Wild Free Woman Chapter 1: Standing at the Crossroads of Change

How I became a Wild Free Woman

Chapter 1: Standing at the Crossroads of Change

December 2014

I had just taken the small red and gold fishing boat from the island Koh Ta Kiev of Cambodia to the mainland town of Sihanoukville for a morning of internet, Vietnamese coffee, and a warm breakfast. I’d been here for about a month and had deep stirrings within my soul about what really mattered to me.

The boat I would take to the mainland for internet

May of 2014 I graduated at the top of my class with a degree in Environmental Chemistry, a degree my mentor thought was the most difficult on campus for its balance between chemistry classes and all other earth science classes. I studied chemistry for the deep love of it. I often recall the choice I made to study chemistry in college. I was led by a feeling of excitement from an intro biology class freshmen year when we touched on the particles that make up an atom. I walked up the steps to the chemistry building the following week and changed my major to Environmental Chemistry after speaking with my future mentor. Environmental Chemistry includes all of the chemical reactions that take place in the natural world. Think how the carbon dioxide from the air interacts with plants during photosynthesis, how chemicals from aerosols interact with the ozone layer, how metals interact with other minerals in a stream, and so much more. I loved learning the language of chemical relationships between the natural environmental and everything else.

Happy Emma having just developed a method to purify indicator, during my undergrad

But here I was at a crossroads. I had deferred my Doctoral Graduate School acceptance at Oregon State University in separations science and analytical chemistry for a year to allow myself to travel to places far different from the Western World that I was from. During my last year of undergraduate I was studying, teaching, and working within chemistry. To say I was immersed would be an understatement. I was obsessed! But I was also deeply burnt out and the whispers of my soul were somehow reaching me in my obsession with chemistry, informing me that there was more to the world and more that my soul needed.

I had this feeling that the path of Graduate School was not for me. I was deeply saddened by this because I loved chemistry so much and loved the idea of being a Doctor in something, but this stirring within my soul was feeling bigger than ever. I had not been traveling alone for 2 weeks when I really felt myself: clear, wise, and moving in an unknown direction. One of my favorite things about traveling alone in an unfamiliar place is that I became the constant. I was the only thing I knew and could rely on, so I began to deeply feel my soul. By this I mean I had this quiet whisper that would guide me down one street over another, that would inspire me to talk to a group of strangers, that also kept me safe many times. It was like I had a feeling compass within my chest that always showed me which direction I needed to go in order to align with my soul purpose.

Which brings me to the main-land bar that I was sitting at. It was a beachy bar with vibrant colors to match the white sand, the full-sun, and the easy way of fishing-life here. I had ordered Vietnamese Coffee and a plate of simple English Breakfast. The coffee arrived first. It’s thick, chocolatey consistency soothing me with every sip as I prepared the email to my Doctoral mentor. He had written me this last week asking about some things regarding the program. I started to reply to the email to share that I was actually declining this opportunity to study at OSU for my doctoral. I wrote about my uncertainty about receiving my doctorate in chemistry and that I needed another year to decide if it was what I truly wanted.

I was terrified as I pressed send on this email I had written on my small iphone 4. I took another sip of sweet coffee, and it soothed all my nerves on its way down. My shoulders relaxed. I could breathe a little more easily. Even though I didn’t understand it and I didn’t know where I was going, this was the right choice for me.

It’s been over 10 years since I made that decision to take another year. I never did end up going to OSU to receive my doctorate in chemistry. My curious mind and my soul sparks have led me in many other directions. I would be lying if I said that this was an easy decision for me and that I didn’t regret at times not getting my doctorate. I still deeply love chemistry, it lights me up like nothing else. And yet, I’ve come to know that when I listen to my Soul and to the direction I want to go, I know it is always right for me. I see now that the life of one who has a Ph.D. in Chemistry is not the life I want to be living. I want more freedom, more time outside, more space to be experimenting with life, not just in a lab or in teaching others, but experimenting in the art of living life. I guess that is why I was so drawn to Environmental Chemistry, I loved learning about and seeing the world in the ways of reactions, relationships and interactions within the natural world. And I still do.

Dancing, feeling free and grateful!

I am still learning about the relational nature of reality. Some refer to it as karma, some say that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, some call it consequences. I see all of these things as the same. How we treat others, ourselves, the world around us, the planet and everything in the universe comes back to us. This is why I decided to listen to the quiet whisper within in 2014. If I wanted to be heard, if I wanted children to be listened to, if I wanted the quiet world of feeling to be measured in a similar importance to the loud structures of society, I needed to start here, with me listening to my own quiet voice of my soul.

The pain and challenges that have come from listening to my soul have always been worth it. The uncertainty, the fear, the difficulties and the lost relationships, it’s all been worth it. I’ve had adventure, deep healing, health, immeasurable wealth, but most of all, I’ve experienced a calm happiness that I never had in studying chemistry. This is the real gift of listening to my soul.