Meet Melissa

Melissa Shepherd-Williams

was born and raised in Panama and then she moved to California to continue her college years. Throughout those years, the common thread was, such as before moving to the United States, an insatiable interest in cultural exchange. This excitement about diversity had been fueled by her mother’s creative ways of engaging her students in learning about themselves and their classmates’ cultural background. Additionally, home life was filled with cultural celebrations, Panamanian and inherited from the Caribbean. Whether it was through food, music, or documentaries, her mother instilled a curiosity about the world and a sense of world citizenship. It is no coincidence that her college life consistently included participation in activities organized by UCLA’s Office of International Students and Scholars. Melissa is also one of the founding members of the Latin American Students Association at UCLA, which promoted awareness on campus about the culture by organizing events open to all students.
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A graduate of Antioch University in Los Angeles, she’s a psychotherapist serving for over 25 years, and has been dedicating herself to design and present programs on how to live with GUSTO by taking charge of one’s health in body, mind, and spirit. Her workshops, newsletters, and videos provide diverse ways to communicate with the people she serves.

​Her book titled “Living Deliciously: Recipes to Welcome Joy into Our Lives” is a compilation of her newsletters including exercises and reflections on how to “squeeze the juice” out of life. The e-book version is an "appetizer" version of the printed "entr​ée" with activities and recommended resources. Her latest book, From Burnout to Bliss, published in December 2018, adds to her creation of learning tools for preventing and emerging from a sense of being stuck professionally and personally.
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As part of her private practice, through speaking engagements, she has served audiences such as the Los Angeles Police Department psychologists; Writers Guild of America; UCLA Human Resources students; Association of Los Angeles County African-American Employees; Latino Behavioral Health Institute Conference; California State University Los Angeles faculty; and Community Parenting Program in the City of Santa Clarita.

An area of community service that Melissa is passionate about includes collaboration with friends in providing workshops focused on Black Latinos’ cultural heritage. She serves as Vice-President of the International Society of Black Latinos, an organization that endeavors to expand knowledge about Latinos in the African Diaspora through workshops and special events. She sees this process of cultural learning and sharing as a humbling experience, given that there’s so much to learn about world cultural history.
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In addition to private practice, she serves as a psychotherapist at the California Institute of the Arts and Adjunct Faculty in the School of Cultural and Family Psychology at Pacific Oaks College. Essentially, Melissa perceives the development of life-affirming routines as the core of thriving and “deliciousness”.