Gemma Sheppard

Gemma is the founder of Align & Grow coaching and More Than Human animal care services. Gemma is a multi-passionate feral woman who loves nothing more than being outside in nature. After years of addiction, she has rebuilt her life after becoming sober in 2021. She knows firsthand what it is like to look in the mirror and not recognise the person staring back at her.
 
Becoming sober, losing her father at age 23, living in Vietnam for 4 years, adopting a rescue dog, starting multiple businesses - Gemma has had multiple rebirths so has learned the tools needed to navigate into a new identity. Her mantra is: f*ck fitting in. Because she spent years being unhappy trying to follow by everyone else's rules, and then she realised she could make her own.
 
With a BSc in Psychology and an MSc in Human-Animal Interaction and Wellbeing, Gemma brings both academic grounding and lived experience to her books, workshops and coaching programmes. Her unique approach blends psychology, nervous system regulation, spirituality and straight talking honesty. She isn't afraid to ask difficult questions, holding up a mirror for you to see how you have been holding yourself back, and giving you practical tools to facilitate deep mindset shifts that actually stick.
 
Whether you are navigating starting a business, a relationship change, relocation, redundancy or just fed up with trying to fit in to a matrix that wasn't built for you, Gemma will help you take aligned action. Her work empowers women to step away from people-pleasing, imposter syndrome and perfectionism, to step into a grounded confidence that has always been there, just hidden.
 
She does everything she does for her rescue dog Nelly and horse Mr Kipps, and credits them with saving her life and giving her courage every day. If she isn't in nature with her boys, she is probably daydreaming about a farmhouse full of rescue animals, where humans and animals can heal, grow and connect.