Taking Aligned Action in Life and Business – Exclusive Interview with Gemma Sheppard
- Sep 3, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 26
In this insightful interview, Gemma Sheppard, a multi-passionate entrepreneur, writer, and educator, shares her journey of rebuilding self-worth through sobriety, nervous system awareness, and deep personal alignment. Drawing on lived experience and academic training, Gemma reflects on identity change, boundaries, and the often-overlooked role animals play in human healing and growth.
Gemma Sheppard, Mindset Coach
Who is Gemma Sheppard?
Gemma is a multi-passionate entrepreneur whose ADHD brain keeps her curious, creative, and constantly learning. Her interests span psychology, personal development, animal welfare, yoga, cooking, reading, and writing, all woven together by a core question: how do humans actually change?
Gemma has lived through multiple identity rebirths, including losing her father at a young age, navigating addiction, relocating to Vietnam for four years, getting sober in 2021, adopting a rescue dog, and experiencing reverse culture shock after returning to England in 2023. Having recently completed her MSc in Human-Animal Interaction and Wellbeing, she now sits at the intersection of psychology, nervous system regulation, and animal-human relationships.
Gemma is the founder of More Than Human, a welfare-first animal care and education business, and the creator of Animals Make Us Human, a Skool community exploring how animals shape our emotional worlds, identities, and capacity for growth. Alongside this, she offers pet relationship coaching, supporting people to understand the psychological patterns, beliefs, and nervous system dynamics that influence how they relate to their animals.
Her rescue dog, Nelly, and her horse, Mr Kipps, ensure she spends most of her time outdoors whether that’s on group walks, at the yard, or exploring the countryside. Gemma describes herself as a “feral woman”, having consciously shed rigid societal expectations around appearance, productivity, and what a successful life should look like. Her intention is simple: to become more herself each day.
What do you mean when you say “self-worth is the foundation of everything”?
When we consistently think we’re not good enough, not clever enough, not attractive enough, not capable enough, we unconsciously look for evidence to support that story. Our nervous system reinforces it, and our external world starts to mirror it back to us through relationships, work, and opportunities.
Until you commit to rebuilding self-worth brick by brick, old patterns will keep repeating. That often means recognising that some of the people around you contributed to your loss of self-worth, sometimes intentionally, often unintentionally. Growth requires discernment. You have to notice who still aligns with you when you stop abandoning yourself.
Boundaries are a powerful act of self-love. They tend to frustrate the wrong people and energise the right ones. Learning to say no and to tolerate the discomfort that follows is one of the most important lessons on the path to freedom.
Why is nervous-system awareness so important during life transitions?
Major transitions shake our sense of identity. Sobriety, grief, relocation, starting or closing a business, relationship changes, getting a pet, these experiences are often interpreted by the nervous system as a threat, even when they’re moving us toward a better life.
The nervous system doesn’t care about long-term fulfilment. It cares about survival. Without awareness, it reacts as if you’re being chased by a lion, even if you're not, but if you actually are, run.
When you learn how to regulate your nervous system, you can embody change rather than intellectually understand it. You start to recognise the beliefs, habits, assumptions, and relational patterns that keep you stuck and crucially, you realise they’re not fixed. You are not your thoughts: they are suggestions, not facts.
Can you share a transformation story that really stayed with you?
One client in her 50s had spent years living alone in her marital home after a divorce. Her adult child had moved out, and she was left rattling around the house with her cats. Sobriety had already begun to lift the fog, revealing that alcohol had numbed trauma, grief, anger, and the realisation of how poorly she had been treated in the past.
She’d tried therapy, but she was ready for movement. She needed honesty, accountability, and compassion at the same time.
The transformation she made over a few months was extraordinary. Each week she showed up having processed layers of experiences she’d carried for decades. She journaled, meditated, visualised, and, most importantly, took responsibility for her inner world. Eventually, she chose to relocate temporarily, giving herself permission to simply be for the first time in her life. Watching her reclaim her agency was deeply moving.
What advice would you give to someone who feels stuck or disconnected from themselves?
Get it out of your head and onto something external. Buy a beautiful notebook and write. If writing isn’t your thing, use voice notes or videos. Keeping everything inside is corrosive and affects your mind, your body, and your relationships.
Your life and health are your responsibility but you can change your internal landscape, but you don’t have to do it alone. Find someone who believes in you fully such as a coach, therapist, partner, or friend, who will support you without colluding with your avoidance. You need encouragement and grounding when you’re riding the storm.
What’s the first step if someone is ready to say “f*ck it” and start fresh?
Don’t wait until you feel ready, you'll be waiting forever: act first and feel ready later.
Thank your nervous system for trying to protect you, even when it’s being overzealous. Speak to yourself and others with compassion. Remember, your thoughts are not facts, they're suggestions, you get to decide which ones you live by.
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