Guest: Prashanthi Amarnath — author of Embracing Paradox: Dive into a mystical adventure with the Tao Te Ching through 81 enchanting micro lessons!
What we explore:
Paradox as the doorway to intuition
Certainty vs. curiosity (and why curiosity is more universal)
Wu wei (effortless action) as “clarity without force,” not passivity
Goals, achievement, and releasing attachment to outcomes without giving up effort
Parenting inside a system built on grades, metrics, and performance
Why Prashanthi speaks of “Mother Tao” and the yin/yang balance within us
Fear, visibility, and allowing yourself to be misunderstood without self-betrayal
Transition as a spiritual practice: the pause where clarity rises on its own
Why Taoism may become more relevant in an AI-saturated world
The Tao Te Ching as invitation, not instruction—and why ambiguity is its gift
🎵 Music credit:
Intro and outro music: Madre Ayahuasca by Arkawa
Used with permission. More at arkawamusic.com
🌐 And as always, visit www.goddessintraining.online for more tools to support your intuitive journey.
Embracing Paradox
This conversation with Prashanthi Amarnath arrived at exactly the right moment for me.
Lately, so many of my podcast conversations have been circling the same quiet truth: intuition doesn’t ask us to collapse complexity into something neat. It asks us to hold. To stay present where two truths exist at once. To resist the urge to force clarity before it’s ready.
Prashanthi speaks about the Tao not as a philosophy to understand, but as a way of experiencing life. Early in our conversation, she named something that stopped me in my tracks—the movement from being an observer of your life to the place where even the observer dissolves. No separation. No commentary. Just life moving through life.
That’s where intuition lives.
We talked about certainty versus curiosity, and she described certainty as something that tightens, while curiosity softens and opens. Curiosity doesn’t need to win or prove itself. It listens. And in that listening, paradox becomes something we can hold without fear.
One of the most powerful threads in this episode was wu wei, often translated as “effortless action.” Not passivity. Not doing nothing. But clarity without force. Acting from alignment instead of pressure. Caring deeply without gripping. Working without demanding outcomes.
This came up again when we talked about goals, parenting, and achievement. Releasing attachment doesn’t make us passive—it makes us resilient. It allows effort without desperation and presence without control. Especially in a world obsessed with metrics, certainty, and performance, this teaching feels radical.
Prashanthi also spoke beautifully about sincerity—how parenting, leadership, and even spiritual practice don’t require perfection, only honesty. The Tao doesn’t ask us to disappear or opt out of modern life. It asks us to remain true while we’re in it.
What stayed with me most is this: paradox is not a problem to solve. It’s a path home.
You can be strong and tender. Clear and uncertain. Grateful and exhausted. Guided and not yet sure what’s next. Wisdom doesn’t live at the extremes—it lives in the space between.
If you’re in a season where you’re listening to your intuition but don’t know the next step, maybe that pause isn’t a failure. Maybe it’s the practice. Maybe clarity doesn’t need to be forced. Maybe it’s already forming—quietly—inside the holding.
This episode is an invitation to soften, to trust timing, and to let life move without insisting it move through you.
And that, to me, feels like the deepest kind of guidance.
— Sarah ✨
