Fake it till you Make It:
Five Gritty Truths About Post-traumatic Becoming
By Louise Sutherland-Hoyt, M. Ed., CCMHC , NCC
Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor
“Fake it till you make it” gets a bad rap—dismissed as fluff or fraudulence. But for those of us who’ve walked through the wreckage, it’s not a mask. It’s a method for those who still have ash in their pockets. Not a lie—it’s a lighthouse.
Post-traumatic growth is not about waking up transformed. It’s about constructing a new self out of smoke, salt, scars, and stubbornness. And that often means putting one foot in front of the other before your soul remembers how to walk.
Here are five unpolished, unyielding reasons why faking it is not just allowed in post-traumatic becoming—it’s required.
1. You can’t wait to feel ready. You’ll be waiting forever.
Stop waiting for the day you feel strong enough to show up. Don’t wait to speak up or stand tall. Waiting will leave you stuck in the waiting room of your own life.
Readiness is not a prerequisite. Action is. You fake confidence by behaving bravely. You fake stability by crafting a routine. You fake hope by refusing despair a seat at the table.
Eventually, the pretending becomes muscle memory—and one day, you won’t be faking anymore.
2. Embodiment begins before belief.
Our bodies can lead where the mind resists. This is neuroplasticity only with boots on.
You act grounded before you feel grounded. You breathe like someone who belongs here, even when every cell in your body disagrees. You enter that room, pick up the phone, and take action. You don’t do this because you believe in yourself. You do it because you’ve decided to act as if you do.
And over time, that “as if” becomes “as is.”
3. It’s a rehearsal, not deception.
“Fake” sounds like a con. But it’s not some stage trick.
You’re rehearsing the life you’re building.
Trying it on. Getting the shape of it under your skin.
Every time you show up as your future self—kind, loving, forgiving, grateful —you lay lay the pathway for those parts of yourself to arrive.
This is how courage is cultivated: not by waiting for it to rise organically, but by practicing it into place.
4. The self is a verb, not a noun.
In trauma’s wake, your identity gets slippery. You guess at who you are, Good. Think of this as fertile ground.
Post-traumatic becoming is about experimenting with yourself. You fake being someone who sets boundaries. You fake being someone who gets out of bed. You fake being someone who believes in dreams.
And each time you do, you are.
5. Survival is not static.
You’re not “healing.” You’re evolving. And evolution is far from elegant—it’s gritty, smelly, murky, and full of false starts.
Faking it is what you do in the in-between: the murky middle, the foggy forward. It’s scaffolding. Temporary. Vital.
It’s not a betrayal of truth—it’s a vote of confidence in your capacity to grow into a truth that hasn’t bloomed yet.
So wear the coat before it fits. Speak the words before they sound like yours. Walk the path like it belongs to you.
You’re not faking who you are.
You’re practicing who you’re becoming.
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