“Cheers to You, Oh Wonderful You” with Kim Zimmerman – Interview #3

Welcome to my blog series “Cheers to You, Oh Wonderful You”, where we celebrate the ordinary yet extraordinary individuals around us. This series will be used as a space to connect, celebrate, and showcase the incredible people in our lives who ground us, teach us, and inspire us everyday. 

This interview I was joined by none other than my incredibly brilliant and gold-hearted aunt, Kim Zimmerman.

Kim’s main area of influence that she has strived to contribute to has been in the social justice community, as well as in her very diverse neighborhood, made up of friends, family, and chosen family found within it.

Rowdy Poppy is her floral design and flower farming business found in Denver, CO. She left her corporate job three months ago to take on her business full time. Her path now, hopefully, is to keep building it, to replace the income she just lost, and make life feel more meaningful and impactful, rather than having that corporate grind.

I commented on with this recent change that already she must feel a difference that must be so fulfilling, and wondered if she had gained a certain kind of knowing that it was the right decision?

Immediately I was met with a resounding, “Oh my gosh yes!” Kim converses with some of her past co-workers and it’s left her with a feeling of reaffirmation that this is the right path and this is a good thing. She knows she’s made the right move.

One random fact about Kim is that she had a shaved head for a very long time. The grad school that she went to is Buddhist based, and everybody thought that was a contributing factor, so Kim was looked at as a Buddhist nun. But really it was because it was low maintenance and that’s where it was at for her.

Kim’s favorite TV show right now is the British House Hunting Show called, “Escape to the Country”. It’s about people that want to find a country house out in the UK somewhere. It’s so soothing, gorgeous, and calming for Kim. I mean who doesn’t dream and long for 20 acres and a beautiful farmhouse?!

The following is my interview with Kim which was an absolute joy to take part in and I hope you will enjoy and learn from it as I did. 

What has been one failure in your life that later became a win for you?

Oh there’s so many! I mean any failure that you can learn from is a win, and any failure means you’re moving in some direction rather than being stagnant. Which I always think is good, no matter what it is. Even if it feels terrible, as long as there’s movement somewhere then you are creating new paths and you’ll find your way.

I think kind of the biggest failure was becoming a psychotherapist. Just in the sense that it didn’t end up being the right fit for me as a career.

However, it opened up so many doors to so many other paths that I have explored, and it opened up opportunities and networks that I’ve been able to use in different ways in building support. Of course I learned a heck of a lot about myself. You know self-awareness is a continual process, but I think it’s helped me kind of narrow my path moving forward in helpful ways.

If you could talk to yourself back when you were graduating high school, what would be something that you would tell yourself?

Oh don’t try so hard, don’t take everything so seriously. Really! Enjoy and be young. Also going back to the trying so hard, don’t try so hard to fit into other places.

Don’t try to fit the mold of other things that aren’t who you are?

Yes, absolutely!

It’s actually kind of funny looking back at high school how you felt like there was all this pressure, I mean there is some to some degree, but there really wasn’t as much as we thought there was, but it’s so easy at that point to project and bring in so much of that.

Yes, we give ourselves all the pressure cause no one else cares really. We’re all so self-absorbed and distracted in that way.

Being kind to ourselves is so necessary, at any point of life, but especially at that point when there’s so much unknown and so much you’re still learning about yourself.

For real. It’s a hard time for anyone, no matter how much support and self-confidence I think you have, it’s a rough road for everybody.

Who is one person that you can count on to be in your corner that you’re grateful for, and why?

I mean Michelle, (Kim’s wife and my other stellar aunt) of course. Always, because she is, she shows up in my corner. Anytime I’m feeling unsure or just feeling overwhelmed, she knows, she senses it. She just shows up, you know, like, “Hey! I’m here with you. Tell me what’s going on.” Or “let’s problem-solve if that would be helpful?”

She’s not necessarily anticipating my needs, cause no one can do that, no one is a mind reader. But she’s someone who knows me well enough to remind me that she’s here for me and that she’s got my back.

She’s totally that person that you know is just going to be there, and it’s not just in word but in full presence like you were saying.

Yes, you ask for anything she’ll do it. She’ll show up.

And especially finding that in a partner and spouse is, I think, most important since they’re the ones who see you in every phase and they see the real you so to speak.

Oh yeah, the “not always pretty” you. Yes, yes!

Who has played a vital role as a mentor in your life?

