Coming Back to Love: the podcast

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (00:07.886)
If this is your first time to coming back to love the podcast, welcome. We're so glad you found us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Either way, you're not here by accident.

I'm your host, Karen Walker Cohn a wife, a mom, entrepreneur, friend, and dreamer who is ready to step into more of who I am created to be. I am committed to personal transformation for global impact. Now, this podcast may be very different from others. Our guests don't come with a topic or agenda. They come open and ready to receive and deliver the message that's meant for you.

You will also notice our podcast is not overly produced. This is on purpose. Our hope is we will inspire you to step into who you're created to be, regardless of how it may look. Take inspired action on that book, business, relationship, and yes, podcast or whatever it is on your heart. In my experience, my mess usually ends up being my message. I encourage you to approach our time today with a beginner's mindset.

and with openness to receive what is meant for you.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (01:24.942)
What a privilege it is for me to introduce you to my mentor and beautiful friend, Kimberly Zink. Kimberly is the co -owner of Klemmer, a leadership and character development organization you've heard me speak about time and time again, founded in 1995 by Brian Klemmer, whose dream it was to create compassionate samurai to make a difference in this world.

Kimberly has remained committed to Brian's mission since his passing in 2011. Kimberly and the entire Klemmer Pride specialize in creating bold, ethical leaders who will create a world that works for everyone with no one left out. A world that I am so proud to be a part of. Kimberly began her Klemmer journey 14 years ago after...

her career in insurance and network marketing. She is a true example of the work applied to life and is committed to leading others to their greatness. She is an author, sought after speaker and lead facilitator at Klemmer events worldwide. I met her just over a year ago when I began my Klemmer journey. I've been involved in coaching and

personal transformation for over 10 years now. And this experiential work is the best I've seen at creating a large amount of change in a short amount of time. I owe the creation of this podcast and a lot of other long -held dreams to the work I've done specifically with Kimberly and Klemmer. In this episode, Kimberly shares some of the heartbreaking details of her life with

vulnerability and courage. You will notice I barely say a thing. She's speaking directly to my heart and I'm soaking it all in because I can relate to so much of her story as I'm sure you will too. At this point, I throw in a warning that this content may not be appropriate for all viewers and listeners. Let's listen together to the heart of Kimberly Zink.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (03:50.092)
Kimberly, when you hear the title of this podcast, Coming Back to Love, Inspiring Stories on Shifting Perspectives, what story or experience from your life comes to mind?

Kimberly Zink (04:20.302)
I would say my whole story is about coming back to love from the very beginning. However, love from a very different place. I, as a little girl, I was taught through sexual abuse that when I asked, why do we have to do this? Why do we have to do this physical thing?

It hurts. This isn't what I want. And they said, he said, this is what you do when you love somebody. And in that moment, I crossed wires. In that moment, love instantly became something that was uncomfortable, that hurt, that I didn't want. And it was dirty and it was wrong. And so,

As a small child, all I wanted was love, not having a father in the picture. I didn't know what love looked like other than this definition, what this image was. And so for me, I went the other way. I looked for love in all the wrong places, thinking I was doing it right. Thinking that if I could offer this thing, that if it mattered.

Then I was giving love, but mainly I was being loved. It was how I could finally be loved, because I'd never be good enough. I'd not be smart enough. And honestly, Karen, it was the one thing that I knew I could do. And so my junior high years were horrific.

Because I didn't understand why parents didn't want me around their kids. I didn't understand why men were good to sleep with me, but they would never claim me. They would never call me a girlfriend or... And if anybody did, they were mocked and I didn't understand. That was love. Why was I in trouble? Why was I being penalized? Why was I bad? Why was I white trash? And...

Kimberly Zink (06:42.254)
I truly, I went through a lot of years of pain because I really didn't get it. How could love be so bad when everybody says I'm supposed to love? And it's something that has riddled me. It's been a pothole in the road of my journey over and over and over again. It is sabotaged relationships.

