There are two very different kinds of “trying” that shape the course of an adult life.
On the surface, they can look almost identical. Both people work hard. Both care deeply. Both strive, push, and persist. But underneath, the emotional force driving that effort is profoundly different—and it changes everything.
The first kind of trying is born from childhood pain.
This is the trying that emerges when a child learns, consciously or not, that who they are is not quite enough. Love may have felt conditional, unpredictable, or out of reach. So the child adapts. They try harder. They become more attentive, more responsible, more pleasing, more accomplished. They learn to anticipate, to perform, to earn their place.
That strategy often works—at least on the outside. It can create highly capable, driven, even exceptional adults.
But internally, the energy is costly.
Because the trying is not simply about achieving something in the present. It is an unconscious attempt to resolve something unfinished from the past. It carries tension, urgency, and often a quiet undercurrent of fear—fear of not being enough, of being rejected, of losing connection. No matter how much is accomplished, the system does not fully settle. The effort continues, because the original emotional need was never truly met or processed.
And even when a clear goal is reached, something unexpected often happens: the satisfaction doesn’t land.
There may be a brief moment of relief—but it passes quickly. What remains is a subtle emptiness, or a sense that it wasn’t quite what it was supposed to be. This is because the system was never actually seeking the external result. It was seeking an internal resolution.
True satisfaction is not the same as achievement. It is an emotional state—one of relief, of comfort, of settling. When the body registers that something is complete, safe, or resolved, there is a natural exhale. A sense of “enough.” That is satisfaction.
But when trying is driven by unresolved emotional pain, that deeper relief cannot fully arrive. The external goal cannot resolve an internal wound. So the cycle continues—more effort, more striving, more reaching—without the lasting sense of completion the person is truly seeking.
And over time, this kind of trying does something else that is more subtle but just as important—it interferes with organic development.
When a child is organizing themselves around securing love or avoiding pain, their attention is pulled outward. They become attuned to what is expected, what is safe, what will be rewarded. In that process, their own internal signals—their natural preferences, curiosities, impulses, even their emotional truth—can become muted or overridden.
So rather than growing from the inside out, they develop from the outside in.
As adults, this can look like a life that is full, productive, even successful, but not entirely aligned. There can be a sense of effort without ease, direction without deep clarity, accomplishment without fulfillment. Not because something is wrong, but because the original blueprint for development was shaped around adaptation rather than authenticity.
This kind of trying also shapes how emotions are expressed in adulthood.
The pressure and urgency beneath it often surface as aggression that can look like anger. But this is rarely just about the present moment. It is frequently the echo of anger that could not be safely expressed as a child—anger at not being seen, not being supported, not being met. Because that anger had no place to go, it was suppressed, and later emerges indirectly, often intensified and disconnected from its original source.
Similarly, when this kind of trying does not lead to success, the emotional fallout can be disproportionate and confusing. Failure may trigger despair, resentment, or jealousy—not because of the current situation alone, but because it touches something much older.
Beneath these reactions is often unprocessed sadness.
Sadness that the child never had the support to feel and resolve. Sadness that was never acknowledged by a parent or caregiver. Without someone to say, in essence, “It’s okay to feel this. It’s okay to fail. You can try again if you want. I love you regardless. The stakes are not that high,” the child is left alone with the emotional experience.
So instead of sadness moving through and completing, it becomes buried. And in adulthood, it reappears in more defended forms—resentment, jealousy, despair—emotions that protect against the vulnerability of that original sadness.
We can sometimes see versions of this dynamic reflected in public figures who began performing as children. While every individual’s story is complex and unique, the arc of someone like Britney Spears has often been associated, in the public eye, with extraordinary early success followed by periods of visible struggle and turmoil. It raises important questions about what happens when immense external achievement intersects with unresolved internal pressures formed early in life.
In contrast, someone like Ariana Grande, who also began young, has—at least at this point in her life—publicly demonstrated elements of resilience, emotional expression, and an ability to continue evolving through challenges. Not as a comparison of worth or outcome, but as a reminder that the internal foundation beneath effort matters deeply, even when the external paths may appear similar.
The second kind of trying comes from a foundation of love and security.
Here, effort is not a strategy for survival or belonging. It is an expression of aliveness. The person may still work hard, still care deeply, still strive—but the internal experience is different. There is less urgency, less contraction. Failure does not threaten identity. Success does not define worth.
This kind of trying feels cleaner. More direct. More creative.
It is not driven by the need to become enough, but by the freedom of already being enough.
And because there is no need to constantly monitor or adjust to secure connection, attention can move inward as well as outward. This allows a person to stay in relationship with their own internal experience—their interests, their emotional responses, their natural rhythms. Development unfolds more organically, guided not by fear, but by an ongoing dialogue with the self.
And importantly, this kind of trying does not lead to emptiness—it leads to joy.
Joy is not the fleeting high of achievement. It is a deeper emotional experience that arises when our actions are aligned with who we are. It has a sense of expansion, of vitality, of rightness. In this way, joy can be understood as a form of love—love expressed as movement, as creation, as participation in life.
When trying comes from love, it naturally returns us to love. The effort itself can feel meaningful, even before any outcome is reached. And when something is completed, the system doesn’t just experience relief—it can experience genuine fulfillment, even joy, because the action was never disconnected from the self.
In my work, I see how these two forms of trying are rooted in the body and in our emotional history. When early emotional experiences are not fully felt and processed, they do not disappear—they organize our behavior from beneath the surface. What we call “drive” or “ambition” is often entangled with unresolved emotional patterns.
The shift does not come from trying harder in a different way.
It comes from turning toward the original emotional material—allowing what was once suppressed to be felt, understood, and integrated. As that happens, something begins to change. The nervous system settles. The urgency softens. And effort, when it arises, is no longer a compensation.
It becomes a choice.
And from that place, trying is no longer exhausting. It becomes an extension of who we are, rather than a way to prove it.
This Emotional Life 