You know in the past 15 years, I would have to say my therapist, Liz. She really modeled just owning yourself, not being apologetic about your own needs, being communicative about those things, and she’s successful at what she does in doing it her own way.

That’s the first person that came to mind, she’s sort of like a surrogate mom or grandma to me. That’s what I projected onto her and she filled that role, she filled that role really, really well. I started seeing her 15 years ago, worked with her for about 12 years. She’s such an important person to me.

How awesome to have that resource and that connection like that. Sometimes it can be really hard for people to find that connection when they’re striving to seek out help, but that’s really awesome that you could find that in her.

Yeah and you’re so right, it’s hard to find the right connection with counseling and therapy. That’s something that just hurts my heart so much for people and friends especially.

I have some friends who have tried therapists in the past who have not worked out and who have been kind of hurtful, the whole experience was hurtful, and that’s not what it should be.

It really can be so helpful and transformative. So I feel very grateful that I have that with her.

When things aren’t going in the direction you were hoping, what have you found has usually been the right next step for you?

I think the cycle for me is when things tend to start not feeling right it’s because I’m not verbalizing what needs to be happening or I’m not verbalizing my fears about things. Instead they eat at me and they’ll show up in ways that are not necessarily obvious. It shows up in a lot of anxiety for sure for me.

So the cycle is literally getting to the point where I literally want to cry about everything, that’s when I know, “Ok, I need to step back. I need to slow down. I need to talk about everything that’s happening right now.” And with talking things out it’s usually with Michelle, and it then just comes up, like usually if I just start talking about it I get clarity.

Then another day or two, I don’t feel like I want to cry about every little thing that’s hard or annoying or commercials, whatever it is. That’s my cycle.

Honestly sometimes after it’s been vented up so much with everything else, it’s so freeing to get it out in the open with someone that will just listen. Sometimes it’s not always that you need someone to communicate back, it’s the fact that you need them to just listen, so you can get it out and so you can also hear it in the right space.

Yeah totally. It’s not necessarily about problem-solving in that time, it’s just about feeling heard and hearing yourself and putting pieces together with getting it out. 

What are three skills you have developed that you are proud of yourself for?

I’m a handywoman just in general, thanks to my Dad, he really helped with that. Like I’m not scared of figuring things out or using various tools, so I feel proud of that a lot of the time. I take care of things, I get things done. I’m proud of my design skills and farming. My skills around the garden, growing, and cultivating. 


Kim Zimmerman in her garden.
Photo Credit: Friends and Lovers Photography

What is something you do that you enjoy that helps you to calm and slow you down?

I love to be out in nature, like going for a hike, taking Panda (Kim’s dog, one of Kim and Michelle’s fur babies) up to the mountains, or something like that. That is something that really helps slow the chatter down.

My nervous system responds really well to that. I just feel calm when I’m on a hike. That’s the biggest thing that helps.

What are some key elements in your environment, whether that’s in your home, creative space, or work space, that encourages and inspires you?

That’s a hard one. I find it challenging to feel the new inspiration because I’m so busy. I think it’s a really good question, but as far as creativity and inspiration right now, I use a lot of the internet honestly to support that.

Going on Instagram, visual design holes, but just seeing what really creative people are doing to push the envelope is really inspiring to me.

I’m just so busy that I don’t access it as regularly as I’d like to. Our house is a bit of a mess so that doesn’t feel inspiring to me right now.

It’s easier and better to look outside of the house?

For sure, I mean it is kind of true. Every morning with my coffee, I’ll stroll through the flower beds or the gardens and see what’s new today. That’s exciting to me! To see what’s starting to bloom or the possibilities with it. 

What are three reasons that you have had to celebrate lately?

Three months from my corporate job! That was a big one.

Michelle and I had our 10th wedding anniversary in May, that was huge!

And we have a new baby niece!

What is one piece of advice that you find yourself thinking back on and striving to implement the most often?

I don’t know if it’s a specific piece of advice, it’s more of a general piece of advice about setting boundaries for yourself in relationships. That comes from Liz my therapist, from various people, and books I’ve read.

But that one that is a constant, especially stepping more fully into the business. I anticipated there was going to be a lot of pressure, because I’m the breadwinner and this is the bread and butter of the family here, so I need to make an income. I anticipated there would be pressure to cut corners or to take jobs that I don’t really feel good about just to get my income in.

