The Wisdom We Share Podcast

Turning Pain Into Purpose: Transformation, Parenting & Everyday Spiritual Practice

• Anjani Amriit & Robin Wald • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Message us with your thoughts, burning questions, or reflections, we’d love to hear from you.

In this episode of The Wisdom We Share podcast, we—Anjani Amriit and Robin Wald—sit down for a heartfelt conversation after our interview with Matthew, diving deeper into the topics that resonated with us both. 

Together, we share our experiences, insights from our clients, and the lessons we’ve gained from our own spiritual practice.

  • We reflect on how adversity, from childhood experiences to adult struggles, can become a catalyst for personal growth, resilience, and discovering a deeper purpose. There are so many ways people respond to hardship, and we discuss how even the darkest experiences can lead to new light and learning.
  • We share how astrology, especially Pluto’s placement in the chart, can highlight where our biggest transformations happen in life. Our conversation explores our own journeys with self-realisation, the challenges faced in relationships, and how we’ve found wisdom through healing old wounds.
  • We talk honestly about physical limitations—whether it’s chronic pain, injuries, or ongoing health conditions—and how these challenges have pushed us to adapt, stay present, and find new strength. We offer our own insights on caring for the body, working through pain, and getting back to what we love, even when it’s difficult.
  • We open up about parenting in all its forms, from raising children to caring for siblings and fur babies. We discuss how these roles teach us commitment, selflessness, and the importance of looking after ourselves so we can support others. Anjani shares stories from motherhood, and Robin reflects on nurturing loved ones.
  • Throughout the episode, we come back to the power of bringing spiritual practice into everyday life. Whether it’s meditation, yoga, gratitude, or mindful rituals, we talk about how the simplest moments can be transformed into opportunities for growth and connection.


If you love honest conversations that blend practical wisdom with a spiritual lens, you’re in the right place. Thank you for listening and for being on this journey with us—subscribe, share your thoughts, or reach out using the links in the notes. We hope this episode encourages you to keep showing up for yourself and your own daily practice.

Stay wise and keep growing.

