You're Already Carrying The Strength You Need

What May taught me about trusting the builder within

The phrase "fake it till you make it" has always felt off to me.

It almost assumes that you're currently fake, that your present efforts don't count, that who you are right now is somehow insufficient until you become someone else.

This morning, making coffee in a kitchen that finally feels like mine, I realized how deeply I'd internalized this lie. For over a month now, I'd been treating my efforts to build a life here as a temporary performance, practice runs for the real thing that would begin once I felt properly settled, truly ready, authentically capable.

The ritual remains the same: press the button, add exactly two Splendas, watch the steam rise. What's different is the quiet confidence in my movements, the absence of that internal voice asking whether I'm doing this right, whether I belong here, whether I'm really capable of creating something stable.

When May began, I was writing about building foundations in chaos, sharing insights that felt important and true. I had no idea I was about to discover something far more fundamental: that I'd been carrying the capacity for building all along.

I just hadn't trusted myself to use it.

The Revelation I Wasn't Expecting

May didn't teach me how to build foundations in chaos. It taught me that I already knew how.

When the water shut off with no warning, something extraordinary happened. The water company representative's voice carried that particular blend of bureaucratic helplessness and mild annoyance that instantly told me two things: this wasn't their fault, and it definitely wasn't going to be their priority.

I could have spiraled. Could have called friends to complain. Could have sat in my half-unpacked house waiting for someone else to fix my problem.

Instead, without conscious thought, I went to the grocery store, bought gallons of water, and figured out how to make my life work anyway.

Not because I'd read about emergency preparedness or studied disaster response, but because some deep part of me simply knew what to do.

When the flu hit a week later, the same thing happened. I set up a basement sanctuary, let myself be sick without fighting it, and discovered that my body knew how to heal and my spirit knew how to find meaning even in forced stillness.

I wasn't drawing from some external manual of resilience. I was trusting an internal wisdom I didn't even know I possessed.

The most shocking discovery of May wasn't that I could build foundations in chaos. It was that I'd been capable of building them all along, I'd just been waiting for permission I never needed.

The Builder You've Been Ignoring

We've created an entire self-help industry around the myth that strength is something you develop rather than something you discover you've been carrying all along.

Here's what nobody says about strength: we spend so much time looking for it outside ourselves that we miss the fact that we're already carrying it.

We read books about resilience as if it's a skill we need to acquire rather than a capacity we need to trust. We wait for perfect conditions to begin building as if our ability to create meaning depends on external circumstances rather than internal choice.

We treat foundation-building like something that happens to us—the result of good planning, favorable conditions, proper preparation—rather than recognizing it as something we actively decide to do, moment by moment, regardless of what's happening around us.

This is the lie that almost kept me waiting forever: that building foundations is about having the right materials rather than making the choice to build.

During the water crisis, I didn't have the right materials. I had grocery store gallons and a complete lack of control over when the problem would be solved. But I had something more important: the decision to create what I needed with whatever was available.

That decision didn't come from a book, a workshop, or years of therapy. It came from a place I'd always carried but never fully trusted: the part of me that knows how to adapt, how to make meaning, and how to build something worth having regardless of circumstances.

The part of me that is, and has always been, stronger than I gave myself credit for.

The Daily Choice Nobody Mentions

Building foundations isn't a one-time project. It's a daily decision to trust yourself enough to keep building.

Every morning when I make coffee, I'm choosing to create stability through repetition rather than waiting for stability to create itself. Every time I light a candle, I'm choosing to make this space sacred rather than waiting for it to feel sacred on its own.

These aren't small consolations while I wait for real foundation-building to begin. These ARE the foundation-building.

And they're hard.

Not because the actions themselves are difficult, but because they require something our culture doesn't prepare us for: the daily choice to trust our own capacity to create meaning, stability, and belonging through our actions rather than our circumstances.

We've been taught that strong foundations require perfect conditions. But what I learned in May is that strong foundations require something much more challenging: the repeated choice to build even when conditions are imperfect, especially when conditions are imperfect.

This isn't about positive thinking or forcing optimism. It's about recognizing that the capacity to respond meaningfully to whatever life presents—this capacity lives within us, not within our circumstances.

The water shutoff didn't teach me how to be resilient. It revealed that I already was resilient, and had been all along. I just needed to stop waiting for external proof and start trusting my internal knowledge.

What We're Really Afraid Of

I wonder, sometimes, if we're afraid to discover how capable we actually are.

If I trust my ability to create stability in chaos, then I can no longer use unstable circumstances as an excuse for not fully participating in my life. If I acknowledge my capacity to build meaning from whatever materials are available, then I have to take responsibility for what I do with that capacity.

It's easier to wait for better conditions than to admit we already have everything we need to begin.

This fear isn't just about building homes or recovering from crises. It's about the areas where we postpone the beginning because we're not sure we can trust ourselves enough to handle whatever emerges from our efforts.

• The relationship we don't pursue because we're not sure we can handle vulnerability.

• The creative project we don't start because we're not sure we can handle criticism.

• The difficult conversation we don't have because we're not sure we can handle conflict.

We tell ourselves we're waiting for readiness, but what we're really avoiding is the discovery of our own strength.

Because once you know what you're capable of, you can't unknow it. Once you trust yourself to build foundations in chaos, you become responsible for building them everywhere.

The Foundation That Can't Be Shaken

As I write this, there are still unpacked boxes in my garage. Still pictures waiting for the right wall. Still decisions unmade about…well, lots of things.

But something fundamental has shifted. These aren't signs that my foundation isn't finished; they're signs that my foundation is strong enough to support incompleteness and flexible enough to evolve with changing needs.

The foundation I built in May isn't made of perfectly arranged belongings or stable circumstances. It's made of the repeated choice to trust myself to create what I need with whatever I have.

That foundation travels with me. It doesn't depend on perfect conditions or completed projects or external validation. It depends only on my willingness to keep choosing to build, one small decision at a time.

May taught me something I couldn't have learned from writing about resilience: the foundation you can trust isn't the one that never shakes. It's the one you know you can rebuild, again and again, because you've discovered the builder within yourself.

The Choice That Changes Everything

So here's what I'm curious about: What would change if you stopped waiting to feel capable and started acting as if you already are?

What foundation could you begin building today if you trusted the strength you're already carrying?

What would become possible if you treated foundation-building not as something that requires perfect conditions, but as the daily choice to create meaning with whatever conditions you find yourself in?

The coffee in my mug has gone cold while I've been writing, forgotten in the flow of discovering what I actually learned this month. But the ritual served its purpose—not to create perfect coffee experiences, but to practice the daily choice of showing up for my life.

That's the foundation worth building. Not one that depends on external circumstances, but one that emerges from the repeated decision to trust your own capacity to create stability, meaning, and belonging through your choices rather than your conditions.

You're stronger than you know. You always have been.

The question isn't whether you can build foundations in chaos. The question is whether you'll trust yourself enough to try.

I’d love to know what you will build in June? What will you trust yourself enough to try?

About Alex

I’m Alex Lovell — political psychologist, yoga therapist, and writer.

Lived homeless. Been divorced. Survived a seven-car pileup with a semi. Fell in love with questions that don’t have easy answers. I’ve met a lot of thresholds. Even the one before death.

These days, I split my time between research, writing, and holding space for people figuring out who they are after everything shifted.

This Substack is where I make sense of things out loud.
I write for people in transition — between roles, beliefs, relationships, selves.
The ones quietly wondering, “What now?” but allergic to one-size-fits-all answers.

Sometimes I quote research. Sometimes I quote my own nervous system.
One speaks in data, the other in sensation. I’ve stopped choosing sides.