Our communities are filled with residents who make a difference, who help others, and who use their talents and energy to spread positivity and joy. The Somerset Bridlewood Community Association would like to spotlight these special people and give them a chance to tell their stories. This month, we want to introduce everyone to Kalyani Pardeshi.
We are so pleased to meet you! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
My husband and I moved from South Africa to Calgary in 2005. After pursuing my career as a CPA for five years, I took a career break in 2010 to raise our two children. Much as I enjoyed being at home with both kids, I really wanted to do more, to be of service. I tried my hand at running an online fitness business from 2014 to 2017 and successfully burnt myself out. In 2018, after attending an anti-bullying workshop, I was disappointed to learn that what is taught around anti-bullying today hasn’t changed at all since I was bullied as a teen in junior high. I found myself asking, “How do old ways open new doors? Aren’t we repeating the same things over and over only hoping for a different result?”
One thing led to another, and I self-published a book on this subject in 2019. Over the course of two years, my book went on to win three international awards, but I still couldn’t get my foot into schools. I really wanted to teach kids techniques that I had learned and developed over years which I knew worked. Every attempt to get this information into schools failed. I couldn’t understand why.
Something I noticed while writing my own book was how hard I had been on myself, not just in the mean things that I had said to myself. I had developed behavioural patterns to mask my inner critic and labelled these behaviours as motivational. For example, I pursued overachievement to overcome feeling like a failure. I was proud of myself for being an underdog, but were these behaviours really motivational? Were they really healthy? I was chasing the effect of feeling better and not addressing the cause of wanting to be better.
This led to my very first volunteer presentation in February 2022 at Woodman Junior High School on self-bullying. It was very well received!
In August 2022, I connected with John Lenhart of Flowcess, which is the only organization in the world with a non-contradictory model for the mind and brain. I went to train and became the only certified Flowcess consultant in all of Canada. Understanding how our mind and brain work equipped me with the tools to explain and address the causes of self-bullying and how to dissolve these issues. Most models focus on treating symptoms rather than addressing underlying causes.
This culminated in doing a TEDx talk in May 2023, which I was told was probably the most powerful talk the TEDx Calgary stage has ever seen.
What community do you live in? What do you think are the best attributes of your community?
I have lived in Bridlewood for fourteen years now, and there are many things that make this community so incredible! I love how people come together and support each other. There is a wide range of backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives represented within our community.
It warms my heart to see community engagement through active participation in events, volunteering, and communal activities, while I also appreciate how safe and secure people feel within this community.
There is also a wide range of essential services, such as education (with so many schools within our community), healthcare, dental care, public transit, grocery stores, and playgrounds, most of which are within walking distance.
I love that the Bridlewood pond is also so close by – we really enjoy walking there during the summer and meeting other members of our community.
What types of work or volunteer projects do you do? How do you support your community with your work?
After my TEDx talk, I connected with a local community member who asked me to do a presentation for teens and parents at the Shawnessy library. I willingly volunteered for this project and had two successful sessions during the summer of 2023. I also had the opportunity to volunteer my services to the Calgary Military Family Resource Centre where I presented my comprehensive six-week mental wellness course. This was especially close to my heart! As an immigrant, I always wanted to give back in a meaningful way, and for me, there was no better way than to give back selflessly to those who serve our country.
Other volunteer work that I have done include leading a transformative Uniqueness workshop, encouraging individuality and authenticity for Excuses to Connect, and presenting an impactful session on “Beating the Blues” for the Association of Administrative Professionals, providing tools to navigate challenging emotional landscapes.
I have also engaged in many projects over the last year, including:
• A presentation for CPAs in Alberta and Saskatchewan on unveiling the truth behind the “Motivation Myth,” revealing self-bullying patterns hidden within seemingly positive archetypes addressing mental fatigue and burnout associated with self-bullying.
• Compassion Fatigue Workshop for OSSIS (Operational Stress Injury Social Support): Equipping attendees with strategies to combat compassion fatigue, offering tools for mental resilience and rejuvenation.
• TMT Learning Foundation: Empowering teens by addressing the perils of conformity and associated self-bullying, especially within the immigrant community, and how to foster self-acceptance.
• Calgary Teachers’ Convention: Presentation on navigating self-bullying versus the inner critic.
What drives and motivates you to fulfil your dreams and goals of helping others?
This is such an interesting question because I teach the difference between motivation and self-bullying! My main drive is the cause of the work that I do, not the effects of it. The cause is knowing how much this information has helped me grow and be a better person, which in turn helped all of my relationships flourish. Knowing how much this information has helped me with my overall mental well-being and helped me grow in self-esteem is what drives me to share it with others. My motivation to pursue my dreams stems from recognizing the profound impact this information has had on my own growth. Not sharing it would feel like failing to fulfil a responsibility and feel like a disservice to humanity. So, that is my focus rather than the outcomes of teaching this information.
In the past, I would be so focused on the outcomes that if I didn’t achieve the effects that I expected, I would feel like I had failed. For me, it was really important to have a definition of success, which is “achievement of a goal or purpose”. The next step was ensuring that this goal or purpose was a cause and not an effect. And finally, ensuring the goal was determined by me and not by my environment, what others are doing, or pressure from family, society, and friends. This goal had to be determined solely by me. What drives me to achieve these goals is giving without expecting anything in return from the person/people I gave to.
Do you have anything else you would like us to know about you?
I was featured on CTV Morning Live on Pink Shirt Day in 2023, and on Global TV and CHQR on Pink Shirt Day in 2024. Following the interview on Global TV, I received a message from a viewer who expressed, “Wow! Your interview on Global this morning was eye-opening. I had never heard that perspective about bullying before. I learned so much in just those few minutes.”
The interview lasted just over six minutes, prompting me to realize the importance of sharing this information without waiting for formal presentations and speaking engagements. To ensure that what I teach reaches as many people as possible, I am currently writing a book about it, which I plan to publish this summer (2024).
A huge thank you to Kalyani for the work that you do in our community and beyond! You are a true inspiration! We appreciate that you took the time to tell us about yourself.
If you know someone in the community who you think we should spotlight – or perhaps that someone is, you! Please email [email protected].
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