Simon Fraser University Backpack to Briefcase  - Kickstart Your Career Conference

Date:  Sat Mar 14, 2015

Location:  SFU Segal Graduate School of Business, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver

 

Evolve Beyond the Ordinary - Sunaina Sharma

Engage in this interactive and fun workshop to tackle and learn techniques to break-free from limiting beliefs. Discover how to reconnect values, or inherent strengths and talents, balancing your life to create a life filled with possibilities, purpose and potential. Approaches to discussion include cognitive behavioral psychology, neuroscience, creative expression, visualization and mindfulness.

"When life’s not a bowl of cherries, you may still find some joy in the pits" 

Nancy Payeur is the last person who would suggest to someone who’s had cancer that he or she try to see the sunny side of the disease.  “Some people will find that there’s an upside, and others won’t find any upside,” says Vancouver Island’s Regional Professional Practice Leader for the BC Cancer Agency’s Patient and Family Counselling program.  “This is serious, this is difficult, this is an interruption to your regular life, and so you’re going to have ups and downs.  But having said that, sometimes people do tell me, ‘You know, I took so much for granted, and I no longer take so much for granted, including my health.’”  ....

“They get very pragmatic and clear-eyed, because they’re in this crisis – and if they’re not in a crisis, we can call it a very difficult challenge – and they find out what other people are made of.”  ... Many people who have cancer must learn to admit to vulnerability and to accept help graciously....

Some also tend to examine and re-shape their approach to their work, says Payer.  That was certainly the case for Vancouver’s Sunaina Sharma.  Sharma, who followed in the footsteps of her high-achieving Indian family, getting a PhD in chemistry from Simon Fraser University, a post-doctorate from Stanford University, a law degree from the University of British Columbia, and a Master's in Law from the University of California at Berkeley, where the federal government recruited her to be a Senior Manager with Health Canada in Ottawa.  Most of these achievements occurred while her husband and son remained in Vancouver, with Sharma constantly in pursuit of the next goal: “I was just a workaholic and nothing else.”

In March 2004, Sharma discovered she had grade four, stage four, medullary-type breast cancer.  She was treated in Ottawa.  “I was in complete denial mode,” she says.  “I headed back to work and did everything I had done before.  It was that fighting spirit that got me through this ordeal.”

Six years later, still working for Health Canada, Sharma was managing a Secretariat of the Community of Federal Regulators comprising of 17 departments with over 60,000 employees. She was losing weight and her hair was falling out, but it was only when she began experiencing blackouts while driving that she started to pay attention.  Her family doctor told her, “Your head is in the sand.  When will you wake up?”

She returned to Vancouver suffering from severe depression and sought help from the BC Cancer Agency for possible further treatment and counselling.

“I didn’t know who I really was,” says Sharma, who had defined herself and her status in society by her jobs and degrees.  In July 2012, in her quest to bring normalcy to her life, Sharma enrolled in Erickson College’s The Art and Science of Coaching – a program that taught her “how to visualize something and manifest it in reality.”  As she sees it now, it was her “action-driven” lifestyle that led to her diagnosis of cancer.

She had been living an “egotistical” life with no physical activity, poor eating habits, away from her family, and ultimately, she lost her health.  “The floodgates opened,” she says.  “I’m sure I had cancer because I didn’t know how to stop and breathe.”

These days, Sharma focuses on empowering those who have cancer, survivors and their caregivers, to reach their ideal self through visualization and self awareness.  She still contends with the after effects of her cancer treatment, which include fibrosis in her lungs and recurrent depressive episodes, but she also enjoys her dogs, tends an organic garden, and takes Zumba classes.

“I’m not embarrassed to admit that I’ve grown more in this last one-and-a-half years than I did in the 50 years previous to that,” says Sharma.  “I’m growing into a different person.  Each day brings new changes, new awareness, and new awakenings.”

After cancer, she acknowledges, “nothing remains the same.”  She compares the disease to the pit in a cherry: While the pit might appear to get in the way of the delicious fruit, if you plant it, it may produce more cherries.  “I’m peaceful,” says Sharma, who believes she needed cancer’s unwelcome wake up call.

"I’m an educator, a trainer, a lawyer, an executive, and a coach – but more importantly, I’m becoming a great human being.”