[So give us your intro. What is your name, where are you from? What do you do?]
My name is Lily Shepard. I help driven women reclaim their pleasure & power through movement. I’m from Rochester NY.
[What does your work look like? Helping women reclaim pleasure and power?]
That looks like getting women to reconnect with their body and to begin to really feel into their body. What it means is to live a pleasure-filled life and be joyful. I think a lot of women understand that as an intellectual concept, but they don't really get a chance to feel what that's like.
I think it is very important to be able to pause and take in beauty, wherever it is that you see it. That comes with building awareness.
We often think that pleasure has to be this big grand thing. Bubble baths, champagne and relaxation. But it can also be small conversations with people, or hugs, or tea or whatever.
[Lily Shepard, what shapes or defines you?]
Well, I try really hard not to define myself because it's always changing. As I get older, I'm finding that by defining what makes me me, can be kind of limiting. What may have defined me two months ago, may not be what defines me today.
So I try to stay really fluid. As far as what shapes me. I would say music, my relationships, the places I've lived, you know, they're all very distinct. I've lived in Rochester, NY, Las Vegas and Austin. And so those are all very different in geography and culture. I have a little bit of each of those places within me.
[Let’s dig into the places, starting with Rochester.]
Yeah, so Rochester. I love Rochester but it wasn't an open friendly place, you know? It's very cold and it's very gray and so just the weather alone, I think contributed to a kind of a guardedness that I have. That's not necessarily bad but it's just the way it is. There was a lot of jealousy when I was growing up in Rochester, not a lot of people proud of other’s success. I don't necessarily know that that was positive, but I do think that just being exposed to that feeling of like, well, not everybody's gonna be happy for you was important to me.
Vegas was a very glam & glitzy and spendy part of my life. You know, everyone's there to kind of have the time of their life, which was great but also a big part of why I moved because the energy there was not feeling right to me. Everyone comes to be like the worst version of themselves for a couple days and then they leave and they go back to whoever they are. That started feeling like not where I wanted to be. But Vegas was fun because it was all about experiences. Great food, five-star accommodations, wonderful concerts. I think that part of my life really shaped my love of luxury and of wanting to have the most elevated experience that I can.
I'm a lot friendlier since moving to Austin. I really like the nature here. The experience here has been so much different than Rochester. I feel like I've met so many supportive people, and from the moment I got here, people have been really supportive and wanted to see me win, and I've developed a lot of great relationships with people that I care about where we are rooting for each other and saying , how can I help you, How can we collaborate? And that's really a full circle from Rochester, so that's really cool to see. Also Austin is real chill. I like that. It's not so serious, you know? Rochester was serious in a different way. The threat of gun violence, or being jumped for thinking you were too cute was serious. As a teenager I lived in full expression but always very cautiously.
I like Austin and I hope it doesn't get too commodified and serious. Retail and trendy things. Tech bros and new money people with superiority complexes. We'll see, but I hope it doesn't lose what I loved about it.
[What advice would you give your younger self?]
Well, I would probably give my younger self permission to evolve and be fluid. I think my younger self was kind of locked into a clearly defined way of being. I think that I would tell my younger self it is okay, to try things on for a little bit and see how you feel about it. And you don't have to be any one way.
I wish my younger self knew how powerful my mind was. I think the earlier that we learn the power of our own thoughts, of having control over our own energy, the easier it is. No one really talks about that when you're growing up. What we have inside of us, doesn't really get cultivated. So that's what I would tell my younger self and that's what I tell my daughter.
[Any thoughts would you like to speak on?]
I feel like it's particularly important for black women to see joy and pleasure embodied because I think that the imagery that's out there makes it seem as if leisure, rest, luxury and pleasure are something for affluent white women. We don't see ourselves [black women] doing these things. And when we do, there's a backlash and it's seen as being materialistic and negligent. Comments get made, and there's this pressure and extra burden to be the anchor of the family. I think it's really important specifically for women of color to have representative images of joy & pleasure and have supportive people in their lives. We need to see imagery of ourselves being taken care of and resting. We need to see pleasure at the foundation of our lives. Pleasure should not be a goal that we have to achieve or earn. Or something we indulge when we’ve made a certain amount of dollars or after we’ve fulfilled everyone else’s needs. It should be woven throughout the fabric of our lives because it really makes us better. It's not a self-serving thing.
[Tell us a little bit more about Lily Shepard Moves and what that's about.]
So I'm currently working one-on-one with clients. I used to teach a lot of classes and have big group experiences, but right now I'm just focused on working with women in one-to-one and small group settings. We are working on embodiment using dance, yoga, play, and journaling.
I also have a book that will be launching in a few months and the working title is ‘Pleasure Principles for Driven Women: Reclaiming Your Power Through Movement’. I'm really excited about it because I think that's what's gonna help me spread this message of the embodiment of pleasure and joy, farther and wider.
[Where can people find you?]
At Lilyshepardmoves.com and @LilyShepardMoves on Facebook and Instagram.
