they're behind you. And you know what? When you stop and you get rid of some people in your life, or they are no longer in your life, all of a sudden you never run into them. you go to the same places, but you know what?
Kimberly Rash: You never have chance encounters with these people anymore. God's gonna keep the people out of your life that aren't supposed to be in your life anymore Those seasons have ended, and you can go ahead and surround yourself with people who love you, pour into you, raise you up, make you better
