Noelle Ayoub-Gomez

We often mistake creativity for a pleasant hobby, a side project to bring color to our well-ordered lives. We imagine it requires innate talent, special training, or a curated studio. But what if the most profound creative act isn’t about making art at all, but about the desperate, courageous work of rebuilding a self? What if a creative life is born not from abundance, but from utter devastation?

I know this because my creative life began in a vacuum of self. After 14 years in a marriage with a narcissist, I emerged a shell of a person. My mind, once my own, was a fog. I struggled to form coherent sentences, to find words, to piece together the reality of the abuse I had endured. I was physically emaciated, emotionally unrecognizable, and mentally shattered. I had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. I had nowhere to go but within. And that, my friends, is where the real magic—the true alchemy—begins.

In that crushing isolation, I faced a devastating and pivotal truth: my lack of self-love was in crisis. I had allowed this man to treat me with the same contempt I held for myself. The reflection staring back was a warning: What was I teaching my two young sons by accepting this? This rock bottom, as desolate as it was, became my foundation. There was nowhere to go but up.

Forced to entertain the radical notion of what loving myself might even look like, I started slowly. And in that tender space, I made a connection that changed everything: the traumas, the pain, the abandonment I had spent a lifetime running from were not monsters to be feared, but expressions of a profound lack of self-love. My entire existence had been shaped by shrinking myself to make others comfortable.

Then, almost unconsciously, I created a space to work with my hands. With zero experience in welding or jewelry-making, I felt an inexplicable pull to copper. I was drawn to the ancient triskelion symbol—its three radiating spirals a representation of motion, progress, and the balance between mind, body, and spirit. I didn’t know what I was doing; I just did the damn thing.

This became my sacred ritual. Evenings were for lighting incense, purifying my space, and letting my hands speak the language my voice still couldn’t. In the bend of a copper wire, in the glow of a torch, I wasn’t just making jewelry; I was reconstructing my soul. Each twist and spiral was a testament to my time, a physical imprint of my healing energy. I was, quite literally, alchemizing my pain into something tangible and beautiful. In that divine creative flow, I granted myself the grace and dignity to process it all.

The final act of this alchemy, and perhaps the most creative of all, has been the capacity to forgive. This is not a pardon for the horrible things done; it is a liberation for myself. I can now view my journey in a startling light: if he hadn’t done those things, I might never have been forced through the fire. I would not have faced my own darkness, owned it, and emerged as this stronger, present, and vibrant version of myself—a mother my sons can truly see, and a woman supported by a community of unconditional love.

My forgiveness is also an energetic offering. It is a conscious choice to create a positive shift, to release the toxic bindings of the past. What he decides to do with that energy is his own responsibility. I take comfort in knowing that by shining my light on forgiveness, I am reflecting a truth he may have forgotten: that he, too, came from the very same source light, and carries it within himself still.

This is the ultimate essence of living a creative life. It’s about claiming a space that is entirely your own, where you can pour your chaos, your confusion, and your love into a process that gives it form. Your medium might not be copper; it might be words in a journal, code on a screen, compost in a garden, or the radical act of forgiveness. The form is irrelevant. The act is everything.

My business, Divine Alchemist LLC, is a testament to this journey. It is built on the truth that we must be willing to go to the dark and ugly places within ourselves. We must demystify that darkness, face it, and ultimately become friends with it. We must shine the light of our own acceptance onto the parts we’ve abandoned. Like the yin and the yang, the darkness cannot be defeated without the light, and the light cannot prevail without the darkness. They need each other.

To live creatively is to engage in this eternal dance. It is the brave, ongoing work of taking the raw, broken materials of our experiences and forging them into a life of meaning, compassion, and light. It is recognizing that the divine alchemist isn’t somewhere out there. She is within you, waiting for you to pick up the torch and begin.