You know, Tim and I went through a really hard time and it was really difficult to figure out the separation between sex and love and did it have to look a certain way? And, and so all the way to today, coming back to love, um, when I attended heart all those years ago and I discovered my purpose and when I wrote it down,

It said communicate with the world heart to heart.

Kimberly Zink (07:46.1)
I don't sitting in that chair going, no, no, that's for other people. I'm not that person. I don't want to be that person. And the truth is nobody will hear me anyway.

And I believed it with a fiber of my being. Why would they? And so I am.

Kimberly Zink (08:17.358)
I started and in the beginning...

Uh, love was something I didn't want. Um, and so I was extremely heavy. I thought if I could put on weight, that that would keep love away. Um, because nobody would want to sleep with somebody that's overweight or, um, not attractive. Well, guess what? That's not true. Um, because it didn't stop the behavior didn't stop and the men didn't stop. And, and I just kept getting hurt.

wondering.

And when I discovered my purpose, I became...

Not being willing to love, I had accepted because it meant I had to do this. However, after heart, communicating with the world heart to heart, that meant love. But I got to start separating what love was. And still today, I will say that when things are hard in my marriage,

Kimberly Zink (09:35.278)
When things in my family, they don't feel connected or loved. I go, what do I need to do? I have to do something because then they'll love me. Then they'll need me. And, and I get to stop. I get to stop and go, hold up, hold up Kimberly. This isn't, this is old behavior. This is, this was pushed love away. Not when you seek to love.

to bring in. Those are old thoughts. Those are old behaviors that when, when I go below the line, when I see change, there's a threat. I instantly go to that insecure place. I instantly go to, they're going to take away their love. So what do I have to do?

And it's completely counterproductive. It's, I get resentful and then I resist. And my revenge of the three Rs is literally withholding love or pushing them so far out that I don't need their love somehow, at least in my mind. Yeah. And what I recognize over the years was truly.

Brian chose the samurai sword because it has the sharpest blade because it's going to take the sharpest blade to cut between the cutting away of all illusion, all the things that aren't true that are a lie. And I finally understood what he meant. And it brings me back to that point when you talk about your podcast being coming back to love. I had to.

whole of heart.

Kimberly Zink (11:30.67)
the lies of having to do, having to perform, having to, to make you happy, to get your love, separating that illusion from what real love is. Real love is accepting my imperfections. Real love is knowing that I've been to the gutter. I set up a house. Heck, I sometimes built a community and

I was willing to sell the community and to shift that. True love knows that I'm broken too and that every day I seek to be better spiritually, to be better mentally, emotionally, physically. True love means they look past.

all the mistakes I've made and truly judge me in the moment of what I'm bringing.

not the mistakes of yesterday.

True love is being with me, sitting on the couch, and not needing me to fix anything. Just being with me.

Kimberly Zink (12:54.862)
And so coming back to love has been a year journey. My husband and I redid our vows a couple of years ago after we had gone through some horrific times and we had gone our own way and we came back together and we felt that renewing our vows was an important part of re -establishing our love. And we did so in Hawaii. I...

family came out and it was a beautiful experience. And it's been the amount of time, pardon me, I'm leaking. The me too. All the good stuff. All the right places are leaking in this moment. And yeah, and so since then,

I've been working to.

to deepen what that original message meant from God. Communicating with the world heart to heart. I was in such resistance to it because that meant I'd have to address love.

Kimberly Zink (14:13.454)
And I was really afraid of that because I didn't want to have to look at all the dark stuff. I didn't want to have to admit that I had been so intertwined. Even after years in the Klemmer work, there were certain things that I didn't even know I had to let go of to really allow love in. Love without performance, love without having to do. And this last year,

investing in myself health -wise. I'm in the best health I've ever been in. My marriage is truly the best it's ever been.

My relationship with my children is truly miraculous. We have relationships now, Karen, that I never dreamt. Even dreaming as big as I can, I never dreamt would look as good as they do and feel as amazing as they are.