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because spiritual practice hmm nourishes and fills us when we meditate when we do our yoga practice when we pray when we read wisdom texts that remind us of our true nature when we listen to a podcast that actually is speaking a language of the soul that nurtures us and then we can come back into our life with the day to day stuff that needs to get done which isn't always glamorous um and recognize that life living in your life is a spiritual practice welcome to the Wisdom We Share podcast where ancient truths and modern intelligence weave together to inspire ground and shape us for a wiser awakened life I'm Angie Amrit and I'm Robin Wald and together we bring you fascinating conversations from the worlds of spirituality science and human behavior so you can connect to your own inner wisdom joy and clarity elevating the way you actually live your life so Robin we had Matthew on the podcast a few weeks ago and um I have to say he kind of blew my mind he was just all over it all over life full of life larger than life and I thought we might just talk about some of the topics that he raised bring our perspectives to them um and just really react and respond to what we talked about cause we didn't really get time uh so can we do that today I would love that I would love that he had so many great like mind blowing pieces of wisdom and experience to share so I would love to go a little deeper great so let's first talk about trauma as a catalyst for personal growth so he talked about how his early life challenges with his mom growing up and how that really drove resilience but also his discipline and I have to say his discipline is like a 5 million out of 10 um and transforming his pain into something purposeful and he's not done that once he's done it many times with different areas of his life and so what were your takeaways from that around transforming pain into purpose and how our early challenges might drive our planner focus resilience later on in life yeah yeah so what comes up for me is you know I have a lot of clients who are all different kinds of backgrounds and varied experiences and some of them have just absolutely horrific traumas in their childhood early death of a parent abandonment child of alcoholics or addicts sexual abuse loss like a sibling dying young like there's so many things that can really just adversely forever change your life um and I'll say that not everybody turns that trauma into resilience right some people are always pulled back and burdened and really suffer and struggle and then I have clients who very much like Matthew and I want to add to this that my youngest son is someone like this who their greatest teacher in life is when they hit those rock bottom traumatic moments so some people learn and grow what I call like transformation light you know like there are great ways to grow and transform through amazing experiences or through like the ordinary challenges that life has to offer you you know minor crises and then there are people who do transformation Deep Dark you know the Dark Knight of the soul where you are in your own personal hell and don't know if you'll ever claw your way back out and then you do and that change alters who you are and how you see life and how you interact with life forever um you know as a mother I hate to see that my son does transformation heavy but I've accepted that that's actually part of his wiring and his journey the way he learns best the way he and like Matthew's story right it's you know okay this is gonna make me bigger better stronger more purposeful than ever before so I don't know what's your take away from that I I have to agree with you that um some of us do transformation light and some of us do it dark and heavy I'm definitely on the dark and heavy side um I would say my ego would never have chosen that but my soul definitely chose that and I think it's like fairground rides you know some people like to go on the on the big wild crazy rides and have the big experiences and others are happy on you know the little cups that spin around and I don't think you can compare them I just think they're they're different horses for different courses I do I I can from my own experience and you know through the clients I mentor um I can say that I wholeheartedly agree with what you said that um sometimes we don't have to go really deep and dark to get learning growth and evolution but if we do there's a really wonderful saying in spiritual terms is that the deeper you go the more uplift you get so in other words you know the deeper and darker you go into the underworld then the more light you can bring once you've mastered the darkness you can actually bring more light into the world I think also there's an important balance that we need to get and bring to our lives especially if we're the transformation deep people that we don't get addicted to that as as a way of life that we actually are able to bring more light into our life so that ultimately our life becomes lighter so we're not always having to go so dark and so deep and that we get really masterful in turning through whatever comes through in our life and recognizing it oh here's another dark night of the soul or here's another test for me here's a universal exam that I need to pass and so what do I need to look at and get really good at looking inward and assessing for ourselves what's the driver here what's the driver is it my wounding or is it something that's calling me to a higher purpose you know do I need to heal some old wounds and that lead me to my purpose or um or do I need to um take this pain and and really alchemize it into something that's going to help me but also help each other and help other people yeah my life yeah yeah just one quick astrological follow up on this conversation is that in the astrology chart Pluto represents where and through what experiences you're gonna be doing your transformation and how your soul is evolving and becoming in this life journey and you know Pluto is a very slow moving planet it could take 12 to 20 years to go through a sign so it's not it it's more generational it's like an outer transpersonal planet but where it's relevant in your particular life and chart is what house is it in cause that's gonna show you the types of experiences where you will experience pain crisis issues of power and lack of power victimization you know all of these things that take you into a darker place that force you or are inviting you to do that transformational work so you know someone who has Pluto in their first house they might always be struggling with themselves and their identity and maybe with their body first house Pluto in the 6th House might always be struggling with day to day schedules and routines and work and physical health um personally I have Pluto in my 7th house so my deepest transformational experiences have always happened in very close intimate relationship um whether that's lovership or close friends or like but one on one relationship has often brought me to a place of deep pain and you know really confronting the darkest things in myself and in others and having to pull myself back up and find resilience I don't know do you know where Pluto is in your chart uh not off top of my head in in western is it Pluto or Jupiter Pluto Pluto Pluto oh you have uh huh huh I'm looking at your chart you have Pluto in the 29th degree and 18 minutes of Virgo and I also have Pluto in Virgo um I'm a little younger than you just by a year but mine is a little earlier in Virgo but guess where your Pluto is also by by western astrology also in the 7th House we we share that wow yeah so interesting 7th house Pluto yeah wow so good to know um and and I would say on that from a from a perspective of self realization and the process of self realization what House Pluto is is showing you