So that’s been something that I’ve been constantly reminded of. You can have good boundaries about what you will and won’t do. In the long run it helps you. Just trusting that over and over and over again, it’s really better for everyone involved if you continue to respect your own boundaries, not just ethically, but that’s a big part of it too.

Like how do you want to live your life and run your business?

It just serves you that way cause you have to live with that decision day after day. I mean yes it’s going to impact other people and you want to be mindful of that, but it comes back to how is this honoring and serving what I’m striving to do and who I want to be as well?

Right. I don’t want to start setting a precedence for doing things that don’t feel aligned with my values. It’s a slippery slope. So that’s the piece of advice that I keep thinking about.

That’s a really good one, I think especially with this time where mental health is being talked about more, and finding that with your mental health, or like you said with your business, or with relationships, or anything else like that. I’ve noticed how it’s become a mantra if you will of people talking about the importance of boundaries and how to recognize healthy and toxic ones and how to best utilize them.

Yeah it’s all about relationships, any kind of relationship: yourself, everybody else, business, otherwise. How are you going to relate to this world in a way that continues, as you said, to serve, honor yourself and everybody else that’s involved in that relationship?

What are three things you have been particularly grateful for this past week or month?

There’s so many things. I used to keep a gratitude jar where every night I would write things down from the day that I was grateful for and plop it in there. So I feel that it’s such a good practice.

I’m grateful for Michelle, constantly stepping up and being a huge part of this business. That’s a really important one.

I’m grateful for the financial resources that we have right now to take care of our animals who need medical things. That feels very important to me.

I’m super grateful for water, it feels kind of weird to say, but for all the plants we grow, and especially being in a drought right now in our area. I’m just feeling lately how precious that resource is and I don’t even know the half of it compared to other people. But I’m just really grateful that we have access to water and that we’re able to use it not just for our lives but our livelihoods with the business. It’s a lot, it’s a huge resource.

What do you feel have been key factors in shaping who you are today?

I mean my therapist brain goes to my family and my upbringing of course. Family dynamics, having the parents I had, having the upper middle class privilege that I had growing up has shaped me tremendously, in good ways and bad ways of course.

Like it’s given me lots of opportunities and created lots of blind spots that I continue to try to shine some light on so I can see those things.

I think that’s one of the biggest ones, I think about that one quite a bit, the privilege that I had as a white, cis person in this world with plenty of money growing up, I never had to worry about things related to that. That’s really shaped my worldview quite a bit.

No doubt it would. And you’ve allowed that to shape who you are and what you have, but like you said, you’ve made the conscious choice to also strive to see what you can do and bring about change in whatever capacity you can around you.

Yeah absolutely, we all have blind spots, we all have them. So as painful as it is to have them pointed out or look at them it’s worth it. It’s double-edged.

What do you feel have been some key habits in shaping who you are today?

I have to be honest I find it hard to distinguish between habits and traits just for myself, because I’m a very hard worker and I always want to get things done efficiently.

But that also comes from the trait of perfectionism, so it leads to habits of making sure everything is done at the end of the day, if I can, or really meeting deadlines, that’s something that’s really important to me, whether that be a project of mine or showing up to things literally on time.

But then I guess we’re back to double-edged. A lot of times our habits do come from traits that may or may not be helpful for us in the long run, but they’re there so we get to decide “is this something I want to continue and why?” We decide what becomes of them and if they’re serving us.

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Thank you for taking part in and reading my interview for my blog series, “Cheers to You, Oh Wonderful You” with Kim Zimmerman.

Referencing back to Kim’s floral design and flower farming business, 🌺”Rowdy Poppy”🌺, please be sure to check out & follow along all of her incredible floral goodness on the ever active business Facebook Page, Instagram, and the beautifully inspiring website below:

🎉 https://rowdypoppy.com 🎉


What is one thing that you have been grateful for this past week?
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Also, if you have someone in mind that you think I should interview for this blog series, please let me know by contacting me either through my work email: stephanietracy26@gmail.com or my work Facebook page: Stephanie Tracy Writes.



About the Author 

Hi there! I’m Stephanie Tracy, a freelance writer, blogger, and copy-editor for hire. I specialize in physical and mental health, parenting, and self-development. I create engaging, inspiring and useful content to help businesses progress in making their viewers into customers. When I’m not writing, you can find me happily playing with my toddler, walking in the park with my family, or indulging in a movie marathon with my husband.