Kimberly Zink (15:19.246)
I'll be it, you know, the world, everything good is going to be attacked and it is. And what a lot of people don't know about what we were taught by Brian is that when we're attacked, we actually learn from it and we get better. We look, we look at those attacks, those emails, those broadcasts on all of that. And, and we go, okay, what if this is true?

What do we get to shift? Even if I don't agree, can I shift? Yeah. Yeah. And it's helped you come more. And that is the best expression of love they have in that moment. Yeah. When I can look at humans and in their attack and I can look at humans in their imperfections and.

When I can look myself in the mirror and know when I have spoken out of turn or I've acted out of integrity or I've allowed things that just weren't right. I know I was in the best expression of had in that moment. And if I'll give everybody else that grace, I get to give it to me too. And so.

Coming back to love for the last year has been coming back to me, coming back to who I want to be, that I didn't even know existed. And I've learned this year that the concept of me loving other people doesn't exist until I have that to give away. If you came to my house and said, I need peanut butter, but I didn't have peanut butter in my cupboard.

I truly couldn't give it to you. Right. I could give you almond butter and I could give you, uh, or some other something or the other, but I couldn't give you peanut butter. Right. And that's what I've learned about love is that if I truly am not investing it in me and I'm not talking about the outer world, you know, I have to get a massage and that's going to say to me that I love me. If it does, it does. But if that doesn't, it doesn't.

Kimberly Zink (17:47.31)
And my job is to find out what will for me, because the moment I go out and buy peanut butter, Karen can come over and we're kind of neighbors. Well, at least in Texas and Texas, even an hour away is like being. And, um, you could come over and ask me for peanut butter and I can actually go to my cupboard and give it to you. And I could do it freely because I know at the grocery store, there's more. Yeah.

And today that's coming back to love is to truly know that in my imperfections that I can love again and I can be loved again. In my imperfections that I can help other people get to a place that they can love. Getting to be with you and like -minded people like you means that the most purest

form of love and all its imperfections, a level of excellence in love, where there's accountability, there's responsibility, where I get to invest my time. I call it the glue. That's the only place that love is inclusive to what I want my dreams. And that's what comes to mind.

is the whole journey. Everything I've done has been a big circle.

a big round circle and some of it has been ugly and I've called it love. Some of it has been pretty sketchy, Karen, let me just flat out tell you and I called that love. And some of it has been so clean and so pure and so honest and I call that love.

Kimberly Zink (19:47.662)
And today there's all kinds of forms of love and I didn't know that. And today it's a beautiful thing. So thank you for being willing to find those different forms of love and put them out to the world in such a way that we can learn. That maybe, just maybe, we are under the same illusion and we can have a different life.

That's what we do is, you know, revelation.

Karen Walker Cohn
Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for doing the same. This like I'm you have in this past year triggered me more than I care to say. And.

I love you for it. I absolutely adore you for it. Um, and I didn't, you know, we, you kind of talked about that earlier. I didn't realize how beautiful and how loving the trigger could be, you know, to, to look at that piece of me that gets to heal.

It's coming up, it's being revealed to be healed. And you have revealed so many of those pieces in me through your teaching, through your facilitation, through everything that you've done. And I keep coming back for more. So I appreciate the time that you're taking and investing in my life, in the life of my family. There's...

I cannot tell you the amount of people in my family already that have revolutionized and shifted and that are going for their dreams and they're putting out their own podcasts, so to speak, you know, whatever that may look like for them. And they're just fulfilling those dreams. And it's because of the work that you and the team at Klemmer does. And I will be forever grateful.

Karen Walker Cohn (22:11.95)
And I love you so much.

Kimberly Zink
I love you too. And all of yours. You know, I love your family and all of the, the new chosen family you've allowed us to create. So, you know, it's, it's amazing how many of us want to serve. Yeah. However, it's not until people are to receive that many of us get to serve. And it takes two. So thank you.

Karen Walker Cohn
Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. And I appreciate the multiple nuggets of wisdom that you just put out there into the universe. And so I appreciate you. Thank you for being here.

Kimberly Zink
Of course.

Karen Walker Cohn
Thank you for blessing us.