where the grist for the mill is in your life where areas are an opportunity for you to grow and evolve and become more self realized so yes it's but also also to come into your own power yeah well that self realization is to master oneself so that's where the opportunity is is to discover your greatest power your greatest purpose your highest purpose um the your greatest expression of your soul and so it's it's a it can be bittersweet but it's wonderful once that you have the revelations the realizations so right so going back to the interview with Matthew he's someone who really has spent a life journey mastering and coming into discipline as a result of those experiences yeah yeah I'm working through a lot of resilience you know as he does that so um yeah so the second thing we talked about with Matthew was um healing through physical challenges so using physical challenges and he was sharing how he was doing all this really cold water open water swimming as an emotional as emotional and spiritual healing tools um looking at injury and recovery as transformative experiences yeah well I mean in my personal experience I've suffered with a lot of injuries so I have an autoimmune condition and it results in a lot of kind of unseen health issues that I deal with all the time including chronic pain and chronic inflammation but I also have a tendency to have um connective tissue tears and I have you know actively right now like five tears in my body in an elbow in a shoulder in hands in a knee and so I'm always in some state of physical limitation and rehab around my body so trying to protect and preserve my body while also pushing me to the limits of what I can do while also being mindful and cautious not to injure so right and people have different physical um you know stuff but what would I say to that you know I I realized at one point I had dislocated an elbow and I had torn ligaments in the elbow and my elbow got really weak and I was really deep into my yoga practice at that time I was teaching yoga I was practicing very strong advanced level yoga you know like 3 4 days a week and with the elbow I couldn't and I got really limited and really weak and a little bit of the Boohoo woe is me this is so frustrating right um we we will be mad we're allowed to do that and to feel our limitation as a sadness or as a loss right to mourn and grieve for what you no longer have the ability to do which was something that was life giving and joyful ultimately though I spent a year rehab avoiding whatever and ultimately I said you know what this hurts and isn't fully healed whether I do yoga or don't do yoga I'm just gonna start doing yoga again because either way if I'm in pain I'd rather be in pain and do what I love than be in pain and not do what I love so that was for me a kind of like an F you to my physical limitation and to say I can tolerate pain I'm tolerating it anyway let me just continue to just go forward and I think that through that I actually became stronger and it did ultimately heal and things take time you know um but similar with my knee you know I blew out my ACL and I couldn't really hike um or do certain things that I really love for about a good year and now I'm back to it and I it's not as strong as it was and it's not as stable as it was but I'm not gonna give up hiking I'm going hiking this weekend and I'm like I can't wait you know I can bring it bring the elevation bring the uphill downhill now I use poles it's an adaptation you know and as a yoga teacher I often obviously people have all kinds of injuries and it's very much about learning to master what do I need to adapt to support myself and you know care for myself but it's not about giving up or avoiding or you know like how can I make this work how can I work with this yeah yeah yeah for for me I think pain there's nothing like pain to bring us to the present moment because otherwise we just get on with our life and you know we're doing things and pushing ourselves and doing doing doing and being active and you know in kind of that autopilot mode but then if pain comes along oh jeez it stops us in our tracks you know it we can't ignore it you know that an initial rush of pain that if you break a bone I broke my wrist um if if you have that pain then it it makes you look at it it makes you consider what's going on here it forces us to be fully present with our physical body and for me personally it's um when I've had pain in the past it's forced me to to grow wisdom in that area of my life so learning ayurvedic medicine when I had irritable bowel help me help my body to recover fully from that when the doctors said you'll always have it for the rest of your life and so for me it's about learning about what our body needs and being kind and gentle to our body and our body bringing us into the present moment so that we can focus on it so um you know it's it's an interesting one and I think there are two lovely perspectives that for our listeners hopefully we'll get some um some interest and some motivation maybe some inspiration and guidance for and then finally we talked about parenting as a spiritual journey and how parenthood can often force personal growth and our sense of responsibility when we're parenting now I know you have kids I don't have human children but I have fur babies and I want to say that everyone is a parent at some point in their life either in their community in their own families with animals we all at some point in our life take responsibility for some other thing other than ourselves well I say all men mostly hahaha mostly so how how um might that have shown up for you you know having heard Matthew's story and how he gets up at ridiculous o'clock to do his work so that he can then be there for his kids mm hmm I mean we can do an entire episode or multiple episodes on parenting and I do hope we have listeners who wanna you know become guests on the show to receive some coaching and talk about you know their parenting journeys but to me parenting was the biggest growth experience of my life you know I I who I knew myself as as a child as a teenager as a young adult pre having children and becoming a mother completely like you could never really even imagine how you change and who you become by having a child and by you know multiple children and the commitment and the dedication you have to growing them and caring for them and protecting them and teaching them and guiding them and and ultimately letting them go you know um every stage you know I'm also a teacher right so I really do I love children and I really respect parents it's a sacred sacred job um you know for me personally you know all the UPS and downs you were talking about the roller coaster ride um UPS and downs and UPS and downs you know and there's a saying among parents that you're only as happy as your least happy child you know and when some when someone you love is in deep crisis um that has you kind of like your own personal pain but someone else's pain that you are so committed to that pain also you can't ignore it it brings you flush and present with your life and it's the becomes the most important thing and it teaches you what you're made of and how you show up um at one point I'm not gonna go into you know other people my like I'll share a little bit without sharing too much because it's my son's story and it's really his to share not mine but there was a point at which um he was in very serious physical crisis and ended up in the hospital for the better part of three months and I was living in the hospital with him and um you know that was one of the most challenging periods of my life I had two other kids at home who I wasn't fully present for and going back and forth from the hospital to them and trying to manage the household and the bills and have groceries and food for my kids and are they getting what they need done and