Dr. Shalini
J. SHARMA
What if understanding our emotions was treated as a skill – one we could actually learn?
Talk Topic
The Architecture of Curiosity in Modern Classrooms
When a TEDx built around "GenZ Redefining Tomorrow" thinks about the people who can speak to the generation shaping that tomorrow, the obvious choices might be entrepreneurs, technologists, creators, or young disruptors. But there is another kind of person whose perspective is just as essential: someone who has spent decades listening to people, understanding how they think, and asking a deceptively difficult question: what actually makes us who we are?
That person is Dr. Shalini J. Sharma, counselling psychologist, therapist, author, educator, and a practitioner who has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of emotional intelligence, behaviour, and human connection.
And perhaps that makes her especially relevant to a conversation about Gen Z.
Because this is a generation that has grown up with unprecedented access to information, constant connectivity, and conversations around mental health that previous generations often kept private. We know more words for what we feel. We talk more openly about anxiety, burnout, identity, relationships, and emotional wellbeing. Yet, paradoxically, understanding ourselves has not necessarily become easier.
Dr. Sharma's work sits right in that space.
She is the founder of Pause Walk Run, where she and her team work with individuals and organisations through counselling and therapy. Her professional experience has also taken her beyond the traditional therapy room, into workshops, conversations, and spaces where psychology intersects with everyday life.
Her interest in people extends to the youngest among us as well. Dr. Sharma is an author of children's book series, bringing ideas about emotions, behaviour, and growing up into stories that young readers can actually engage with. She has also conducted workshops across the country and has worked in counselling and wellness at Plaksha University.
But perhaps what makes her perspective particularly valuable today is that she does not approach human behaviour simply as something to diagnose or categorise. Years of working with people have given her a front-row seat to the contradictions that define us: how difficult it can be to name an emotion we are perfectly capable of feeling, how our conversations shape our relationships, and how the way we understand ourselves ultimately affects the way we engage with the world around us.
For a generation constantly being told to look ahead, move faster, achieve more, and redefine the future, Dr. Sharma brings a different question to the table: what happens when redefining tomorrow begins with understanding ourselves today?
The best conversations about the future are not always about predicting what comes next. Sometimes, they are about understanding the people who will create it.
And few people have spent as much time listening to those people as Dr. Shalini J. Sharma.