Built on Bullshit: How My Core Beliefs Nearly Ruined Me
- Matt Stewart
- Jun 17
- 5 min read
I believed I had to earn everything—love, rest, worth.
If I wasn’t suffering for it, it didn’t count.
For most of my life, I thought I was broken. Not dramatically. Not in a way you’d see from the outside. Just quietly, persistently… wrong.
Like I was playing a role someone else wrote for me, and I kept forgetting my lines. Underneath every relationship, every job, every attempt at healing—there was a quiet hum in the background:
“You’re not worthy of this.”
And because I believed it, I built my life to prove it true.
Sobriety, Survival, and a Lot of Bad Decisions Dressed Up as Love
When I first got sober, I thought that was the finish line. Like, cool, no more booze—guess I’m healed now.
Plot twist: I was just getting started.
I didn’t do AA. I didn’t do therapy. I didn’t “process.” I white-knuckled it like it was a CrossFit challenge. Just me, my shame, and the sheer will to never touch a bottle again.
Back then, I believed:
Asking for help meant I was weak.
Needing support meant I didn’t deserve sobriety in the first place.
If I wasn’t suffering, I must not be trying hard enough.
So I got sober—but stayed in survival mode. I traded the bottle for burnout and started chasing emotionally unavailable women like they were bottles of Jack. Smooth at first. Always ended with a crash, regret, and a playlist full of sad boy anthems.
I was sober. But I was still a hostage to the belief that I had to earn my worth. Through pain. Through proving. Through pouring myself out.
Going Into Business, Burning Out, and Still Not Getting the Message
So I did what any high-functioning avoidant does when they don’t trust life to support them: I became an entrepreneur.
I opened a massage therapy and personal training studio… two weeks before COVID shut down the world. Because of course I did.
I kept it alive with caffeine, self-sacrifice, and quiet panic. Because I believed:
If I quit, I prove I’m not good enough.
If I can’t handle it all, I’m not a real man.
If I don’t suffer for it, it won’t count.
I called it “freedom.” What I really built was a cage with my name on it.
The Relationship That Broke the Illusion (AKA My Second Failed Startup)
Meanwhile, I was dating the “love of my life.”
If my business was built on desperation, this relationship ran on anxious attachment, collapsed boundaries, and the belief that I had to be needed to be loved.
She once told me I had no fire. And yeah—it gutted me. But she wasn’t wrong.
I had buried my fire. I thought being steady meant being silent. That taking up space made me unsafe. That if I shined, I’d be left.
So I dimmed. Again. And again. Until I couldn’t tell the difference between love and self-abandonment.
Eventually, I closed the business. I was done forcing. Done fixing. Done carrying the weight of everyone else’s needs. The relationship ended with me dropping her off at the airport to fly across the country. I never looked back—literally or figuratively.
So I went to work for someone else. At first, it felt like peace. Then it turned into quiet resentment. Because I remembered:
No one will pay you what you’re worth to build their dream.
And I was never meant to play small on someone else’s stage.
That fire? It was still there. Smoldering beneath the burnout.
So I started again. But this time—on my terms. With my breath. With my body. With the clarity that beliefs don’t change when your life gets better—your life gets better when your beliefs change.
The Deepening
Beliefs aren’t just thoughts. They’re truths your body memorized like bad tattoos from childhood.
I was so used to shrinking that I didn’t know how to expand without guilt. I’d apologize for my ambition. Stay quiet to keep the peace. Play small so others wouldn’t feel insecure.
And the worst part? I thought that was love.
But I wasn’t strong—I was scared. Scared of being left. Scared of being alone. Scared that if I finally stood up for myself, I’d lose everyone who tolerated the small version of me.
That belief? “I am unworthy unless I’m needed.”
It didn’t just cost me a relationship. It cost me years.
But eventually, that belief became the portal. Because once you name the pattern, you can start to unhook from it. Not with cheesy affirmations. But with your body.
What Are Beliefs, Really?
They’re not just thoughts. They’re survival strategies—shapes your nervous system took to keep you safe.
They’re formed when three things collide:
A significant emotional event
The meaning your younger self assigned to it
A repeated experience that reinforced that meaning
Most beliefs wear different masks. But they all grow from the same soil.
Unworthiness: The Root of the Root
You won't always hear it as “I’m unworthy.” The nervous system is sneakier than that. It translates pain into phrases like:
“I'm not enough.”
“If I show the real me, I’ll be rejected.”
“I have to do everything alone.”
“It's not safe to feel.”
“Love is earned through performance.”
“If I rest, I’ll fall behind.”
“My needs are a burden.”
“Success will cost me connection.”
“I don’t trust myself.”
“I can’t change. This is just who I am.”
All of them speak the same dialect: unworthiness.
The Core Wounds That Feed These Beliefs
These beliefs don’t just appear. They come from experience—often early, often painful:
Rejection: Feeling unloved or not good enough.
Abandonment: Being left or neglected.
Humiliation: Being shamed or made to feel small.
Betrayal: Having your trust broken by someone who mattered.
Injustice: Feeling powerless or unfairly treated.
The Nervous System Doesn’t Lie
These beliefs don’t just live in your head. They live in your breath. Your posture. Your digestion. Your voice. Your choices.
They are survival strategies etched into your nervous system.
What kept you safe then is what keeps you stuck now.
If you want to change your life, you can’t just reframe your mindset. You have to feel your way into a new one. Through your body. Through safety. Through presence.
Integration: From Worthless to Worthy
You’re not broken. You’re well-trained.
You were taught to believe your worth had to be earned, proven, or sacrificed for. That belief isn’t truth—it’s trauma’s PR team.
And while trauma can’t be rewritten, the beliefs born from it absolutely can. Through breath. Through body. Through re-learning what it feels like to belong to yourself again.
So ask yourself this:
If your life is built on a belief—what belief are you building it on?
And is it time to rebuild?
Want to Go Deeper?
If you’re tired of dragging your old story into every new chapter, let’s talk.
My Functional Life Coaching weaves together nervous system regulation, shadow work, and behavior change to help you uproot the beliefs keeping you stuck—and live in alignment with who you really are.
You don’t have to white-knuckle your way forward. We’ll burn the bullshit, not just journal about it.
[Schedule a free call here →]
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