is my son in the hospital getting what he needs done and I was doing PT and massage and movement with him to try to help rehabilitate him and um it was a lot you know but like that kind of pain and crisis as a parent also showed me what I was capable of you know to be an advocate to be a cheerleader to be a really effective multitasker to figure out how do I also still take care of my health in this situation and not ignore my own need to eat and to sleep and to exercise I would do laps up and down the stairs in the hospital to get to get in like cardio you know so it's it taught me a lot it really did it taught me a lot and um and I've also grown so much from the greatest experiences in my children's lives like that's the other side of things it's like the joy and you know in Buddhism there are different kinds of joy and one type of joy is where you really just are joyful for another person's joy that their happiness their success their flourishing directly like uplifts you and you get that when you're a parent right when you see your children thrive or figure something out for themselves or have their own silliness and their own expression and whatever their achievements are and you can be a participant in their joy like it's the greatest thing in the world so you know on the whole human level of everything that's possible I think children just amplify it you know times 1,000 um yeah and it's not for everybody and it's um you know I have an adult daughter who's looking at whether or not she ever wants to become a mom and she's really not sure that she wants to commit to being a parent it's might not be for her and that's a completely valid choice and I get it you know because once you commit you can't uncommit to being a parent I had the same thing when I'm going through my life I always had this knowing inside of me that I wouldn't be a mom of my own children and I think for a lot of that I I was thinking my mindset was because of the um violence that I grew up with I didn't want to have children to pass that on to them um and this was before I'd done any work on myself I'd had any self development I studied anything you know yogic spiritual and I just had that sense that I don't want to pass this trauma on in in a lineage and I I it needs to stop with me would I make a different decision now I'm not sure but I do I do relate to parenthood because I raised my younger brother he's 10 years younger than me I raised him when he was little so he kind of was the child that I had and then also um I've I have or had two cats and so my fur babies and for anyone who is a parent of fur babies you can probably relate to the fact that yes they're not human but they are like your children and when they're sick and and suffering it's really hard and there's an added complication because with animals there's the question of well do we euthanize them whereas with humans you don't have to make that decision um it's a very different ball game so I think being a parent I agree teaches us to be selfless it teaches us commitment um and I think also it's important that we learn about how to put ourselves first even though we're parents that we as you said you know take care of our own health people a lot of women call it selfish the women that I work with they they they say I feel guilty or I feel selfish going off on you know on a weekend and leaving my kids when especially if one's not sick and I'll say to them it's not selfish it's selfing we have to put ourselves first you can't give from an empty cup so we have to make sure as parents as responsible citizens that we put ourselves first that we self we practice selfing where we give our needs emotionally psychologically physically you know eat well exercise even if it's go out for a walk because that way you're bringing your full cup to your children or the people you're responsible for and I think that's the most important thing that we can do as parents to any whatever we're parenting yeah and and just having spiritual practice right because spiritual practice nourishes and fills us when we meditate when we do our yoga practice when we pray when we read wisdom texts that remind us of our true nature when we listen to a podcast that actually is speaking a language of the soul that nurtures us and then we can come back into our life with the day to day stuff that needs to get done which isn't always glamorous um and recognize that life living in your life is a spiritual practice you know and also very last thing I'll say on this is that you know Tiknot Han is one of my gurus and um studied a lot of his work and studied with him you know on retreat several times and one of the things that was most impactful for me in his teaching was that he taught that you can say these little gothas like these little tiny mantras of intentionality when you're doing anything that doesn't necessarily seem spiritual you know washing my hands I am so grateful that I you know have these hands that can be of service in the world and do what needs to be done today washing my dishes I am so grateful that I have the resources to provide food for myself and my family to nourish and keep us healthy you know changing this diaper I'm so grateful in the moment that my child's bodily processes are working and that they're physically well right so you can turn any moment into an opportunity for gratitude for connecting to what really matters you know and a lot of parenting is remembering that not getting lost in the weeds but like pulling back and seeing the whole forest and being grateful for the perspective that it all comes back to you know a soulful calling yeah I love that and I it's the meta view of life if you can hold a meta view and be less um less connected or attached to um our stories of past miseries what we don't have comparison and for me my spiritual practice gives me that benefit because it enables me to look down on my own life and not be so oh woe is me about things when things are happening but have a meta view of I'm blessed and this life is a blessing and you know my guru talks about Shri Shakti Amma Narayani talks about doing good deeds giving forgiving and serving and taking care of your family doing your dharma living your dharma which is living a responsible life and if we hold these spiritual concepts and themes true and close to our heart then it doesn't change what will happen in our life but it helps us navigate those things much more easily with much more calm with much more clarity with much more a sense of groundedness and so I think to wrap up today's episode I I think the real message is and it's kind of always my message I know Krishna Krishna Das says it at every kirtan that he goes to or teachers teachers not goes to or anything that he does he'll say just do your bleep practice just do your practice even if it's 10 minutes and yeah you say your practice your spiritual practice doesn't have to mean sitting down and closing your eyes it can be through your day to day your presence awareness having presence awareness amazing that's the perfect way to end this conversation because that's really what Matthew brought in his episode is that I just show up and do my practice every day and then he also talked about how like if you see your life as one long day right I'm not gonna not do my practice in this day and it's just you just you keep showing up and doing your practice and it does its magic yeah exactly on on that note Namaste Namaste thank you so much for tuning in to the wisdom We share podcast we hope today's episode sparks some new insight imagination and practical tools you can integrate into your daily life continue this journey with us by subscribing sharing and dropping us a review until next time stay wise

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Anjani Amriit

Host
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Robin Wald

Host